random thoughts – Day 2,332 (Monday) – weather and whining

The monsoons arrived with heavy rain overnight and woke me up a couple times. At 3:00 a.m., I woke up and went through the house lowering or fully closing windows. The worst awakening was at 4:45 a.m. when the rain was blowing in through the bedroom window. The refreshing spray on my face through the three-inch gap where the window was open may be what awakened me. Then I worried about the bathroom fan/vent that leaked last week and got up. The bathroom was dry.

Bathroom water entry point.

By 8:30, I had finished a book, drank coffee, and patrolled the house for leaks and it felt like I’d already lived half a day. I made a grocery list. As I prepared for departure to the mailbox to mail a card, the little library box for a book exchange, and the grocery store for provisions, I thought I heard dripping in the otherwise silent house. The bathroom floor had developed a puddle as water came through the fan/vent. The roofing contractor was contacted.  The floor was mopped and a wastebasket set under the drip site.

I made it to the mailbox and library box, and then turned back towards home. Interest in grocery shopping had suddenly diminished to zero and was postponed until “later.” A forage of the freezer unearthed a bagel which was toasted to accompany a fried egg with a calcium boosting slice of sharp cheddar, and it was good.

It poured. The sun shone feebly then disappeared again. The rain exhibited extremes from soft and gentle like a romantic perfume commercial and power washing torrents that could cause bodily harm. I read on the couch (The Great Gatsby). Social media was awash in photos of extreme weather on both coasts with flooded streets locally and wildfires in Washington state.

Because the grocery store trip never happened, and I was expecting the roofing contractor, supper was a quick meal of ramen, the reliable staple of my pantry. The slightly less reliable contractor with a confusing message about 320 windows on another job and after deciphering the rambling essay, I concluded he would not be coming to check the bathroom ceiling leak situation

By 6:30, the sun was shining here and the puddles outside were shrinking and the one inside was contained to a wastebasket. The air was cool while I walked around the neighborhood. It was almost as if none of the crazy weather had happened at all.

random thoughts – Day 2,331 (Sunday) – excavating

Life in a box, 2025.

It was apparently a great morning for sleeping because I woke up mostly refreshed and a bit confused a good two hours later than usual. I didn’t stay up extra late. It had been a quiet day at home.  I had thought about reaching out to friends to see if anyone was interested in the Saturday night concert in the park event, but then I got super tired and fell asleep on the couch and suddenly it was too late. I read before bed. Nothing unusual, except for the nap, and somehow I overslept this morning. So weird.

Anyway. One year ago today, my friends and I kicked butt and emptied the moving cube. The emptying of my life in a box took just a few hours, because basically we emptied the cube like it was a race. We piled everything in the house, to be opened and dealt with later. Rugs and large furniture were set, but the rest of it wasn’t the sort of thing where help was helpful. How could I tell someone where to put stuff from a box when I had no idea myself?

Today, I hung a couple more art pieces in what seems to be my now characteristic super slow motion, prolonged decorating process. A photo freshly delivered from the recent Lowellscapes show went on a wall in the guest room which is still slightly cluttered with luggage and a couple unpacked boxes. There is now one less framed photo on the dining room table. I will celebrate the progress while simultaneously mourning the fact that the table was cleared for less than 24 hours.

Korean calligraphy brush and mat on a wall.

While standing in the alleged art room, I spotted the paper towel tube labeled “calligraphy brush” on a bookshelf and removed the contents. It’s a calligraphy brush I bought in Korea in 2000 or 2001. It came with a blue and tan mat made out of the material of a sushi rolling mat and used in some placemats. I had forgotten about the mat. I had forgotten about the brush. At first I thought it was the small parasol, also from Korea, which has lived in a tube the same length of time as the calligraphy brush and also the larger parasol.

It has lived, wrapped in red tissue paper inside a paper towel tube since I bought it. The brush, with the mat behind it, now has a home on a wall near the mirror that X2 bought for me from an antique store in Korea for Christmas of 2000. Somewhere, still in an unpacked box in the house, is a padded box with a mah jongg set also bought in Korea, which hasn’t seen the light of day since 2001. The excavations will continue. Maybe tomorrow.

random thoughts – Day 2,330 (Saturday) – house anniversary

One year anniversary of the house.

One year ago today, I closed on the house in Gardner and it’s been a very fast year. Things have been done (new bathroom vent/fans, new access doors for the crawlspace, new roof). Things are waiting to be done (new siding, new exterior lights, finishing the guest room). The list of improvements is still long, but that is all part of owning a house. Things were thought of and procrastinated into oblivion (housewarming party, naming the house). 

The residents of the neighborhood, both human and animal, are quiet. The turkeys, bunnies, and outdoor cats move through the yards in silent ninja mode. The major noise makers are generally the squawking crows, the lawn mowers, and on Mondays, the trash truck. 

The environment is a refreshing change from the bigger city cacophony of sirens and loud neighbors yelling over booming music. It’s been a mostly good and peaceful year. 

random thoughts – Day 2,329 (Friday) – holiday dreams

My Benidorm marathon (Prime Video) continues and shifts are happening. The show is described as a “British comedy series following holidaymakers at the Solana Resort in Benidorm. Hilarity ensues as guests try to get value for their Euros.” The show originally aired from 2007-2018, and I first streamed seasons of this series to get into an all-inclusive resort frame of mind before a 2017 trip to Jamaica. A friend I was traveling with recommended it and we laughed about the characters who reminded us of some of our own travel companions, acquaintances, or colleagues. Good times.

The past few days have sent me on holiday at Solana resort in Benidorm, Spain. The English tourists now have me thinking with a British accent and using English-English terms like holiday, fanny, pudding, oh blither, bloody, frig off, “me” instead of “my” and so on. Mateo, the Spanish bartender turns out to be a stellar Flamenco dancer, and now I want to learn that style (again). I want paella. And bangers and mash.

When I was in Mexico at an all-inclusive resort a couple years ago, my friend met some Brits at the pool and asked if Benidorm is a real holiday destination. It is, and is very popular with U.K travelers. Now I want to go to Sol Pelícanos Ocas, the real-life counterpart in Benidorm to the fictional Solana. Someday! 

random thoughts – Day 2,328 (Thursday) – puddlement puzzlement

Rain souvenir.

The morning delivered another surprise. There was a sizeable puddle in the guest bathroom, under the ceiling fan/vent and a new stain on the ceiling next to the vent. No bueno. It appears the recent very heavy rain and boisterous wind gave the new roof a workout, the bathroom vent seal failed the test, and I received a souvenir. It's a puddlement puzzlement. But the floor is extra clean from the mopping up. The roofing contractor said he will take care of the problem.

Despite the surprise puddle,  the day was pleasant. The weather was drier. The turkeys passed through the backyard. The crows visited the front yard. Kiki continues to be extra sweet, mysterious, and elusive.

A friend had offered to deliver my photos from the Lowellscapes show at The Brush Gallery which ended on the 26^th, and we had a nice visit. Earlier in the week, I had a message from the gallery director that one of my photos in the show sold, which is exciting and validating news. 

random thoughts – Day 2,327 (Wednesday) – rainy day entertainment

Some days, like this morning, I am very glad for my daily 1440 news email and the opening sentence with the day and date. Some mornings it’s hard to hard to tell one day from another so it is nice to have the clarification. Once the day of the week was sorted out, I remembered the weather forecast for heavy rain. It was cloudy and gloomy and the perfect plan for the day shaped up immediately. It was to make the chocolate zucchini bread with the recipe found the other day.

Chocolate zucchini bread.

By 10:30 a.m. I had grated, whisked, melted, folded, and spread batter into pans. I didn’t have the loaf pan size recommended in the recipe (11” x 6”) and winged it with the mini loaf pans which meant I needed to guess on the baking time. At the pan size noted in the recipe, the bake time was 45 minutes, followed by another 20 minutes covered in foil. There was guessing and checking on the baking time and it came out pretty good.

The kitchen was cleaned up of the baking mess and then immediately messed up for lunch. Then it was cleaned again. Then it was mussed up a little bit again for supper and cleaned again. It’s the never-ending cycle of the kitchen. If you cook, you know.

The rainy afternoon was spent reorganizing fabric and patterns. The partially sewed projects from Mom were reunited with the pattern instructions and segregated from the other fabric. The patterns from Mom were sorted into women’s, children’s, and home décor, and stuffed into the drawers of the sewing desk with all the patterns I already have. Pattern tissue and brown paper to use for patterns were consolidated. The gowns to be repurposed into belly dance skirts were refolded and stacked together in a quilt bag. “Out of sight, out of mind” is at play – I had forgotten about most of the gowns already.

The rain fell all day. It started with a vengeance – pummeling rain and wind. It blew in through the windows that hadn’t been closed yet. Throughout the day, the rain switched between slamming against the house and light and gentle. In other words, the perfect day for streaming Prime Video. The series Wild Cards was finished. It’s pretty stupid, but I’m not a quitter so over the past couple days I watched all the available episodes. Next up was Boomers, a British comedy with one season available free on Prime. Then it was Benidorm, a British comedy series set in a resort. I saw it several years ago, but sometimes it’s easier to rewatch a series than to find another one. 

random thoughts – Day 2,326 (Tuesday) – gamified learning

The streak continues.

The morning began with the usual phone games and Duolingo bestowed upon me a badge for a 2,200 day streak of lessons. My current gamified-educational focus is chess, which I am enjoying, but I doubt I would be able to play a game in real (non-digital app) life. The app prevents illegal moves by not moving the pieces, which is good, because sometimes I space out a little and start trying to move a rook on the diagonal like it’s a bishop or misjudging the spaces of the knight jump. 

The online game prohibits incorrect moves, but in a live game in the manual world, my opponent would probably need to keep me straight and who would want to play with someone who needs babysitting to prevent accidental cheating. Who would even believe it’s accidental? That is why I like digital chess and one of my favorite things is when I beat Oscar, the Duolingo character chess instructor. I tried the feature when you can play another human, but too many people left the games partway. Oscar never bails.

Oscar may never skip out on a match, but has had some recent personality changes that are kind of disturbing. There have always been comments, some of which are cute or funny, and others are odd. Oscar has always referred to “Mother” with comments like “Mother wouldn’t like that” or “we mustn’t tell Mother” when he loses a key piece, but the tone of voice has slipped a few notches away from nerdy and closer to Norman Bates territory. He sometimes belittles his captured pieces (“I never liked that pawn anyway”). A new addition is comments like “you are an awful person” when Oscar is behind. Thanks, dude. 

Anway. It’s been 2,200 days of online learning, some of it with an occasionally judgmental cyber tutor which tracks to a couple teachers I’ve had in the real world. The app includes challenges done with another human player, such as earning a certain number of combined points within a defined timeframe. The worst challenge is getting a set number of perfect lessons in a designated time. I could have a run of perfect lessons on a normal week and then that challenge pops up and I can’t get a perfect score to save my life. The workaround I developed is to bounce over to math. So far, math is still at a level I can handle, like exponents and fractions, but I don’t know how long the math module is or how complicated it will get. There will likely come a day when I run out of math I understand. But for now, I’ll enjoy the ride.