life in the old lane

Mother’s Day Brunch. Funny story. The Asylum ordered a couple of hundred roses so each woman at lunch could have one. Well, apparently the roses arrived last night and the person who received them at our front desk gave all of the roses to an unknown resident. For no apparent reason. You just have to laugh.

Today’s trip planning – figure out what to wear. Especially after getting an email that announced “The hotels we stay at on this tour have a dress code of smart casual.” “Smart casual”? 

If I could figure out a single pair of shoes solution… That would help. But I don’t see this happening. 

I came home from Norway schlepping 20 pounds. I would really like to keep it to 15 pounds. And no. Wheels wouldn’t really help. 

Chilly, rainy, Saturday. Did a bunch of busywork kinda stuff.  Worked on getting my bus pass sorted out. I started this before going to Hawai’i last Halloween. I got my bus pass issued in October, but I had a hard time getting the $14 balance transferred to the new card. Today, I tried to get the balance left on Carlton’s bus pass transferred to my new card. The transfer will either work or not.  $27 one way or the other will not change my life. 

Went into my foreign money stash. I have a few British pounds. And some Euros. I also found my Oyster Card. (That used to work on the London public transit system.) When I was in Norway, I didn’t get any Norwegian money. Everything, even a cup of coffee at 7/11 was obtained with a credit card.

Also, found out that after getting to London, I will have to pass a Covid test before going on the bus tour.  And, that makes me assume that I will need to pass a Covid test before getting on the barge. I know I will need to pass a Covid test before flying home. NOW, I have 3 places in Europe to get totally screwed by Covid. I have absolutely zero idea how I will handle failing any of the tests. 

• • • Tomorrow, I will come up with 3 plan B’s.
    • Monday, after the dentist I will wear my mask a lot more.
    • Thursday, I will get the almost worthless Covid jab #4. 
    • And, that is all that I can do.

Came upon this photo of  Carlton’s Grandfather today while wandering around my photo archives.  And, why wasn’t I culling and cataloging photos? It was on my to-do list.

Well, I got distracted.  The Old Bat’s Cave is going to be on display at the “Open House” next Wednesday. Not my smartest move, letting an untold number of strangers into my apartment 10 days before going to Europe. But, I plan on being well masked. (After seeing the dentist on Monday, I plan on being mostly masked.) But, I have wandered off topic. The Old Bat Cave has nothing that makes it appealing to any old person. It is small. Only one room. But, it is the 2nd cheapest apartment in the joint and it has a killer view. That might make it appealing. My friends have their larger units open. And, they are all wonderfully decorated. Me, I have 50+ year old furniture. And Alexa, of course, who controls the lights, fan, coffee pot, heating pad and provides music as required. Most old people aren’t all the interested in having Alexa run things.

But, there is that view. SO, rather than do anything useful today – I made a loop of 7 years of photos taken out my window. With a variety of cameras and lenses.

There is no audio. The images are in no particular order I plan on looping it on my external monitor. Especially if it is cloudy. And it is over 13minutes long. No way do I expect anyone to watch the entire thing.

And how exactly did I expect my photos to get culled and cataloged? Like they are just going to organize themselves. Just realized this evening that I haven’t done basic photo organization and culling since early January. So, that will be one of my tasks during the upcoming 3 day monsoon season. After all, new photos will be taken in London and France. Coming up in 2 weeks!

Today’s forced march: 21 minutes. 1.28 miles. 16.4-minute mile. Plus Little Old Lady Barre Class. 

Looking for something in the deep dark corners of Evernote today. I didn’t find what I was looking for. What I found was even better. This ad from West Hawai’i Today. I had scanned it into Evernote in 2010. But, it must be older than that.

Normal kinda day. Doing some general organizing and tidying. Next Wednesday, the Old Bat Cave will be on display at an “Open House” thing. Remember, this Asylum is a not-for-profit Ponzi scheme. So, we have to get new residents to replace the ones who die. The Old Bat Cave is frequently one that they show – mostly for the view I think. Because no one has seen my apartment and said “I want one like this”. Also getting the tidied because it is very likely that my windows will be replaced while I am gone. And someone is going to have to move furniture. I want to make it easy for them.

Testing the fire alarms, again, this morning. So, I did a longer walk today. 2.56 miles at a blazing average of 17.05-minute miles. Of course, I had to stop a couple of times for photos.

Guess these guys most likely found mates last fall and stayed around until spring mating. After mating the gents hang out together until June when they molt. But, until molting, the guys are more than willing and able to mate with any female that is “available”. Apparently, they are too picky about species.

I neither need nor want a dog. But, this cutie was patiently waiting for their human out front of The Asylum this afternoon.

Got lots of little stuff done today. I even, after 50 years, canceled my dead tree subscription to the Washington Post. They were very nice about it. Promised to return $123 to me and actually gave me the “introductory” rate for the online version. For now, I am keeping the dead tree version of the Wall Street Journal. And, since I moved into The Asylum, I have just had the digital version of the NY Times.  

While I was waiting on some work phone calls, I cleaned off my desk and my origami workspace. And, consigned more clothes to the donation bag. 

Went to Barre Class, even the Little Old Lady version is hard on my legs. So, no forced march today. Just a little one-mile stroll. 

My crow buddy showed up just now. I think he is yelling at the crow feather in my pencil holder cup. 

Today’s forced march, or rather “brisk walk” took me to Douglas Park. Don’t think that I have ever been there and it is less than 2 miles away. The “brisk” part of today’s outing was 2.05 miles in 36 minutes. Which isn’t even close to a 15-minute mile. More like a 17.25-minute mile. I strolled back for a bit and then hopped a bus for the rest of the way back to The Asylum. 

Last night, our table had the worst ever service. “They” are closing our pizza venue due to lack of staff. Last night was its last night for the foreseeable future. Well, it should have closed one day sooner. Service was so bad that all you could do was:

1. 1. 1. Be really glad that no one seemed to have any outside guests or prospective residents with them.
      2. Enjoy the wine that one of our party brought.
      3. Just laugh if you had a pizza in front of you and a server showed up with another pizza for you. Or when the server insisted that yes you did order a salad.

And,  they also drastically overcharged me. But, since I will be gone the last 10 days of the month it will not hurt me to pay for the $22 lobster roll when I ordered a $5 pizza. 

Oh well, in the grand scheme of things – that’s no biggie. Regained some of Friday’s losses.  And, I think we can eat dinner outside this evening. Which makes the crappy food way better. 

Another taking it easy day. A little laundry. A very little “brisk walk”. 1.3 miles for 16.1 minute mile.

And some flower pictures, before the rain came. I shot raw for the first time with this Pixel. And, unless I am shooting an all-white or all-black scene, for me, RAW isn’t worth the effort. 

These are all RAW images. But they had to spend some time in Lightroom getting tweaked. The JPG versions were good enough as shot.

The Asylum was a bust last night. The kitchen ran out of barbequed ribs 30minutes into the evening meal. And, the movie was canceled for “technical issues”.  Lots of the residents enjoy their Saturday night “Dinner and a Movie”. Not last night. 

Out on my “Brisk Walk” this morning and what do I find along the way? Half a dozen condoms. Now how exactly did they come to be in the roadway? Lots of interesting possibilities.

Today’s “Brisk Walk” wasn’t very much. 1.97 miles at 17minutes per mile. 

I did find a peony along the way. So, I had a nice subject for photoshop play.

Finally – I spiffed up the garden box. And planted a dozen pole bean seeds. Will see if any come up.

And, I don’t feel so bad about the hit my finances took yesterday.

That must really suck. 

Took the day off. So did my investments. I suspect that things are going to get pretty ugly. And frankly, I am too old to recover the losses that I have had already this year. And, I see more coming. 

To my way of thinking, there is only “enough money” and “not enough money”.  I still have “enough money” so all is well. What is “enough” is a personal decision. Carlton never had “enough”. Intellectually he knew he had “enough”. But emotionally it was never “enough”.

Nice aerobic walk this afternoon. 2.9 miles but only 18-minute mile.  Of course, I had to stop and take pictures.  

Got an email from my barge company. Seems that the price of gas has gone up, so I need to send them more money. Better than being handed a rope and told to pull. 

Today’s special entre was “grilled vegetable tower”. It was actually pretty good. And after eating all those veggies – it was easy to rationalize coffee ice cream with extra lashings of hot fudge for dessert. 

 

I guess the turbine blade is actually going to happen. The world is drifting out of control, poised between pandemic and nuclear destruction and the good citizens of Arlington are paying for the installation of a 60-foot wind turbine blade. Not a real potentially useful wind turbine. Just a blade. 

Read all about it. It has been in the works for over 5 years.

It’s actually a little scary. What if it gets blown over in a storm? Or what if it gets hit by a truck? Or lightning? I guess people said that about the Washington Monument too. Wonder if I’ll be able to see it from my window? 

Finally stopped messing around and booked a room for 5 nights in Paris. There are just too many choices (1,611 hotels according to Google)  and too many “reviews”. How fussy do I have to be? It’s not like I am buying the entire hotel. I am just renting a small place to sleep for less than a week.  

This is the new “Elderly Peg”.  The old “Young Peg” would have just hopped off the train and checked into the first hotel I walked by that looked OK. But, about 5 years ago, I started doing some reservations.  

What am I going to do in Paris for 5 days? Haven’t a clue. But, if I can not amuse myself for 5 days in Paris I really need to check myself into The Asylum’s “Memory Care” floor. I have seen all the “important” things more than once. This is just to be in Paris. 

The exercise program: Total 4 miles today. The “speedy” part was 2.7 miles.