life in the old lane

Big old yellow peony just ready to pop into bloom.

Today I had fun in a strange old geeky way. I put a well-used iPad back into service for one of my friends. It will be just about perfect for her as a test to see if she really wants an iPad. The Apple store is closed now.  She couldn’t go take one for a test drive anyhow. Wonder if the Apple Store will reopen?

My neighbor is in punitive quarantine because she dared go to her own physician. Seems a little harsh. You can always go to our in-house clinic. Problem is one of the staff in the clinic apparently has Covid19. So you have a choice Go see your own doctor and get stuck in quarantine for 5 days. Or go to the clinic and get stuck in quarantine until you get a negative Covid19 test, which could be longer than 5 days.  Or you could get Covid19 and die.

This has been going on for a long time. Rumors are rampant among the residents. Tempers are frayed. Management is looking a little less competent than usual. And, the meals are getting bleaker by the day.

75 residents were tested for Covid19 today. The county is going to come and start testing everyone in the skilled nursing and assisted living units next week.

I just took another look at next week’s food offerings. Cooking is going to happen.

Gratitude

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Garbage collectors. Damn, I am grateful to those guys. Think about what would happen if they stopped showing up?

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Carlton hasn’t been driving much lately. So they want to give him a discount on car insurance. That is pretty nice of them don’t you think? Maybe they could give him a break on health insurance too.

Mālama pono

It was a fine and sunny day today and I went out for a couple of walks. It may be my last outing for a while. More and more people are being seriously quarantined as in “go to your room and don’t come out”. The county is coming tomorrow to do some testing. Our Clinic is closing for “deep cleaning”. These things don’t give one a warm fuzzy feeling.

On a positive note: Mother Nature, that bitch, endures. This is one of my three garden boxes. This being one of the public ones on the patio where I hope to once again be able to have dinner.  It is having a better spring than I am.

Wreckage of the future: What happens if I am in quarantine and my non-trivial dollar-wise order of additional plants for my two public boxes arrive?

Gratitude

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Not having an easy time with gratitude today. So back to basics. Right now at the instant – and this is the only instant that I have – everything is fine. Sitting sun sparkling off the glass buildings, had a nice dinner that someone else cooked and delivered to the Old Bat Cave. Just now sipping the last of an excellent cup of french press coffee. And, my nice cozy bed awaits me and my Kindle. So. grateful for the moment.

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A couple of days ago, I began to mentally address the very real possibility of remaining in lockdown until forever.

So, first off, I ordered some luxurious overpriced hand soap.

Next, I moved my prescriptions from the grocery store next door to our in-house CVS. Yes, 1,000 old people with good insurance can support a pharmacy. I really hate changing stuff like that around. I have used that grocery chain for my drugs for 20 plus years. The grocery is cheaper than CVS. But CVS is just easier. The physical pharmacy is in our sister Asylum. But, the drugs get delivered here. And, assuming I get to go to Hawai’i this winter – I can get my drugs at the Longs which is really CVS now.

Next on my list is to get enough coffee to last until Labor Day.

Have I mentioned lately that I am tired of this shit.

Mālama pono

Darted out to my Wildchild garden box for some chives and fennel for my omelet early this morning.

The small omelet was a great treat. So was the fine raisin bread and avocado. Thank you Jeff Bezos and Whole Foods.

And I got my desk cleaned up. All 3 levels. Also the cubbies and 2 drawers.

I fear that Lockdown may turn into something much more serious. Got an email late this afternoon that said one of the residents is in hospital with Covid-19. Management didn’t tell us who the resident was – but – with enough friends – and Zoom – you can solve almost any problem.  It was all sort of theoretical until someone you actually know gets it.

Gratitude

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Friends

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Mālama pono

Taking it right up to the deadline this morning. Someday, I will cross that line. And not get slapped into total quarantine.  And someday, if I am very lucky I will cross that line with my backpack, passport, and credit card and I will bravely head to the airport or train station.

This is a dead bat. I was sad to see a dead bat. But, strangely happy to find a dead bat at the foot of my building. It means we still have bats. It was wicked windy last night and the unfortunate bat could have been slammed in the building. Or it could have been some owl’s dinner. And the owl was unable to deal with the wind and the bat. Hope the bat didn’t have Covid-19.

Gratitude

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Grateful that I have a memory bank chocked full of happy times that help see me through these strange days.

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That about says it all.

Except that I hear dinner coming.

Mālama pono

The Wildchild Garden box is off to a great start. And, this is a good thing since I am actually doing some cooking – there are some culinary herbs. Rosemary, lots of rosemary, chives, sage, oregano. Also, fennel, which reseeds every year.

My tri-top desk is a mess. All 3 tops. And Forbin’s desktop is also littered up. Carlton used to wax my desk much to my dismay. I don’t even have any wax. But, tomorrow, I plan on taking everything off and giving all three tops a good Swiffering. Already tidied up the computer desktop.

Gratitude

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Grateful for my snug Old Bat Cave.

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Have a very productive day:  I got all of my 2020 travel reservations unrolled. Except for my 4 months in Kona starting on Halloween. But that one is easy. I am ever so grateful that I took my trip around the world last year. Unrolling that trip would have taken as long as the trip. It has been 2 months since I returned from Kona.  And, I am starting to get really itchy to go somewhere. Not a great plan for an old woman.

Time to go Swiffer myself up for Zoom meetup.

Mālama pono

And what exactly does this image have to do with “looking for the light”. Well, this is our Covid-19 isolation ward on our skilled nursing unit. It has one patient. Who is reported to be doing well.

Found these paper mache masks while wandering around today and was reminded of these lines from The Princess Bride:

Fezzik: Why do you wear a mask? Were you burned by acid, or something like that?
Westley: Oh no. It’s just they’re terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future.

Gratitude

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Grateful for PAPER feed bags.

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Check back a few days to see why I am grateful for “self-folding” paper bags. DIY Lockdown – day 30 of xx.

Went to an open AA meeting via Zoom today. It is a meeting that Carlton regularly attended. I used his picture has my background. Sort of my bona fides. I remembered a lot of the people’s names. People were nice. The guy who invited me to come to the meeting didn’t show up. He overslept. AA is the same as it always was. Just online. Keep Coming Back.

Mālama pono

I don’t hold out any hope for these eggs hatching. And if they happen to hatch, the babies fledging. But, it was so sweet, so life-affirming to come upon this nest. Unfortunately, I scared the mother dove. Hopefully, this was brood #1 and the pair will smarten up about nesting locations as the season progresses.

It is what we do here in the DC area. We watch planes fly over. Today, Blue Angels and Thunderbirds. And yes, I got lots better pictures at my old digs. But, this where I live now.

Finally! A visible reason to wash my hands. Did a very little gardening today. Also did a little cooking. Meals have been very institutional around here of late. But, I am not going to complain. How can I complain. My shorts do not zip. So, the food can not be all that bad.

Gratitude

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Grateful for an absolutely glorious spring day. It was almost possible to forget that we are locked in.

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Mālama pono

Daybreak was excellent this morning. Photo was taken with Pixel 2XL in night sight mode.

It is May. April wasn’t such a hotshot good month. But. I lived through it. And my primary purpose is to stay alive and not endanger anyone else with my irresponsible behavior.

Have mostly pictures today.

This is Goldie an elderly arthritic tomcat. So, he fits in around here really well. He isn’t mad, just “barking” howdy.  He lets out one raspy MEOW.

Wandering the halls, and what should I discover but a porta-potty.

A food give away was set up this morning at the apartment building across the street.

And at about 4PM this afternoon – about 30 of the residents drove their cars around to plead for rent cancelation. (residents of the apartment building across the street)

The pictures were taken with my 600mm lens from my room. What I see out of my window is the only view I have of life outside of The Asylum.

And,  a couple more bags of coffee arrived from Amazon. It had been on order for a while.  Not complaining. It arrived – well before it was needed.

Gratitude

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Grateful that I don’t have to go out and forage for food. Especially grateful that they still sell acceptable sandwiches in the geedunk.

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Just got an email from the front desk. The 2TB SSD USB 3.1 Samsung drive that I ordered at 10am this morning arrived from Amazon. Coffee 2 weeks. Disk drive 8 hours. Go figure.

Mālama pono

It rained all day and I was feeling pretty lazy. So, I didn’t go looking for any light. But, I used some of yesterday’s leftover goodness.

I was remiss. I failed to note the 19th anniversary of the blog. I first posted something on April 28, 2001.  The links are flakey. But yesterday and tomorrow will work.

And why was it so “lame”. One word DIALUP.

Fun with post-processing photo the post-processed dinner bags. (That is about 2,000 of them)

Thinking about the next video. Maybe it is 2050 and The Asylum is still on lockdown. The Asylum’s oldest resident dies – and they find these old photos on her 30-year-old MacBook Pro of a pre-lockdown Asylum.  Or maybe in 2050, they find a mummified resident under a ton of plastic bags.

That’s the problem with video. You need a story.

Gratitude

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To spend 45 minutes on Zoom with my Asylum Sisters. We can not hug. But we can laugh.

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Damn! I just checked the old blog. A few days in, there I am – wearing a bathrobe that I still have. Hanging on my bathroom door. And I realize that that bathrobe pre-dates Carlton. Which makes it more than 40 years old. I need to think. Is this good or bad?

Mālama pono

Finding the light was easy this afternoon. It was gloriously warm and sunny outside.

Today I cut the Dining Services video down to a little over 3 minutes. It is better than the 5-minute version.

One of my current “lockdown duties” is that of bag lady. Every day I collect our huge meal bags from floors 11 and 12. I pile them up into Mount Bagmore in my gracious entry hall. And I neatly fold and package them for re-use by assorted local food pantries.

Then I put them in my grocery cart – which isn’t going to the grocery any more – and take them down to the dungeon for distribution. That is a load of 125 bags. About one day’s worth. Audiobooks make this doable. I think that smoking dope would work too. But, this is a smoke-free facility!

Gratitude

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Grateful for spring. Be it every so strange in 2020.

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Mālama pono

Sunrise was pretty special this morning. Actually, every sunrise should be special.

Finished up my “commissioned” video. I made the video for the head of Dining Services here at The Asylum. He selected the music. And vetoed showing one of his cooks getting Sysco frozen lasagna out of the freezer. The customer is always right.

I am going to re-edit tomorrow down to 3 minutes. And, I think it will be better.

I hate using copyrighted music. But this seems to be ok as long as nothing is monetized.  I sure don’t make any money from this blog!

This is how we get fed. We fill out these order forms the day before. At 400 residents 300 of which order their own meals – that is a lot of orders. It is always a little interesting to see what you get.

Gratitude

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Grateful for audiobooks.

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Mālama pono

Mentally done. Fried. Braindead. 6+ hours working on my Dining Services Infomercial.

Note to self: Order much larger external drive. Final Cut Pro is a disc pig. (Gee, maybe I can even upgrade my computer. And get a real external monitor, not my iPad Pro. No. You are not  Steven Spielberg.)

Some things are still important here in Old Lady Lockup Land. Things like free wine night. But we don’t get as much. Just one little plastic bottle per customer.

Gratitude

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Really happy that I have a great view out of my three windows. It is the same view. But it fills up my whole room.

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Mālama pono