Happy Halloween... Sort Of

Want to be scared? You might have been celebrating in South Korea and gotten crushed in the crowd with over 150 other young adults. For most it seems they were finally out and about after a long period of covid quarantining and distancing. But hey, the "treat" after that trick is the government will pay for the funerals and medical bills.

You might have been celebrating a newly repaired footbridge across a river in India which didn't exactly get repaired correctly, broke, and killed  over 130 people. The "treat" after that trick is expected to be prosecutions. Can't wait.

You might have been the 80-year-old husband of a widely and unjustly vilified politician, 3rd in the line of succession to the Presidency, who was attacked with a hammer and with repeated questions from a not totally unexpected wingnut looking for his wife instead. For a "treat", he's recovering in the hospital after surgery for a depressed skull fracture while the wingnut is behind bars, likely for the rest of his life.  Of course, if you don't look at the particulars too closely, "recovering" sounds just peachy, but how well do 80-year-olds actually heal from that kind of trauma?

If you are reading this, you weren't any of those people. You might instead have held a party, or be handing out candy, or escorting your young children around the neighborhood in a choice of numerous costumes that are nowhere near that scary anyway.

My Halloween hasn't been near that interesting, thank goodness. All that candy gets expensive, so it's nice to live in a seniors community where no trick-or-treaters show up. It's also nice not to walk the neighborhood with rowdy kids on their annual humongous sugar high, watching to keep them out of traffic, soothe tears after somebody doesn't share properly, or wears a too scary costume and delights in bullying littler ones while wearing it.

But there was a party. Costumes were optional, and everybody took the option not to wear one. Go figure. It was at the club, and included choices of slices from 4 different pizzas, of which one was both gluten free and vegan. Yes, we have those members in the club. They were delighted to have an option they could actually eat. I, of course, got to research pizza stores, make the order, go pick it up and bring it to the club just at noon. I do get reimbursed.

The party had an extra reason for bringing us together. We were honoring our volunteers, especially those who contributed their time and efforts above and beyond the minimum club requirements. I got to poll the rest of the board and together we all added names to the list of those we'd noticed. As each name was called, each got unanimous applause.

Of course, that party was just a couple hours in my day. It turned out to be extraordinarily busy. I had to complete the paper work on ten items to submit for sale in the store which meant four hours of early work, put one volunteer who'd just come south to do some much needed and long delayed computer work so a late report could finally be turned in to the management company for all the rec centers.  Once two conflicting reports were printed out, I got to take them home, compare them, and turn the correct one (except for three notes) in to a building across town. That errand wound up as also a shopping trip for Steve's needs, and a different one for mine.

As I was checking out on my last one, I asked the cashier how she liked my costume today? I announced I came dressed as a tired old senior citizen. She smiled. We both agreed that the costume was such a good one that it couldn't be distinguished from the real thing.

Another New Project

And... it's all over now.

Talk about a spoiler, eh?  But it was quick, from need, to flash of an idea, to implementation, and now just the wait for the final result, made by somebody else. My part, aside from picking it up and paying the second half, is over. 

The club needs a banner to identify us for special events. Two stand out. First, the Fall Festival, held Thanksgiving Friday and Saturday, where all the craft clubs in Sun City bring what their members made to sell to a single location and invite everybody they can reach in to buy buy buy.  The other is held in January, welcoming new residents to Sun City. The head organization puts it on, gives a program introducing people to all the good things  (clubs, pools, golf) one can do here, with a selection of the  clubs having just single tables this time showing the variety of what we make or do, with a couple people sitting there to chat with anybody who wants information about our club.

Last year that second one was embarrassing. We had no identifying banner, nor were we well prepared in other ways. Every other table put us to shame in their presentation. So the Board decided to do something about it last spring. Somebody volunteered. I checked in with a "what ever happened to...?" to the person in question, and wound up with the task myself.

Uh, OK, sure. Uhhhhhh......

I was told to visit our nearest neighboring craft club in the building, Woodworking. Several of our members are members there too, knew they'd made a new banner recently, were pleased with the work, and would  happily pass on information on logistics. So I did. Their banner was hanging from a high spot on their back wall, easy to see. I got the information including vague directions of where to find the printing company which did the work, though they didn't remember the name exactly. Or more precisely, not even at all. But I'd know it when I saw it because their windows were plastered with samples of their printing work.

The best advice Woodworking gave me was to go with an 8 foot tablecloth since banners are impossible to keep in place hanging from the front of a table. The way the company does them is with it hanging off the table down to the floor on the front and sides, but coming down just a little ways in the back so stuff can be stored under the table discretely. Including your legs if you're sitting talking to customers and/or potential members. The long front side becomes what gets printed for your banner. The table and whatever is on it holds it in place.

So, what to put on it. Woodworking had their name on the left side, a wooden plaque on the right side, and small letters across the bottom with their address and club phone number. Think of it as an oversized business card, where the potential customer/member gets to write it down or shoot it with their smart phone. OK, got it all. Now how to make it work for our club?

The easy part is the bottom border info. Next the club name, but how to make it stand out and say something about us? We are Fairway Sterling & Stones. Fairway tells which rec center we are in. How to distinguish that?  Sterling is only one of the metals we work in, something which distinguishes us from another jewelry club which only does silver. We do lots in copper, with some brass and bronze thrown in.  The Stones part is for lapidary, but we also do lots of glass fusion work, and how do we throw that in? Can we even find a way to show glass that looks like glass in something printed on fabric? Since I was coming up completely blank with how to show glass when we're not talking about glass in any kind of a way that doesn't just confuse folks, I decided to set that aside. If inspiration struck in the middle of the process, fine. Deal with it then. Sometimes less is more.

But inspiration had already struck in a slightly different direction, and it carried me right along with it. Let the letters tell their own story. Meanwhile, it was time to hit the road and hunt for this printer, ask questions, get answers, find out what was possible. That resulted in two separate stops there, once I located them, to figure out what the questions actually were! Always a good starting place, I firmly believe. And since my inspiration was going to be complicated and time consuming, both for me and the printer, I better get it right from the start. If it's not possible, why waste time? However, I was already heavily invested in my idea and making it possible. It would so set us apart.

I settled for just letters, no plaque, no business card type decoration, no jewelry even, though an early idea involved spelling the words out in jewelry chains. That was quickly abandoned as too much effort for too little reward. I found out that they can print in metalic finishes, not just choices from your basic color wheel. The other important piece was that they can print from photo images. My brainstorm was good to go.

Layout, aside from the bottom information line, was two lines of text, centered, block letters but fat. The top line will have "FAIRWAY" in shiny bright copper letters, just because we do copper. "STERLING" will be next to it done in shiny silver letters, because what else? 

It's the second line where all the fun came in. "& STONES" will have each individual character done as if cut out of a slab of a different rock, i.e., one rock, one letter. A closet hunt began. My closet, that is. I  originally thought I'd be more interested in the lapidary than in the metal side of what the club does. I spent about a year on eBay ordering cut slabs from a few select sellers of whatever appealed to me at the times my budget had its openings. There are three FedEx boxes stacked on the floor packed with them. Yep, still sitting there. I pulled each out, singly since those boxes are hefty, separated out the contents looking for good representations of a wide variety of great stones, plugging along in the search though occasionally offered the opportunity to wonder what on earth made this or that rock appealing. I made sure to wet down each choice to show the best color before choosing, seeing greys turn into greens, purples, blues, browns, golds, reds.

Out came the camera, the chosen stones plus a water source hauled onto the patio for bright light, and shooting began. Dump files into the laptop. Edit. Reject several, reshoot others, fiddle some more, dig through different rocks, rinse, repeat. Wake up the next morning, dig out some polished rocks and find ways to shoot them for best results without glare from the polishing, shoot, fiddle, reject, reshoot, rinse repeat. And yes, the rocks all went back in the boxes or wherever they came from, and those boxes were returned to the closet floor! Uff Da!

The ultimate result was eleven jpeg files to take to the nearest processing store, and later in the morning of the second (calendar) day on this project, take to the club. I explained to all there that I needed all their input if they wished to do so. Come look at the rock photos, knowing each one potentially could be a letter on the banner, and choose which you thought were the best. It happened all our officers were in the club that morning, and several others stopped by to like/reject their choices. We got rid of three photos easily, having too much white in the stones to stand out clearly on a white background. One other was a toss up, but finally rejected because it didn't have the color depth to stand out with the others. One member who also is a painter did the initial lineup of them in contrast to their neighbors, and I made the final cuts and arrangement based on how each letter would make the best of the beauty of each stone. One I absolutely insisted on with my executive authority. The polished green oval of malachite, bought last winter for its beautiful pattern across the rock, rather than just a dab of pattern like so many being sold, was to retain its oval shape and remain whole. It would be the "O", but would have no center cutout.

Then there was figuring out how each letter would best show off the beauty of the stone from the photo. A triangular agate with a druzy center would be the "T" but tilted relative to the photo's axis, for example. When the graphic artist at the printer translates my wobbly lines into the border for the letter, the letter's axis would rule, not how the picture was first taken. She got each marked up photo, written comments on each photo where needed, and a page full of instructions this morning. She also got all seven jpeg files to work with to match - only better formed than my pen scratching once she got done. I'd made a sample of the layout and text and instructions from my laptop, printed two copies, let their questions be asked and left name and phone number for anything that got missed.

The detail needed to make the letters raised the price from the quote due to more labor than the usual order. It still came in under the quoted budget for the project, so I approved, paid half, and other than picking it up, consider it completed. All in just under 48 hours, from getting tasked with the project, through the planning, and delivering it to the manufacturer. I ate, breathed, talked, worked, slept in thrall to it, basking in the glory of making something imagined become real.

The irony is those two days were the busiest of my fall, but not from this project. There was a medical visit, some shopping, an oil change, some yard work, several other tasks and many conversations in the club, and a very needy dog demanding lots of cuddling and about double the usual number of walks out in the yard, some phone calls, bills to be paid, and even a bit of time for TV to get watched. 

For comic relief, while I was at the printer, I received a phone call from my insurance agent about my settlement payment. Last week she promised it would be directly deposited to my credit union in about three days. It had been. So why the call? Had something changed? She informed me that the payment had bounced back to them, so could they try again? I had just looked at it this morning, and informed her that not only was the money received without any issues, it had already been partly spent and that also was accounted for in the online account records. Her response was to throw a few seemingly random words together, sort of a homina - homina to keep the conversation going, before reading further down her notice to the "no further action needed at this point" text. I didn't choose to suggest that she could send it again if she absolutely needed to. I'm sure they would have clawed it back as soon as somebody noticed the double payment.

Finally Finaggling With The Insurance Company

Yes, I've put it off. Part of it has been the covid, brain fog and lack of energy. Part has been just locating all the losses and damages. The lift chair had to be returned.(Then replaced.) The screen had to be redone. Those three were up-front expenses for us. Photos of paperwork had to be taken, cropped to just the paper with data, emailed to the company. My attempt to contact the Sheriff's office to find out if any progress in locating the ring has occurred, or is even being attempted, met with voicemail hell. I still don't know. Let the adjuster fight that battle.

All this while the rest of my life has been working on cranking back up. That's its own long list, though too short. Inertia is king. Or is it queen? Pool walking has cut back to three total times in nearly two months, not terribly useful. Voting happened, with lots of reading and researching, then sitting down together and explaining who candidates were, what propositions REALLY meant, and waiting to go on to the the next one while individual decisions were made. (Now that we've done that, all those commercials are even more repulsive!)

Weeds in the yard loved loved loved this monsoon season. They needed to be sprayed, involving purchases of new chemicals and equipment. Sprayers and chemicals do not last long around here. Once the weeds were dead, we had to  wait for lower temperatures to combine with any semblance of ambition to get them mostly removed from the lawn. The amount of new green indicated just how effective the weedkiller was(n't). But a tree needed pruning, a bush cut way back, lots of plants relocated because now really is the time for it. Dead spiky branches and stabbing yucca leaves needed removal. Two inches of rain just last weekend meant battles with the dog who routinely refused to go outside for the next three days unless dragged on her leash. I hate to think how she'd react to an actual bath. All of those things and more claimed depleted reservoirs of energy. So it's only now that the contact with the insurance company happened.

It didn't spur me along to know that I hadn't added a special rider for that ring. I know it wouldn't be more than partially covered. I also knew there is a deductible, but not a high one. For the stolen camcorder I looked up replacement cost online, meaning looking at a refurbished used one on eBay. Several came up with the same price so I set my expectations there. The insurance company figured differently, defining replacement value as the cost of a new one since it is still being made. So a little bit of better news. I was told to just go get the screen repaired and bring back a bill, my choice of vendors. I picked the local hardware store, one of a national chain. The stolen coins get counted at face value, period, and the person on the phone exchanged her story of their coin jar. She understood how quickly those add up. If I weren't honest, I could have quoted a much higher price on that.

The only weird part of our conversation was having to explain to her what exactly a lift chair is. That was the 2nd  biggest expense, since the rental company declared it unable to be sent back out for somebody else to use. In turning it back in to them, we had to cover their full cost by a "donation". That also had to be explained.

Now we wait again. In about a week, their appraiser will look at the ring appraisal and photo and determine its value. Whatever it is, it won't be fully covered. Maybe a third unless it's appreciated a bunch since 2017.  Gold, diamonds and larger stones? I have no hope and little ambition of trying to replace it. With luck, there will be enough to cover what Steve thinks is fair return on the lift chair, sharing the deductible between us, with a balance good enough to replace that warped front door so it can securely lock. With more luck the next strong north wind won't blow it wide open. The security door outside it should do its own good job of securing the house. But after all, it's the windows which have proven vulnerable. We'll double check those window locks next summer, change the house keys, hoping that will keep us more secure.

Well, that plus the stupidity of the burglar who doesn't know the real value of what's inside except for what has already been taken. But most of that is too bulky to remove easily. Trash it, sure. Take? Not stealthily. I'll consider a rider or two on the policy.

By the way, Rich is busy these days making plans for taking down the drone that somebody has been using to get up close to the house. We have video of its shadow crossing over the hood of the car inside the carport at night under the light. Steve no longer suspects Rich is a bit paranoid. I've been thinking setting mist nets. Tangle it.  Rich has been planning his own little EMP machine. Kill it. 

Our Canadian neighbors returned last night and we all had a conversation this morning about what's been happening. They are now warned, among other things, to take the car instead of their golf cart to the grocery store since those have been getting stolen right out of the parking lot in as little as five minutes out of the owner's sight. Seems those buggers all use the same keys. 

Whose brilliant idea was that?

I'm starting to see them in the rec center parking lot with a "boot" attached like city cops put on cars with violations. These are by the owners, of course. Presumably each has a different key than the rest.

FOX "News" Killing Off Its Own Viewers Faster Than The Rest Of Us

Who'd a thunk it?  I mean besides all the rest of us. And the reason is obvious to all the rest of us, despite disclaimers about researchers scratching their (obviously balding as a result) heads trying to figure out just why it's been happening, now that they've finally crunched their numbers and discovered what we all figured must be true.

It's covid, of course. Sure. Lots of folks have died from it. Still are, in fact, at a rate maintaining at about 400 - 500 per day, to the surprise of the blissfully uninformed. The rate is also expected to climb back up to around a thousand a day this winter, when we all get to crowd together in sealed, heated buildings again, and the latest worrisome variant is settling in to take its toll. Yes, rest assured it is out there and it's known to those studying variants around the planet. (The good news to us non-FOX-viewers is that the bivalent booster shot should fight it. Funny thing though: it has to be injected first. Microchips and all.)

So, you ask, pretending you don't know the answer, just how is FOX killing off its viewers in higher numbers than the rest of us? Let's start with over two and a half years of minimizing it, calling it a hoax, scaring its viewers with allegations of weird shit in the vaccines, including microchips that supposedly Bill Gates or Microsoft can use to follow us around more easily with than they already can with our own cell phones, cars, and computer usage. Especially all that highly personal stuff we share on FaceBook, etc., etc., etc. 

Since that isn't sufficient by itself, FOX has been promoting the latest quack remedies being sold by the latest cons (Sponsors? You decide!) without any data that would indicate, say, that swallowing bleach is safe (hint: NOPE!) or an anti-malarial drug or anti parasitic drug for horses would be of any use whatsoever. (Again, hint: NOPE!) They've turned masking into some form of slavery, and made it all so political that their (ahem: idiot) viewers absolutely refuse to do any of the things that actually would keep themselves and their families safe, or at least way less likely to die from covid. They're not even talking at all about the debilitating effects of long covid, in many cases still lasting years after the initial illness.

The rest of us are actually taking the latest medical advice (mostly), and getting vaccinated on a reasonable schedule (mostly), and (some of us) are even continuing to mask indoors in crowds, and do those other simple things that also keep us from - hey, would you believe it? - colds and influenza, poised to attack this upcoming season with a vengeance because so very few of us now have any lingering antibodies against it from either previous vaccinations or recent survivable cases. 

Now if FOX decides it's a good business model to continue to keep killing off its viewers faster than the rest of us, and hasn't yet been convinced by their corporate sponsors that this has an actual downside, they must have gotten addicted to drinking their own Kool-Aid. (Is this considered a bonus? Like the high from other addictions?)

I'm not actually aware of any 12-step program that's geared towards fighting that. And I've consciously decided that I'm not about to try to develop/adapt one either. I even suspect that Darwin would recognize the downsides to trying to intervene to change willing stupidity in an already overcrowded population.

But hey, the rest of you out there? There's a very important election coming up. GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!!!!!  We can take advantage of the consequences of FOX thinning their herd.

"Scam Likely"

That's what shows up on my phone's caller ID for more than half my incoming calls. Nearly all of them are from investors wanting to buy the house.  Not only do we not want to sell, period, we both are angry at how investors are treating the area, buying up properties, doing the slightest fix-up, then flipping them to other investors who want to rent these homes out for outlandish rates. We'd dearly love more (good) neighbors, the kind who stick around most of the time, who own and take pride in their property and the neighborhood, and most of all, who occupy the homes instead of leaving over half of them obviously vacant.

I've developed a shortcut on these calls. Once they ask if I'm me and I confirm I am, I simply add that if it's about buying the house, it's not for sale. This one went a step further. After a pause, she asked if I had any other properties I'd like to sell.

Unable to resist, I asked her if she'd buy the Brooklyn Bridge. After just the slightest pause, she answered, "Yes." 

I'm pretty sure she heard me laughing as I hung up.

I wonder how long it will take her to get it.

Tall Building Syndrome

Nope, not talking about  bad air from sealed windows. Nor dizziness where tall building sway in a stiff wind. Nor poorly built buildings cracking and crumbling from improper materials and illegal cost saving measures. No, this to date is always deadly, but from none of those things. But they do say it's becoming more popular lately. 

Particularly in Russia.

It seems many of Putin's ... uh... friends are succumbing to the malady. Early symptoms include a difference of opinion over the invasion of Ukraine. These can advance very quickly if the early symptoms are not squelched immediately, it is widely believed, though the length of efficacy in preventing the malady from progressing may vary.  Disagreement exists on whether prevention is even possible given today's state of medicine.

Should symptoms not be tended to immediately, more severe symptoms progress from falls from a great height, followed shortly (despite a possible lack of discernible breathing at this point) by the victim tumbling down multiple flights of stairs, although the mobility necessary for bring those symptoms on have not been clearly defined at this point and must be investigated further. Fortunately for scientists, there are an increasing number of subjects available for scholarly study. 

Finally, in the most extreme cases, these desperately ill individuals work their way outside these tall buildings and under the path of a passing bus. The mess is said to be quite unpleasant, with many witnesses fearing contagion.

Studies thus far have not indicated that wearing an N95 mask or similar can help prevent this malady from spreading, as they have not been found strong enough, nor sufficiently finely woven to prevent words of disagreement with Putin from passing the poor souls' mouths in time to avoid the contagion. Little hope exists for the efficacy of ivermectin, nor bleach rinses, though fluorescent light bulbs roughly shoved down the patient's throat show some promise of preventing the initiating symptom. Opinions vary on whether it is to be recommended, however.

Scientists of unquestionable loyalty towards Putin are studying the malady. It is possible the illness can be prevented from becoming an epidemic, but you may have to hold your breath while waiting.

Weirdness

Now, you might think that because I'm writing this during a haboob which is throwing a great party in our neighborhood, that the haboob is what I'm writing about.  ....(Oops, brief pause to shut the front door and brace it.) .... But this is ordinary enough that it's the second one I've seen turn our sky brown and limit visibility to the backs of yards across the street. Interesting. Not weird. Add annoying.

Now, the .... (oops, brief pause to block the front door again) ... issue at hand is making me wonder if I hallucinate or we have a slightly haunted house. .....(oops, another pause, same cause)....

I am very reluctant to credit any ghost, even though Steve's family has their own ghost story, verified by multiples of them, and I'm not about to say they didn't see and do what he says they did. ...(Drat that door!).....  

I'd fallen asleep in my recliner one afternoon a couple days back, tickled that Steve has a new/used lift chair and I have my own recliner back.What I saw came in the boundary between opening my eyes and being startled into full awareness. She was an old woman, very short, round in figure, bent over as some will do in their old age, her total height a bit shorter than mine in the chair. Her wispy strings of white hair poked out from under a pink hat, the short glimpse fighting with my memory as to whether it was a bandana or a stocking knit cap, no brim. Her shirt was red, 3/4 sleeves with a small (flowered) pattern sparsely sprinkled over it, and grey pants ended just below her knees. In the time it took me to react to the invader in the house, she took about three steps right in front of me, from slightly to my left to right in front of me. She was in a hurry... to vanish, apparently. She was also cranky. Whatever her errand was, she didn't want to be stopped. The entire ... experience? ... was somewhere between two and three seconds, and with my inrush of adrenaline, over.

Unexplained. Totally weird.

I tried in retrospect unsucessfully to find a border between before, during, and after. Whether I was awake or not, my eyes were focused on the same spot throughout. There was no audio on my soundtrack. Internal or external, something happened. I have no opinion on the matter. Except to say it was indellible. I will be wondering who she "was" and where she "came from". I know I'm not the first old lady in this house, but I also know the most recent one died miles away in a care facility. I know of nobody in my history that resembles her in any way or shape, so can't say she reminded me of _____.

For now I'll just chalk it up to the weird column in life's experiences, with a whimsical wish that if she's real, she might help discourage the real intruders gaining entry to the house.