Fenek gets a few good licks in

 

Wordless Wednesday: Fenek wants his Temptations

 

My Day

Nocturia:  1, at about 3:00 a.m.  (Turned the wee hours into the wee-wee hours.)

Sensed light through closed eyes, thought it was BB coming back upstairs with the hall light on, but it was 6:45 and it was daylight.  That's a good night's sleep.

BB went downstairs, and I stayed in bed beneath the comforter and the top sheet (note to self:  didja notice they're both by L.L. Bean?).  She left the baby gate open at the top of the steps, and I heard her directing traffic between Nora going downstairs and Nelson preparing to come upstairs.  Soon, Nelson was in the bedroom, and he hopped onto the bed and came over to me for petting.  That's an everyday thing now.  He used to be more anxious and would whap his tail for minutes at a time, but at age 5, he's calmed down naturally and has grown to like attention from humans.

If I pet him too much or put my hand too close to his tummy, he hisses, whaps, and jumps down.  So I've learned to pet him for a few minutes, then stop so he can lie down next to me.  I touch his head and back lightly while he's there.  At a time of his choosing, he gets up and leaves the bedroom, stopping briefly to claw the carpeting and leave the scent from his paws for Nora.

By now, it's about 8:15, and only then do I get up and prepare for work.   

Power up the work laptop, boot the home PC, start up the soundbar and press start on all the monitors.

Both machines have SSD boot drives, so I don't have long to wait before they're ready.  

Start the email program on the work laptop.  Start Chrome on the PC and decide whether to listen to something on live terrestrial radio (bookmarks for public radio from the states of Vermont and Nebraska, from Philadelphia, Houston, Austin, Toledo, and San Francisco, and KING classical from Seattle) or choose audio from YouTube Premium Music.  

Listening to Kate NV's Room for the Moon a lot more than anything else.  It's musically interesting, lyrically unintelligible for the most part, and distant the rest of the time, just the way I like it.  And it isn't the same stuff I've listened to since high school!  Don't get me wrong, Steely Dan and the Fagen/Becker solo material is still at the top of my list.  But it's healthy to search out sounds created by musicians born after Gaucho was released in 1980.  Early St. Vincent, the middle two Vampire Weekend albums (plus Cape Cod Kwassa Kwaasa from the 1st one, and so far, nothing from Father of the Bride; I don't know why or what the difference is.), and now a Russian woman whose career is growing by word of mouth.  

I could link to the New Yorker article where the author describes being told about her, or to one of the online pieces where St. Vincent tells about Cate LeBon recommending her, and mentioning to one interviewer that the current song she can't get out of her head is Plans.  Then I saw that interview and the link.  (Binasu is pretty good, too.  Johnny T. says check it out.)

Enough about non-work activity for now.  I check my mail and begin to organize and plan.  

Downstairs around noon for a cup of tomato soup and chips.  (Trader Joe's Organic and Utz Kettle Chips made with peanut oil.  You're welcome.)

An afternoon of work.  No walking outside due to the rain.  A cookie around 3:00.  Log off, sign out, power down around 5:00.  

Beanee weenee with hot dogs for supper.  A couple more cookies mid-evening.  At 6:30, Good Queen Swirly got in my lap, and I nodded off.  I woke up before she left around 7:15.  

Listened to 1939 news broadcasts on YouTube while playing Fishdom to keep my eyes and hands occupied.  Heard faint hope that war would be avoided in the voices of commentators Murrow, Shirer, Elmer Davis, Kaltenborn.  Then the newscasts of September 1.  

And now it's 9:30, and I've described this day in detail.  It's the kind of thing I'd be interested in reading from someone else, once.  

Hey 2056, how ya doin'? How in the world did you find this?  I was born a hundred years ago, when Eisenhower was President, when the U.S. had 48 states, and the Dodgers were in Brooklyn. When commercial TV was only about a decade old and there were 3 networks and therefore 3 channels per market; when the Miss America pageant and the Oscars were important telecasts; when Time, Life, the Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest and TV Guide were popular magazines; when people got news from morning and afternoon newspapers. (In high school, I'd read the teacher's Toledo Times in the morning and the Toledo Blade when I got home.)   Among other things.

Oh, and when you had to go out of your way to find porn.  It was a different time.

Tabby's Twofur Tuesday: Timmy and Clarence

 

Timmy (FIV-positive)

Clarence (FIV-positive)

Learned Hopelessness

 https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1442172987772268545?s=20

Nobody asked me, but...   so many comments on that tweet, asserting that things are never going to get better, and when they do life will still suck because they've seen what people are really like.  

American history, less than a century ago, 25% unemployment while the powers that be assured everyone that prosperity was just around the corner, and the resulting disillusioned resignation from everyone except the fortunate few with a good job and money.  

Do humans have a short memory for this kind of thing?  A lack of interest in history and its lessons?  ("We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.")  First thing that comes to mind is the memory of reading what others wrote about people within the framework of Living Through the Depression; those who endured it and made it out the other end, the writer observes, those humble citizens remember the tough times and are accordingly extra careful with money, including saving and washing and re-using disposable items. Not so much the interpersonal aspect, though.  Well, maybe some "people helped each other out more back then."  But that angle might be more in view in writings from a country that lived under fascism and its people's loss of faith in human nature after learning what they're capable of.  

A long pause after finishing that last sentence.  Maybe that's all I have to say on the matter.  Yeah, re-read it and proofread it, and leave it at that.  

Monday Memory

 

Found while looking for something else:  I remembered that several years ago, a yellow volunteer wildflower appeared in the mulched area beneath the zelkova tree in our back yard.  Turns out it's Oenothera biennis (Evening Primrose to you and me), and the picture was taken September 27, 2013.  

I've seen some of them along the road, although none near our house, and the "biennis" in the name means that it only lives two years, unlike the hardier perennial wildflowers nearby like chicory, hawkweed, and aster.

Midnight Monday

 Pluto (FIV-positive)

Easy Like Sunday at Tabby's Place

 

Now I get it

 Tomorrow's to-do list:

PetSmart for cat food (1 chicken and rice, 1 lamb and rice)

Weed whack the green stuff growing up between the cracks on the brick walk in the back yard

If dessert cups arrive from Amazon (4  X 6 oz, paid for with free Amazon store credit), cook some vanilla pudding from scratch.

Replace furnace filter

Help BB solve the Spelling Bee; we used to settle for Genius level, but now we shoot for Queen Bee.  Genius without clues, QB with them.  If we don't get to the final goal, it's because a word or two on their list is among the few that isn't in either of our vocabularies.

Pretty darn mundane, right?  But these are the kinds of days I hoped would return when BB was undergoing chemo and recovering from a broken leg.  I shouldn't be thinking, "What am I going to do today to keep from feeling useless?"   

Ancora Imparo

 

If not for this, I would have guessed that "The Four Questions" was the name of a doo-wop group.

Source:  Tablet Magazine, "A Conversation with Donald Fagen"

Saturday Evening Post

 

A new road to township property under construction, right across from the entrance to our development.

It's late in the season, but fall Indian Blanket flowers look as good now as they did during summer.

On my way to an appointment today, I took a back road and saw plenty of chicory and hawkweed flowers in the bright morning sun.  

And now another Western conifer seed bug has appeared inside the house, this one in my bathroom.

 

Remembering an absent friend

 

Throwback Thursday: My ol' pal Charlie

 Charlie (2016)

Wee One Wednesday

 Unidentified, but irresistible.  Want to help the *Kitten Fund*?

F/ups

In this case, the F stands for "follow", and these are follow-ups to last Thursday's picture posts.

First, over the weekend I was lazing in bed and heard a quick BZZT next to me.  I looked down and saw a Western conifer seed bug that had made its way into the house.  My quick self-tutorial from Thursday allowed me to recall that the bug doesn't sting or bite, and that helped as I maneuvered it into a small enclosure and took it outside.  

Second, the weed wildflower that was growing from a crack in the concrete median around the corner from the house... has been uprooted and is no longer there.  (Kinda saw that one coming, so I'm glad I got the image last week.)  And those are the conditions that prevail.

Tabby's Twofur Tuesday: Humphrey

 

Humphrey

Moggie Monday at Tabby's Place: Hector

 Hector

Easy Like Sunday with my friend Fenek

 

Saturday Evening Hawkweed Post

 

Red clover

Taken while walking back home yesterday.  Here's more information about this wildflower.

Calling Google Images

Why, it's a Western conifer seed bug, of course!   Definitely not a marmorated stink bug (also pictured at the link).

H is for fake

This Twitter post has about a dozen comments, several along the lines of "I just bought this card on eBay" or "Hadn't seen this card before. Neat."

Fellas, if the card was an authentic 1963 rookie card, then why are Wynn and Staub wearing Astros headgear instead of the Colt .45's?

Tiny splashes of yellow

Where the Route 222 bypass meets Grange Road, there's a concrete median that was added to force drivers to turn right.  One hawkweed seed found its way into a crack that contained enough soil to sprout, and weeks later, here it is, adding color to a largely monochrome place.  (I wasn't waiting for grey and white cars to come by to emphasize the point, but there they are.)

 

Brightness

 

Indian Blanket and Guest

 

You Don't Learn Much...

The hospital already billed me for my outpatient procedure last month, so I was surprised to receive another bill for about $300 of charges not covered by my insurance.

This morning I talked with the hospital billing rep, and she told me that even though I'd paid in August based on a 15% discount from their estimate of my share after insurance, the actual amount was higher than the estimate.  

Chrome wouldn't let me log in to the insurance company's site, so I used Firefox instead.  On the site, I found another EOB (explanation of benefits) dated today, which backed up the billing rep's description.  

After the call, I did some amateur auditing, and learned that the estimate was based on a 70% discount off the original nominal mid-five-figures bill, while the actual bill had just a 65% discount. After the discount, insurance paid 80%, leaving a 20% co-pay for me.  Some calculator and spreadsheet work filled in the rest of the blanks, and I understood where the extra $300 was coming from.

So anyway, I learned something.

Kelly cat, early digital video

 

Kelly cat, June 11, 1999

Wasp on Wildflower

 

Asters, in and out of sunlight

 

Easy Like Aster Sunday

 

Just around the corner, along the road is a natural area where there are several patches of asters this time of year.

Quick Saturday Evening Post

I'll be back, probably.  Just not ready to turn this into all cats, all the time.  I could post pictures from the past along with the current ones, I suppose.  Spending so much time with one cat (which I want to do most of all) doesn't allow much time for photographing other cats.  Let's see how I feel on Monday.  

For the record:  on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, I'm continuing to do what I did the previous 19 years, 364 days, and that's avoiding those memories of horror.  I lived through it once, thanks.  

Well, now I know

In search of something to grab my interest, I should have been more specific.

Tomorrow, I'm going to have to go through all my medical bills and try to make sense of them... and make sure they're not overbilling me.  

Health is good, job is good, even though it generally doesn't hold eight hours of work for an eight-hour day.  At times, I've resorted to playing an online game that advertised on a Karina Longworth podcast.  Another advantage to working from home:  my work laptop is on the right side of the desk, and my home PC is on the left.  All I have to do is remember to click the laptop screen every so often to keep the personal monitor from changing from "Available" to "Away" or "Inactive."  

Guess what's back?

The latest wave of the coronavirus pandemic has erased the optimism of early summer.  I'm going back to wearing a mask in public places, reluctantly.  

I don't miss driving route 22 morning and night, but I do miss the walking track at the office.  The return of self-quarantine, the reduction of the outside world to a tiny image behind an impenetrable closed window.  

Tabby Tuesday at Tabby's Place: Nemo

 

Saturday Evening Post: pollinators on sedum

 

Trying to keep it interesting

I signed up at DuoLingo for an introductory class in Russian.  I did it for two weeks, enjoying the moment, taking the free lessons with the Candy Crush graphics, before losing interest.  I still get the reminders, I haven't shut that down yet, but no intention of going back.

I also signed up for a free class in intermediate French at Coursera.  I was fine until they required a written assignment that would be peer-evaluated.  In return, I would need to evaluate the written assignments of three other students.  I would hope that if I were taking one of their paid classes, there'd be an instructor to do the grading.  What do you expect for free?

"The 2nd Set"?

Well, yes.  The second set of books kept by a company are always secret and probably document illegal activity.  This 2nd set is intended to document legal activity, stuff that I want to remember, but also stuff that isn't intended for the public.  (I just figured out how to keep it from appearing on my Blogger profile.)

Tradeoffs

When I don't, I have more energy and overall want-to, but with more obstacles.

When I do, there's less energy and a head that isn't as clear as it could be.  But I feel better, and shouldn't that count for something?

Mysteries

Looking for passion, something to be on fire for, and now wondering if that's healthy.  As terrific as it felt to burn unexpectedly for the internet at age 40, and for the cat sanctuary at age 52, there was also a letdown when the passion passed.  

So maybe I shouldn't bother to look now?  I'm 65.  I know who I am and what I do.  I hold no surprises.