Gave my creaky old body a day off from the “forced march” and went for a long and slow walk today. Came upon 3 red-eared sliders living the turtle life on a log. I covered three miles at the blazing pace of 2 miles per hour. Which is actually slower than a turtle. But, I stopped to take pictures.
Finally. A good (enough) triangle box.
My origami haumana is wrestling with the square boxes this week. I figured I should revisit the triangle box since I gave up on it a couple of years ago. It seemed easier this morning. I will try another one tomorrow morning. If it is still “easy” I may try a 6 or 8-sided box. Or not. Maybe I will do another round of 7-year cleaning. Pretty sure that there are another 25 pounds of “stuff” and clothes that should make their way to Goodwill.
One of our favorite days of the year at The Asylum. The day we congratulate our newest citizens and ourselves for underwriting the cost of the citizenship application for our staff and for tutoring the applicants to ensure that they pass the test. The citizenship test isn’t that hard. But if your English is shaky or if you haven’t been to school in a long time – it can be very scary.
We are very pleased with ourselves because we had enough money to help immediate family members too. We have about 1,000 employees. About 250 are not citizens. And we don’t call them “employees” anymore. The Chief People Officer has decided to call the workers “team members”. Goddess save me from jargon of all varieties.
Later in the day a local dog rescue group brought some dogs by for show and tell. One of the staff really wanted a dog. But, I think the $300 – $400 dollar adoption fee may have been a little steep for him. According to the Asylum rules, I couldn’t buy him a dog. But, he deserves a little dog.
The Bean Stalk Harvest.
Big event of the day. I ate some of my bean crop. I had them with tomatoes, pepper, and olive oil. Outstanding.
And now the stock market will be closed for two entire days. Thank You!
Every morning I have to tiptoe through the e-scooters.
The way to The Asylum is a bit uphill. When it snows I can watch cars skitter around. There is always a collection of scooters at the start of the hill. Heck, that’s what I want the thing to do. Get my tired ass up the hill. It’s not a big hill. Maybe 50 feet over a block.
Today in the 7 year tidy up, I did the Food storage areas. That means the fridge/freezer and the food storage cupboard. I don’t have much food storage space. Nor do I need much. Everything of suspect age went into trash/compost. The scraps frozen in the freezer for soup became soup. A nice robust chicken soup. Tomorrow I will clean the actual inside of the fridge and freezer. (It hasn’t been 7 years since I cleaned the fridge and food storage cupboards. Max 2 years.)
Came across this sentence in The Journal today.
Sort of mind-numbing. I think it has something to do with blockchain. But don’t bet on it.
On the way back to The Asylum I stopped to admire our wind turbine blade!
Lovely September day. I took a break from my 7 Year cleaning to take a load of stuff to the Goodwill. About 25 pounds of “stuff” and clothing.
Note: Old people do not need any more “stuff”. We don’t even need the “stuff” that we already have.
“Mint” condition commemorative plates at the Goodwill.
After leaving off my “stuff”, I went into Goodwill to see if they had any “stuff” that I “needed” or clothes that I wanted. Managed to make it out without buying anything. A very successful trip.
But, I did come upon some other Little Old Lady’s collection of decorative plates still in their original packaging. Genuine limited editions with certificates of authenticity. Yeah, right.
But, it was a great day to be out and about. It’s easy to get lulled into living life inside the confines of The Asylum. Not a good thing.
After looking at my portfolio, I am really glad to have $3.50 for a Tequila Sunrise. Or two.
Well, that was unpleasant. 166 more days like today and I will have ZERO money. That’s a little scary actually. I have some money stashed away in a Doomsday Fund. But, I sure as hell wouldn’t like living on it.
Like a mature adult, I headed off to our saloon and had not one but two Tequila Sunrises. Or maybe a Sunrise and a Sunset. A smartass friend asked if that made the stock market go back up.
The Bean Stalk is full of beans.
About Aibo. Even before today’s market unpleasantness, I decided to forget about Aibo. About all it is is cute. The Japanese value cuteness or kawii. Me, not so much. Do I really want to spend 3K on an AI pet that wanders around the apartment yapping and looking at me with cute eyes? Potentially tripping me. I think now. At least for today. (Subject to change of course.)
Today, I cleaned my tiny hall closet. It is stuffed with everything from gardening tools to wetsuit to dust buster. And even umbrellas and coats and all manner of rain gear. Don’t have a car, so such things are required.
And hats. The Old Bat’s Hats live in that closet. I decided to keep these “for now”. But, if I get an invitation to the Queen’s Funeral or to King Chuck’s coronation, methinks I will have to buy a proper hat.
Dining services had been improving until Saturday evening.
This was pretty bad. Approaching dreadful. The remoulade would warrant a jail sentence in Louisiana. The slaw and potato chips MIA.
But outstanding eggs florentine and fruit for breakfast this morning. God Save the Breakfast Cook.
Back to the cleaning. If I only clean every 7 years then this is most likely the last cleaning that I will undertake. Maybe I should be doing a better job?
Thinking about: Getting an Aibo puppy. Going somewhere north in the winter for another crack at the lights. Well, at least I am still thinking!
That would be The Starter Husband. He put up with a lot. Thanks, Chuck.(To the best of my knowledge he is still alive and with his wife in North Carolina.)
Today, I continued on the 7th Anniversary Old Bat’s Cave Cleaning. Disposed of pillowcases today. No reason to have 10 pillowcases when the Asylum provides the bed linens – and changes the sheets.
Also, dug the hair out of the desk chair casters. And, took the dust buster apart and cleaned all of its dusty dirty parts. Think that is something else that Mr C used to do and that hasn’t been done since he died. Tomorrow, I plan to attack the rest of “The Office”.
Really happy with the Origami Dojo. It is a perfectly delightful place to sit and fold paper.
Today, I continued my 7-year anniversary cleanup. Today’s focus was the bathroom. True confession. I had some soap that had gotten moldy. That’s pretty lame. What was even lamer: I tried to figure out how to salvage said soap. Fortunately, sanity returned and the moldy soap went into the trash.
The WiFi died this afternoon. (As did some of the house electricity and the house phones) This seriously disrupted a lot of essential things. Things like hot hors d’oeuvre with cocktails this afternoon. We had to subsist on cheese, crackers, and chips.
But, I was actually happy to have the WiFi off in the Old Bat Cave and the electricity ON. Because I was able to see what Alexa would do with my lights when WiFi was down. Happily, Alexa was able to control all the devices and lights using just its ZigBee mesh network. I knew Alexa was supposed to be able to do that, but I had never actually tested it.
Why you might want to reconsider using stock photos.
Ad from Virginia Hospital Center.
I got an email today from my hospital trying to get me to come to a lecture about “Fall Safety For Seniors”. Fair enough. They used this cheery picture of perky diverse “old people”.
But wait. I have seen these very same old people before. Where? On the Asylum’s corporate website. On the header/banner.
The Asylum’s Website Header.
Most likely only a photographer would notice this. But… if I were considering moving to The Asylum I would wonder: What exactly do your real people look like?
The hospital was sending an invite to a free lecture. They can use stock. But, The Asylum expects you to drop some serious money as a “buy-in”. Never mind that we all know that actual old people don’t look like that! And that the stock image adds zero to the webpage.
Food is getting better. – good spring rolls tonight. Nevermind the lack of wifi, phones, or electricity in the kitchen.
The Asylum is two buildings. The Old (ca 1987) building 12 stories and The New (ca 2008) 15 stories. I live on the 11th floor of The Old building. 8 years ago, when Carlton was still alive and I signed up for the waiting list I was sure I would be living in The New building. But 7 years ago, I moved into The Old building. My little apartment is all that I need. And most days it is all that I want.
Speaking of the Old Bat Cave, I spent most of the day getting the Origami Dojo back in order after the butterflies. Also put on different bed covering and rotated the mattress. Figure that after 7 years it was time to do that. I believe that Carlton would rotate the mattress from time to time. “They” say that my mattress is really old and should be replaced. Well, it is old. At least 50 years. But, damn that mattress has a lot of memories. I’ll be lucky to spend the next 7 years on “Carlton’s side”.
Finished up the butterfly project today. And, it got hung up in the Art Center. It could be better. But finished and installed is better than better. If you know what I mean.
The art teacher did a modified version of the butterfly project on the “memory care unit” this morning and apparently, it was a success. The good thing about that is that she can always do the program again and everyone will have forgotten that “we just did butterflies”.
Tentatively planning on doing an origami bat class in late October. Bats are harder that this really easy butterfly. I really like people to be successful. So, I need to be a better “teacher”.
Tomorrow I have to get the origami dojo back in shape. Do some bill paying. And get out for a walk.
The class made 156 butterflies. I will string them up tomorrow and they will be flying by Friday. I will most likely remove a couple of strings that I made so I can use all of the ones that the class made. Because wasn’t that the idea? Then I’ll have some butterflies that I can hang in my own window.
After Butterfly Class. Pau Hana. Miller Time. Whatever.
As soon as the class was over, I hit the bar!
Note to the young: Be sure to move into an old folks asylum that has a bar. You’ll need it. Trust me on this one.
