Author: Peg

Woke up this morning. Glorious sunny fall morning. It is “Scone Day” in the building. Carlton went down got me a scone. I was enjoying my coffee and scone – I let myself off the diet leash until Nov 1. Punch up my widgets and I found the snow icon on tomorrow’s weather. WTF??? It isn’t Halloween yet.  Good news is – I don’t think it will cause any travel problems for us.

But, it sure means that anything that needs doing outside the building needed done today.

Usually when I travel I am prepared for every thing that I can imagine going wrong. What if my box of clothes isn’t at the hotel? What if the box I mailed doesn’t arrive? What if it rains? What if it doesn’t rain? What if we have to go to a funeral? What if we decide to go to a fancy dress ball? What if Martians invade? What if my camera breaks?

This year I decided on the less is more approach. I am taking one camera. I haven’t decided about taking my backup drive. If I get to Kona and my hotel box is missing – I can go up to Wal Mart and get shorts with elastic waists and granny panties. If the box I mailed doesn’t arrive – I can get a new wet suit. If my camera floods, and it might, Amazon will  send me a new one. If my sandals expire – Zappos is waiting. If we have to go to a funeral – there is a 50/50 chance that it will be a “local kine” funeral and shorts with clean t-shirt is what one wears. Fancy dress ball – we a talking Kona here – it isn’t gonna happen. Martians invasion – well, I hope my camera is still working!

 

If you are a vintage citizen – you really don’t want pictures of yourself that haven’t been “softenskin” and “glow” post processed! (Cell phone picture from today’s office party.)

First the volunteer job has be crazy this week. When I wanted to be working less, I have been working more.

Second, when I came home today – I found that our carpet was being reinstalled, the gas company came to check out a gas leak, repairs were made to the gas line into the water heater, a guy was working on my chair that got way too wet during one of our floods, and finally a wall got painted. And this was all after 1:30. Goodness knows what happened during the morning.

Not much got knocked off my going to Kona 2do list.

Detoured thru The Nature Conservancy’s “weed lot” to take in some nice fall colors on the way home from work today.

Carlton got stuck in traffic for an hour on the Beltway this afternoon. He was not a happy camper when he got home. His tennis partner wasn’t happy either. Carlton was supposed to be playing tennis – but he was stuck in traffic. His partner called the apartment and refused to believe that Mr C did not have a cell phone and I did not have a clue as to where he was.

Making some progress on my Kona 2Do List. Carlton being MIA helped – rather that worry about were the man was – I worked on the 2Do List.

Don’t think I’ll ever go to my own college homecoming. Been to Carlton’s once. That was more than enough. But, I never miss the Howard University Homecoming Parade.

There usually isn’t any reason to vote in Arlington – because only Democrats run. If you care you vote in the Democratic primary. But, the bastard Republican controlled state government gerrymandered our state legislative seats. So, we have to be sure to go vote or our Democratic State Senator will lose. And we need every possible Dem in the state legislature – otherwise it will get very ugly.

Speaking of ugly. Anarchy. I suspect that I will see good old fashioned anarchists gain a stronghold in the US. I don’t know when we last had anarchists in the US. I don’t mean intellectual wonky anarchists like Noam Chomsky. I mean fire breathing bomb tossing anarchists like Joe Hill and Emma Goldberg from early in the last century.

Took the waterproof camera out to take pictures of the autumn leaves. But, this balcony starling stole the show. I went back inside to get the “good” camera. Of course, the starling flew away.

Since moving into this apartment, we have become very fond of starlings. A pair nests in a hole in our wall and in the fall, after the breeding season – 5 or 6 birds stop by every morning and evening to enjoy the sun. I would like to feed them but that doesn’t seem like a good idea. I enjoy 10 starlings but a whole flock of them on my balcony might be too Hitchcocky.

Yesterday, I realized that I really needed to come up with a couple of retirement gifts for two nice ladies in Hawaii. I decided to make them calendars. They are of the age that still use calendars. My computer takes care of my calendar. But I know these ladies use paper calendars.  Which is a long way around to explain why I have a picture of Kona on today’s page.

Worked about 6 hours today at our Flu Shot Program. Then I came home and sat on my terrace and did nothing at all. Sometimes nothing at all is a good thing.

Walked past the El Paso Cafe this morning. If we ever went out for food and if Mr C would eat Tex-Mex – this would be the go to place for TexMex in the area.

Not to feel too sorry for peggy – never getting to go out to eat. We had a fine lunch today from Whole Foods salad bar. A mountain of shrimp and some pasta/smoked mozzarella salad and sliced tomatoes. (Tomatoes from produce section. No reason to pay salad bar prices for tomatoes.)  Mr C doesn’t dare object to salad bar, takeout or deli food. He just objects to “eating out” and “delivery”.

Two weeks from yesterday we will be departing for Hawaii. I must spring into action someday soon. Mostly gotta cleanup the apartment, decide what to take, figure out how to get Mr C from our apartment at about 4PM on Saturday afternoon to Kona by 2PM on Sunday (local times) without having to buy food … do you notice a theme here … Also need to have plenty of airplane amusements lined up.

I do have our hotel in Seattle arranged. And I picked up a Flat Rate Box at the Post Office. That is the extent of my planning. Next week I will be working long hours at the hospital – supporting the flu shot campaign. 2,000 flu shots in 50 hours.

Dennis Richie died and nobody noticed. What better tribute to the man who (with Ken Thompson) built the software platform that supports life on the planet as we know it. The world only knows about programs and programmers if they  screw up.

Dr Ritchie’s vintage Bell Labs web page is here.

According to the iPod Nano – the new, ready before Thanksgiving, Trader Joe is point 66 miles from my kitchen. This means, I’ll have to walk past Traders to get to Whole Food’s. And, past both of them to get to the Farm Market.

The Traders will be across the street from the Metro stop – so, if I seriously overshop – which has been known to happen – I can just hop the subway home.

The little Nano is fun. The radio is surprisingly good. And I have been playing with the pedometer feature. The clock faces are just eye candy – but yummy. I think that my Gen 5 iPod classic has slightly better sound – but – my ears are really too old to hear much difference.

It fits. Wetsuits are like jeans in that regard.

My 21st century mourning jewelry – the Red Nano – arrived. Will we ever again have tech gear that is so elegant . Gear that just works. Gear that is packaged so graciously. I think that Carlton might even be able to use it. The “Classic” iPod and “Touch” are beyond him.

I wonder what Steve had on his iPod? And now that the Zune has been put out of its misery – can Bill Gates’s kids get iPods?