life in the old lane

Well, it is July 5th. Sort of half past summer. Only one more summer holiday left. The days are getting shorter. Aloha! Time to start thinking about Hawai’i.

I think our combined 4th of July party was successful. Firework viewing wasn’t great – but the food and friendship was. (It was a little too humid and still for the massive Mall fireworks. It made its own smog shroud.)

I live in an old folks asylum. Most of us old folks are women. Old women. Some very old women. Well, a few of us lucky ladies found the Jockey Summer Catalog in our mailboxes recently.

Many a heart was a flutter. And, it wasn’t a-fib! One woman who is almost comatose showed signs of life. The fine looking man is wearing “outdoor boxer briefs” which would appear to be a massive word selection failure. But, who cares? Not me.

Note to Carlton: You always said that I would be a great little old lady. Is this what you had in mind? 

In keeping with this naughty old lady theme. On Sunday, of all days, I had fun messing with our dining  supervisor – a great long suffering young man. He was trying to ever so quietly  encourage us to finish up our dinner and leave so his staff could so home. Well, every time the poor man came by our table I would say something like “…Alexa put Depends on my shopping list… Alexa order condoms”.

Hey, it’s not fun being old. But, it doesn’t have to be boring. Misery is optional.

It was our last 4th of July. I was playing with the wireless release on my camera and Carlton was cleaning his sword. While this was going on we had a serious little talk. He asked me to take care of:

• His sword
• His little steam engine, and
• His chrome plated bolt.

And, he said “just get rid of everything else”. A great gift. 

I took some OK fireworks pictures that night.

So, I figure I don’t have to take fireworks pictures anymore. – click on that one. I think it is bigger. 

But, the Annual Friends and Fireworks gathering is scheduled for 8:30 tonight. Just friends. No fotos.

 

The bumble bee has two compound eyes and three “simple” eyes known as ocelli. Simple doesn’t mean low functioning or lame as the young people would say. We humans have two “simple” eyes and zero compound eyes. Which is way lamer.

Since no one has actually been a bumble bee – well except maybe the odd Buddhist or two – we really don’t know why both kinds of eyeballs. I am going with the theory that says the ocelli are used in flight control and/or navigation. 

Bumblebees are not the only insect with both compound and simple eyeballs. Their little bee brains have to keep a lot of stuff sorted out! My compliments to Mother Nature.

Having a little fireworks watching party tomorrow. A friend is doing the food and drinks. All I am doing is the view. Hope the weather goddess is on the job. For the last two years the fireworks were lost in the fog/smoke/clouds.

and in the very next frame…

By the next frame he was on his way and out of focus.

While attending to party planning activities – my mind wandered off into what if land.  WHAT IF, they had named this computer after the Granny Smith apple. Well, sure it is a silly name for a computer – but so is macintosh. Would we now have Grannybooks. And Granny Minis. Or even soon to be obsolete Grannybook Airs? 

An how about them apples – the Macintosh is 33 years old.

Went down to water my garden box late the afternoon – and what did I find – great gnarly clouds gathering. SO…

I decided to wait and let Mother Nature take care of the watering. Meanwhile, I found this little skipper.

And then it started to rain. Most likely not long enough to make the garden box happy. But, long enough to keep it going until tomorrow morning. 

At this instant – I am all dressed up in my “lady clothes” waiting to go to dinner in our Formal Dining Room – where the dress code is WASP country club circa 1956. The tablecloths are white, the wine flows freely and an air of lost Southern gentility prevails. It is more about the conversion than the cuisine.

July 1, 2017 = 1299 days until the 2021 Presidential Inauguration.

Today sort of got away from me, and now it is after 8.

Come to think about it – this entire week got away from me. Even the month. Maybe even my entire life.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day in which to excel. Or not.

The improved wifi can not happen soon enough.

Somehow, B&H just knew I was going to the eclipse. So, they sent me 5 cardboard sunglasses. Sort of sweet. I suppose they hope I’ll order some gear. Heck, I always order gear. Don’t need cardboard sunglasses to entice me to order gear.

I took the day off. I took some stuff to our in house thrift shop. Took other stuff to the trash room. And, I worked on my garden box.

It has gotten completely out of control. Well, as out of control as 11 square feet can be. I did some serious trimming. Note to self – nasturtiums are non-starters. Mine seem to have contracted the dreaded “nasturtium virus”. 

Went to an asylum meeting this afternoon. They told us who the new asylum director  was going to be. It was an internal promotion. And, if you like the way the asylum is  run, that is a good thing. The new guy is younger and  tech-savvy. We were all a little concerned about who was going to take over. After all, we have the whole rest of our lives invested in this joint. 

At the meeting they announced that new WiFi will be deployed in the building starting next week. We’ll see. Stay tuned. 

I am safe for another year. This afternoon, I had my annual “reassessment”. Reassessing my ability to live in The Old Bat Cave. They have about 20 questions that you have to answer correctly. Sort of like the random polygraph tests that I used to have to take when I worked for certain interesting clients.

One of the questions: “Can you prepare meals?” – “Yes, but why would I want to?” Had outstanding grilled coffee crusted scallops. (And bread pudding) for dinner tonight. Outside, on the terrace, with friends. Why would I want to nuke Lean Cuisine in the OBC?

Oh, if you flunk the reassessment – you get moved to assisted living or worse. They don’t kick you out. My friends and I sort of laugh at the reassessment, now. But, someday, it might be darn serious and we’ll have to coach each other about the answers. What are friends for?

Zero complaints about today’s weather. That makes it two days in a row – which is about as good as it gets in summer in DC area.

Some of my friends went down to the Capital this afternoon to protest some of the proposed budget cuts. A lot of things are hard to wrap my head around:

1. I got old. I never intended to get old.
2. My contemporaries are still on the picket lines. I thought we had settled all this shit decades ago.
3. I am living in an old folks asylum. See #1
4. Said asylum has a saloon. But no marijuana dispensary. 
5. The aforementioned saloon stocks a pretty fair beer from exciting downtown Lao People’s Democratic Republic. I have been to Laos. I didn’t leave anything there that I need to go back for.

Note to Carlton. You aren’t missing anything. Trust me. I made the mistake of looking at my full length mirror before I was fully clothed. Big mistake. Stuff is starting to sag over the top of my jeans. Not only am I falling apart. I fear the world is falling apart. Well, not the world. Just the human part of it. But, humans are only a tiny part of the planet. We just use more than our share of the oxygen.

As promised, the iPad arrived. I just had it clone itself from the Mini – using an iCloud backup from last week. It is much friendlier on the aging eyes. I supposed it set itself using the “blind as a bat settings” that I had on the old one. Yep, it was. I backed just it down a bit – so, I can crank it up to bigger and bolder text as I continue to decay.

Haven’t a clue what I am going to do with the Pencil. Except lose it. But, I do love accessories. One accessory is still on order for the iPad – a nice slip case. 

The new iPad wasn’t at all happy with my crappy wifi. 

I was going to wait and decide what cell service to use “later”. My phone service is from Google. While, my data plan on the mini is from T-Mobile. I have always been happy with t-mobile. But, I ordered a SIM card from Google. And, it wasn’t long before I popped it in. Downside is – if I am using LOTS of data, Google is more expensive and Google doesn’t allow “data only” SIMS to tether.

Couldn’t resist putting the iPad up to the window and snapping…

I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE PICTURES WITH MY IPAD. No matter how good it is. (Except in an emergency and only if no one is watching.)

Or maybe it is lost. In which case, it will be back. One day last week 5 ambulances came – and one was a one way trip. That, I guess is one of the downsides of living in an old folks home. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe we are just being reminded that “nobody is promised tomorrow”. And, to start every day with “It’s a good day to die” not as a battle cry, but as an affirmation of  life well lived with no regrets and nothing undone. 

Spent most of the day puttering around with my staff photography project. I make a little sample YouTube video for my clients. Hopefully, I can see it on the screen they intend to use the photo on – so I’ll know how forgiving the display is. I also need to remember that the vision of the audience isn’t for tack sharp anymore either. 

After all the people photography angst – I went out a shot some birds and bees. 

ps – the iPad made it to Laurel MD – so I guess I’ll be seeing it tomorrow.

My bergamot plant is in full bloom and it is doing its job attracting bees. However, I don’t think it is a good fit for the garden box. My plant to too leggy. Maybe, if I give it another chance next year, I’ll cut it back and try to make it shorter and bushier. It is a member of the mint family, so it might work. 

Main event today was taking a few test pictures of the staff – I have this project to take pictures of the staff to help with a fund raiser. I like taking pictures of bees. I don’t like taking pictures of people. But, nobody said I have to like it to do it. 

The iPad is still in Louisville. Maybe it is going to the track. But, another accessory arrived today. A Google SIM card. The iPad has a built in SIM card that works on many carriers. But not Google service. But, it has a slot for a traditional SIM card. I am not sure that I will use Google service. I use Tmobile on my current iPad. If I am using a lot of data – TMobile is cheaper.  But, if I use WiFi most of the time my Google service is cheaper. This is another first class “problem”. 

Yes, boys and girls. You can get your cell phone service Google. Problem is: it only works on 5 cell phones. You never heard of any of them and only two are currently available. And, it’s not like Google takes their cell phone business very seriously. But, it’s kinda geeky. So, I like it. (The Google data-only SIM works in almost anything. Some folks have hacked the data SIM into working in other phones. But, it doesn’t seem to be worth the trouble to me)