life in the old lane

An endless road construction goes on and on outside our compound. Since I don’t have a car it does cause me any problem. And I do love the shiny red trucks.

“Busy” today playing around with the GoPro. Looking to see what it will and will not do. I think our corporate level chef who doesn’t cook wants to become a vlogger. A GoPro seems like a pretty capable platform.

We are getting new lighting in our elevator lobbies. The lights will be on a motion sensor.  That will freak the elders out if they leave their apartments to sneak a visit to their honey at night.

More on the “Strange Asylum Things”. This is the elevator lobby that had “mariachi rubber ducks” on display a couple of years ago.

Gratitude

---

Grateful for a fine day.

---

Also uncommonly pleased to have a photo credit in the Washington Post. On line version.
The article might be behind the paywall. Master florist’ Haruko Adkins, 90, had a passion for flower arrangements and tennis

Mālama pono

I am going to start a series of photos “Strange Asylum Things”. This might be #1 or I might go back ad shoot it from tabletop level.

Strange unhappy day. One of my friends bought a new iPhone at the Apple Store. Traded in her old one. And found out that about ⅓ of her contacts have vanished. And, this old woman kept all of her addresses and phone numbers in her phone. I can only guess that some of her oldest phone numbers were stored on her sim card. And since iPhones have “built-in” sim cards nowadays, they just got lost. Apple Care tried to find the contacts somewhere. And of course, her old iphone was long gone.

I dumped all my contacts to a CSV file. And even dumped 1Password into a CSV file. Copied them to a flash drive.  Technology isn’t always our friend.

Gratitude

---

Grateful to feel like I am in the eye of a hurricane. It was stormy getting here. And. It will be stormy getting out. But, just for now, it is calm.

---

I got a request for help making “Cooking Videos” today. Well, how would that work with using a GoPro?

Note to self: Spiff yourself up a bit. But, GoPro really did a good job. I didn’t edit a thing. Not even a trim off the ends. Just stuck on the title and tail.

Mālama pono

Last night, while I was cleaning up the kitchen, I happened to look out the window. A rainbow!

The first camera I grab is my Pen-X and it had it’s 28 to 300mm zoom attached. 28 mm was OK.

Next I deployed Shamu the Phone. 27mm.

Off to round up my wide lens – when I see the GoPro. Open the window, slide the screen over, stick the GoPro as far out the window as my arm reaches. Nailed it. That is as good as I could do without knocking the east wing of the building down.

None of these have been post-processed. This version has had more than a little boost from photo-shop as has the B/W version. I get perverse joy removing color from something that “should be” colorful.

Gratitude

---

RAINBOWS!

---

Mālama pono

I don’t normally buy grocery store sushi in Virginia. But, I was desperate. It was as fresh as it could be. And it made a fine lunch.

When I woke up this morning it was well under 70°. And, it didn’t seem to be about to rain. I decided that it was “necessary” for me to make the hike to Harris-Teeter. It is 1.5 miles each way. And, it doesn’t seem like exercise. It seems like real life if you don’t have a car.  Last time I made it to this particular Harris-Teeter it was March 18. And most of the cupboards were bare.

But, today the store was fully stocked and the veggie shelves were like “normal”.

In keeping with the contrast theme.

Some families visit Grandma and follow all the rules.

Others miss most of the bases.

Gratitude

---

Grateful for a nice dry not hot late summer day. Never mind that the only bugs I found were mosquitoes and they actually found me!

---

Not real sure how this is supposed to induce me to get on a plane!

Mālama pono

Rainy day today. But, with the aid of a long-unused umbrella – I got my short hike in this morning.

Then I did visiting, reading, napping, a little gardening, and I messed around with the photos from 2019,

I almost wept over this one. I would kill for that dinner just about now.

Every year I have the same discussion with myself. Do I make a 2019 yearbook? I made them for Carlton. He liked them and looked at them. But, I am just me. Nobody sees my books anymore. But, sometimes I do look at them, And, I might like them when I get “old”. So, I might make a 2019 book. (2020 will be a real challenge!)

I deemed 7 photos “worthy” soon after I took them. Now I wander through the 2019 photos and find the ones to illustrate 2019. Looking back 2019 was a damn fine year!

Gratitude

---

Grateful that in 2019 I didn’t say “Well, I do that next year” very often. Nobody is promised tomorrow.

---

Thank you, Carlton. I deployed “Avoid Beginnings” today.

Mālama pono

This actually is “the light” for me. I just finished cataloging and culling my photos from 2019. SO, for the first time in my entire life, only the current month needs to be cataloged.  Maybe, even if I get my life back, I will be able to stay caught up.

So, let’s talk about Spinner Dolphins. Today I read in the West Hawaii Today newspaper that spinner dolphins in Kona generate about 1.6 million each in tourist dollars over their lifetime. Dolphins on the lee side of Oahu generate about 3.3 million dollars over their lifetime. It isn’t that the Oahu dolphins work harder or live longer. There are fewer of them off Oahu’s Waianae coast. A spinner dolphin lives about 20 years in the wild.

Gratitude

---

Grateful to have finished up the photo cataloging project. Absolutely no one will care about them after I die. But, until then, I like them all filed neatly away. There are 56,822. But, who is counting?

---

Mālama pono

I am always pleased to get a picture of a bee in flight. There is no way that this thing can possibly fly. Especially with that load of pollen.  It must be Photoshopped!

This is actually either funny or sad. Not sure which. A couple of mornings every month this woman comes a performs using this garage exhaust grate as her stage. Her performance is for our residents on the Alzheimer’s unit. This morning there appeared to be nobody watching.

Gratitude

---

Grateful for a few bug sightings.

---

Including this small Common Buckey. Just in case you are wondering – butterflies don’t get bigger. They are “born” full size. This one must have come from a very small caterpillar.

Mālama pono

I wasn’t finding much light early this morning when it was time for my “hike”.

But, this afternoon, it stopped raining and I made it out for a short walk.  I hadn’t been this way in a few days and . . .

. . . and another store bites the dust. In this case a dry cleaner. Dry cleaners have been under pressure for a long time. I am sure that this was just the final blow.  Happier news, our local Taco Truck was open for business this afternoon.

Totally wrong camera. And, I wasn’t well focused myself. But. A monarch butterfly. A good end to my walk.

Gratitude

---

Grateful that I am still crazy after all these years. (Thanks to Paul Simon)

---

Mālama pono

Off to a weird looking sky this morning. I wait for a long time for a bird to fly in front of the sun. But, it didn’t happen.

Did almost nothing today. I shopped on-line for a big ass external monitor. I think this lust was kicked off this morning when I checked on Cornell University’s Hummingbird webcam in Ft Davis Texas. (Central Daylight time) If you watch the hummers, they are best early in the morning. My guess is that they have to fuel-up before they set out for the day. Like me and coffee.

As in wouldn’t it be really cool if these birds were on a really big good monitor. I don’t need a monitor. I don’t have room for a monitor. I am just reaching out for retail therapy.

I am getting better at talking myself out of “stuff”.

Gratitude

---

Grateful for webcams. The first one I remember was back in the mid-90’s. It was of a coffee pot in Cambridge.

---

Mālama pono

Several of the online publications that I regularly read have had lengthy articles about “pandemic fatigue”  recently. But none of them have any real suggestions. So, I will operate in my usual mode. “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.”

My friends (and I) are absolutely giddy with our new freedom to go to the grocery or to the drugstore. One friend went to the drugstore and stocked up with enough supplies to last until January. I know that I am going to lay in some pantry provisions that will see me through another really bad patch. Some future time when our kitchen will be down 8 cooks and when grocery delivery slots are had to come by. Not to mention the very real possibility of civil unrest, disruption of the food chain, Martian invasion.

A trip to Trader Joe’s is what passes for Adventure Travel in my world.

Speaking of my world.

My friends and I were having a surreptitious birthday celebration yesterday. Figured that the art room was big enough for 6 old women to spread out.  And what did we find in the entrance of the art room but a big  “pre-owned” funeral wreath.  A local funeral home dropped it off to cheer up the old people! It really isn’t unusual. We get a lot of flowers from funerals, weddings and corporate events. Well, the wedding flowers and corporate event flowers – not so much anymore. But still funeral flowers.

Our birthday parties used to be very festive affairs. We wore our “lady” clothes. Had dinner in the “Formal Dining Room”.   This time we had cake out of green plastic boxes. We didn’t sing Happy Birthday.  We wore our comfy pandemic clothes. We had a wonderful time. It’s friends (and cake) that matter.

Gratitude

---

Grateful for books and audiobooks. As my eyes get older, I am especially grateful for audiobooks.

---

Mālama pono

Found this really cool fungus on my walkabout this morning.  I know nothing at all about fungus, mushrooms, toadstools. I know that I like to eat mushrooms. Mushrooms that I purchased from a store! Maybe in Year Two of Covid I will grow mushrooms in my closet.

I am just plain tired this evening. Old age I guess. I tried to jump-start myself with coffee, yoga, shower, food – nothing works. I am going out to eat birthday cake soon. Then I will take myself to bed with a nice boring book.

Gratitude

---

Grateful for Birthday Cake. I have been assured that Birthday Cake has ZERO calories

---

Mālama pono

One of my friends puts masks on tiny glass and ceramic animals. Back when she actually had a life, she made tiny ceramic animals. We all do the best we can with what we have.

I am just stuck in the doldrums. According to NOAA: The Doldrums holds a distinct place in maritime history, having developed a reputation as a potentially deadly zone that could strand ships for weeks on end, causing them to run out of food and drinking water. In those days, with supplies running low, and scurvy setting in, delirium, starvation, and cabin fever could all set in – and getting through this mysterious patch of ocean quickly was a matter of life and death.  Seems a little like Covid and/or the reign of the orange lord.

Gratitude

---

Happy for one of my neighbors. A 90 something former ambassador and most likely CIA operative got married yesterday. When you are 90 something waiting for this  Covid mess to be over isn’t the best ever plan. His bride lives in a similar asylum in DC. They haven’t decided where to live. I would pick the asylum with the best skilled-nursing capabilities. They can decide that after their honeymoon. The Asylum made them a special dinner last night, complete with champagne. I hope they didn’t have to eat dinner out of green plastic boxes. I don’t see myself getting married again. But it makes me happy that people do.

---