I find it so much more interesting and easy to write about building projects that have been hanging around for a much shorter time than my long term writing a novel project.  I could have spent my time just starting on page one and go on from there.  You would know that Nebuchadnezzar had his captive Hebrews (Daniel in particular) brought before him and told that they would have to bow down before a Pillar that he was having built in the Plains of Sura.  But, the distraction of two building projects here in our apartment are enough to push that topic aside and try to solve – an umbrella and cane stand and fiberglass planks that will serve as a seat in my shower (we saw examples of this in a motel last trip we took.)

So, the Umbrella Stand:  This I conceive of being two number 10 or slightly larger tins in which wholesale foods are packed.  If I take the top and bottom off one and leave the bottom on the other I will be able to tape the two together so they will be tall enough to hold the umbrellas and my canes that lean against the wall next to the outside door.  Of course, I will decorate the umbrella stand thus constructed with wallpaper that will have a nice design on it. (Carol will protest this project because “There are things called Umbrella Stands.) This should be the easiest of my projects because I can ask Michael of the Big Apple Deli for two of the cans before he throws them out.  IF I can acquire the cans the project should take less than an afternoon to complete.  An additional improvement would be to put a piece of spongy plastic on the bottom to absorb noise, dirt and moisture.

Rather than tell you about some improbable abilities of the hero of the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s Pillar who can decipher ancient cuneiform writing on tablets that he encounters in the bottom of a bomb crater near the Euphrates River, the next project is a bit more difficult to achieve.  This is to find plastic (probably styrene or fiberglass) planking that I can use to make seating at the end of my bathtub that can be folded up out of the way and make it easy to enter and leave the tub when the “seat” is folded up and drains into the tub and is ready to be unfolded for my next shower encounter.

This last is a problem for I saw what I wanted in that motel off of route 95 probably in one of the Carolinas.  I have been wading through the masses of information available on the internet about such materials but none are quite what I think will do the job.  However, this couple of delaying projects will nicely hold off my doing some serious writing which I know will just flow off my word processor.