life in the old lane

Today was devoted to gardening. Weeding to be precise. And shopping for more plants to replace the weeds.  Tomorrow will be devoted to planting the new stuff and maybe relocating some existing plants. Sort of like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Went looking for the books of the living and the dead this morning.

Found them. All four volumes. One Book of the Living and 3 Books of the Dead. I did not look in any of them. However, one of my friends did look in the books and she reported that she wasn’t in the Book of the Living or in the Books of the Dead. Guess she is in the Book of Bardo which I did not locate.

Back to gardening. It really isn’t fun. But, the Asylum is a community and for a community to work – everyone needs to contribute. I surely have no patience for committee meetings. I can not arrange flowers. You wouldn’t want me to be your friendly hospice visitor. But, I can pull weeds. And, it is actually good exercise. Plus a HUGE lesson in patience. 

Serious case of pollen allergies today. My eyes are scratchy and I just want to keep them closed. I sure don’t want to read or watch something from Netflix. It will be an audiobook tonight.

The Asylum did a passable job of Mexican food for dinner. Well, the chicken enchiladas wouldn’t make the cut back in El Paso but they were more than adequate for an old folks asylum on the east coast. The tres leches cake was worth every calorie.

The afternoon  entertainment at the Asylum was our monthly Town Hall meeting where management tells us what they want us to know and the inmates ask questions and/or ride their high horses around.

Sample from today.

1. Would the resident who takes the sports section from the library copy of the Post stop stealing it. And if you know who is doing it please rat them out. I offered to give the library my virtually unread sports section every morning.  Nope, that’s not what they want. They want the miscreant’s ass.

2. It garage floor is stained. It’s a garage floor people not an operating room.

3. We should devise some way to enforce a dress code in the “formal” dining room. I would love to get into a dress code fight. Bring it on. Your ox will be gored.

4. the books of the living and the dead -which I didn’t know existed- have not been updated in a couple of years. So there are dead people in the living people books. Apparently this is a bad thing. You cannot RIP if you are stuck in the living people book.

It’s Aloha Thursday, no work til Tuesday.

Today is Wednesday and tomorrow I can go to work and get some rest!

Today was 100% devoted to garden chores. First going along to get shrubs and forbs and then digging holes and planting. And watering.

Memorial service which I did not attend for one of our residents this afternoon. This man, who died at 97, was a devout humanist and he apparently enjoyed studying the aging process first hand. It is interesting – living with people of disparate beliefs. But all approaching the final exit each from a different path. 

But isn’t that a fine skink? Snapped him with Shamu 2 at the garden center. 

 

Strolling home from work today, a came by this huge oak tree. It couldn’t take it anymore and stopped holding on to planet earth.  Someday, that happens to all of us. 

And then late this afternoon – it started again.

I am becoming like more and more like that old tree – detaching myself from reality. I am becoming inured to the Orange Lord. He no longer outrages me. Nothing he can do will surprise me. And that worries me. 

Oh well, the gospel according to Carlton: Shut up, suit up and show up. That is all we can do.

 

And it was a lovely sunny day in the neighborhood today. 

Pretty boring day. Walk, bus, work, walk, bus, walk, lunch, yoga, nap, shower, dinner, fix blog, read, sleep. 

Not everyone’s peonies completely washed away.

I found these beauties on my walk from the hospital. 

And unfortunate news… my hospital yoga class didn’t have enough takers – so it is canceled. The fortunate news is the Asylum has a new pretty good yoga class on Monday afternoons. Hope it doesn’t go out of business too.

It stopped raining – what next? Plague of frogs maybe?

I enjoyed the sunny day. Did some weeding. And, when I happened to look out my window spied some “kids” wheeling Mom around and the stopped to admire my limp peonies. They were not sufficiently staked to survive a biblical deluge.

And for the weekly garden progress logging.

I have some impressive milkweeds. It has been suggested that they are milkWEEDS and should be pulled. But, I am letting them stay until something better shows up. 

I took the top (and header) photos with my Pen F. And, I just noticed that it is still on Brisbane time. Sorta cool. 

Watched the wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle. Carlton would have loved it. He loved all things ceremonial. And, especially if fancy uniforms, horses, and horns are involved. And he would have given the American Bishop Curry high fives for hitting the homily out of the park.

While the Brits got great sunny weather – we had more rain. But, I think it is coming to an end. My weeds have gotten out of hand. I’ll be logging some time out in the weed lot tomorrow. 

 

At least I don’t have to water anything.

So, what did I do today? Very little. Hit the dreadmill. Tweaked my investments a bit. Read a book. Took a nap. 

When Carlton was sick an old girlfriend of his sent me a few pictures of him – back when he was “hers”.  Apparently, she told him to go fly a kite too!

The rain continues. Time to round up those plans for the ark. I know they are around here somewhere. 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in width and 30 cubits in height (450 × 75 × 45 ft). But, I am going to leave some of the critters behind. Starting with mosquitoes. But, then again, mosquitoes feed a hell of a lot of birds and bats in the northern regions. So, I might have to take them. Maybe humans should be left behind. Not sure that we do any good. 

Since I don’t work on Friday – my weekend starts now. And I am very ready for some down time. 

It rained again today. So, for another day I did not have to water anything. 

I got back on the dreadmill this morning. I was a little more cautious today. 

Took pictures at the Asylum Garden Party this afternoon. Garden Party was moved indoors. Stopped in to see what was happening at a meeting of the Finance Committee. Verdict: Not much was happening. 

The over the hill gang and augmented reality is a hoot. The lady in turquoise tried to jack me up for taking her picture. So,  I showed her the image. And told her I wasn’t taking her picture, I was taking a picture of the Stormtrooper.  She starts looking around “Where did it go?” “Where is it now?”

Back to the office tomorrow for a sanity check.

Our little volcano issue in Hawai’i… The USGS has some webcams. They update about every 60 seconds. Check them out. Volcano Observatory Web Cams.

I am getting old and boring. Heck, I even bore me. Maybe that is how I will die. I will actually bore myself to death. 

Ah, but there are worse things in life than being bored. All I need to do is look back at the 2013/2014 blog entries and remember when every day was a new terror. And boring seemed really good. Boring is still good. 

It isn’t boring outside – another big thunderstorm this evening. Nearly all of our thunderstorms come from the west and my 3 windows face dead east. So, now great lightning shot chances.  

Working around in my head a little PR  presentation to remind my fellow residents about our “resident maintained” Garden. That is where “my” weed lot is located. I don’t like anything about my presentation yet. But, it is a start. And I was always better at fixing things than I was at building things. SO, I have something to “fix”.

PS – I don’t recommend wasting 5 minutes watching the video. I rendered it as “draft” quality and squished the hell out of it with Handbrake. I just love Handbrake. 

But, the rain is here now. No interesting lightning,  so far at least. 

At this instant, it is pouring on the Knoll Garden. That is where my weed lot is located. I can see it from my window. And I presume it is also raining on the other side of our building where my garden box is located. Another 2 days without watering.  All good.