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.  

random thoughts – Day 2,311 (Monday) –k-drama

The lead characters looking sharp.

I recently succumbed to the Netflix suggestions, and after a long stretch of not watching Korean dramas, I started watching Vincenzo. The premise: Korean guy sent as a young child to be raised in Italy rises to rank of Mafia consigliere. Now he’s back in Korea with a mission.

As usual, the cast includes the supremely attractive male and female leads, the ever-so-slightly less attractive male and female second leads, and the usual slew of character actors providing comic relief with their quirky personalities.

Crazy suit with a cutaway back.

The wardrobe in this show features impeccably tailored suits for the leads, along with some interesting designer pieces. The female lead is a lawyer and is usually dressed in beautifully fitted suits with five buttons on the sleeves. Five! Even in my corporate finance days of splurging on suits worn almost daily, the most I ever had was three buttons on the sleeves. 

One very weird suit jacket on the female lead had a full front with lapels and pockets, and a cutout back. So weird. Another dress on a female character looked like a sculpture in gray wool with an exaggerated shoulder line and rounded sleeves. Mostly, the clothes were normal. 

The businessmen are sporting crisp shirts, silky ties, and beautiful jackets. Vests and collar bars seem to have made a comeback. The watches look fancy and pricey. I have always had and continue to have a weakness for a man in nicely tailored suit, and this show is filled with my favorite fantasy attire. Sigh. Side note: X1, for all his shortcomings, liked to dress up and looked like a million bucks in a suit, and often better than my finance colleagues. My schlubby manager often commented (more like whined) that my home-builder husband had better suits than he did. 

Anticipating "the flick."

In this K-drama, there are running gags involving the consumption of roasted sweet potatoes. And there is “the flick” square to the forehead. Lose a bet? You have to close your eyes and get the forehead flick from the winner of the bet. The male and female leads shared moments of exaggerated romantic tension involving anticipation of the flick.

I forgot how much I liked K-dramas – in the original Korean with English subtitles. This show has pulled me back into the genre. The wardrobes, the furniture and decorating features like screens and room separators, and the food. Seeing the food makes me want to visit a Korean restaurant, but I usually end up just making ramen at home.

As a bonus, reading subtitles gets me to set the phone aside for a while, which is a good thing.

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.