Cute. They waddled out Saturday morning, lined up behind Mother, and went to the Slough of Despond. Birch wanted to have at them, of course. Savage! Unless you’re French and having them with good sauce.

Once I made it plain there would be no duckling consumption, he went back to finding a place to poop, and found the proper spot. To my amazement, it was right on top of a bristling thistle plant. It takes precise calibration to lower one's haunches just so, and you would receive immediate feedback if you misjudged. Even more astonishing: when I picked up the mess, trying to avoid the needles, I saw a small black plastic gorilla in the mess, like a totem from the Cult of Harambe. I don't think he'd eaten it, because I do not believe his system was capable of moving a small gorilla through his intestines, but that did not explain why it was sitting in a thistle in a field.

Later, in the early evening, I saw the ducks disappear into a hedge against one of the Pentagon Park buildings. I would never think of them living there, but it explains the dog's keen interest in all the underbrush and foilage. Sometimes I think there’s more fauna in Sunderland Park than there was at the Creek.

No, I haven’t gone back to the Creek. I said I would. Why wouldn’t I? It belongs to all. But of course, no. No.

Hah - just now, the phone announced a FaceTime call from not-yet-ex. FaceTime? Since when? I swiped the phone open, and saw a few jerky swinging images before it went black. Inadvertent, I suppose. You wait to see what happens next: actual intentional call? A text to explain it was a mistake? But nothing. Okay.

Anticipating a call nevertheless, I stuck in my airpods and went outside with Birch for his last time out. I looked up at my unit, and noted how the light in my bedroom seems to indicate there is a TV from 1962 in the corner. The same strange blueish white. The rest of my lights are modern white, which I prefer to the yellowish-tinge old bulbs. Everyone else has a traditional light profile. Fred Base One stands apart.

Saturday afternoon I left again for two hours. He was weeping when I left and he was weeping when I came back. Surely he hadn’t been at it the whole time? Best of all: little shitlets here and there, excreted from anxiety. I feel bad for him but as long as no one else hears, it’s the way it has to be.

“You’re all he has,” Daughter said on Friday night when she called. I know. When we get to the 7th floor I drop the leash and let him trot, and he goes ahead, and turns back to make sure I’m there. He gives me happy nuzzles sometimes when we go down the hall to head out into the big world.

Friday the new entryway table arrived. I had sworn I was done with flat-pack furniture and aggravating assembly, but I found something reasonable on Amazon, and could apply credits. It’s interesting how new skills transfer: the screws, the dowels, the little fastening things you turn to cinch the strange screws in place - it’s now second-nature. I had it assembled in no time, and put it in the proper place, where it serves absolutely no purpose. It’s there just to have something in that space.

Went to Target the next day to get something I do not need to put on the table I do not need but now have. It requires objects. It also require a large painting, or a mirror. According to the page on Amazon, I should place two books with AI generated titles on the bottom shelf, upside down, with a small bowl on top.

I could find nothing at Target that caught my eye, and that was a relief. You imagine all these newly-furnished apartments around here with the same collection of items in different places. You walk into a stranger’s place and recognize everything.

Ended up with a small faux thing that was $1.50 off the five-spot price. It’s a placeholder.

Put up a picture I had from the Old Place, Mom and Dad before they were married, when Dad came home from the War, and everyone met him at the train station.

I know exactly where this is. The red dot. The powerplant in the background is long gone. dismantled in 1971.

You know these things if you're from there.

Saturday night I organized a closet while listening to a movie we'll discuss tomorrow. I did not listen to music because I find myself avoiding the music I like, lest it produce the dreaded emotions. Not in the mood for emotions. I'm fine with the general, low-level satisfaction about completing daily tasks, or being happy than I can take a nap without stirring up resentment (the daily 35-minute nap was a source of contention, because it just indicated how little I had to do, you know) but there are still big looming emotions in the wings. Being of solid Nordic Lutheran stock I am relieved to get the point where I can just repress and get on with things. In the morning it is harmless Baroque tootling or some prancing harpsichord; in the evening, swank from the 60s. But this morning while making breakfast I turned on the classical channel and it was just about to launch into the finale from Sibelius #5, the powerful ascent, the swans soaring into the sky, and I said SIRI STOP because that would've opened the door, and I would've lost everything I've managed to assemble in the last two weeks. Which, I suppose, suggests haven't assembled anything at all.

Not so! I assembled a small thin table, which I don't need, on which rests a picture of things that no longer exist.

On to Monday. I think my Blue Cross kicks in now, which is great, because I have a toothache. Could be from grinding. I'll be it's from grinding.

In keeping with our Monday tradition, which became a "tradition" for reasons I can't recall and probably don't matter, we continue with our Monday trademark. For this year we'll do 1936.

Rox, as in mountains, I guess.

		You too can make your sheets and solids air-proof!

There's not much to say about this one, except it's good:

Nunnally is such an unusual name. There aren't any Nunnallys anymore.

The audience may have recognized the name from other pix - he had a long, good run.

The movie concerns a timid intellectual. That's right, a little man who lives the life of the mind and stands apart from the scrum of real life:

He notes a painting in the shop next to his club:

What's this - it's come to life!

No, it's the woman who posed for the painting. She likes to hang around at night and talk to men who are transfixed by the image.

Since Eddie's wife and kids are out of town, he goes out for a drink. Boy, it sure is the 40s:

Then back to her apartment! Eddie, you naughty lad! But he doesn't try anything. He's a decent married academic, you know. Alas, an old boyfriend shows up, hands out knuckle sandwiches, and starts to choke Eddie. But:

Give it to him!

This is why I bring this one up: it's another film in which someone fights off an attacker by stabbing them in the back with household scissors, through a thick coat. Grace Kelly did it a few weeks ago.

I wonder how effective that would be, really.

Anyway, the rest of the movie is a nailbiter. Eddie knows the lead detective on the murder case, from his club, and gets dragged around town to study klews and such, knowing how everything is pointing back to him. To make it worse, guess who else is on the case:

Our old friend Dan, complete with jaunty boater, ready to slap someone around.

I also mention this because it is an absolutely dishonest movie, and I wonder how the audience reacted at the end. I should mention that it's directed by Fritz Lang, but you can't really tell, other than everything is supremely competent. It's well-regarded, considered the first Noir - inasmuch as it was the first to get the moniker, I guess - but I can't forgive the ending.

I also was relieved by the ending. Go figure.

That will do. Matchbooks up, and free column at the Substack around 11. See you there.