Photographic memory

I remember hearing about the documentary "The Automat" a few years ago, and when it was on the TCM schedule, I recorded it, or so I thought.  When I tried to play it back, there had been a problem with the cable that left the picture scrambled and the audio garbled.  But recently, I got a second chance, and this time it recorded properly.  

Above, a still from the film reminded me of a photo I'd seen online and saved.  Not exactly the same, but likely taken moments apart from the same spot on the same rainy day in 1943.  

Wonder what the "E" billboard next to the Automat sign was promoting?  Was there an "E" war bond? 

Yeah, but...

Attempting to do something else... set down in time-stamped format the events on a 23-year-old videotape... and earlier today, watched "Flow."  It's something, but the three main hobbies that are supposed to get me through senior unemployment are all coming up short.

Saturday Evening Post

It began with a New Yorker reference to Rodgers and Hammerstein.  That reminded me that R&H had not always hit the mark, and I picked up a prior thread of misses like Allegro, Me and Juliet, and Pipe Dream.  

The latter referenced one of the stars, Judy Tyler, and I looked up more information on her 1957 death in a car wreck at age 24.  The online bio included a link to a JPG of an Earl Wilson column from 1955 that I, of course, wanted to read.  In it, she came off as ambitious, to say the least, and intent on making it clear no one else deserved any credit for her success.   

But shortly before the customary closing "That's Earl, brother" that I remember from growing up in the late 1960's and early '70's, in the dot-dot-dot section was a line about a Jelke Girl.  That's how I learned about Minot "Mickey" Jelke, scion of the Jelke Good Luck margarine family.  With a few years to wait before coming into a 7-figure inheritance upon turning 25, he decided to put that time to use by becoming a pimp.  (He didn't get away with it.)

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

Otherwise on this Saturday:  Pizza and Pepsi for the main meal, with a pastry from a local Italian shop for dessert.  Walked a mile and a quarter afterward.  

Good Quality Time with my little cat in early afternoon.

Mid-afternoon, got blood orange juice for PG from Whole Foods, and I picked up some whole milk yogurt.  

Took a back road home and checked for whether a lone little patch of purple asters along the road was still in flower, which it was.  This picture is from a week ago, when I had time to stop and appreciate them from close range.

Just putting this out there

To me, it's fun to take a close look at ballpark photos like the two below and try to figure out the game situation and date taken.  With the help of Baseball Reference, the detection process almost always takes only a minute or two.  

On this one, the photo isn't sharp, but it's possible to see the score is 7-7 in the bottom of the 9th.  The infield is way in, which probably means the game-winning run is on 3rd base.  The batter's number isn't legible on the scoreboard, but the high average of .332 means the first guess would be Pete Rose.  

Sometimes other scores and batting order information can also help, but they weren't necessary this time.  The Cincinnati Reds left Crosley Field in mid-1970.  Pete Rose was a .300 hitter from 1965-1970, so next check B-R for the 11 games per season where Atlanta played at Cincinnati.  

While I can't be sure due to the fuzziness, the fact that even though the catcher wore a single-digit number, he was batting 7th (just above the red helmet of the runner on first) and likely meant that Johnny Bench wasn't in the lineup, or maybe not even with the team.  He became the starting catcher in 1968, so the first place I'd check would be 1967 games.  All this takes just seconds, and the result is found on June 3:  

   

Bottom of the 9th, Reds Batting, Tied 7-7, Braves' Ramón Hernández facing 9-1-2

b9 7-7 0 --- CIN Mel Queen Ramón Hernández 7% 71% Single to LF

                                                                                Chico Ruiz pinch hits for Floyd Robinson (RF) batting 1st

b9 7-7 0 1-- CIN Chico Ruiz Ramón Hernández 10% 81% Fielder's Choice /Sacrifice Bunt; M. Queen to 2B

b9 7-7 0 12- CIN Vada Pinson Ramón Hernández 12% 94% Single to P; M. Queen to 3B; C. Ruiz to 2B

b9 7-7 0 123 R CIN Pete Rose Ramón Hernández 6% 100% Fielder's Choice ; M. Queen Scores; C. Ruiz to 3B; V. Pinson to 2B

1 run, 2 hits, 0 errors, 3 LOB. Braves 7, Reds 8.

Probably a '67 Firebird in the ad to the right of the clock on the scoreboard.  Didn't even have to reference Mountain Dew, which went on the market in the mid-60's, and the signage for what became Interstate 75, just beyond the left-field wall.  You can see what used to be behind that wall in the next photo.

What can be seen in that next picture, also from Crosley Field?   Looking at it full size, at the left edge of the beer ad, "Redlegs" was the team's name during the Red Scare of the 1950's, and was changed back to "Reds" prior to the 1959 season.  The Pontiac ad atop the scoreboard appears to depict what they called "Wide-Track Pontiac" in the late 50's/early 60's.  On the National League side of the scoreboard, the Dodgers are shown as "Los Ang" instead of "LA" so this may have been the first season after they moved to Southern California.  

My guess is that this is late in the 1958 season, after the 1959 car models have been introduced.  A higher-resolution version of the image would provide more information to help pin down the exact date.  (Click to embiggen, or just do like I do and download PhotoShow.)

Later that same day:  upon further review, I’m setting the date as August 17, 1959.  All NL teams in action, but only one AL game scheduled.  No clue yet as to why the teams were lined up on the foul lines.  That might require paying for a Newspapers dot com subscription to see a Cincinnati sports page from the following day.  I like digging for background information, but only if it costs time, not money.

Also, a photo on Alamy with plenty of detail to fix the date as September 27, 1959 has the same advertising on the outfield wall and scoreboard.  

I bet that the blob at the right margin of the Kroger ad on the bottom of the scoreboard was Toppie, the pink plaid elephant mascot of Top Value Stamps.  (Whaddaya mean, Top Value Stamps went out of business in the 1980's?!?  How come I can remember them so well, huh?  Explain that!)

    

Just between us

Today on Xitter.

Would you rather...?

Going into unemployment retirement from my job, I put together a list of activities that I wanted to retire to.  That consisted of (1) Tabby's Place (a) socializing cats, (b) taking pictures of them, and (c) writing about the Kitten Fund; (2) reading Le Monde and other French print, along with some audio; (3) beginning online drumming lessons through Musora/Drumeo.

Of those 3 activities, what would I rather do?  I believe the order is (1a), (1b), (1c), (3), and (2).

When I have a card of fresh photos, I would rather download them and start the process than anything else.  Download them, tag them (name, suite, color(s), Tabby's Place), move them from the Camera Download folder in Dropbox to the applicable year and month folder.  Use SyncBack to make a backup copy.  The uploading program, whether Dropbox, ACDSee, or FastStone, will change the name of the file from the card to the usual YY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS format.  

When they are all tagged and filed, I would rather go through the images and decide which to keep and which to pitch.  It's not as fun as baking chocolate chip cookies, but I would rather do that and then do the basic editing (straighten, crop, white balance, color EQ, touchup) than baking or any other experience I enjoy.  In a way, I'm not satisfied until the whole process is finished, in a way I'm anxious that somehow all those photos will go away forever if they're not backed up at once.

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

When all of the above is done and I've completed the upload to Flickr, my next favorite activity is the monthly supporter letter for the Kitten Fund.  Writing is only enjoyable when I feel like I have something to write about; I briefly wrote descriptions of the adoptable cats, but if I didn't know the cat, I didn't know what to say, and getting to know the cat required multiple visits.  By the time I felt ready to write, I learned that the cat might have been adopted .  So, I dropped that role.  

When I'm responsible for a supporter letter, I always have one eye and one ear open for next from TP about the cat(s).  If someone posts in Slack some images of the kitten(s) they're caring for, I make a copy of the picture and any text that could be used as a quote.  I take notes when I visit, which is usually 2-3 times a month.  At the end of the month, I have a large stock of material, and the only difficulty is whittling it down to 500 words and 5 pictures.  

The structure is (1) Greeting (2) Health update (3) Anecdote (4) Pop culture cat reference, if needed (5) KTHXBAI.  When thanking the supporter, I want to tie it to some other element of the letter, whether the health or the anecdote, and I'd like to make it like -- and this will probably be out of left field for you -- the closet gag from Fibber McGee and Molly.  

They didn't always use it in an episode, but when they did, it wasn't always in the same scene each time, there wasn't a long setup, and they masked it until they wanted to spring it.  Just a scene, they're talking about something relevant to the story, they want something, oh it's in the hall closet BOOM CRASH AVALANCHE TINKLE.  I'm guessing that they learned that it worked better if the audience didn't see it coming from a mile away.  Quick setup, so it's as much of a surprise as possible for a running gag.

I'm telling a story about what one of the kittens did, or giving information about a kitten's health, and then the next sentence explains the need for funds to pay for the medical care or the overhead so the kitten is safe and maybe even happy.  Thank you for helping us do that.  Quick and natural, and it doesn't stick out.

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

I would rather do something drumming-related than French language-related.  Reading French becomes tiring quickly, although I've learned enough vocabulary and grammar to be able to read a story and only need to look up the occasional unfamiliar word or idiom.  It reminds me of the TiVo, which has a dozen or more films that have been waiting for me to commit 90-120 minutes of my remaining life to give them the attention they deserve.  It reminds me of the unopened books on my bookshelf, books purchased with the best of intentions.  It reminds me of the 50 videos in my YouTube watchlist.  It reminds me of the dozens of bookmarks in the browser.  It reminds me of the innumerable PDFs in a Dropbox folder labeled "You saved this for a reason."  

If I thought of drumming in that way, I'd probably avoid it, too.  But drumming is like short attention span theatre for me, like the short bursts of Twitter/Bluesky/Facebook posts.  It's not that I can't concentrate, but at any given time there are things that I would rather do than others.  I would rather feel like I'm doing a lot of small tasks that add up to an achievement, than to work on one big project.  

Early Sunday Morning

In the past week, I tried eating and drinking the junk foods I ate and drank for years, and it's not the same.  Doesn't taste real good, and while it's not making me sick, I feel better when I don't consume them.  I've kept off the nearly 20 pounds I dropped after July 5.  

Took a route to TP today that I hadn't tried before.  At one point south of Quakertown, I wound up in a long line waiting for a flagman to wave us through.  The drive was about the same length as the one I normally take, but took nearly twice as long.  OK, that route's one and done.  Lots of traffic and low speed limits.

Drum practice has slipped recent days.  I was going along with a structure of 5-10 minute warmup, 10-15 minutes of rudiment practice, and 5-10 minutes of playing with songs.   Starting to think that the rudiment practice is for people who are young and want the full well-rounded learning experience because they intend to do something serious with that knowledge.  Whereas I'm not young and don't care for rudiments any more than I cared for scales on the other instruments I did a half-assed job of studying.  I'm almost done with the double-stroke roll section of the Drumeo Method, and that may be where I stop, in favor of searching songs and watching YouTube videos of drummers playing those songs.   

Progression, or One Thought Leads to Another

It's after midnight, December 6.  A couple of years ago, I used to wait up and do the day's Wordle right after midnight.  Not anymore. 

I also used to play an online game where you have to guess the year a photo was taken.  After awhile, I could tell a 20's photo from a 40's from a 60's.  But all 21st-Century images look alike to me.

There's a website run by Duke University with photos of billboards over several decades.  Here's my favorite, taken in 1939, and which must have been known as the Esso Bee:

..............

Later that day, I opened Facebook, and among the on-this-date memories was one from 2022, featuring the Esso Bee.  December 6 is Esso Bee Day!

Two things

I was listening to Kaleidoscope, a radio program I'd listened to when I was growing up 50 years ago.  Today's show recalled highlights in the life of Edward R. Murrow.  He died at age 57 of lung cancer, the fate of many heavy smokers, when I was 9.

Kaleidoscope used the quote in the screen shot above, a quote I'd never heard.  I typed it in a text editor and saved it while some music played between audio paragraphs of the program, then searched for it online.  

Not only did the search turn up the quote, but I was able to download a PDF of the book it came from, Prime Time: The Life of Edward R Murrow.  I would have been happy with a simple citation, confirming that I'd transcribed it correctly, so acquiring the book about the journalist who did so much in the 1940's and 1950's was an unexpected added benefit.  Being able to do that in an instant, using the internet as an enormous reference library, leaves me mentally in monosyllables:  "Wow."  

It struck me that's how I write, too.  Until I heard that quote, I hadn't thought about it in those terms.  But the writing I've done for Tabby's Place, the descriptions of cats for the website and the correspondent letters for the special needs cats, it has been dependent on observing the cat and its surroundings.  If I witness it, I can describe it.  Making stuff up isn't the way I work.  

My month

When I started "Before I Forget" during the COVID pandemic, I was searching for something to do in my spare time.  Visits to Tabby's Place were out for the duration, so no petting cats, no writing about cats, no taking pictures of cats, and no preparing photos of cats for publication.  That was a large part of life that was taken away.

Between social distancing, masks, and vaccination, I got through it without getting sick.  But mentally I was grasping for something interesting to do.  

Now in 2023, I've done something about it.  Priorities look like this:

(1) Tabby's Place

(2) French (audio and print)

(3) Drumming

So you know what I do under the first item.  The second, I re-subscribed to Le Monde and found a free text-to-speech app, so I have the option of reading and listening, or just reading, depending on the degree of difficulty of the material.  I'm also using Google Translate when I get stuck on a word or a phrase.  The latest Trump indictment is giving me articles to read; for every French article based in France, I'm reading 2 or 3 based in the U.S.

And #3:  Drumming?  Bet you didn't see drumming coming.  Neither did I.  

Here's how it started.  YouTube set me up with videos of a child named Yoyoka who has lots of fun on the drums.  I didn't know enough about it to tell, but commenters who said they had many years of experience proclaimed her to be gifted.  I didn't learn anything, but it was entertaining to watch her play along with a song I knew.

Then because I showed an interest in Yoyoka, I started getting recommendations for a German girl named Sina.  She played songs I remembered from the 70's and 80's, and in particular I found she had played along with Steely Dan's "Home at Last."  Her videos utilized multiple cameras with closer shots, so I could see more of what she was doing, and I watched it again and again.  Pretty soon, I could actually see some things that made me think, "I could do that."

One day, another Sina video appeared on the screen:  "Learn how to play drums in 10 minutes."   I added the video to Watch Later, but didn't watch it for some time.  I suppose I didn't believe her and was afraid of wasting time and being disappointed.  But now I know there's a pretty easy backbeat that is used, in one form or another, in plenty of popular songs.  That was in April.  Soon, I was comfortable tapping on a table, first with my fingers and then with pencils.  

A few weeks later, I decided to take another step, and bought a 2-pack of no-name drumsticks from Amazon for $6.  Using a spare chair, I made believe the seat was the snare and the padded part of the right arm rest was the hi-hat.  Sometimes I tapped my shoe against a foot on the table, producing a hollow metal sound, and if I was barefoot I just tapped my foot on the floor for the bass drum.  

Google gets data from its users, and it started to pile up frequent searches from me for drum information.  How to, what to, when to, and especially, drumming with as little noise as possible.  So many videos showed long-haired, bearded young men bashing away at 200 bpm, and that didn't interest me at all.  I like the timekeeping aspect of drumming, not the show-off element.  So I learned about practice pads and electronic drum sets that can let me learn (and make mistakes) in near-silence.  

I also confirmed my suspicions that the e-drums from manufacturers I've heard of (Roland, Yamaha) cost plenty.  I won't spend the money until I'm good enough to justify it.  It's the same pattern as other hobbies.  Start with a cheap set of golf clubs, and when I get good enough to justify it, then get a better set.  Don't start out with a $2,000 set of Taylor Mades or whatever and shoot 120 with them.   

Last night, I took another step, signing up for 90 days of online lessons from Drumeo.  I believe I'd gone about as far as I wanted to go with the original scattered approach, and picked a focused lesson plan, "30 Day Drummer."  That starts in a few days, which gives me time to get used to the Drumeo website and what it has to offer.  I'll probably have more to say here down the road.

Now I have three activities that I find interesting which don't depend on youth, which can be done after retirement, which don't require a lot of money, and which are more than simple pastimes, like Strat-O-Matic was.  (It really *is* just a dice game, after all, even if I didn't realize it for many years.)  

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

Finally, in January I saw the family doctor and got a clean bill of health, with another appointment six months down the road, this time with a general blood test.  My blood sugar had been hovering near the magic number for years, and maybe I knew that this next test was going to put me over the top.  From January to early July, I ate and drank what I wanted, just as I had for decades before.  

The day finally came.  My weight was 253, my fasting blood sugar was 114, and my A1C was 6.8.  The advisories that had turned to alerts were now flashing bright red. Time to change or join the rest of my family with Type 2 diabetes.  The PA strongly recommended losing 10% of my body weight before the next appointment in 6 months.

The first thing I did was to re-start taking sertraline.  For some people it can lead to weight gain, but in my experience it acts as an appetite suppressant, or maybe more accurately, it helps relieve the stresses that had led to too much of the wrong kind of food.

The meds did their job, and I came up with a meal plan consisting of fewer carbs.  Salads with lean chicken, pieces of apple, tomato slices and carrot slices, all tossed with red wine vinaigrette with Dijon mustard, just like I had in France in 1982.  Homemade soups and chili with only a little burger meat.  Chicken scaloppini with a tomato-lemon sauce a la Pat. 

No cookies, next to no ice cream, and only tiny squares of the coffee cakes I made for PG.   Especially nearly no soda.  (Had pizza and Mexi-coke last Friday.)  Even without exercise due to the scorching summer heat, I lost weight quickly, reaching 239 and a fraction last week.  Now it's cooler and I can add walking to the plan.  225, here we come.

I had known all about this eat-less-exercise-more for years.  Only now, I didn't just have the want-to, I had the had-to.

What is he doing?

Just for the record:

 -  Did my job for a full 8 hours today.  In addition:

 -  Walked around the neighborhood before sunset and saw two cottontails along the way.

 -  Looked up a recent paycheck to see what I'm paying for medical insurance, and compared that figure to the amount I might be paying for Medicare Part A, Part B, and Part D, along with the cost of Medigap coverage (everything Medicare doesn't cover).  I have multiple college degrees, and it's hard for me to keep it all straight.  Just imagine what someone else would have to understand.

 -  I read some more of Fred Allen's unfinished autobiography, "Much Ado About Me".  Kindle tells me I'm 85% finished, and I already know there's an index after the last chapter that is probably good for 5% right there.  

 -  After months of watching YouTube videos of Japanese pre-teen Yoyoka and German teen Sina, I'm interested in learning more about drumming.  I found a few absolute beginner instructional videos and can compare and contrast where they differ and where they are the same.  Right Foot/Bass Drum/on 1 and 3; Left Hand/Snare Drum on 2 and 4; Right Hand/Hi-Hat for 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and.  If I start slowly enough, I can duplicate that pattern.  One beginner video started with the bass drum, another with the dominant hand and the constant pattern.  

After the Drumming 101 lessons, I re-watched Sina drum along with Home At Last and recognized the Purdie Shuffle variations on the basic pattern.  The right foot does a little more than hit on one and three, and the high-hat is a shuffle instead of a simple straight eighth-note pattern.  Not saying I'll ever be able to play it myself, and I'm positive I'll never try duplicating Steve Gadd's work on Aja.  I wasn't born with that kind of talent.  If I had been, it would have appeared long before age 66.  

Funny thing, though; in the comments of the videos, not just once, but several times, the writer would admit to being 45, or 61, or 64, and only now starting to learn now to play, just like me.  

In my early 20's, a lady I was dating taught me the moves to juggle three balls.  I kept trying, and eventually got a good grip on the technique.  And that's where my juggling education ended.  No desire to learn five balls, or a cascade, or bouncing the balls instead of tossing them up in the air.  That's how I'm looking at drumming now.  On Sunday I should receive two pairs of Chinese-made maple drumsticks, and I'll substitute them for the pencils I've been using to tap on the legal pads atop my desk.  I'm not going to eat, drink, or sleep this thing, but just have fun with it.

So I'm reading, taking pictures of cats and preparing them for publication, socializing cats, and now teaching myself basic drumming.  Doesn't leave time for TV, does it?  And when all that is done, I sometimes write about it. 

A Whole Bunch of Stuff (all at once)

...or, "More Than Enough, Anyway".  

The day started with a big smile.  A client who was happy that I was able to help him when others couldn't or wouldn't, sent a gift card to me.  With granddaughter Diana's HS graduation coming up, the card will be put to good use.

It was around noon that it began to feel like "Everything Everywhere, Etc." Powering up the office PC, I found that Chrome no longer worked.  Even trying to update with Ninite didn't produce a working browser.  What a search (using Firefox) told me was that the reason had a lot to do with Microsoft's .NET and a recent update.  While they get things sorted out, I downloaded a beta version of Chrome and got the main periodicals re-set up.

With that squared away for now, I drove to the office to work for the first time since 2019.  (I'd cleaned out my desk after going full-time work-at-home.)  Didn't feel any different; the commute on Route 22, swiping the badge at the door, things I'd literally done a thousand times between 2013 and 2019.  If the weather had been warmer, I'd probably have walked the track one more time.

The reason I was there:  a new laptop that had to be set up the approved company way.  The IT support had tried it remotely last week, but each time he got to the part where he installed a VPN, the wi-fi froze and the install failed.  He told me it should work in the office.  

Aw, you guessed.  Of course, it didn't work.  He muttered something about the in-house wi-fi being the source of the issue this time and told me that if it didn't work at home, to submit a ticket with the service desk.  I had suggested hooking the new laptop to the wired connection at home and running the old one on our personal wi-fi, but he dismissed that instantly.

Fact is, he was right.  I got home and attempted it, and while the power cord worked OK, the ethernet connection to the docking station produced only a blank screen.  He had anticipated that and said I should order another dock if that happened.  

Just to recap, there's no VPN and the dock isn't compatible with the new laptop.  But did I give up?  No, we'll push straight through, thought Moore, and proceeded to bang his head against a brick wall over and over.

And then, there were the Amazon packages outside the front door when I got home.  On the laptop downstairs, there are two USB inputs.  They were both in use, and I wondered if it were necessary.  One was taken by the dongle for a ten-year-old entry-level combination mouse and keyboard, and the other contained a more recent dongle that came with a mid-level mouse.  I learned that the newer dongle was designed to work with whatever compatible hardware you installed, while the older was limited to the hardware it came with.  So then, I reasoned, couldn't I get a new compatible keyboard and sync it with the unifying dongle for the newer mouse?  

The answer to that was "Yes", or more accurately, as it turned out, "Yes, but..."

At first, the new keyboard only worked with the dongle it came with, and the attempted pairing in keeping with the website's instructions failed every time.  The unifying software saw no compatible dongles, although two were plugged in.  Why don't things just work? I thought as Google got a workout.  But eventually I found the answer, thanks to a voice of experience on a Microsoft bulletin board.  

The answer was to download the same company's SetPoint software and run that, remove the older dongle, turn off the new keyboard, and *then* go back to the unifying app.  Sample responses struck much the same tone throughout:

Genius, kudos! 3h searching for a solution, and this setpoint did the trick

THANK YOU SO MUCH THIS ACTUALLY WORKED! I COULDN'T FIND A SOLUTION ANYWHERE ELSE!!!

YOU ARE A GOD!!!!! THANK YOU

Had I written one, my reaction wouldn't have been as dependent on hyperbole or capital letters, but it was a great relief to be able to cross something off the to-do list.  One dongle to serve them all, and now I can plug back in the reading light which currently illuminates that new keyboard. 

Did I mention the other item outside the front door was a new phone?  Yes, Consumer Cellular and their delivery service got PG's phone to us first.  Mine should follow tomorrow.  Giving up on the new work laptop and getting the keyboard all set up, I dug in to the phone documentation.  It was probably more than I should have tackled given the events preceding.

But, but, but that sense of accomplishment!  I can't honestly say it's a "phone" yet, but all the apps and data were smart-streamed over in short order, so PG can use it for searches and reference.  That's enough for one day.

Then my little girl, Good Queen Swirly, climbed onto my lap and my eyes soon closed for a refreshing nap.  Tomorrow is another day, or so it has been claimed. 

It was as I washed my hands after scooping the cat boxes that a thought occurred:  is it compliant with company policy to accept that gift?  I've never had to worry about that before.

My Friday

YouTube Music tells me who I've listened to the most over the past year.  The thing is, I first heard of Kate NV in 2021, and Room for the Moon is still my #1 in 2022.  I tweeted this graphic and tagged both Kate and her record company.  I'll let you know when I hear from them.  Maybe they figured that's what my money was for.

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

A day off with pay.  A Friday that felt like a Saturday.  I did Wordle, she did WordScapes, and we did Spelling Bee.  Then we got dressed, drove to an area furniture store, and bought a new bed.  They cost a lot more than they did the last time we bought one.  Still, our backs need more support than the current 20-year-old mattress can provide.  If the store lives up to its promise, tomorrow night we'll be sleeping on the new mattress.

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

Then we drove to Wegmans and bought some fixings for chili.  A red pepper and several cans of kidney beans, the house brand, if you please.  We just bought a bed and besides that, pretty soon I'm going to have to buy another tank of gas.

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

Later in the afternoon, we went back out and looked for a small Xmas tree for BB.  Costco had one in its latest advertising flyer, but there were none in the store.  Walmart had one that BB liked, but there were none on the shelf and they wouldn't sell her the floor model.

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

Worth Remembering

Tired this morning after yesterday's feast and a shaky night's sleep, which included one nightmare.  I woke up on the floor, groaning at the images at the end of the dream.  (That's as far as I want to describe it. The rest isn't worth remembering.  "The horror, the horror.")

Stayed in pajamas all morning, ate little, left Spelling Bee to BB.  Rainy outside.  Not going to Tabby's Place today.

The skies didn't clear, but the rain stopped. BB had found a WaPo article about the increasing number of traffic circles, and sure enough, when I followed the link I found three on Route 222 where before there had been none. 

We decided to check it out. Everyone else is bunched up in the shopping centers, so let's go in the opposite direction.  Minutes after we left at 2:30, we were driving through rolling hills in western Lehigh and eastern Berks county, enjoying the view, noting the changes made since the last time. I believe that time was during the early days of the pandemic, at least two years ago.

Kept going after the 3rd and last roundabout, finally getting off 222 in a shopping plaza near Temple. I picked up some Pepsi and two Lindt bars at a Dollar Tree, then consulted the map app for our next move.  Finding a quick way to Route 61 north, we took it up to where it intersected with I-78.  Some construction slowed us down; evidently with all the warehouses being built out that way, they're expanding the interstate on both sides from two lanes to three.

We got home, ate just a little bit of yesterday's leftovers, and then she went upstairs while I made myself comfortable in the rocker-recliner and awaited the Nebraska-Wisconsin match.  My Widdle Baby Durl (TM) emerged from beneath the fleece blanket on the sofa and hopped up on my lap.  Soon, she was napping, and so was I.

Wisconsin had their way with Nebraska.  So it goes.

These are the good old days

Sunday afternoon, we all met at the Longhorn Steakhouse on Grape Street to celebrate Diana's 18th birthday.

They had re-gifted us a $100 Longhorn card at Xmas, so we were ahead of the game going in. But everyone ordered a 6-ounce filet, plus two appetizers, with drinks, and a chocolate lava cake afterward.  With the tip, a fraction short of the 18% on the slip of paper, it still cost $150 out of pocket.  Five people, $250.00 of food and drink.  Whoa.

$75 to fill the gas tank, $300 a month for internet/cable/Tivo, and it's a good thing I'm still working.  

Another Day

PG woke me up about 20 after 8, and I immediately got up and walked to my office down the hall from the bedroom.  

Close to noon, a FedEx truck delivered a box and packing materials for me to return the laptop and peripherals to my former employer.  It should be interesting.  They want their phone, but if my new employer doesn't provide a modem pretty soon, I won't be reachable by phone.  

PG wasn't feeling well enough to go out, so I went alone to Wegmans for milk for both of us.  Spotted and bought their last Lindt chocolate ganache Easter egg for half price.  Enjoyed it, but didn't desire any more.  I don't know what's happened to my appetite for sweets, but it has to be good that I don't crave them at this time.  

After work, there was a chapter of Age of Ambition, a chapter of Charlie Chaplin's 1922 book My Trip Abroad, and parts of Chaplin's 1923 movie A Woman of Paris and 1988's Bright Lights, Big City.  That's all the culture I want for now.  Next, boot up the laptop and put it all down in writing.  Then find something on YouTube to listen to and play a few games before going to bed. 

My Day

Breakfast:  cereal, juice with seltzer, and the New York Times Spelling Bee, as usual.  Today was my day to get the pangram, "toothpick."

BB and I went to Lowe's to look at shades.  She looked, didn't buy any.

PetSmart on MacArthur Road:  two bags of dry ProPlan plus 2 jugs of TidyCats scoopable, and a dozen or so cans of ProPlan.  Enough to get us over the $60 threshold and earn a 15% discount on the entire order.  (something like from 82 down to 68)

Walmart for bird seed, Pepsi, and Dove Bars.  Impulse, bought a $4 box of peanut butter and chocolate Girl Scout cookies.  Ate the entire box, all 15 cookies, before supper.  I still binge like that from time to time.  I can do better, but I don't.

Supper:  pizza and Pepsi.  Dessert:  homemade vanilla pudding for BB, nothing for me, not after several hundred excess calories in the form of peanut butter and chocolate Girl Scout cookies.

Other times:  BB put on the Tivo'd TCM of Pride and Prejudice, the 1940 version.  My Widdle Baby Durl (TM) Swirly climbed onto my lap and I nodded off about 15-20 minutes in, and BB shut off the film shortly after I woke up again.  She prefers the 1995 version with Colin Firth.

One piece of mail, junk trying to get BB to switch to Liberty Mutual car insurance.  

I began to write something for Tabby's Place, nominally about Fenek, but more about the financial reports and where donations go, and how an independent agency rates TP highly in terms of stewardship.  

For years, I longed for better looks and more artistic talent.  Instead, I got thick glasses, an overbite, but with some writing talent and a certain knack with computers, up to a point.  So rather than being attractive to women who wouldn't be good for me, I have one trusted best friend of 37 years.  Instead of struggling to make a living making art or music, I make a good living doing something I enjoy.

I tried drawing and cartooning.  Still don't understand how to have fun doing them.  Just want to it be over and done with.  But I can open NoteTab and start jotting down a word here, a phrase there, working up sentences and creating paragraphs. Cut and paste and re-arrange, and it's all easy and simple and enjoyable.  In a little while, there's a 200-250 word cat description, or a 400-500 word letter to a Special Needs supporter.  Can drawing be that easy and simple and enjoyable for some other people?

And, a couple of times a month, I get to visit a bunch of cats, write about one or two of them, and take as many pictures as possible while visiting and petting as many as I can get my hands on.  Yessir, living the absolute dream.

Showered, cleaned the shower and tub.  When I opened the bathroom door, there was Good Queen Swirly.  We went to the master bedroom and I put on my jeans standing up, because I knew as soon as I sat back down, she would leap onto my lap (which she did).  Brushed her cheeks and neck with an old Stanley hairbrush until she started getting overstimulated and jumped back down. 

Watched part of an untranslated YouTube of Servant of the People.  It did have Russian subtitles, and I played at deciphering the Cyrillic.  Recognized "spasibo", "president", and "Volodymr Zelenskiy" and figured out the word in parentheses when there was no dialogue was their word for "music".   

Scrolled through Twitter, containing so many salutes and memes in honor of the Ukrainian President.  A few months ago, the stories were about "how he went from TV comic actor to getting 73% of the vote for President, back down to a 25% approval rating."  (He got 30% in the first round in 2019, remember.  The 73% was in the final round, against only the incumbent oligarch.)  

For that matter, it wasn't a week ago that a Ukrainian journalist contributed a few hundred words in the NY Times that described a decent man way in over his head.  (That hasn't aged well.)

Is that pretty much everything?  (Isn't that enough?)