I want a gig just like the gig that bought my dear old boots...

Sometimes things just work out. I dunno why, but it does seem to happen a lot lately.

My only ongoing, every-week job nets me a big $30. That's $30 a week I can count on, except for the rare weeks when it turns out I can't count on it - H, for some reason, doesn't seem to feel she should pay me for scooping the nonexistent poop of horses that are running races in New Mexico, so sometimes even that $30 evaporates without warning. But that's pretty rare. So, $30.

I've worked to make something of an art form out of seeing how small and minimum I can make my daily money-related needs, but $30/week does seem to be getting somewhere near the bottom, especially in the winter since I'm still dependent on propane. Propane costs money, boy. So sometimes, despite my odd hobby, I do fret a bit about money.

I was looking at the contents of my tobacco tin, propane bottles and gas cans just yesterday, and fretting a bit. Just a bit, you understand, because it's established that there are necessities and there are luxuries, the necessities are the things that actually keep you alive, and none of those things are on that list. Okay, propane comes close but in a pinch I can move to the Lair temporarily. If I want to forever alienate Click's affections. But they're not a necessity, either.

Still, no matter how close to the bone you slice it the line between necessity and luxury isn't always completely sharp. If you're eating beans and rice day in and day out all winter long, that's just not the best time to give up tobacco. There's gotta be a point in there somewhere when you start thinking in terms of bullets and brains, and I don't want to examine that point.

And that's why it's so cool that sometimes things just work out. Because I never know where that extra gig is coming from, and they do seem to have a habit of landing in my lap at exactly the right time.

So yesterday afternoon, right after my fretting session, I got a phone call from a neighbor I don't usually hear from. He told me he just got a cord and a half of wood delivered. I was sitting there wondering why he called to tell me this, when he went on and said that D&L had told him I did a pretty good job of splitting wood, and asked would I be interested in splitting this wood.

I said sure! When do you want it?

So tomorrow I'll go split wood, get some exercise, and have some unplanned jingle in my pocket just when a number of important - but not absolutely necessary - commodities are looking pretty scarce. Cool!