life in the old lane

Watered the garden box this morning to encourage the rain this afternoon. And, indeed it did rain. The rain washed out the smoke for at least this afternoon. 

Continuing to plow through my nagging Shit2Do List. Major accomplishment today – The Dead and Dying Documents.

The box, with the attached label, is on display in The Old Bat’s Cave. Talk about embracing impermanence.  This has been on my Shit2Do List all year. It is so good to have it done. 

Gratitude

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The air has returned to “Moderate” thanks to the rain.

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Origami is not a chore. Look at how much new paper I can buy now! OH, but wait. That’s not the point. The point is to reduce the paper cache. 

 

Seems like this is the new normal. Smoke. 

Gratitude

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Wine!

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Made actual progress on my Shit2Do List today.  None of the remaining things are very difficult or too tedious. I just have to complete them.

You might notice it is very gray. DC has disappeared again. Smoke again. But, not as bad as before. Yet. I suspect the worst is yet to come.

Found some furniture on my walk today. Years ago, when I was young, poor, and lacking furniture, I might have tossed that drop-leaf table with the blue paint spatters in the back of my car. Got rid of all of my “road kill” furniture when we moved out of the house. But, I still have a yard sale bookcase that I bought in Hawaii 50+ years ago. And, I bought my comfy chair here at the Asylum’s Thrift shop. 

Gratitude

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Blueberries, raspberries, and peaches for lunch. Thanks to friends and Trader Joe.

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I’m feeling overwhelmed by my Shit2DoList.  It’s like being pecked to death by ducks.  I never used to worry about unfinished business, but maybe it’s just a part of getting older.   I can fix this. Firstly, I’ll do the tasks that must be done.  Secondly, I’ll decide whether to complete, discard or ignore the remaining tasks on my to-do list. Lastly, I’ll follow Carlton’s advice to “Avoid Beginnings”.  Focus old woman. Focus. 

Went into the hospital this afternoon. The new addition looks pretty near completion to me. And, at 12:30 the weather was pretty nice. By the time I was ready to leave trees were falling over and it was seriously raining. I got a ride back to The Asylum where the power was out. But, the power came back on quickly. Nevertheless, it was sandwiches for dinner.  Which was fine with me. 

Gratitude

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Coffee ice cream.

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They were “nicer” and “sturdier” boxes. Why sturdier? Well, I checked out the jewelry this morning.

A few stronger boxes are required. 

A little message from “the other side” – our friend Ellie died about 3 weeks ago.  

Gratitude

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Cold beer on a warm summer evening.

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Almost nothing was accomplished today. Fortunately there was nothing critical on the adgenda. 

Have lots of little things on the agenda tomorrow.  Hopefully, I’ll be in the game tomorrow. Today my getup and go gotup and went. 

Yes, girls and boys. Anting. Check Wikipedia.

Today, I went out with “almost” the proper lens. I really can not hand hold a 600mm lens anymore. If I am very careful and pretty lucky I can still manage  300mm.

Today I cleaned out my freezer and unearthed some brownies! Guess that was my reward. Don’t really think cleaning out the freezer counts as death cleaning. More like long overdue spring cleaning.

Did some origami. Reading an old book. Note to young people: When you are old you can reread old books and it’s like the first time. Eye of the Needle. Ken Follett. 1978. 

Gratitude

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Grateful for coffee with an unexpected brownie. 

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Since the sun was out for a while, I fired up a real camera and wandered around the grounds.

I cleaned out my bathroom today. It didn’t take long because I have a tiny bathroom. I discarded everything that expired pre-Covid. 

Also made some more boxes. Took a walk. Had a nap. Listened to an audio book. A good old woman kind of a day. 

I needed a downtime kind of day. I know I know. Exactly what have I been doing to need downtime? Well, some days just combing my hair counts as an “activity”.  Just wait until you get old. You’ll see.

And, I did some death cleaning. Don’t need 3 straw hats. Or “nice” leather gloves these days. Or 2 pair of snow mittens.  Or any boxes of expired Covid tests. 

But have to say

This is a part of my “death cleaning”. I started making these boxes when I decided to deaccession parts of my earring collection. I decided to say a fond farewell by putting them in origami boxes. (Sort of like a funeral I guess.) Then I decided to attack my huge collection of origami paper. So, why not make a bunch of boxes, and if folks buy something at our upcoming jewelry sale they get a box, lagniappe? 

For no apparent reason, Steve Case of AOL/Time Warner fame is speaking at our “other house” this evening. 1.7 miles away. The asylum is running a couple of bus loads over and hopefully back. But, I’ll get there by foot, Uber, public bus or some combination thereof. I DREAD the day when I have to rely on The Asylum bus for transit. I suppose it’s like my friends worrying about giving up their cars. 

But. That’s “Wreckage of the Future”. (Thanks Carlton, that still comes in handy. As does “Avoid Beginnings”)

I also did laundry. Pretty unexciting day. Nothing wrong with that!

A busy day doing little things. That’s good because little things pile up and become big things. At the end of the day, I went out to dinner with an old friend. That’s an excellent thing. 

I remember a retired Marine, John,  who worked for me. He classified problems as “ants or elephants”. His theory was: Attack the elephants first. Those suckers can kill you. John actually had two rubber stamps. An elephant and an ant. He stamped his incoming paperwork accordingly.

My take on that was: The ants can really annoy you so you have to stop trying to fix the elephant problem and go get some Raid and polish off the ants. Then get back to the elephants. 

All of my current problems can be classified as “ants”.  For that I am grateful. 

Celebrated Juneteenth here at The Asylum by making the staff come to work. A good band came and entertained us old white people. And we are having a “Special Juneteenth Dinner” with Swedish Meatballs and South African wines. That doesn’t track. How ’bout barbecue, fried chicken, mac and cheese?  Red beans and rice. Fried catfish. Oh, they are also having collard greens. And the joint wonders why black people don’t move in. Swedish Meatballs? Honestly. Maybe they could add Lutefisk next summer.

Made some death-cleaning progress today. Quantity not huge. But, every little bit helps. This was a hard little bit. Old notebooks from the times Carlton and I spent in the parks. And notebooks from various trips. I put some special treasures in a shoe box and labeled it:  When I am gone, Toss.  I could have put everything in a big box labeled When I am gone, Toss. But, that seems to be cheating.

This death-cleaning thing isn’t morbid or even grim. One just wants things to be as tidy as possible when the inevitable happens. If someone is just going to pitch it: Why not save them the trouble?  It’s the right thing to do.