The Weekend

Where's the peanut butter?

Lovely clear calm water early this morning. Snapped this barred file fish having a bite of bread for breakfast. (Taken from the dock)

After taking the picture, I went back to the room, got suited up and went out for a fine swim. I went out farther than Carlton likes for me to go. But, he wasn’t around to see it happen. I had fins, mask, snorkel, and wetsuit. I was pretty safe. Safer than he is back home riding his bike sans helmet.

Old people should take chances. What to we have to lose? Adult diapers. Hearing aides. Pureed peas. Dementia. Pancreatic cancer… Young people should be careful. They have an entire life to lose. Not to mention they have to keep paying taxes to support all my old person’s entitlements.

As for my charitable planning. Two votes have come in for NPR and PBS. After more than 10 years I still support Haines Alaska NPR. It was the only radio station, except for a suspect AM station that I could get whilst in Skagway. And, we had no TV. I watched 9/11 from a sports bar. But, more can be done.

What did I click on to deserve this?

Ok, you all know  my “old woman wardrobe rules”:

  1. No elastic waists – ever.
  2. Nothing from  Talbots
  3. Only one thing at a time that a teenager would wear.

Well, the four of the last five websites that I visited had a Talbots ad for my viewing pleasure.

Do they know about my rules? Do they think I have any influence?

If I do have any influence – I hope it is not in the Fashion Arena.

If  I have any influence and you are rich or even “comfortable” – read this:  The Angry Rich

And everyone should go outside within the next couple of nights and look up. Even those of us who live in the city and can not see a single star. Jupiter – best viewing since JFK was President. Check it out. Speaking of JFK, those Talbot’s ads remind me of Jackie O. They must be trying to remind us old crones of when we were young and Camelot was live on the Potomac.

In case anyone is slightly interested in all things solar – but not too seriously – the ever popular: Spaceweather

Sunrise Day 3

Tuesday Sunrise

Not much to report. Started looking for plane tickets to Kona. Gotta get a mammogram appointment. I hate those things. Not the mammogram. But, the queasy feeling – what if they find something. No, I am not one of those people who would say “Thank god, they found ‘it’ early”.

I know three people, all of whom were perfectly fine in early August that are dead today. Feeling a little poorly. Off to the doctor. Off to the PET scan. Off to hospice care. Off to the cemetery. In a month. No one is promised tomorrow.

Don’t we all wonder? How will I take the news? Will I die with a degree of grace and peace and no regrets? What if I don’t get the news? What if I just have a massive cranial bleed? Will there be anything left on my “must do list”?

Just thinking

Got a new Ikea catalog yesterday. It made me happy. Happy that I was NOT in the market for furniture. With luck – I’ll not be in the market for furniture anytime soon. Buying furniture does not make me happy. I still use the desk that I got when I was 10 years old. It was used then. Somehow or the other my Dad got it – it was actually a dressing table from the “officers” furniture stash. I guess it was some sort of midnight acquisition.

Much in the financial news about how regular folk just ain’t acquiring stuff like they used to. Hence, the  markets are not doing as well as we investor folk might like. Is this really a bad thing? I think not. Maybe people will learn that 3 more tee-shirts for $10 does not improve the quality of life on the planet.

About teeth and winding life down. I am not ready for death. I’ll be pissed as hell when the time comes. I am sure there will be things left on my to do list for life. But I hope the things left are “want to do” not “should do” or “must do”. Statistically I have 10 or 15 years left. But, nobody is promised tomorrow – so, the “should do” and “must do” lists – need to be kept clean.

Dawn’s Early Light

Celebrating July 4 on July 3
Not great but not bad for handheld point and shoot
Maury School

I managed to wipe my WordPress theme out. So, for now … I’ll just use this one.

Happy Birthday America. Last night before turning in – I noticed some fireworks. Many of our local towns have fireworks before the 4th – not wanting to compete with the big show. Being too lazy to do anything – I just took the Point and Shooter out and Pointed and Shot. DSLR and Tripod would do heaps better. But, you get the idea.

I am getting into trip zone. Preparing for 20 hours of transit. Heading off on an adventure. A samurai tale. The old grasshopper and young cricket – each on a quest.

I always said that old age is the time to take risks. What exactly do you have to lose when you are 66 – maybe 20 years max. Years of decline. It is time to put your money where your mouth is, grasshopper.

Not feeling very festive


Brown Trumpet Fish
The Striped Brown Pacific Trumpet Fish
Yellow Phase Trumpet Fish
And, The Yellow Pacific Trumpet Fish

I am not feeling very festive at this instant. A little domestic discontent over my Xmas plans. It might involve a trip down an unpaved road and Carlton is saying “Not in my car – you will not take my car off the pavement. No way. No how.” Oh, the drama of spending one’s dotage with Carlton.

On a more positive note – I had a great time snorkeling today. Captured a yellow trumpet fish and a brown one with stripes. They are ambush hunters who inhale their prey – like a vacuum sweeper.

a little more mac every day

seed pod - nature conservancy lot
seed pod - nature conservancy lot

After a morning designing forms at the hospital – paperwork is my life – I decided that is was time to get The Airness connected to the rest of the computers in the house. It now happily plays with the elderly XP systems and uses the XP’s old HP printer. I did have to download a new printer driver – but nothing to that. I suppose I’ll try to get it connected to the Ubuntu system next.  Should work fine – since the Mac is really a Unix system is designer duds.

Speaking of designer duds. One of the downsides of losing 20 pound is that I now give a shit what I am wearing. What a pain that is! At my time of life, I should be heading off to polyester and elastic waists – or at least The Talbots and Chicos. It isn’t easy to be stylish with my requirement for shoes that you can walk five miles in. And my refusal to frequent the dry cleaners. And my reluctance to shop anywhere except at thrift shops.

Point and Shoot

Who says that you have to use a $99 camera to Point and Shoot.
The L1 goes to a party wearing  the wrong lens.

(click on the images. if you like cooliris/piclens – 3D works best)

As you can see, Carlton did not wear the PLAID sports coat. Fashion note about men. Young men take off their ties when they play dress up. Old men put ties on when dressing up. And, all ladies still look good in black.

october already?

cart jam @ target
cart jam @ target

Sometimes, sometimes something fun shows up AND have my camera AND manage to get off an OK shot. Here we have the cart caterpillar at Target.

And what was I doing at Target? Buying some really disgusting powdered totally chemical coffee creamer that Carlton likes. I am sure that the stuff is shortening his life – but what the heck? Carlton really doesn’t care if he wakes up tomorrow morning. It is actually a great way to live if you can pull it off.

Tomorrow (if Carlton wakes up) we are going a party given by a girl who just graduated from college with a degree in fashion design. “Cocktail Attire” is the required dress. I am horrified about what Carlton might wear. I told him that when kids are invited to “grownup” parties they have to behave. Well, it seems to me that when you are an old person and you get invited to an important “young people” party – well as an old person – you are expected to behave. And that means NO YOU CAN NOT WEAR THAT PLAID 1950’s SPORT COAT.

About Sleeping

Macbook Air, Fujitsu u810, Old Classic iPod
Macbook Air, Fujitsu u810, Old Classic iPod

Last night I wasn’t asleep. Us old folks are always bitching about not being able to sleep. Well, last night – when I wasn’t sleeping – I went out and sat on my porch. Guess what? There were lots of young people outside. Walking around, talking, get cabs, etc. They were not asleep. I bet they were not going to be bitching about not sleeping well today. When I was young, I considered sleep a huge waste of time. I don’t remember ever saying “Gee, its Friday night – guess I’ll snag some zzzz’s” Enough already about not sleeping. Plenty of time to sleep when I am dead!

It has been a week since the Mac followed me home.As you can see from the picture – it is very thin. But, it has a nice solid feel. (I just noticed that the iPod Touch and the $199 Dell are in the picture as well.)

This morning I tossed WINE on the Macbook.  Several times a year, I need Dreamweaver. Just to tweak something that I created years ago. With Ubuntu, I discovered that my elderly version of Dreamweaver works good enough under WINE. And, it works good enough with the Mac version as well. So much for banning all things Windows from the Mac. (Except for two mouse buttons, of course.)