life in the old lane

Saw this nice 1966 VW Beetle while on my morning hike. A 1966 VW Bug was the first new car that starter hubby and I had. So, I remember 66 VWs fondly. And, I remember starter hubby fondly too.

Surprise surprise. I was not terribly hungover this morning. I was able to do my job first thing this morning. Go for my little hike. And stop in at the grocery. Lots of water and some Tylenol seemed to do the trick. But, NOTE TO SELF: you are too old to do stuff like that. You are too old to drink ¾ of a bottle of wine.

COVID is creeping backing into The Asylum. Several staff members from the Alzheimer’s unit have tested positive so they locked down all of the assisted living and nursing floors as well as the Alzheimer’s unit. We all get tested next week and if any of my 350 or so independent living neighbors test positive… well, whatever happens, will happen.

Gratitude

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Grateful for cookies. Homemade oatmeal raisin cookies to be exact. Worth every calorie.

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Thinking about Kona. Don’t want to do anything stupid. Carlton called that “self-will run riot”.

Mālama pono

I am more or less drunk as a skunk after going to a Zoom wine tasting. So we will just leave it at that for today. ¾ of a bottle of wine puts this old woman under the table.

There will be hell to pay tomorrow.

Gratitude

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Grateful that I didn’t have to drive home!

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Mālama pono

Another sunlight trick. The bell tower of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception glints nicely in the early morning light at this time of year. I thought that the tippy top might be metallic. But, from what I found online it is just blue tiles. That is with a 600mm lens out of my window.

Gratitude

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Grateful for things to see out of my windows.

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Also grateful that I had to work this afternoon with no time for napping. Because the main activity around The Asylum today was testing the fire alarms.

Just a new normal day with a complete idiot in charge of the country. But, I can not do anything about that. I voted. I donated. What more can an old woman do?

Mālama pono

Little pleasures. Watching the setting sun light up all the glass buildings. The new normal requires embracing the chaos and enjoying every little good thing that comes along. Sun glinting off buildings. Tom Collins on the patio with a friend. Nice warm fall evening.

We have this larger than life metal statue. She scares me. But she is all dressed up in her “VOTE” mask and RBG lace collar.  One of our residents was a metal sculptor.  This wouldn’t fit in her apartment I guess so it lived in the public area. After she died. her kids donated it to The Asylum.  Notice that she has the standard 1950s bullet bosoms.  She is kind of fun. But scary.

Gratitude

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Grateful for fried egg sandwiches. I love those things. Fried egg sandwiches have been lunch two days in a row. Enjoying every sandwich.

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Sort leaning towards going to Kona. And just being locked in my hotel room for 14 days. At least I have a lanai. The hotel doesn’t have a restaurant. This could be problematic! No grocery delivery either. Must think about this some more, I guess.
Mālama pono

I think this is legal in Virginia, and if it isn’t “they “can just come and arrest me. Then “they” will have to deal with a crabby old woman. Don’t mess with old women. Nothing scares us anymore. What do we have to lose? At most a couple of years wearing adult diapers and being fed jello.

Another fine new normal day. Only bummer is that “my” island opted out of the COVID pre-screening test to bypass the 14-day quarantine. Just another thing to factor into the go-no-go decision.

Gratitude

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Grateful for the fluffy dog that wanders into our Zoom yoga class. He barks when it is time for shavasana. Maybe he thinks he should call 911.

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I am going to blame this one on COVID. I had no clue that people actually crocheted tire covers. People, tires don’t need covers. They are tires.

Now, granted, I don’t get out much these days. But, until this afternoon, I had no clue that crocheted tire covers existed.

Mālama pono

This is “the office”. There is a window. That’s unusual for me.  There is a view. The window opens. All good. The equipment is fine. The furniture is good enough. The chair could be more ergonomically correct. The commute is really easy. The coffee is available 24/7. Nobody bothers me. And that’s the problem. There are no people. Just me. And Alexa.

Gratitude

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Grateful that I have a job to “go” to. And the nice cozy Old Bat Cave to “come” home to.

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We are living in an interesting era, aren’t we? Embrace the chaos. But, don’t forget to enjoy every sandwich.

Mālama pono

It was a lovely weekend to wander around the nearby residential neighborhood.

Turns out I had a lot of little chores that I had neglected while I was making my TV show. So, I had a very tranquil day of doing my bookkeeping, ordering laundry and dishwasher soap, general life support activities. In fact, I just thought of a couple more little chores that need doing.

Gratitude

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Grateful to have made it through the end of winter, all of spring, and all of summer with most of my sanity and brain cells intact.

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But, I am not sure how things are going to work out with their travel restrictions. And COVID testing requirements. So, I have not made any firm plans. Also, we have been so sequestered here at The Asylum, I am not sure how I will react to “the real world”. Some day, soon I hope,  I will see a clear path to Kona and will spring instantly into action.

Mālama pono

It has been six years since I came home from work and found Carlton dead.

It wasn’t that bad then. And, it isn’t bad now. I have only great memories of the 35+ years we had together. He was the very best thing that ever happened to me.

Note to Carlton: There have been a few changes since you left. Some good. Some not.

1. 1. Gas is under $2 a gallon. (And, at this instant buses are free)
   2. The Nats won the Series last year.
   3. There are new people on the tennis circuit, but some of your favorites are still playing.
   4. Pentagon Federal is paying  0.9% on a 5 year CD.
   5. In 2016 a complete idiot won the Presidency.
   6. In 2019 I took one lap around the planet. In retrospect, it was most likely my last lap.
   7. In 2020 a virus swept around the world and for the foreseeable future, it has ended life on the planet as we knew and loved it.
   8. All things considered, Carlton, you haven’t missed much. Well, except for the Nats winning the Series.

Aloha a hui hou, my friend, a hui hou.

Gratitude

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How can I not be grateful for all the good times Carlton and I had. We were so damn lucky.

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Such a long long time to be gone. And a short time to be there.  Grateful Dead Box of Rain.

Mālama pono

Cool sky this morning. Fine sunny day. A friend took me to the dentist and waited for me. No quarantine this time. My data-wrangling went fine for the first real day in production.  All was tranquil.

Decided to make some veggie soup out of various stuff from my freezer.

Life was generally good. The new good.

Then my phone starts going off like it is DefCon 1. Seems that the Orange Lord will be taken to Walter Reed by Marine One. Soon. What to do but to crack open a cold one. Roll my chair to the window. Get out my tiny binoculars and wait. Sure enough. Off he went. I don’t want him to die. But, I do want him to think that he is going to die.

Gratitude

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Grateful for a good new normal day.

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When we get our apartments cleaned, we get clean sheets, towels, and a roll or two of toilet paper. This week I got “professional” toilet paper. That must mean that for the last five years I have been using amateur TP. The horror.

Mālama pono

Busy day wrangling data. I’ll be busy for most of October wrangling flu shot data for my hospital. We have a new system this year. Someone else got the front end of it together. Folk can submit their data on-line. Various nurses throughout the hospital and at doctors offices will give the shots to employees where they work. That data goes into the new system. Then I get the data and will stuff it into “my” database. Normally Employee Health would give flu shots to great gaggles of people. People who would wait in lines. And greet each other with hugs. This is a better system. I think. I hope. It has to be. Because it is sort of a prototype for our ultimate deployment of a COVID vaccine. When and if.

Gratitude

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Grateful for the Moon. It’s hiding behind clouds tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

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My client, for the TV Show, gave the MacBook Pro AKA Forbin a blue ribbon. She knew that it was on the brink of collapse towards the end of the job. Every morning, I would check online to see what MacBook Pros or Mac Minis were available for 3-hour delivery. It hasn’t been running nearly so hot since it stopped grinding out video. Usually, a cooler computer is a happier computer. And, if it dies before flu shot work finishes – the hospital can just deliver me a computer. Don’t think that Forbin likes pretending to be a Windows 10 machine anyhow.

KONA? Waiting to see what happens. Visitors are supposed to be allowed back on October 15. If they have a negative COVID test.

Mālama pono

Enjoyed a day to total self-indulgence.  Well, the new normal self-indulgence. Walk early this morning. Then a visit to the grocery. Next a car ride to a cookie store, glass bottle recycling, and Trader Joe.  What’s not to love?

Then, since I have no TV, I napped through my TV Show. I suspect most of the audience did too. I don’t recommend watching it, but here it is.

And, then it was time for umbrella drinks.

Tomorrow, I plan on getting back to work with the hospital stuff.  I should have started with it today. But, I needed a mental health day to recalibrate the brain cells. Also planning on making some chili since I just finished up the red lentil soup that I made earlier in the month. Note to young people. Learn how to cook. Not from recipes but from your heart.

Gratitude

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Grateful for a wonderful new normal day. And grateful in advance for the pumpkin cookie that I will soon enjoy with coffee.

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And someone has their Halloween decorations out a little early. (This is in exciting downtown Vienna, VA) Click on it to enjoy all the horrors.

Mālama pono

This is the best part of the TV Show. Which was finished at 11:52 this morning. An entire 25 hours and 32 minutes before showtime. Another project completed on time and within budget.

I can not tell a lie. I really really really wanted to run the old RCA Test pattern out 30 minutes past the end. Then, my audience, who will dose off, might wake up and think that they had been transported back to 1957.

After shipping the TV Show to its final resting place, I had a great Zoom yoga class. My classmates even allowed me to select what we would do today. I wanted anything that might start returning my back to “normal bad” from “really bad”. Too much chair time.

Had a fine bowl of what the house calls gumbo for lunch. It isn’t gumbo. But, if you add a healthy dose of Tabasco Sauce, it is a good soup.

Then an excellent nap was in order.

Gratitude

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Really grateful that The TV Show is completed. But, I am glad that I did it. I learned a lot. Not necessarily things that an old woman needs to know. But, you never know…

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Tomorrow, tidy up the desktops both computer and real. Back things up. Move all the movie scraps off to an external drive. Then run some tests on the MacBook to see what might be troubling it. But, thank the goddess, the computer managed to get through the job. Grateful for that too.

Mālama pono