random thoughts – Day 2,310 (Sunday) – shelving it

After: More tidy under,
less empty above.

The nesting continues. Or maybe it's still technically moving in and setting up. However it is categorized, today featured the assembly of two small (24-inch tall) floating corner shelf units. One went under the TV corner shelf, the other went above it as the first step in solving the issue of an odd empty space.

I had seen the shelves online through a couple retailers, but a recent email from Ocean State Job Lot had the exact shelves that were hanging around in my Amazon cart for a lower price. It's not the first time and I am guessing the Amazon markup funds the allegedly free shipping. I will drive one mile to pick up at your store Ocean State. Yes, please and thank you.

They were easy to assemble, especially compared to the larger stuff in the house came in a flat box and required my ever-improving skills with a screwdriver. Today also involved the drill to mount the shelves to the wall. Good times! I am living large and in charge with a power drill and a mini-chain saw.

Between the router and cable box, power strip, multiple power cords, and a mile of cable, there is still an eyesore cluster of electrical cords and cable in the corner below the TV. I mounted an acrylic shelf to hold the power strip, but the rest is still messy. Baby steps.

Before: Messy under,
empty above.

I really wanted a small cabinet for the corner under the TV shelf, so that the nesting end tables currently in service in the corner could fulfil their potential as side tables but the heating vent on the floor in the corner was an obstacle. Finding a cabinet both short enough to clear the shelf and high enough off the floor to clear the vent and deflector was a losing battle. 

The floating shelf solution is good enough for now and the armchair now has a side table available for setting a cup of coffee and a plate. I’m taking the win.

random thoughts – Day 2,309 (Saturday) – squash blossoms and belly dance

Squash blossoms in the morning.

The squash plant, recently set into the ground in the backyard, had two gorgeous open orange blossoms that greeted me this morning. Until today, I had only seen the blossoms mostly or fully closed when it was in the pot. By 12:30, they were both closed again. Now I will be stalking the plant to learn the blossom opening and closing times. 

There was a morning visit with Mom, then it was back to my house. The second step of the blue embroidered and sequin dress remake was executed. With red thread (for visibility and easier removal), the mesh overlay was basted to the lining, about a half inch below the waist seam. This will allow me to cut the skirt off below the waist seam while keeping the two layers held together for the future step of forming the waistband casing.

Th weather was gorgeous with breezes blowing the curtains. This helped during the one-hour long stressful search for something to wear to a dance show tonight. I am no longer used to dressing for events, but I knew I wanted to wear my bronze-tone bejewelled sandals.

None of the three pairs of summery wide-legged pants looked good today. The first-choice skirt, a silk crepe de chine number in browns and rust with gold accents, fit great, but I couldn’t find a season-appropriate top to wear with it that didn’t look stupid (it has been worn only in the fall with a sweater). The next choice was a long black silk stripe on stripe flowy skirt. Again, the problem was tops. And memory. I couldn’t remember what I used to wear with said skirt, and nothing in the closet felt right. I ended up choosing a black mesh top with tiny gold beaded embellishments. I am so out of practice with dressing for a social life. 

Once upon a time, multiple times a day, I could dash into the house for a complete costume change executed in under ten minutes and be out the door to another activity. I could shift from gardening clothes to an outfit for a formal event in no time flat. While blindfolded, a bag could be packed for a weekend away and events from the beach to shopping to a night club were covered. Lately, I specialize in stay at home with no plans outfits, stage performance costumes, and pajamas.

Anyway, once dressed, I sat around quietly basting the skirt part of the dress and then playing games on my phone while episodes of the show Animal Control streamed on Netflix until it was time to leave for the belly dance show. In addition to professional level skills in staying at home, I am excellent at sitting quietly, a skill I have perfected in the past several months. It is time, however, to work on my social skills and pull myself back from the brink of being totally feral. Study tips are welcomed.

Aurelia Pearl dances to Swan Lake.

The dance show, called "Molten," was co-hosted by Greenfield area dancers Aurelia Pearl and Eshta Amar. It was a fun production in the intimate space of the LAVA Center in Greenfield and featured seven solo performers and a duet. 

The costumes and veils were colorful and sparkly and various musical and dance styles were presented. One dance was to music from the ballet Swan Lake arranged with a Middle Eastern beat. Very cool. It was all very cool. 

There is a lot of beauty and talent out in the world. 

random thoughts – Day 2,308 (Friday) – fri-yay!

Things were accomplished. The morning included the trimming of low-hanging tree branches and the pulling of weeds in the back yard. A small trash bin, a large planter, and a bucket full of trimmings were loaded into the car and brought to the neighborhood yard waste drop off area which is a splendid feature of living here. A faded garden decoration that was once blue, green, and gold, was sprayed with fresh silver paint and set near the basil, lavender, and squash. 

Laundry was done. Food was consumed. The zipper was removed from the embroidered and sequin trimmed gown bought on Wednesday, and a plan made (and documented!) for the next steps to its transformation. A book was read (not the whole book, just some chapters). A walk around the ‘hood was taken. Several people were sitting in their yards, driveways, or under their carports enjoying the most pleasant evening air, and I was waving at people like I was Miss America in a parade. When I got back home, I noticed a tear in the back of my beloved camo print cargo capris and was grateful that the majority of houses sit far back from the street and also that most of the neighbors are elderly and probably couldn’t see my butt flashing my undies from their chairs.

Stuff got done.

There was an evening session with my new favorite household tool, the mini-chainsaw, and I trimmed ground-level branches from the overgrown flora in front of the house, still in my camo print torn in the back capris with blue underpants underneath. It felt reckless. Is anyone really watching? Can my elderly neighbors even see that far? Do I really care? Whatever. For the record, I love that little chainsaw.

A second trip was made to the drop off area with the evening trimmings and then it was time to relax with a Korean drama on Netflix and some calcium-rich cheese slices and crackers. What a day! Not exactly a day in a cottage at the beach, but still fun and fulfilling.

random thoughts – Day 2,307 (Thursday) – lunch, dice, and plants

Bacon cheeseburger with fries and pickles.

A spontaneous lunch invitation livened up a potentially dull day. Mom, Sis, my youngest niece and I, after brief discussion about who was already hungry, who likes what, and what places are nearby, chose Kay’s Dairy Bar as our target destination. It has a varied menu, and we debated sharing an appetizer and then having ice cream, but in the end, we all ordered lunch plates like adults. It was good.

After lunch, we went back to Mom’s and played Yahtzee. The dice were not favoring me today. My niece rolled a full house so many times we wondered if the Universe was sending her a message. I kept rolling crap and ended up taking zeroes when I missed required combinations, which also felt like a message from the Universe.

After a supper of grocery store ice cream, I decided to plant the spaghetti squash Sis gave me a few weeks ago. Knowing there is a ground hog that visits the yard, I checked what plants they hate to surround and protect the squash plant. I got lucky and it was several plants I wanted anyway, including basil, lavender, and rosemary, plus bleeding heart, which I planted a couple months ago.

Tiny backyard garden.

In a matter of minutes, I was in the car and headed to Tractor Supply where I bought a second pot of basil and a lavender plant. An hour after the internet search about plants, the squash was finally in the ground near the bleeding heart, flanked by the new basil plant and the one bought a couple weeks ago. The lavender is nearby, still in the original pot, while I decide if I want to try and split the plant. The plants were surrounded with wire flower bed edging to keep the lawn mower at bay.

random thoughts – Day 2,306 (Wednesday) – shopping

The weather pendulum has swung back to the warmer side of things after a couple cooler days. Mom and I went to the air-conditioned comfort of the duchy of Kohls in the kingdom of retail. My list was short – look for outdoor décor and sneakers on clearance.

Bird for the yard.

The odds were in my favor, the yard décor curse has been broken,  and I found a figurine that I liked (a bird). It was less successful in the shoe department and the other departments I breezed through. Mom didn’t find anything she wanted to buy.

Our next stop before heading home was a consignment store we both like. There were two racks of clearance clothes in the sidewalk. The pants I liked didn’t fit right, but I found a raincoat for $2 and a blue full-length gown, brand new with tags, for $1. The gown has perfect seaming to easily be taken apart and turned into a dance skirt and a top. There was another clearance rack inside and I got several items to use for head wraps, plus a pair of like-new Skechers sneakers for $10 in the not clearance stuff. Once again, Mom found nothing to buy. Usually, the roles are reversed and I’m the one leaving empty-handed.

random thoughts – Day 2,305 (Tuesday) – dark dancing

Tuesday brought rain, chill, and dance day. The ride to dance faced a traffic jam within minutes of hitting Route 2. Luckily, the backup was near the exit I had planned to take and I was able to get out of the mess.

Dimly lit dance day.

At our practice hall, there was a sensor of some sort beeping. It was ongoing and regular, like a slow metronome. And there was no electricity. Despite the many windows on three sides of the hall, the cloudy dreary day meant a dimly lit space. 

Someone had our music on their fully charged phone and someone else had a really cool speaker in their dance bag, so we chose to proceed. There were jokes about dancing in the dark.

Most of us know the barre, center work, and choreography by heart or close enough to get through it, but today we learned something new. Specifically, balancing is a bit harder in the semi-dark. The little speaker, which was actually a shower speaker, had great volume and colored LED lights and now we all want one. There is one in my Amazon cart right now.

We think Mrs. Rice would have been proud of us for not wimping out due to a tiny obstacle like the absence of electricity and the presence of a shrill beep. If it hadn’t been raining, we might have even danced outside under the pavilion, just like a core cluster of the group did throughout the pandemic (even in the winter). We are hardy stock.

random thoughts – Day 2,304 (Monday) – reading, walking, and thinking

The weather was cooler today and it was a relief. There were cool breezes flowing into the house. The air and all the backyard trees reminded me of my family’s vacation camping trips in Maine when I was a kid.

Hitting the southern Maine coastal area and living in a cloth house was a change of pace from our life in a proper building. Not completely, though. We sometimes got a site with electricity and I think at least once we brought a portable TV and electric frying pan in addition to the usual outdoor living and cooking gear. I have a memory of sitting outside our tent with a campfire and watching a TV set on the picnic table. Or maybe I dreamt the part about the TV. I’ll need to check with Mom and Sis.

The house held to the pattern of the heat wave. Even with the windows open wide to benefit from the breezes, the house held steady at four to five degrees warmer inside than out.

It was a quiet day, which is the current norm. There was reading on the couch – Mockingjay (the final book of The Hunger Games) was started yesterday and will be done by bedtime tonight. There was cooking and eating. 

Another walk,
another bunny sighting.

During the evening walk, there was the spotting of a brown bunny in a yard and one of the neighborhood outdoor cats in the street. The turkeys are still pretty scarce. The several usual neighborhood cats have been scarce and Mom and I wondered last week if something had happened to them, but the white and tortoise one was out this evening. 

I’ve been noticing people’s plantings, yard décor, and exterior lighting in search of ideas for my own house. Someone one street over has a large planter that I like in the form of a fish on its back with its mouth open to the sky. It reminds me of a much smaller similar matched set I had that I left behind in Tennessee to save space during the move, thinking I could find them again. Not the case. There have been years of regret over my abandoned yard décor which included a bird, two fish, a Buddha head, and a heart. 

Some very poor choices have been made during moves, mostly because I stupidly thought I could replace items as easily as I found them in the big box stores the first time. I even asked AI why yard décor is so frigging ugly and stupid since 2016 or so and got a very long answer about mass production and the prevalence of cookie cutter houses and people wanting to show their personality through yard décor. Ok, cool. I get the philosophy of yard decor. But why are the only things available gnomes, frogs in yoga poses, toadstools, and metal solar light flowers that look like a bad drug trip (and cost a fortune)?