life in the old lane

I actually got hot today on my walk. So, I suppose that summer is just about here. 

Today was very disjointed. I am trying to get my Northwest Passage trip cancelled. When that is a done deal, I will launch Plan B, which is most likely a better plan anyhow. 

 

The impatience. The frustrations when things don’t work the first time. And, this impatience and frustration extends to me. I’m not too fond of this part about getting old especially since it is something that I should be able to control. 

I had to stop fussing with Final Cut and fold a little paper this afternoon.  

I finally focused on the real problem with my Northwest Passage trip. There are two “real” problems. First, I don’t like the idea of doing a very large international wire transfer. It’s not hard. I can do it online. It’s just scarey. OK. Deal with it. I can do this. After all, I managed to escape from the closet in the Emergency Room at the Clarkston Hospital. I have superpowers!

Second, I was really balking at the price of the mandatory insurance. It was like ¼ the price of the expensive trip. I was shopping in the wrong place for insurance. I was trying to find insurance that I would really want if I actually needed the insurance. Today, I shopped for “cheap” travel insurance. Found a policy that I think will pass muster with the Aussies for about 8% of the cost of the trip. 

So, I am happier about my trip. But, I could really save a bunch of money if I switch to the much cheaper Norweign line. The only reason the Norweign line is so much cheaper is that they must have a lot of empty spaces because they have zero single supplement.  But, I still like the idea of the much smaller boat. 

But enough of this. Let’s get back outside.

The girls had just graduated from college. One from the University of Michigan and the other from the University of Miami. At first, I thought they were just using our property, but, on reflection, I believe they are the granddaughters of one of our residents. And the photog had a couple of “real” cameras. But we do love our phones. 

I wasn’t feeling particularly creative today and MidJourney wasn’t pumping out the images that I need for this video that I have to make. So after dinner, I just told MidJourney to “make something wonderful –ar 3:2”. No hint about what I wanted except I wanted the aspect ratio to be 3 by 2. 

I didn’t even know what I wanted. It has been a long day.

MidJourney usually gives you 4 responses. This is another one from “make something wonderful –ar 3:2”. 

I have about decided to walk away from my medium-expensive Northwest Passage trip with the Aussie line which is very difficult to work with. I guess they think that I am a crazy old American woman who is very difficult to work with. But, I am not going to walk away from doing the Northwest Passage this summer. There is a merely expensive option with a Norwegian company.  Plus several criminally expensive options with French and American operators. 

The Norwegian operation is a much less deluxe ship.  It is also larger. Which means there will be lines and waiting. What makes it only medium-expense is there is no single supplement. And, there is no kayaking. Not that I was going to kayak anyhow. This one starts in Iceland and ends up in Nome. With a plane to Vancouver. But, it’s lots cheaper than the Aussie version. And, the Norwegians did “discover” the Northwest Passage. They have skin in this game. 

Sometimes I wonder, wouldn’t it be better to fix the elevators? However,  the putting green is sexier to show prospective residents. People see elevators. They assume that the elevators elevate.

After a frustrating day of trying to get my Northwest Passage Trip settled, I went for a nice therapeutic walk. Including a sit in the “Wilderness”.  Forest bathing-lite.

When along comes Scosha. She is very old and very deaf. But she still gets her steps in every day. That’s about all that any of us can do. 

About the Northwest Passage problem. It’s very hard dealing with the Australian sailing company.  They even make it hard to pay them. At this instant, I am of the mind to just walk away from my deposit and book with a company that will accept a check and that doesn’t require a very expensive insurance policy. It shouldn’t be hard. I want to give them money. A lot of money. 

Will continue with this obscenely 1st world problem tomorrow. I am beginning to see why people use travel agents. 

Finished reviewing my taxes today. I have a new tax boy this year. He replaces my tax old man who retired and left me in a lurch. The new guy did good. And you had best believe that I checked his work. So another happy day.

Sometimes AI is just way cuter than real life.  Because real baby peacocks look like this.

Today was a real person day, and it was great!

I went back to my old yoga class in person for the very first time since October 2019. There were only two other people in the class, and the rest were on Zoom. But it was still good to be back in the yoga room, with other people and our teacher.

It felt like I was stepping back in time, to a time before the pandemic, when life was simpler and I was younger.

Walking to Ballston, I discovered some fine peonies.

And of course, I had to ask MidJourney to have a crack at peonies.

Today’s lesson. Get out of The Asylum. It’s where you live. It’s not your life. Yet, someday it may be. But it isn’t yet. 

Since my return to The Asylum, I have been sort of living in the wreckage of the future. I have a giant self-imposed 2do list.  Mostly involving my death cleaning and being sure that I am good to go when it is time to go. Talk about major wreckage of the future! (And no, I am not sick. But, I am old.) 

Minor wreckage of the future is this video I promised to make of our upcoming Mom’s Again Guns Rally. I don’t want to let the side down. But, what if it is a crappy video?

However, today started with a power failure. After I finished breakfast. That sort of gave me permission to do two things on my 2do list and then just chill. Even after the power came back on. I took two walks. Had a little rest. And completely(???) made peace with the Columbia River trip that wasn’t. The cruise line did exactly what I would have wanted them to do if another passenger had Covid. It was a very small ship. I had been carrying a little brick of resentment around. Feels good to let it go. 

This morning I attacked my undies drawer. I reduced its contents by 25% and got rid of my last pair of pantyhose. I didn’t even save them to strain paint or use as hair scrunchies or any of the other things that we were supposed to do with old pantyhose. I hated those things. They were invented ca 1960 but didn’t really become popular until the miniskirt came on the scene 5 years later. 

Still playing with MidJourney and kyrie eleison. 

Brunch with some of my accidental family today. We had an excellent time. Lots of residents had their families visiting. It has taken 3 years to get back to “normal”. I do hope that “normal” lasts as long as I do. 

In addition to eating and drinking, I did a couple of walks today (to try to offset the eating and drinking) and played around with Final Cut Pro. I am so not Pro. I feel guilty even owning such a powerful chunk of code. But, I don’t use all that Photoshop has to offer either. Not even close. Actually, the only software that I use anywhere near max are Lightroom and Excel. And, if Photoshop didn’t come with my monthly Lightroom subscription, I wouldn’t have Photoshop. 

I tried not using Excel for a few years. But, sooner or later I always ran into something that couldn’t be done with the free versions. Heck, the Mac version of Excel is bad enough compared to the Windows version.  This is a very first-world problem. I remember when there wasn’t Excel. In the beginning, there was Visicalc. It was the first killer app for Apple. This would have been in the 1978-1980 era. 

And without Lightroom, I would never be able to find a photo. 

I guess I am more about organizing, filing, sorting, and finding and less about designing and creating. 

I am not sure why they were doing this. One of those social media things. But I was just collecting photos from my video in support of sensible gun laws.

While I was trying to figure out how to use Apple Motion to make text crawl along the bottom of my video, I was playing with MidJourney. It makes great stock filler images. I was running it in slow mode because I get unlimited slow service, but not very much fast service.  So I tried tossing Kyrie, eléison in as a prompt. 

Well, that was cool. But, maybe MidJourney doesn’t speak Greek. Or maybe MidJourney wasn’t fed the Tridentine Mass. But, it’s a really cool image.

So, try again, this time in English.

Ok. This is interesting. Definitely, something to play with someday when I have a lot of time to kill. 

Accomplished things today. And, my room was cleaned by someone else. I always love that. Enjoyed happy hour with my friends. Followed by dinner on the patio. The food was lacking but the company was good. 

Damn, this is very boring blog entry. Sigh.

Just normal boring Little Old Lady Shit. What can I say? I am a Little Old Lady. And damn that sucks. But, it’s what it is. So deal with it. 

I was looking around my blog as I was in 2001 (and the term blog wasn’t really used by then) when I come upon my bookmarks from May 2001.  I am slightly curious about what mattered enough to bookmark 22 years ago. Bookmarks really mattered way back then. Just checked. Most are LONG gone. 

Been sleeping poorly since I returned to The Asylum. And, my watch agrees. I have been scoring in the low 70’s. I think it’s because I have been finishing up an audiobook at bedtime. Tonight, I will read a book and see if I can get a better sleep score tonight.