wishing for a ghost, goblins

My ballot is sitting here on my desk. I've got it about halfway filled out. I should get to work on the remaining bubbles, but I'm hanging out here instead.

This last week was another fine one in my little world - trying not to think of school shootings and embarrassingly short-term press secretaries, among other things...

• A couple of my tutor students are trying my patience. One, I'm sure, does next to nothing (probably actually nothing) outside of our single 1-hour weekly tutor sessions. She's been warned that she's on track to fail. It's like she doesn't know or doesn't care that she canNOT pass a class if she turns nothing in.

Her advisor has reached out several times, but has gotten no response. And I'm a little jealous. Why does she not ghost me too?? Seriously, ghost me! It's fine that she will inevitably fail, but why did she sign up for tutoring? She's wasting our time. 

• Okay, vent over. I am grateful for my easy going tutin' job. Work is typically fun, more like a hobby, and I did have this little dialogue with another student:

Me:  How do we get the sine of x all by itself?

Tutee: Offer it some candy?

HA! I needed that after Miss Do-Nothing.

• Coworker Kitty mentioned that she's looking for a new OB/Gyn to monitor her "AMA (Advanced Maternal Age)" pregnancy. That is the term for pregnant women over 35. She was also over 35 with her first pregnancy, which was characterized as "geriatric pregnancy" at the time. Somebody wised up and changed the term. 

• And speaking of which, I hear Hillary Swank is pregnant at 52 years old?! So, was it IVF? Otherwise, that's a very old egg, and maybe should be referred to as geriatric.

• On that note, I've noticed some older ladies at the gym have been striking up conversations with me. The (adults only) gym has a pretty diverse age range, but many are 20- and 30-somethings. I imagine these elderly ladies want me to be part of their gang.
  
  
• We've continued cleaning up Helms Deep these past two weekends. Today, we prettied up a particularly gnarly part of the road.

I didn't take a "before" photo, but trust me when I say this is mucho better. Our truck nearly high centered upon our arrival, but our departure was smooooooth sailing. I think we're getting the hang of this Land Manager business.

The cows have returned to their rightful home. Most of our trail cam captures are of the dear deer family - Mom and The Twins. Haven't seen any more owls. 

• Our flatland neighborhood, however, has several new occupants as we get closer to Halloween. I find this one wonderfully creepy.

howdy, neighbor

chirping, freecycling, personhood

It's nearly mid-October. The fall semester is halfway gone. Time really does go by faster as we get older. A little wrap up of last week feels in order: 

• That tutee who crashed his bicycle on the way to tutoring a couple of weeks ago? He's fine. He did go to the ER and was diagnosed with a mild concussion. It's not his first, and he knows he needs to be careful.

Bet five bucks he still rides to school without a helmet.

• On the learn-something-new-every-day front, I learned that [mountain lions chirp] - sounding much like random bird calls. Who knew? 

Now, when we're up at Helms Deep, I might feel less Snow Whitey about the friendly "birds" chirping

• I offloaded all of those spare bicycle tubes we no longer have bicycle tires for. I advertised them on a local No-Buy group on face's book, and a woman pounced on them. I left them out for a porch pickup, and the woman pulled up in a vehicle with a 4-bike bike rack. 

Looks like they went to a good home. Saved me a trip to the bike co-op.

• Our 30-days of AI Ring descriptions expired. I'm no longer described as a child. Back to being a person.

• On Saturday, we got together with Meego and Wolfgang for our monthly-or-so breakfast catch up. Always a good time. Went for a bike ride, and I got a flu shot. The day was complete.

 

Saturday school

Goodbye, September. Seems like it just got here!

I noticed another "survey" on the adjunct break room whiteboard.

I also am enjoying the cooler temperatures. Today, I washed my capri pants to be stashed for the season. That will probably bring on a heat wave.

I had Saturday duty in the testing center today. It was a slower day than typical. I worked with Party Girl and got an update on Project Wig. 

She has ordered her wig. There is about a month-and-a-half lead time, so she should get it mid-November. Meanwhile, she has scheduled her haircut to coincide with wig arrival. I've only ever known Party Girl to have long straggly hair, so this will be different. Funny how much "power" our hair holds.

Other than that, we managed to keep ourselves busy. Party Girl also tutors on the side, so we each indulged in tasks for that in between our handful of testers.

Today is ["Tour de Corgi"], which I had to miss this year since I was at the slow testing center. Maybe that's the reason for the lull. Who wants to test on Corgi parade day?? I believe this weekend is also CSU homecoming/parent's weekend. Too many diversions.

hair, a bun, hooter

Happy Fall! Swap out your toothbrush heads? Flip the mattresses?

It's getting noticeably cooler around here, no complaints from me. It was a good week. Let's see if I can remember what happened.

• I had feed-the-cat duty for Wolfgang this week as he was once again on a travel adventure. So it was good to have Honey, my new bicycle, as cat duty adds a few extra miles to the commute. I thinks she's well broken in now (the bicycle, not the cat). And that was another reason to welcome the cooler temperatures
  
  *on a side note, the Ring camera still calls me a child. Apparently anyone riding a bicycle and/or wearing a backpack is a child*
  
  
• The previous week at work in the testing center, Party Girl was all gung-ho on the idea of cutting her hair and getting a 20-inch wig. She often gets these "obsessions", some come to fruition, others peter out. We all have those bad hair days when we just want to "cut it all off!" I think she'd had a couple of those. Went so far as to research wigs, and pick one out online.

Her hair is long - 23 inches she claims. She's mid 50's and her hair is not that of a young woman. She told me she likes having her hair long, though, because her controlling mother made her wear her hair short while growing up. 

"It's revenge hair".

This week, I heard nothing further of the wig acquisition.

• In other coworker news, Kitty is pregnant once again. Recall that Kitty had a "shotgun wedding" a couple of years ago - brought about by her and her now-husband's surprise daughter.

Things are working out so nicely, they decided to go again. A boy this time. Kitty's intention was a little sister for the 2-year-old. The universe had other plans.  

I asked her if her parents were excited. 

"Oh yes! Lots better than the last time I told them I was pregnant..."

•  In reading news, I'm up to 35 books for the year (my goal was 26, yay me). My recent completions:

Recognize any? My pace has slowed somewhat since the fall semester started. I'm currently reading a couple of books about Sam Bankman-Fried and his whole cryptocurrency sham. Love me some white collar true crime.

• Lastly, Magnum and I went up to Helms Deep earlier today. More roadwork. The trailcam shows the usual suspects - mostly deer. 

This hooter was new, though.

a walking story

"I'm on my way! gonna be a couple minutes late", so read the text from my last tutee of the day yesterday.

It was a few minutes before our appointed time, so I wandered over to the tutoring center to wait. He came in a few minutes later, looking a bit disheveled.

"Sorry I'm late", he began. "I just crashed my bike", thus explaining the disheveledness.

I think I was looking at him funnily, mainly because I'd noticed dirt patches on his shirt, a few scrapes, and most noticeably, a decent abrasion on his forehead.

Nonetheless, he commenced sitting down and digging into his backpack like we would just start doing tutor things. And I was thinking, he can't tell me he just crashed his bike and show up with visible fresh wounds without elaborating.

I sought elaboration. 

He said he took his usual route to campus, which includes a short mountain bike trail. He hit a jump he always does, but this time, he missed the landing. 

During the telling of his tale, he paused to make a little "ptooey", noting that, "hmm, I still have some dirt in my mouth".

He then began to assess his wounds, seemingly for the first time. I indicated the scraped forehead and asked if he wore a helmet. He sheepishly pointed to the threadbare baseball cap he'd laid on the desk.

dramatization of his crash description

I mentioned that I also bicycle commute to campus, but not the same way he does - and by "way", I didn't just mean the route.

He had some visible scrapes on his left arm, then he noticed more scrapes on his chest where "this didn't do me any favors", regarding a chain thing he had around his neck, under his shirt.

He said he'd come straight to the tutoring center after arriving on campus, mentioning that others were looking at him on the way in, "like I was a walking story".

I told him not to worry about being a few minutes late, and to go ahead and hit the bathroom to "freshen up" if he wanted. He did.

When he returned, he said, "huh, you were right about my forehead, I didn't even feel anything there", which I found rather concerning.

He certainly seemed lucid enough. He's naturally a very chatty person, and seemed his usual self. Plus, he's a former US Marine, so I know he can take a punch.

I reminded him how adrenaline spikes after such an event, so even though he was feeling fine at the time, the full effects might not kick in until later. He seemed more concerned about his "$150-ish" sport sunglasses he'd broken the earpiece off of.

That out of the way, he whipped out a calculus packet. Most of it was completed, but he wanted help with a word problem.

We read the word problem together, and I started making a sketch to set things up. He stared at the problem, he stared at my sketch, went back to staring at the word problem... this went back and forth a couple more times as I tried to explain the sketch in connection with the words.

Eventually, he looked up from the paper and said, "I think I'm gonna go home".

"I'm in support of that", I replied, "In fact, you should probably go to urgent care"

Be careful out there, kids.

seasonal

• A few weeks ago, I was at the college and came across Boss and a colleague talking in the hallway. It was from them that I learned that Dolly Parton had died.

Not gonna lie, when they saw me and said, "we were just talking about Dolly. Yeah, she died", my first thought was Dolly the cloned sheep. And I thought to myself *she was still alive??*. Coincidentally, I've learned that she, the sheep, was actually named after Dolly Parton because her DNA came from a mammary gland. There you go.

Anyway, the conversation then turned to an opening the colleague had in her department. K is an assistant director in recruiting and advising. She had an opening, which I actually already knew about because Sarge told me he was applying for it.

From this short conversation, I got the vibe that K was wanting me to apply. I do like K, and it would be nice to have her as a boss, but I'm just not interested in a full-time position at this "season of my life". Plus, I know Sarge is really hoping he gets the role.

The job description is nearly exactly that of one I applied for about 10 years ago at the university when we lived in Colorado Springs. At that time, it was very appealing. Needless to say, I didn't get that job. And now we're here, and I appreciate the part-time "season"

• I've been doing some decluttering in little bits the past few weeks. Despite my ongoing efforts, I seem to always manage to come across something that has me saying, "why do we have this??" 

Going through the stash of bicycle tubes, I found eight... count 'em, 8... that don't fit any bicycles in our possession. These things happen when you sell/offload 4 bicycles in the span of a couple of months. 

This, to say I have a new bicycle. I'd been researching for a few months and had been riding the hand-me-up from Meego for nearly a year. The hand-me-up's been good, but it's starting to feel its age.

So I indulged, purchased from a nice local bike shop. 

She is a joy. I've named her Honey.

take a big breath and hold it

I had an abdominal ultrasound, of all things, this morning. Haven't done that since spying on Meego in utero.

Recall that my doctor had me do some blood tests and advised me to cut back on the alcohol and fatty foods. And I was all, "what alcohol and fatty foods?"

The blood test showed a couple of elevated liver enzymes. Same thing the second time. So, ultrasound it is, and again with the "cut back on the alcohol blah blah blah..."

Did the ultrasound and got results in less than an hour while I was back home having my no-alcohol, non-fatty breakfast. Thankfully, everything is boringly normal, as I suspected it would be.

In the meantime, I had googled - as we do - these pesky enzymes. Seems they can be elevated when there's injury or inflammation somewhere. I will blame it on my back which began bugging me a year or so ago. On that, I will blame the backpack that I use for work. Meanwhile, I'm doing PT, which is helping, and experimenting with different backpacks.

So, speaking of backpacks, recall that we got a new Ring doorcam last weekend when our old one went belly up. Along with the purchase came a 30-day trial of their enhanced AI generated descriptions of the goings on.

As an example, I was brushing off this garden tool I used for clearing the big swaths of vegetation on the helms deep road. 

We got it a long time ago, and I don't remember the name of the tool. Apparently Ring AI doesn't know what it is either, so called it a metal detector.

Back to the backpack... When I leave for work wearing a backpack, Ring calls me a child.

But when I return home, I'm a person.

Clearly, that backpack is aging me.

door cams, ham cams

Tuesday that feels like a Monday. I've got tutees this afternoon, and appreciate not having any  responsibilities until then. 

I was on a grateful bicycle ride this morning, and there was a bicycling woman on the pathway a few yards ahead of me. A guy riding an e-bike went past me - on the left after beeping his horn, all very cordial. I waved my hand in acknowledgement.

He then did the same with the woman in front of me - beeped before passing on the  left. She seemed about to similarly wave in acknowledgement, but as he went by, I saw that she instead raised her hand to flip him off.

What was THAT about? There are some reckless e-bike riders around, typically riding powerful e-bikes that aren't allowed on the bike path, but who's gonna catch 'em? Because of those hooligans, many bicyclists and pedestrians don't like e-bikes in general.

But this guy was not going super fast, his bike looked legal to me, and he was following the rules. I don't think he even noticed that she had flipped him off.

Then it was my turn to pass, so I'm thinking, "is she offended by ANYONE who passes her?" I dinged my bell and went by her, possibly flipped off. I didn't check.

We had a nice 3-day weekend. Saturday was very low-key. We went downtown and hung out at the Farmer's market. Sunday, our front door ring camera had crapped out. It's quite old and just didn't seem to have any get up and go. We laid it to rest, got a replacement from Best Buy, and Magnum installed it. We're back on front door surveillance,

Yesterday, we went up to Helms Deep. Meego joined us, and Wolfgang met us after for lunch. 

I've mentioned here that our "driveway" on the property is in rough shape, so I wanted to get a feel for just how rough as we've been considering hiring a contractor to clear and smooth it out for us.

So I took to it with a couple of hand tools to estimate how many "Man Hours" - to coin an outdated cost estimating term - it would take to shape it up.

Here is a view of what most of it looks like while entering.

Then I took a pic of the area I cleaned up without too much effort in about one "Old Lady Hour".

We have a dollar amount that we're willing to pay someone to clear it, but it's not like we need to have a whole road built. There's a road there, it's just been neglected for a while and needs a little makeover. We'll probably do it ourselves like old time pioneers.

The trail cam showed more deer. No cows this time, and still no mountain lions, but we know they're around. 

This guy shows up frequently. Must be a favorite branch. 

Either that, or he knows there's a trail cam there, and he's a total ham.

nuptials, harvest, leadership

Labor Day weekend - the unofficial end to summer. Time to get serious.

• We're going to head out for a coffee bike ride in a minute. I think I mentioned that I sold/donated three of my four bicycles over the last few months. Now I'm down to one. I like the simplicity of one general purpose bicycle, but also find myself wanting a new one, thinking end-of-season sales will be upon us.

Is it human nature to frequently want new, supposedly better, stuff? 

• I worked in testing yesterday. I typically just work one shift a week there since tutoring has taken over more of my work hours, so I use that time to get caught up in anything new from testing. Recently, Daffodil had asked me to cover an upcoming shift for her, and I told her I would. Yesterday, she asked if I'd cover that same shift the following week as well.

"Whatcha doing? Anything fun?", I asked.

"We're getting all our marriage stuff finalized..." she explained.

Daffodil is in a long-term relationship - 6 years in. After telling me about the "marriage stuff", she continued,

"I guess you didn't know. We got engaged", then she held out her left hand, adorned with a complete tasteful wedding set.

I noticed it was a complete set, not just the engagement ring. Apparently, they consider themselves already married, so the "marriage stuff" they're finalizing is getting the marriage license, etc. from the courthouse. They'll have a party later "for the grandmas".

I gotta say, I love that idea. No need for lots of wedding pomp (plus expense!) and the stress that comes with it. I've met her man, and they make a strong couple. She's a very mature 27.

• Garden tomatoes are doing their thing, tomatoing as fast as we can eat them. A few mutants in the harvest, but tasty.

Last night/this morning, around 4am, I heard what sounded like a little kid saying, "Hey!"  or some similar one-syllable word from outside the window. Said it three times.

I thought it was weird for a little kid to be outside at 4am. Then I figured it's probably some critter, having sex or looking for it. I remember being told that if a critter is heard at nighttime, the noise is probably from one or the other activity.

But it may have also been trying to raid the garden.

• Lastly, in other food news, one of my tutees presented yummy homemade ginger cookies at our session. She explained that she's president of one of the student clubs, so she'd brought them for their first meeting. Good leadership skills, there!

She made dinosaur and heart cookies.

The heart didn't survive long enough for a photo.

traffic

Last Saturday was Tour de Fat here in Fort Collins. It's an annual bike-beer-and-stuff festival thing sponsored by New Belgium brewery. 

People dress up and parade bicycles, logging laps around Mountain Avenue near downtown, and there's music, events, and more fun to be had on the brewery grounds. 

SOURCE

Magnum and I biked over and caught a good portion of the parade. We had no silly costumes - other than what we normally wear - so enjoyed the spectating.

We headed out along the parade route until able to make a clean exit. While waiting for the crowd to part, I got a couple of good lungfuls of burning cannabis to help on the journey.

Tragedy struck on the day with all of the revelers in the downtown area. Story has it an elderly man in a pickup truck backed out of a parking space and hit a vehicle. He then rushed forward in the truck, up onto the sidewalk, and plowed into a group of people before a tree stopped his forward motion. One person died, 5 were hospitalized. Police are "investigating".

I put that in quotes because locals are still questioning what happened to the woman who was struck and killed on her bicycle about two months ago now. She followed the rules, but was struck and killed by a construction truck. Hmmm.

So a sad event on what is normally a fun filled festive day. I can only assume the person who died, a 33-year-old man from Denver, was in town to enjoy Tour de Fat with friends.

On a much smaller medical note, I went in for a blood screen today. This was a follow up to an earlier screening my doctor routinely ordered. For the follow up, she told me to "cut back the alcohol", which is pretty impossible for me since I can't drink much less than already.

I got the feeling my phlebotomist was new. I've been told I have "great veins" from a bloodletting perspective, and phlebotomists typically make short work of my draws. Today was a young guy, he played around with different vein options, then had a bit of trouble getting the flow going. He seemed a bit nervous from the get go, but I was a patient patient.

I think phlebotomists practice on each other while in training, but eventually, some "real" person has to be the first. I don't know if I was the first, but if I was, I guess he'll always remember me.

pretend you don't see it

Happy full moon Friday! Anything weird happening?

This week got busy as it closes out the second week since the fall semester began. Technically just one available time slot remains in my tutoring schedule, but theoretically, I could open a couple more time slots if push comes to shove. 

Honestly, I thought in-person tutoring was something that would be swallowed up by AI and other free online resources years ago. I guess some people still like having an actual person to lead them through the valley of the shadow of math. Plus, their tuition already pays for it, so they might as well take advantage if they've got time for it.

So far, all my tutees seem nice and hard-working. When first meeting a new student, I'll ask them what brought them to tutoring and get typical responses like, "I failed this class, so I'm taking it again and don't want to fail again", or "I get easily distracted/discouraged when I try to study on my own" or "You tutored my friend/older sibling, and they recommended you", etc.

One particular student I asked this week smiled at me and responded, "Mommy made me". 

So after this two-week frenzy of onboarding new tutees and the paperwork that requires, I think I've settled in for a fall semester. I worked in testing earlier today and observed this scene from the adjunct instructor break room - home of the querying whiteboard.

Theirs is just across the hall from our breakroom in testing, and they have a bigger fridge and sink, so we've been known to freeload over there. 

The sign above the sink, asking to "Please wash your dishes..." stood out to me as new.

Juxtaposed with all the dirty dishes in and around the sink, I'm wondering. 

Is the sign in response to the mess? Or is the mess in response to the sign?

wrap it up

And so it begins.

Students returned for the start of the fall semester this week. It's nice to see the increased activity on campus after the lazy days of summer. I've already gotten a few tutees filling my tutor schedule.

Today, I noticed the adjunct instructor breakroom whiteboard has awakened:

We stuck around here all summer, and I'd say my highlight was purchasing Helms Deep and getting to work cleaning up its rough edges. Plenty to do in that regard.

We were up there last weekend, it was nice to have Wolfgang along to help out. We got a few more captures from the trailcam, mostly deer. But they were eventually usurped by these party animals.

They didn't just dine and dash, however. They left us some fertilizer... until next time.

end of a waiting, talking to the trees, bones

Yesterday, I sat through a 5-hour Zoom recording in half the time. Doncha just love 2x speed playback?

It was a semester kick-off tutor meeting, and thankfully, the bosses recorded it so we could watch it on our own time if unable to attend live via Zoom. Honestly, I could've managed to make the meeting live, but when we were told the recording would be available, I opted for that.

• The semester begins on Monday, and I've had a nice 2-week break since summer finished. This week, I managed to sort through a few items to donate or trash and also $$old a couple things we no longer need but have good resale value. That felt productive.

• Got the mammogram off the to-do for another year.

• Met another of our neighbors at Helms Deep. He told us they bought their property after the 2012 fire, then built their house and now live there full-time. Betcha he got a good deal on the land. They still had a house in town at the time, and also lived in a shed - like the kit kind from Home Depot - while building the house. 

We're still in early brainstorming stages of some sort of shelter for us. We just have a windowless tool shed, and we would need to evict the mice if we want to move into it. Maybe we just dig a hole in the ground, like the hobbits or Teletubbies.

• On that note of living primal, I will give a product shout out. For the first time in my life, I bought one of those devices for women to stand up when nature calls.

Once I got past the cultural paradigm shift, because it was weird at first, I realized I wished I'd have gotten one years ago for camping and hiking. Not gonna post a pic, it's basically a flexible [funnel].

When I was a kid, growing up in a neighborhood full of boys, my playmates would often head into the woods to "talk to the trees". Well, now I'm making up for lost time, having some good conversations. 

• Lastly, this week, we met another marriage milestone. 36 years?? I googled to see the gift material of choice for year 36. The answer: bone china.

"Bone china is a type of soft-paste porcelain made from clay, feldspathic rock, and a minimum of 30% bone ash derived from cattle

Well, seems fitting. Since we've got them cow neighbors.

drumming, reading, watching

As I sit here, there is much drumming. 

School starts next week for the local kids. I've noticed activity has begun at the nearby high school. This morning, on my morning jog, a large pack of teenagers -  x-country practice, no doubt - made their way along the path. 

And now, the drumming. Marching band percussion sectional happening. Yep, summer break's as good as done.

My two-week break is coming to a close as well. I've enjoyed the lack of commitments. As mentioned, my reading challenge continues. I've completed 31 of 26 (goal) books so far this year. Here are the latest titles since the last report.

Bad Tourists was a mystery thriller that I audiobooked while doing boring things around the house. The rest were book books. I've started writing down quotes that I like from books I'm reading. I'm not much into the mystery thrillers, but will get an audiobook, figuring there won't be anything I particularly care to write down.

Note that there were a pile of DNF's in the meantime, and none of these 6 that made the cut disappointed me.

Hotshot and Wildfire Days were both memoirs written by women firefighters. I learned some stuff about fire suppression and mitigation while also getting some good drama. I am currently reading [Lab Girl] by Hope Jahren - another memoir with stuff to teach me about plants and dirt.

So speaking of which, Magnum and took another play day and went up to Helms Deep yesterday to commune with the plants and dirt. 

I love the quiet up there - no sounds but our struggles and wheezing as we smooth out a few areas for us humans - along with the animal noises. No cows this time, but some deer came along to be nosey. Adolescents loosing their fluffy fawn fur in patches. A couple of hawks circled overhead looking for lunch/sizing us up.

We have a trail cam in place, and had several captures - mostly deer.

See the twins trailing Mom?

Daddy?

Trail cam also picked up a few individual members of this strange pack.

a little squish

I just finished reading [Chemistry] by Weike Wang. It's a novel about a Chinese woman working toward her PhD in chemistry and dealing with the stereotypical strictness and high expectations of her Asian parents, among other things.

It's quirky, it's relatively short, I liked it. It marks 30 books read so far this year in my quest to read 26 books this year. I've overachieved even though I'm not a child of Tiger Parents.

But this isn't a reading challenge update. When I read the above quote, I immediately thought of a conversation I recently had at work with Party Girl and Daffodil. Party Girl was feeling self conscious about having a realtor come to her house.

Party Girl has a little house she bought and lived in after divorce from husband #2. She then married husband #3 (current), moved into his house, and turned the other house into a rental. Now, she's looking to sell the rental.

So the realtor was coming over to the house she currently lives in, not the one she's looking to sell. But due to the realtor being a realtor, Party Girl was self conscious of the scrutiny of her carpets, the colors of her walls, etc.

Daffodil jumped in with some soothing advice:

"When I'm dealing with something like that, I tell myself, 'I'm sure they've seen worse."

...which I feel is a corollary to the above quote from Chemistry. Much less anxiety inducing.

All this to say that I had my routine mammogram today.

Despite my having the nickname ["Cow"] for most of my formative years, it was not for my "udders". I've never been "busty", but rather quite an un-busty, small boned, 50% Filipina.

So while I'm certain my mammographer has seen more voluptuousness, I know I'm at the low end, and I was reminded of Daffodil's counsel. I was further put at ease when I noticed a couple of Asian women in the waiting area, if y'know what I'm sayin'. It's possible that I "outranked" them?

Now, I don't mean to make light of breast cancer. I'm personally at low risk, so I guess I find something else to worry about on mammogram day.

casualty

I worked yesterday at the testing center. It was my one day of gainful employment for the week since tutoring ended the week prior.

Working  just one day a week there, I often miss out on worthwhile shenanigans, so I had to get caught up. Turns out they had both a cheater and a secret shopper.

• The cheater had snuck a cheat note in, had it tucked in his sock - verified from video recording after the fact. Boss noticed the little note, sticking out from under the keyboard, mid-test. It was strange because it was for a professional certification test. We catch cheaters every once in a while, but they are typically for student exams, not the professional ones that people pay good chunks of money to take. I was kind of sorry to have missed the momentous once-in-a-lifetime event. 

• The other was a secret shopper. As the name implies, secret shoppers are sent by various test companies, come in pretending to be test takers, but are actually checking to see if we will catch them breaking any rules. This particular SS broke all kinds of rules and never even made it into the test they were supposedly there to take.

After being told they would not be allowed to take their test, they even offered a bribe to be allowed, which I find quite funny. Another missed performance I wish I'd seen.

In high school, I had a friend who would sometimes wear flowy skirts when it was a test day in our History class. She would affix a cheat note in the folds of her skirt and nonchalantly "flip" to the note as needed.

I recall that she was actually a pretty good student with a strong work ethic, and I'm pretty sure she never got caught cheating. I guess she just wanted the extra insurance. 

Kind of ironic, now I think about it. That was the exam that Cheater Guy was taking: 

licensure for casualty insurance. 

seize the moooment

I'm sitting here in long pants, long sleeves. We had us a cold front! 

Monday got to 100^o F and yesterday topped out in the high 60s. Magnum and I took advantage and went up to Helms Deep to do some trail bustin' in the great outdoors. We hadn't gone up there in about a month mainly because of the heat, wimps that we are.

The hill in the background took on a
fire in 2012,
so those are our burnt trees

It was a nice day and felt very productive and good to be out in the hills. I feel I'm getting better at the business of trail-building looking back on my sorry initial efforts.

We also checked our footage from the trail cam. Plenty of captures in the past month - mostly all dear deer.

Others in the area have reported bears, rattlesnakes, skunks, and a lone moose. We can personally vouch for the mouse population.

We didn't see any deer during yesterday's visit, but as we were leaving, we came upon this garden party going on at the neighbor's.

We'd heard the moos, but didn't spot any of the moocher cows while we slaved away on the trails, but there was a big old bunch of them just up the road. Too many to count.

This particular princess looked at us as if we were the intruders, inconveniencing her. She did reluctantly step aside just enough to let us through and leave her alone.

While there, I took a few pics of what is essentially our driveway. 

We're interested in getting some quotes on having it cleared out and smoothed out somewhat, as it's pretty weedy and rutty.

If only we could train the cows.

throwing hands

Official day 1 of "staycation". Fall semester begins in two weeks, so I'm currently coasting. I do still have a couple of shifts in the testing center and one day of scheduled tutor training, but that's it. 

Right now, I'm at the downtown library, which is one of my "artist date" places. The phrase was coined by Julia Cameron in her book [The Artist's Way] which I read several years ago. 

I'd checked her book out of the library where we lived at the time. I remember chatting with the librarian about it. She'd told me that the library held a series of workshop sessions built around the book, and a man tried to sue them because his wife asked for a divorce after completing the workshop - HA!

Personally, I got a few good takeaways from it, but overall, the book was nothing earth shattering. 

Anyway, I'd ridden my bicycle here, and as I was locking up, a mom and her two kids were unlocking, getting ready to leave. She has one of those "minivan" e-bikes that can hold cargo and kids. There was a girl of about 5 and a little boy about 3. 

The little boy, rather brusquely, asked his mom for something. 

Her: Can you ask it with manners?

Him: Pweeaase?

How to say no?

But speaking of instruction of children and saying "no", I've noticed an annoying (to me) trend.

Okay, first, how is a pen/pencil held? I hold mine as in this example....

Lately, I've been seeing this particular form:

And I'm struggling with that thumb placement.  I even tried to mimic that grasp and it's not working at all for me. My hand practically refuses to contort in such a way. 

These images were taken off of the tube-of-you thumbnails, and I have no idea who the perpetrators are. But I have seen a few such grips in real life, mostly young people - gen Zs and gen alphas.

What is our world coming to?

ring of power

Our power went out last night. I do what most people I imagine do when that happens. I immediately check to see if neighbor homes are without power as well, and usually that's the case. This time, however, the evidence confirmed it was just us. 

It was eerie because we had JUST finished watching [Bugonia]. Honestly, I'd just exited Netflix as the credits had been rolling. For those not familiar, Bugonia is a Sci-Fi, alien conspiracy story starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons. It kept me guessing until the end, and I found it brought up several thought-provoking themes. 

So I was deep in the throes of pondering, "what the heck did we just watch?" when *ZHUUUP* Power outage and total darkness and quiet.

We managed to locate our main breaker, which had been tripped, and get the juice flowing again. Logic says it tripped from larger than typical energy usage - likely our AC units - but maybe the aliens were just messing with us. 

We did discover bees or wasps starting to make a hive/nest in our breaker box, and it so happens that bees/beekeeping is a theme in Bugonia. Call me crazy... (or don't. That's okay)

We also watched [Apex] starring Charlize Theron. It was predictable, rather implausible, but entertaining enough. Met expectations, invoked no power outages.

We did a "heated" bicycle ride this morning. Apparently, exerting oneself in the heat has certain health benefits as long as it doesn't kill. We both survived, so I'll consider it a beneficial morning. Shady stretches were much welcomed, sun drenched stretches felt like riding over hot coals. Good balance.

Last weekend, I got a pneumonia vaccine. I noticed that the friendly pharmacist jabbed me nearly right on top of my smallpox vaccine scar. Those of us who own one of those are becoming fewer and farther between. 

Enhanced mine for clarity in the photo. Got one?

It's like having a special license plate that says "vintage" or "classic".

Right??

not grey gardens

This week, the summer semester comes to a screeching halt. All that densely packed material thrown into final exams, and then nothing for a couple of weeks until Fall semester begins. I'm thinking up a few small projects I can do with the downtime from tutoring.

One project I take no credit for is "our" bountiful garden. That was Magnum's thing - building the raised bed and framework to keep the greedy bunnies out, filling the soil, planting and nurturing... 

No lettuce parasites in our burritos!

It's been too much to eat to keep up with, really. Plants will likely keep thriving long after the humans are gone unless we nuke the whole planet.

Speaking of nukes, like many households, we have a microwave oven. I rarely use it, and really only for heating oatmeal or coffee that's gone cold. Magnum often uses it to cook, which kinda grosses me out. He doesn't use it to cook meat, at least (although there was that one chicken tenders incident), but anything else is fair game. 

When the kids were at home, it was useful, but now, I can most definitely live without it. But we keep it around for his sake. At least it sits in a corner under a cabinet, in a space that would be pretty useless as a surface anyway. And once the zucchini and summer squash is ready for harvest, I will confiscate them and bar them from said microwave! 

Speaking of kids at home, I find I get nostalgic this time of year with the back-to-school fervor. The school supply lists, the clothes and shoes shopping. Weird, the things we miss.

But I don't miss being responsible for dinner. Every. Single. Day.

a Friday five

 Another week gone, summer is winding down. I worked in the testing center this morning. The campus is still pretty quiet, but people are trickling in - getting advising, registering for fall, taking placement tests...

• Like many colleges, our enrollment is down because of 1) the "enrollment cliff" - predicted to kick in this year since not many babies were born in the U.S. in 2008. Those few who were born and made it through high school are the age to go to college. But 2) who can afford it/ go into all that student debt? Plus, 3)what to major in since AI is taking away many job opportunities?

And college isn't for everyone. But, our lights are still on.

• In other news, I'm happy to report that the missing kitty from next door seems to have returned. I spotted her yesterday running toward her house when a rainstorm moved in. I notice the neighbors took down the "MISSING" flyers, but don't know where she was during her 2-week adventure or how she reappeared. I honestly didn't expect her to return.

• One of the people I checked in at work today was testing to get her teaching license in "Family and Consumer Sciences".

"Is that what used to be 'home ec'? I asked

"Yes!", she enthusiastically replied. 

She went on to say that there's been recent increased interest among students - kids wanting to learn about nutrition, budgeting, etc. and turning away from getting everything off the internet and social media.

She felt optimistic about her job prospects. I remember taking home ec in jr. high. It was all girls. I wonder if that's changed. She told me she already has a teaching credential for art, but wants to expand her skill set in lieu of budget cuts. 

• Speaking of which, these doodles have nothing to do with anything. I dusted off the sketchbook and pens for doodling during evening TV time like when I was a kid. Just cartoony hooligan stuff.

• Lastly, this morning, I noticed some tidying up had been done at work this week. While preparing for the morning's appointments, I noticed an updated labeling scheme in one of the file drawers.

We do a lot of testing of water professionals. We provide them with reference materials based on whether they are testing for "water treatment" or "water distribution". The materials look very similar, but contain slight differences. 

We used to leaf through a pile and select the appropriate materials. So this morning, I noticed they've been separated into individual folders - "Poo", "Not Poo"

We're nothing if not up on the latest technical jargon.

gifted

I'd not thought of myself as one of those people who carries an umbrella to block the sun. But yesterday, there I was, undercover. The temperature was hovering around 100^o .

I was thankful to have that umbrella as the full onslaught of sun was bearing down as I waited for the bus to go to work. My pick up stop has a bench, and nothing more. 

The all-black backpack is no help to beat the heat. 

But, we're surviving, and I don't mean to complain. In fact, this is meant to be an appreciation post, starting with my appreciation for that umbrella and the ease of taking the bus on my short work commute on inclement weather days.

We got some welcome rain overnight, which didn't cool things down much, but we always need the moisture. I had a lovely jog around the neighborhood this morning, appreciative of the overcast skies.

I came across these two friends, living the good life.

The summer semester is wrapping up. POOF, ten weeks of frenzied activity. Tensions are a bit high among the tutees, working hard to keep their heads above water for about one more week. 

One such tutee end-of-semester-gift-ed me a [lovely Japanese mechanical pencil]. What a nice and unexpected surprise.

Now, I realize some may think a mechanical pencil is a strange gift, but I can attest to the fact that it is a wonderfully fitting item for a math tutor.

Well done, Tutee!

I've learned that this particular pencil is a fave among mechanical pencil aficionados. 

I've happily added it to my pencil case as part of my everyday carry in the aforementioned backpack.

The fuzzy thing in the background of the pencil pic is our cat - Napolion The Skinny. Can you see his butt bones?

I have begun giving him a daily can of kitten food, which he loves. It also makes him the envy of all other pets in the house.