Progress

All righty then... (1) used HandBrake to convert four VOB files to MP4.  The default preset (Fast 1080p30) produced four MP4 files that (2) imported properly to OpenShot (screenshot above), playing both the video and the audio without errors.

Next, take a box of tapes to the local camera shop, not Amazon, Costco, or anyplace with a national website.  Let them do what they do, and by the time I get them back, I ought to be able to achieve something with OpenShot.  If/when I need video instruction or advice, I know a pro to go to.

Translation, please?

Awhile back, I had a local camera shop make a DVD of a 25-year-old 8mm home video.  I fiddled with it, tried to edit it, failed.  Speccy said that the CPU (Intel Core i7 10700 @ 2.90 GHz) had zoomed up to 98 degrees Celsius.  I put the DVD aside for 3 years. 

Now, as a recent retiree with more time to educate myself, it's time to try again.  After a couple of hours of trying, I still don't feel like I have a handle on it yet, although I have learned a couple of things that don't work.  

Find VOB files on the DVD: check

Import a VOB file into OpenShot:  check

Preview VOB file in OpenShot:  appears on timeline, but with blank screen and no audio

Try again.  Google some more.

Convert VOB file to MP4 with VLC media player:  Good picture, audio sounds like a chainsaw cutting down a tree

Try again.  Google some more.  Someone on Reddit advised to "Remux VOB to MP4 with Handbrake", which is another language altogether.  

Next - read and learn about using HandBrake, and remux it, don't convert it.  I think that's what next, anyway.  But not tonight, though.

Anyway, I learned something.  

---------------------------

At the end of the day

Another day with my best friend of 40 years.  

Watched half of the 1958 Playhouse 90 color videotape (with B&W film inserts and commercials) of The Nutcracker.  Saw a Kimberly-Clark commercial with Richard (Dick) Cutting as "Manners", the butler.  Had to shut it off to go for dinner.  

Sometime in the DVD days, I bought a box set of Ed Sullivan shows with the Beatles.  In February 2014, at 8:00 p.m. on the exact day plus 50 years, I watched the first of the shows, and predictably thought, "Fifty..."  Now I'm watching television shows that aren't kinescopes, and that first went on the air 66 years ago.  

Petted a soft young cat.  Went outside for fresh cold air and spotted a rabbit dashing for cover in underbrush.

Back home after sunset:  put away the leftovers -- now what?  Practice?  I get to practice, and that's good, but remembered something I like more.  Looked in the January 2025 folder and went over all the kitten photos; selected 4 for the body of the supporter letter and one more for the elongated header picture.  Practice is interesting, but the kitten supporter letter means something in the real world.  

Researched converting 8MM videotape to digital, and realized that not only would it be easier to spend the cash and have someone else do it, but also that it might be the only practical way anymore.  Sure, I have a camcorder, one that I bought in 1995 and haven't used for a long time.  If it still works, then what do I use to connect it to the PC?  Sure, I have a Dazzle converter, which I acquired in 2010 and whose label proclaims compatibility with Windows Vista.  Sounds like less than a sure thing.

I didn't have the PC hardware back in 2010, and in 2025 I don't have the video hardware.  Anyway, the video transfer that cost $32 a few years ago has dropped to $20 per tape.  Even with 23 2-hour tapes, it's still not a super expensive decision.   

Tomorrow looks like this:  (1) clean the humidifier and refill it with distilled water, (2) spot-treat cat urine stains on the upstairs carpet and the steps, while starting to research the cost of ripping up the carpet and replacing it with the vinyl floor tile left over from the downstairs project this past year.  (3) with a flashlight, take a closer look at the ceiling of the shed out back to confirm whether there's as much water damage as there appeared to be in dim light a few days ago.

Along with that research, there are a couple of months to go before the power company contract runs out, and so am doing some research into home electricity rates.  

Like I said, the mundane events of everyday life.  

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few days ago, I was looking for this clipping from a 1914 Life magazine.  Took me a while, but I found it.  The military-industrial complex was around back then, too.

My Day

We worked on Spelling Bee and finished it just after 9:00 a.m.  I learned what "teff" is.  

PG asked me about a couple of baseball terms in the mystery story she's reading.  The book is more than 50 years old, so a younger person might not have heard a pitcher/catcher combination referred to as a battery.

Mastercard bill notification.  I confirmed the two charges are legit (sheet set for us and winter socks for me) and that we're on autopay.

Did some virtual traveling to a couple of neighborhoods where I used to live.  I remember a large building where my mother used to work that's gone now, according to Google Maps.  The Gulf station on the corner near the high school is gone, too.  

Alternated between reading (X, Bluesky, Feedly, The New Yorker) and working in the kitchen (baking, cleaning up).

On my way past an episode of Wagon Train, the TiVo cast list included Dick Cutting.  If you want to google Dick Cutting, be prepared for results that don't pertain to an actor.  

Played some iPad games together on the bed upstairs.  Never anything competitive, always games where we work as a team to solve the puzzles.  

She turned over and went to sleep, and I came in here to scroll through browser history for this post.  

Checked status of an order.  Not shipped yet.  No rush.

Bluesky post from Sky News reports that nearly 600K persons in GB will be all alone on Christmas Day.  I should call my late sister's ex-husband tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

 

It's like, "What do you get for the man who already has the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government?"

What's Up?

9:52 PM, 12/23/2024

Audio:  Walter Winchell's Jergens Journal on the Blue Network, 9/12/1943 (at 85% speed to catch the details)

Screen:  Screen shot of DrummerWorld, dated 2006, stating that the grip endorsed by Spivack is a 3-point, with the middle finger controlling the up-down motion while the index finger and thumb control left-right motion.  https://www.drummerworld.com/forums/index.php?threads/murray-spivack-technique.19347/

Audio:  Via RadioGarden, Radio Tsunami - Classica

Video:  Green Bay-New Orleans, Monday Night Football

Percentage of attention:  Winchell 82%, Screen shot 15%, RadioGarden 2%.  

IMHO

Wayne Robins on "Yacht Rock", followed by my take. 

40 years later

December 19, 1984.  Everything changed.  Everything got better.  

In a beautiful house
With a beautiful wife

How did I get here?

It doesn't usually work out like this, I know that much.  Thankful, grateful, blessed.

Way back, waaay back...

Not absolutely sure of the above assertion, but the two things I remembered about the first MLB game I attended were that Norm Cash homered and a 36-year-old rookie named Hank Izquierdo was catching for the visiting Twins.  It was his only season with them, and with the help of Baseball Reference, I found that he played only 3 games in Tiger Stadium, with two of them the nightcaps of doubleheaders.  The single game was on Thursday, August 24, and Norm Cash did homer that day.  

Yeah, I did the math, I know how long ago that was...  I can also sing commercial jingles from that era as though I saw them yesterday.  (Since I've watched a number of them on YouTube, it's entirely possible that I did.)  And I've used Izquierdo sometime during the past year in Immaculate Grid.

A good day

Backing out of the garage this afternoon, I saw this squirrel atop the remaining stump of an ex-maple tree next door. Picture could have been sharper, but that's the limitation of a phone camera. Just glad I got something.

A good day with the musical hobby, listening to more valuable information, and having a decent workout.  Still a lot to learn about consistency, but understanding better what the basics are and what the unessential tricks are for a beginner.  When I polish the money beat, the train beat, the four on the floor, a soul groove, and a half-time shuffle, I can feel like I've accomplished something.  Anything beyond that will require more motivation than I can feel at this point.

A good day with PG, first having our 40th anniversary dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse, then down the road to At Home, where once again she found something she wanted.  In this case, a wreath for the front door.  Requirement:  the space between the front door and the storm door isn't very wide, so the wreath would have to be compressible, not hard and fixed.  I spotted a green wreath with small maroon ornaments and mock poinsettia, and she agreed it should work.

We splurged on the steak dinner, plus I'd signed up for a shoppers-club kind of thing that earned us a free appetizer (popcorn shrimp for PG).  I also let it slip to the server that it was our anniversary, and it wasn't really surprising after our meal that she brought a small dish of ice cream with a lighted candle on the house, for which she was rewarded.

As a Modern Man, I took the check and attempted to pay it via the website linked by a printed code.  All went well until I entered the credit card information.  It kept telling me the card owner name was invalid.  I retyped it:  invalid.  I cleared the screen and started over again:  invalid.  Enter a valid name, it demanded in red.

I cleared the card owner name space and in frustration typed in "I Did!"  And *that's* when everything was accepted and payment went through.  Shrug.

Just asking questions!

Ordinarily, PG goes to bed about 9:00, while I stay up a few more hours.  I usually have a sketchy to-do list, with the understanding that I am allowed to veer off it in the event that something more interesting comes to mind.

For a few weeks after the election, I was taking meds to reduce stress and its effects, and while my appetite for stress eating was agreeably reduced, there was an additional effect that wasn't as welcome.  Inertia and mild lethargy kept me from doing more than the absolutely necessary.  I would find things online that I bookmarked and never could inspire myself to revisit, and that rankled.  Are you alive or aren't you?  

So now I'm unmedicated once more -- yes, a senior citizen who is taking no prescription medicine, no non-prescription medicine, and no supplements.  I recognize that this is uncommon in someone of my advanced years, and I am thankful.

Food intake is under control, consisting most days of cereal and juice for the morning meal, followed between noon and 5:00 by a normal meal.  Today's was homemade chili and mini pretzels with dabs of peanut butter.  Hardly ever a dessert.  No soda, not even any lemonade.  Weight has gradually crept downward, even though the weather hasn't been conducive to taking walks.  

Then, where's the question referenced in the subject line?  

I'll tell you:  Why can't I concentrate?  No, that's not it.  On Tuesday, I visited the cat sanctuary and took more than a hundred photos, and early the next morning went through them all.  Downloading, tagging, sorting, organizing, all that before deciding which to discard and which to prepare for uploading to the Flickr database.  When I'm doing that, it's as close as I've felt to the last few years of my job.  I felt confident that there wasn't anything I couldn't handle, and when I received something that called on me to do parts of the job I enjoyed, it produced the opposite of stress.

Tonight I did a little writing for the Kitten Fund's letter to supporters, another post-retirement task that causes no stress.  When the draft was done, I consulted that list of bookmarks and took a few off the list.  Reading isn't as easy as it used to be, it's harder to concentrate on the printed page; is that the result of months of X and Bluesky shortening my attention span?  In a few paragraphs, let alone pages, I'm feeling impulses that there's something else I should be doing instead.  There are three books resting on the table next to the keyboard, and a small LED reading light alongside them.  I don't seem to be able to read very long, and that's never been an issue before.  What's going on here, adult-onset ADHD?

I Have Questions

For fun, I decided to try to make kiffles today for Xmas.  I researched recipes and compared them to one from PG's family.  Each of the recipes contained some small difference from the others.  Most made the cookie portion without sugar, but one version did.  Another called for 2 1/4 cups of flour instead of the 2 in most others, while still another recipe insisted on 3 sticks of butter while the rest of them only needed 2.  

And then, when they were all rolled out and put together, how long should they bake and at what temperature?  12 minutes at 375?  13-15 minutes at 350?  Or some other combination?  There was no consensus.  

My first attempt this afternoon did not resemble Martha Stewart's finished products, nor any of those produced by the enthusiastic amateurs on YouTube.  The best I can say for mine is that they were edible.  Aesthetically, they looked like something created by a rank amateur, and I can affirm that they will be the worst I ever make.  

Most recipes recommended Solo brand filling, so I followed suit, picking some up at Wegmans.  I chose a self-checkout register and found a dime on the floor beneath where customers can hang their shopping bags.  The part I'm wondering about is what someone in a debit/credit card-only line would be doing with change in their hand in the first place.  Oh well, their small loss is a small gain for the cats at Tabby's Place. 

Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben

Back in summer, I went for a drive, and a few minutes into it, I saw a spider outside the driver's-side window.  It had built a web between the door and the side mirror, and was hanging onto it in the slipstream.  A timely red light allowed the spider to hurry into the side mirror for safety for the rest of the trip.  

The next time I went outside to the garage, the spider was once again on my car.  This time, I moved the spider over to the window opposite its former home.  It has lived on the window shade since then, sometimes hiding in the gap that shows at the top of the above picture.  The December cold seemingly hasn't affected its ability to find food.  The white egg sacs on display above indicate that this spider has done was it was born to do.  Eat, prey, reproduce.

Saturday Evening Post

Let me see... with another day together, PG and I drove to the At Home store, where she picked out some new bath rugs and a matching set of towels.  They asked us to sign up for their mailing list, so I gave them a non-essential email address and they took 10% off the bill.  Eight bucks is eight bucks.  

On the way there and back, we listened to the Max podcast Talking Pictures with guest Carol Burnett.  We saw that the new building that had been going up while PG was getting her PT nearby turned out to be a medical office.  Catty-corner from it, where there used to be a stable, there's now a storage unit.  

We stopped at Wegmans and got stuff from our shopping list, which ended up costing nearly as much as the rugs and towels, but took up far less space.  There wasn't even any meat in either of the shopping bags.  Parmesan cheese, mezzaluna pasta, pierogies, bananas, a cucumber, vinaigrette, paprika, oregano, lemonade, ice cream, Pepsi for tomorrow's pizza, probably too much info.

Small tasks:  brought the corded leaf blower inside off the deck and put it in the basement until next fall.  Brought the battery-powered blower in from the garage and used it to move the dust and fur on the basement steps to the bottom, then put it and its batteries next to the other blower.  Took a gas can to a nearby Wawa and got a couple of gallons of alcohol-free gasoline, which will be used in the snow blower this winter. 

PG watched Whitstable Pearl, and across the room, while my little cat rested on my lap, I watched YouTube on the laptop.  Irma La Douce, some music videos.  Drummed along with Lenny Kravitz's Low, which is slow enough and simple enough for an inexperienced student.  Later, a few minutes of a 23-year-old Joan Crawford in Our Dancing Daughters on the TiVo.

Still here

Another good day with PG.  After breakfast, I made a blueberry streusel cake, and when that was out of the oven, put together some spaghetti sauce from her recipe.  I chopped the onion and she grated the garlic.  

Early afternoon, we were in the family room.  She watched Whitstable Pearl and I watched some bookmarked YouTube videos with headphones on the laptop.  My little cat climbed onto my lap sometime during it all.

Supper at 3:00 as usual.  (Cereal for breakfast, and a filling but low-calorie supper.  No lunch.  I want to drop a few more pounds before the next 6-month checkup in January.)  Rice bowl, consisting of some cut-up turkey breast leftovers in a mixture of spanish rice, peas, corn, and pinto beans, with taco cheese and salsa on top.  Later, two chocolate chip cookies, a cup of hot chocolate, and a 1 x 1 square of the blueberry streusel cake.  Up here in the office, drum practice for an hour and four hard candies.  

Too cold and windy to walk outside.  Did fill bird feeders off the deck, otherwise stayed in all day.

Not much. How about you?

More of the same.  Still visiting the cats and kittens, still reading Le Monde, still playing around with drum lessons.  

Tomorrow:  process the pictures I took today; bake a lemon cake for Thanksgiving dinner; use the new cordless leaf blower to help move the leaves to the gutter out front; pick up a prescription for PG at Walmart.  And, play around with drum lessons after dark.

Worth remembering

PG was having back pain that neither physical therapy nor her chiropractor could make go away.  Eventually, she made an appointment with the family doctor, who prescribed meloxicam.  We were concerned that it's an NSAID, but it's a pain medication that treats inflammation as well, and doesn't have side effects of drowsiness or dizziness.  It's worked well in her case.  

Today, we did some shopping, and she was able to walk around with minimal pain in each of the 3 stores (Costco, Target, and Walmart).  Still, due to the prior pain she wasn't used to that much physical activity, so she went to bed and sleep well before me.

I'm practicing ghost notes, reading New Yorker articles about Dick Cavett and Eleanor Roosevelt, et aussi des articles du Monde de Maia Mazaurette.    

Far From Perfect

From a video on Facebook featuring Charles Phoenix and a pink 1959 Cadillac.  The original owner was in fact a craps dealer at Harrah's casino.

 

A few moments in an ordinary day

On our way home from the doctor, PG spotted a blue heron flying above us, I'll guess about 20 feet off the ground.  Its speed and ours were close enough, and the road was clear ahead and behind us, so I got a few seconds of its grace.  

We reached an intersection with a stop light, and the bird continued over the road, descending quickly and landing on a patch of grass just outside an area that was left unmown most of the year.  Both PG and I got one last glimpse of the heron on the ground after the light turned green and we continued on our way.

Posted without comment

 

On the way home

Just across the border from Milford, NJ, 10/25/2024.  Added a small percentage of saturation to the original picture, but not so much as to be unnaturally gaudy-awful.  

Putting time to good use

Oxalis corniculata, the creeping woodsorrel, says Google Lens.  Wikipedia adds, "The flowers close when direct sun is not hitting the plant, hence the name 'sleeping beauty'."

PG was inside the building for an appointment.  I remained outside, but while the sun was bright, a chilly wind was making me wish I had worn a hoodie over my flannel shirt.  

But just a few steps farther along, behind the building, the wind was blocked and I could sit comfortably on the sloping ground.  Then I saw a number of these tiny wildflowers, and wildflowers are among the things I can't not photograph.  

On Facebook I wrote, "Sirens are blaring on an emergency vehicle speeding by, while a few hundred feet away, honeybees hover near these tiny wildflowers."  

The shadow in the image below is of a post connected to the ground wire from the electric meter attached to the wall.

Two more weeks

One side has Slim Shady, the other has Slick JD.

Golden Brown Hour

A field of soybeans, ready for harvest, late afternoon, facing southwest.

 

Sunday in the park

Strolling around Trexler Park with a camera on a bright, warm mid-October day.  Views of Little Cedar Creek, looking first east and then west.

In retirement

I dropped 25 pounds a year ago and it hasn't returned.  Today, though, I ate like in the old days.  Hey, a man's gotta live.  

A Mexican Coke, bag of microwave popcorn, and around 2:30 on impulse I hauled out the cookie-baking gear (bowls, scale, sheet pans) and did a half-batch of chocolate chip cookies.  First time in months, and I've thought about it frequently in that time.  Must have had a half-dozen of them, fresh and warm out of the oven.  But back on the wagon tomorrow.

You never know what you'll see

After strong winds on Monday, this morning I found two large branches on the ground beneath the zelkova in our back yard.  I cut them into smaller pieces, added a dead limb from the cherry tree at the back of the property, and put all of them into a large plastic tote.  Then I loaded the tote with the brush that had accumulated since the last trip to the township yard waste facility, loaded the car with the tote, and took the lot to the township.  

Dumping out the tote, my eye was caught by a small red patch, and I was compelled to take a snapshot.  I believe it's verbena, and rather than try to salvage the plant that another person dumped, I took some notes for next spring.  This would look good on the area where the red maple used to be, provided there's enough sunlight, and that's no sure thing thanks to the tall trees next door that block the sun for a good part of the day.  

The same thing goes for the bare area at the back of the property, plus it tends to be overly dry.  Now, there's some bare ground on the south side of the shed, and that gets much more sun from morning until late afternoon, but I need to make sure there's some bare loose dirt left for the rabbits who live under that shed to roll around in.  (And not incidentally, to make sure that rabbits don't consider verbena to be a tasty treat, the way they did the rose bush and the morning glories I planted earlier this summer.)

 

Getting to know you

Headline from the week of the Raiders/Steelers game.  I can just imagine someone introducing those two to each other.  "Maxx, this is T.J.  T.J., Maxx."

Adding to the sum total of human knowledge

 

Are there enough clues on the scoreboard to determine the date of the photo?

Yes.  The Pittsburgh-New York game with its high score was the biggest clue.  Also, since the Braves were still in Boston, that meant it was prior to 1953.  Since the Pirates had a terrible record in 1952, I skipped that year and instead checked 1951 for the 11 Pit-NYG games at Forbes Field.  

The pictured game was Milwaukee-Indianapolis.  Also on the scoreboard is Minneapolis at Toledo, but less than a week later, on June 23, Mud Hens owner Danny Menendez moved the team to Charleston, West Virginia, leading to his indictment.  

When the Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee in 1953, the Milwaukee team in the American Association moved to Toledo, where they were first known as the Glass Sox, but soon settled on Sox.  

 

Too far away to tell what this volunteer is

 

Spotted while strolling

Sachem (skipper) butterfly on red clover, 13 October 2024

 

Seen while strolling

 

Hoverfly (Toxomerus marginatus) on chicory 

Symphyotrichum lanceolatum (panicled aster)

Lots of possibilities; but I can tell it wants to be free of the plastic tree guard.  I've seen deer nearby, though, so it's taking a big chance sticking its neck out like that.

Soybean crop, ready for harvest

One of one

Late this year getting to the purple aster patch down the road, which is why this is the only one left with a bright yellow middle.  There were some small skippers in the patch flitting from flower to flower.  I snapped off a couple of stems with spent flowers that I believe contain seeds.  

 

Closed for the day

Another look at the ivy-leaved morning glory that was fully open yesterday.

 

More from the back yard

Potentilla Indica

Ipomoea Hederacea

 

Seen in the Kitten Suite

Quark

Seen along the side of the road

Revisited the place where I saw the wildflowers in this post.  Driving by, I thought the purple flowers were the same kind of asters as those near home.  Turns out that while it is an aster, it's blue wood aster, not New England aster.  

 

Discord, doubled

9/24/24:  In Le Monde, an article headlined "La suppression de l'aide medicale de l'Etat, leitmotiv de la droite et pomme de discorde".   That "pomme de discorde" was a new one to me, so I looked it up.  

9/25/24:  Filling time until the beginning of the 7:00 volleyball match, I turn the channel to Cartoon Network.  Within a minute, one character approaches another, carrying a golden apple bearing a K.  The other character demands, "What are you doing with the apple of discord?"  

Something like that happened once before, with the word "myrmidon".  I posted something about that in 2022.  

Same Spider, Different Day

 

Another Orb Spider

 

Rescued, but still fearful

One of the dozens of cats rescued from a hoarding situation and currently living at Tabby's Place.  A visitor lies on the floor near where they are hiding, seldom speaking, except for a few soft words which are meant to get them used to human company, and from there, perhaps they can be adopted.  

 

Another volunteer

A little light rain today. Not the soaking we need, but it does add to this volunteer morning glory at the back of the property.

 

A new resident on our arbor

 

Wildflowers in Rural Central New Jersey

Taken in a large field with sizable patches of these flowers, which are the same as those in this past post.

 

Wildflowers along a creek

 

Strolling in the park one day

Atalopedes campestris, (called sachem in the United States and Canada) is a small grass skipper butterfly.

My day

I walked out to the back yard about mid-morning on a sunny, warm September day.  This is what I saw:  in the bird garden, I pulled a foot-high dandelion and found some hedge bindweed had begun climbing up the stem. . . a couple dozen tiny brown butterflies swarming across the sedum. . . frantic squawking of a blue jay from the neighbor's yard, and seconds later, I spotted a red-tailed hawk gaining altitude and flying in lazy circles above the houses. . . the volunteer arbor vitae in a pot that I moved into a sunnier area has grown until its top is above the top edge of the pot; maybe it can be transplanted into the spot in front of the garage where the original bush died. . . and the resurrected crape myrtle that is flowering right next to one of the three plants planted last year as part of the landscaping makeover.  Can it be dug up without damaging the roots to the point where it can't survive transplanting?  

Life in our back yard

Skippers on blooming sedum.  The pinker, the more butterflies.  When fully pink, there should be honeybees joining them.

On one of the sedum plants, a skipper touched a spider web and instantly the proprietor rushed toward it, but the butterfly wasn't stuck on the web and took off to safety.  

 

Summertime life in our back yard

Variegated fritillary (euptoieta claudia) on Indian Blanket

 

Assorted past

No, thanks.

 

In whole or in part

"Apart from the Chrysler brand", but a part of the Chrysler Corporation.

 

Our Day

A slow start on a cloudy but dry Thursday.  We ate breakfast and finished Spelling Bee, and I completed the Immaculate Grid with a decent score.  Then she played other games and looked over the day's news while I went outside and saw a bumblebee on a marigold blossom.  

Back inside, I sat in the rocker-recliner until a nap sneaked up on me.  After reawakening, I got dressed and we drove to the shopping district to look for drapes for the living room.  Nothing PG wanted at Lowe's, but At Home had a dark gold model with a brownish-red pattern that she liked.  

From At Home, to Crazy Cones for soft-serve.  From there to a car wash where washes are half-price ($5) on Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons.  

We got home and I put up the drapes after taking down the prior drapes and their hardware.  Also caulked the screw holes.  Tomorrow, sand the caulked areas and paint over them to match the beige wall. 

No walking around the block this evening.  I had a Good Cat on my lap.  

Another half-speed run-through of Rikki, reaching measure 30.  Starting to feel like this is doable.

This is how it was planned to go

I get up around 8:00, go downstairs,

Pour a bowl of cereal, a half-glass of juice and fill it the rest of the way with seltzer,

I do not reach for any pills.  All I have is baby aspirin and sertraline, and these days I don't feel like I need either.

I finish off Spelling Bee and begin Immaculate Grid

I check the Politics list within Xitter

I put my dishes in the dishwasher and take the iPad into the family room, and sit down on the recliner

If I'm lucky, my cat will come over and lie down on my lap

I can continue getting news from Xitter

I can read another chapter of 1776 or another day or two of The Long Season

I can put in the earbuds and listen to the machine voiceover while reading a story from Le Monde.

I can skim the headlines in the Times, Post, and Google News

From time to time, I check Facebook and Slack for news about the foster kittens.  If any, I screen shot the page or copy and paste the relevant text into a NoteTab .txt file, then save it into that month's subfolder in Dropbox.  If there are photos, I make a copy and save them into the same subfolder.  (This feels more important than the rest of the actions.  Those other actions are for my own amusement, but the Kitten Fund is the closest thing I have now to a job.)

Later, I take a walk around the neighborhood, and to keep my mind busy, I put on a podcast or count the rabbits.  

I look over the current lesson in Drumeo and work out the sticking (Today, single paradiddles)

I pull out the four printed pages of the drum part for Rikki and work out the sticking for a few more measures.  (Today, the first four bars of the first chorus.)

As of early June 27, this is how I envisioned retirement.  Then came the Biden-Trump debate and the overwhelming dread it produced.  Then came the first Monday after leaving my job, and the suffocating grief it produced. 

I collected the WFH gear and stuffed it into a provided box, and took it to the nearest FedEx store to return it.  

We had a contractor in for a week, which threw everything off for humans and cats alike.

Then someone shot at Trump.

Then my Welcome to Medicare visit, with an abnormal EKG.

Then my 68th birthday, and a day later, my wife's birthday.  That shook me, too.

Then there was a letter from my former employer that didn't make sense, so I drafted a response to mail back the following Monday morning.

Then the plastic line from the cold water pipe in the basement to the refrigerator upstairs split and sprayed water on possessions that need to be kept dry.  I felt better about my state of mind while solving the immediate problems:  put a bucket under the drip coming from up above the sink; find the squeegee and move the water on the floor over to a drain; find the leak and turn the saddle valve from On to Off, only for nothing to change, so I folded over the plastic line and duct-taped it in place to stop the flow. Just in case, I put a large plastic box under the sealed line and tied the line to the stepladder so it wouldn't thrash around if it did come loose.

The immediate crisis was past, and then I phoned the plumber.

He recommended replacing the plastic line with one made of copper, and replaced the useless saddle valve with one made by SharkBite.  As long as he was here, I asked him to replace the other saddle valve that was controlling water for the HVAC humidifier, and replace the pipe where rubber-lined clamps covered the pinholes made by past saddle valves.  In a couple of hours, everything was fixed, and I felt better about the plumbing in the basement.  I shouldn't have to deal with that kind of problem again.  Cost?  We could afford it.  

Then I contacted the internet provider/cable/phone company to try to get them to reduce the monthly bill, which has risen sharply since the previous reduction.  Not only did I get minimal sympathy, the reduction (such as it was) corresponded with the sympathy.  

Then Biden dropped out.

Then a spring fell off under the rocker-recliner and I had to play chair repair.

All that in less than a month.  PG gave me all the loving support she could.  I walked more, ate less, took sertraline.  By the end of July, I'd gone from 229 to 225.  

Then things got better.  I kept walking and drumming, but ate more and stopped sertraline.  My state of mind was much improved, but by this morning, I'd gone back up to 232, which wasn't planned.

But now that I'm over the shocks of 2024 presidential politics and the adjustment to being without a paying job, the framework I'd planned prior to retirement is holding firm.  I volunteer, doing things to help cats, I learn more about a foreign language, and I learn how to play a musical instrument.  Repeat as long as the household's health holds out.

Our day

The usual games (Spelling Bee, Wordscapes, Immaculate Grid)

PG put the rabbit tchotchkes back in the living room display case

I gathered the fallen tree branches and limbs and took them to the township yard waste facility

On the way home, saw three deer in a bean field, stopped and took pictures

I caulked a gap under the front door where tiny ants were getting inside

PG smoothed out an area where the floor installers had cracked, then caulked, the side of a kitchen cabinet

Supper from Cactus Blue, dessert was homemade chocolate pudding.  Drove by the newly opened Cane's near the house, but the drive-through line stretched out past the parking lot and onto the street.  

The hot weather and the subsequent tropical depression have passed, so I can walk in the evenings again.  Plenty of rabbits out and about near sundown.  

We've had the current washer-dryer setup for more than a decade, but only now am I learning that the time on the timer can change according to the humidity the dryer senses.  Put it on auto dry, normal, and maybe 40 minutes will appear.  But if it's a small load of things that aren't sopping wet, and that 40 will jump down to 15, then to 5, as it did today while I watched.  It's no spring chicken, but at least it's still working 100% for now.  I'm not looking forward to spending money on a new setup.  

Back to the present:  to access the drain hole in the freezer, I removed a couple of hex nuts and bent back the cover.  The ratchet removed the nuts, but wasn't working well to re-insert them afterward.  I knew we had a nut-driver kit someplace, but couldn't find it in the basement or the garage.  I almost ordered a new one before remembering I'd used it upstairs on my PC and had left it with the SSD sticks and spare parts.  Having the right tool made the freezer panel a two-minute job.

A new friend

Here's Lilith, who PG and I met today at our doctor's office.  She was shy at first, but accepted all the loving we could give her.