Zoe status

Jul. 22nd, 2025 10:58
bill_schubert: (Default)
[personal profile] bill_schubert
I started this as a reply to @siglinde999 but it got to be too long so I decided to post the whole thing.

Zoe is currently eating breakfast. At 11AM. Her morning pain and inflamation meds are in the breakfast and she normally eats it first thing but today decided not to so she has no meds so far. I took her to the vet a couple of months ago and they gave her pain meds she takes twice a day and an inflamation drug. After a month I asked for more so they added gabapentin (recently in the news for excellerating dementia in humans).

She has lost most of her hearing and much of her eyesight. Neither are a problem. She sleeps better for it. I'll throw a treat on our dark floor for her and she can't find it so I have to show it to her. All easily worked around.

The two problems are dementia and arthritis. The latter requires drugs to cope that exacerbate the former.

She exhibits what is called 'sundowners' syndrome which is an early evening restlessness. Walking around the house panting heavily in an anxious manner. I give her trazodone to counteract this and it is effective. Too much knocks her out which is OK if not optimum.

The big problem is that being too hot, coming back from a walk, being in pain, suffering from dementia all have the same single symptom: continous panting. That's it. No way to differentiate.

So it is really hard to tell how much pain she is in and that is the one factor that would motivate me to consider euthanasia which, of course, I think about all the time.

There is a growing palliative care, senior care, euthanasia care for pets at home industry. There are a bunch of euthanasia adverts as that is a discrete service that can be easily packaged and marketed. Hospice and palliative care are more difficult. There is a vet group that does it but not near me.

All the articles say to reach out to your vet. I emailed mine but got no response. So I guess I need to go there in person.

Zoe and Toby and I still go on walks nearly every day. Zoe is off leash and walks right behind me stopping for all the important canine scent interactions writing notes along the way. She can't hear the dogs barking at her so is sublimely non reactive.

Having eaten and so taken drugs and walked, she is now lying on the floor behind me happy to be in my office with me here panting sometimes and sleeping on and off.

She's got a great life for the most part. So hard to know when to end it.

PXL_20250722_162601358.MP

Timber Ridge Taxi

Jul. 22nd, 2025 08:32
susandennis: (Default)
[personal profile] susandennis
Last night, Hazel came in to ask me to take her to Bellevue this morning to turn in John's urine sample. They have two sons who live nearby and all of Timber Ridge services. But, they chose me. I'm over it. But, of course, I said yes. I said I'd like to go early so she said 10. 10, to me, is decidedly NOT early. It just means my morning is now eaten up entirely. She is sweet but so tedious. Last night she told me she couldn't drive because her eyesight was bad. And I'm sure she will tell me that again today along with everything else she has said over and over and over and over again.

I'm very tempted to say gimme the piss and you stay here. But, their health care provider is pretty sticky about stuff and I don't want to make the trip for nothing. So, I'll hang out and do nothing til 10. Take her and come home for lunch and then sit in the elbow while the cleaner cleans and finally get some me time about 2:30.

I do think that Hazel and I are going to have a chat about letting Bonny in on some of this action. I'm going to suggest we give Bonny a turn. I should have done that last night. Bonny has said many times to them and to me that she wants to help. Hazel somehow understands that Bonny's help is only available in the afternoon and she wanted to do this first thing. ARUGH. Regardless, I'm going to tell Hazel that Bonny is feeling left out.

The place we are going is very near other stuff, too. Like the shoe store I want to go to and a couple of other stores. But, not with Hazel.

Man, I am a whiner today!! I'd better fix my attitude before 10. Also I'm thinking there may be a gas purchase needed soon.

In other news. My $4 phone case from Amazon is perfect! 2 days with no case on my phone was stressful. That damn thing is slippery when naked. This case is slim and grippy and worth every one of those 400 pennies.

20250722_085722-COLLAGE

Epstein Dreams

Jul. 22nd, 2025 09:24
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera
When I think of Jeffrey Epstein, I think about dreams.

The dreams are disintegrating around the edges, like picture cards in an album no one even suspected was in that moldy basement, and they belong to girls who grow up invisible, neglected, and ignored, but who one day discover they have a minor super-power: They're pretty.

Not pretty enough, not connected enough, to commoditize their good looks in any real way.

But pretty enough to believe that they might with just the tiniest bit of good luck or encouragement.

One day in the mall food court, they'll lock eyes with a man. The man will approach their table, hand them a gilt-edged business card. You're so pretty! Ever think about becoming a... model?

Or the man will find them at Starbucks. On the beach. At an arcade. At a bowling alley. On the 7 subway platform heading back to Queens. (It's easier for the man to find them when the girls live in a big city.)

###

It would be nice to think the Epstein files will topple the Trump presidency, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to see anything in the tea leaves: There's too much churn.

He'll be out in a year, of that I'm still convinced.

His handlers have finally come clean about Trump's chronic venous insufficiency, but they neglected to include the part about how chronic venous insufficiency is linked to vascular dementia. Not that you really need to know about that link. Trump's insane behavior when his handlers loosen the leash is evidence enough.

It's some kind of commentary on humanity that voters in the current holder of the title Most Powerful Nation on the Planet were expected to choose between two ancient, doddering old men with dementia at the beginning of the last election cycle.

I'm beginning to suspect they'll use a health emergency to oust Trump.

But I dunno. It might be Epstein.

###

In other news, Icky and one of the spawn showed up here off-schedule in the middle of the night a couple of days ago, and scared the living be-Jesus out of me.

When I told him he really needed to tell me when he was coming up here because to a woman alone in a rural house, unexpected sounds of occupancy are truly terrifying, he muttered, "Sure, yeah, okay," and immediately deflected: Why did the propane tank run out after only 10 days? Make sure you are installing the propane tank correctly.

Happily, Icky & the Spawn left early the next morning. It was the older spawn, and I wondered whether Icky was carting him off to college in some kind of macho road trip fantasy. The older spawn is going to the University of Utah, an odd choice for a New York kid. "He likes to ski," I was told.

Of course, the older spawn won't last a year at the University of Utah. Released from parental vigilance, he will play video games 24 hours a day, howling while he does so, 'cause that's what he does now (and his parents don't seem to get that this is aberrant behavior for an 18-year-old.) He will sell all his Adderall to buy a PlayStation 5. I don't think I've ever seen a kid so ill-prepared to live on his own.

###

And yesterday, I was walking down Main Street in Middletown. Mission: Talk Tranquili-Tea owners into letting us rent out their space for Brian-Palooza. I had just come from the gym and was dressed in leggings and a red tee.

I heard honking—

A guy in a car who leaned over and called out over the rolled-down passenger window, "Wanna ride?"

Wanna ride is guy-in-a-car-ese for Say, will you blow me for 50 bucks???

Wow.

I am 73 years old. And still having to deal with this kind of shit.

Some Progress

Jul. 21st, 2025 22:18
days_unfolding: (Default)
[personal profile] days_unfolding

I woke up after an hour of sleep. Got up and ate some cereal and went back to sleep. Overslept and woke up at 7:30 AM. I’ll take my shower at lunch.

Forgot to mention that I ordered chargers and a charger case for the trip. One plug has multiple USB ports, which will work well. I ordered a travel “pillow” that has noise-canceling headphones and a massager. I want to get good sleep on the plane! I might need a tote bag to carry it in. I found one that I like, but want to see how big it is. I'm checking luggage, so I'll have two carryon items for the flight. Hmm, I should get a larger tote bag because I'll be carrying a CPAP eventually. I might shell out for a travel CPAP machine so that I don't have to carry a big one with me. I found one that I like. But I need the prescription first.

That reminds me that I want WiFi access on the flight to update LJ. I'm flying Lufthansa, and they charge for WiFi but you can buy it aboard the plane. I'm flying Premium Economy to Munich (I looked into Business Class but winced at the prices, so this split the difference) and the page about Premium Economy on Lufthansa's site looks nice. I'm flying Economy from Munich to Sardinia.

I'll have no room for souvenirs in my suitcase. If need be, I could buy a small suitcase to put stuff in. Or mail stuff to myself. I did find a collapsible duffel bag with wheels. Or wait a minute; does Roam have a bag that will fit on top of the rolling suitcase? Yes, it does. And it's carry-on size. Oh wait, but I can have only two pieces of luggage on the train. I think that I want to contact Trentalia and ask them about it. Note to self: Roam duffel. Okay, they will ship luggage within 24/48 hours for a fee. I'll get the Roam duffel in that case (done). Do I want a travel blanket? I could take a beach towel.

I'm in the stage of dieting where I'm hungry all the time. I want some freaking food! And I ate breakfast. Had some yogurt. When I crave doughnuts, I eat some whole grain cereal, which is better for me. The whole purpose of this is first to eat well for energy and maybe lose weight.

Damn, I'm feeling tired. But I need to take a shower at lunchtime so that I can work on the fence after work. I did take a nap. I’ll jump into the shower after work.

Almost done with our Annual Statistics at work: just one more small task. Yay.

Maybe I should take Bella and Gracie for a walk because they are so interested in what’s outside the yard. They walk pretty well on two leashes, although the leashes tend to get wrapped around each other. I'm so lucky that they like each other.

Excellent. My ballet flat shoes have shipped.

I read an interesting article in the New Yorker about autoimmune psychosis. My psychosis came out of the blue when I was 39, which is late to develop a psychotic disorder, so I'm wondering if that could be the case. I like my psychiatrist, so I might bounce it past her.

"Showers in the vicinity". Well, that settles whether I'll work on the fence or not. The critters will want to eat after my shower anyway.

I forgot to mention that I got my new purse mentioned in the “How Not to Look Like a Tourist in Italy” article. It’s very nice, and my tablet fits into it.

I got the collars with the spot for the AirTag and my phone number on it. Oliver and Lily are very upset that I put a collar on them. (Bella and Gracie are taking it in stride.)

Oceania has a Bali to Hong Kong cruise. They’re a little expensive for me, but wow, does that sound cool.

I guess that I must be in Sharper Image’s target market because their catalog had some stuff that interested me.

Cleaned off the table.

Lily has already gotten her collar off. Sigh.

I'm going to eat, feed the critters, and go to bed.

New Me For No Reason!®

Jul. 20th, 2025 19:47
johncomic: (Uncle Old Guy)
[personal profile] johncomic
Seven years ago I grew everything out:


me in my longhair days


and kept it that way until today:


me in my current shorthair days

(no subject)

Jul. 21st, 2025 12:22
maju: Clean my kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] maju
I slept really well last night, which I was expecting after my lack of sleep the previous night. I went for an early walk rather than a run as it was, as usual, a warm and humid night/early morning.

After breakfast I did the shopping and the chopping - preparing vegetables for meals for the rest of the week. It was cloudy and stayed cool enough for me to have some windows open while I was working in the kitchen, but now the sun is out and the temperature is rising accordingly.

A few weeks ago I had a letter from my Ob/Gyn saying she is leaving the local Kaiser and I need to choose a new doctor in her place. I made my choice, and a week or two ago I had a letter from the new doctor introducing herself and suggesting I should make an appointment with her just to meet I guess so she can be familiar with me. I vaguely remember having a mammogram a couple of years ago and I don't remember when I last had a Pap test, so I've made an appointment with this new doctor for next week. I suspect I no longer need Pap tests but I'll check with the doctor, and I might not be due for another mammogram yet.

overstock>over it

Jul. 21st, 2025 07:19
susandennis: (Default)
[personal profile] susandennis
My monthly subscribe and save order of cat food arrived and now I have, on hand, more than a month of the same cat food they have loved for a year. And they seem to have fallen out of love with it. Of course. I just wish they had let me know before the order.

Hazel came over yesterday. Mainly I think she just wanted to get out of her apartment and stretch her legs. She didn't stay long. But, she did tell me that her son came to get them this morning and they got a guy from security to come up with a wheel chair for John to go to get blood drawn. They got there and it was closed and only then did they figure out it was today and not yesterday. They are sinking fast. I did get Martha to bring them up a wheelchair to have for a while. She runs a loaner closet where she keeps walkers and wheel chairs and all kinds of paraphernalia. Then Bonny came in for an update. So it was busy-ish. But, fine.

Our mailroom has locked boxes for each apartment for our USPS mail and a cubby for each apartment. The cubbies are not locked and are used for anything - menus, private notes, TR announcements, etc. I have a little fabric pouch on my phone that I carry my mail key in. It's always been annoying because it keeps the phone from lying flat. BUT way more annoying not to have the key when you are in the mailroom. Myrna was always having to make a special trip back home because she forgot her key. A fair number of women carry little purses around with their keys and, of course, men have pockets.

Something came up Saturday when Martha and Bonny and I were chatting about mail keys and Bonny said 'I keep one in the back of my cubby.' GENIUS!!!! She said when she first moved in she saw a woman get hers out of the back of the cubby, open her mail box, and then return the key to the cubby. 'I thought it was a great idea.' Me, too - why the fuck did you wait so long to share it??????

So. That means I now only have to carry my card key. The key that unlocks lock down areas. Like the pool after working hours. If you punch a hole in the card key, it breaks it. I think I can slip it between my phone and the case but my current case is too thin. And I will probably, may, might, could maybe, am thinking about getting a new phone when Google makes the next one available in August/September. So I don't want a new case. But, Amazon has one for $4 that will work so ok.

No aqua yoga today which is fine by me. The new guy is way too much inner peace and world saving and not nearly enough stretching. On the up side, his voice doesn't carry well in the pool room so I don't have to hear his crap but still, I'd sure like more good stretching. We rarely have more than two or three people in class and one of them told him the music was distracting. The music was about the only thing interesting and now it's gone. I'm guessing/hoping that soon the class will be, too. I could just quit going but I would love for their to be more water classes so I go to show support and, besides, I was the one who asked for a water stretching class.

I need gas in the car and a trip to the charity shop. I broke my heavy tissue box for the bedroom and I want another and I haven't checked for 'hair' sweaters recently, but I think I might wait until tomorrow when the house cleaner is here.

20250720_201616-COLLAGE
days_unfolding: (Default)
[personal profile] days_unfolding

Woke up a little after 7 AM and fell back asleep until 8:30. The dogs are wrestling on the bed.

“Storms continuing though 3 PM.” Okay, it’s an inside day. While I was out with the dogs, it started raining pretty hard, so I brought them in. They don’t usually do their business in the rain. Here comes a full-blown thunderstorm.

Gracie is upset that Oliver won’t play with her. She’s emitting ear-piercing barks.

I got intrigued with Coldplay due to the kiss-cam brouhaha. I discovered that I like their music. I gather that makes me uncool, but I don’t care. Bought a couple of albums.

The Dynamic Duo are wrestling. I might need to kick one of them out. I bought them some tug-of war ropes and a Kong toy, but they prefer to play tug with random things. Bella has a plastic bottle that she’s ripping apart, and Gracie wants it.

Napped. Woke up after an hour but went back to sleep for another hour.

Someone on Facebook suggested putting affirmations in a digital photo frame. I asked ChatGPT to create some for anxiety and stress, but it put them all in one graphic, which isn’t what I wanted, but I’ll work with them later. I should look for digital photo frames on Mercari (done). I also want one about getting things done for the kitchen.

Oliver wants some food, but I told him that it was too early to feed him. He’s cuddling next to me. Had lunch. I’m going to take another short nap.

More thunderstorms are coming. I might not get out today.

I ordered some more pairs of underwear and socks for my trip. One thing that I need to do after I shower is to try clothes on and pack. I need to make a list of stuff to buy.

Showered. I’m trying to decide what to do. I need to try on clothes and to feed the critters, but it’s not supposed to rain for the next two hours. On the other hand, no rain on Monday.

Tried on clothes. I like the blue striped linen dress and the black striped shirtdress. They were both a little wrinkled, so I put them in the dryer. The blue dress is still wrinkled, so I need to try out my clothes presser. Bought ballet flats to go with them. I also had a Columbia dress that was very cool (temperature-wise), so I looked for another one. One of my Chico's dresses is missing. I know that I got it, so it's here someplace.

Fed us all and took the dogs out. Gracie somehow got her leash off--her collar was still on--and she went through the gap in the fence and took off down the street. I couldn't figure out where she went, but she came back to see Bella, so I ran over and put the leash on her. When I was getting her in the yard, it was Bella's turn to take off. She came back though, and I let her in the yard. Yikes. The collars with AirTags and my phone number can't come too soon.

I checked out goop because Coldplay --> Gwyneth Paltrow --> goop. I was surprised that I found some blush and reef-safe sunscreen that I liked. The prices were similar to those for high-end makeup.

Bought a strapless bra from Underoutfit because some of the dresses have narrow straps. I also bought some "cooling thigh protectors".

My tooth is hurting. I think that I want to go to bed and get up early. I'm feeling cranky. Actually, I should do an hour of work on the kitchen and then go to sleep.

Slowly fixing my environment

Jul. 20th, 2025 11:53
bill_schubert: (Default)
[personal profile] bill_schubert
But for the small stuff I'm pretty much done with my office. The rest will be the usual battling entropy. I moved around some of the pictures and added a couple. What the desk wall looks like:

PXL_20250720_165549546.MP

The lovely couple over the door are my great grandparents on my father's side. Prussian soldier and wife. Reminds me of Crosby's 'Triad'

Your mother's ghost stands at your shoulder
Got a face like ice, just a little colder
Saying, "You cannot do that, it breaks all the rules
You learned in schools"

The reverse wall is my quiet chair, the place I typically use to meditate:

PXL_20250720_164435562.MP

At some point when I first set up our retail space for Friendly Computers I ran across this neon monkey.  It was in the store window and then in my office window and now on the wall behind my chair.  When he first met my mom at an age when he could barely talk he called her Monkey.  And, of course, the way things went she was Monkey for the rest of her life and has watched over me and now meditates with me. I can't make the colors come out right.  It is not so garish.  It is also on an Alexa routine and comes on every evening shutting off at bedtime.  She is accompanied by two amazing paintings by a friend of hers and a small landscape by one of her ancestors who was a Southwest painter.  So they no doubt talk at night.

All in all I'm happy with things for the moment.  There may still be some rearranging.  I took down a huge picture of a sailing ship that belonged to my grandfather.  I saved it but it takes up wall space that could contain a couple of other hangings, yet to be determined.  I'm giving it some more thought.

But things are picked up and cleaned and neat.  For the moment.


The Importance of Habits

Jul. 20th, 2025 12:23
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera
About six weeks ago, I saw a craigslist posting for a collective household in T-burg: Someone had just bought a Big Old House; they wanted sympatico people to move into it to form a sympatico household. Numerous photos of the house, of the grounds. They liked animals! They wanted people with pets!

I immediately dashed off a reply: Here are my many virtues. Blah, blah, blah.

I was disappointed when I did not hear back.

Okay, I thought. Well, not everyone wants to live with a septuagenarian. Or maybe they had all the residents but one lined up, and I was just not that one.

Three days ago, I saw the listing again and replied again—a tad more plaintively.

And did not hear back.

This irked me.

I mean, my reply had been a masterpiece! Flash fiction of the highest order! Sprightly yet subtle! Informative without the cringe factor!

Maybe I'm just repulsive! I thought. Back in the days of the Little Store, on days when we made practically no sales, I would often wonder about my own repulsiveness. I figured it was sort of like a radio beacon; depending on the weather or the white noise, it would pulse strongly or erratically, but it was always there, and people sensed it, and that's why they didn't flock to the Little Store to buy dozens of bottles of my own trademarked Monterey hot sauces Beast of Eden & The Chilis of Wrath!

Brian was very good at quelling this particular anxiety loop.

"Repeat after me," he'd say. "Say it loud, say it proud: 'I Am a Real Human Girl'."

He also found it extremely hilarious, which is exactly the right reaction for someone like me. I need to be laughed out of my own psychic contortions. The "Poor you" schtick doesn't work on me because even at my most self-pitying, I am perfectly cognizant of the fact that my life is better than 90% of the lives on this planet.

###

Anyway, the woman who bought the house finally emailed me yesterday, enormously apologetic that she hadn't contacted me sooner: I've been in the process of moving! My mom came to town to help!

We Zoomed this morning. And were amazingly sympatico.

She is an untenured professor at Cornell, proud member of the SDA (Social Democrats of America), writing a book on the history of child care labor in the U.S., how various stakeholders (labor unions, immigrant rights advocacy groups, federal agencies, municipal task forces, nanny and domestic worker placement agencies) value child care labor. She is also drop-dead gorgeous, so naturally, my mamala mind began sizing her up as a potential Ichabod mate. I restrained myself from asking how wide her hips are, though.

Next step will be a meeting with the other house residents and a tour of the house. Conflicting schedules have pushed that meeting into August.

If all goes well, I'll give one month's notice at the beginning of September and move in October.

Fingers crossed!

###

Other than that...

I have been going through the motions simply because one must, but the spark is not there.

I remind myself: Good habits take a long time to make, so it's unwise to break them. If you stop doing all the beneficial things—exercise! self-care! make-up! cooking dinner! laundry!—you fall into a kind of mental swamp from which it becomes increasingly difficult to hoist yourself out. Those little habits are grounding. Grounding is something I have issues with having no earth signs whatsoever in my astrological chart.

###

I harvested my first cucumber from the Hyde Park garden:



The tomatoes still have a month or so before they come in.

###

Yesterday afternoon, I wandered over to the New Paltz garden for the first time in three weeks. The garden was hosting a mid-harvest potluck. I took one look at all the cheerful, earnest, handsome gardeners with their endless variations on cucumbers in yogurt dressing, and thought, Yes! Babbling affably to strangers is my one Great Superpower, but I cannot do this.

And ran away.

But not before I checked out my plot. It is once more overgrown with weeds, but the weeds are not unmanageable—I could get rid of them in a single day now that the heat wave is broken. Plus there is one little tomato plant! I grew it a peat cup from seed and planted it with a bunch of other seedlings, and they all died but this tomato plant survived my neglect! Surely, it deserves other vegetables! Basil, I'm thinking. I didn't plant any basil in the Hyde Park garden this year, and I miss my pesto.

###

However much of a struggle human company and good habits are, I am still able to lose myself if the distraction is right.

I've been speed-reading my way through the complete works of Jennifer Haigh. Finished Baker Towers, her first novel about the small Pennsylvania coal mining town where she grew up.

Kinda interesting to see how Haigh's literary chops have evolved. Baker Towers, written in 2004, is kinda your straight-up Kristin Hannah-style novel, simple declarative sentences, not much in the way of thematic connective tissue between the various characters' POV sections. Heat and Light, on the other hand, written in 2016, is extremely ambitious from a literary point of view with a rather complex figurative subtext and a surprising end point. I sense the Jennifer Egan influence.

###

I also watched Andrea Arnold's American Honey.

American Honey is a road trip film, an odyssey. Eighteen-year-old Texas girl living in squalid conditions with an abusive father runs off with an itinerant magazine crew. High jinx ensue.

It won the Jury Prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and though Sean Baker's The Florida Project came out only one year after, it's difficult not to imagine that American Honey didn't have a profound influence on Baker's movie. They are both describing the same phenomenon, how youth transforms otherwise harsh & unforgiving environments where people stuggle for survival into wild adventures filled with promise.

It's a long movie, nearly three hours, but I was transfixed throughout.

Two-thirds of the reviews I read afterwards complained that the movie just went on and on and on, but nothing happened! I think those reviewers have spent too much time in the Marvel Universe. This kind of story best is told by seamless integration of the music, the character acting, the improvised dialogue, the way locations are shot, the vibes in short. It would be poorly served by a linear narrative grid.

(no subject)

Jul. 20th, 2025 12:33
maju: Clean my kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] maju
We had a very dramatic rain/thunder storm late yesterday afternoon; the rain started around 5 pm and lasted for a couple of hours, and we ended up having about three inches of rain in that time. I'm really glad we had that drainage work done a few years ago (actually, the two lots of drainage work - the first reshaped the front yard so that water which used to pour down our yard to the house now goes into a French drain and around to the back of the house where the yard slopes downward away from the house, and the second was to install a French drain right around the foundations of the house and also reshaped the front path so water is directed away from the front path and front door).

I had a video call from Violet this morning asking me for help with crocheting. Her much older cousin L taught her to do basic chain stitches last summer, but Violet hadn't done any crocheting since then and couldn't remember how. Yesterday she went to a crochet class at their local public library and discovered that, while everybody else picked up the basic stitch quickly, she wasn't able to. She knew how to make the beginning slip knot but couldn't work out how the next bit works. So I guided her through how to put the yarn over the hook and then draw the loop through the beginning slip stitch, and after a few tries she got it. She then proceeded to make a long chain, and found that although her work started out lumpy and uneven, by the time she'd done 40 or so stitches it was looking lovely and even. She wants to make a scarf, so I told her that when I'm there next I'll help her learn how to build on the chain stitches.

Aria popped into the video and showed me that she has two missing bottom teeth, and two tiny new teeth just poking through. She also asked me to show her a blanket I've made, so I showed her the crochet squares I've made over the last couple of weeks which will become a blanket.

I had a very bad night of insomnia last night, worse than usual. I fell asleep before 10 pm but I woke up again before 11 and couldn't get back to sleep. I got up and read for a while, then tried to sleep again but once again I just lay awake so I got up yet again and read. I think I finally fell asleep between 3:30 am and 4 am, and woke up for the day just after 5 am even though I had turned off my alarm. In all that time awake I did read most of my latest book, the story of a woman (Emma Gatewood from Ohio) who was the first woman to through-hike the Appalachian Trail, at the age of 67 in 1955, wearing tennis shoes and carrying a small drawstring bag with a few necessities. She went on to do a lot more long distance hiking (including hiking the entire Appalachian Trail twice more) and was instrumental in drawing attention to the benefits of walking and also of conservation.

overcast

Jul. 20th, 2025 08:05
susandennis: (Default)
[personal profile] susandennis
And cloudy - that's this morning and it's lovely. I'm beginning to notice incremental day shortness. It's still light at 5 am but not like it was last month. It's still light at 9 pm but not like was last month. Progress.

Yesterday was just a lovely day of OMG-I-am-so-lucky-to-live-here. It just slaps me upside the head sometimes in the most wonderful way.

Today I had nothing on the agenda until I got a text from Richard (one of my volleyball buds and husband of Martha) asking if I would be willing to take him to Costco today to get a new battery for his car. Happy to. He says it will take an hour. Richard is one of those guys who has his own way of doing things and that is coupled by his extreme thrift. He spent his life teaching and then managing teachers of special education. In fact, turns out, one of the teachers he managed years ago, was Jan - the woman who just moved into Myrna's apartment!

So I'll meet him out at the elbow at 10. He has exceedingly long legs. It will be fun to watch them fold into the Smart Car.

Last week, when I took Martha to Fred Meyers, we stopped at Krispy Kreme and I took some mini donuts to elbow coffee. Everyone oood and awed at the donuts and I explained that they had Martha to thank and then they oood and awed at Martha "you got to ride in the little car???!!!" It was pretty funny.

We'll be home in time for baseball. The Mariners beat Houston in a walk off long after I was asleep.

Guess I'd better get dressed. And I need to put in a load of laundry and unload the dishwasher.

20250719_195415-COLLAGE
[syndicated profile] amw_feed
The best thing about not working is that i have a bit more time to think about things that during the other 49 weeks of the year i struggle to find the mental or emotional space for.

For instance, sometimes when a topic like UBI comes up you'll get this flippant question like "since you hate work so much, what would you do if you weren't working?"

And the answer is - i don't have a fucking answer because i have to use up all the energy available to me just doing this job that i don't want to do. That's literally the point. Because work is all there is, i don't even have the energy to imagine what else there could be. That's what work does to me - it destroys all motivation to do anything else, to even consider what a different world could look like.

But, on this briefest of weeks off, i can at least start to think about these things in a way that is a little deeper. It's still starting from a shallow context, however.

Yes, i am going to talk about TV and YouTube again.

As an aside, i suppose that YouTube itself has made the point that TV doesn't have to be shallow, because there is now an entire generation of kids that has grown up watching deep video essays that deconstruct popular media. Media criticism has evolved into a whole new genre of informative entertainment. There's even a whole subgenre of self-referential meta criticism that come across like "video essays: a video essay". Turns out people love to use entertainment as a springboard for pontificating and i guess that's the whole point of art anyway, so in the great tradition of everyone since ever, here we go.

What do i want to do with my life?

What would i do if i wasn't working?

I have a lot of interests. Electronic music. Space exploration. Vegan food. There's a bunch listed on my LJ profile. Some of these interests like certain types of food are small and simple things i can slot into pretty much any lifestyle. Others are deep areas of scientific research or technical skill that i would never be able to master at this point in my life and simply enjoy paddling about in as an amateur. If i was not working, i could put more energy into those things.

Cynical people might make a case that amateurs by definition cannot earn a living from their hobby and thus have nothing meaningful to contribute to society in pursuing it, but i hope there are none of those on LiveJournal because this very platform is an outlet for amateur writers to share their writing without any intent of fame or fortune. And yet we still enrich one another's lives. Our hobby still has an impact!

So, if i never had to work again would i become a full-time hobbyist? Sure. But is that practical? No. It's a lot closer for me than for most people thanks to the inheritance i received when my mother died, but it's still not quite feasible, financially. Ironically, people with more family and less money might have better options.

One TV show i watched recently was a Netflix comedy series called Mo. It's about a family in Texas who have been stuck in the immigration pipeline for over 20 years and are also stateless because they were pushed out of Haifa in the Nakba, then moved from the Israeli-occupied West Bank to Kuwait as migrant workers, then fled Kuwait during the Gulf War. The background story is pretty heavy, but the show is typical light sitcom fare. There is no attempt at grit, it's filled with over-the-top situations and implausible escapes. The story is centered around toxic masculinity and family melodrama, not the geopolitical situation.

Anyway, there is a point in season two of Mo where (spoilers but not really) they finally get travel documents and go to Palestine to visit their family. And although there are a couple of scenes that are reminiscent of the Louis Theroux settler documentaries and touch on the real-world challenges of life under occupation, the main point of it is about the emotions the main character experiences as he visits this place where his grandparents lived and where he still has extended family.

The show made me think about my life as a migrant and how strongly i identify with the migrant experience, but also to some degree the experience of feeling stateless. In the case of the characters in Mo, their notion of statelessness is concrete - not holding citizenship of anywhere. For me it's more a sense of holding on-paper citizenship of two countries, while not feeling a deep ancestral connection to either one.

To be fair, my Canadianness was always a citizenship-of-convenience, but even my Britishness is more of a colonial accident than a meaningful ethnicity. I was born in England, sure, but my mother and her family were Dutch and my father holds New Zealand citizenship by descent, which is odd because i only ever knew of my grandfather as a resident of Hong Kong and later the Philippines. I think this is why Brexit hit me so hard, and why i still feel traumatized by it - because i had the only part of my citizenship that actually reflected a real component of my cultural heritage torn away from me. My legitimacy as a European citizen has been stripped and it still hurts me so, so fucking much.

I wonder if this background led to me feeling drawn to China after Brexit, and why i picked Guangdong to live specifically. I cried and shook for an hour when i visited Hong Kong again 8 years ago, decades after the first time. Just like Mo going back to Palestine in the TV show, it felt like rediscovering a piece of my family heritage that previously had just been experienced through letters and phone calls.

It's these stories that connect with me, stories of displacement, stories of migration, of unusual connections to the land.

I am part-way through season 4 of Le Bureau des légendes, and the arc in this season is about cyberwarfare. There was a throwaway line in one of the episodes about whether a certain hacker could be persuaded to change sides, and the point that was made was that this hacker cared more about solving tough problems and getting to play with the best tech in the world over any particular political allegiance.

Political apathy is a common trope applied to hackers in TV shows, but it's not without a basis in reality. There really is an element of anti-statist or post-statist sentiment in hacker culture. The "an cap" libertarian types imagine a world where their smarts led them to deserved riches and feel that government only gets in their way. Some folks may think back to the less angsty and meritocratic elements of the hacker manifesto: "This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud... We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias..." One naïve hope i held was that people would come to see supremacism as absurd in a world where information flows freely.

In this story i can see my career intersecting with my personal interests and also my migrant identity. The work that i do in my job right now is similar to the work that i would do if i was employed by a three-letter agency - building tools that consume streams of data in order to analyze signals and spot anomalies that could indicate abuse... but i like to imagine i would feel more fulfilled at work if i was doing it for an organization that ostensibly exists to defend human rights rather than one that exists as for-profit entity under capitalism. In reality it's an idle fantasy because i don't have an ideological connection to my countries of citizenship and no third party with an ideological carrot to offer would seek me out anyway because - unlike the character in the show - i am not a singular genius. Like most so-called "software engineers", i am closer to a plumber than a mathematician. There are millions of people who can do the exact same job i do, and few that come with my baggage.

So imagining myself as a spy is escapism. Could i ever leverage my career into something that matters to me? No. It will never happen. I am so fucking tired of people helpfully suggesting that because i know computers it must be trivial to find meaningful work in government or at an NGO where i can apply my expertise. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a doctor. It's like selling production line workers the myth they, too, might become millionaires if only they worked a little bit harder.

Another throwaway line in season 4 of Le Bureau was that because the hacker to be recruited was 26 he was basically past it. The next generation will surpass him. While that might be true for virtuoso cryptographers, it's probably not true for code peasants like me. But it's still true if what you're hiring for is not skills but ambition. Young people will put up with more shit, they are more able to be molded into what the organization leadership wants, they are cheaper, they have more energy... The Russian was right: i am past it. At my age the only skills that are transferable outside of my niche are management skills, and i fucking hate management.

Ugh, this tangent is hitting too close to home, especially as the Sunday night blues start looming.

But i still like to watch a TV show about spies because it gets at these other topics that resonate with me. Politics and religion and ideology and all of these institutional conflicts that displace people and cause them to question their identities and their loyalties and their convictions... That stuff feels so fucking real to me, it feels personal and relatable, it's humanity engaged in the most human of struggles. That is the space i would want to work in, if i could do it all again. That is what i am interested in, what i am passionate about. And perhaps the appeal of the context of it being a spy show is that the characters are deeply engaged with these topics, while also standing removed from them, existing in the space where they have to be the cold and analytical ones. What makes the stories impactful is the tension between realpolitik and human compassion.

Which sort of leads me back around to the topic of a YouTube series i've started watching recently. I hesitate to link it for fear of it looking like an endorsement, but it's recordings of a teacher at a top-tier school in China giving grand, sweeping lectures on geopolitics that went viral on TikTok in June because he predicted in early 2024 that Trump would win the presidency and the US would attack Iran. (Okay, here's a viral snippet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pG-8XLLaE0) The framing of his lectures is Asimov's Foundation series, which is a sci-fi story about building an algorithm that can predict the future by examining history. I've watched a handful of the lectures so far, and my sense is that he is presenting a "Guns, Germs and Steel"-like pop science take on history, where the world is reduced to simplistic stories that pithily explain every major event as a logical outcome of the social structures that preceded it.

The interesting thing about the videos, though, isn't the content so much as the context. These kinds of pop science "theory of everything" takes are dime a dozen on YouTube, including more tankie perspectives like this one. Like misinformation, it features cherry-picked and outdated facts that create an air of plausibility, but by leaning on them too heavily it results in questionable and sometimes demonstrably incorrect conclusions. What's interesting is - assuming this isn't a very sophisticated CCP psy-op - this provides a neat insight into an educational project aimed at the highest echelon of Chinese kids. There is one point where he pauses to take questions from the class and although we can't hear the students, it's clear that they are really struggling with the concept of what life might be like to be poor, which instantly busts the myth that modern China is even just a little bit communist.

And that's what makes the videos a fascinating watch. If you lived in China or spoke to the children of Chinese elites overseas (university students etc), you might find that either they are very politically apathetic or they have strong convictions about the world that sound very much like this guy's lectures. This isn't the Chinese nationalist view of the "little pinks" or the "wolf warriors", this is more a reflection of the intellectual class who's read Kissinger and Chomsky and Žižek: "and here are 327 citations that show how America is losing the war it started in Ukraine; and we pity the poor, working class Americans whose racist and unequal society is about to collapse due to the hubris of their imperialistic rulers; and when America inevitably does collapse - if they don't delay it a few years by invading Iran - Japan is destined to become the preeminent power in East Asia, because China is still a poor, developing nation, after all; which, by the way, is why we so deeply understand the oppression of the Global South by colonial powers" etc etc. It's hard to engage with this kind of rhetoric as a westerner because it's coming from a perspective of reality where China is always the victim. The same books, the same philosophers, the same basic facts are used to draw weirdly different conclusions about the world.

I think this is something people in the west misunderstand about authoritarianism. It's not an active "brainwashing" - at least not for the highly-educated class, who are the ones who will become the power-brokers of tomorrow - it's more subtle than that. It's coming to understand things through the lens of a very particular worldview that is pushed through every corner of the media. And, to be fair, many have suggested that Americans have the same problem in American exceptionalism. I like to think that's not the case because the media is objectively much freer in America than it is in China, but that might not be as true for their educational system, judging by the YouTube commenters who seem amazed that anyone could ever talk geopolitics at this level in high school. And, guys, this is not a high level!

It made me think back to my own schooling and various homework we had to do on current events like Nelson Mandela going free or the collapse of the USSR. An anti-nuclear educational activity we did back in the early 90s to this day lives in my head rent-free. I fondly remember Religion and Social Studies teachers in the Netherlands who spoke their political views with great conviction and tried their hardest to get us kids interested in and excited about political affairs in the Netherlands, in Europe and around the world. I credit at least some of my interest in social justice to these teachers, even if it took me years after high school to really understand what they were saying. I don't know what the fuck they're doing in American schools if kids aren't talking about racism or poverty or contemporary military conflicts, but this kind of education isn't all that unusual in other parts of the world.

So, with all that in mind, i also kind of like what this teacher in China is doing, because even though he is teaching from a problematic point of view, he is also lecturing in a way that is engaging. If i give him the benefit of the doubt, he may know that his simplification of history is not accurate, but by presenting the information in a story-like way that links it back to current events, it makes it more interesting for the kids. Rather than going on to study international affairs because they feel it's their duty as the sons of party elites, they might go on to study it because they're really excited by this story, this idea of what might happen in the future, and the thought of what they might be able to do to influence it! That's really the point of education, right? It's not just teaching kids some facts, which they could anyway find out on Wikipedia, it's about getting them enthused about a particular area of study.

And that is actually pretty rare in China, where the more typical form of education is just to memorize and regurgitate various facts and figures. In the context of China, this is probably as good as it gets! Which then makes me think that if American kids are getting a similarly shit education in their schools, then having them flip over to watch this guy on YouTube might at least get them inspired about global affairs... which is exactly what we will all need in the future if we want the next generation of politicians, diplomats etc to NOT start a world war and trigger another humanitarian catastrophe.

Which, finally, leads me back to thinking about what i want to do if i can ever break free of being a software engineer. And, it's this. I know i can't be a traditional educator. Going back to school myself will take too long. Also, quite frankly, kids are fucking stupid and would probably drive me crazy to be around all day. But something in the direction of trying to inspire, agitate, organize... This is something that i think would be rewarding. But how does that work? If you managed to read this whole spiel then you know a big part of my identity is that i feel stateless, or homeless... and i have no life outside of my job. I don't have family. I don't have a community. Traditional politics happens in your local area, but i have no contacts or connections. Maybe that's why i feel such affinity with transients. If i was still a European there would be places i could try to volunteer, learn French, learn Arabic, help out refugees at the grass roots and see what happens next. But i'm not a European any more so that's not an option.

Seriously, fuck Brexit.

Anyway, this post is way too long. It's literally taken me all Sunday. But the fact i'm able to write it all out is a testament to having had the week off, to letting my mind go to places i wasn't able to while i was working. I haven't really solved anything, but i feel like i've started to get more honest. If i do try to get involved in social work if or when i ever quit tech, i feel like helping migrants is something i care most deeply about. Whether helping them to settle into a boring, suburban, consumerist lifestyle if that's what they need, or helping them organize and raise awareness of the situation of their family, their peers, their people... I care about this corner of society. I care about equality and justice for people who are living with less rights simply by misfortune of where they were born or some political conflict that happened outside of their control. I can't singlehandedly build the Star Trek utopia where there are no borders, no nations, just people... but maybe i can do something small that plants the seed in the minds of others?

I dunno, this is my mid-life crisis. I don't have kids so i'm entertaining some white savior fantasy instead, right?

Except, like... these people are me too, and that's the point. I used to think i was some high class, white colonizer, jetsetting globalist fake of an immigrant. The same kind of impostor syndrome i have about being a woman because i'm trans. The same kind of impostor syndrome i have about being trans because i don't take hormones or make an effort to pass any more. I have the same impostor syndrome about not being a real immigrant because my job is fucking tech and i'm too rich to understand the struggle. When, actually, i lived almost my entire life as a non-citizen migrant, and then the one time i didn't, my own fucking citizenship got ripped out from underneath me.

So now i'm owning it. I know i'm privileged, but i'm still a migrant. I still lost my citizenship. And i want to find companionship in that, and i want to share the privileges that i do have with my peers who don't. I'm just not sure how. Not yet.

To be continued?

sunday

Jul. 20th, 2025 07:42
summersgate: (Default)
[personal profile] summersgate
DSC_5785.jpg
This morning. The stargazers are in bloom.

DSC_5799.jpg
Where I like to sit for chicken watching time.

Jules and I are heading to Pittsburgh to pick up Hazel. Today is her birthday. 27. 
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] creative_cooks
I made these tonight.

Read more... )

Diddly-Squat Day

Jul. 19th, 2025 21:16
days_unfolding: (Default)
[personal profile] days_unfolding

I read [personal profile] sunshine_two's post in which she mentioned an estate sale, so I got on a local estate sale list. There is one tomorrow morning, but only until noon, but I kind of would like to pick up some wine glasses. That led me to Facebook Marketplace, and someone had some dining chairs that are very similar to the ones that I saw on Wayfair, but these are painted white (and cheaper). My kitchen is mostly white, so that probably would go. I'll sleep on it.

I subscribed to Prismatext, which takes a book in English and inserts words in your target language in it. I found a book that I want to read, so I thought that I’d give it a try. Which reminds me, I need to study traveler’s Italian before my trip.

Okay, I stayed up late, so no buying wine glasses tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain anyway. And major thunderstorms in the afternoon.

Got up at 7:30 AM. Gracie slipped her slip-knot collar, so I’m not taking her back outside until I get her new collar.

I found someone on Facebook Marketplace who is selling wine glasses. I’ll look into it.

Fed us all. Nap time. I’m thinking about the day. If I spend the day cleaning, I can watch Will and Harper on Netflix tonight. The rain might stop mid-afternoon, so I’d like to get outside then.

Here comes a storm. Napped.

I got Gracie’s new collars and put one on her. I also got the chicken wire to fix the fence but need some time without rain.

I’m going to take another short nap and then launch into things. It’s sunny out now, so I’m going to shower and go outside.

Got my BistroMD meals in. It occurred to me that I‘ll need wire cutters for the chicken wire, so ordered some from Home Depot plus some wire if the staples don’t work.

I got diddly-squat done today, but that's fairly typical for a Saturday. I was going to clean off the kitchen table, but I think that I just want to go to bed.

Note to self: look for USBA cords

saturday

Jul. 19th, 2025 21:23
summersgate: (Default)
[personal profile] summersgate
DSC_0255.jpg
"Division". This was just one of those where I had no idea where it was going even from the beginning. Just playing with paint.

DSC_0257.jpg
Three Headed Dog. This morning I was reading the short story called, Eyes of Dogs by Lucy Corin. It's in the book, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me - Forty New Fairy Tales. Corin's story was a take-off from the Hans Christian Andersen story called The Tinder Box. A soldier coming back from war but in Corin's story he has PTSD. I got the fairy tale book years ago (2017), and as I do I read a little bit, a story or two and then set it aside. I think I'm going to settle down and try to read all the stories.

I let the young chickens out into the yard for the first time yesterday so they could mingle with the old chickens. All went well. Just one little "fight". The young hen called Black Star is acting like she wants to be head of all the chickens and went up to the group of 3 old chickens and jumped into the air in front of them to challenge them. Of course Blondie took the challenge and jumped up, wings flapping and feet grasping back at Star. Little Red got scared and flew through the air about 15 feet to where Johnny and I were sitting, to land in my lap. Johnny and I petted her for a while. She is the tamest of all the young ones. From watching them outside in the yard yesterday and today I'm getting a much better idea of their personalities. Star ain't gonna take shit from no one, Rocky is just big and dumb (can't figure out where the door is and is always pacing back and forth in the wrong place trying to get to her friends), Muffy wants to be left alone and stay out of any altercations, and Little Red is a scaredy cat.

Family

Jul. 19th, 2025 14:22
bill_schubert: (Default)
[personal profile] bill_schubert
Dana has an aunt with whom she is currently staying.  She and Dana get on wonderfully.  Aunt is a country club type.  Married into the Zeppa oil family (Dana is Dana Zeppa Schubert).  The company was a boom/bust kind of thing with Keating Zeppa in charge during the latter part.  Dana's Aunt was married to him until he died a while back.  All that is prelude to her visiting and enjoying the perks of country club membership and lunch with the Rose Festival Queen contestants.  AKA, one of my inner circles of hell.

I have to watch the dogs.  Aunt has two standard Poodles who probably eat steak at the table with napkins tucked into their collars.  I'd so much love to visit too but I need to do my hair.

Keating had a sailboat.  I've never seen it but I think it is pretty good size.  Moored since long before he died at a dock in lake Tyler.  Knowing what I do about boats I'm sure it is barely salvageable and, if so, for a bunch of money.

Dana texted me and said that Aunt didn't want to sell the boat but was offering it to me for free.

I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be able to give the boat away.  Maybe could sell it to someone on a coast for a few bucks but likely not even that.

If I were in my 20s I'd look at it.  Now I wouldn't even get close enough to count the wasp nests.  

There are few things I'd like to do more than go out on the blue water on a good sailboat for a day or two.  Or sail over to the the Caribbean from Florida.  But a man has to know his limitations.

I'll just stay here and mind the dogs, thank you very much.

Old

Jul. 19th, 2025 11:31
susandennis: (Default)
[personal profile] susandennis
Volleyball was very good today. An excellent number of people and no assholes. Elbow Coffee was pretty good, too. Last night I hit on the idea of using it to unravel sweaters. So I took my sweaters and my vacuum (cause unraveling makes a huge mess of little yarn bits) and unraveled while we coffeed. I thought one or two might want to join in but they did not which was fine. They enjoyed watching me and it was good conversation.

Last night I watched my first Mariner game of the season and it really was fun. When the broadcasters started saying stupid shit, I just hit mute until after the commercial and then turned the sound back on. It worked fine, plus I had closed captioning on anyway. At bedtime, I watched more on my tablet while listening to my book in bed. Glad I spent the $25.

My neighbor across the hall - the Jim who moved in a month after I did - is declining pretty fast. Physically he's fine. Mentally, he's melting. His doctor has told him he cannot drive any more. And he's apparently going to take the advice. He asked me this morning if I'd help him sell his car. He has a Tesla. I just 'chatted' with the local Ford dealership and they will buy it. Yes, I know there are many more ways and he could get lots more money with some of the other ways but... the point is to make the car belong to someone else. That is the only point. So I'm going to suggest the way that is easiest. I may have to end up driving it myself.

Living with old people is a constantly changing environment, that is for absolute sure.

Now I need to go find a remote. I have this wall clock that needs the time changed and taking it down would probably involve wall repair so I need to find the damn remote. It's not in the obvious places so I need to start on the non obvious places. Sigh.

20250719_120357-COLLAGE

(no subject)

Jul. 19th, 2025 13:06
maju: Clean my kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] maju
I see deer all the time around here, usually does and, at the right time of year, babies young enough to still have their spots. However, I rarely see bucks, and especially not bucks with more than one branch on their antlers, so I was gobsmacked while out walking yesterday morning to see not one but two bucks, both with very well developed antlers. ( Here they are) I didn't even notice until I looked at the photo later that one of them was wearing a tracking collar, and was surprised to see how big and clunky it was.

Our spell of depressing grey ultra humid weather continues. By Monday we might be lucky and have lower humidity for a couple of days although the temperatures will still be high. I'd love to have a night or two when it's cool enough to sleep with the window open.

I went to parkrun this morning but didn't do any running; I concentrated on intervals of fast and slightly slower walking, and ended up just as sweaty as if I'd run. I wish we could start earlier than 9 am in summer but it would be too complicated and confusing to have different summer and winter start times.

Profile

bill_schubert: (Default)
bill_schubert

July 2025

S M T W T F S
   1 2 34 5
67 89 101112
131415 16 17 18 19
2021 2223 242526
2728293031  

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 25th, 2025 06:59
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios