life in the old lane

Thinking about fathers.

Dad died in August 2000.  He always had a camera handy, most of the time he would spend an entire year shooting a roll of 36. Mostly he took pictures of his friends, family, and the occasional flower or homegrown tomato. 

When he died, I finished up the roll taking snapshots of the flowers that arrived to note his passing. (A good bottle of booze would have been a better way to note his passing.)

I was stunned to find this image when I had the pictures processed at the local K-Mart. It was taken from the carport of our family home in the slums of northwest El Paso.  It would have been sunrise. Since the leaves are off the trees, it is likely in the late winter.

If this is my biggest problem. I got no worries. But…

Nobody is paying attention to the little stuff around the asylum these days.  One wonders how unkempt things will have to get before someone notices.

That’s 6.5 pounds of clothes. There is only one “just in case” item. My rain jacket. I will be rained on and drenched down to my granny panties. The only way I to survive this adventure is to travel ultralight. 

Plan is to keep my total weight to 15 pounds if it’s just a backpack and purse. Or 20 pounds if it’s my little rollaboard and backpack.  In either case, it will be the same amount of stuff. Just different packing containers. 

I read  an online article about how all of the speakers at Apple’s recent event stood in a pose called the “Apple Stance,” which is apparently a variation of the “ready position.” Who knew? The article even included a picture of Lynda Carter, better known as Wonder Woman, to illustrate it.

Carlton was in lust with that woman. And is there any wonder? She had everything a boy who grew up white, southern, and sex-deprived in the 50s wanted. Big hair, bullet breasts, wasp waist, hot pants, boots, and heels. Oh, let’s not overlook the whip.

In later years he met her when he worked at Glen Echo Park. She frequently brought her kids to ride the carousel. 

I didn’t feel threatened. 

OK. I will remember to “Publish” this. No saving it until after Happy Hour and Dinner. 

WHOOPS. It works better if you plush PUBLISH – Friday AM

Everything clicked back into place today.  I had a bunch of things started but few things completed. I used to call that the 80% syndrome. I get something 80% complete. I know that I could complete the task. But, why bother? What’s the challenge? 

For the last week or so, the 80% syndrome was exacerbated by my old woman dithering which left me unhappy and paralyzed. But, I think I am back on track. Wherever the track is going, however, remains a mystery. 

Hot weather is coming for us. I have moved my outdoor exercise program to earlier in the day. 

Nice sunrise this morning. I sleep later when I am wearing my sleep mask. No surprise there. The blinds are always open. If I have a view. I want to see it. Not the mini-blinds. 

Heaps of trip planning progress today. JR Rail Pass is purchased. All hotel reservations in Japan are made. Japanese Customs and Immigration QR-Code is on my phone.

Studied the “on-timeliness” of my flight back from Tokyo to New Jersey. It’s not good. Instead of rushing to catch a flight that may have already left – I’ll use hotel “miles” for a room and then Amtrak home the next day. With train miles.

I spent some time dithering about this. “Oh how will I find my way around the airport to the train stop” – “Well, Old Woman, if you can not navigate an airport in the US, you have no business going to rural Japan alone”

Hope our building A/C is up to the task. It’s almost 40 years old. 

Got my act back together. Managed to escape dither mode. With a little help from my friends ChatGPT and Gemini, my trip is mostly planned. 

And, I made a “Trip 2Do” list to keep me on task going forward. (I hate myself when I write something like “on task going forward”).

The Twilight Zone

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Dithering seems to be a problem as I get older. Unlike some of the other age-related problems: Dithering can be minimized. 

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Went to yoga. Got a sandwich. Had a nice outside lunch. Did 2 mile walk. Bused the rest of the way home. About as good as it gets when one is an octogenarian. 

It’s been a lost day. I accomplished NOTHING. I made my bed. I read the WSJ. I walked the absolute minimum. The things on my Monday 2do list aren’t hard. But. I didn’t do them. 

I will start and finish something between now and dinner – 90 minutes. Anything.

Started out cloudy, but it was a nice early summer day.

Today’s project was dithering over the 5-day “hole” in my trip to Japan. My vague plan was to spend a few days at a “traditional”  ryokan. But, I’d go batshit crazy after one bath and one meal. Fortunately, I had reservations before I made reservations for three days of soaking and eating.

I think I will spend those five days madly riding the train around. Getting full value from my train pass.  Stop between 3 and 5 every afternoon. Stay at a cheap hotel near the station. Do a little walking around. Get dinner at a 7-11 or a ramen shop. And train off again the next morning. Then on Sunday, July 28, I can make my way to Tokyo from wherever I happen to be. I have a hotel room in Tokyo for July 28 – August 2. 

Japan has a nice assortment of trains. Some run at 200+ miles per hour. And others poke along. The pokey ones are more suitable for my purposes. The train pass also works on some long-haul buses and a few ferries. 

Ray, The Rosemary is doing great. As is the culinary sage. The new plants are just “new”. 

It was a fine day. 

Unless you were a friend’s orchid.

Yep, you most likely did. But…

…but, it has two living aerial roots. There is life, there is hope?

 

Some time was spent today messing with the deranged iMac. The trip to the Apple store was put off until next week.

But the main event of the day/week was our Rally Against Gun Violence. The CEO of the Asylum was publically challenged by one of the organizers to attend. 

Nobody believed he would come.

The event ended with postcard writing.  It’s the least we can do. 

Major failure. Spend most of the day and some of the evening trying to get a friend’s not-too-old iMac working properly. I wasted 3 or 4 hours trying to avoid doing a factory reset.  Did the reset. After another couple of hours,..

But, it’s backed up. It’s clean. It’s ready to be traded in on a new machine.  Trip to the Apple store tomorrow. 

Thought about why I sort of collapsed with fatigue late yesterday afternoon. 

For all of my adult life I have enjoyed great good health. I was able to work and party as hard as I needed or wanted. A 16-hour workday was common. And it wasn’t unheard of to party until 4AM and still make it to work by 8AM.  I believe we called that burning the candle at both ends. It worked for me.

And when I got into my 50s and Carlton was in his 60s, I became the “food police” as I tried to keep him alive and my weight fashionably low. Or at least lower than Carlton’s. 

I have fallen off the “eat healthy” wagon. And I am no longer fashionably thin. I have called too many grilled bacon and cheese sandwiches with chips washed down with a beer, dinner.  I think nothing of calling a cookie and coffee lunch.

Well, that has to stop. 

I honestly believe that I have max 2 more years. So, I figure I can eat anything I want.  But, I also think I might have more energy if I started eating like I should again. (I had cottage cheese and strawberries for lunch. That’s a start.)

It’s a bitch, when you know what you should do but you don’t want to do it.