Everything all at once

Early in the week, I ordered some everyday household stuff from Amazon, and on impulse I added a paperback to it.  Then I took a good look at my everyday black shoes and realized it was time to get a new pair.  I'd be curious to know when I bought my first two pair of SAS Time Out.  Wouldn't be surprised to learn it's been 10 years between buys.

Yesterday, part of the order from Amazon arrived early on an Amazon truck, with the rest coming later via UPS.  After that, the SAS shoes were delivered by FedEx.  Neighbors with an inclination toward minding someone else's business got an eyeful of delivery drivers carrying boxes to our front door.  

Next week:  Naming Names paperback arrives via USPS.  That's pretty much all of them, except for DHL.

Interested enough to bookmark, not enough time to enjoy them all

 

Time Well Spent

Sunset in a few minutes, but the overcast sky already has made it too dark to get around outside without artificial light.  It rained all day, so I haven't been outside the house.

Inside the house, I did some more organizing of the basement's contents, so there's my stuff, PG's stuff, Joyce's art stuff that can be given to granddaughter D, Xmas stuff that will be offered to family before being donated, and housewares and other small items that are likewise earmarked.  There's one other pile, consisting of boxes for packing the small stuff.  

In a Times article about a modern production of Once Upon a Mattress, pleasantly surprised to find a link to a 1964 CBS videotape of the same show, this one with most of its original cast, including Carol Burnett as the prospective princess.  Then on that YouTube page was a link to Carol's opening number, "Shy", as done on the Garry Moore show in 1960, while she was still in the show on Broadway.  That led me back to "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" from the Ed Sullivan show of April 6, 1958, when she was 24, and from there I got a link to her April 2023 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, just before she turned 90.  

Finished "On The Town" and deleted it from Tivo.  Some time on Facebook, putting in a plug for Tabby's Place Kitten Fund.  Some time playing WordScapes.  Practiced drums.  Watched others cover the same songs to try to learn from them.  Some time learning about chords and how Steely Dan used them, adding jazz elements to keep themselves interested and to create new music.  Paid the trash and sewer bills at the credit union website.  

New information on Slack from a TP foster of a cat and her five kittens.  There's a little video; can I edit it and add a little free music?  While I'm at it, January is almost over, so I'd better start thinking about the February correspondent update.  I organized the field reports (you could call them) and their photos today.  Soon, some word processing and uploading.

Soon, a new laptop for downstairs, replacing the 2016 Dell Inspiron that can't be updated to Windows 11.  

Things that produce a sense of accomplishment on a wet, gray Sunday.

The Good TImes are Here and Now

Last night, I was looking around YouTube for songs to learn with reasonably simple beats.  I called up John Hiatt's I Don't Even Try and soon found myself playing air drums and singing (if you can call it that) along.  Then I opened my eyes and saw Pat walking past me into the kitchen.  Usually even with my eyes closed I'll see the hall light come on before she walks downstairs.  Musta really been into the beat.

This morning, as I collected the stuff for breakfast (cereal, milk, juice, seltzer, spoon) I was softly singing (IYCCIT) Walter Becker's Down in the Bottom.  That's another song with a reasonably simple beat, as far as I could tell last night.  I'm sure that the beat doesn't get lost in the music, unlike some other songs that are on the Beginner list at Drumeo.  

Pat commented that I must be happier these days, since I'm singing more.  Interesting observation, and a true one.  Work is going well, home life is great, and I have plenty of absorbing (and useful) things to do in my spare time.  

Visiting shelter cats and loving them, either socializing the frightened ones or giving the social ones a lap and some petting.  Writing, about one cat in particular, and taking pictures when I see something interesting.  At the very least, the good images get posted to a blog where at least a lot of Singaporeans see it, and the best ones are used by the shelter for promotional purposes.

Sometime in the past year, I believe, French got a whole lot easier.  Although I had re-started learning the language in 2002 with the help of Champs-Elysees -- after a couple of decades of inaction -- it was hard to read anything without numerous consults of a dictionary, either the Larousse in the office or the one online.  As recently as during the Covid pandemic, I remember just giving up and not trying anymore.  After one of my credit cards was used by someone with bad intents, the credit card company issued a new one with a different number.  I tried to change the card number on file with Le Monde, but three months later I was no longer able to log in for subscriber-only articles, and I took that as a sign to stop struggling.

Then last year, I found that it was now possible to use Google Pay to subscribe to publications outside the U.S.  Even better, I'd been away long enough that it was possible to take advantage of a lower-cost subscription offer.  And suddenly, and counter-intuitively, after weeks without trying to learn anything, I could read French comfortably.  I still use Google Translate for an individual word, and now and then I do a search when a phrase makes no literal sense and I strongly suspect an idiom.  But now I look at the Times, the Post, and Le Monde equally as much for news.  It's a mystery, but it's also a sense of accomplishment.  I've read the articles that say learning a language helps keep the brain from rusting out.  And hey, you never know when you might need another language in case Trump gets re-elected. 

So there's (1) Tabby's Place, with all the useful things it provides, (2) French, which I can understand in spoken form (as long as it's spoken reasonably clearly) and now can read (with occasional help from Translate).  And recently, adding (3) drumming to the list.  All things I don't have to stop as long as my brain and body hold up.  Maybe I'll never do any drumming except in this house, but it's a pleasant experience to learn.  

And as if on cue, a big brown truck stopped in front of the house, and its driver carried a good-sized brown box and set it down just to the side of the front door.  That would be the new drum throne.

One last thing:  I take care to choose songs sung by humans with imperfect singing voices.  Whatever it takes to keep from sounding pitiful!

Perspective

So today something really nice happened.  Overall, my life meets the three-level criteria for happiness:  (1) something to do; (2) someone to love; and (3) something to look forward to.  

After a few minutes of letting it all soak in, I could hear Kevin Costner's character in Bull Durham snapping, "The moment's over."  Healthy and adult to remember that this too shall pass.

If only it were as easy to call up that frame of mind when things are in the dumpster.  

On the cellular level

When I bought my present phone (2018, I think) the carrier was Verizon.  The salesman was better than most in terms of making an effort to find common ground with PG and me.  He didn't do all the talking, listened to us and our story, and at the end of the session, I had a nice new Galaxy 9+ for a few hundred dollars less than the list price.

But when the first bill came in, I also had a double-digit charge for insurance that he had not even mentioned, let alone asked me to approve.  I went back to the store and was told he was off.  I asked when he would be back on, came back at that time, and was told again that he was off.  The persons on duty acted as though they were listening when I told them why I had come, but there was no contact from store management in the aftermath.  

They also said they couldn't take off the charge and directed me to their customer service phone number, which did remove it... eventually.  The guy on the other end of the line wasn't nearly as slick as he thought he was.  He kept arguing that I should have it, nay, that I needed that insurance.  What if, what if?  After a minute or two, I told him that I didn't have to convince anyone and repeated my request.  

In the years since, Verizon has worked fine and I've paid on time every month.  We kept out of each other's way.  But late last year, when inflation was affecting everything else, I found a new $12 charge on the bill.  Evidently, I am bound to the terms of the service contract, and they are not.  Just a grab for more money, and I have no doubt that their legal department has a carefully-worded clause that makes it all lawful.  But it's not right, and I'm done with Verizon.

Searching and researching pointed to a short list of good replacements, and I chose one.  The customer sales rep was good, setting me up for what I asked and, for the rest, taking no for an answer with a minimum of pushback.  I'm cautiously optimistic that this cell phone experience will be better.  I already know it'll cost about half of what Verizon was charging.

That makes a good bit of action in a short time.  The replacement password manager after LastPass spit the bit, the learning experience at the car dealer, and now this.  

Oh my...

I need your help! My bunny-filled greenhouse management game is releasing in two weeks and I'm trying to garner more attention on steam. If you could like and retweet it would mean so much to me!#indiedev #gaming #bunnies #plants #indiegamedev pic.twitter.com/VRJ65rkSOg

— RekyStudios (@RekyStudios) October 5, 2021

#ifthisisn'tnice

Getting to the end of the day, so before I forget:

- Several hours at Tabby's Place this afternoon.  Most of it with black man cat Fenek, all of it snapping pictures left and right.  Some of 'em are bound to be good.  Something to look forward to tomorrow, downloading and going over them, preparing the better ones for upload to Flickr.

- While there, donated some old towels and sheets, and I dumped the small change collected over the past year in a yeast jar into a donation box.  Reverting to quarantine blog for a moment, masks are once again mandatory.  Not much of that anywhere else I go these days, but the delta version of the covid virus has been particularly contagious, so even the fully vaccinated who can still carry it are subject to the same rules as non-vaccinated citizens.

- The drive was enjoyable, some of it on I-78, other parts on two-lane state roads with a fair speed limit and nearly no traffic.  On the way home, the route took me over the Milford, NJ bridge and on along the Delaware River for quite a distance.  

- As I pulled in the driveway, I caught sight of a cottontail at the back of the property.  

- Pizza and Pepsi for supper.  Some quality lap time after supper with Good Queen Swirly.  A new Vin Scully ballgame on YouTube.

- Tomorrow, besides fiddling around with cat pictures, I'll probably be baking some more cookies, or maybe a lemon cake.  Who knows, maybe both.

Doing something

Should be writing and taking pictures again soon.  Lets me do something useful for someone else, something creative, and gets me out of the house for a few hours.  And it's that elusive "something to look forward to."

Heartened

Finding out that Moss Hart had a journal during a fallow period in the early 1950's, and learning that he had begun his autobiography at about the same time.  The autobiography (according to the New Yorker reviewer in November 1959) was full of gushing platitudes about the people he worked with, while the journal (which was kept under lock and key until both he and Kitty Carlisle Hart had passed) contained mostly observations of those people, viewed in the worst possible light.  Nearly everyone appeared pathetic to him at that time, and knowing his state of mind makes it possible to forgive the man's sourness.  Of course that's how he saw them, just like he saw himself as used up and useless.

Right now I'm wishing I had something going on that would get me as fired up as I was when creating a video of BB's mother; when discovering the wonders of the web; when writing and posting true little stories about a few Good Cats (illustrated with my amateur cartoons) for nine years; when I learned about Tabby's Place; when I began volunteering at the library; even when I was the King of the Easy Bill.  Things have worked out so far.  They probably will again.  Let me see what I can do about it.

End of day

Did just about nothing today.  The stuff from the drywall repair is still in the hallway, but at least it's organized in a couple of boxes and ready to take back to the basement.  

A friend from college is turning 65 and retiring.  I should say *another* friend is retiring.  They're calling it a career, but not me, not yet.  

I still turn on the light over the deck before going upstairs to bed.  Be safe, little black pooshka, wherever you are.

Finished watching Rio Bravo.  Read nothing on the iPad (neither Tarbell nor Pyle).  Played games, listened to WWII news and a 1971 Dodger game with Vin Scully.  And that's basically it for the day.  

On the other hand, another day of health, both for me and BB.  We're intending to drive down to Trader Joe's tomorrow.

 

At the top of the to-do list

At long last.

But not until tomorrow.

Coming Attraction

 Well, all righty then...

A new season of You Must Remember This begins in a month.

...but first...

Time for bed, after a recap of the day.  Rain this morning, rain this afternoon.  I came downstairs for breakfast and BB and I agreed it was a good day.  We felt well and in good spirits.  

I did my job from 8:30 to 5:00 with a lunch break just after noon.  We played at the Spelling Bees (yes, plural, due to some technical difficulties at the Times).  We solved both before I went back to work at 1:00.  

At the game, she's good and I'm good.  Sometimes she gets the majority of the words and the pangram, and other times I take care of them.  It would be hard to say that one of us or the other is clearly better at the game.  

It plays on our competitive instinct, and that makes it more fun.  If BB reels off several words in a row, I feel like I'm not holding up my end.  Actually, though, we have different tactics.  I'm looking for home runs, high-value long words, and she's looking for any words.  

One strategy I've used is to get halfway to genius level and leave the rest for her.  I've also looked only for words of five letters or more, which produce point values equal to the number of letters.  Finding a four-letter word is only worth one point.

...dot dot dot... Good Queen Schwirley on my lap during the Rutgers-Maryland volleyball match... playing Fishdom while listening to game 2 of the 1982 World Series with Vin Scully and Sparky Anderson... the all-day rain left multiple puddles in the back yard, and BB wants a French drain to move excess water to the big drain at the back of the property... the little black pooshka still comes to us for meals, but not the big ol' creampuff, the poor guy.  Pretty sure he's not in pain anymore.

Stimulus checks for thousands of dollars -- what a country!

At times like these

I've already listened to all the available WWII newscasts via YouTube, but lately I've felt like going through them all again.  This war against Covid-19 seems to have turned in the favor of the good guys, like late 1944-early 1945.  I just need a reminder that these days of semi-quarantine are much closer to the end than to the beginning a year ago.  

A new personal record tonight.  Good Queen Swirly climbed into my lap around 8:00.  An hour and a half later, my legs twitching from self-imposed immobility, I stood up and she jumped down.   

Another chilly day today, but sunny. Forecast is calling for spring-like conditions, especially on Thursday, when it's expected to be 70 degrees.  Time to take the cover off the Weber and grill some Whole Foods pork chops.   

Thursday night

 Stafford died today.  He was a good cat at Tabby's Place.

Another day in our house, going outside only long enough to check the mailbox (and find it empty). 

Nebraska vs. #1 Wisconsin postponed due to the pandemic.  

Quality Time this morning with Nelson, and this evening with Schwirley girly.  

Another 4 chapters of Blott in the headphones.

A day off (with pay) tomorrow, and I'm hoping to go for a ride somewhere.  Weather forecast: sunny and low 40's.

The house is dark except for the laptop screen.  News from French network LCI in the headphones.  Subject:  Covid-19, what else.  

Between storms

There's another 6 to 9 inches on the way the day after tomorrow.  I need to get the gas can out of the shed before it gets here.  I need to remind myself that in a month or less, it'll be well above freezing and only the Canadian neighbor's front yard next door will have any snow in it.  They pile it up intentionally, and why not?  Their neighbor has a chicken wire fence at the opening of their living room.  I doubt any other homeowners in this development of six-figure houses have such a feature.  

Where's my good girl Schwirley?  I've been here for hours, and she hasn't appeared.  (Let me get up and go into the kitchen, and then we'll know where she is.  Sneaking by her in there is like trying to sneak the sun past a rooster.)

Copying files from the hard drive to an external drive, with the intent of saving them in the safe deposit box.  There's a hard drive, there's a drive in the cloud backing it up, and soon, another backup offsite.  Gigabytes of audio and video, and a whole heap of photographs.  

Coming soon

 Later this week, the bamboo pajamas I ordered should arrive.  A real impulse buy.  Scrolling through Twitter, I read a post from a woman whose bamboo pajamas had recently arrived, and she was mighty happy about it.  The whole thing sounded good to me, so I searched, found, and ordered in the span of a few minutes.  

Something (or another)

 As with a lot of useful information, this one has been attributed to a number of persons.  I'll just go with old reliable "Anonymous."

The pandemic hasn't had any effect on the first two points.  My job is still necessary and can be done from home.  And after 36 years with BB, I have someone to love and someone to be loved by.

That leaves the third point.  With so much deferred due to Covid-19, the short-term things to look forward to is a pretty short list.  But I'm going to look harder and think more about it.

So, what've I got for tonight?  I looked forward to some Quality Time with my good girl, Good Queen Schwirly.  Sure enough, around 8:00 I went into the kitchen, and soon she was there with me, looking up and mewing.  That's the constant step 1.  

Then, she goes to her dry food dish and eats a few bits while I pet her.  Eventually, she lifts her head and we both make our way to the living room.  I try to sit down first and place a fleece blanket on my lap, and she jumps up and makes herself comfortable on it.  She stays as long as she likes; tonight I didn't have a clock handy, but it was at least 15 minutes.  She was content.  I was happy.