Author: Peg

And what was the not good start to the day? Fortunately, no bedbugs. But, I open up my door. The Washington Post has arrived. Without bending over or putting on my glasses I can see that:

1. 1. 1. Trump is still president.
      2. The bond yield curve inverted.
      3. Maine has completely run out of people to care for old folks.

After that things had to get better!

Sort of lazed around today. But, I did decide to give Google Sheets a tryout for my personal current personal spreadsheet requirements.  I needed one of my spreadsheets today and I loaded it into Google Sheets. It wasn’t easy, mostly because it was all new to me, but I did my updating. I renamed the Excel version of that file to get it out of the way. I plan to do that every time I need to call on Excel. It was sort of like going back to 1979 and VisiCalc. Well, maybe a little better. /SQY Think I’ll take that sequence to the grave.

Today there were two bedbug trucks on site. Furiously working on the 8th and 9th floors. One poor woman was getting her second treatment in 6 weeks. She had already invested in one new mattress. And the other woman had only recently moved in. Welcome to The Asylum.

My plan, if I get hit, is to decamp until things get 100% sorted.

Not sure that this is a bee. It might be a hoverfly. I didn’t get that good a look at it. (shot with cheap Olympus M 75-300 zoom lens that hunts focus big time, not ideal for bugs)

Big job at work all done except for some final clean up. I am getting too old to do these things. 5 years ago, I would have slammed 700 new or changed records into my production database without hesitation. This time, I had to check and recheck every step. And what can they do to me? Take my birthday away?

Next, finish up my project at The Asylum. Looking to have it 100% done by October 1. Then maybe I should get on with the serious business of being an old woman. And what exactly would that be?

This big fluffy ball of love is Charlie. She comes to visit the “old” people most Tuesday afternoons.

This might be the same bumblebee and it is definitely the same coneflower as yesterday. That image is uncropped. To get much closer I would need a tripod and some lights. Same image is today’s header.

Still using the Olympus 60mm micro  4/3s macro lens.

What was I so busy with? The hospital, yoga, etc. It isn’t easy being an old woman.

 

But not too busy to sneak out and look for bugs. It was really windy. So, no butterflies. Just bumblebees.

Worked 6 hours today. And, I think I actually got something accomplished. Then raced home in time for Yoga at The Asylum. Since I organized the group that saved that class last summer, I feel that I need to attend every time that I am in residence. It is a nice class. It is hard “enough” and the teacher is 60+ so it is all good.

Think it is time to take Apple’s warnings about my 32-bit applications seriously. I see my beloved itty bitty scanner as the biggest problem. It is absolutely antique but does everything I want it to really well. Never mind that it is 32 bit. I can find a 64-bit driver. But not the 3rd party S/W that makes the magic happen. And it is tiny.

My other 32-bit application is my circa 2009 Microsoft Office Suite. Guess I will just buy a new version. But, buy it. Not, rent it. I rent Lightroom and Photoshop for $10 a month. However, I use that software all the time. Word and Excel – not so much these days. I guess I should try to get what I do done with Google Docs for a while. But, I do like having the ever-powerful Excel in the house.

Or I could just not upgrade the OSX – that is so not going to happen. Talk about first world problems.

Today’s photos were taken with the Olympus 60mm micro  4/3s macro lens.

The unmarked bedbug exterminator truck was on site yesterday. That is 5 cases that I know about. I think it is about to get ugly as more residents hear about the problem. Several years ago we had a rather serious mouse problem. Not sure which is worse.

Sort of a lazy day for me today. Seems like I need at least one “do nothing” day every week. Well, today wasn’t so much a “do nothing” day as it was an “accomplish nothing” day.

I only found skippers today and one small bee.

Today’s photos were taken with the Olympus 60mm micro  4/3s macro lens.

Spent today working on my Asylum photo project so I didn’t make it out to make new pictures. But, I do have LOTS of photos from my lap around the planet.

Singapore is a very small country. About 2/3 the size of New York City. But, it is stuffed with fanciful gardens and greenhouses. More like greenpalaces.

These were all from the Gardens by the Bay. Singapore was an altogether satisfactory country.

No blog-worthy bugs today.  But, I rather like this image of a couple of the older ladies. The one on the right is a tiny 93-year-old woman who has only lived in the asylum a couple of years longer than I have. After she moved in, she took up wood carving. Mostly, I think, because she gave up stone carving when she moved into the asylum.

This photo is one of the outtakes from the photoshoot I did of residents about a month ago. By tomorrow this time – I’ll have that part of my project all wrapped up and ready to pass on to my “clients”. They do not need it until early December, but I will be long gone to Hawai’i by then.

Wayback on August 9, 2001, the blog (which wasn’t called a blog) was young and so was I. I was reporting on the “Girls of Summer”. We had lots of lovely young rangers working in Skagway that year. The pages didn’t age too well, I was using some funky formatting that isn’t supported by modern browsers. And, the pictures were tiny. But, those were dial-up days.

But wait. This time two weeks from now, I will be chillaxing in Bermuda.

I was about to give up on bugs today – when I found a nice fat clearwing hummingbird moth. I know that I have never seen one here at The Asylum before. This photo makes the moth look rather clumsy. They are really very elegant. Just a little on the pudgy side.

I can always find a skipper hanging out with the zinnias.

That’s about it for insect life at the Asylum. Well, except for the bed bugs and that is an entirely different story.

For Laurent: Today’s photos were taken with the Olympus 60mm micro  4/3s macro lens.

Busy today on my “advertising” campaign for our annual effort to get the inmates to contribute to our “employee gift fund” campaign.  We have about 475 employees who do actual work. (plus some management types.) And as of right now, we have 504 residents. So, we are well looked after. Goodness knows I didn’t have .94 of a person looking after me before I moved in.

 

Not a huge rain. Just enough so I didn’t feel like a need to water my flower boxes. Today or tomorrow.

I am trying to avoid most things political. But this little exchange is priceless.

Back to the regularly scheduled boring old blog.

Yet another eastern tiger swallowtail.

For the last 15 or 16 years, I have walked over Four Mile Run – either coming or going to the Hospital. Hoping that some of today’s rain landed on those black-eyed susans.

Dinner tonight: Salmon, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and cream cheese sandwich. Plus a takeout order of bread pudding.

A couple of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail’s were hanging around again today. I think one was leftover from yesterday. I choose to believe that one is a male and one is a female. But it is hard to tell since their hindwings are a little worse for wear.

And that is about it from the old woman today.

. . .

Let’s think about ants for a minute. Millions of ants die
every day, and do we care? No. And I’m sure that ants feel the
same way about us. The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard.

Now, the question of the day is “How the hell did I get so fucking old and when did it happen?” I wonder about my aches, pains, and memory lapses. Then I remember that I am currently playing the game in the bonus level category.

Just checked on my investments. Not pretty. Thank goodness for the fixed income component. I am ready to take a substantial hit if it will help unseat the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Not happy. But ready.

Speaking of money. Carlton never passed up a penny. When I got off the bus this morning, I spied a penny. I tried to just walk over it like every sane person. But no. I heard Carlton ask was I too lazy or too rich to pick up a penny. Every time I see a penny, I figure it is just Mr. C checking up on me.

Just in case you are not a fan of B/W butterfly pics.

I had the great luck to stumble upon a collection of every short story that Arthur C. Clarke wrote from 1937 to 1999. In Kindle and Audible format. It is about 1,000 pages or 50 hours of vintage goodness. What surprises me is that I actually remember reading some of them back in the 50’s.  I think I am up to about 1949. Lots more hours of reading and listening pleasure.

One day last week, while the blog was broken, I was walking home from work. It was hot as the hinges of Hades.  My trusty umbrella was deployed and I wasn’t happy about the rather steep uphill that would be happening at the end of this block. I come upon this frail older lady. She doesn’t even have an umbrella. I walk because I chose to. Chances are really good that this lady was walking because she has to. Old women are tough. Hoping that she made it safely to her destination.

Diversity here is black and white napkins. Salt and pepper. Plus beet sugar and 3 types of “sweeteners”.

A LITTLE REFLECTION ON BEING OLD

---

The new CEO of The Asylum wants us old folk to be able to “follow our passions”. I overheard one old gent tell another that his passion was to get through the day without having to change his undershorts.

---