I think our first round of winter is ending. The kids were getting their last runs down the sledding hill late this afternoon.
Another orchid started blooming overnight.
The orchids are trying hard to make things nice in the Old Bat Cave. It’s not easy for them. It’s under 60°, and the humidity hovers around 25% on the window ledges where they live. I spent a couple of hours giving them some TLC.
The orchids are just blooming their little hearts out. Even the one in the “Orchid ICU” is trying to recover.
I am turning into my grandmother. Except, with her, it was African violets.
Covid is still wandering around The Asylum. It caught one of my friends. She was a “covid virgin”. Now I only know one person who has never gotten covid.
A fine day for folding cranes. Drinking coffee. Doing as little as possible.
How about Tristan da Cunha?
Port Williams Chile>Falklands>South Georgia Island>Tristan da Cunha>Gough Island>Cape Town. 20 days. All things considered 20 days in Paris even in cold rainy March would be easier for me to handle. But, there’s time enough for easy after I am dead.
Even if the boat makes it to Edinburgh of the Seven Seas/Tristan da Cunha, there is no guarantee that you can actually land.
Am I going to do it? Most likely not. But, I can think about it on a cold day in the winter of my life.
I think the resident dogs are enjoying the snow more than the resident residents. Playing with 10x digital zoom.
Getting a little bored with winter. I walked my two miles inside today. I thought about going to Tristan da Cunha. Or taking the train from Portugal to Singapore. The first trip is almost impossible and the second hasn’t been possible since the Ukraine War. I could just start getting my taxes together or clean out my underwear drawer. But what fun is that?
August 2023 – Nuut, Greenland.
Unlike the soon to be orangeball-in-chief, I have been to Greenland. And it’s a lovely country. (In the summer.)
August 2023. Ivittuut, Greenland photo by Ted Gatlin.
Sunny and cold. That’s about it. And the incoming OrangeBall-in-Chief will not rule out invading Panama and Greenland. It’s essential for our national survival. Lebensraum anyone?
After 3 weeks off, yoga restarted today. Yoga provides a great opportunity to practice Accept and Adapt. As does the incoming OrangeBall-in-Chief.
0802AM. Yes, it snowed last night. Maybe 4 or 5 inches. The black specks in the sky are crows.
“They” say there will be more snow this evening. To me, it doesn’t matter. Tomorrow’s yoga class has already been turned into a Zoom session.
Of more concern is the apparent explosion of COVID in The Asylum. On my floor, at least four apartments have a case of COVID. I am not as worried about getting COVID as I am about being confined to my room for 10 days. That’s still your punishment here for contracting COVID.
Since my floor’s COVID outbreak, I have become paranoid about the building’s ductwork. Now, I know that during COVID-Time, we didn’t have any issues with COVID spreading via the ductwork. So, I am just being paranoid. Nevertheless. I turned my thermostat down to 65° from its normal 67° – just in case. Our system is 35+ years old and the filters are pretty crappy.
My plan is to hibernate until COVID settles out. Mostly I will be not eating Asylum food. Which is no great sacrifice. Missing my friends and happy hour – that’s not good. But a few days of self-imposed exile seems like the right move. It beats 10 days of solitary confinement.
By noon the sledding hill is packed. This photo was taken with my phone using the newly discovered 10X digital zoom feature.
Yesterday I made a very nice butternut squash soup. I decided that it would be even nicer with the addition of a little heavy cream. So, I wandered over to the grocery for a pint of cream.
$5.24 for one pint of cream. And this was the cheapest. If you required “organic” that would be $7.89 for a pint.
It did make the soup better. Not one drop of that cream will go to waste. Even if I have to make butter out of it!
The plan was to finish the BobBox this morning. But one of the COVID victims is my origami partner. So, the BobBox is on hold.
Carlton at his Junior Prom. Her name was Sue, she made her dress and she was his first love. – 1952? Not knocking her for making her dress. We did that back then.Most likely high school. Same wall as Junior Prom shot. Carlton and his date.Spring Formal 15 or 16 April 1955 Pat Ballaid and CarltonRing Dance – Carlton & Emmy Dee (I LOVE this photo. The bitch that I am.) Class 1957 May 11 or 12 1956Carlton and EmmyDee Wedding – 1958?Carlton and Girl Friend Myrna – June 6, 1972. Myrna and I had a strange relationship. She was his girlfriend but he was still married to Emmy Dee. Myrna was one of the loves of his life and he kept in touch with her. In later years by email. But, Carlton didn’t do email. So, I did all the email sending and receiving. She sent me some pictures of Carlton from their time together when he was dying. Myrna came with her husband and kids to visit Carlton. The husband, kids and I went to the zoo so they could have some time together. Peg and Carlton Wedding – Jan 5, 1994. And here we are on the day I was hijacked into getting married. I was the Ninja Bride. Carlton was just smug. Because he tricked me into getting married. From that day forth, Carlton called me “my current wife”. Well, I am now “his last wife”.
But most importantly – Today is Carlton’s 52nd AA Anniversary.
Gratitude
I am the luckiest old woman on the planet.
I braved the freezing outside weather for a fine winter day walk. Also, made soup. Folded some cranes to go in the BobBox. Failed to complete everything on my ToDo List for today.
USGS Photo. “My” volcano went out. But, it was great while it lasted.
Very little was accomplished today. I did laundry, worked on The BobBox, and curled up with a nice cup of coffee in my comfy chair.
The BobBox – playing with my scale model to figure out how the designs will lay when folded.
The box is made from 20inch square paper.
Our paper is 18×24 inches.
Some assembly required.
The only way I can make it work is by making a scale model. I hope we complete the box by Monday noon.
And by noon Monday our area is supposed to be covered with 6+ inches of snow. We’ll see. I think they have been hyping it too much. We haven’t had “a lot” of snow in many years.
One great advantage to old age at The Asylum is that snow doesn’t matter at all. Well, maybe 30 inches might matter. But 6-10 inches. No worries.
Checked out the window before settling down to work on the next phase of the BobBox. It wasn’t looking too good.
The Dojo didn’t stay neat.
After 30 minutes of fussing with the large paper – the Origami Dojo doesn’t look too good.
And, at 3:34 it appears to be snowing. Alexa just announced that we are having a snow squall.
At this instant, I am hating the BobBox. The colors are all wrong. It’s never going to be finished. Why am I wasting my time on this? This is the normal Peg Project Progression. I was this way at work too.
This is way too easy a project for someone with my great skills.
This project is never going to work. It’s impossible. Why are we even trying to do this?
Policy has been made. It’s simply a matter of implementation.
And the project is completed, usually on time and within budget.
So, I know that progress is being made because I am now in stage two.
Yep, it is snowing and the kids across the street are already out inspecting the sledding hill.
The day started with me getting the Origami Dojo ready for serious action.
This is what the Dojo normally looks like when it is extremely tidy.
Things that haven’t been dusted in almost 10 years were dusted. When the project is finished, the table might get a rubdown with oil.
And, what is the project that requires all this space? And cleanness?
The BobBox – Suitable for a Viking Funeral.
It’s Bob. We are building a nice origami box for Bob’s cremains, and ultimately, a Viking Funeral. How fun is that? Bob is currently in a Christmas bag. I don’t know Bob, but I am pretty sure I would have liked him.
Gratitude
Grateful that I live alone and can leave everything all spread out until the project is finished.
Hopefully, the box will be finished by this time next week. It’s not hard. It just takes a lot of planning. Even with planning, I made a cutting error this morning. We invoked “whatever happens is what I planned” and glued the paper back together.
2024 Ends. We are past our sell-by date. (Except for our young guest. She isn’t anywhere near her sell-by date.) But, we are still here!
Had a festive early evening with my Asylum Family. I confess I was asleep well before midnight.
Start off 2025 with bagels!. Grateful modern dental care and fluoridated water make it possible for old people to eat bagels.
This morning, I happily walked the long way to the bagel store and picked up OK bagels. The usual suspects brunched at The Asylum today, and Asylum bagels resemble hockey pucks. I lived here and complained loudly about the bagels for almost a decade. Last January 1, I remembered that there was a bagel place a block away. Since then, I have supplied the bagels for my table.
This leads me to my New Year’s Affirmation—not a resolution, but an affirmation to Accept and Adapt to whatever 2025 has in store.