random thoughts – Day 2,339 (Monday) – circles

The cycle of laundry and household chores chugged along today. It is mystifying to me that, despite weekly vacuuming, I am still finding sewing pins in the rug. I’ve been plotting a couple projects in my head, but I haven’t pinned and sewn anything since before the show in June. Even so, two more straight pins were picked up today during the vacuuming. Another mystery is how there are what appears to be several bleach spots on my sheets, yet I don’t use bleach.

Genuine fake stone circle.

The circles and cycles of time and life took literal form after a trip to WalMart. I have been looking for garden bed edging and today, the website indicated there was some in the store near me so I took the one-mile journey to explore. I checked the outdoor outdoor section last week and found none. 

Today, armed with a product screen shot showing edging and the status “in stock” in case I needed help from a store employee, I started in the in-the-store outdoor section. After aisles of planters, hoses, and tools, I hit the jackpot. In an aisle shared with pool supplies, several styles of garden edging were found. Even better, several were marked down.

I bought two boxes of genuine fake plastic stone border section with stakes. Back at home, I set to work immediately and fashioned a circle of hollow plastic “stones” in a circle under the tree. Forming the circle was harder than I expected. The first effort was lopsided and looked more like an egg shape. It took a couple tries to even out the circle. I need to pull out some more grass.

While I was toiling, a couple neighbors paused to chat. It was fun, and also the most social activity my yard has seen since move-in day just over a year ago.

Imposter carrot cake.

After the yard labor, I set my sights on other circular items from WalMart. One was a tiny sweet potato pie in a brown box. The other was a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I love carrot cake. In recent years, I’ve been buying one during my birthday week. 

Tonight I learned that WalMart may choose to call it a carrot cake and bury it under icing with a frosting carrot on top, but the flavor is 100% spice cake and there is but a single carrot flake of texture in the thing. I will still eat the imposter carrot cake, and now I feel compelled to have a taste and texture comparison of the so-called carrot cakes from Hannaford, Price Chopper, and the not-so-nearby Market Basket, but that might just be the nerd in me looking for another way to make a chart.

random thoughts – Day 2,338 (Sunday) – roof and books

Finally, the roofer.

The contractor for my roof and siding project, in response to my messages about two known incidences of the bathroom ceiling leaking during/after rain storms in the past two weeks, had said he would be over last Monday. At 5:00 pm on Monday, the contractor texted that the roofer would be here on Tuesday, but "the time was still being worked out." I don’t know where he came from, but the roofer and his chariot finally rolled up this morning, four days later than expected. I'm glad I wasn't holding my breath. 

After he leaned a ladder against the house, I went outside to show him the end of the house experiencing the issue and took him inside to show him the exact location. I don’t think there would have been any communication with me otherwise.

I also showed him the front section where the water flows off the roof at an angle and runs down the bedroom window and literally into the bedroom when the window is open. He said some metal piece up on the face of the house is warped and recommended gutters. I guess I shouldn't have tossed out the mailer from a gutter company that came a couple weeks ago. Oops.

Roofer guy went onto the roof with a tube of something and I could hear him walking around. There was some banging. He cast a shadow over the kitchen skylight that I could see from the couch. Whatever went on up there didn’t take very long and then he was gone without a word. There has been no follow up from the contractor since the text last Monday.

My summer 2026 salvation.

I spent the day finishing reading a John Grisham novel (A Painted House) I got it a couple days ago from the Little Library Box. It is some quality storytelling and I really enjoyed it. I returned it to the book box today, along with The Great Gatsby, which I read last week. The book box is so full I had to take two more books out in order to fit my returns in. That book box is turning out to be my summer of 2026 best friend and has turned the past couple months into the best staycation ever. It's exactly the sort of summer activity I loved when I was a kid and have been wanting to relive for ages. So far, so good.

random thoughts – Day 2,337 (Saturday) – day watch

Prepping for action.

There are some days where the turkeys are the most exciting thing going in the neighborhood, but this morning offered up some larger action that was interesting. 

The snow-blowing guy across the street from Mom had a digger across the driveway and a dump truck rumbling in the front yard at 8:30 this morning. The noise was just loud enough to be too much to ignore during the coffee drinking hour so of course I watched out my living room window. Whatever was happening looked expensive with two drivers and two rigs.

I called Mom for an unrelated topic, and she said she had something for me so I went next door right away, coffee cup in hand. The view of the heavy equipment action was better and like the couple of covert snoops we are, we watched out Mom's laundry room window as the equipment was put to work. At first, it was hard to tell what was the object of the activity and I thought maybe the driveway would be attacked by the digger thing, but the digger moved to the other side of the truck. As huge blobs of dirt with roots sticking out in every direction were lowered from the digger to the dump truck we saw it was the removal of the root balls of the previously chopped shrubs/hedges/green things that once stood in front of the house.

I imagine that is what I would be facing should I decide to rid myself of the overgrown greenery in front of my own house. It looks expensive, but I don’t know the neighbor well enough to text and ask how much it cost. I might, however, inquire about the contractor so I arrange to get my own price. That seems less invasive/nosey, and is the real reason I want to know.

random thoughts – Day 2,336 (Friday) – talking turkey

Two turkeys and a bunny.

Weeks of evening walks have revealed the patterns of the neighborhood. Between six and seven in the evening, the four male turkeys congregate in the yards two streets over from mine. The last few times I’ve seen them has been in the same section of the street. They are usually in a cluster, pausing in a yard, before moving on to the next one, but tonight, there were only three of them clustered in a yard.

As the three began to spread out across the yard, I noticed a little brown bunny, frozen still under a bush in the same yard, as if in a game of hide and seek. I wondered what would happen if the turkeys spotted the bunny. 

One time last year, a cat was lounging under a bush in my back yard along with a group of turkeys and none seemed bothered by the presence of the others and I am curious if the bunnies and turkeys share the same camaraderie.

The turkey and the chrome.

I kept walking and finally spotted the fourth turkey in a driveway across the street from the rest, near the back of a silver-gray Tacoma. It seemed to be admiring itself in the shiny chrome. It took a step or two away, then returned to the chrome corner. As I got closer, it pecked its reflection in the chrome. There were a couple more sidesteps and pauses at the reflection and then it sauntered off, away from me and towards the direction of its friends.

Meanwhile, the other three turkeys had gathered on a hill across the street and seemed to be watching the whole show. It seems, even in the turkey social world, there is always that one weird friend.

random thoughts – Day 2,335 (Thursday) – bowl of cherries

A morning round of the plants was made. The newly set plants out front were looking good. Someday, after the siding is done, there will be plants on the side of the house to check. It was a delight to see the tiny little baby spaghetti squash still on the vine. The feeling was short lived. I touched it, and it immediately fell off, and just like that, I had become a baby squash murderer. Damn.

After the squash murder, the rest of the day was quiet. Nothing to report except the weather, which was warm and a touch humid. There was nothing on the calendar.

None of the items on the to-do list were even thought about. Mostly I sat around embracing the “life is a bowl of cherries” expression and eating cherries and reading. For days, I’ve been eating cherries by the bowlfull. They have been very delicious the past three or four weeks. As I dipped into my evening bowl of cherries, I noticed the crystal bowl had cracks. What, what? How did this happen? Not to worry, I have six or seven more of them, but I still wonder why and how. Maybe it’s punishment for the squash murder.

random thoughts – Day 2,334 (Wednesday) – holes

New baby spaghetti squash.

Another beautiful day meant another morning working in the yard. Out back, something is still chewing on the basil leaves and I suspect the earwigs. The spaghetti squash plant from my sister produced a couple tiny squashes, but something ate both of them. There is no suspect identified in this crime. There is a new tiny squash but if history holds, it won’t last long.

Out front, holes were prepared to receive plants. A few ferns that had sprung up against the back of the house were transplanted in the ring under the tree out front. Some purple clover things that had escaped Mom’s front flower bed and invaded the lawn were dug up and relocated under the tree. The plan is to keep expanding the circle around the tree with one or two more rings as plants come along.

The tree ring.

On the way back from grocery shopping, there was a stop at WalMart to see if the plants area had been reset. There were racks of fresh new flowers including mums in several sizes and I got a tray of ten cute little mums for $1.44 each. Back at home, the two new flower boxes each received dirt, three holes, and three little mums, and the area under the tree got the rest. Tomorrow I will harvest some of the plentiful dried needles from under the hedges and use them as mulch under the tree. 

Also on the list will be getting ground cover plants for the slope between my yard and Mom’s to reduce some of the mowing, and some dirt and gravel to fill in the area along the concrete slab in the back of the house that has been pummeled by the rain.

Filling holes with plants and dirt felt pretty good, but it didn’t do much to fill the brother shaped hole in my heart on  this, the fifth anniversary of his death. At least the yard will look nice.

random thoughts – Day 2,333 (Tuesday) – fresh new day

Curly bark tree.

The rain moved out and the fresh new day was clear and sunny. The dew on the lawn and the bushes  sparkled. Despite the morning light creeping in the bedroom, I slept late again this morning. It looks like 8:00 is my new 6:30.

The extra sleep had me feeling peppy, and at 10:45, instead of the more sedentary grocery shopping task, I was out front digging out more grass from around the tree with the curly in the front yard so I could set some plants Mom wants thinned from her front flower bed. Halfway through the grass removal, I remembered Mom usually goes out with her friend on Tuesdays. I finished the digging, but I’ll get the plants tomorrow.

Later, there was a search of the websites of nearby retailers for garden edging. Ollie’s in Fitchburg seemed to have it, so a stop was planned there after dance class. On the way to dance, I stopped at Dollar General. Which has yard stuff was on sale, but there was no edging found in the store, which is being taken over by Halloween décor.

Dance was a small group with four of us. It was fun. We changed the barre routine up a bit, then did the usual center work and ran through some of the repertoire. We use decades-old recordings of the original music that were done by our studio pianist. It was very cool back in the day, having our classes accompanied by a pianist. She could slow down the pace of the music until we knew the choreography well enough to be up to speed.

The first ballet studio I danced with used records for everything, including some of the basic technique. The voice on the record would announce things like “piqué turns, diagonally across the floor, continuously” and we would execute the moves across the black and white tiled floor while our teacher watched. When I was in high school and at what is still my favorite dance studio, the only activity we did to records was our initial warmup and stretching, which was led by a studio assistant to provide time for our teacher and pianist to have a quick break.

There was a wildflower tour outside of our dance space (which I forgot about). Unlike the last wildflower walk, which was rainy, the weather was perfect today, but I stuck to the original timeline with stops for gas and then Ollie’s. There were a lot of patio chairs, hoses, and planters, but I couldn’t find edging (despite circling the yard stuff for several laps) or even a store worker to help me. I got bargain grocery items including microwave rice, hot sauce, canned tuna, cinnamon, and cookies, plus pain patches, makeup wipes, and two window box planters. No target item, but still a productive stop.

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.

random thoughts – Day 2,325 (Monday) – new fixations

Meowdoku
fixation.

The latest game obsession (time suck) to hit my phone is Meowdoku. My cell and I have weathered dalliances with Pokemon Go, Woodoku, Words with Friends, and Arrow Puzzle, but right now I am sucked into the game with the little kitty faces that meow when you get something right and look very disappointed when you don’t. 

The problem, like with all free games, is the ads. Each game comes with an ad break, and if you make three errors and run out of fish, you can watch ads to stay in the game (instead of restarting). Some of the ads are 30-seconds, some are forever-long. When between games, it can be faster to close the game and reopen the app than to wait out the ads, but when seeking forgiveness for errors mid-game, one wrong tap in an ad screen restarts the game. Errr.

Out in the real world and away from Meowdoku, today’s yard fixation is planning plantings under the front yard tree. I read in the past that, despite its popularity in yards across the country, mounding dirt and/or mulch around the base of the tree trunk is a bad idea and can harm the roots. So it’s been lots of Internet reading about the best way and what to plant under a tree. One article said ferns do well under trees, so I can relocate some from the back yard. A sketch was made to calculate how many plants are needed. It reminds me a little of cramming for a test in school.

A trip was made to a couple stores that sell plants, but they only had full sun varieties. Quite a few people had plants on the free stuff Facebook group for my town in the past couple weeks, but that was before this morning when I made a plan. Hopefully, someone else will thin their Hosta plants this week and I can grab a couple.

Planning to plant around the tree.

Armed with info, a plan, and a few gardening tools, this evening the labor began. A circle was spray painted one foot away from the base of the tree with the interesting curly bark. Grass was raked and pulled out by hand between the line and the tree, with efforts made to keep the clover and other little flowery things. I still need a plan to handle grass regrowth close to the tree. According to several articles, fabric weed barrier, a thick layer of dirt, and/or mulch mounded up against the tree are not recommended.

A second circle was spray painted one foot from the first. This ring is where the plants will go once the grass is pulled out. Ideally, as in, if I can find any, edging will define the planting ring. The same stores that didn’t have shade plants today didn’t have flower bed edging. I don’t have a stash of interesting rock lying around and waiting to star in a flower bed. Yet. 

random thoughts – Day 2,324 (Sunday) – summer travel

It is horrifying to me that this is already the last Sunday in July. Where did the month go? Or the summer? Or the entire past seven months? A much as I love summer, I really seem to fall apart when it comes to planning activities for it. The doing of activities is fun, but planning and then paying for them is painful work. It’s just so easy to lounge around the house reading, cooking, and eating.

A couple weeks ago, I decided I wanted to go somewhere not my house and started to explore travel. I saw a listing of group tours that sound fun, but they are several months away and the markup for a single booking for most of them was an extra $500 punishment I don’t want to spend. Being a singleton has enough punishments already. And I really wanted something for now, not next April.

I looked online at packages for something sooner and spent several days looking at destinations and flight schedules and hotel packages until my head was spinning. And then I gave up. For now. We’ll see. So far, there have been several flights of fancy but no solid plans or air travel.

Mowing and meditating.

Tonight, after an exhausting day of watching British crime dramas from 25 years ago while also playing games on my phone, I mowed the yard and mentally zoned out for close to an hour. I admired the ferns and avoided some of the clover and little wildflowers, thinking of the pollinators.

I find mowing to be meditative, at least until the extension cord for the mower comes unplugged and I start swearing. When the task was done, I sat on the couch with a bottle of chilled water, my feet up on the hassock and two tennis balls in a bag between me and the back of the couch. It reflected on my daylong budget version of a restorative retreat that I didn’t have to drive to or pay money for. Maybe tomorrow I’ll imagine myself in San Juan or Saint Thomas.

random thoughts – Day 2,323 (Saturday) – summer squashes

It’s that magical week where everyone’s zucchini and summer squash are suddenly ready and I have been the lucky recipient of some gorgeous produce from the gardens of two friends. The weather has been beautiful and civilized and respectful and I have been enjoyed being in the kitchen without danger of suffering heat stroke.

The first thing made with the first wave of squash was a summer squash, zucchini, and cheese casserole that came out even better than I thought it would and has provided a couple hearty meals. Tonight, it was combined with ditalini pasta to mix up the textures a bit.

Fun with zucchini.

While at my sister’s on Thursday, we were talking about chocolate zucchini bread, and yesterday I was gifted a comically large zucchini. This morning, I woke up with chocolate zucchini bread on the brain. At least an hour was spent going through various cookbooks, the recipe card file, and websites in search of a recipe.

There are shockingly few recipes for anything zucchini related in my collection of church compilations and vegetarian cookbooks but there are many online. After reviewing online recipes and ingredients lists for what felt like forever, it was obvious a trip to the grocery store was needed to make chocolate zucchini bread because I ate all the semi-sweet baking chips from the baking supplies months ago. While preparing for departure, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to make the chocolate zucchini bread today and I could make the regular flavor version for which I had everything needed.

The recipe in my file that I would have sworn on my life was for Mummu’s regular zucchini bread turned out to be for zucchini boats which are not the same thing at all. Thank goodness for the Internet.

Mini breads from a
giant zucchini.

I got busy making a huge mess in the kitchen and baked four mini-loafs from the one giant zucchini which yielded 3.5 cups of shreds. I ate most of one loaf while it was still warm. A few slabs were with butter, and then a few more with cream cheese and it was all good. One loaf was delivered next door to Mom’s house. The other two are in the freezer.

There are still three more zucchinis ready for action. These will be plenty for the next batch of mini breads as soon as I get chocolate baking chips. I now have assembled a decent collection of zucchini recipes including grilled cheese made with fried zucchini patties instead of bread and a zucchini and cheddar frittata. It will be a great zucchini season.

random thoughts – Day 2,322 (Friday) – adventure day 2

It felt like an ordinary morning when I woke up at close to the usual time. While the coffee brewed, there was a noise outside that turned out to be a truck from the dumpster company. The driver seemed to be gesturing animatedly and talking on his phone. He didn’t exactly seem happy, but there a lot of flavors of happy.

I texted my contractor to ask if the dumpster for my still unfinished project was scheduled to be picked up. He said, “no.” That was it. I texted back that a truck was here and it was being hooked up. And contractor responded with “No one called me.” Um, ok. Cool.

Dumpster go bye-bye.

As the dumpster was driven up the street I responded, “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s gone now.” The response was, and I quote, “.late night” (with a laughing crying face) followed by “Maybe the miss you sent to me by mistake lol.” I sent three question marks and never heard anything else.

My current best guess is that the dumpster company figured three months at my house was long enough for a roof and siding job and maybe it was time to rescue the dumpster hostage. Or something. I dunno. I’m neither a contractor nor a dumpster company operator. What I do know is the dumpster was tipped to go onto the truck and the entire summer's worth of rain drained onto the large rectangle of very dead grass where the receptacle sat since the end of April. There is still no timeline for the siding portion of the project.

At least the surprises improved throughout the day. A friend I don’t see enough reached out and we texted for a bit and set some tentative plans before she headed out for the day. A few hours later, another friend I see even less than the first one texted with an invitation to meet up for a pizza supper with her and her sister. Yes, please, count me in!

Delicious pizza at Thirsty Robot.

The three of us met at Thirsty Robot Brewing Company shortly before the musicians began playing. Johnny and Noel Nickerson delivered a nonstop stream of music with something for everyone. The Beatles. Jefferson Airplane. Talking Heads. Paul Simon. Amy Winehouse. The Cranberries. And more. They effortlessly crossed genres with barely time to breathe between songs and it was good. 

Thirsty Robot is decorated with a huge mural and smaller paintings of robots. Labels from their various brews adorn the doors to the rest rooms. The pizza was delicious with bubbles in the hand stretched crust. My friends said the pulled pork is amazing, as well as the quesadilla and I can’t wait to go back.

random thoughts – Day 2,321 (Thursday) – adventure day

Today's shopping scores.

It was another Mom and Sis adventure day. Today we visited a couple antique and resale co-op malls. In the first place we visited, which carries reproduction furniture,  carousel horses, military collectibles, costume and collectible jewelry, and everything in between, Mom found a birthday angel figurine (March) that has been on her quest list for years. I got a metal flower décor thing. Sis didn’t find anything. 

The metal thing is too tall to fit over the doorway where I thought it would, so the fantasy of immediately hanging it up did not materialize and it’s on the table for now. It fits in enough other places in the house that now I need to decide where I like it best.

At the second shop, Mom found a small table and chair set.  I found a silver-tone belly dance coin belt, not that I really need one, but there is also no such thing as too many. Sis didn’t find anything. I guess it wasn’t her day for finding treasures. 

Fresh veggie supper.

Sis had a load of yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and banana peppers from a friend’s garden that she shared with Mom and me. We went through Sis’s recipe box while at her house and found one for baked squash with cheese. 

Tonight’s supper featured squash baked with several types of cheese, and in a deviation from the original recipe, also zucchini, diced tomatoes, and corn cut from yesterday’s farm stand corn. I can’t wait to eat more of it tomorrow. I still have a couple more zucchinis so there may be bread in the immediate future.

random thoughts – Day 2,320 (Wednesday) – fabric and corn

Fabric and patterns haul.

Months ago, Mom mentioned she had a lot of fabric that she wanted me to go through to see if I wanted any of it.  This morning, we went through two baskets and a plastic tub of fabric. Mom kept the sports team fabrics and a fleece hat pattern for possible projects and I ended up leaving with most of the fabric and a box of 50 patterns, many from the 80s and 90s, plus sheets with instructions for various construction techniques. Mom is glad to have cleared out some stuff. 

The treasure trove includes some garments in various states of completion. A cute cotton summer top is 99% done, needing just one already hemmed sleeve set in. A tan linen jacket is half sewn. A gray lined vest just needs buttons and button holes and its coordinating jacket is cut out and partially sewn. Mom said she never mastered buttonholes and a friend used to do them for her. There were several projects started when my nieces were younglings and it’s unlikely their now grown selves will fit into the various summer shorts and tops laid out and still uncut from as long as 27 years ago. One pair of shorts is in SpongeBob fabric. 

As a sewist with a variable attention span, I understand how things get started and not finished. When I left Tennessee, I donated bags of fabric yardage with coordinating zippers, buttons, and thread, bought with great optimism and energy that disappeared, sometimes before I made it home from the fabric store. I have my own projects from as far back as the 1990s where the patterns were laid cut out, set aside “for now,” and never revisited due to lack of time, evaporation of interest, change of mood, or whatever.

Mom’s unfinished projects are fascinating. I almost began working on some right away, but then Mom invited me to accompany her to a farm stand and my energy was redirected to the thought of buying corn. The farmstand was small and busy. There was a great variety of amazing looking vegetables and fruit. I bought four ears of corn and a zucchini. Mom bought a lot of stuff.

Fresh corn.

I neglected to note the name of the farm when we arrived and forgot to pay attention along the way because we were talking, so I may never be able to get there alone. Mom is a navigation expert and I would never be able to follow the twists and turns of all the backroads we took even if she told me. Next time, I’ll pay better attention.

The corn was delicious. I shucked and cooked all four ears and ate two with supper. Then I polished off a bunch of cherries. Then I took the evening walk for the mail and had a stomach ache most of the way. There is probably a lesson in there. Let’s see if I remember it.

random thoughts – Day 2,319 (Tuesday) – weather talk

The clouds settled in and delivered much needed rain throughout the day. It hit all the shower settings from light drizzle to torrential downpour. The weather wizards and widgets noted the humidity at 96 percent at 9:00 p.m.

Moody, foggy night like a wet blanket.

The numerical designation of the humidity perfectly explained the scene outside. Heavy fog glowed yellow under the streetlight at the top of the street. It looked like the setting of a moody period piece or crime drama.

The thick, saturated air felt like a face full of Dad’s olive drab green wool Army blanket that my family used as a beach blanket every summer. It was scratchy, and when it got wet (as beach blankets do when people repeatedly leave the water and retreat to the fabric designation of the family’s beach real estate) it seemed like it took forever to dry. 

I can’t believe we laid on the beach on that wool blanket every summer (or that it was on my bed many winters). I can’t believe nature’s version of it is outside my door.

It looks like there will be more rain overnight, with possible thunderstorms, and more rain tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully this will help the very low water levels in pretty much every local body of liquid.

random thoughts – Day 2,318 (Monday) – tasks and taps

Tasks were accomplished. There was a three-ring circus of website portals and online billing documents that made me miss paper bills delivered via snail mail. One portal told me that due to privacy, info on my previous payment could not be provided. To me. The person who logged into my own patient portal using their multifactor authentication system to check the details on my own previous payment to try to figure out the new claim for payment on their stupid system. Fun time.

One document featured to phone number to call with questions, but the number led to the automated number pressing hell of a menu that just kept looping back on itself. A second number finally reached a helpful human in billing who discovered that the payment I made in March was incorrectly applied.

Another portal for another medical provider in another town was a nightmare to access on my phone but I finally succeeded on my laptop and the payment was made.

New Internet in town!

After the nightmarish fun of the medical payment portals, I called to sign up for a new internet provider. Comcast/Xfinity is too expensive, but there is a new company in town (Gateway Fiber). The recent oversized postcard mailers (official marketing lingo) with the exciting news made it sound like signing up was as simple as scanning the QR code, but that just led to pricing info. A phone call was required to sign up for the service.

The Internet provider call center person seemed to be a remote worker operating out of a day care center  based on background noise and up-close sounds of a toddler practicing newly learned speech. As if that wasn’t enough fun, the call kept cutting out so it was a fragmented and slightly frustrating conversation. I think the outcome is that the service will be available in my area beginning August 6, and I will receive an email to schedule installation. I think. It was hard to be sure with the call cutting out and the toddler shrieking.

The tap water still appears clear as expected, but it suddenly tastes like a murky pond, which hindered my hydration efforts. People on social media have been complaining about both the new pond flavor and fragrance and the absence of info from city hall. A trip was made to the grocery store for water-flavored bottled water because I don’t especially like the new city-provided dirt flavor.

Newly trimmed trees.

The weather was exceedingly pleasant and the next chapter of create your own adventure day was using the loppers to trim tree branches in the back yard. It is possible I am the only person who will notice the trimming, but that is okay, I am also the only one looking at it daily. It was done for my own enjoyment of the back yard.

The tall barrel and the giant planter were filled with cut branches that had been reaching out over the lawn. The trimmings were delivered to the yard waste drop-off area where the earthy aroma of the mountain of decomposing yard waste was similar to the fragrance of the day’s offerings from the home faucets.

The evening walk included a hummingbird sighting. It was hovering its way through a patch of flowers in a front yard two streets over. My phone was in my back pocket instead of my hand. But the time I dug it out and got the camera on, the hummingbird had flitted over to a nearby bush, so there was no opportunity to try for a photo.

I don’t know if all the day’s motivation came from some special planetary alignment, the amazing weather conditions, or the new dirt flavored water from my kitchen tap that my morning coffee was brewed with before I knew about the issue, but whatever it was, the end results were great.

random thoughts – Day 2,317 (Sunday) – family life and suburbia

Jello poke cake for the birthday girl.

The July family birthday celebration episode took place today. The honoree was my youngest niece, who turns 22 on Tuesday and I still can’t understand how that is happening because I swear it was just a couple weeks ago that she was five.

My sister did some of her fabulous cooking and we feasted on pulled pork subs and turkey grinders with sides of coleslaw, half-sour pickles, and chips. This was followed by a strawberry Jello poke cake that was requested by the birthday gal. So delicious!

Later, back at home, I was able to catch the end of the World Cup final game (Spain for the win!). I loved watching the footage of the Spanish team on the presentation stage in the stadium stage and the live shots of the thousands of fans in Madrid, both groups jumping up and down like the world was a giant dance pit. It looked like fun. If only we could all be World Cup win happy more often.

To offset the big lunch and the cake and the brownies still to be eaten later, I took a longer walk around the neighborhood. Instead of a loop that hit only two of the three streets, I walked along all three streets to maximize the distance and hit all the hills.

Streetside wildflowers.

It was quiet, breezy, cool, and a perfect evening for walking. The lowering sun shone through the streetside wildflowers and across the manicured lawns. Some birds were squawking high in the trees, but none of the other local wildlife made itself known. 

A few human neighbors enjoyed the evening from chairs in the shed attached to the rear of their carport in what looked like the ideal summer hangout spot. A lady in a purple flowing dress watered the many flowers in her front yard garden. It was as if the neighborhood was the scene of suburban calm, carefully crafted for a movie.

random thoughts – Day 2,316 (Saturday) – food and home

Cool breezes blew through the house all day.  A couple times the breezes carried rain through the screens and onto the windowsills which are all nice and clean now they have been wiped dry and the windows closed. My feet got cold early in the afternoon and socks were added, and my shorts were traded out for sweatpants. A crime series set in New York streamed on TV.

There was a repeat of the terrific earlier in the week breakfast of fried egg, cheese, and homemade strawberry jam on an English muffin. Just like a few days ago, I was full from well into the afternoon. 

Supper.

Once settled in the not-going-out-anywhere because it was raining attire, it became all about eating and nesting. A photo was chosen and hung in the living room. Brownies were baked and enhanced with not enough chopped walnuts and a few too many butterscotch chips. They are just enough too sweet that I will likely pace myself in the consumption. 

For supper, there was a repeat of Friday's meal. For the next couple days it will be all about rice with beans, corn, salsa, various cheeses, and protein crumbles. Today's version included with a sliced avocado with everything seasoning.

Kiki spent her day lounging on the living room rug and posing on a windowsill during her Neighborhood Watch shift. Large chunks of the day were spent on the bed. Every once in a while, I would pass through the bedroom and pause and pet her sweet little face, scratch her head, tell her how great she is, and feed her a few treats.

Kiki on watch.

It was a good day to hang around the house, but time was spent expanding the list of fun summer activities for future days out of the house. Sis, Mom, and I started it to avoid the time suck of trying to figure out what to do. We’ve spent entire afternoons trying to figure out what to do and ended up doing nothing especially interesting or noteworthy, so we’re trying to fix that. Options currently include visits to various ice cream stands, Bridge of Flowers, the summit of Mount Wachusett, the alpaca farm, Red Apple Barn, and a few other places.

random thoughts – Day 2,315 (Friday) – pizza and nerdiness

Pizza!

It was a pizza party at Mom’s today when Sis blew in with the pizza to which we measure all others against. That would be Espresso Pizza in Fitchburg. When I was in high school, Espresso was a regular after school stop for a slice and a soda. The crust was thin, floppy, and foldable, and famous for having bubbles at the edges. The sauce was sweet, and the legend was that orange soda was an ingredient. 

When I lived in Lowell, I was thrilled to learn the Espresso Pizza location there produced the same tasty pizza I grew up with. Today’s pizza tasted just like it should. Sweet. Cheesy. Bubbles in the crust. Delicious.

After lunch, we played Yahtzee. The dice kept delivering nearly complete small and large straights on a high number of first rolls for all of us. So weird. The last time we played, my niece was with us and she kept rolling a full house. Also weird.

My nerd brain now wants to record all the Yahtzee rolls and track any patterns in our games going forward. I could fashion it after the charting I did of M&M vending machine bags during my corporate finance days. I tracked the number of candies in a bag and counts for each color. Then I would eat the M&Ms from the lowest count by color to the highest count. Good times. I doubt my family would tolerate the game delays required for my scientific recordkeeping.

random thoughts – Day 2,314 (Thursday) – breakfast and greenery

Most delicious breakfast.

It’s another week chugging along at breakneck speed. Thursday already? It's halfway through July and there is still not a summer fun plan on the calendar? How?!? I may stink at planning getaways. but at least I have conquered breakfasts. Today's was a fried egg and slice of onion with provolone cheese on an English muffin with a generous schmear of homemade strawberry jam gifted by a friend. So delicious. It carried me through the day until an unforgettable supper. 

It was another day with the smell of smoke in the air, but fainter than the past couple days. There was less smoke and haze in the air and the blue sky was visible.

My six-month dental cleaning, scheduled six months ago, was this afternoon. The travel in and back was smooth, and it was a mostly uneventful hour in the chair. I am now free for the next six months or until I break another tooth, whichever comes first. Fingers crossed for no more broken teeth. Like, ever.

Tight quarters.

As I was contemplating my evening walk, the wind picked up and I thought for sure there would be rain. As a result of my opinion, I stayed on the couch playing Words with Friends. I was wrong and it didn’t rain. 

To make up for the missed walk, I headed to the yard for “arm day” with the loppers and hedge trimmers. The greenery out front still encroaches on the walk on the frontside and is too close to the house on the backside, just a bit less than before. The goal is to create enough space behind the greenery for the contractor to be able to install the siding on the front of the house without needing a machete to smash through the hedge. It’s been baby steps, but I’ll get there.

random thoughts – Day 2,313 (Wednesday) – wildlife

Mama and fluff balls.

This week the wildlife has been promenading in the ‘hood. On Monday, I saw a mother turkey and counted seven tiny little fluff balls scattered around her. They were traveling at a brisk pace through my front yard and on to the next yard, the fluffy little ones doing a great job keeping up. A half-hour later, while on a walk, there were four toms congregated in a yard one street over from mine. 

Throughout the week, several times I’ve seen a lone bunny grazing in various yards. Most times the bunny would freeze, but once it ran away.

Bunny in a yard.

Twice now, I've spotted the neighborhood cat with the white legs and belly and two-tone black back and tail after months of absence. This was the cat that lounged with several turkeys under a bush in my back yard last fall. The black cat has been racing through yards, but there are a couple of other cats not seen since last fall.

Each day in the late afternoon, several crows gather in my yard and on roof of my house and carport. Between three and seven engage of them in takeoff and landing, squawking, and walking around. Two of them get right up close and squawk in each others faces and remind me of a bickering human couple.

Today’s evening walk also featured the red sun in the hazy sky. Weather services say it is due to smoke blowing in from wildfires in Canada and Minnesota. There have been some spectacular photos of the oddly colored light and sky, just none done by me. My usually reliable camera kept autocorrecting the color of the sun from reddish-orange to white hot, and I couldn’t capture in pixels what I saw with my own eyes. It was most frustrating.

random thoughts – Day 2,312 (Tuesday) – cookbook, weather, and cherries

Cookbook arrived!

The threat of heat rolling in again and another heat advisory meant I took my walk to the mailbox in the morning instead of waiting until after dance class. Plus, I had a notice from the Post Office that my high calcium cookbook delivered and I was excited to have it. 

I now have 250 pages of high calcium recipes for dips and appetizers, entrees, desserts, and sauces and dressings. I flipped through it immediately and noticed that the key ingredients in many recipes are cottage cheese and nonfat dry milk. It turns out my instinct to add those two ingredients while cooking was correct. Now, I have lots of official recipes to help with the calcium consumption challenge.

There was a breeze this morning and most of the afternoon, and it was comfortable. At dance, the air conditioning was refreshing when we arrived, but we were all bathed in sweat after an hour with the second hour still to go. I used my just-bought knee pads today and they helped greatly. A lot of our dances include kneeling and one is done totally on the floor, which was not an issue when my knees were 17 years old, but it’s a different and painful situation now. Thank goodness for cushiony knee pads.

When I stopped for gas after dance, I noticed the sun was especially orange in the gray, overcast sky. Later, I learned the smoke from wildfires in Canada has reached us and tomorrow is supposed to be pretty bad again with the newest round of heat and humidity plus the smoke. It sounds like it might be a good day to stay inside, not that I usually need any encouragement.

Chilled cherries!

I bought two pounds of cherries on Monday. After I washed them, I set them in the fridge and they are perfectly chilled. I have been grabbing them by the handful and devouring them and will likely need more by Wednesday. 

Then, after a full week of cherry consumption, I should be all set with cherries for a bit. That is what seems to have happened with the green grapes I couldn't get enough of for a couple weeks and am suddenly no longer interested in. Most of last week’s grape acquisition was chucked into this week’s trash. It’s how my erratic and fickle tastebuds roll.