Category: The DayBook

What’s left is gluing the bats down. I’d like to have one dangling, but I’m not sure it would hold. Not that losing a bat would be any kind of problem. The whole idea is to use up “stuff” and maybe make a few bucks for the Asylum Foundation.

Meanwhile, I’m waiting to see what this weekend’s funeral for Citizen CK will bring. The largest Klan rally in history? A replay of Nuremberg, 1935? Or will it end like Altamont?

Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.

It’s a fine day weather-wise. But the universe is out of kilter. I should be in the street getting into good trouble. Instead, I seem to be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

A week from today, we leave on our cruise to Canada. Last year we left on our cruise to Canada and ended up in the Bahamas. I assumed this year’s trip was to the same places last year’s was supposed to go. Wrong. Portland, Maine,  home of L.L. Bean,  is off the schedule.

So I asked my good buddy, ChatGPT, to draw me a map of the trip.

Halifax disappeared from that map. Maybe I’ll tell ChatGPT it forgot Halifax. Or… just maybe… ChatGPT knows more than I do about my cruise.

“Updated” the MacBook to Tahoe today. I would normally wait for a couple of updates before jumping in. But it was a rainy day, so why not.

Tahoe would probably be more interesting if I had an iPhone instead of an Android. Years ago, I decided not to be 100% dependent on either Apple or Google. So I ended up with Macs and iPads on one side, and Google’s phone (and later, watch) on the other. It seemed sensible back then. Silly now, maybe — but I’m not giving up my Pixel phone or my “grandmothered-in” fantastic cell contract.

The iPad update to iOS 26 was absolutely worth it just to be rid of Split View/Slide Over. Other than a lot of rounded corners, Tahoe looks pretty much the same as Sequoia. Especially when you don’t have an iPhone in the mix.

And with that, I will now return to my boring little old lady life.

A good old-woman day. Started with a personal best on my morning mile around the grounds: 17 minutes and 2 seconds. Later, I Ubered up to the hospital for in-person yoga.

Gratitude

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Extremely grateful that my body is holding up as well as it has. It’s not like I take very good care of it, and I don’t think I was dealt especially good genes. So far, just lucky, I guess.

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A nice rainy afternoon spent culling and cataloging photos from July.

Meanwhile, my iPad updated itself to iOS 26. Everything seems to work. I’m glad Apple killed Split View/Slide Over. Not so sure about this new Liquid Glass “feature.”

When it opens, it will look like a daisy. The Alutiiq people used it medicinally — crushed roots for boils, and even heated stems as “switches” for arthritis and bone pain. I’ll stick with Aleve.

The sun runs and hides around the side of the building for about 3 months in winter. I didn’t know that happened until Covid happened, and I spent all winter in The Old Bat’s Cave. For some of those months, the sun never makes it in my windows. I hate it. I feel like some primitive cave woman, rejoicing when the sun once again enters my den. 

The watch nagged me to get more aerobic exercise than I consider reasonable. But, just in case, it is right about the amount of aerobic exercise I need, I walk one mile briskly to the grocery and back less briskly for sure but with a backpack of groceries. I consider it practice for Hawai’i. The nearest grocery will be .6 miles away from this winter’s lodgings. There is a mediocre farm market very near by however. 

The last wreath is supposed to be bats. At least, I’m folding bats right now. But I could always make black cranes and keep the theme going. Bats are easier — and frankly, I’m tired of the whole project.

At the risk of losing my Social Security, I do have something to say about Chas. Kirk — in addition to RIP.

“Tunc ait illi Jesus: Converte gladium tuum in locum suum: omnes enim, qui acceperint gladium, gladio peribunt.” (Matthew 26:52)

That should keep my Social Security safe. (It’s not like I can be fired from my job as an ancient old woman.)

We do live in interesting times. I don’t like it. But this is what the voters voted for. And I’ve almost come to accept that I’m too old to do anything about the current situation. The path forward belongs to those who will have to live with the consequences.

The week begins. The week ends. Time moves on, whether we like it or not.

The ambulance has been making a lot of pickups here at the Asylum lately. Or maybe, since it’s open-window weather, I’m just hearing them more.

Forty-four people have died so far this year. That puts us “ahead.” Even if you subtract those who moved into the nursing unit to die, we’re still ahead.

The older you get, the more sanguine you become about death. Not many of us worry about being dead. What concerns us is getting dead. That’s why we keep Do Not Resuscitate orders on file.

Damn, I’ll be pissed if I manage to die only to discover that some well-meaning person has “saved” me.

This isn’t morbid. This is life. The shiny new upmarket old folks’ home the Asylum group is building nearby boasts that it’s “designed for older adults ages 55 and above who never stop living.” News flash for the marketing staff: nobody gets out alive.

Just for today. I put the future away. My future and the country’s. 

Took a day off. Off from what, you might well ask? Hey, it’s a lot of work, being ancient. Hope you’re lucky enough to find that out for yourself.

And management complied — at least for now. I’m certain not all the residents agree.

We, the people, have brought more destruction to our country than our enemies could have ever delivered.

Nevertheless.

Never Forget 911.
Remember Pearl Harbor.
Remember Manzanar.
Remember Nagasaki.
Remember the St. Louis.

I first put this on my blog shortly after 9/11.

It came from an old set of photos, pulled from a PowerPoint presentation sent to me  in Alaska on September 12 by a Navy buddy. Check it out.

Twenty-four years out, 9/11 feels like a minor wound compared to the injuries we’ve inflicted on ourselves since.

Just enough rain to let me take a day off from outdoor exercise – and maybe enough to water the garden box a bit.

I spent most of the day working on the origami wreaths. Four are finished, and I sorta started on a fifth. Not sure if it will be a go. Honestly, I have absolutely no problem stuffing the whole lot into a big bag and sending it down the trash chute. It’s past time to death clean the Origami Dojo.

 

Decades ago, I traded commodities futures. That was when I was young and fearless. Carlton always worried I’d miscalculate and end up having to take delivery on a tanker car of frozen orange juice concentrate.

Here at The Asylum, it feels like someone has taken delivery on a shipping container of chickpeas. I did a little digging:

Chickpeas (a.k.a. garbanzos) have been around for 7,000 years, first grown in the Middle East. Today the big producers are India, Australia, Turkey, Mexico, and the U.S. (mostly Washington, Idaho, and Montana).

They are usually transported in bulk (sacks, bulk railcars, or containers) or canned (pallets by truck). Either way, they’re cheap, protein-rich, and shelf-stable — perfect for food service distributors like Sysco. And Sysco pulls up to the Asylum every morning.

Order once, and you’ve got enough to feed a small army. Or Asylum. Maybe Sysco even has a “subscribe and save” button like Amazon — accidentally check the box, and voilà, a ton of chickpeas every month.

Absolutely the most boring old woman on the planet today.

I didn’t kill anyone today. Yet. The day isn’t over.

Sat in my comfy chair.
Drank tea.
Grocery shopped.
Finished up the third wreath.

It was suggested I consider large-scale metal origami — like the pieces in Origami in the Garden.
Note: Not happening.

If I get less boring, you’ll be the first to know.