Author: Peg

Did some thinking about my crazy stopover in Dubai in late June. When the average high temperature is 103°. And the sea is 88°. No need for a wet suit! On the plus side: I will miss Ramadan. On the other hand nothing seems to be happening in Dubai in late June.  Guess that everyone will have decamped for Geneve. Well, I really just want to see the buildings.

Lovely sunny warm but not hot springy day today. I was out enjoying it. Nevermind that my legs were very unhappy. Asked myself “what would Carlton do?” Well, he would say that is the legs problem and he would have gone on and done exactly what he wanted. Hard to believe that he has been dead for four and a half years. I still think of him as 79, but if he hadn’t died he would be coming up on his 84th birthday. Funny. I keep getting older. But he stays the same age.

it is 6 or 7 weeks from my great around the world adventure. I will endeavor to book lodging in Singapore and Dubai soon. And, think about what I am going to do with the 10 days that I have between arriving in Great Britain and leaving Great Britain. Still thinking about heading to Ireland or Scotland. But, first I have to check on the weather in that part of the world in late June.

Some times you just know you are going to have an adventure. “Those with pink trim have female drivers” definitely sounds like I am not going to be in Kansas. And, as I recall the Tokyo subway had “women only” cars last time I was there. 

I am going to try to keep the “stuff” that I will be lugging around the world to 15-pound absolute max. 13-pounds would be better. That would allow for 2 pounds of “creepage”.  Early in the adventure, I am going to a wedding. If need be I can mail my wedding togs home. But, I am thinking that my wedding wear might be appropriate for Tokyo, Singapore and Dubai. Athleisure wear is frowned on in all of those cities.   

This was fun. Deleting most of the Spring Fling images. But, these deserved a last look. 

What wasn’t fun was my credit card. Until this morning I have had exactly the same credit card since 1990. I believe that is 29 years. I know the number. AND, at least 21 establishments have said credit card number. Some for important recurring charges.  I spent the entire morning trying to get everything changed. I doubt that I will have to brain cells available to do this again in 29 years. Let us see that will be 2048 and I’ll be 104 years old.  Nope, pretty sure I will not be able to able to change my credit card number then. 

And, why did I change my number? It wasn’t my idea. “They” decided to swap my card from Visa to MasterCard. Nope. They didn’t ask me. Just did it. After all that, I hopped into bed for a nice nap on this rainy afternoon.

I am sure that I will continue to hassle with the credit card change. BUT, at least it is far enough ahead of my trip so maybe everything will be settled down by late. Another 1st world problem. Thank goodness for 1st world problems. 

I need some additional shots so I wouldn’t neglect too many people. So, I had to go to the “Talent” show again. 

I took this one as I was fleeing the scene. As soon as I opened the door to the Old Bat Cave, I shouted “Computer, Play Grateful Dead”. I brewed up a coffee and post-processed. 

And tomorrow is another day. Enjoy it. 

Well, that’s good the blog seems to be working OK. And I have taken my obligatory photos of the “Spring Fling” Talent Show here at The Asylum. This is the Asylum’s annual reminder that we are bereft of talent. The singing is astoundingly bad. But, many of the resident’s hearing is equally bad and the wise ones just turn their hearing aids off as required.

Nevertheless, I can usually count on getting an interesting shot or two.  

I rather like this one. Elderly Gentleman plays Brahms. And hits the correct keys.

And, what’s not to love about dirty dancing dinosaurs. 

But, it is still The Asylum. And note Asylum Residents for next year: Tony Bennett can still sing because he has a killer arranger. You don’t. STFU.

And, I leave you with an astounding array of rollators.  Rather like scooters around Metro.

 

 

I keep getting an error when I try to up load a new image. Wonder what went wrong with the blog. But, I am tired and I think I will just hope that it is magically healed by tomorrow.

It did seem to upload text ok. Maybe I’ll try another image. Nope, still doesn’t work. 

Back to wait until tomorrow. 

A little research tells me that I might have a problem that will take more brain cells than I have available at present to fix this. The error is: Failed to write file to disk. I no longer think it will heal itself. But, I am sure that I am not up to messing around the guts of the blog tonight. 

 

 

Yesterday, after dinner there were lots of fine crows outside my window. This evening I was ready for them. 600mm lens. Monopod. All ready to “shoot” some crows.

And not a single crow flew by. So, you shoot what you get. With what you got. 

I decided to stay in Tokyo. I like Tokyo. This way I can just stay in one place for my 5 days and not waste too much time moving from location A to location B.

Getting really lost in Tokyo is a given. So, I booked at a hotel between the main Tokyo train station and The Godzilla Statue. I hope that “Konnichiwa. Gojira. Domo arigato” (“Hello. Godzilla. Thanks a lot”), might help get me home some rainy evening. Rain in Japan in June is another given. Lots of Rain. 

I would not say that March is going out like a lion. More like a polar bear. 

But today it was back to wearing fleece and socks. And eating indoors.

And, I noted that 10 of our residents put in their celestial change of address forms in March.  At this rate, we will have 25%  resident turn over in 2019. 

Only thing I did today was thinking about what to do in Japan. Thinking about getting a hotel near a train station in Tokyo. I can get to downtown Tokyo from my incoming airport by train. And, the outgoing airport I can get to by monorail that I can get to by train. Most of Japan is very confusing because Japan doesn’t really have street names/numbers/addresses. And, I don’t want to spend but so much time being lost. Train stations are pretty easy to find. If you find train tracks – sooner or later you will find a train station. Once you have found a train station, you can usually get to the train station that your hotel is near.

Japan Plan B is to take the train from the airport to some small rural village. Hang out in the country from 5 days. Train back into Tokyo. Check into a “capsule hotel” for one night then head to the outbound airport on the monorail. Not sure I would like to spend 4 days in rural Japan. Pretty sure I like urban Japan more.  I am an old city woman.  Besides, they don’t have baseball in the country.

Starting to think about what I am going to do with my 5 days in Japan. I sort of cheated myself out of a day in Japan because I forgot about the International Date Line. AKA lose a day. 

I think I will pick a city and just stay there. The city might be Tokyo. Or Osaka. Or Kyoto. I did discover that outside of Tokyo there is a Hello Kitty Theme Park.

Japan is stuffed with wildly wonderful things like  Hello Kitty Theme Parks. And The Cup of Noodles Museum.

Ten years ago I went to the Ramen Museum in Yokohama. Maybe I should find the town with the most weird museums and set up camp there.  Oh and there is Japanese Baseball – I had forgotten how much fun that is. 

Act your age woman. You are 75 years old. Grow up. Do sophisticated adult stuff. Not happening. It’s still rock and roll to me.

 

Walked by this “transformer lot” on my way to the doctor this morning. Now, I walked 2.5+ miles to see my doctor this morning. Mostly to complain about my crappy legs. Legs that made it 2.5 miles can not be but so crappy – but what concerns me is how they are now compared to 2 years ago. The doc wrote an order for PT. Last order for PT I got, I chose to ignore. This one, I may actually carry out. 

Was kindly lectured by my doctor “Now, Peg, your only job is to take care of your body. We need to push you.” Whatever that means. Guess it means that PT is going to whoop my ass. 

Finally got a place to stay in Honolulu. Decided on the Ilikai Hotel, where I lived in the late 60s or early 70s. I am sure, that like the Old Bat, the Ilikai will be a bit shabbier than it was back in the day.  That will be OK. 

I don’t have a career ahead of me as a concert photographer. Opening act was John Smith. Both Mulvey and Smith spent a lot of time detuning, tuning and retuning their guitars.  An evening well spent.

Going off to see my doctor tomorrow. Most likely I will be reprimanded for some sin of omission or commission. But, I should be cut some slack – because I am actually going in to see Doctor just because she told me to and not because I think anything that I choose to have fixed is broken.

Dragging my feet about lodgings for the RTWB4EXIT trip. I really like to just arrive and dig up some place to stay then. But, that seems a little irresponsible now that I am 75 going on dead. 

 

Today, I put some of the caregiving skills that I learned (from Youtube!) while Carlton was dying to use  on the living. One of my friends has a PICC Line and didn’t know how to protect it so she could shower. I have that trick down cold. Glad Press-N-Seal. Lots of it. And some rubber bands. 

And real soon now, I am going to listen to music and drink in Vienna with a friend. Might eat dinner too.

Not my usual day. But, all good.