life in the old lane

Six years ago today, I moved into The Asylum. That evening I was denied service in the dining room. I was wearing jeans. Well, what else does one wear on moving day? Last night I marched into that damn dining room loud and proud wearing jeans with black suede pumps. (Concession to age – 3-inch heels) 

So, let’s see how things have changed. Besides the “no jeans in the dining room” that is.

The love seat was on order when I moved in. I swapped out my 50-year-old chair and ottoman for an equally old leather recliner that I found in The Asylum’s thrift shop. I bought a mirror – but never got it hung.  And Alexa controls the lights, coffee machine, fan etc. That’s about it.

It’s a great apartment. The location is marginal. My old neighborhood walkability index was 87. Here it is 66. For me that is huge. But, I knew that moving in. And I am safely ensconced in my “forever home”.  Provided the joint doesn’t go broke. 

It was dark and rainy when time to start to work this morning. The first decision: what color do I want my back lights to be. I decided on orange-ish. For the first full day of autumn.

I am working with an old hospital friend again this year to process flu shot data. She collects it in her system and I stuff it into my system. People give flu shots during the work day. My friend is a night person so she collects the data, does some checking and formatting and sends it to me around 10 or 11 PM. I am a morning person so around 6 AM I get myself caffeinated and do a little more checking and formatting and I upload the data to my system. It works great. Neither feels rushed. Neither are forced to wait on the other. This is WFH at it’s best. On the other hand, it would be nice if everything were interoperable. Then I would be out of a job.

Earlier in the month I was moping around about missing Kona again this year. I went to look at the Mauna Kea Observatory camera. Just happened to hit them at sunrise on a fine morning.

Sometimes technology is grand.

I loved that cemetery. It was just the right distance from home for a good walk and it was always a fun place to take pictures. After Carlton died the gravediggers told me they would find a nice place some where for Carton’s ashes.  Carlton liked that cemetery too. He rode his bike to it almost everyday. And, he stopped to visit with the grave diggers. 

Faye next to me was a rock. Unfortunately she died too soon and the last time I was in Hawai’i I was in that same white dress at her memorial service. She had her old age all planned out. She just didn’t get the chance to carry it out.

We had an interesting life guard at our pool that summer. He was actually a drug dealer. But, he needed some kind of a job to at least pretend to be able to afford his Cadillac Escalade, so he was a life guard at an apartment building mostly occupied by kids spending the summer studying for the bar exam. Oh yes and us “that old couple”. 

I spent all of my brain cells on my monster spreadsheet today. Maybe I should kick my Excel game up to a higher level and see if PowerPivot or one of those data model things might help. If the feature was in Excel 20 years ago, I am pretty solid with it. And yes, boys and girls, we had vlookup and pivot tables and macros way back then. But, there is some “new” stuff. I’ll worry about that tomorrow. 

Report on iPadOS15. It seems to be a battery hog. Or maybe my trusty iPad mini’s battery is wearing out. I have a big ass iPad Pro, But the iPad that I use all the time is the mini. I love that thing.

Two exercise classes and a monster new spreadsheet to track covid vaccinations by number, type, and arbitrary job class. 

I should take Wonder Woman to the PhotoShop and age her some.
And the old woman got another photo credit in the Washington Post. But only the online version this time. But still, not too shabby for 77 going on dead.

The article is online, behind the paywall.

A good day. Finished off a patio dinner in the company of 6 of my friends. I never expected to find friends at The Asylum. Talk about good luck.

Oh, and I updated my not-favorite iPad to iPadOS15.0. I usually avoid the Point Zero version of anything. But, since I have multiple iPads, what not?

Today I went into town. To check on the Capital – it is still there. Wrapped in fencing.

And, to check out the Covid Flags. I wanted one good image. By the time I got to the Washington Monument, I had walked about 4 miles and after taking a few photos and attaching an origami crane to one of the flags in honor of my friend Haruko who died in May 2020 I was tired, hot, and ready to head for Metro and home. But there were flags as far as I could see.

A real person died a lonely death for each flag. I had to walk to the end of the flags. It took 16 minutes to walk to the end and back. The video is 16 minutes long. I left the actual audio. You can hear the ice cream trucks, fire trucks, planes, and the wind in the flags. Feel free to fast-forward. But, I hope you might take a little time to remember everyone we lost. And continue to lose.

Just a normal old lady day. Little work – playing with a new release of our Employee Health software. A little walking and picture taking. A little resting. 

All is calm in DC today. Unlike January 6. Almost worth going to see the fortifications. 

The Waitstaff Kids

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Somehow or the other, The Asylum manages to get the greatest kids to work as waitstaff. They are unbelievably patient and attentive. They frequently start when they are 16 or 17 and they work until college gets to be too demanding.  We hate to see them leave but would hate it more if they stayed. 

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The food remains unacceptable. I am trying to find one good thing to say about the food every day this week. Fortunately, the week is over.

I had no idea my orchid was going to be blooming this morning when I woke up. But it was. This is the third time that I have gotten it to bloom. Well, let’s say this is the third time that it has bloomed for me. Don’t think that I had much to do with its blooming.

Worked today. And took pictures. And processed pictures. 

One of the best things that the residents of the asylum do is to underwrite the cost of becoming a US citizen for our staff. In this year’s citizenship group we have a woman from Cameroon, a man from Haiti, and a man from Sierra Leone. 

Waffles!

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I had a meltdown about the waffles a couple of months ago. I suggested that if they couldn’t make a decent waffle they should remove them from the menu as to not embarrass themselves.  They removed waffles from the menu. However, waffles have recently returned and they are fine.

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The food remains unacceptable. I am trying to find one good thing to say about the food every day this week. 

Spent most of the morning looking out the window and puttering around with work stuff. There was smoke and lots of clouds. This afternoon it rained like crazy. Lots of flooded streets in the neighborhood. I think that they might need to tweak some of the storm sewers after some recent construction. And, people have no brains about driving through water. I took a nice long nap.

Flat Iron Steak

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If you order the flat iron steak almost raw and if the cook recognizes your name you can count on a nice small rare steak. Just the right size for me. 

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The food remains unacceptable. I am trying to find one good thing to say about the food every day this week. 

Provided Amtrak returns my friend as scheduled tomorrow, my cat visiting days will be ending. I think that I am the one who was entertained not Kelly, Princess Cat.  

One minute of exercising The Princess Cat. I know. I know. I should have fixed the aspect ratio issue. 

I can not believe how wonderful it is to ride the bus. To go somewhere. Anywhere.  The months of lockdown took a very real toll on me. It becomes too easy to just stay “safer at home”. I might be “safer at home”. But that is not where I want to be. I am pretty sure I lost some mental sharpness. Well of course I did, over a year went by – but I am thinking that I might have lost more than just “normal wear and tear”. 

Sysco Quiche

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The food remains unacceptable. But, I am going to try to find one good thing to say about the food every day this week. 

 

 

I went and did zoom yoga and had my lunch today with Kelly, Princess Cat. She was underwhelmed by me. I made her chase cat treats all over the living room. I tried one of the treats. I wouldn’t have run all over the living room for one. But, I am not a cat. 
While we are on food.

Hamburgers

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The Asylum makes a darn good burger. And the fries are good too. 

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The food remains unacceptable. But, I am going to try to find one good thing to say about the food every day this week. 

Friday I have an “important” photo shoot lined up. But, I haven’t taken serious photos indoor photos in a long time.  So, this afternoon, I dressed in black, put my camera on a monopod, and headed down to the basement to take some test shots.

I don’t know what I learned. Except to be sure to put in fresh batteries! And remember to put a quick release on both cameras.  And, for this purpose, the phone will work fine. But, I’ll take the gear just because that’s what’s expected.

When I went out to water my garden box, I found a resident who had a monarch butterfly in a mason jar. She had “hatched” it and now she was sending it out into the world. In less than 2. minutes, it was on its way.

For the next few days, I will have lunch with Kelly Princess Cat. She has never been left home totally alone before. Serious cat people have important tasks like feeding and cat box cleaning. I am just entertainment.

Lobster Rolls

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For the last month, pretty good lobster rolls have been available on the weekend for takeout. My friends and I had  lobster roll and pizza picnics.

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The food remains unacceptable. But, I am going to try to find one good thing to say about the food every day this week.