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.

clocks and poultry

I think I'm still adjusting to daylight savings time. I'm not sleepy when I should be and morning comes too early. Hardships.

It's spring break all around here - the university, community college, and school district. No tutoring for me this week, so I told Boss in testing I was available if needed. To that, he said, "Yeah? Maybe I'll take Monday off, do something with my mom"

So I worked in place of Boss yesterday. The do-something-with-Mom turned out to be locating her tax documents. His mom is not young, and tends to forget things, but still lives on her own. 

While visiting the in-laws in California, much of the conversations were about effects of aging. Stepmother-in-law told us that one of the tests for dementia is to have the patient draw an analog clock.

SOURCE

She was talking about a friend of theirs who failed his clock-drawing test. Later, I was curious as to the result of FIL's drawing. I'm not sure about dementia, but his memory does have noticeable gaps. FIL is an accomplished architect, so I'm sure there was a time he would've drawn an impeccably creative clock.

I mentioned this conversation yesterday to Party Girl, who concurred. "Oh yeah. My dad's clock was all over the place".

Now I feel like drawing clocks... just to make sure I'm still with us.

In other updates, we encountered the resident wild turkeys while on a coffee walk again. Only three were hanging out this time. Two males, strutting their stuff, and one seemingly totally uninterested female.

This guy couldn't get enough of himself. He was all, "look at how majestic I am!". Never mind that the nearby female was fully ignoring him. He begged me to snap a photo.

Once I complied, he raked me in again, "No no, make sure you get my good side as well!"

Fine.

less words Wednesday

 Out walking the pooches last night, we beheld a rare sight

Aurora Borealis, right here in our neck of the woods. 

Upon returning home, I checked the city's subreddit, and as expected, it was CHOCK full of awe inspiring photos. This meme was no lie:

Upload after upload from various parts of town and beyond. 

I swear it's like the Northern Lights were showing off.

I've learned the scientific explanation of what causes them, but I'd rather anthropomorphize them into big ol' show offs.

The reddit pics were all mostly captioned with the wheres and whens they were taken, maybe some emotional responses.

But I think this is my favorite caption for "less words Wednesday"

putridity weekend?

 Greetings on what is the start of a long weekend for many. I typically have Fridays off anyways, so it's a 4-dayer for me. 

My high school boyfriend's father was killed in the Vietnam war, and I remember the first time I saw his grave. The headstone is of a military standard and includes a photo. I noticed right away how much he looked like my then boyfriend, which was a bit surprising, because until then, I thought boyfriend looked a lot like his mother. And he looked so young in that photo. He was only 25 when he died, so not much older than my boyfriend was at the time. 

I recall that [last year], I was out for a run and came across the Field of Heroes flag display and travelling Vietnam Wall. I believe it's at the same location this weekend. Just a couple of reminders that Memorial Day weekend isn't about days off from work and sales at Amazon.

As it happens, I did go for a lovely spring morning run today. I didn't go by the memorial display, but I did come across these creatures:

I probably interrupted their early morning gossip and yoga as they seemed to just want to leave after I showed up.

No big getaways planned for the weekend. Just as well because our dog, Merlin, is on the fritz. Dealing with some gastrointestinal upset, if you get my drift. We're thinking maybe he got into something he shouldn't have. He's on white rice today, and hopefully on the mend.

So no getaway planned, HOWEVER, we are hoping to witness a momentous local event. The university owns a [corpse flower named Cosmo that is signalling that it is about to bloom]! If it does, it will absolutely reek of putrid rotting flesh!

Oh, the anticipation! I must go there!

I just checked the [livestream], and Cosmo has grown considerably in the last few days. It's almost NSFW. As a local redditor put it, "it looks like my dog when he's happy to see me".

We are warned that, because of their unpredictability, there is a slim chance that it may not happen. I think that makes it all the more fun.

Schrödinger's plant?

YAY for allergies, mishap forensics, chicken

A little over a week ago, one of my tutees emailed me:

"My symptoms started Tuesday night and I tested positive for covid this morning (Thursday)..." 

Yeah, she and I met for a little over an hour that Wednesday. Honestly, I wasn't all that surprised at the email. She'd shown up for tutoring wearing a KN95 mask and admittedly feeling "like crap", but needing the help. During our session, she let out a few all too familiar sounding dry coughs as we sat closely - in hindsight - around a small table.

After receiving her email, I google searched to find the latest regarding covid reinfection. I found one article stating that people who are vaxxed and had covid should be fairly immune for about 10 months from their infection. Okay, I was getting behind that study!

In the days that followed, I had some paranoia inducing scratchy throat, sinus pressure... but YAY! It's allergies!

Welcome spring! Tomorrow is the official start, but I've enjoyed this week of saving the daylight. Can we just pick a time zone and stick to it already?

Spring break was this past week at the college and local school district, so work at the testing center and tutoring was relatively appreciably slow. Back to the grind tomorrow for the big push toward semester's end.

Speaking of big push, I was out running around on a recent morning, and came across this scene:

Curious, I've tried to piece together what happened. Something jumped the curb and crashed into the fence, but seems to me it wasn't a car but could've been. Looks like something tipped over and dragged into the fence. That dark smudge just beyond the fence break appears to be some sort of engine fluid, and there is a trail of it from the splotch indicating the driver turned and headed in the opposite direction.

Motorcycle? Scooter?  

In other imagery, who caught the google doodle for this past Wednesday? The 15th?

It was for Filipono adobo! That was my first thought upon seeing it, but then I thought, "Nah, there wouldn't be a google doodle just for chicken adobo"

But yes! There would be!

Apparently, it was to commemorate the anniversary of "adobo" being added to the Oxford English dictionary in 2006. Happy adobo anniversary!

It’s a symbol and expression of Filipino pride that varies from region to region, family to family, palate to palate.

Ask anyone with a Filipono mom or lola (grandma), "Who makes the best adobo?" The answer is, "My mom/ lola!"

And in MY case, it's actually true!

ice, ice, and baby

During an outing earlier this week, maybe I was flashed?

A patch of ice in the street seemed rather happy to see me?

I remembered being greeted by a similarly frisky ice formation in our dogs' water dish a few years ago.

So no, it wasn't happy to see me. It was cold in just the right way. 

At the time of the dog dish incident, I was flummoxed.  I remember looking up to see if something was dripping down to form the phallic ice monument.

But no, I learned it can happen if conditions are right while making the transition from water to ice. In small bodies of water, ice begins to form on the outer rim and works its way in. Since water expands when it freezes, if conditions are right, a small hole forms in the center of the ice, and the expanding water pushes up while freezing, and... success!

Here he is, another angle.

They are given the so fancy name: ice spikes.  

I googled and found - among those things to stretch over shoes - plenty of photos of nearly pornographic birdbaths and such. 

So that was my exciting week. You?

Things got a bit busier at work with the spring semester now in full swing. Math students are already panicked, and there are not enough math tutors to go around to accommodate all one-on-one requests, so I've been asked to do some group sessions. Okay?

Speaking of groups, we got together yesterday with all the "kids" for a belated celebration of Chaco's birthday. It was a cold grey day that included a couple more inches of fluff snow, but a nice gathering. We placated our chilliness with heaps of good food at a nice local restaurant we'd been wanting to check out.

As always, it was good to catch up on everyone's doings. Chaco's shoulder is progressing as expected since the surgery last month. We played a couple rounds of "Wits & Wagers", and a question about Elizabeth Taylor came up. None of the young guys knew who she was. Sheesh, I'm old. 

And speaking of catching up, Magnum and I finished season 1 of  Yellowjackets. At the start of the season, I was under the impression that it would be a one-and-done season with beginning, middle, end. But NO! The final episode left more questions than answers, so... season 2. 

Everyone's hungry, winter's coming, they've tripped out on 'shrooms, and one of the girls is pregnant. Hmmm, what's to eat?  Helps to pass the time during these cold winter months. 

It's currently 3 degrees F outside, but I'm feeling a bit cabin feverish. Time to get my moneys worth from the outerwear, I suppose. 

big minions, teeny hulks, and a chicken in every pot

We had our best Halloween yet since moving here. Our first was Halloween 2020, which was a bust for reasons we shall not speak. Last year was cold and wet and brought two or three groups of diehard trick-or-treaters. 

This year was a pleasant evening. I lost count of the moochers, and we nearly ran out of candy. I mainly recall two very large Minions and a teeny tiny Hulk.

Speaking of junk and food, two or three weeks ago, I decided to put a concentrated effort into eating more protein. I'd read on another blog that people need more protein as they age, so I ran with that since all blogs are pure fact. I did eventually google a bit and learn:

"Protein tissue accounts for 30% of whole-body protein turnover but that rate declines to 20% or less by age 70. The result of this phenomenon is that older adults require more protein/kilogram body weight than do younger adults" - SOURCE

Okay, I'm not 70, but I'm quite sure I'm on the other side of the peak.

But no food logs/ journals here or counting the macros - nothing quite so scientific. I just decided to up the protein - mainly in the form of eggs and chicken, maybe an occasional helping of pig (since I stopped eating cows years ago). This to supplement my usual sporadic dairy sources.

Now I'm sort of wishing I did geek out a bit and have some numbers to compare - some before and afters - because I am feeling different/ better.

Mainly, I feel I have more energy in general. Maybe a little faster on the morning slog/jogs, a little stronger on my gym game. I'm not ready to throw all my thanks on the chicken gods just yet however, because 

1. I decreased my caffeine intake at around the same time I upped the protein, so maybe I'm sleeping better?
2. We've had some recent overnight freezes that have adeptly been killing off the pesky allergens.
3. Perhaps the last vestiges of COVID crud I had last summer are finally leaving.
4. Or it's all just placebo affect.

When I worked in the dietary department at the nursing home, I scratched the surface of nutrition science. One of my coworkers was a (female) body builder attending grad school to become a registered dietician. 

Strange "sport", bodybuilding. Vee, the bodybuilder, would drink gobs of water everyday - maybe supplemented with something. Going in to a competition, she took in hardly any liquid and would become so dehydrated so as to maintain the "cut" look. It's not how you feel, it's how you look.

I'm about the feels.

one small step

It was passed my bedtime. I recall being in my pajamas, but my brother and I were either kept up or awakened from our slumbers. Either way, it was dark outside and we were "made" to watch TV - highly unusual.

Dutifully, I watched the screen with rapt attention. The image was quite grainy in black and white. The black and white was typical, though, because we only had a black and white TV. What I watched were astronauts landing and walking around on the moon.

Honestly, though, I was not sure why I was kept up for such viewing. I was 4 years old and had seen astronauts before. Maybe not on TV, maybe not walking around on the moon, but yeah. Astronauts were certainly a thing. And that's what they did, right? They walked around on the moon.

I'd seen astronauts on the magazine covers my parents subscribed to. I glimpsed astronauts on the TV news. We drank Tang because that's what astronauts drank. 

We ate those (awful yuck pooey) Space Sticks because they were cool astronaut food.

And there I was, sitting on the floor, passed my bedtime, looking up at TV footage of astronauts on the moon. Okay, cool, I guess? I have a vague recollection that even Grandma was there with us. Was something momentous happening? None of the adults were speaking as they seemed a bit speechless, so I was left to ponder. 

And that was that: sitting on the floor in the dark watching grainy images of astronauts, the whole family minus my oldest brother, who was away at college, gathered 'round. It was a bit later that I would learn it was history in the making. 

So I was "there" before realizing how historic. But I drank the Tang and gagged on the Space Sticks.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

1. Share one of the first news stories you remember caring about.

not to be blunt...

I walked into the room for a little information gathering.  Back in high school, I don't remember what year it was.  I grew up in a small town, but our high school still had a handful of extracurricular clubs and activities.  Horticulture club was meeting for the first time of the school year - prospective members were urged to attend.

I had a passing interest in horticulture although I hadn't done much "gardening" myself.  My mom had quite a green thumb and kept various plants in a sunny section of the house as well as maintained some outdoor foliage.  I could remember going to the local greenhouse with her as a kid and finding it an interesting place.

So I thought, "Hmm, horticulture club.  That could be fun - learn some plant biology, soil chemistry, greenhousing..."

I'd stopped by the after-school meeting, mostly on a whim.  As such, I was by myself as opposed to part of a group like most things in high school.  I was a bit surprised to see I hardly knew anyone there.  I mean, it was a small town, so I knew of the other kids there, but none of them were in any of my circles.  In fact, I was surprised at the attendees, they weren't the kids who usually joined clubs.

"Interesting", I thought to myself, "all the kids here are known stoners.  Wonder why they're in the horticu... OH!"

DUH.  Here I went into it thinking "science" as opposed to "grow-your-own-weed".  Nerd alert!

Suffice to say, I didn't join the high school horticulture club, and that marked the end of my horticultural education.

Last week, a coworker told me about a large greenhouse operation in the area.  She owns a rental property and does all the landscaping and visits the business often.  Magnum and I went on a little field trip on Saturday to check the place out.  

It was huge and impressive and rekindled my adolescent interest in horticulture as well as my wanting to do "something" with our boring yard space.  

We managed not to purchase anything, just scouted out the place to get some ideas.  I learned that the university here offers a gardening extension program specific to Colorado conditions.  It's part of a program available in all 50 states, and I'm planning to sign up.  

Now, 30+ years after my short foray into horticulture, recreational pot is legal here.  I could learn how to grow a decent crop of my own...

don't bet on that bud.

I'll see your syncope and raise you one nevus

"sign cope?", Magnum sounded out.  We were at a coffee shop when he got a text from his step mother.  His dad was at the hospital getting checked out after an episode of syncope.  

I asked him what had happened, and that's when he phoneticized "sign cope?"  

"Ah", I recalled ,"he fainted -  sing·kuh·pee"

My FIL is nearly 87 years old, active and in quite good shape for his age, but syncope happens.  He was given a thorough once over and sent home to rest after ruling out anything serious.  

But we got into pondering why we non-medical people have different words, that aren't necessarily slang, than medical people.  They say syncope, we say fainting.

Many years ago, when I was pondering ways I could both earn money and stay home with the kids, I took a medical transcription course.  I finished it but never became a medical transcriptionist, opting instead for home daycare.  I managed to remember some of the terminology though, like syncope.  

Another word I liked was "debridement" as far as fun words to pronounce go, because my particular transcription course used the French pronunciation.  Even wound cleaning sounds sensual in French.

Yesterday, I went in for my annual physical if for nothing else but our insurance puts money in our HSA if we do these things each year.  And since I was there, I asked my doctor about a mole on my shoulder that seems to have gotten bigger recently.  After taking a look, she referred me to a dermatologist.

Back at home, I contacted the skin doctor office to book an appointment while looking at the notes from my Dr. visit.  She'd listed "changing nevus" in the things we'd discussed.  Through my adroit deductive reasoning, I determined that nevus (nee·vuhs) means mole.  Yup.  

...or mole means nevus?  

Which came first, and why?

Got any medical terms to share today?

once in a corn moon

 Sunrise rides have turned into moonset rides

and I'm fine with that.  

I belong to a bicycle commuter group on facebook.  A while back, a member mentioned missing his  commute since he began working from home because of covid.  "Just go for a daily ride anyway!" seems like a simple solution.

"Yeah, but it's not the same"

Many agreed with that including me.  It's not the same if I don't HAVE to be somewhere.  But I have the ritzy lake neighborhood to entice me a few days a week.  It's dark in the mornings now. Stars are still out, but the ride is pleasant.  And this morning we had the big Corn Moon, to which my phone camera did not give justice.  

This sets the stage for two full moons in October - the blue moon set to occur on Halloween.  Well, how appropriate for this year.  

Choose a costume yet? 

schooled

We took Meego back to school yesterday after his spring break.  As per usual, we took a little stroll around campus to stretch our legs before heading back home.  It was a nice evening, the ducks were out flapping and quacking, students were pedaling around on bicycles or recreating out on the various fields.

I was feeling reminiscent about the good old days of college and enjoying the campus scenery.  Then we walked into the student center, and I spotted a few students hunkered over notes and laptops, toiling over homework.  Reminiscent feelings gone.  *POOF*.  I remembered why I was glad to be finished.

This morning was more schooling.  I went in for my dental surgery to take care of that errant tooth.  Remember?  A couple weeks ago when I whined about it almost daily?

I first want to give a shout out to Pearl.  When I first whined on the blog that I had an old root canaled tooth that came back for a sequel, many, including myself, were surprised that root canals don't last forever.

Pearl, who as far as I know hadn't visited or commented here before or since, spoke the truth as it had happened to her:  "A trip to the oral surgeon where he cut open the gum in the area and cleaned out the infection soon had me feeling better. "

And I was all, "cut open the gum, what??"

I've learned that's typically how these things are treated, and when the endodontist told me that's what he wanted to do, I was not all, "cut open the gum, what??" because I'd heard it here first from Pearl.  So Pearl, if you're out there, thanks for filling me in!!

My dentist did prescribe me some antibiotics to quell the infection, so the tooth only throbbed for a couple of days while I waited for my surgery this morning.  As far as I know, everything went as planned and now I sit in a bit of swollen aftemath.

The procedure is called an apicoectomy, and an extra layer of interestingness was added because a dental school intern joined us to observe me being ripped apart, cleaned up, and restitched together.  As such, the surgeon was explaining everything he was doing, while I lay there like a med school cadaver.

Wanna see my stitches?  Too bad if "no".

There, I've done my part for the advancement of science today.  What's on Netflix?

to the dark side

You may have heard that there was a solar eclipse event that graced portions of the United States yesterday.  Here in our neighborhood, we got about 90% of totality.

But why settle for 90% when you can drive a few hundred miles for the full 100??

So that's what we did. Hightailed it north to Wyoming.

It actually took a "bit" more planning.  Magnum found and reserved us a campsite about a year ago.  Then we had to get the official glasses.  Then we all had to have the day off.

Recall that I just started a new job.  I felt uneasy about asking for two days off right off the bat, but I went ahead and put it in the system to be off without pay and arranged for a substitute, THEN I asked.  The bosses were way cool.  One noted, "You reserved your campsite before we even posted this opening...", which was true.



So, free from guilt, the guys and I headed up to Wyoming.  What an amazing sight!  The day was perfect for it, full sun with just a few wispy clouds in the distance.

As can be imagined, there was a lot of gazing at the sun.  Those thin cardboard glasses we got worked beautifully.  Pack o' ten for $12.95.  Last week, they were  $150 if you were lucky enough to find them in stock.

The CheezIt box was a highly technical device used to see the eclipse without glasses and without going blind. It was one of three projects Meego was required to come up with and build and use for one of his classes.

It worked perfectly, of course, because everyone knows the moon's made of cheese.  

It was totally worth the trip.  We watched as the moon slowly slowly covered the sun and the temperature slowly slowly dropped and the ambient light slowly slowly became dimmer and dimmer.  Then with a final surge, it was "suddenly" dark.  

Stars came out, we could take off our glasses and see the ring.  It was dark and cold and awesome.

 
The camp we were at was a great location and had many other eclipsians, some with very sophisticated viewing equipment.  (Ours was the only CheezIt box I saw...).  The people next to us had some sort of live radio feed with countdowns to various points of the eclipse.  As we all stood in awe of the sight, after a couple of minutes, the robotic voice chimed in,

"In ten seconds, put your glasses back on".

Darn if that "diamond ring" didn't appear in exactly 10 seconds

And then it was passed.  People were still clapping.  Some were pouring champagne.  Good times.

All in all, a highly memorable experience.  I'd "seen" partial eclipses before, but those just don't do justice to a total eclipse.  Well worth the drive and effort, even the tedious long drive back in all that post eclipse traffic.  

And we did take a moment for that deer we killed...

but that's another story.