Moving Around

I didn't go for a walk yesterday (day 2 of the CBWC): after work, Mom and I caravanned to the Kia dealership to leave it for them to work on today, then grabbed a sub for dinner on the way home to watch the Bruins game. It's not that I couldn't have squeezed in a 15-minute walk anywhere, but I chose not to try. Instead, I counted doing condo checks as my movement for the day. 

Have I mentioned condo checks before? Not recently, at least, I don't think. We live in a small condo building where almost all the owners are snowbirds, meaning they go to various places northwards during the summers. Years ago, my mother started checking condos for a few people during the off-season*: go in twice a week and look around, making sure that the air conditioning is working (that's the most likely problem), that there isn't water anywhere, and that nothing funny is going on. 
*Season down here, without a modifier like "rainy season" or "hurricane season," means tourist season, and is at its height in January and February, though it starts getting busy in November and goes well into April before you start to see a difference.

Once I moved here, I was Mom's backup for this, and the last few years, I've done it alone during the times when Mom was in hospitals/rehab or recovering. This year, I'm taking primary responsibility, with Mom backing me up. At the height of it, there have been 8 or 9 condos, though right now we're at 7, and I go in twice a week. It takes about half an hour, it's slightly outside as I go in and out, and it is movement, at least. I may walk on condo-check days that are less busy, but it counts if I want it to count.

It does mean no pretty pictures, though. The times I have to take pictures doing the checks, it means something is wrong, not photogenic!

For today, day 3, I went for another after-dark walk. The weather was quite pleasant:

Though I was still sweaty when I got home.

The moon is close to full, a few days off, and I tried to get a good picture, but my camera wasn't feeling it. This is the best I got:

But I did get one that illustrates how it isn't season yet. Not my building, but nearby, and not looking too busy yet.

And now: the weekend. 

Walk One

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm trying to walk a little every day, at least in October, and I did go for a walk tonight. Not as late as last night, at 7 instead of 9, and while the sun was mostly down, it was still a bit on the warm side. 

The moon was of course less impressive without the contrasting dark sky.

But we got sunset skies!

When I walked last night, it was after my mother was in bed, but tonight she was still up, and when I said I was going, she reminded me that I could call her if I needed her.

Next week, I turn 57 years old. For several decades, I lived alone, and talked to her perhaps once a week. Now she is concerned that I will need her during a 15-minute walk. Okay then.

I Plan to Move It, Move It

First, for the record, I have not found this covid vaccine to hit me that hard. I gave myself permission to take it easy this weekend, but other than soreness in the upper arm area pretty much right away, and an increase in that from overnight Sunday, it hasn't been bad at all. Less sore today than yesterday, in fact. Right now, it's the other side of my back that's giving me more trouble! (I have a persistent trouble area in my mid-left back and it has been acting up the last few weeks, ow.)

Next, tomorrow being October means it's the start of Elisabeth's Cool Bloggers Walking Club, wherein a random bunch of people are planning to move intentionally for ten minutes every day in October. I am going to try to do it daily, as I did last October, while not giving myself a hard time for imperfection*. 
*"Screws fall out all the time. The world is an imperfect place." Name that movie.

A few points:

• No, you don't have to be a blogger, all are welcome
• No, it doesn't have to be walking, just moving (as I reference in the title of this post, from the oddly catchy song from a movie I've never seen)
• For the full story, I refer you to Elisabeth's blog.

I've been thinking about when to walk. Thing is, here in Florida, it's still hot. I don't say this to rub it in anyone's face, it's just a fact. I checked the weather at 4:30 today, when I was done with work:

That's a bit warm to be out in the sun.

Now, walking in the morning would probably be a better idea, though it doesn't actually cool down that much at night (the forecast right now says that at 7 tomorrow morning, it will be 76 and feel like 81). But the bigger problem with morning walks is that I am all the way at the opposite end of the spectrum from "morning person," and I have enough trouble getting myself out of bed and ready for work at 8. I'm just not excited to add even 15 minutes more into that struggle.

This evening, though, it occurred to me that I could just ... go for a walk at 8:50pm. So I did. It was still warm:

But without sunlight, and with a nice breeze most of the way around the block, it wasn't too bad: I got warm, but not overheated. And other than a section of sidewalk that I had to divert around because sprinklers were going, it was very peaceful. I saw something small and fast zip into the bushes at one point, and at another, I could hear some sort of critter that was chittering and hooting, but there wasn't much else happening.

I did stop for a minute to take a moon-with-palm-tree picture.

So as a proof of concept, that's a definite possibility.

Quickly, On Wool

Unlike when I wrote about it a few years ago, this year I have been making much more of an effort to get wool into my wardrobe. I've actually been drafting a detailed post about it for, oh, a few months, and I think it's time to dump a quick summary here, and only go into detail if there are questions.

So: what about wool? There are pros and cons.

Pros:

1. Doesn't smell, even when you get sweaty wearing it
2. Doesn't wrinkle (much)
3. Because of 1 and 2, each item can be worn many times between washings, which:
• saves time/energy on doing laundry (both the energy of the person doing the laundry, and the literal energy resources, i.e., water, electricity)
• means items last longer

Cons:

1. Cost: it ain't cheap
2. Selection
• There aren't as many companies making wool clothing, which limits the available selection.
• For plus-size people, it's even more limited.
• There are fewer colors, and again, even more so for plus sizes.
• I haven't found any options with patterns. Every spill shows on solid colors!
3. Boredom
• When one has a few items of clothing that can be worn more often, one does get bored with them.
4. Buying online means not trying on before you buy, so it's harder to judge size and fit.

Sometimes, you can luck into a decent price on eBay or a similar site (due in part to the fact that wool items are durable enough to outlast a person's interest in wearing them, I imagine). I wanted to get a zippered, hooded wool cardigan for travel, and wow are they pricey. But I found this for under $20 including the shipping. It fits, it's in perfectly fine condition, and I do love a bargain.

If you're thinking the sleeves seem a little long, vanishing out the bottom of the photo, they're actually designed to fold up. The front-facing photo has them unfolded, but here they are folded:

Decently cozy, hood, zip, pockets, all the things I wanted at a fraction of the price. That's a solid win.

Any wool questions?

Small Updates, Suitable for a Friday Night

1. I am hopefully getting my covid vaccine tomorrow! I say hopefully because I don't want to jinx myself, but I do have an appointment, and while I am under 65, obesity is a comorbid condition that supposedly will let me get it. I read that my health insurance is going to cover it, too, but I'll pay for it if I have to. (If you haven't seen that news, while health insurance providers usually let government decisions guide what they will and won't cover, in this case they apparently feel that the cost of the shots is less than the cost of treatment would be.) Due to the uncertainty, and living in a sadly red state, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get it here, and was going to try getting it when I'm in NY next month (fingers crossed, knock wood, no hurricanes), but maybe I can get it before the trip, which is definitely preferable. (I got my flu shot last week, woo hoo).
   Update to the update: I got the shot! They didn't ask anything about comorbid conditions or anything, and insurance covered it. Phew!
2. I somehow can't believe it's October next week and simultaneously can't believe it isn't October yet. Aren't humans funny about time? I have to start my packing-prep soon: it's less than two weeks away now. Yay! Soon-to-be-happy-birthday-to-me!
3. The comments on the skirt post helped me do what needed to be done, thank you. Here is a somewhat (unintentionally) creepy photo of the skirt, in a bag of items to be donated.

I guess I don't have a 4. Do you?

Memory and Memorization

Elizabeth wrote about phone numbers (which ones you know offhand and which you don't), and it got me thinking about numbers and more broadly about memory. 

I mentioned in my comment there that I still remember the calling code I used to call my mother every day, when she went to spend a few weeks with Grandma while she had surgery. My Dad had this code through work (because long-distance calls were expensive, kids, ask your parents or grandparents), and Mom wrote it on the dry-erase board by the phone, with Grandma's phone number as well, and I can still rattle off the whole damned thing*. That's about 45 years that I could have been using those brain cells for something more useful, though it did mean I never forgot Grandma's phone number. Sadly, since my aunt got rid of that phone line a few years ago, this is now no longer useful.
*It's not much of a party trick, but probably it beats out reciting the start to the general prologue to the Canterbury Tales (in Middle English), the To Be or Not to Be speech from Hamlet**, or the Preamble to the Constitution. Or maybe they're all equally not that impressive. Won't hurt my feelings if you think so.
**I'm actually a bit fuzzy on that, now that I think about it. We had to memorize it in school, so I did know it once.

After college, I worked in a bookstore, and we sold a lot of map books (remember those? speaking of a blast from the past). The most popular one didn't have a bar code on it to scan, and we sold enough of them that I soon memorized the 10-digit ISBN. When the sales rep stopped by to check on sales (another blast from the past), he was always surprised when I typed the number in for him without asking or looking it up. If it had had a bar code to scan, I would never have learned it!

What do you know by heart? Or wish you knew by heart? Ever memorize something for school and find it stuck? I can still do Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, but the rhyme scheme helps with that. Almost as good as setting it to music.

One Very Small Step of Organization

Even small things that make me feel more organized should be celebrated, don't you think? Well, I do, and it's my blog! This is not a big thing, but it's pleasing me.

I have tried different pill organizers for trips over the years, and have found them to be less than helpful in various ways: inflexible, awkward to load, break too easily, that kind of thing. Recently, with a trip coming up, I was thinking about it again, and thinking that I would also like a system that works for me for the everyday: I take a lot of pills, between prescriptions and vitamins, and it would be nice to fill a container weekly instead of doing it every day. So I did a little poking around online, and this is what I ended up getting:

It will not surprise you to learn that the rainbow colors are what first caught my eye! But the second thing was that each container has three sections:

I take pills in the morning, in the evening, and a few in the night (when I wake up to go to the bathroom*), and most systems I saw seem to have two slots, morning and evening (or four, or one). Three is just right for me.
*One of the pills I take is an annoying, "take x hours after/x hours before eating," and I will be damned if I will keep track of that shit every day. Middle of the night it is.

Of course it is very early to be judging durability, but these do feel good in the hand, not flimsy. They seal well individually, and also fit into the holder and don't pop out. Not that I will probably use the holder, but who knows, I guess, I could change my mind on that.

So, here's to celebrating small victories! Feel free to share your own.

What to Do With It: Skirt

This may or may not become a recurring feature, but I am trying, in a low-key unscheduled way, to take a look around at various things I have kept and assess whether I still want or need them. This definitely doesn't mean I will ever become a minimalist, but in the classic words of William Morris:

(I don't know anything about the source of this image, but it seems like it has some good basic advice.)

So I am trying to look around and find things I am willing to get rid of, to pass along, and the other day, I came to this:

This is a skirt that I made in a sewing class, oh, almost 40 years ago, ye gods where has the time gone, ahem. I kept it for the sentimental factor, though my years of fitting into it are almost as long ago.

In fact, the waist is 15 and a half inches across, so it would be 31 inches around (which would be 78.74cm, for the rest of the world).

And while we're measuring, it's about 33 inches long.

It is decently if not expertly made. The fabric is thin and the skirt isn't lined, so it would need to be worn over a slip. There are no signs of wear.

But who is going to want it? I'm not trying to make money on it, heaven knows, but I'd like it to go to someone who wants it. If I give it to a thrift shop, is it going to end up recycled? I hate the thought of that...but I don't have a lot of bandwidth to find someone who would want it. I don't know where to start. Any thoughts?

Word/Song Association

I have a "do you do this too, or am I weird*" question for you. This morning I was looking through my FB memories, something I do most days, and then realized I had this running through my head, from the movie version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
*Granted, I am weird in a lot of ways, but is this one of them?

Okay then, but why? It certainly wasn't one of the items in that list. I looked back at what I had scrolled past, and there it was:

So the word "caboose" went by, and my brain decided to do word-association games without me even realizing it.

Mind you, Buffy isn't even a movie I've seen many times. But I've probably mentioned before how strongly music helps something stick in my mind (Schoolhouse Rock, anyone? who else can sing the Preamble to the Constitution with me?). I would expect it more of a favorite movie, I guess. I mean, just the other day I was quoting from The Philadelphia Story in our work chat. I could probably recite more than half the movie along with the actors, so it was no surprise when this came to mind on a bad morning:

And this morning, after thinking about these two things, I realized I had "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" running through my head, because of course I did.

(I had most of the song right, too. Dinah Lord is a lot of fun in that movie.)

So, do you do this? Find a song stuck in your head because of a random word you barely noticed? Because this happens to me all the time.

Follow-up question: When you get an earworm, does it wear off, or do you need to "write over it" by playing a different song? For me, sometimes it goes away, but if it doesn't, I will reprogram, either with a recent favorite, or my classic, Clean by Depeche Mode.

Seriously?

The last couple of days, I have felt, on and off, very, very slightly dizzy, just lightheaded, a few times, not much and not often, but I remembered that happening a while back, and tried to figure out when. I hadn't blogged about it, but I remembered sending a message to my doctor to ask if/when I should worry, so I checked the portal.

September 2023.

2023?! I would have said a year ago at most. Memory is such a messed-up thing. 

Turns out that was when I got back from Key West, Mom got out of rehab despite not being able to walk at all well on her own, and then she fell again. So yeah, that was why it didn't make the blog. A lot didn't make the blog around then, I'm sure.

Seriously, though, almost two years ago...huh. Well, to quote Douglas Adams, "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."

Ha Ha, and Here's a Gnome

Somehow I never did get around to putting up some of the funny things I took pictures of in my Key West trip, back in July, even though I was taking pictures with the blog in mind. Here we go!

This one is specifically for Nicole:

The same store had a lot of funny napkins, coasters, that kind of thing.

I was in two meetings last week, and I wanted them to be this kind of meeting:

So, so true:

Kind of funny, kind of not, but it did make me laugh:

This is my mother, not me:

This t-shirt was a good one for my trip:

I can imagine!

Did I post the two bar signs already? I think I did, but they fit here, too:

Speaking as someone who barely drinks, this is so, so true! And it isn't just trying to be heard in a loud bar, either.

Seen anything funny around lately?

On Reading: What I Want, What I Don't

I've written recently about how all I want to do these days is read, very Escapism 101, and that holds true still. And I had an amen-sister moment when I read this in author Rachael Herron's email newsletter, part of a conversation with her sister:

I was recently looking at some book recommendations, and couldn't nope-out fast enough when one said, "I found this book exceptionally difficult to read—it's depressing and dark and triggers abound—yet I was eager to find out what would happen next to these doomed families..." No thank you, not me!

I did read a book recently, a fantasy, that was pretty good, an interesting premise and well written, but it ended on an absolute fucking cliffhanger, like "captured by the enemy, pause here and pick up the sequel, whoops it doesn't come out until next March," and I was pissed.  

I hadn't actually realized it was the first in a series, which is my bad, but that in itself isn't the problem. Look, I don't need every thread of the story to be completely resolved in that situation. But I need something!

Let's compare. I've been enjoying a lighter fantasy series, The Lost Arts, by Ellie Ash, which currently stands at two books (of a planned four), plus a prequel novella and a side-characters novella. 

Not everything has been resolved so far, and there are a bunch of questions I am waiting for answers on! I am very curious why one character reacted the way he did in that situation, why that other character is so mad at the main character, what exactly happened to cause the attack six years ago, how is it possible that someone who died in that attack is maybe not so dead after all...I have questions! So many questions.

But these stories are more happy than harrowing, and each story has stopped at a good place. At least something has resolved in each one. 

I don't want to name-and-shame the cliffhanger one*, because it was not a bad book. It just wasn't what I want these days. What about you?
*If you really want to know, I can email you.

Listening to: California Girl

(No, not California Girls, no David Lee Roth here.) 

A couple of weeks ago, I randomly heard a song I really liked, and it happened again this week. Who am I, buying music this year?

This is another song that isn't new (it's from 2020), but is new to me: California Girl, by Cayucas (another group I had never heard of).

I heard it Monday night; listened to it on YouTube a few times on Tuesday, then bought the single; and then last night, reading on the couch, I realized this was humming through the back of my mind:

California girl (California girl)
Summer in her eyes (Summer in her eyes)
From the Golden Coast (From the Golden Coast)
I saw her passing by (There she goes)

It is just STUCK in my head, but in a good way. I wonder why this keeps happening recently?

Things I Have Learned: Ow Edition; And, a Good Laugh

On Sunday, while going through a door to do a condo check that I've done a hundred times, I managed to somehow slip or something, I don't even know what, and absolutely slammed my knee into the door frame. This has taught me a few small things:

1. My automatic, no-thought-required curse in that situation is "motherfucker"
2. I can be quite loud when I'm surprised by pain (good thing there aren't a lot of people around at this time of year)
3. I lean on my left knee when getting into bed. Who knew? (Do that a couple of times and you do start changing your motions.)

I didn't say they were big things, but they are things I learned! The good news is that other than the bruise, it doesn't hurt. Believe me, in that first minute, I thought I might be crippled for life, so ... this is better.

~~~~~

Meanwhile, speaking of no-thought-required reactions, I've probably mentioned how I can't see one of those ridiculous cyber-silly "trucks" (you know what I mean!) without bursting out laughing. Any and all of them. What's funnier, the basic ones that look like a dumpster, the ones in other colors (I saw baby blue!), or the ones with a business "wrap" on it...

Well, the other day I saw one in the grocery store parking lot, and when I got out of my car, the driver was there, so I had to stifle the usual laughter. But I glimpsed him putting his groceries in the smallest wee trunk ever, like one row of grocery bags was barely fitting, and really had to bite my lip.

I looked it up when I got home, and it turns out that was actually the front of the vehicle--that's how hard I was trying not to laugh, I didn't even realize. But according to the internet, it has a "front trunk" space that can be used for storage. It looks like this:

And don't worry, according to Forbes, it has been updated so it no longer cuts off things that are on the edge when the thing is closed...

Anyway! Possibly the best part is that it's called a "frunk"---for front trunk.

And! I mentioned this on Facebook and a friend in England pointed out that over there, they would have to call it a "froot"---front boot.

I'm just over here giggling.

Pretty Simple, Really

I saw this thought online today:

I mean, that's apples to apples, right? What's the argument against?

MAKA

You know how sometimes you remember something and think, how could I have forgotten about that? I had that moment yesterday, when something reminded me of the existence of the browser extension Make America Kittens Again. 

This was a thing from before his first term, which those of us who were sick of seeing you-know-who's face could install so that random cat photos replaced the pictures of him. (FAQs here.) 

It isn't 100% successful at catching them, but when it does, you get delightful things like this photo, which doesn't match the headline in the best possible way.

You can get it through links on that page, or you can search on Make America Kittens Again and the name of your browser of choice. 

It's a bandage on the problem...but it's better than nothing.

The Yarn Is Resettled

Many years ago, I was talking to a knitter I didn't know well. She had been laid off and was really struggling to find a new job, she said, but the good part was that thanks to her extensive yarn stash, she could still knit with fabulous yarn, even when she couldn't afford to buy it.

This struck me hard, and changed my thinking abut yarn buying. No, I would tell friends in the yarn store, I don't need more yarn. But this is retirement planning. Someday I will not be able to afford good yarn, and my stash will be there for me.

This may help to explain why I have alllllll this yarn, so much that I needed more storage for the fingering-weight yarn (yes, the yarn I'm talking about is the majority of my yarn, but not all of it, oh no).

So, this is before I re-sorted to use the new cabinet. We have the cabinet full of rainbow, blues and greens, and blue/greens:

Part of this Ikea cube (multis, groupings):

Smaller white case (black/white/grey, brown into yellow into orange into red into pink into purple):

And this wee shelf with some random recent* purchases:

*As in, within the last year, maybe

And as a reminder, here's what had to fit in:

So! Challenge accepted! Here's how it looks now, with the Ikea cube space being as it was before.

The cabinet now has blues and greens, with room to breathe:

The wee shelf has blue/greens, as well as some sets and recents (I'm considering keeping assigned pooling yarns in one place, so I don't lose track of which ones are meant for that).

The new cabinet has the black/white/grey and the brown/yellow/orange/red/pink/purple:

The little white one has rainbows, and a few other things, with room to grow:

Ahhhh. That's better!

Getting Ready to Move Some Yarn (Around)

I have a lot of yarn.

A lot.

More than some people, less than others, but I'm not going to argue that it's a lot. I may even have crossed the line into SABLE (stash acquisition beyond life expectancy).

I have a lot, but it makes me happy, I haven't gone into debt for it, and I'm perfectly happy with the situation. However, storing it is a bit of a thing.

I am fortunate that my mother shares my feeling that yarn is decorative as well as useful, and doesn't mind it being in our shared spaces, because if I had to fit it all into my office and bedroom, there wouldn't be room for much else. Even with the storage options I have, though, this year I have come to need more.

In large part, this is because someone I know was getting rid of most of her yarn, and offered it to me. I brought home one car-load in December, and another in March.

And I do mean car-loads:

Both times, this resulted in a ton of sorting, deciding what I wanted to keep, pulling out what I was sending to knitting friends up north, and then having local friends come to "shop the stash" before giving what was left to a local woman who has a knit-for-charity group.

Considering how much yarn there was, I didn't keep a large percentage for myself. But even a small percentage of a large amount is not small, and I have this bin:

It's big, and deep.

So I have this much yarn to fit into my already full yarn stash.

Which means I have been pondering storage ideas, and popping onto Facebook Marketplace now and again to see what might be around. And the other day, I found someone giving away an old TV cabinet.

I picked it up on Saturday and brought it home.

Here it is next to my fabulous find from last year; it's not as pretty, but also, did I mention, this one was free?

The top is a little worn, so I put some pretty tea towels a friend gave me over it. Why not?

I didn't start moving yarn yesterday, much as I wanted to: after picking this up, I went to give blood, and while I didn't feel bad, I was kind of low-energy the rest of the day, so just getting the cabinet in was as much as I managed. Today, though, looks hopeful! 

I will get before-and after shots, but in the meantime, here is an interesting sign they had up in the bloodmobile:

I'm B+, and I didn't realize that was so uncommon!

Meanwhile, instead of the little gift card or coupon they usually give, this time, the thank-you gift was a beach towel:

Subtle!