paint, pumpkins, pedals

 I did a thing yesterday. I'd played around with painting in the past, but hadn't touched the stuff in a good long time. Yesterday, I did a Paint 'n' Sip with a few other ladies, something that had looked like fun, but I'd never done.

Seven of us plus our able instructor got together to create "a fall scene" in acryllic paint. The event was deemed a fundraiser for my PEO chapter, but was mainly an excuse to get together and goof around. Both purposes were served.

I brought my result home, and there it sits in the corner of my "office", between the dry erase markers and kleenex, for lack of any place else.

Maybe I'll touch it up and name it "Children of the Corn"

Speaking of evils, how did everyone fare with the amazon web service outage of Monday?

It's a bit concerning how dependent many of us are on our apps and cloud services, eh?

For me, it was a full-on first world problem as I had a haircut appointment on Monday, and found that my Pinterest wouldn't load. Pinterest held my hair reference photos! What to do?

Sigh of relief when the issue was corrected in time, but it was touch and go there, I tellya!

Also this week, I took in another bicycle. These things are wrecking my minimalist image. I have the lovely Violet, which I mainly take for relatively long joyrides, like this morning's beautiful fall ride. Then there's Daisy, my trusty single speed commuter. I also have Lily, the buxom mountain bike. 

Well, now I have the yet-to-be-named newbie-to-me. We bought her 10 plus years ago for Meego. He rode it through high school and then college, but hasn't ridden it much in recent years. 

With the temperatures getting cooler and days getting shorter, I was thinking it would be nice to have a little softer ride on the cooler, darker commutes. Violet and Daisy both have skinny tires and zero suspension. I rattle with every bump and crack. For grins, I asked Meego if he used that old bike much, and if not, could I buy it from him. 

Well, he brought it over, free of charge he says. I gave it a little spa treatment and have been enjoying her cushiness this past week.

That's her in her yet-to-be-named orangeness, parked alongside the zippy Daisy who takes a well deserved respite. And no, I won't name it Donald or Trump. 

Or will I?

midterm swamp and corn

Magnum and I took a typical Sunday morning bicycle ride this morning. Had to bundle up, temperatures were struggling to get out of the 30's. But it was a sunny, calm breeze ride that included a coffee stop. Win.

This week, I noticed another whiteboard question at the part-time faculty break room: 

Not many responses as yet, so maybe the ink was still wet. I noticed the "Super Pretzels with Cheeseツ" is no longer, but I think it would apply to mid-semester decompress.

So yes, it seems we're halfway through this fall semester. I've got a couple of concerning students who stand a good chance of failing their math courses. No fault of their own, really. They work hard, but just didn't learn enough in high school and were shuffled off to college anyway. A global pandemic didn't do them any favors.

In other horrors, we watched "Children of the Corn" this weekend. I'd never watched it but recall it was considered extremely scary back in its day. We found it not scary at all, but entertaining enough in a nostalgic kind of way. 

A lot has changed in the "extremely scary" genre in the last 40 years. Zombies took over?

We took a family road trip throug Nebraska several years ago. There definitely is a LOT of corn in Nebraska. Where there's no pavement or concrete... there's corn. Watch out for them children.

hunting and pecking

I was on a darkish walkabout this morning - a lazy fog making things seem somewhat middle earthy. 

I didn't come across any hobbits or elves that I know of, but did encounter this gaggle of turkeys. I've seen them around before, as have others who chime in on Next Door, Reddit, etc. Is it the same wild group moseying all over town or is there more than one gang?

They look healthy and happy enough, to my untrained eyes.

I recall a boy I knew many years ago, a country boy, who told me how difficult it was to track and nab a wild turkey at hunting time. He told me this while showing me, with pride, one of his turkey feather trophies.

So my first experience of spotting these wild turkeys had me thinking back to that, making the event all, "Wow, a rare sighting!". But now I'm starting to wonder... is it really that difficult?

Recall a while back I admitted to having the odd thought that I would enjoy birdwatching. Now I'm thinking about that again after coming upon this group in the business park. The real appeal to me is to be out in the boonies with a purpose. Hunting has always sounded fun to me - all except the killing part. THAT doesn't appeal to me at all, despite my being a failed vegetarian.

I feel in need of a nature fix, anyway, in the midst of another semester of dealing with students barely keeping their heads above water (how did they even meet the prerequisites?!). I mean, it's only the strugglers who sign up for tutoring, so it's the nature of the beast.

So no nature getaway today. But at least I had wild turkeys by the dumpster.

whazzup?

The weeks continue to seemingly fly by. We are already nearing the end of October. I'm looking out my window thinking that I need to get on with the leaf raking. I haven't gotten beyond the thinking.

• Got together with Meego and Wolfgang for breakfast yesterday morning. We do this about once a month. There are plenty of good breakfast places in Fort Collins, and we've yet to go to one I wouldn't recommend.

Today's destination was recommended by coworker, Blossom. She's lived here her whole life (whopping 25 years) and is always ready with a food recommend.

• At the start of the year, I'd made a resolution to read more. Fiction and non-fiction both. I think I've done all right by that, but recently hit a slump. I was slogging through two books I'd checked out based solely on the fact that a couple of friends on Goodreads liked them. 

I was halfway through both of them when I realized I wasn't enjoying either and should just take the losses. One of the books was Luster which seemed pretty pointless and just, *ICK*.

The other was The Bee Sting, which was just stressing me out, and I don't need stress from a novel. There's enough of that in the real world.

Anybody read either of those? They weren't for me, but plenty of others like them. 

Now, I'm rereading James Herriot  books. I enjoyed them over 25 years ago, so decided to revisit. Nice thing about that is that I'd forgotten a lot of the stories, so it's like reading them for the first time. Reading is, once again, enjoyable.

• This week in "tales from testing", we had someone leave their cell phone on when they stashed it in the locker. We always ask people to turn their phones all the way off, but there's always those who think, "bah, mine won't make any noise" and ignore us. 

The guy's cell phone started to emit an unending alarm. After tracking down whose it was, we interrupted his test and had him come out and turn it off. 

At that point, he was very apologetic and opened the locker to turn off the phone. While turning off the alarm, he said, "sheesh, that's annoying", to which Siri immediately replied, 

"I don't mean to be"

She sounded so remorseful, I *almost* felt bad for her.

 

getting out

It's a gloomy, grey day today. My spoiled, used-to-lots-of-sunshine self will struggle, but it's doable.

Mondays are typically my reset days - days to schedule floats and makeup tutoring appointments - of which I have neither today. I do have PEO later this evening to prepare for, so I'll need some alertness.

One of my current tutees is a precocious high schooler racking up college credits so to be well on her way to a bachelor's degree before she even graduates high school.

She asked the typical, "What is this for?" regarding her math homework last week. I think I explained its usefulness, but acknowledged that it was a good question regarding today's technology.

"I always like to know why I'm doing something", her reply.

On that note, and with the gloomy outside, I figured I would do a closet purge. Stashing summer things since it's October, and I don't think we'll return to temps in the 90's anytime soon. I plan to toss a few items to the "donate" or "rag" or "trash" pile while asking myself why I'm keeping some things around.

I was inspired by seeing a 9-item capsule wardrobe on Pinterest: 3 tops, 3 bottoms, 2 layers (coats, sweaters), 1 pair of shoes. And I'm thinking, sounds more like a packing list for a 4- or 5-day trip, not an entire wardrobe. I'm not at that level of minimalism.

In addition to Halloween scaries showing up around the neighborhood, I've noticed a few watchers while I'm out wandering about. 

This little guy thought he was being stealth, which he kind of was.

This cat, however, does not have the best camouflage. 

I think he wanted to make sure I saw the sign.

dodging runners, obligatory kisses

Fall is in the air, ya feel it?

Magnum and I enjoyed a noticeably crisp bicycle ride this morning. A welcome transition from the hot hot of summer.

It was a peaceful meander as he's just coming off a crud virus he caught from me a couple of weeks ago, and I just got my annual flu shot yesterday. It worked out since it so happened that this morning, there was a half-marathon happening on the path we took.

I'd hooked up the bike cam to catch some of the fall colors that have just begun, but we mainly had to keep our eyes out for the half-marathoners.

Coupla screen grabs from my grainy video:

I didn't get a covid-19 shot, partly because I highly suspect the crud virus I had was just that. It featured a tell-tale "razor blade sore throat" from the latest version, followed by what felt like a garden variety cold. So hopefully, I'm thoroughly inoculated.

In other news, I'd heard that this last week was homecoming week at my hometown high school. Their social media page listed the royalty, and I found it odd that for each female royalty, two male escorts were named. But, in thinking back, I remembered that yes, there were two boy escorts for each girl.

The escorts for the dance were all members of the football team, but the escorts for the parade and football game half-time were of the non football variety because the players were otherwise occupied. I'd forgotten about that, I mean, it's bean 43 years...

This had me flashing back 43 years to that whirlwind week where I found myself part of the homecoming royalty - this would've been back in my big-fish-in-a-very-small-pond days - and I remembered my full gamut of escorts.

Escort for the dance was the hunky football captain, Ken. Escort for the parade and half-time was the effeminate, good natured, Joe. Joe was clearly gay, but this was the 80's where such things were not really spoken of, but were just understood. I'm sure Joe had his bullies, but he had plenty of good friends, myself included, and he was a pretty popular kid. And again, clearly gay.

So this walk down memory lane took me back to the fun Joe and I had during the parade, and then it was on to the halftime show of the football game. This is a pic from my yearbook of halftime just before we paired off with our respective escorts.

Our names were announced, our escorts handed us a flower of some sort, then gave us a traditional smooch. Joe fulfilled this obligation, probably bregudgingly.

My boyfriend at the time - he'd graduated a year ahead of me and watched from the stands - said that Joe had a big ol' grin on his face after the smooch. I can imagine Joe thinking, "Geez, the sh*t I gotta do for school!", and just having fun with it.

As I was recalling that memory yesterday, I realized, I was likely the first and last girl Joe ever kissed.

fragmentary recall

This was a shortened weekend for me as I worked yesterday - Saturday rotation time again. Another seemingly productive week down. Let's bullet.

• I finished a novel this week - The Silent Patient. When I went to add it to my Goodreads, I strangeley saw that I'd already read it? Really? Apparently, in 2019. Well, it wasn't memorable the first go. And it even has a twisty, big reveal ending. Oh well, 4 stars.
  
  
• Speaking of memory, we watched Total Recall - the 2012 version with Colin Farrell.

It was pretty much what I expected. A lot of shoot-em-up, running around, heavy CGI, etc. But I won't say no to 2012 Colin Farrell. 

• Speaking of pastimes, it occurred to me, out of the blue this week, that I would probably enjoy bird watching. That made me feel old, where did that come from?
  *I know bird watching isn't just for old people, it just made me feel old to suddenly find it appealing*
  
  

• Speaking of hobbies, our tutor bosses at work asked each of us math tutors to put together a "tutor bio". It should be 100 - 150 words and include our educational background, which campuses we support, etc.
  
  

I typed one up, and the word count was 50. *SIGH*. I mean, I said all the things. What more is there? They encouraged us to add "fun facts" about ourselves. Ugh. 

The only maybe fun fact, if you would call it that, is that I've been a regular blogger for over 20 years, but I don't tell real life people about that. 

I'm not saying anything about bird watching either.

fall favorites, big hair

Happy fall, we made it through another summer!

With that, I saw there is another question posted on the adjunct instructor room whiteboard at the college: "What is your favorite thing about autumn?"

The first thing my eyes noticed is that the "super pretzels with cheese シ" is still there from the earlier question... or a carry-over?

I'm enjoying the cooler temperatures and am still getting used to the dark mornings and earlier sunsets. Time to break out [the vest].

In other news, coworker Sarge's ducks? One of them has become a woman. Sarge's family isn't sure which one, but they've been getting one egg per day, started last Sunday. I imagine the other two ducks will get in sync and start earning their keep very soon. Exciting times.

This reminded me of many years ago, when I worked as a 2nd shift quality inspector. I had three female coworkers and one male. The man's name was Rod, poor guy. 

We all worked very closely together, and when we weren't slaving away, we just shot the breeze, etc. as coworkers in a small lab will do. The result - all us "ladies" got in sync, yaknow whatIm sayin'? Yeah, we were all "laying eggs" together. 

I found this old grainy photo from that era. It was taken with a Polaroid. Back in the day, before digital cameras, if we needed to take a photo of something "top secret", we'd get out the Polaroid.

So we had someone take this photo on my 21st birthday :P. Yeah, not a whole lot of supervision on 2nd shift...

Anyway, there's three of us egg layers. The fourth was probably out sick as I remember her having a fair share of sick days.

The long suffering Rod is the moustache in the right rear. Our supervisor is on the far left, and the other guy is my boyfriend of that era - a lab technician. We'd met at work, neither of us having stalked the other to the workplace.

Boyfriend's a nice guy, just not big on smiling for pics, apparently. Rod was also a very nice guy. Sheesh, he had to be.

Besides the Polaroid and our big hair, I notice other blasts from the past. Mainly the cigarettes and ashtray right there on the table. I've never been a smoker, but all three other ladies were, so along with their cycles, I got plenty of secondhand smoke. 

Ah, the good old days.

toys and field trips

I'm sitting here in a state of languor, nursing a head cold. I was hoping I'd dodged the start-of-the-school-year virus as others around me at work were dropping like flies, but alas, no. 

I'd had a satisfyingly productive week prior to my affliction. Tuesday evening, I went to PEO and returned home after dark. Across-the-street neighbor had his vehicle parked in his driveway, facing our house. The headlights were on - or I should say - the long continuous horizontal beam of light was on. 

And I thought, "Is that a Cybertruck?", the light beam being too bright for me to really make out what was behind it. 

The next morning, I was out wandering the neighborhood and saw that yes, there was a brand  new Cybertruck in ATS neighbor's driveway. I've seen a handful of Cybertrucks around town, but never up close. Since ATS was out there with his new toy, I decided to go over and nose around. He seemed all too happy for a little show-and-tell.

One of my first observations was that they're not as big as they seemed when I'd seen them from a distance. I show it here only to display the juxtaposition against the adventure vehicle parked alongside - our trash day bins included for artful composition.

He opened all the doors and rolled back the cover to show the surprisingly large bed. The interior looked... similar to any other new truck.

Not for me, certainly, but he seems very happy with it. Said he'd been waiting six years, having ordered it when they first came out in 2019. 

Meanwhile, Magnum has taken our little gas-only truck up the road to Cheyenne, WY for it's first oil change. Recall, we bought the truck about a year ago - as a second vehicle, worthy of winter driving. Welp, last winter was such a mild one, the truck did a lot of sitting in the garage. 

I decided to hang back so to not expose the Cheyeneites to my Colorado germs, and Magnum keeps sending me pics of the surrounding sights.

Yep, that's a big cowboy boot, alright.

Wyominging.

polishing

Way back in the days of my illustrious but short career as a middle school lunch lady, I was the Grill Queen. Nothing gustatorily creative, of course, but I whipped up many grilled cheeses and grilled ham and cheeses. Too many to count.

These days, we have our own little griddle. Neglected thing. I bought it shortly after we moved here, got it all seasoned, used it a couple of times then realized, "it is way to freaking hot on that back patio, let alone slaving over a hot griddle!", and there it sat, covered for seemingly all eternity.

We have since built a patio enclosure, including an overhanging roof where the little Blackstone has been living its lonely existence. After much procrastination, I finally got around to cleaning and re-seasoning over the weekend. Now, what to do? Grilled cheeses?

Meanwhile, I am currently doctorless. Not that that's related in any way to grilling. 

I had a nearby doctor - a PA really. That practice got bought out by a bigger fish, and after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, most of the staff jumped ship, including my PA.

I got shifted to another doctor that I'd never met before she, too, left. Just before my most recent checkup, I was shuffled to yet another, who miraculously, is still there. Since then, the company that caused all the drama in the first place sold the practice off to another. Now my doctor is no longer in our insurance network, wouldn't ya know. 

Magnum found another practice and got signed up. I lazily piggy backed off of him since he did all the legwork of review-reading, etc. So the dilemma = they can't sign me up with a doc until I make an appointment for a general checkup. I'm not eligible for a general checkup until next spring. 

Bottom line, no doctor for me.

Doctor YouTube, it is. So basically, nothing's changed.

climbing and floating into fall

Happy Sunday, y'all. One week into September, it's time for a wrap up.

• Magnum was away for Labor Day weekend - went out to California to visit his dad and stepmom with his siblings. I typically have Mondays off anyway, or at least a light load on Mondays, so it felt a pretty normal week to me.
  
  
• I did meet up with Wolfgang and Meego for breakfast one day. Meego had just gotten back from a bachelor party weekend for a good friend who's got an upcoming wedding. He shared with us his adventures, including climbing the [Colorado Via Ferrata] - not for the acrophobics! (me!).

• Speaking of mountains, Wolfgang was off to pick up a new mountain bike. His previous one was stolen - STOLEN! - a few weeks ago from the secure storage at his apartment building. The thief or thieves clearly knew their bike specs and targeted Wolfgang's specifically with their brazen act. It's a common problem with high-end bicycles around here. 

But, his renter's insurance came through like a champ, and now we've got a grandbike in the house while Wolfgang works out a way to store it inside his apartment. 

• And speaking of bikes, recall the local [Tour de Fat] I mentioned a couple of weekends ago? Wolfgang shared that he made the photo gallery in the local news.

The event theme for the parade was "Come as You Are", so pretty much no theme. Wolfgang's group decided their theme would be "dress for the wrong party", hence the beachwear and unicorn floatie.

• Speaking of floaties, we just finished the third week of classes at the college. These first few weeks feature various "welcome" events, and this week advertised hot air balloon rides "up to 50 feet with beautiful views of the city".

The balloon would be tethered, go up 50 feet, come back down to take another batch of riders. I went to check it out with Boss, and this is what we saw.

Yes, there was a hot air balloon. Yes, there were people waiting to go up. No, it was definitely not 50 feet. But, they did say, "up to", so not a lie. The beautiful views of the city, replaced with beautiful views of the parking lot. 

In the ballooner's defense, it was already pretty warm by 9-ish AM - low to mid 70's. It takes a lot of propane to get a hot air balloon off of hot asphalt in those conditions. 

•  I think we might finally be done with welcome events, the semester is well underway at this point. As such, my tutor schedule is chock full of anxious students. Math nerd delight.

captured

This week seems to have *WHOOSHED* on by. Maybe because it was a short one, starting with a holiday?

Things are back to business. My tutor schedule has filled - almost to the brim - with another batch of fun students. The mathing commences.

I mentioned that I would start sometimes bringing my bike cam along on bike rides, to possibly catch a hooligan or two. I'm glad to say that I've taken a few lovely rides  with no captures of crashes or criminal activity.

On Sunday, I did see the cutest thing I've seen all week. Yes, it remains in the top spot.

This little boy was on this teeny recumbent, hitched to (I assume) Dad's bike. I'd never seen such a small hitched tow-behind. Usually kids that small are in those little trailers.

But there he was, pedaling away, I'm sure providing no power whatsoever.  But as we passed each other, his eyes trained with mine the whole encounter, he had the cutest smile. Very proud of himself, being part of the fray, as if saying

"Hello, fellow bicycle rider!"

 Now it's off to work for another morning of testing... testing... testing.

pastry partiality?

On Thursday, I walked into work and was greeted by this diabetes abbondanza in our breakroom.

We were a relatively small staff of five people total scheduled for the day, so who was supposed to eat all those donuts?

Okay, so Sarge had brought in the bag from Lamar's, which was really nice of him because he happens to have celiac disease, so is gluten free - which donuts are not. He bought them for the rest of us cohorts.

But Boss had brought in the box. He explained that it was a nursing test day, so he brought them for the nursing students. 

Quick background: the ADA requires colleges and universities to provide alternative testing for students with approved disabilities accommodations. Those are the students we serve at the testing center in addition to the non-student testers completing professional licensing and certification exams.

So yes, some of those students are in the nursing program, but we serve all accommodated students from every program at the college. So when Boss said he brought donuts for the nursing students, I thought, "hmmmmm...", but didn't comment.

I think Boss's heart is in the right place, but I felt it was wrong of him to offer donuts only to nursing students as we had other students coming in and out for tests. We do see the nursing students quite often - they take a LOT of tests throughout a semester - but I feel it's wrong to single them out like that because;

• what message does that send to the non-nursing students? Blatant bias? And for what reason? They're program is not worthy?
• what about the non-accommodated nursing students who take their tests in their classroom? Only accommodated nursing students deserve favoritism? And again, for what reason?

I'll note that most accommodations are for disabilities that are not obvious. The majority of accommodations are for dyslexia (extra time for tests) and/or ADHD (extra time, plus maybe a private room). Some are English as a second language (extra time).

So I let it go. But I think I might mention it to Boss... that his bias was showing... in case he's thinking of doing it again. And I don't even know the motivation for the bias. I know he meant well, but he has had times in the past where he didn't consider the "big picture"

After all these anti-bias trainings we're required to complete each year -  am I overreacting over accommodated-nursing-student-donuts??

Who even knew that'd be a thing?

fats and freebies

We were downtown this morning, having a coffee. Yes, it is noticeably more peopley now. University classes start tomorrow, and everybody has assumed their positions, it seems.

Speaking of crowds, yesterday was [Tour de Fat] at New Belgium brewery. It's basically a HUGE bicycle parade followed by a big bash at the brewery. It's free, so everybody and their grandma goes. We missed the bike parade, but did go by in the afternoon just to look around. 

Everybody seemed to be having a good time, and I surmised that it's pretty hard to get very drunk at the event since the beer lines were so loooooooong. But there's live music and games and weird bicycles to ride at your own risk. 

Coworker Party Girl had invited me to join her group for the parade, but I passed on that and just went with Magnum later. 

From past events, I wasn't sure if we'd even have a decent spot to park our bicycles, but we managed to squeeze in the massive parking field 

This past week was also opening week of classes at the community college. 

The whiteboard of the adjunct instructor office space:

So far, what is most looked forward to this fall is free coffee at Ziggi's and super pretzels with cheese. 👍

peopling

It's noticeably denser here. Living in a college town brings fluctuations in population, and things become thicker in August. 

This week is Freshman move-in, and classes start at the university next week. The community college where I work started classes yesterday, so here we go. My tutor schedule is wide-open, we'll see where we are at week's end. Tutor Boss says she has lots of intake meetings scheduled - where she assesses student needs/ requests and matches students and tutors. I'm hoping to get busy soon before we're replaced by AI.

In the meantime, I'm in laid back mode still. Yesterday, I went for a haircut. Remember a few months ago, I blogged [that weird haircut experience]? At the salon I'd been going to for a few years? Welp, I'd decided not to go back there. Thanks to reddit, I found a different salon that is not only as good in both quality and price as the old place, but it's all around better - better location, friendlier, a little cheaper even. No more getting my haircut in the middle of a freakin' coffee klatch!

Later I went for a bicycle joyride cleverly disguised as errand running. I think I'm going to start using the GoPro again for these joy errand rides. My work commute is typically uneventful - knock on wood - so I stopped bothering with the bike cam, but yesterday included:

• I was coming up on three other bicyclists, about to pass them. The three entered an underpass/ tunnel and I heard a *clank-cah-clank*

Once in the tunnel, I see one of the cyclists has gone down, like she crashed into the sidewall of the tunnel. The man behind her stops and I stop as well, while the third guy just goes around and keeps on a-going. 

Amid the typical, "y'aright?", I'm assessing. The woman who crashed and the man who stopped appear to be riding together. They're both on "Rent Me!" bicycles and middle-aged. I'm guess they're from out of town - possibly dropping off a college kid and enjoying some kid-free recreation.

The woman says she's fine, landed on her foot, lost a shoe. I have a small first-aid "kit" with me, but more for cuts and scrapes than for a twisted foot. But she says she's fine, didn't hit her head or anything. The man thanks me for stopping, and then I continued onward.

• I was going around a right bend when these three hooligans - how's that for an eligible-for-the-senior-discount word? - these three hooligans come flying towards me on motorcycles. Motorcycles?!

This was on one of the friendly multi-use paths running through our county. Hooligans were on full-blown gas-powered motorcycles, which are most definitely not allowed. The only motorized vehicles allowed on the pathways are ebikes and scooters that max out at 20 mph. And these kids were going, I'd guess, at least 40 mph. 

Thankfully, they were single file in their rightful lane, but sheesh. In the flash that I watched them go by me, it seemed they were rounding that turn, pushing the envelope on how much control they had at that speed. They looked to be middle schoolers or high school freshmen at most. 

And so I'm wondering what went on after they're behind me? I went by a few law-abiding others in both directions. What of them? What of the "Rent Me!" crash couple?

Eventually, I dropped off a book at the library - one of my joyride enabling errands - and there are three librarians with walkie-talkies in the foyer, debriefing after some sort of incident at the library park. But that's just another day at the office for them. Those downtown librarians are tough. 

 

Friday five

The college's fall semester begins next week, and we await another batch of new and returning students. So a little recap of this last week of summer daze.

• I took a look back at my summer reading. I'd intended to "read more and doom scroll less" with no more specific goal than that. I think it's going well, and I took a look back at what fiction I read over the summer along with my star ratings:

This list yields an average of 3.44 stars, so good times. The book I'm currently reading is ["You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine"] which was recommended to me because it's "weird, but in a good way". So far, I'm finding it weird, we'll see about the way.  

While I'm reading it, it kind of reminds me of hanging out with my friends in high school around a campfire, possibly smoking something a friend grew in her backyard.

• Speaking of teen behaviors, I worked with Party Girl last Saturday. She showed up seemingly off the ball - if there's to be a phrase meaning not on the ball. She's typically pretty responsble despite her partying ways, but she was slacking off last Saturday. She still did her fair share of the work, but I was unimpressed. Reminder, she's in her mid-fifties and sometimes acts like a teenaged party girl. Her age was really showing on Saturday.

Anyway, this week, she's seemingly cranked up her responsible side. I suspect she feels a little guilty about her Saturday performance, although I didn't say anything to Boss or anyone else.

• Speaking of high school, school started this week for the school district. We live near a large-ish high school, so the morning and afternoon traffic snarl has returned. Plus, there's a big construction job on the main road in front of the high school. I'm glad I'm not in that commute!

• Speaking of responsible coworkers, Star came in for a visit yesterday. Recall that young Star got a good full-time job a few months ago. We miss her, but I'm glad she moved on from part-time at the testing center and is building a career. She now lives with her sister about an hour's drive away, but came home for the weekend. She brought cookies for the win!

• Speaking of family matters and jobs, Sarge's wife - who is the main breadwinner of the family - is having her job replaced by AI after another company bought her employer. She'll get some severance and extension of benefits, but is contemplating her options.

When I first started working in testing, I thought robots would take over "in about 5 years". They're trying, but there are glitches. We'll see.

On that note, time to go do the paid people watching.

testing

Before I worked in a testing center, I had no idea the number of professional certification and licensing exams were out there. 

When a tester enters, we all start to mentally make guesses as to what test they're doing. Some are more obvious than others. 

• Dirty fingernails and a shirt with their name on it, usually male = automotive tech
• Early 20's, female = elementary school teacher
• Teen = GED or HiSET
• Broad shouldered, big boots, equally male or female, actually = firefighter or law enforcement
• Lots of tattoos/ piercings, male or female = addiction counselor (probably with a "past")

But really, anything goes. And there are plenty of ambiguous testers. The most ambiguous is probably the insurance people. They are anywhere from dapper law office types to rather rudderless types that were preyed upon with "MAKE A CAREER SELLING INSURANCE! YOUR SKILL SET IS JUST WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR" - yes, I've received those emails...

At home this morning, I was finishing up my breakfast when I heard some chatter outside. Being the nosy neighbor that I am, I peeked out the front window to see what's what. Four young guys exiting a pickup truck.

Tree guys, must be.

There is a test to become a Certified Tree Climber. We get those too 

• Young, male, very tan, agile looking, facial hair, lots of pockets = tree climber

And now, based on my nosy observation

• Taking hits from the vape pen

I'm glad there's a test for such a job. Climbing a tree can be dangerous enough, let alone doing so with an operating chainsaw.

Sure enough. Another pickup with a mulcher attachment pulled up. I was momentarily encouraged, hopeful they were here to prune the neighbor's overly enthusiastic pear tree. It's gotten huge, has some damaged branches, and is flopping over the fence onto our property. 

We've pruned our side, but the rest should probably be done by a certified tree climber, which neither of us is. Magnum mentioned it to the nice neighbor, who rents. She said she'd put in the work order to the property manager, but none of us are holding our breaths.

And now, I can hear the chainsaws sawing, but not next door. 

Maybe by the first day of Christmas.

finders keepers?

Magnum and I took a typical Sunday morning bicycle ride today. Temps were in the low 70s, which almost felt "cold" relative to recent weeks. Not complaining.

We pulled up to a red light at one point, and I noticed something interesting on the ground. So I picked it up, and popped it into a side pocket on my backpacket to scrutinize further later.

I've since scrutinized it further, and am left with more questions than answers.

The thing in question:

It clearly has a carabiner on the left there, but what was the rest? I figured it was some sort of multi-tool, but unlike my usual finds - as mentioned [HERE] and also [HERE] - in the wild, it had no sharp edges. 

Once we made it to our destined coffee shop, I whipped it out for research. It's apparently an "Artifaxing" caribiner, and other than the caribiner part, the rest is just a logo for ... some... thing?

I landed on the Artifaxing instagram page which seems like a bunch of random posts, but the page has over a million followers. Okaaaaay (I did not add myself to the following). 

There is also a website, showing the caribiner as SOLD OUT, and noting it is not to be used for any kind of weight bearing use - just keys, etc. But it appears to be a highly sought after item among the followers/ community, which appears to have started on instagram.

So the whatizzit? A small, weak, caribiner/keychain.

The whyizzit? I have no idea.

While perusing the instagram page, I noticed a screenshot where someone else had supposedly found one lying around, and advertised to get it back to its owner. Some speculated that the drop was a marketing ploy to ramp up interest in the... whatever they are.

Was that how it entered my orbit? 

I don't know what it is about. I also doubt I'm in the intended target market.

But it's mine now.

adventure

Summer semester officially ends today. As such, I'm in a lull for about two to three weeks, and I'm not complaining. I'm doing some tidying and reorganizing - mostly digitally. I still have a couple of short shifts in the testing center each week, so it's not a total slugfest. 

With the tuting, I don't blog as much as I used to. This blog has served to help me recall the whats and whens of different happenings, so a few bullets from recent.

• A couple of weeks ago, we went out with Wolfgang and Meego to celebrate Wolfgang's recent birthday. He chose a Korean BBQ place, and we put away much food. The restaurant brings all the dishes out along with raw meats that we cooked at table top, built-in grills. Intereactive!

At one point I was enjoying tearing into a seafood pancake and noticed some soft little white ring things. I had no idea what they were, and later I happened to come across a video of a chef cooking up some squid and realized that's what I was eating. So I've eaten squid, cool.

• Our little brush with nature last week, in the form of a rattlesnake, sent me down a snake infested rabbit hole of learning about rattlesnakes. They are actually pretty cool critters, but I still don't want to ever ever get bitten by one. 
  
  
• We've been pondering the idea of getting some nearby recreational land, but haven't gotten very far beyond the pondering stage. We'd like to kick things up and get more active on that "project" before we're too old to enjoy it.
  
  
• 
  This morning, I was leaving the gym when a shiny new Mercedez-Benz G-wagon pulled into the parking lot. I'd only ever seen one from afar, and never really took much notice. Up close, it was obviously quite the adventure toy. 

 

I realized that, for the price of one G-wagon, we could get about 35 acres of rural land and all the rattlesnakes it would hold. 

chutes and rattlers

 We played some hooky this morning. Both Magnum and I had a light workload today, and Magnum suggested "a hike or something".

Okay.

We took advantage of the fact that it's not the weekend and went to a popular local hiking trail: [Arthur's Rock]. The hike is about 3.5 miles, round trip, and gains about 1100 feet of elevation. We got to the trailhead around 8am, and the heat was already kicking in. It would be a "heat training" kinda day.

As expected, we saw only a handful of other hikers since it's Monday. The final push to the summit is this gratifying chute scramble.

We hung out atop Arthur for several minutes, taking in the views, trying to figure out different landmarks.

Magnum utilized his trekking poles for his sketchy knees and wobbly ankles, needed mostly for the descent.

At one point, as we navigated the trail under the full on sun, we heard what at first, to me, sounded like a horny grasshopper stridulation. Upon closer inspection, it was a frickin' rattlesnake giving us a fair warning!

Snake was right next to the trail, within easy striking distance of our naked shins, poised at the ready.  Magnum looked at it and said, "oh hey, it's a rattlesnake" then made like he was just gonna keep on a-walking.

I said, "hold the phone!" or something like that. We decided we should back off and consider our next move as the trail was quite narrow at that point. As we did so, Snake backed off and slithered off away from the trail.  We proceeded on by, "thanks for the warning, Snake!" Nice of him/ her.

We made it back to the trailhead without further incident, passing a few other hikers headed upwards.  All in all, a good use of hooky morning.

Now for some unabashed product placement:

Not-weed gummies = quick energy snack

"Thirsty for Justice" bike-to-work day Law Firm freebie water bottle = expendable in case I fell off a cliff or was taken out by a rattler

that's cool

I worked this morning at the testing center. Pretty uneventful day, and I'm not complaining. 

Then I bicycled home. It was a hot one, but nothing unbearable. In "new stuff" news, we bought a second portable AC unit. Our house doesn't have central air, and we've just suffered through it until now. A couple of years ago, we got a unit for the bedroom, which is on the second floor, while the rest of the house melted.

Our house has a pretty open floorplan, so we hooked up the new unit on the main floor and Aaah, shoulda done it sooner!

It's the type of unit that has an exhaust hose that blows out the window, so I did a bit of rearranging to the front room to accommodate it. I rather like the new layout, it's good to switch things up once in a while.

We had this old evaporative cooler. We bought it when Meego was about a month old and we lived in hot, dry Utah. It worked great in Utah, then it worked okay in Colo. Springs. Now in Fort Collins, where it's a bit more humid, it worked so-so. After getting the new PinguinoⓇ, I so-so-sold the old cooler.

Marketplace is one of the main reasons I still have a f4cebook account. I listed the cooler, not caring about the money. But I've heard that if you list things for free on Marketplace, all kinda weirdos respond. So I listed it for cheap and got just a good handful of weirdos.

Glammin' it up for Marketplace

I arranged to meet the buyer at the nearby HS parking lot, and when he showed up, I learned he didn't speak a lick of English. He also wanted to pay with the Zelle app which I don't have, and he had no cash. 

We conversed over google translate:

"Puedes tener el enfriador gratis" (You can just have the cooler for free)

He was gracious and a little apologetic, but I figured I

1. didn't want the money, just wanted to be rid of the old cooler
2. didn't care to fart around uploading yet another questionable app
3. was the one who didn't clarify cash or venmo only
4. saw he was driving a POS Prius and could probably use a free 25-year-old cooler

I tried to communicate how to fill it with water ("AGUA  EN  AQUI" plus flagrant gesticulating) and preferrably place it in front of an open window. Welp, his now.

In other comforts, I was at work yesterday with Blossom and Kitty. A woman stopped by and said there was a going-away luncheon for one of the advisors with much leftover cake at the conference room around the corner.

Not ones to ever turn down cake be party poopers, we partook.

There were two sheet cakes, one of them had the message "Best Wishes in your New Adventures"

My portion puts the "ew" in New.

po po, I dunno

 At the college on Thursday, I worked testing in the morning and had tutoring in the afternoon. I had a little break in between and sat outside the student center for a little sun and sandwich as it was a relatively cool day for July. 

A couple of our security guards walked by, which in itself was not strange. They do frequent walk-arounds to various campus buildings throughout the day. I saw them convene with a couple of other law enforcement types and then the four of them headed to a nearby building. 

A few minutes later, I packed up and headed into that same building, which houses a computer lab, to check off a few tasks before tutoring. Inside, I found many campus security guards and city policemen huddled in a hallway. One of them spotted me and politely asked me to "go around" the building.

I did a quick 180 outta there. Campus is relatively quiet since it's summer semester, and I didn't see any other people who I might ask, "what's up?" There were just a couple of policemen stationed outside the building in question.

So I headed to the library, where I saw seven or eight police vehicles parked, with a couple of others arriving. Curiouser and curiouser.

Exiting the library a while later, I saw one policeman retrieve another policeman from a freshly parked patrol car. The retriever was clearly toting a large rifle, and the retrievee was carrying a hefty riot shield.

And I'm thinking, "does anyone care that I'm just walkin' around out here?" I did see one of our maintenance guys out driving around in his golf cart/ truck, and I asked him if he knew what was going on.

"Everyone I ask says, 'I dunno'. I asked one of the cops, and he just gave me a dirty look", end of story.

On my way to the tutoring center, I asked my testing coworkers if they knew what was up. Boss said, "Security came by, said they were looking for someone. That's all I know". Then he joked, "We didn't tell them where you were."

And that was that. The campus was never put on lock-down. I don't know how long "the incident" lasted, but it was cleared up by the time I'd finished with tutoring. Later that evening, we got an email acknowledging "police activity" with links to mental health services for anyone who might've been freaked out by it, but no explanation.

Yesterday afternoon, we got a follow-up email saying that a student was suspected of having a firearm on campus, so police were contacted, but nothing was substantiated. 

So was it all a prank or what?  Seems like there's more to the story,

That's all my excitement for the week. That and this Bon-Sai that was added to the scratch paper wall-of-fame

No kiss cams to see here.

Trash

 A good declutter, how I love thee.

One of this week's highlights: we went to the dump. We had a few items that we'd gathered over the years that needed the heave-ho. They weren't useful to donate and were too big for the weekly trash bin. It was time.

The last time we'd been to the dump was probably about 5 years ago after we'd lived here for a few months. Back then, the fee was 9 or 10 dollars. The current fee is $35, so the price has increased, but it's still bargained-priced therapy if you ask me!

We backed the truck up to the designated spot and tossed that garbage with reckless abandon. Afterwards, I felt like Nicole Kidman in that famously supposed "divorce photo" after her divorce from Tom Cruise.

On a side note, I learned that Ex Mrs. Tom Cruise denies the photo is her celebrating the divorce, but I didn't care enough to dig further. 

Speaking of Nicole Kidman, we've been watching the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers. Anyone else? 

I gotta say, it's not doing much for me. We watched the first season, which was okay, but pretty forgetable - as I realized I'd mostly forgotten it. But so far, I'm finding the second season almost embarrassingly bad. A f&cebook friend says it gets better after episode 4. Well, we watched episode 5 last night, and it's still not doing much for me.

Heading into the week ahead, there are only 3 weeks remaining for summer classes. It's a densely packed timeline, and the tutees are feeling it. Hopefully, they'll all be celebrating like Nicole soon.

something's brewing

Magnum and I had a nice Sunday morning bike ride today. Once again, we cycled passed a [fave local brewery], and once again, there was some sort of outdoor exercise class going on. I recall coming across this for the first time last summer, and here it was again: [Cycle Sips and Lifts].

The mood seemed quite festive. I doubt that anyone who attends a workout event at a brewery is going to be too hardcore about the fitness aspects.

Speaking of local breweries, Chaco talked us into going to a different one earlier this week for dinner while he was here. He figured he "had to" go to a brewery while in Fort Collins, it's what you do. Apparently.

So we went to [Odell Brewery]. Chaco and Wolfgang could not believe! we'd never been there before. 

What can we say, we don't think to go to breweries. I'll admit that it was a nice experience on the patio on a pleasant summer evening. The food truck on site was an Italian flatbread truck. Nothing to write home about, but it was fine. 

As I perused the menu, the vegan option sounded interesting. I wondered how they would pull off the vegan mozzarella. I chickened out on ordering it, however because of the name: Vegana.

I wasn't sure how to pronounce it, and it looked so much like "vagina", so I ordered the Marinara lest I say vegana incorrectly. ( I have since learned how it's properly pronounced...)

Our 4th of July was lowkey. We were dogsitting Chaco's dog Ella, and she is NOT a fan of loud noises. Our dogs, Penny and Merlin, couldn't care less when it comes to fireworks, thunder, etc. Ella is more typical.

"What was that?!"

It was nice having the day off from work as I'm typically scheduled to work at the testing center on Fridays. I've decided to have a sit-down with Boss to discuss my future there. 

On one hand, I like my coworkers, and it's pretty decent pay as far as part-time jobs go. On the other, the work tasks are pretty mundane after four years. Because of tutoring, my availability for testing is really not flexible  - for when someone is out sick or on vacation. So I'm going to straight up ask Boss if it would be easier for him if I left and he hires a replacement (impossible!) with more flexibility.

I'm not sure what answer I'm hoping for. 

terms of endearment

"Well, I thought I should've used that approach, and got too far into it before I realized I was f*cked"

I was having a tutor sesh yesterday. The student had recently taken an exam and wanted to go over some of the questions that had tripped her up. 

She was explaining her thought process when she nonchalantly dropped the F-bomb.

Now, I personally speak quite cleanly, but often in my mind, I'm saying all kinds of nasty sh*t. 

I happily welcome the introduction of "the f-word" or its various cousins from tutees, however. It's an indication to me that the tutees are comfortable around me. Yesterday was this particulary student's first F-bomb. It was followed by a couple of others later on, while she maintained her typically cheerful demeanor. It made me happy inside.

In other totally unrelated thoughts, I'm considering getting an Instant Pot. Is it worth it? Would I use it that much?

I certainly don't cook as much as I used to since the nest emptied, but I've heard good things about the ease and versatility of Instant Pots. 

Plus Best Buy is teasing me by sending me random $5 coupons - spit in the ocean for an Instant Pot, but still...

grumpy cat, trashy green, pros and cons

First of all, I will elaborate a bit on Party Girl's dress that I mentioned in my last post.As she explained, the dress required neither bra nor underpants, so it was desirable to wear on a hot day when she had various errands to run.

The image in my mind was not a favorable one, but she explained that the dress had built-in underthings. Like a tennis dress, yes? 

I have some shorts and also a skirt with built-in liners. Hers was a complete dress.

So she wasn't just flapping in the wind, so to speak. *ahem*

Anyhoo, Chaco's in town, visiting from Virginia. So it's nice to have him here. Not a full vacation as he's working from his Colorado office. And he's brought his dog, Ella.

Ella is good friends with our dogs. Not so much with the cat. So the dogs are happy while the cat is holed up and grumbling in my office/the cat room when the dogs are inside.

Wednesday was bike-to-work day around the country. I've mentioned in previous years that it's a well attended event here.

SOURCE

So happens, Magnum was out of town for work this past week, but Chaco attended with me and picked up some food and loot. It was a nice day for it, and as is typical, people were out in droves.

There are some very generous vendors at bike-to-work. One tent was offering up SO much stuff. I got to the end of the table, and the woman working the tent said,

"How did you get this far down the line and not take anything yet!?"

"I'm just agog at what all you're offering up, I'm partially paralyzed", I replied

Well, that, and I honestly don't "need" much of the giveaways - water bottles, little accessory bags, individual first aid kits, reflective bands - being a minimalist and all. I was also not hungry at that point as we'd loaded up on burritos, coffee, and trail mix at an earlier stop. 

I mainly enjoy watching the spectacle of it all.

As I was in observation mode, I realized that, ironically, bike-to-work day isn't all that environmentally friendly. A lot of the freebies are pre-packaged items in individual plastic containers and such. To be honest, a lot of trash is generated on bike-to-work day. 

But hey, at least we attended via bicycles!

Speaking of work, I'm still contemplating my future in the testing center - weighing the pluses and minuses of staying there vs. fully switching over to JUST tutoring. 

Work at the testing center is administrative/ customer service with a teeny bit of IT thrown in once in a while. It provides a needed service, but it's not very creative from an employee point of view. I'm down to just a handful of hours there each week, with no real wiggle room in my schedule, because I fill my other available hours with tutoring.

But I enjoy my coworkers for the most part. Heck, that's half the reason I keep working. Gets me out of the house. Ever time a semester ends and a new one begins, I contemplate staying or going. It's hard to decide, so I've ended up staying. 

Decisions.