random thoughts – Day 1,493 – (Thursday) – rain again

The work day was pretty much like all the others. Things were done. Progress was made. An afternoon walk was taken, where I discovered it was chilly and raining and my umbrella was at my desk. I am so thoroughly and completely sick of rain. 

Rain on the canal.

A decision was required – keep walking? Turn and go back into the office? I walked, but kept the loop close to work in case the rain got heavier. I also walked fast to get it over with more quickly due to the weather. If it had been sunny like yesterday, there would have been more enjoyment during the walk. 

The rain was neither light and misty nor heavy. Evidence of the impact of raindrops was visible on the sidewalk, and drops could be seen pinging in the canal water and sending out ripples. I got lucky and it mostly stopped.

Along the walk, I passed a thrift shop on Central Street that I was previously unaware of. There was some cute stuff there. The owner said the shop had been open 14 weeks. It might encourage more walking breaks.

The walk to the car after work was in a heavier rain. A wind caught my umbrella and there was a flashback to a rainy, windy morning when I was in grammar school. That day, I was running down our dead-end street, headed for the bus stop around the corner. I was always afraid I would be late and miss the bus.

The wind caught my umbrella and Mary Poppins-ed me right off the ground. The feeling of weightlessness was exhilarating. The loss of control was terrifying. And every time I walked with an umbrella on a rainy and windy day, I hoped a little bit for a repeat of that split second of hang time. Ok, hope, in the present tense is more accurate, because I still kind of hope for that even though at my adult weight and size it’s likely impossible. It would be fun though, and less risky than parachuting, hang gliding, or parasailing.

After the rain.

The rain during the drive home was steady enough to require the wipers, but it wasn't too awful. Well, except for the part that it was raining. The river still looks high and fast, and it is now a habit to analyze it every time I cross over it. 

Later, the sun broke through. Beyond the power lines that criss-cross over the street, the clouds were colored a golden pink. By the time I grabbed the cell phone/camera, it had faded a bit. The light shifts quickly at day's end. Just like the childhood moment of umbrella flight. 

random thoughts – Day 1,492 – (Wednesday) –springing to life

Jack Kerouac Park in the morning.

Work was good. Taking the long route from the garage to the office by Jack Kerouac Park was a pretty sight, as the place is springing to life. 

Pink flowering trees lined the far side of the park, and closer to the street, tendrils hung from the trees that are beginning to turn green.  Under a sunny blue morning sky, the park looked great. 

There was a noontime walk on my calendar, planned weeks ago and rescheduled at least once, with a colleague from finance. We made a loop past the new high school building and around the back of the Tsongas Center before weaving our way through the construction sheeting turning Lucy Larcom Park into an obstacle course. 

Trees over by the Tsongas Center.

It was a time of fresh air and more trees which have recently exploded with blossoms of white and pink. It was rejuvenating to be outside in the sunshine fresh air, and flowers. It seems we may have moved beyond mud season and suddenly it’s a proper, flowery spring. 

We chatted about the weather and how it's nice to feel alive again after the wet and dreary fall and winter. The sunshine makes such a big difference in my mood and is way less expensive than therapy. 

The workday was followed by a gathering for “Wine Down Wednesday” at Fuse Bistro near work. A colleague had previously sent an Outlook invitation, basically the office equivalent of shining the bat signal into the Gotham City sky, and several of us responded, gathering at the bar for adult beverages. 

Represented in our group beverages were a chocolate martini, Aperol Spritz, an IPA, a peanut butter porter, and several others to which I forgot to pay attention. It was fun being together outside work and talking about vacations (recently taken and on the horizon), crappy neighbors (seems everyone has at least one), sports (soccer, football, hockey, and roller derby), and all sorts of other topics completely unrelated to work. Five stars. Highly recommend.

random thoughts – Day 1,491 – (Tuesday) – fitness tracking

The sign-up for the wellness plan spring steps challenge opened last week and of course I signed up, because I seem to like signing up for the step events and never reaching the goals. The only days I've come close to the pace were vacation days spent walking, quite literally, all day.

My latest accessory.

After the last challenge in the fall, my old fashioned, clip on a beltloop or put it in a pocket pedometer accidentally went through the washer and dryer. It was in a pocket. It was ruined. My results in the challenge weren’t that great, either, and I still can’t process how people can achieve 7,000 steps in a day unless they are in professions that require a lot of walking like restaurant or retail work or professional athlete.

Anyway, the challenge begins soon and I wanted a way to track my semiannual lack of progress and completion. The massive digital mall of Amazon presented an overwhelming array of pedometers, watches, and rings. The rings are fascinating to me, but my fingers swell at night so I can’t wear rings to bed and sleep tracking would be foregone taking it off. Bright side, I saved hundreds of dollars by not getting a ring.

The descriptions for watches weren’t completely helpful and it was hard to compare. General vague statements like “tracking for 20 activities” would be more helpful if it listed which activities. One watch with 13 activities had an icon that looked like a stick figure dancing, but the reviews on it weren’t great so I opted for a different one with 20 unspecified activities and hoped one would be dance. It had overnight shipping and would arrive in about 20 hours after being ordered, so why not. I may fly blind into a purchase, but I feel better if it comes quickly.

The magic watched delivered this morning and the battery was set to charge. The app was downloaded to my phone. The mechanics of operating the thing with minimal guidance were attempted. The quick start guide took four pages to say little more than “charge before use” and the rest is all user guess work. The misnamed product videos were of the ridiculous unboxing genre and essentially useless because already know how to open a box. What I wanted to know was how to count steps, get heartrate and oxygen readings, know the battery charge level, and see which 20 activities can be tracked.

Lessons have been learned on day one of the fitness watch. The 20 activities do not include dance, but do include something called “lazy car.” What the what? The walking mode seems to work like the Map My Walk app on my phone – meaning it tracks the distance by GPS. I've been down that road when I mowed the lawn a few years ago and the walking app on my phone logged no distance for the 40 minutes it took and the image of the route looked like a knotted mess of string.

Stats from a chunk
 of a mostly usual day.

According to the treadmill at the gym tonight, I walked 1.38 miles in 25 minutes, most of it at a 4 mile per hour pace, plus there was the normal workday minimal level of walking around. The watch logged about 700 steps at the gym, 1151 steps total for the day, and half a mile for the entire day. Not super helpful. 

I’m bummed about the absence of a dance mode, because we really don’t cover a lot of ground with our choreography either, which is created for some really small stages. Even the old pedometer only tracked forward and backward movement but not side-to-side and in circles which is the direction of a good amount of dance steps. But it buzzes (nags?) me when I've been sitting too long and also when I should drink water. 

Anyway. It will be fun to see how the fitness watch experiment goes. The actual step count accuracy seems iffy, and I haven’t set it up for weather or social media updates, but I like the heart rate monitoring and can’t wait for the sleep analysis. And it wasn't expensive, so there won't be a high level of wallet misery or buyer's remorse.

random thoughts – Day 1,490 – (Monday) – feeling springish

Streamers.

The wildlife in the yard has been busy. On Saturday, signs of rebuilding efforts were spotted at the site of the mostly destroyed nest over the drainpipe. The winds and rain had left barely more than a little pile of what looked like mud, but on Saturday, long streamers of dried, dead, leaves swayed in the breeze. 

The building material for the repair efforts had come from the flower bed below, where it had been left for the winter. The negligence was partly due to the never-ending summer-fall rain impeding fall cleanup, which was further justified by a gardening article that said it’s better for yard critters to leave it all over the winter and until after some magical number of days after danger of frost or something like that. What hasn’t blown from the garden with the blustery, gusty winds of 2024 is still there, waiting for me or the birds to start yard cleanup. If I wait long enough, maybe the birds will take care of it all.

Also over the weekend, as I sat in the living room, there was a weird sound that sounded like it might be near the roof. It was different than the sounds made by the birds messing around in the open-top gutters outside the home office. It was more scratchy than the gutter sound. More rhythmic.

Getting busy at the doorframe.

It turned out to be a small-ish woodpecker going to town on the narrow wood strip between the vinyl siding and the metal frame of the storm door. I’ve heard them in the trees along the brook, but never getting busy on the wood on my house. 

I watched the bird for a few seconds as I set up my camera for a quick shot through the purple sheer curtain hanging in the office window. Then I rapped on the window and the bird flew away. 

Today featured the first sighting of Chuck, the resident woodchuck. He (or she, I can’t tell) emerged from under the shed and posed near the ramp, sniffing the air. There was a waddle around the yard, with pauses to eat blades of whatever tempting greenery is presently popping up in the yard. 

Chuck (Chuckina?) edged along the perimeter of the yard where it was shady, then returned to the shed to pose atop the stone edgers before dashing out the gate, taking a hairpin turn, and heading into the neighbor’s yard. Later, Chuck/Chuckina reappeared in the back yard, did another lap, then slithered between the pickets in the fence and  into the neighbor’s yard on the other side.

There have now been sightings of all the wildlife of The BungaLowell area. Brown bunny was spotted several times over the winter, the bird builders are back, the woodchuck is still around, the squirrels never leave. The neighborhood cats – the all white, the all black, the ginger, and the tabby – have all been spotted in the past month. It’s finally starting to feel like spring.

random thoughts – Day 1,489 – (Sunday) –burnt stuff

As Sundays go, this was a really nice one. Mom and I met at 10:00 to update our little booth at the Antiques Co-op. We tried to do so last week after I got out of dance, but the lot was packed and we couldn’t even park. This week, we met before I went to dance. 

Once the door was unlocked and the outdoor display was being set up in the parking lot we pounced, signed in, and got busy. We’ve had a fairly steady stream of small sales since February. We try to keep restocking, and each time we go, we rearrange and straighten things. Some of the things we thought would move quickly haven’t and others have surprised us by selling almost instantly. 

There are still boxes of stuff that I haven’t touched in several moves that will be instrumental in the clearing of the guest room. There are soft-focus romantic memories of magical stuff that will cover our monthly rent threefold. There is almost always ambition for the box-tackling chore when I’m not at home, and then when I am home, a dozen other things pop up instead that are infinitely more interesting than cleaning out the junk room.

From Jeffrey’s Co-op it was dance group practice, then home, where, once again, the junk room was avoided. The Aldi visit on Saturday had eliminated the need for a Market Basket stop today, but did nothing to prevent a stop at St. Vincent de Paul. The week’s discount tickets, blue at half-off, green at 99 cents, were scarce, but it didn’t mean I left empty-handed. Two blouses were bought, one for 99 cents, the other for $2.50.

Hello, old friend.

Back at home, the pizza delivery of Saturday’s supper meant that late lunch-early supper was set. Two loads of laundry were done, and then in a blast from the past, the ironing board was hauled out to press some pants and the freshly laundered “new” blouses. 

Back when nearly all the work clothes needed ironing, it was my favorite household task. I found it relaxing. When I was in college, Mom was working as an accountant at a major computer company, and paid me to iron her work clothes every week. I would set up the ironing board in our dining room, put on Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell album, and go to town. Then I would take my easily-earned ironing money to The Buttercup Lounge for Happy Hour with DJ Sullivan. 

The newer fabrics that don’t need ironing have deprived me of the one household chore I enjoyed. In its place, there is now an appreciation for cooking from scratch, which is a healthy counterbalance to my ramen and pizza loving tendencies. And sweets.

Burnt Caramel.

Today’s sweet was one bought at Aldi. The name, “Burnt Caramel Sea Salt” caught my eye on the chocolate bar display at the register. Usually when “burnt” is used in reference to something cooked at The BungaLowell, it’s best to toss it, right after the smoke detector stops screeching. The curiosity of whether and how “burnt caramel” could be tasty led to the purchase. 

The candy bar’s caramel and brown colored outer paper wrapper was opened, followed by the matte gold foil paper wrapper inside. Would this become the new gold standard of grocery store register candy bars against which all other grocery store register bars would be measured?

The verdict? The milk chocolate was smooth and definitely better than the lower-cost milk chocolate of the Market Basket register chocolate bars. The burnt caramel sea salt filling, flaunted on the wrapper, didn’t seem any different than any of the many caramel sea salt fillings tasted before. Nice, but not remarkable. I would eat it again, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get it.

Overall, the day had everything. Meet-up with Mom, dancing, thrifting, ironing, chocolate. There was a bonus, too. Kiki let me stroke her head and cheeks, and so what if I had to hang over the back of the couch to do so. The armpit bruises should be gone before my annual physical. I hope. It could be hard to explain.

random thoughts – Day 1,488 – (Saturday) – bangs, cheese, sequins

There were big doings today. I woke up thinking it was Sunday and that I had forgotten to call Mom about something on Saturday. There was a moment of panic until I realized it was Saturday and I needed to get up for my hair salon appointment and had plenty of time to call Mom.

At the salon, my stylist and I reviewed photos and talked about what to do on my head next. The photos were of some of my past haircuts, so at least we knew they would work with my hair eventually, if not today. One thing under consideration was the return of my very long layers, the other was bangs, or as the British call it, “a fringe.” I loved having bangs when I wore contacts, but I am usually less keen  on them with glasses. On me. When I see other women with bangs and glasses I think they look great while my bangs often take on a life of their own over which I have no control.

Due to some imbalances where the hair is growing back in the bald spots from my dalliance with alopecia (likely from COVID, and thank the good scientists and dermatologists for the steroid scalp injections), long layers were ruled out for now. It was bangs for the win to change up the look. Full bangs, but not blunt. My stylist is amazing and I love it when we have a plan. 

Bread cheese!

After the salon, it was the Worcester Lincoln Street trifecta – Savers, Aldi, and Kohl’s. Having three of my favorite places in one area was almost enough to convince me to move back to Worcester. The commute to work was the top reason not to. There were scores at all three places, but there were a couple standouts. 

Aldi had bread cheese which I’ve heard about in Finnish groups and wanted to try for ages, but it's just not the sort thing that is widely available. Enter Aldi.  

Leipäjuusto (the Finnish word) looks a bit like grilled bread and is also called “squeaky cheese” because it squeaks on the teeth when bitten. It’s often eaten warm, topped with honey or cloudberry jam and sometimes is even dunked in coffee. I can't wait for the bread cheese adventure and if it's as good as the cheese curds at Aldi, I plan to return and stock up. 

Need a game show host?

The big clearance rack score at Kohl’s was a sequin suit. My best guess at explaining my adult fascination with sequins has two parts. There are the ballet costumes I got to wear beginning at age six, coupled with not being allowed to wear them on anything else. Mummu always gently steered me away from the sequin clothing in stores and actually said it was so I wouldn’t “grow up to be gaudy.” 

Now I make up for it on my own terms. There are belly dance costumes and a closet full of sequin jackets, pants, tops, and rhinestone encrusted boots, just in case. If anyone needs a fill-in game show host or a gala seat filler, I probably have the outfit. Call me. 

random thoughts – Day 1,487 – (Friday) – rain and torment

The Friday morning awakening was accompanied by the all-too-familiar rain soundtrack. Not a gentle rain like in the noise machine in a spa or that in a commercial with soft-focus foggy scenes for something romantic and lovely. No, this was an aggressive rain that meant business. Business like pelting and drowning all the new shoots that have come up in the past couple week. Business like invading a basement and causing the big puddle to fill at the end of the driveway and the end of the street.

Hydromassage command center.

The weather that made going outside less desirable was perfect for sleeping a bit later than usual, sitting around with coffee, and being thankful to have scheduled the day as a vacation day just yesterday. The rain let up by the time of a late-morning trip to the gym with another fast-paced (four mph) walk on the treadmill and a visit with my old friend the Hydromassage table because the two massage chairs were occupied. The slow speed on a pressure level 10 is divine, and at least the water in the machine is contained.

After the gym, there was a visit to Family Dollar for coffee creamers (caramel macchiato flavor) and greeting cards. I have not made an extensive national or even regional tour of Family Dollar stores. However, I can confidently say that of all the ones I’ve been to, the one nearest The BungaLowell is the absolute worst. It’s never been great, but it’s become even more horrible in recent months.

Today, even more u-boats than usual, loaded with product waiting to be put onto the half-empty shelves, clogged most of the aisles, rendering them impassable. The greeting card display hasn’t been tidied in weeks. A handful of cards dotted the nearly empty Easter endcap which should probably have been swapped for Mother’s Day cards by now. The main display running the length of the aisle looks like a cyclone hit it.

The guy that I think is the manager was talking loudly on a cell phone the entire time I was there. He pulled beverages from an aisle and put them into a refrigerated case with one hand, while the other held the phone. He arrived at the register to ring me out, still talking on the phone and tossing in the occasional bone of recognition to me and my transaction. He seemed overly excited about the Easter jelly beans on sale for 62-cents. For dollar store jelly beans, they are very tasty. The best by date is in October and I may need to brave the mess to buy all the rest of them.

The regular morning lessons were done – Duolingo (a 1,370-day streak, and working on French lately, because Finnish has gotten on my last nerve) and Wordle, which isn’t a course per se, but is a daily exercise in word puzzle solving so I’m counting it as a learning opportunity. It's only a 48-day streak in Wordle. Don't ask.

Kiki keeps an eye on me
from her command center.

Kiki continues her preferred activity, which happens to be tormenting me. The current manifestation is running away when I get anywhere hear her. She isn’t hostile and doesn’t seem skittish or anxious, it’s more like she has a highly developed level of psychological warfare. Command headquarters is located in her private quarters under the buffet.

After I returned from dance rehearsal tonight, Keeks let me sit three-quarters of the way up the stairs and stroke her head and face as she reclined on the landing. The scenario with her reminds of a line in the movie Barbie. “Barbie has a great day every day, but Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him.” I’ll let you guess who is playing which of those characters in the Kiki-Tam dynamic. It won’t be hard.