life in the old lane

I guess I should learn to tell one skipper from another. Maybe when I get old, I’ll work on that. 

Lovely day weatherwise. Accomplishmentwise – I didn’t do all that much. Made my FitBit happy. And, I learned a new butterfly.

Maybe this year, I’ll figure out a good Origami Bat. But, I am sort of in a butterfly frame of mind right now. 

Butterflies are self propelled flowers. ― Robert A. Heinlein

There. Vintage sci fi and butterflies.

My other accomplishment was finishing Colossus – the old 1965 sci fi novel. I was struck by how like the Orange Lord is to the President in Colossus. As usual, the author assumes that everyone will still smoke in the future. And, there will be jet/air cars. 

The great thing about vintage sci fi – is that there is tons of it. 

Back to the office tomorrow. Alexa  COMPUTER wake me a 5:30AM. I decided to call Alexa “computer” – like StarTrek. 

Good time of year to catch bees in flight. 

The 3M’s… Marbles, Money, Mobility. As we get old – we need to protect them. We can not do to much about Marbles. For now, if dementia is in our future – I don’t think we can avoid it or delay it. Sudoku Puzzles be damned. We can wear our helmets when we ride our Harley’s. And not do too many cocktails, tokes, or even prescription meds. But, if dementia is headed our way…we just have to hang on and enjoy the ride.

Money. Well, as long as we have Marbles. We can damn well watch our money. And set up barriers to protect our selves when we can not. 

Which leaves Mobility. When you live in a geezer asylum –  you soon realize how important mobility is. When you don’t have a car you know darn well how important it is. I live NEXT DOOR to a supermarket. And there are people who live here – who take the Asylum shuttle bus to the supermarket. And, it isn’t like we actually need anything from the supermarket. The asylum sees to almost all of our needs.

I dread the day when I can not walk up the hill from the bus stop. (Most of my friends worry about losing their car. I worry about trading my walking shoes for a walker.)

Carlton died with his 3M’s fully functional. That is how I want to go out. 

So, today, I rededicated myself to Mobility. I believe that my mobility will be helped if I keep my weight between 120 and 125 pounds. It has creeped over the 125 pound line and now is the time to be getting back in shape. For Mobility (and skinny jeans!)

Today’s main event was to review the 2016 taxes. My tax guy emailed my taxes for “review”. And “review” I did, think I found a mistake. Even after he fixes it – and after I include his non-trivial fee – I will still pay less taxes. So, he is worth it. Sorry Carlton. This guy is just better with bond amortizations than I ever was. Remember wayback when bond amortization landed me in hospital. 

It was a lovely almost autumn like day. But, school starts in this county on Monday. So, it must be getting to be the season. Pumpkin stuff will start showing up soon. Pumpkin coffee, not in my cup. But it seems to be a much anticipated Starbucks flavor.

Made it back to the Asylum at about 2PM this afternoon. Just in time for the monthly “Town Hall” meeting. I didn’t attend. Decided that doing laundry would be much more productive. Apparently, our leader, The Lady Linda said that the wifi improvement program was “a mess”. 

I must say, I was rather spoiled by good wifi service on the road – it was fine even after running it through a VPN.

And, while I was gone the in-house TV service has been upgraded. People are coming into our apartments to “fix” our TV’s to use the new service. Wonder what they will do when they can not find my TV! I get along just fine without a TV. Maybe I should empty out a space on my bookcase, run a cable from the cable box to the empty spot and report my TV “missing”.

Don’t you just love those dead mice  with dead butterflies attached. That was “art”. At the Wilson TN County Fair. We have a mouse problem here at the Asylum.  Wonder how this would go over at our next Inmate Art Show? I have considered putting origami butterflies in a Riker box and calling it art – but dead mice would be way more fun. 

I am just full of smart-ass ideas today. Better make some camomile tea and call it a night.

No photos tonight for the lamest reason. Shamu is recharging on the other side of the home and the photos are in shamu.

We were really tired when we stopped for the night. Had grilled cheese sandwiches and beer (me) and Manhatten (Trude). Then we crashed.

Back at the Asylum tomorrow.

It is all good

Spent the day bumming around. And getting mentally ready to start back to the Asylum tomorrow.

I did look at yesterday’s pictures. No winners. But the day was a winner.

It was absolutely perfect. Could not have been better. It was just like all the pictures that I have seen since smallkidtime when I wanted to be an astronomer. 

We found a very civilized location for viewing and did not run into any traffic or other problems. 

And yes, we could see stars. 

Worth the entire trip. Check “total eclipse” off the bucket list. 

Went to the fair today. It was way too hot for a couple of old ladies. That nixed the plan to watch the eclipse from the fair tomorrow. 

Death by funnel cake…

After the fair, we decided on a golf course as our 1st choice for viewing the eclipse. Local news predicts dang near perfect viewing conditions. 

We were not 100 percent ready to leave our luxury digs this morning. So we took a last look-see..
Saturday morning is croquet time at the Asylum, apparently it is at Graylyn as well, at least for the geese. 

I love the koi. 

But , we eventually left and made our way to cookeville. There was lots of traffic and many highway signs warning of massive traffic problems on Monday. And some saying “no parking during eclipse”. We figured these were the best viewing locations.

We will make a plan tomorrow.

We got into Winston Salem late afternoon and wandered around the Graylyn manor house. 

We had an early dinner and retired to our room in the old mews. 

We are staying at a conference center that belongs to wake forest University. They were having new professor orientation. They looked like kids who should have been starting college not teaching college. 

Today we went to the Reynolds Estate. They had a fine Georgia O’KEEFE exhibit. But we decided the we like “our” tobacco czar estate better. 

Tomorrow we are on our way to Tennessee. Hope to beat the crowds. 

I am alive and well and in Winston Salem. But the word press app and I have issues.

Well, I got the app to work on Shamu the Phone. So, maybe this will work ok.

Spent entirely too much time getting myself ready to go. I think it was to hide my uneasiness about heading out with a travel companion that I am not – shall we say – involved with.  And, as one of the Asylum Sisters so helpfully points out – 8 days is a long time. It will be fine. Outside my comfort zone. But fine.

And, this is the first time my travel companion has done this. So, it is outside her comfort zone too.

And there is this whole business of “going south”. We are old women and hence invisible – at least if we keep out mouths shut. That may be a problem.

We are going here – to Cookeville, TN. 

The viewing should be fine. Weather permitting.

Partly cloudy could be problematic.

Not taking Forbin the computer – but I’ll try to get something posted on the blog using Shamu the phone. It was either take my favorite – heaviest lens or my computer. This time the lens won. Not sure how secure our stuff will be in the car – so – I don’t want to leave any thing that I would really hate losing. Cash, Credit cards, ID, electronics, camera. I’ll lose clothes, my kindle, and even the chargers to the electronics. But not the electronics that really let someone into my finances and life. So, 5 pounds of camera, gets stuffed into my purse. Along with the cash, credit cards, phone, sun hat, coffee transport mug, orange, granola bar, aux power for Shamu, etc and so forth. One big purse! Oh and the old iPad Mini.

Time to wrap this up and check the trip 2do list one last time. Next post from WInston Salem.