Category: The DayBook

According to my watch, I walked 4 miles today, 11,171 steps. Pretty good for an old woman.

BUT. What’s not pretty good for an old woman.
This week, I have:

1. 1. Early this week, left my phone on the breakfast table.
   2. Today, left my milk and banana on the breakfast table.  (I frequently pick up milk and fruit to take to the Old Bat Cave.)
   3. Yesterday, wrote “Tuesday” on the blog not “Thursday”
   4. Today, disconnected a disc without ejecting it.
   5. And also today, I copied the wrong file to the improperly ejected disc. 

I choose to believe this is just “normal age-related absentmindedness”. But, what if it isn’t? Hello Switzerland.

Once upon a time, I could keep 4 or 5 balls in the air. Now, I need to pay attention to keep one ball aloft. Focus Peg. Focus. 

What have I done? Yesterday, after a fine lobster dinner with the entire Asylum Family, I booked an inside cabin on a cruise ship heading up the coast to St John, New Brunswick. Leaves a week from today. From Baltimore. A member of the Asylum Family is going. So, I can get a ride to where the boat leaves from. (Baltimore). It’s cheap. But, there is no window. Not even a porthole. It will be like living in a coffee can for 9 days. I hope the ship TV broadcasts a picture from the bridge 24/7. 

Normally I wouldn’t consider paying an additional $200 for wifi. But, I am going to treat myself to wifi. That’s what the ship does. It gets you to spend money. But, I think wifi might help preserve my sanity. 

It should be interesting. And hopefully “fun”. “Fun” is increasingly harder to come by as I get older. I am willing to settle for pleasant. Or mildly interesting these days.

Haven’t a clue why this orchid is blooming. Is it an omen? Is it dying? Am I dying? Well, of course, both of us are dying. Nobody is promised tomorrow.

Looking out my window this morning, I wondered what little old lady looked out in horror on 9/11/01. I hope I never see anything worse than bad weather out that window. 

Made my plans to get to Kona. Decided to take the train to Seattle. I like Seattle. I like the train. So that was a no-brainer. If the train is on time, a huge “if”, I’ll have about 48 hours in Seattle. Then catch a plane to Kona on Halloween.

The house wifi kept cutting out while I was making reservations. Finally, the elderly brain kicked in enough to remember the phone hotspots nicely. So, I made train, hotel, and plane reservations.

How did we get there? It was on my watch. I feel some responsibility. 

Looking forward to dinner with my Asylum family tonight. And it’s not even free wine night. It’s about the friends, not the food.

I made it to yoga in person today. Also logged 3 walking miles.

Got a Pixel 3 watch on Sunday. Got it going yesterday. Prepared my Pixel 1 watch to go back to Google today. I don’t see that the new watch is much different from the old watch. A little better battery. But, how different can a watch be? The new one mutters about “establishing baselines” and “gathering data”.

Politics in America has become a blood sport. And I am opting out. I do not need to watch one more minute of either candidate. I don’t need to read one more op-ed. Nothing I hear or see will change my vote. All I need to do is vote and deal with the outcome.

I told my bond guy today that I wanted to have enough cash to buy citizenship in Nevis if necessary come November.

Old friends from Canada by way of Kona. Back in June, Cliff emailed that Lorraine had died in April. I should have emailed back promptly. But, I didn’t. Today, I found a nice picture of them in my catalog. Wrote a nice email. Sent it on its way and immediately got: Your message wasn’t delivered because the address couldn’t be found, or is unable to receive mail.

Well. Shit. I knew that he wouldn’t have changed his email. A quick search finds Cliff’s obituary. He died in August. Did Cliff die wondering why I didn’t answer his email? No. Do I regret not taking the time to answer promptly? Yes.

I was going through my “emails to answer” pile by the oldest first. Cliff’s was the first one I answered. You better believe that I answered every single email in my “to answer” folder this afternoon. 

The Twilight Zone

---

When you are old most of your friends are old too. Remember “Nobody is promised tomorrow”. Not you. Not your friends.

---

Chilly this morning. Below 50°. So, what to do but make a pot of chili? The Asylum has “veggie chili” but mine is better. And cooking makes me happy.

When I was coming back from grocery this morning, I was the only person on the elevator when it lurched to a stop and announced “Do not be alarmed. We are experiencing minor technical difficulties.” Yeah Right. I push the open door button. Nothing happens. “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.” Finally. The elevator lurched back into action. I am released and scuttle off.

This has been a week of elevator hell. We also had two “smoke events” that caused the fire department to come. And our Executive Director quit. Not the finest week ever at The Asylum. Better luck next week.

An email just arrived from the guy that Carlton beat at tennis on the day he died. The man has been living with ALS for the last couple of years. How can I complain about crappy food and unreliable elevators and my infirmities of old age?

Since I never buy new clothes I make do with my Obama tee shirt from 2008. It’s the thought that counts.

Lazy day today. Nice breakfast with my friends this morning. Nevermindthat I popped an entire barely cooked poached egg into my lap. Thank goodness for napkins.

Spent the rest of the day in my library. My Kindle and audiobook library. My spreadsheet shows I have 2065 books and audiobooks in my library. Several years ago, I got everything into a spreadsheet.

One would think that Amazon would let you export your collection as a CSV file. One would be wrong. Don’t think there would be room for 2065 real books and audiobooks in the Old Bat’s Cave.

After finishing up Profiles in Ignorance: How America’s Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber, I dug up one of Carlton’s vintage Clive Cussler books. Carlton has a fine collection of Janet Evanovich, Clive Cussler, Ed McBain, Sue Grafton, Robert Parker, etc. in the Kindle Library.

Gratitude

---

Kindle and Audible Books. Thank you, Jeff Bezos.

---

No reason at all to post anything today. Just force of habit.

Gratitude

---

Grateful that my hands are still free of arthritis and I can still do origami.

---

As I mentioned. It’s a slow news day around the Old Bat’s Cave.

And for the most part, no news is a good thing. And, it’s Friday and Happy Hour.

Today was a fine mellow laid back finest kind day for me. Major accomplishment as taking some clothes to the thrift shop. And that gave me a nice leisurely 3 mile walk. And I had a lovely peach for lunch. And you know what girls and boys? When you are somewhere between 80 and dead – that makes for a good day.

This orchid is blooming for a second time this year. I did threaten it about a year ago. I told it if it didn’t bloom this year it was headed for the compost bin. But, it bloomed spectacularly all winter long. I wasn’t expecting it to bloom twice. My oldest orchid plant is also blooming for a second time. Who knows what’s up in orchid land.

However, the fine day was squandered on meetings. My fault. I wanted to see the CFO explain our budget for next year. And, now and then I go to the IT Committee meeting and to help keep them between the navigational beacons.

During the meetings, I folded paper.

Saw this in the paper a couple of days ago. How much some of Elon Musk’s friends are down on their Twitter “investment”.
I don’t know about you, but I would hate to be responsible for someone named Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud losing 1.4 BILLION. He most likely has people who have  scimitars. 

Can not hear the planes taking off from National Airport. Where I lived nine years ago, most mornings when the windows were opened I could. In theory, planes cannot take off until 6am. But, I think they are taxing down the runway and ready to go wheels up at exactly 6am.

A splendid “pre” autumn day. With cake for breakfast. What’s not to love? 

The Executive Director of The Asylum resigned today. Two weeks notice. That seems a little strange. I will always be grateful to him for getting me a new fridge during the Covid supply chain problems days.  This is how I’ll remember him. Stalag 2020 – day 77 of xx.

I had a fine Labor Day. A personal old lady best: I covered my 1 mile in 18minutes and 2 seconds today. This is not a track mile, but a real sidewalk mile with a hill. But no streets to cross.

Did a very little work for my office that I keep trying to retire from.

And cleaned up the Origami Dojo.

I didn’t just tidy it up. I consigned many odds and ends and old models to the recycle bin. That’s the good thing about origami. No disposal problem. I imagine it would be harder if my hobby were blacksmithing.

And, I spent a wonderful 90 minutes watching a 1982 talk that Grace Hopper gave at the NSA. NSA recently declassified the talk, managed to process the obsolete tape, and posted it on YouTube. (NSA posted the videos as they were recorded, as two tapes. Black Vault Originals packaged them into a single video. It was a single lecture. I am using Black Vault’s version here.)

Admiral Hopper must have been almost 80 at the time of the recording. I don’t imagine most of my readers will devote 90 minutes to watching. But, it’s vintage Grace Hopper. And great computer history.