My living room here at the Fortress is lighted by several floor and table lamps, two sets of track lights, and an overhead light attached to the ceiling fan, twelve or so feet above the floor. I prefer using the overhead light, because it disperses light evenly throughout the room, and because it doesn't reflect off the TV screen.

I've been wondering what I would do when that bulb burned out. Now I know. I use the floor and ceiling lamps and the track lights. Because there's no way I can get my body high enough off the ground to pull off the fixture and replace the bulb.

Dragging the kitchen table and standing a stool on top of it would almost but not quite get me there. The ladder I have is too short to reach (at least with me on it), and the ladder on top of the table is freaky hairy.

I think I can change the track lights, if that should ever become necessary. Otherwise, I'm just a few burnouts short of carrying around a flashlight or wearing a miner's helmet around the house.

The bodies are still being counted from the time my laundry room flooded half the house, shortly after I moved in here. Every so often I'll find a soggy box of envelopes or light bulbs that I forgot were in a box on the floor. Today I stepped onto the bathroom scale and was told that I weighed 000. Knowing that to be untrue, I turned the scale over and saw that the underside was rusted through.

There was nothing to be done. And now, of course, there's no reason for me to diet, since I don't know how much I weigh anyhow. So, you take the good with the bad, I guess.

I had a little adventure tonight when one of the garden lizards got into the house. I thought I was going to pick him up and replace him outside, but he had other ideas. For the life of me, I could not catch up with him, even though there was nowhere for him to hide.

He just ran up and down the baseboard in the living room, but his actions made me realize that I could chase him in whatever direction I wanted him to go. Eventually, with the help of the first thing I could pick up (a shoebox lid), I convinced him to leave by the front door.

He scampered away into the shrubbery, and I don't think he'll be making another house call soon.

Election day is less than a month away, and I'm not sure whether I'll be voting or not. I sent in a change of address form to the Secretary of State when I moved to the Fortress from next door, but my sample ballot came in the mail, addressed to the old place. The post office delivered it to the new mailbox, but I don't know if it's valid. I'd like to send for an absentee ballot, but I'll have to do some research to find out what the procedure is.

Part of the reason for my recent malaise became clear to me this afternoon when I wheeled the trash can out to the curb. There was fresh air out there! I'd been languishing in the stale air inside, doors and windows shut up against the cold, damp days we've been having. It had been another of those dark, foggy mornings, and it hadn't occurred to me that it might have turned into a warm autumn afternoon.

So I opened up the house and immediately shook the languor that was plaguing me, at least for awhile. Between innings, I even walked around the perimeter of the estate. I felt fully awake for the first time in about four days.

Then it got dark all of a sudden. That seems to happen this time of year.

I guess I really should get out more.