Ahhhhh, Finding My Music Again!

 This started in an email conversation with a friend who was a concert pianist, retired with severe back issues, and is still in demand for concerts in her local group of friends and associates... at 94. They want full concerts. She's thinking perhaps 20 minutes. As somebody who's known too much pain in my own life. I tossed my encouragement into the ring that she do what she loved and what she can, and stop there. If they need more they can find other people with other musical skills and fewer infirmities. 

One of her points was that the music wasn't just playing the notes, it was the beauty and meaning behind it. I never managed to produce good music - just ask my band teachers or senior-high choir director who insisted I needed to sing through my nose! - but could harmonize well singing. I was a dependable second soprano. As for an instrument, my parents picked out the coronet for both my brother and me, which neither of us really took to. I stayed in band because its big thing was marching. I could do that, keep rhythm and straight lines, and follow the formations out on the football field easily. As for music, I have always appreciated what other people made, with the strong exception of family birthday parties where each member follows their own tune and no two people blended. YIKES! OUCH!!!!! (Sorry, family, if you resemble that remark. Maybe not so much if you can't tell.)

Early musical education was school and church choirs. In school itself I recall two pieces we were taught: The William Tell Overture (aka the Lone Ranger theme) and "In the Hall Of The Mountain King". Later, when TV finally arrived in my life, there were the Merry Melodies cartoons, where one could watch Bugs Bunny swaying on the back of a mule into the Grand Canyon accompanied by Ferde Grofe's music. Occasionally in the church hymnal a name popped up over a hymn, like Bach. Or a holiday concert presented The Messiah," which Daddy commented he used to sing baritone for in his church when younger. I never had the opportunity to sing it, or even a selection.

In short, I had the typical woefully ignorant musical upbringing American kids were presented.

At some point I discovered Beethoven, or at least the name, and when Reader's Digest (typical in-home reading fare) offered the collection of his 9 symphonies in a boxed collection of 33rpm records, I asked for it. And got it. The only issue was no record player, so for my 12th birthday I got one. Then, having a few days home from school after an appendectomy, and hearing Peter Paul and Mary introduced to the/my world singing "Lemon Tree" on the Today Show, I took my tiny stash of get-well cash to the local record store and bought that album. I had just enough left for another inexpensive record, asked the owner what, since I liked Beethoven, he would recommend that I might like. He suggested Tchaikovsky's 4th, likely because it wasn't selling. I took both albums home and played both relentlessly, the Tchaikovsky driving my older brother nuts! In defense, it did sound best when LOUD. He thought it sounded best when silent. Oh well. He's had decades of not hearing it since then.

Years passed, I mostly stuck with classical and folk. No rock & roll for me, no Beetles, but yes mostly to PPM, Smothers Brothers, Chad  Mitchel Trio, and Christmas collections. Once or twice Andy Williams. I can still hear in my mind "and roses and roses and roses of love." My brother might also in a fever dream or nightmare. (Sorry.)

Adult life brought little income and less time to listen to "MY" music. Eventually I found a career behind the wheel of a car, still not much help as we were obliged to listen to dispatching radio, not car radio even if it had been playing my musical choices. Life changed the day the company switched to computer dispatching. We could turn on our car radios again!  Being in Minnesota, I finally discovered public radio! Depending on my mood, I could listen to reliable news or classical music, wherever in the state I was.

A whole new world opened up to me! The musical selections were properly announced: name, composer, orchestra, and interesting tidbits behind the creation of the music, the composer, or even the occasion the recording was played for and recorded from. (Ever heard of Prince Albert Hall? I finally did.) I learned about Joshua Bell and Yo-Yo Ma, Rodrigo, Rachmaninoff,  and so many others. As funding allowed, once my car had a DVD player, I started bringing my own new favorite selections with me, so stepping out of the car no longer meant loosing chunks of a piece but merely an interruption.

I decided never to apologize for my listening choices. Especially not for them not being the current rage, like heavy metal, or rap, or for not "following" whatever current trend or artist that "everybody" loved. Lady Who? What football star's famous girlfriend Taylor Something?

The email conversation reminded me of one piece of music I hadn't heard in years. I fell in love with it for both the music and the odd driving beat. It's one by Rimsky-Korsakov, known to most only for writing Scheherazade. This one is Russian Easter Overture, sometimes with the word "Festival" inserted. It varies between a lyrical musical theme, and that unique driving beat, eventually combining them. I could play that to distraction as well, but again life intervened, between heated storage damaging CDs and other issues and activities. 

Having been reminded of the piece, I Googled it, found it on YouTube... and played it. Twice, of course. It's under 15 minutes. I also bookmarked it for future enjoyment. I suggest it for you if you haven't been introduced yet. There may be a potential new fan out there.

Meanwhile I think it's time to hunt up some Rachmaninoff Second Piano..... Or hey, have lunch! It's gotten late! Bye!

The Doubter Found Proof

Steve is full of stories about his family. His father worked for construction companies which dragged the family all over the western half of the country. It was a boon for learning geography and loving the Rockies, but tough when his schools changed much too often. His Mom and older sister were his heroes in many ways, doing things like arranging for him to play trumpet with Satchmo on a bar stage after official closing while he was still legally too young to be there (but Sis's date was a policeman and made it officially OK by supervising him), or when hearing that a school fundraiser / bake sale had no cakes to offer, stayed up all night to bake and frost a dozen of them, no cake or frosting the same as any other. His younger brother was born when he was in his middle teens, and Steve treasures a photo them both at Four Corners, elder spanking younger in four states at once.

He also was born early enough to hear stories from "Gramps", his greatgrandfather, about his mother dying on the Cherokee Trail of Tears when he was just a baby. The babe was then rescued by a George Hibbs who raised him as his son. Steve heard those stories over and over until they became locked in his identity, part of his history, another story he had in his pocket to entertain and enlighten people he met. Eventually the ancestral line passed through his mother, one of many children, providing him with numerous cousins, some of whom embraced the story, while others denied it. By then being white was their identity and family story. Steve held fast to Gramps's stories, listening to them as close to the original source as was available to him.

In his early 20s, his mother, along with an aunt and her young daughter, were killed when their vehicle went off a steep mountain curve. Excessive speed for the curve was considered to be the cause, and the three are buried in a cemetery in Montrose, CO. We visit it when going through the area and he buys flowers for his Mom. Fortunately his little brother was in a different vehicle with their father, and his sister had left the nuclear family for the Marines. Steve was old enough at that time to also be independent of the family's moves, working his way through college.

By the time I started hearing Steve's stories, he and his brother were states apart, their father remarried and had more children. I met him when he was in a nursing home. We were on a trip out west - just friends then. Eventually I met his new siblings at a huge family reunion years later, still just very good friends, and got a feel for how united and yet how scattered the family had grown. Nobody seemed interested in some old story about some unlikely ancestor, though Steve clung to it. He'd grown up listening to Gramps and the stories, and he believed. His younger brother, now out in Utah and raising his own family, would argue with him about them being just stories. It had grown"fashionable" and "interesting" to a lot of people to claim some Native American connection, and just as popular to totally debunk any such connections. 

His little brother was one of the debunkers. Being Mormon, and working for years in the ancestry records that the church was collecting, he'd found no connection to any of Steve's tales. Now finally retired, even more busy with church duties, he was digging deeper, following more leads. Last night he surprised his big brother with a phone call, laying out the chain of connections he's finally found that prove to his satisfaction the the Cherokee ancestry is valid. He and Steve are both  1/32 Cherokee, along with all their relatives connected to their mother's large family. I know one of those cousins- and his wife -  as we stop there most time we travel anywhere near Rocky Mountain National Park. They live on the flatland east of it and offer great hospitality when we can stop by. Steve's kids are 1/64th, and at least one is happy with the "official" validation. 

Steve is now looking into seeing what is needed to put the family into the rolls. There is no expectation of benefits from the heritage, like some tribal members get, say, in Alaska. It's more of a declaration of acceptance, that they are really family, that one lost to the tribe on the Trail went on to have  a full like and produce more generations that were lost.

There is also a teeny bit, brother to brother, of "I always told you so!"

The Old Tree

Steve recently changed doctors, not because he found any fault with the one both of us connected with when we relocated to this area, but because his insurance company announced it was parting ways with him - he'd had an expensive year - and the company he located to replace them informed him his current doc was "out of network".

And they call this "Advantage" Medicare! Advantage only to them of course. The approved doc is only half the distance away from us, and she also is approved by this year's insurance. Since he'd be covered visiting her immediately, he went to his "get acquainted" new doctor visit, and has been getting his lab work there now as well. Even better, instead of the former clinic having only two handicap parking slots, meaning many times I drop him at the door and go find distant parking, now he leaves the car one space either side of the  new clinic's front door, simply making it easier for both of us, since I can assist him inside if needed, or out when he's feeling drained.

They have a large lobby right as you walk in, which has a wall-sized set of windows in its waiting room facing the same lake we're around a curve on. Irregularities of the shoreline mean we can't see the clinic from home, nor home from the clinic. But what we can see through that huge window area is an old tree near the lakeshore. In our two visits, I've never seen a leaf on it. Just the "bones" of that magnificent old survivor, if survivor is what it is. It was already fall for our first visit, so I can't tell if it shed its leaves weeks ago, or years ago. 

From the window it's downhill, standing in front of the rest of the shore, the lake, the far side still holding muted color in scattered trees, but mostly the ever moving clouds, some frustrated artist rearranging  the tree's background minute by minute. The area is cleared well around it, so it owns that piece of shore.

 It caught my eye the moment we walked in for the first visit. It held its spot in memory for the weeks we were away, reminding me to bring the camera this time, knowing I'd never be content if I didn't have a chance to capture it as it was, as it changed. I didn't manage to catch the small flock of crows except in memory as they flew in, landed, and promptly left for better foraging elsewhere, though as they flew off, the tree stood strong, independent, a testament only of itself once unbothered, and proud in its silence once more. 

I did capture that.

I'm looking forward to it wearing winter.

AI... Predictably Stupid

Maybe it's the programmers, repeating the same mistakes. Maybe it's the website holders deciding they need more MONEY! MONEY! MONEY!

Maybe I'm just grumpier these days as the computer keeps getting more and more tangled up with "improvements" - like when cell phones claiming to be "smart" keep trying to become so.

It's not a new pattern. Especially with advertisers, my particular beef of the day. My beef is about what they believe is their pork. Let's go back to when I bought my last car, 2013. Immediately I got swamped with ads for buying all kinds of other new cars. Seriously, folks? I just bought a new one, have a modest but livable budget, and you think this is the time to deluge me with MORE NEW CAR ADS? Back then, if that's what passes for human intelligence, no wonder people started looking for artificial intelligence. I'm just still surprised that they think they've found/developed it.

What a shame they programmed it - when they figured out how to program it - using the same idiot mistakes as before. I bought something once, so obviously I'm in the market for lots and lots more of "whatevers".

BTW, I still own and drive that car. It still gets great mileage. Insurance is cheap enough and so are license tabs. It's had a couple repairs. A new one's price has tripled since then. No way I'm in the market for a new one. Not even a new-to-me used one. If any intelligence lived out in the advertising world, you might have considered additives to improve what I had. Cheaper, but handy, like the nice steering wheel cover I added to protect hands from extreme heat or cold. Or later, the set belt extenders I put in when the old ones - very well used - started to gum up instead of rolling smoothly. The new extenders for both front seats are absolutely perfect and about a 15th of the price for both than to replace a single belt. It's called"aftermarket" for a reason! Get creative! Or stop claiming intelligence!!!! Go find a useful job somewhere, please, for both our sakes.

My recent gripe is being inundated with ads now wherever I go, enough to crowd out the window I'm trying to work in. Good thing Blogspot hasn't jumped on that bandwagon... yet? First case in point comes from having misplaced a very special vest, polar fleece heavy enough to be more than decorative, bought during a trip to Alaska with my youngest son and my granddaughter when she was in high school. I know I still had it last year. I searched my closets again and again looking for it, my frustration trying to convince me I'd somehow missed it, perhaps having it share a hanger with something else, something I never do. Maybe it fell on the floor? Nope. I tried to find out if the company selling it those decades ago was still in business and still had them. Nope, or at least no online presence. Then I went generically online looking for heavy duty polar fleece vests. 

Still no joy. Topping it off, I'm now besieged with ads for all kind of MEN'S outerwear. Do the marketing idiots believe only men need good warm outerwear? Have they never experienced winters? Not only did I not find anything resembling the previous purchase, the forthcoming ads weren't supplying them either, not even at 4x the price! Nobody reads the word "fleece"? Had anybody had it the first time I likely would already have bought one!  Idiots! And had I bought one, I'd no need for two. Those last forever... until they go walkabout.

That's not an isolated event. If you're following me, you know I just completed a large project that is to become EVERYBODY's Christmas present this year, just variations based on the recipient. Completed means not only are they all ordered, I'm told by UPS they will be delivered to me tomorrow. The plan first was to split the order, spending half this month and half next, but the ordering process was challenging enough just to get started that I decided while I was doing it and had assistance, I'd just go ahead and finish it at one go. Then I wouldn't need to recall the little tricks for getting perfection or a facsimile thereof when next ordering the other half. I'd worried about weight of a single box with all in it, but instead I've arranged for assistance to bring it in off the porch. Looking ahead at weather reports, having it on the porch for a few hours shouldn't be a problem for the goods or the box. And besides, our helper can reset our highest wall clock back to standard time, since we can't reach it. (It's perfect for its spot. We aren't.) And he's good company, that son of mine.

Now knowing what I was planning with my order, and the size of it, it is possible to assume I'm wealthy I suppose, or perhaps a shop owner, and will continue to place orders like it on a regular basis, like daily, based on the fact that everywhere I go online that isn't already smothered in outerwear ads is now smothered in ads from various companies for what I just ordered, despite how erroneous that assumption is. Amazing how many companies like that there are. As for me, I'm looking at the bill for this time, and even accounting for elimination shipping costs for that sized order, wondering if I'll ever do that again! Some even have to be shipped out again, with family spread as wide as it is. This may forever be a one-off.

The ads are even messing up my email, which was already messed up enough because that company just changed everything, making decisions for me on what I did and didn't want to see, where I wanted to have it located, and now using the spaces I used to have for spillover and/or more space to view enlarged thumbnails as a sidebar of pictures I get sent by family, to fill them with ads instead. OK, you young folks out there with good eyesight, when the thumbnail comes in the size of keys on my laptop, and is supposed to show a group of people at a family birthday party, even if only three are in the group, and there's no way left to me any more to preview the shots in a larger format, can you actually still see them? I can't, and my trifocals are still in really great condition. I could go over to Facebook to view them since the sender posts all kinds of pictures of family there, and Steve actually does go there. I shouldn't have to. I don't use it. I don't like it. I worry about parents of young children posting photos for the world to access, no matter what protections one thinks are in place. Where do you think advertisers get their ideas for sending ads?

I have so many issues with my email system changes that I'm contemplating changing my service and address. The current email company has been my always company, if you consider the earliest small company  - frontiernet.net - got dumped by the phone company Frontier which originated them and sent us all over to the larger company, Yahoo. Basically nothing changed in that process. The new changes were sprung on us years later without notice. 

But hey, they ask for feedback! 

Whoopeeee!

It's just a tiny form they  give me to fill something in. I just add a new complaint each time I head over there. Nothing has changed/improved there. So....  what? I'm unique in the world?  LOL! How about they pay no attention? Maybe they will if enough of us complain about wanting our email to be ..... just email! Something we control for where incoming stuff goes, their choice between visible and hidden. A place where we can delete spam by our own choice instead of thinking people dropped communicating with us because the system decided we don't want to hear from them despite incoming email being the reply to outgoing! Not to mention a place where something once deleted isn't saved in the system anyway, not just the sender for future deletions, for so long after being deleted that I suddenly have 3,000 plus old ones clogging my world that it takes me hours to get rid of them individually AGAIN! And I can't  even trust now they ever went away!

Does it take somebody as old as I am to recall that "yahoo" used to be a way of describing somebody as clueless, rustic, even stupid?  For you younger folks, never call one of us geezers a "Yahoo" unless you want to face the consequences! Meanwhile Yahoo email seems to be trying to live down to its name.

When whoever runs a system as badly as that, decided to let ads come in and cover half their formerly usable space, let them run mindlessly with ads no longer relevant in one's life or budget, I conclude only a whole lot of stupid is at work out there. Whether I'm correct in thinking AI or actual humans are at work behind those scenes now, the original sources are stupid humans.  That makes it predictable. 

GIGO still rules.

Out The Morning Window

 This was our first frost this fall, very late for here. We just barely hit freezing, and was forecast to do so, making me decide to head out the night before to both empty and bring inside our rain gauge, which over the last couple of weeks has accumulated another two inches of badly needed rain in dribs and drabs, none individually worth emptying the gauge for.  I was kind to the garden spot it was perched on, and drained the water out there to make up for what was blocked. The gauge is now inside for the winter. Freezing water likely would break it.

With standard time back again, it's easier to get morning views of what's going out the window. I can sleep in a bit and not miss things. Today was almost a miracle, the first cloudless morning in what was starting to seem like forever. Lots of clouds, not enough for rain, way too many to see stars, seem to have been the rule for forever.

Today we have blue skies, no wind (yet), and two directions of large window views of the morning. Straight west the next roof over is the same level as ours despite the slight hill, dark grey shingles which turn black when wet. Many days we see crows pausing on it, though recently there has been an actual raven! This morning instead of wildlife their roof was covered with frost. 

As the sun climbed the frost sparkled, starting from the peak and slowly inching down as it cleared our roof. With no wind and no leaves on that roof, it was our heads moving that brought out the sparkles the frost produced. I wondered how long before the frost all melted. Just after the show eased its way down to the gutters the roof warmed enough to briefly go wet black,  then back to a dry grey. The sparkles were done.

Out the large window to the north, across the street and behind the home in our view, a huge tree resides. It has provided entertainment since we moved in, with fanned out branches gracefully curving away from the main trunk and each other, and then down to the sides, a superhighway for squirrels to play in, chasing each other back and forth and back again, usually in threes. It's not one of the trees with nests in it, just their playground. The closest nest is two large trees uphill from it, and our view of where they go in either direction from the tree we watch is blocked while in our chairs by the limits of the window.

Fall turned the tree a bright solid yellow gold. As it's on private property, I haven't gone to check any leaves for species information, but there are lots of maples and oaks in the neighborhood which it definitely isn't. The bark is too dark for aspen or birch, the leaves to fat for willow, so we satisfy ourselves with just enjoying it.

 Recent rains and winds have knocked about 3/4 of its; leaves off. We watched then steadily drop under light rain yesterday morning, with a light breeze carrying them across roofs and onto mown grass., even onto the paved street. This morning there is not a whisper of breeze - yet -  but they still drop. A small dark bird is hopping from spot to spot, searching, and moving on. Leaves still cover much of the roof directly under it, with more on the grass and pavement everywhere on that side of the street. We don't seem to have been "blessed" by any of them.

However, yesterday when I returned home from shopping, at the home straight across from ours, plenty of noise drew my attention to that neighbor's yard. Enough leaves had dropped that she had already hired somebody with a blower to round up the leaves for bagging. After looking at the leaves on her grass that the fellow with the blower hadn't gotten to yet, and then looking up at how many were left on her neighbor's tree,  I just thought to myself. "Yup. she'll be having to hire that done again this season!" A quick step out with my camera this morning proved my point. 

Our yard? The hydrangeas are dropping yellow leaves as well as holding on to them. I have definite plans to ignore them all... except maybe with a camera, which I've already used to document their fall color changes last week. We'll see.

My Other Civic Duty

 It was raining, should all day, and totals here are expected for .01 inch per hour. Judging by how drenched I am, the amount of rain running down the street, and how fast the rain is knocking yellow leaves off trees as witnessed from the living room window, they are wayyyyyy wrong on that amount.

It's all good. We still need it. And we went and voted anyway.  For most elections the city hall, our precinct's location, is stocked with election workers and devoid of voters that time in the morning. Today, in the rain, both of their parking lots and the street were full. That included handicap parking spaces. I dropped Steve off by the door and found a spot where somebody was leaving. That was our first planned-as-mandatory civic duty, come rain, shine, or ... well, that blizzard year wasn't an election year, so blizzards haven't actually been tested yet. We always vote anyway, but this time it's IMPORTANT!!!

We want our DEMOCRACY back! 

This month our second half of our property taxes are due. The first half was paid on time, a quick walk into the county courthouse, another town over.  As usual I enter talking my way out of the metal detector due to my pacemaker and letting them decide what they need to do in order to clear me. This is usually nothing besides emptying pockets and opening the other door for me, the one not holding the metal detector. I must have an honest face... or something. I usually start the process by introducing myself as that pesky lady with a pacemaker who can't go through their detector, back again. Maybe they have a sense of humor. Or maybe they recognize me by now. Or think my age makes me harmless. On the last, they're pretty well on point. I save my ammo for writing. So far that's still legal.

Over at the Auditor's window, I noted the that clerk assisting me was eying my "I VOTED" sticker, and just said I was here for my other civic duty, paying my property taxes. Somehow the sheet for my second half got misplaced, but a name and address was all that was needed, plus my phone number. I could do it online, but that requires a credit card, and they add 3% for that. These days this is about the only thing I use checks for. I say "about" but I can't come up with another use at the moment. I got those checks when we first moved back to MN and two are now used from this pad.  I was still using the old pad, same bank account but two addresses ago, and only for this.

Anyway, while drying out and writing this, I looked at our rain gauge. So far, while the weather site still insists we're getting .01 inches an hour, the gauge is sitting up just at the one inch mark. 

We'll take it.

A Spooky Wellness Visit

 We were sound asleep, around 5AM this morning. Knock! Knock! Knock!

Huh? 

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Wha...?

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!!!!

Steve from his room: "Can you go get that?"

I groggily pulled myself up from bed to walk over to the front door. A new set of knocks was starting so I yelled as loudly as I could with my morning dry mouth, "COMING!"

The knocking stopped. As I came around the corner to the living room I could see light outside moving around the vertical window, covered by a sheer curtain for privacy. As I unlocked the front door and opened it, I was greeted by a local policeman.

"Is Steve here?" 

Since I'd heard him call for me to open the door, I knew he was, and alive and well. It just takes him a lot longer to get himself up and and dressed enough to answer a door. I'm the one who wears old soft comfy clothes to bed. I agreed that he was here and invited the cop inside.

He informed me that they had gotten a call from his ex wife that his blood sugar was high.

Say what?

As I led him to Steve's room, a thousand  questions blew through my mind wondering what was going on. First, she lives six towns away, rarely communicates with either of us except at large family gatherings where everything is always civil. But how would she know anything about his blood sugar? Especially when I didn't? And Steve apparently didn't? The only things he has which could alert anybody to a medical problem, if one were happening, would be his cell phone, normally out in the living room so as not to disturb his sleep, or a life-alert type necklace which when bumped starts calling their network to ascertain what kind of problem needs a response.  So far it has given several calls out to their own system while he is trying frantically to negate the call after he simply moved abruptly, so we both are familiar with that and how it works. His wife is NEVER on the call list, though his daughter is. He usually doesn't wear it to bed, since that's its recharging time. And it doesn't have a clue what his blood sugar is any more than I have a clue what mine is without a little needle jab and a reading from a corresponding meter. Nothing in this house sets off an alert regarding blood sugar! Not for him, not for me. Neither of us has heard of such a gizmo. We're both at the morning monitoring stage and mindful.

Was something medically wrong with his ex? This was still "wee hours" for us. But her medical status is precarious, after a couple of strokes. She requires a wheelchair most of the time, though can manage a few steps on her own. He daughter lives in her own apartment in the same building and keeps track of her mother, assisting in a number of ways throughout the day, every day. She can obviously get to her phone by herself, and unlike us, keeps it nearby at night. (We prefer sleep, and the other one is always at hand unless in the hospital.)  But why on earth would she think he was having a medical emergency regarding his blood sugar? Was it a very vivid nightmare? Was she in trouble making her delusional?

By the time Steve was up and dressed, the cop was joined by an ambulance crew. Steve, perfectly mobile, offered to head down to the family room where he keeps his medications and various accessories. First he took his own blood sugar reading. 106! Best we've both seen from him in practically forever! He also showed them his phone to establish he'd never made an outgoing call to her in the night. (In fact a later check showed he hadn't since early September. ) I even checked my phone and verified she had made a call to my phone, also kept way separate from me while I sleep, and she had.

All agreed he hadn't prank called his ex, and nobody suspected she'd prank called 911 about him. The ambulance crew, seeing his blood sugar level, left once they were reassured of being unneeded, after a brief discussion about getting a lock box on the door with a key the police department or fire department would have the code to. 

How the call came about will be getting looked into, both on their end and ours. Steve has contacted his ex with reassurance that he is fine, and she insists her phone shows an incoming call from him, while his has no record of an outgoing call, which he showed the cop and ambulance crew. We both expressed our appreciation for their prompt response, had there been any kind of emergency, and our ongoing appreciation for their assistance for previous falls. In a while he will be calling their daughter to have her check in on her mom and check her mom's phone to see what she can find out.

Big Brouhaha!

 I just have to wonder why, some days. In this case, why does the endorsement, or withdrawal of such, make such an impact with the powers that be, hoping that by publicizing it, they can make such a difference in how people vote.

In this case, the loser of a Michigan congressional  primary battle, (former Democrat) Haley Stevens comes out against the person who beat her, Dr. Abdul Al Sayed. First she endorsed him. Now she doesn't. Everybody is blowing up over it, at least verbally, according to news reports. No telling yet if anybody is listening aside from those needing to find some news to report. Tuesday night should show the results. Meanwhile.....

My first  question is, since she lost the primary, who cares about her opinion and/or endorsement, especially when that endorsement was first given to the one who beat her in her own party, but now just bestowed to the political opponent in the opposite party who's opposing him, plus presumably everything she stood for?

Next, why so close to the election when it's too late for so many early voters to be influenced? Is she looking for some kind of favors from the former opposition party if the contest swings their way? Why would they trust her in any position of worth she might be looking for? I sure wouldn't!

She's framing opposing her former opposition who beat her in the primary as a way to support "the Jews".  I call "bullshit" on that reasoning. It's no more than sour grapes and fear mongering.  Dr. Abdul Al Sayed  (OMG! With that name he must be the Boogeyman!) is opposing the politics of Israel. You know what? I do too! I blame Netanyahu, fighting in a way designed to kill a nation over the reprehensible actions of a political group, the admittedly criminal act of kidnapping a large group of people.  But Netanyahu's bombing civilians indiscriminately, starving children and non combatants, leveling hospitals full of sick and injured as well as their medical staffs, and promising to let food aid in while closing the borders to just such aid.... I could go on. And on. Most societies call those war crimes. Few angels on either side, but no excuse for the brutality working to eliminate a people. The world has chosen to have rules for conducting war. That groups violate those rules does not justify the extremes of either side! Locate and punish the perpetrators, not their world. Difficulty is not an excuse for wiping out a people or nation, or trying to.

I'm not a Jew. Nor a Christian. Nor Muslin. Nor Hindu, Buddhist,  nor a whole list of other widely known and generally respected religions. As I've said many times before, I'm agnostic, waiting to see what/whether anything comes along after death, holding my actions now in this life to have much more meaning than words on a page or chants/songs/prayers from any belief system.  Most of those beliefs from every source tell us to be kind to one another and honest in our doings. People, being people, often disregard those teachings rather than being guided by them, and in those cases I don't hold the beliefs to be wrong, just the people to be weak ...to be kind. Stronger words often are applied, of course.

The Jews I have known are neither better or worse than, say Christians. Nor are the Muslims. They deserve all the good things that come their way as much as anybody else. But to hate Jews because of Netanyahu makes exactly as much sense as hating all Americans because of Trump, or Russians because of Putin, or North Koreans because of Kim Jung Un. In a word: none! Refusal to comply with wrong orders comes with penalties, but still is possible. It shows who you are, not what your religion or nationality is.

Haley, you lost! Sit down, shut up, and go away gracefully! Or just sit down and shut up! Find a way to be actually useful, not a problem. This isn't it.

Will This Election Season PLEASE END?

 First, yes we plan to vote, on the day of, in our small town where crowds just don't exist in mid-morning. Most times we head in we are outnumbered by poll workers. From parking to driving away it takes all of ten minutes. OK, maybe more if nobody sees that Steve needs a hand getting out of their very low chairs set out for "help" for those mildly disabled, the ones who don't need to come from their vehicle in their own mobility transportation. He can walk in, but for the decisions and marking the ballot he needs a break, sitting. Then he needs a helper. Sometimes I need to request one for him. The place is often so slow the poll workers are off chatting about weather, or crops, or some sports game, or how sad they are this fishing season is over. Good thing those conversations are easily interrupted.

Our decisions were made months ago, for all candidates with a party affiliation. Nothing airing on TV is going to change our minds. We stay informed all year, every year. So this 11th hour blitz of poison during every single commercial break is only making us angry. Lies only make us dig in  deeper.

This is the time of year we love the fact that we can prerecord everything we view on network TV channels.  We can pause, mute, skip, or whatever we need to do to eliminate the poison ruining our peace. We're very well practiced from normal commercials, avoiding them all on a regular basis. If we can't manage to get to the controls in time, we are deluged with even more reasons to stick with our original choices, even if just out of pique!

Apparently candidates and parties have way more money in hand than they know what to do with, so now they're finding new ways to try to get to us. First emails started to carry the crap. I turn on my laptop after several hours away or in the morning to see if any are interesting before I go elsewhere, perhaps what is important that I "might have missed"  - however rare- because most of the really important messages don't come with time pressure. (Seems counter intuitive, doesn't it?) Important ones will be something like a new set of test results from the doc are now posted on their secure site for me to look at. If any were truly urgent there'd be a phone call. Or there might be a reminder that a bill will be $X dollars this month (please pay by _____).  Or there might be some news from friends or family. Those are important.  Now I'm deluged by political ads, not just one or two a day from each Candidate Y, but repeated ones from many of them. Recently they just added the information - as if I might have forgotten - that records show I am a registered voter who votes regularly, and an election is imminent.

Tell me: How many people in this country have missed the fact that a major election happens Tuesday?Are any of them over three? Or under 110?

How many campaign managers believe that deluging me with whatever about their candidate so frequently that I have to spend an unreasonable amount of time clearing my email just to make it usable again is going to persuade in in a positive direction?

Who really thinks I need 8 reminders every day that there's an election coming up? Even if they aren't pushing any candidate, just the fact of me needing to show up? Is there any unlucky human in this country who is just awakening out of a coma to find out an election is happening just around the corner? More, one who can jump up and run over to plaster their ballot with well thought-out decisions, or in lieu of those, will succumb to the influence of this blast of commercials because this is apparently their target audience?

This last week, and presumably into some ugly infinity, the way it's going, I've been getting texts on my non-smart flip phone. It tends to get clogged up with a lot of crap, and stops performing as a phone any more, the only reason I really use it. I can't even answer it when I'm driving these days, which is bad enough when I can't pull over safely to check importance.  But if somebody sends a waited-for voicemail, I can't tell until I wade through all the crap, and then listen to an actual voice. If it was important, we're both SOL.

Somebody, please wake me up gently Wednesday morning with the reassurance that this whole nightmare is finally over. And by that I'm truly hoping the news is good regarding who won, as well as that all the deciding is now done for two more years!!!!!

NOT Shopping On eBay

I wanted to, honest. I had a very particular item in mind I wanted to replace, and knowing it was older, thought eBay might stand a chance of having it. I've been shopping there for decades, as long as I had a computer capable of doing so and a card accepted by PayPal.

By now I'm convinced if I had searched that item, I'd start to see ads blocking all  kinds of non-commercial sites  by covering patches of the data or information I wanted to look at. It just happened to me a couple days ago with ads on a different item (SHAME ON YOU, ETSY!) on my usual local weather site, the one which has local radar, even if it gets it wrong on the boundaries of where rain is actually falling. These days I have to do a really quick view of high and low temperatures for today and tomorrow , or they'll be covered with ads. Every time I pull it up! It normally offers ten day information on a chart, and hourly information for the current day on a different chart. I can't view them anymore, or maybe get just  one set of numbers before they're covered.

I was a bit reluctant to check on eBay, but figured what I wanted to replace might just narrowly be there if it could be found anywhere. It might be worth the risk of being flooded by unstoppable ads.  But now  this new frustration from eBay prevented any search at all. I couldn't even get on the site.

First it asked me to click in a small box to "prove" I was human. I did. It asked again. I did again. Usually one was enough, but now two? OK, that should do it. Right?

Nope!

Next I got the box of squares with fuzzy photos in them asking me to click in each one that fits in a category. I'm used to "all the bicycles" or "all the buses". 

This time the pictures were fuzzy. One had a spray bottle, no kind of label so I'd know what it had inside, and asked me to click on all the squares I'd use the bottle on. First, I don't have nor use spray bottles. So many of the squares were too fuzzy to properly identify -was that a flower a vase or pot in front of a pretty setting? Or a picture of one? Why would I spray either one? Neither with a cleaner, possibly yes if it held water but absolutely not if it were a picture. There were also possible buildings or tools or toys like Legos. My guess was they were hard plastic toys and I might spray them if I were one of those germaphobes who went around sanitizing my kids total world. Whatever I tried, it didn't work and I got too disgusted with the stupidity of the game to bother trying to use the website. 

Sorry eBay. If you can't figure out how to separate actual paying customers from cons or unbridled AI, giving the humans a reasonable chance with clear pictures, you really don't need my business. Your sellers lose out. Your potential buyers - like me - go elsewhere or decide whatever they're shopping for just isn't that important.

Trump Sent Me A Letter !!!!

OK, that's what the typing said. It came in the mail yesterday when I was busy, and had a totally different return address on the envelope. Nothing yet to draw my attention, but I don't throw ALL of those out without looking at them. At least when I do they go into the recycle bin.

The first mailing from my prescription company, from last week, indicated some changes in next year's medical insurance plans. Part D in short. Today's other  piece of mail was also from my prescription insurance company. I opened that first, they had just informed me that their formulary for which drugs are categorized how in terms of my out of pocket costs were going to be for each regular medication I'm on now. Two of them were going up. 

What else! Anybody expect their costs to go down?  Really? Care to share what you're smoking?

This piece of mail simply said I would need to find a different company for next year. 

Now that is just annoying enough in its own message, just after saying costs were going to rise. But I'm betting somebody in the corporate offices just might to want to give a thought to the high costs of of a huge mass mailing  just before a follow-up mass mailing says something making the first totally irrelevant? Is the rise in costs supposed to cover that nonsense? Is that your business plan? Especially now that I'm not paying your company a red cent next year?

OK, time to read the other letter, actually from today's mail. First thing I noticed was that it was sent out weeks ago. I guess DOGE did a bang-up job of clearing waste ... uh, useful, experienced people... out of the postal system. Several weeks? Holy Shi..... well, you get the point. The content claimed to be from Trump, giving some indecipherable illogical excuse for why he's sending me $90.  

I'd heard "he" was giving out $90  checks to seniors. First, not checks, but deposits just like Social Security gets paid. But is the $90 significant? Say, another attempt at a bribe for voting for him next month? OK, he's not on the ballot, but acts like he is. Be honest here: his real fear is he'll be impeached by a Democratically leaning congress, and suddenly have to face the consequences of the Epsein Files. And nothing in the letter really explained why now, why that amount, and why he had to stick his name in the first couple sentences.

It couldn't be him. The man is sundowning. He can't express coherent thoughts, aside from who he hates (super long list) and who he loves (Putin). The letter was written by a much more cogent hand. It won't increase my SS payment next year, nor help the drop in it that Congress's COLA is supposed to protect us from. That's Cost Of Living Adjustment, if you didn't have to  know that yet. I suspect he wants to appease us in advance - or his handlers do - when we find out all too soon that Social Security is running out because he's tapping every penny he can grab in his fist for himself and for his disasters of monuments in DC and the government no longer can continue paying us from the funds we paid into all the years of our working lives.

It does manage to throw in his usual lies, like how important we all are to him, when we know he's the only one important to him, unless we offer huge bribes. It did manage to make his illegible pointy "signature" at the bottom. Of course, when we see it, it's several inches wide and pretty tall, about the only thing one can pick out in the scritchy-scratch mess. This one is a quarter that size, both directions.

When I finished reading the page, I carefully set it in the trash. Now, note that the paper was clean and pristine. Around here that goes into recycling. But why pollute the recycling stream with that?

So... My Email system Made Some Changes....

 My fingers are sore. You know, the ones that had to keep hitting the "delete" button a few thousand times.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

They sent me the notice of change by email  in the new format they've decided to use. Luddite that I am in many things, I wish they would have left the option open for continuing with the old system. My fingers  knew what to hit where and why. Now any single stroke has to be researched first. Where are they hiding the symbol for this? Or that? Or yet another thing? Whatever the "spam" symbol is now, I'm not finding it and have to try to recall the longer version of how to accomplish that. Every time.

About four days into it, I'm actually beginning to find their new placements. (See, not totally hopeless.) I found the inbox, the delete button, and most everything else, though SPAM is still a horse on the Kentucky Derby's track in new locations each time I think I've got it. And boy, do I get spam!

Tonight I decided to settle in and tackle my unasked-for new/old email system. First thing was they allowed me the old version of light background with dark characters and symbols. Dark isn't the same color as last time, so I'm not fond of it, or not yet, and it jars whenever I open it. I may decide to go back to the white background. Maybe. Perhaps that option lept out the window once used. 

(Did I mention that one of the first things I did locate was where/how to give them feedback on  the changes? You are  guessing that I took advantage of it, aren't you?)

I got a bunch of SPAM today, the kind I've been told is just a way to test if there is a real somebody to try to fleece at this combination of letters and symbols. Most of it is recognizable as SPAM from a collection of random letters, numbers, upper and lower cases, along with symbols posing as an email address. Other "interesting" emails come in from dead people. I know, since I visited one of them in hospice and attended her funeral. They think I'll believe she's still sending me photos every few days out of her box of ashes. Intriguing view from there, no doubt, but I choose to pass. I'm just not curious enough to wonder what those pictures would look like. Both of my sons supposedly send me photos, but neither of them ever has. Ever.  And somehow there are still fools out there that think I'm in the market for penis enhancers. I have all the penis I need, thank you very much, but it just isn't mine to choose that for. I firmly believe that's for each individual owner of one to decide for by themselves. And no, I'm not going to forward those emails.

I did mention sore fingers a few paragraphs ago. I make it a point to regularly clean out my trash and spam folders. With this new change, somehow every single old spam email and deleted actual email came along with it. I had well over 800 just in the inbox, 4 of which were new, and another half dozen read but saved, all that was showing before their changeover. Over 800??????

WTF???

My "sent box" still claims to have 3400  outgoing messages in it, but again, those are supposed to be long gone and done with. Tonight I had the patience to clean out incoming emails for the second time, going back over three years to where we were collecting bids for ways to get our belongings shipped north for our move, communications with our realtor, and notices about our solar bills. They also had one side of the conversations I held with my former email penpal, up to the time he no longer could reach a keyboard. I knew we communicated regularly but there were over 600 just from him! He was a climate change geek, in the best possible way to mean that, and shared all the latest data and links, plus little tidbits on health or his art, which he was no longer able to do. Seeing it all in one continuous feed, I was overwhelmed by how long it had been going on. As a process, I just noted the sender and if questions, the subject. If my keyboard were noisy, one could have heard taps less than a second apart.

I was also annoyed by how long the email company had been keeping them all. Hey, it's good when Blogspot does that, but not when mail does. I have to wonder if those are actually deleted even now, while my fingers are tingling from the work, or will they pop up again sometime? 

For now, my inbox claims to have 5 messages in it, read and unread combined, and spam claims to be empty. But tomorrow or sometime soon I'm going to warm up my fingers again and delete my Sent box. Yep, all 3400 alleged emails in it! Well, maybe not 5 or so.

After my fingers stop tingling, of course.

If I feel that patient. It will be raining then, after all.....

Fueled On Rage

  Call it "fighting with" my computer if you will. First, it's ancient in the opinion of all those who'd love to sell me a new one. Hey, it still (mostly) works, OK? But apparently I've overloaded my photo library memory. It was to the point  where I'd be blithely typing along (OK, young'uns, keyboarding if you must. It's still a qwerty keyboard, just with some new symbols.) But all of a sudden despite typing as usual nothing would show up on the screen. I'd have to stop, go back and read to figure out what I had been trying to say, and plug it in at the right place. At times it would be 7 or 10 dropped characters, other times other numbers. In short, just ANNOYING! Piling on where piling on was the last thing needed!

I figured I'd overloaded my photos storage. (Need I say DUH! ?) No surprise since I haven't been purging it enough lately, but using it heavily, sending out daily photo filled shots to a friend. That's taken up time often spent elsewhere. She is no longer communicating, so I'm fearing the worst for her... or possibly in her circumstances and with her beliefs, going on to the best. I also am working on a project for the upcoming holidays, using my own photos, tailored  to recipients individually. I'm beginning to understand what "painstaking" has its roots in. Continuous frustration does become rage, with varying results, like no ability to set the cause of it down, it's own kind of pain, it's own set of results.

The people on my list are a very eclectic bunch, so I'm finding individual combinations for each of them. And no, no hints of the nature of the project. It starts with trying to figure out what would appeal to each individual or couple, thinking back to what I've shot over the decades of going digital, and worst of all, locating the photos I think I have. I already have been filling up thumb drives, each with a specific type of shot or location during out travels. Whoever invented thumb drive could make it a hell of a lot easier! Once I plug one in, what comes up are rows and rows and rows of tiny rectangles in a grid pattern. If they have some order it's not apparent, except perhaps by order taken, since while fighting with it all is identified by the sequential numbers the camera gives each shot as it's taken. So... I changed digital cameras a couple times in my years of shooting. No camera has any way I know of to communicate with another camera what the last number was. How do they avoid duplicate numbers? If you told me I only used one SD card and kept recycling it I could see that happening. I confess to that a couple times. But I change those too. Since they can record time and dates to print on pictures, they must connect with operating wifi  or cell systems. One time I found all my photos showing up with date and time stamps. I had no idea how that happened and dug for a while for how to "correct" that... for next time. Cropping fixed it on already taken photos. Occasionally the cropping needed would spoil the photo. Sigh.....

 Did I mention these cameras were the same model and none of them came with a manual? Or that I was buying them, after the first one, online, listed as refurbished?) They are much cheaper that way, and muscle memory is a great way to use equipment you depend on when you're concentrating on getting the shot instead of  taking a pause, fiddling with camera controls. If you have to think about the controls chances are you've already missed the shot. I practically never shoot subjects that stand still and pose. OK, scratch that: mostly flowers stand still. That bird is flying or swimming or hunting.Those clouds are moving and changing the light. Wind blows, leaves drop, bees fly away, kids are perpetual motion machines. And seasons change.

All that concerns getting the photos. I wouldn't be here with a problem if that first part had been mostly overcome. The current problems are finding the photos to use for the project, out of thousands.

When I open up a thumb drive, what pops on my screen are lots of short rows of teeny tiny rectangles. They start with a logo on them instead of a photo. If you can't clear that, it won't open at all. As long as the same camera was used, the logo is the same on every single one. It takes a while, usually imperceptible,  to lose the logo and "see" something under a half inch by 3/16th inch which holds, potentially, 16 megapixels of data. It just looks like a blob of some over-all color or tiny bits of different ones. No clue yet as to the contents of each one. I have to click here and there, opening a selection to get an idea, first, of where the ones I'm looking for landed on the thumb drive,  then where they were taken. That might get me a when. 

When? I can't tell a when at first glance? OK, how many times have I stopped for a couple days at Rocky Mountain National Park? How many trips to Crex? To the Gilbert Water Reserve? To northern Arizona? Utah parks? The back yard as the plants and passing critters change? Since Alaska, Florida, and Oregon were unique enough to not be worth their own thumb drives, some of those photos might be on a drive with scenery, others on a drive with people. Take Oregon: the seaside pics are on one thumb drive, the wedding photos, the reason we were there in the first place, are on one labeled for people. I even have one drive I kicked videos off to, nice to see if one is very tolerant of bumpy jerky motions. Sigh. I'm not even including any of those, even to edit out a single frame. Getting a bit of information without having to search an entire thumb drive or series of them could make the job much easier!

Are you starting to see how the frustration builds? It's just starting.

I have ten thumb drives to sort through at the moment, now that I've tossed out the ones that no longer send the signal to the laptop that they exist and can be opened? I'm supposed to see a logo and, say, "empty" if no pics are on it. Or AK. Or MN. Or RMNP since, just from shots taken there over the years, it's earned more than a full thumb drive on its own. Others land on Miscellaneous Travels.  That would be drives #1 or #2, so far. I have tried to tape a tiny paper indication on the outside of the drives. The tape is only so wide and if taped crosswise instead of lengthwise,where it might actually do some good, it prevents me sliding the connector forward to insert. It may have departed once that tiny bit of tape dried and hitchhiked to Elsewhereland. Each drive without a tag must be checked. Some are disposed of when nothing indicates they exist once I insert them. Not even if I wait five minutes. How do you open something that insist it doesn't exist? If anybody has a solution for that, let me know. For me, it's toss and replace, fingers crossed that it's not been ruined like the Crex backups. I'm getting adjusted to that particular loss but it still bites, especially when I remember some of the really good shots that were on that drive, like bald eagle close-ups. Reminders don't improve the mood.

Over a week later I've manged to find most of the shots I remember for the project. I pulled them off their thumb drives and parked them on my desktop with a new name. It's easier to locate them again when they're labeled, say, "elk1" and "elk2" up  to "elk10" and so on. Then those got collected and gone through again, kicking out the ones not good enough or not for the particular project, and pulled off the desktop either for a new thumb drive or sent into my main photo library.  For days I fought to get them back into my library from a thumb drive, but my laptop won't take them in like it does off an SD card. (I call that process "insert SD and the library sucks it all up."  Or, "insert and suckup" for short. Trial and lots of grindingly annoying error finally showed me I could click and drag a stacked pile of them, turned into a unit by drawing the cursor nonstop over the stack, which can then be clicked and dragged into an open photos library. I often do that when tossing them to trash, so I'm familiar with the technique, just now delighted that it works to input them to the photo library for editing. Suddenly I could crop old photos again for new purposes!! Or make light and color changes like I do with every raw photo arriving there! Some change colors a bit in storage for years, especially sitting for months in a hot PODS.

Then I got to the place where certain attempts to do anything in the photos library made the program crash. I could go back in and discover most of my photos had landed, but certain ones I found important were no longer either on the desktop or in the library. I know exactly which ones they are, but there is a repeat of the job ahead in going back to those tiny hard-to-decipher tiny rectangles and locate the ones previously sitting on my desktop all over again. Was that particular one in the MN file? Or a National Park file? Or AZ? Or even the People one because it combined two themes?

I placed certain select "probably" pics on a special thumb drive, used for taking pics to get printed, like for X-mas cards over the years. It's easy to pick out because it has a "tail" that curls a round in a loop so I can slip a finger into it and keep it in possession while fiddling with the machine to select its choices for what I'm there for this time. Who needs to hunt all over a store's floor to find a dropped drive? It had been hard enough to pick out these. It works just as well for taking print files to my home printer, hooked up to another, older laptop reserved for that use and the only one which works with my old printer. Just text files however. It's old enough that it doesn't do photos, never mind colors. I need photographic quality prints, best done in a properly equipped store. I'd hate to have to do the hunt all over again for a photo after changing direction. The missing picture I really need right now is on one of three possible thumb drives... somewhere. I know it's there. I saw it three days ago now. It was taken on our "free again to move because we have our covid shots" extended vacation trip, with Covid hitting all kind of national parks nearly empty of visitors and rangers both, a great photo op time we took good advantage of. Elk slept next to ranger checkpoints, no waiting in long lines to get into the right space for that particular shot of landscape, and yet somehow the restrooms still got cleaned... enough. Fantastic trip, whole lotta shots, bunch of thumb drives to go through for my hunt for that one perfect photo.

It was hours past my bedtime so I tried to give myself a break. As I tossed and turned, obsessing over a few particular photos, I couldn't sleep. There was nothing to do but get back up and head back to the computer and drives and sort out what I could. I resulted in getting some progress, and eventually two hours of actual sleep before the need to continue while I could remember what was lost, and change some plans of which shot to use where while I could still recall my plan. I quickly typed notes to myself to keep the new details.

Giving up on all sleep, I also popped up with a "must-do-this-first" plan. Obviously I couldn't afford new memory right now, helpful as a few terabytes might be. Property taxes come first and in a couple weeks. In the overall scheme, I can try a small version of my plan to do a test on the overall concept. But meanwhile, I need to pull photos out off the computer's photo library and load another, empty, thumb drive first!

The choice was easy. I had recently gone through and purged some old ones where I had too many duplicates by choosing better ones out of, say seven, of which one or maybe two were worth keeping. Since I was putting some back in for the project, and the system kept crashing, it still wasn't empty enough. One category was the primary culprit: flowers. Each new season the same flowers enchant me all over again. Maybe this year in different light, or it's got a different backdrop, or.... It was time to locate an empty thumb drive that would still identify itself, then change it's title from "empty" to "flowers".  

As I started that, the system was still crashing too often. I could always pull it up again, but where I was pulling from was the oldest of its files and it reopened at the most recent. There was a whole damned lot of scrolling each time back to  the earliest. Three minutes wasted each time? Ridiculous! And adding more irritation into the whole project. I had a fix to help that however. Lots of my photos of flowers either had been winnowed down to one on its own like, or maybe two (as I thought erroneously at the time) or had just enough shots in it to overflow one full line and drop a single or double down to the next. I could start from the bottom, for one thing, keeping the post-crash scrolling as short as possible, and fairly quickly clear those out by a line at a time, prioritizing short lines, erasing them from the library. So that's what I did. Mind you, I still hadn't slept more than that two-hour bit in 2 days, so I cleaned up just just the short lines and called it a night. At least the vertical or scrolling distance was significantly shortened, time and irritation saved. It still manages a crash, but much more rarely.

After, finally, a reasonable amount of sleep, plans back in place for making the job easier while still an enormous time-killer, I stopped being fueled by rage. There will be more purging flowers EXCEPT those taken at Crex. There will be another photo contest next year, and the next, and previous years photos remain eligible. Wildflowers are always a category. I'm still pissed that the thumb drive labeled for their caegory was one of the "I don't exist" drives and had to be tossed. The others hadn't been labeled at all, so I'm consoling myself that they are blank anyway. But I still have some previously selected out photos that need to be found again.... somewhere. Once the purging of flowers is complete, I'll be back up to the job. Or rather, the photo library will.

OK, OK: both.

That Change-Of-Insurance Time of Year Again

Phooey!

I'm so glad I don't have to deal with it. I'm on straight Medicare, plus the additional "Cadillac" supplement plan. It's such a good deal that the government discontinued it, although the plan is grandfathered in for those already on it. Yeah, the price of the latter goes up each year, but it's certainly been giving me my money's worth since I first got it. I get the medical costs summary sheets in the mail. They tell me what kind of unearthly costs I've pulled out of the system since the last letter, what regular Medicare knocked them down to as a permissible charge - which they accept just to get patients and at least some money promptly. Then the forms list how much of that Medicare pays for, which is still just a percentage  of the allowed cost. After that I see what my "Cadillac" plan kicked in. Finally is the best of the news: how little I myself have to pay. Most of the time it's zero.

I've been putting that to damn good use this last year and a half! It reminds me of the year I had three cardiac procedures weeks apart.

On the other hand, Steve puts his faith in his Medicare "Advantage" plan. It covers most things, but it tells you which doctors you can see, which hospitals you have to go to, barring a life-and-death emergency, and follows other stipulations. As a result he's paying off several medical bills for individually agreed upon prices every month. He's had a tough year.

Just to add insult to injury, they sent out the dreaded letter informing him he's going to have to pick a new insurance plan starting in January. He had a better plan the previous year, but that company sent him the dreaded letter as well. We are both used to shopping around for Part D plans, the ones covering medications. It seems each plan covers different percentages of different medications, likely dependent on how the pharmaceutical companies change their prices each year, or what restrictions the governments puts on prices for say, insulin. My letter on Part D changed my cost on several medications next year by small amounts each, from no cost to under $5 each. It will be a nuisance, but not more.  Steve's Part D is included in his "Advantage" plan, and will be what the new company says it is. No separate shopping around, either a benefit or a disadvantage. We'll see.

He got on the phone this afternoon, calling back on one of those flyers getting sent out by alternative companies. Ironically, the company that just kicked him out was among them. Good old left-hand, right-hand, no brain between. Or maybe it's just cheaper to sent one out to EVERYBODY on a large list. 

His call lasted around an hour. They had lots of questions for him, he had lots for them. This time he found out our primary doc isn't on their list of acceptable doctors, what they call "in network". They did have one about a mile closer. I'm keeping the one I have, thank you. I like her for my needs. Even more, I'm willing to sit in the waiting room a bit longer knowing she takes several extra minutes listening to her patients to get the full picture of their condition and needs.  But Steve called the clinic to make a get-acquainted visit with the new plan's recommended in-network doc. Yes, she's going to get paid by the old insurance now, and seamlessly (we hope) switch over to his new plan next year. He'll visit her in a few days to check her out. 

I hope she works out for him. I was on an "Advantage" plan early in my time of being on Medicare, just one year. I was given a list of possible "in network" doctors. Of those fairly nearby, I heard over and over that they weren't taking any new patients. The last on the list, farthest away, was open to more customers. I quickly found out why. His waiting room was nearly empty each time I went, and I was getting weekly blood tests there while on a blood thinner and needing testing. He had almost no personality, never asked how I was doing, just announced test numbers and whether I should change the dose. 

The minute Steve got a doc he really liked was just after I switched back onto "real" Medicare, so I switched to that same doc just a few blocks away. My next change was the one required by our relocating 1800 miles away. Just too long a commute!

What's fun is when various medical services back where we lived three years ago still reach out trying to remind me I need their services again. All have been notified that we no longer live in the state.  No, I'm not going there for an eye check, or a mammogram, or anything else! Sure, it would be covered. But how about the mileage, and cost of a motel and eating out?

It Rained... Again... No, Honest!

I know last time it rained things were just a little bit disappointing. I mean, five drops? I'm not sure if that was better or worse than no rain at all.

A few days ago - too busy to notice it then - much less write about it - there was most of a day and some of the night full of light but steady-ish rain. I'd been busy with computer issues, and wasn't really paying attention except to be grateful I had an excuse to avoid outside chores after the last batch left my unused muscles sore, and concentrate on the computer. Then of course there was a modest family party to plan and prepare for, kind of a conglomeration of birthdays plus celebrating the new porch/stairs combo being finished. 

Was it really only Wednesday that the rolling garbage bin had to be brought back from the street after weekly emptying and tucked discretely out of sight again? I finally had cooperative weather to move it out and back long enough to stay dry myself for both moves. It was my final return to the house after all that was finished that I noticed the blob of red in the garden. With no flowers currently blooming, it stands out, even if the forecast freeze hadn't materialized. It's where the rain gauge sits, poked into the ground next to the border, mostly free of all foliage. 

It's one of those with a wide top and a narrower tube, so amounts are exaggerated to the eye but marks give the actual amount. Each inch of rain fills about four inches of tube. The tube can be lifted out of its holder to drain and easily replaced. Altogether it's so much easier to use, read, and empty than a plain tube. There is another piece of floating plastic in the tube, rising and lowering depending on how much water is sits on, also red for easy viewing from the house without having to head outside in the rain unless one chooses, generally done after rain ends. If it's more than five inches, the tube is too full to be accurate. Not that it happens around here, but hey, just gotta explain. Whenever possible I buy those for wherever home is, even Phoenix. It does occasionally rain there too.

This time it actually registered an inch on the gauge. Real rain! After so many disappointments all summer, and despite heading out and back in several times refilling the garbage and recycling bins, or in and out of the car running errands, I left that little proof of moisture actually arriving this time sitting in the bottom of that tube.We had a whole inch of rain!

I suppose next time some is forecast, I'll actually have to go out and empty the tube first. I'll want to know how much the forecasters are lying about rain totals next time! For now I'm just enjoying it.

I Just Walked Out Of Walmart... ARGGHHHH!!!

I walked in with expectations of finding an employee to answer some questions for me. Up to today, it's been my experience that most employees are helpful. Of course most of my questions simply refer them to their hand-held units telling them which row in the store the item I need  is in... this time. The store seems to play a sadistic game of moving things all over every few weeks, whether an aisle or a whole department. When I ask, they are  very friendly, and if I can no longer reach that high to get it, help is at hand.

When I walked out, I was fuming. I'd been prepared for a wait, for complications, and for a long time working through exactly what I wanted. I left fuming and looking for a new vendor. (It looks like Etsy can fill the bill.)

I have a plan I've been working on regarding presents for people. It's getting about that time. I'm not making sterling jewelry any more. I have no access to a kiln these days to work on glass fusion projects.  What I do have in great plenty are photos, mostly nature photos since I rarely shoot people. I could be there ostensibly to record their activities - and have been many times with growing grands and great-grands - when something else will draw my attention. If we're having a bonfire for the gathering, like years ago at what in now my son's house, the camera almost mandatorily turned to capturing the flames. If we were at a vacation spot, the people could do their thing and I'd be shooting scenery, whether flowers, weather, mountains, rivers, or critters if they would hold still enough. If they were fishing I'd go for the lake or river or the actual fish. Perhaps the person was needed to hold it, just for proof of size... or lack thereof. Sometimes the trail of line across the water with resulting ripples was more interesting.

I've been going through them with my project in mind, looking to find the "right" photos for each person, based on what I know about what they like to look at. I won't say more because some of them actually read this! But I came across the information that Walmart's photo department could actually produce what I wanted.

Special preparation was needed. Almost none of what I have planned limits me to a single photo. So I've been very busy in my photo library, well over 5,000 files as I started. I had already pulled hundreds of photos out to make space for new, putting them on a collection of thumb drives. Others got tossed as unworthy to even return to and look at myself. My camera shoots 16 megapixel files, pretty dense if uncropped for things like piling into emails, or ever sending video to somebody. (Yes, I've seen that it can be done, just never shown how to do it myself. Search "lizard porn". My footage, somebody else's work to make a file small enough to go online.) Recently my laptop has been struggling when I'm writing something. It's not the typos: I take full responsibility for those. But I'll be typing away and the letters will stop appearing on the page. No cue, no warning, just white space. 

I concluded I was keeping it way too busy. So first thing was to weed out what was possible. Seventeen pictures of something?  Surely I can purge a strong majority of those. I find that I tend to be fascinated by certain subjects, to the point where another person might take two shots and note that my library holds dozens of the same thing over the years. Like my favorite daffodil, for example , a frilly double in white and orange. This double is my favorite shot, with others I haven't gotten to yet to purge.

Like Steve, I like to shoot dead trees, whether standing or sprawled across the ground, like this sensuous beauty:

Or this complicated hulk:

And of course I shoot sandhill cranes whenever possible.

So my first and most frustrating task was clean out the library. I'm down a thousand-plus shots at the moment, with about half left to go through. The issue with keeping text registering is better, but I can still be a couple sentences ahead of where the last letter gave up in frustration before I notice. So the side job is both rewarding and frustrating at the same time.

 My plan involved combining photos on whatever topic, but I had questions, involving size and spacing. I had been warned that their machines would crop and arrange the photos as it chose, not necessarily as I'd choose. And I'm really, really fussy! To me several combinations only worked a single way with a specific layout. I needed to talk to a real person, somebody familiar with the process and how the software works before I committed to spending a chunk of change. I had a thumb drive of photos in my pocket to start the process.

I walked up to the electronics counter, holding the experts and cashier for all electronics including the photo center. Nobody was there except one person cashiering in the department. Usually it keeps two busy. The line was long, and I excused myself from where I've moved up to in it and wandered back to photo to see if there was anything there to answer some of my specific questions. 

First question was answered: nobody had been hiding in here, busy with something, anything. The next thing to catch my eye was a price list sitting out near a picture of the media for my desired project. I'd been in a couple weeks earlier when there was an actual human. The first thing that slapped me in the face was that prices for what I wanted had just doubled! Ouch! Do I need to reconsider? 

An employee approached, pulling items out of a basket and putting them into a cart, obviously to be moved elsewhere. I asked her did she work in this section or just passing through on other store business? For all I knew what she'd picked up were returns or for some other reason needed to get off the floor. She answered it was her station. 

Now hearing that, wouldn't one expect some kind of familiarity with the merchandise? Especially since every year going there for photo greeting cards, the equipment and programming were overhauled and for luddites like me there had to be some kind of help. In answer to my question I was told to look at the material laid out on the counter. Yeah, been here long enough to have done that. All it showed were pictures of somebody else's irrelevent types of  projects, and those glaringly offensive new prices. In short, she didn't know, didn't want to bother to find out, and didn't care. She walked away to prove it.

In response, off I went to the pharmacy, a line I thought I'd be waiting in anyway to pick up a meds refill for Steve, a good use of my time while the hoped for project got a go. One hour service was a possibility, per a previous discussion with a different employee. Then I walked out, returned to fuming, after a time out for the pleasant interaction in pharmacy.

I have other ideas and questions other people can - I hope - answer for me on the strictly photo side, like can two photos be fused into one on a laptop (mine or theirs) so I'd have control of location of each in relation to each other, margins touching? And if so, how?  Or how do I get a photo off the thumb drive and back into my laptop library so I can do  some different cropping to get a product with different size requirements? My system takes photos off an SD card but has no interest in accepting one off a thumb drive so I can crop it differently... or anything else I need. I can, once it's on the desktop, the only place that I can get to hold it, pop it into an email or this blog. I just can't change it except for size to fit either of those. Software for resizing photos for both of those comes with their programming.

I WANT ACCESS TO THOSE PHOTOS!!! They're mine. All mine. Somebody must have an answer. Even if it's in a different direction, so long as it's not toooooo expensive.

Having An E-penpal ... Uh, A keypal? An Epal?

I'm not sure if there is a specific term these days. But regardless, this is the second time I've had one. The first time I had never met the person in real life, only on a community type site. With that other one we corresponded on various things until he died, from climate change to the challenges of disabilities to sharing his art.

This time it's somebody I have met, immediately liked, and put her on my emailing list for jokes and other trivia when I get a list of jokes or silly signs that I like enough to share. I recently heard from her with bad news she had to share, that her last two close family members had recently died, and she was now in an assisted living facility. Not only was she grieving, she was less than impressed by the high price and low quality of care of the facility. At least she knew some of the people in there, having lived in the general area for a number of years.

I can't go visit her in person. 1800+ miles is a humongous drive these days as well as awfully expensive, and I no longer fly because I use the "wrong" middle name and the state refuses me "Real ID". Either is expensive. When we lived in Arizona most of the year she'd be a hop and a skip away. We demonstrated together and chatted while doing so as long as that group lasted.

But you're reading this and know I can communicate online. So can she. I didn't have her new physical address but still had her email one, and did what I can do: sent her a chatty email and sent a photo of a flower I found especially lovely from my summer garden. As I put it, I couldn't send her real flowers, but I could send her this one and she could still have it any time she wished to look at it. Any of the other ones she'd gotten for the two funerals would be long withered and tossed.

She emailed back expressing her appreciation, and we started a daily correspondence. I'd send her flower photos and chatty news, occasionally input on some similar issues I'd had myself or some questions I thought she might find helpful to ask. I informed her I would continue to do this every day, so long as she emailed anything back to let me know she was still there. (I'd had that issue with my previous e-penpal. He'd died and I hadn't known until months later when somebody reached out to people he'd been corresponding with to let us know what had happened.) I in turn reached out to the online community who knew him and where I became acquainted with him to let them know his fate, as well as a reminder of why he'd been a valued member there... and to me. I have no expectations that anybody would do the same in her case, so I let her know stopping correspondence would be my signal she couldn't any more. I won't have any idea who's left in her life to mourn her passing to express sympathy to anymore. Friends at the facility will be informed of course.

Most days I go through my photo library and pick out favorites to send. Most come with stories attached so I share those as well, but briefly. For example, I'd say this was taken at (_____ National Park)  and add a query might  she like more from there? It might be a flower from where I used to live and got dug and relocated so is now blooming in both locations. Or rainbows.... or birds.... or fall foliage.... or whatever it happens to be. 

This week I'm going though photos from Alaska. Now other than common garden flowers like the incredible variety of columbines popular where we stayed, they are reduced to just a colorful multitude of flowers I'd not seen elsewhere and have no names for, like these,

sitting at the foot of a rapidly retreating glacier, or this,

from who remembers where, or even this

 

delightfully intricate little gem from some walking path on a tour which couldn't possibly escape my eye. Have you ever seen such a frilly little gem? I still have never seen another. Once the Alaska flowers run out, there's glaciers, mountains, ocean life behind glass, in hand, or viewed from tour boats... if they are desired. I could add from horseback, but mostly those are close-ups of horse ears, and I doubt they'd be interesting. Any time my attention was drawn from the horse, he stopped for grass while the rest of the tour dutifully kept going without us. I guess it beats getting one who always wants to gallop and toss me though. Not so wonderful photos however.

I "only" have somewhere over 4,000 photos still in my laptop, with some hundreds more each on a collection of thumb drives that actually survived sitting in AZ for a few months while we looked for a new home to move everything into up in MN. Yes, my favorite collection, the best from Crex over a couple decades, didn't survive but for some reason it seems most of the others have. So we can continue this correspondence for years. If by then we have to start going through them again, does anybody think either of us will remember what's a repeat?

We can also discuss classical music, which we both love. Or places we both have traveled which hold special memories. Or the issue of having somebody with their hand out for your possessions or money which they firmly believe they have a right to control even while you still can, and legal protections one can put in place so any final wishes are carried out as desired. She needed to set up a reliable trustee, while I was made one years ago for a minor child with a difficult parent who was convinced it should go for a more expensive wardrobe when I limited spending to health and educational expenses. Different sides of the coin, different experiences, different states, but same problem. We have stories to share. When she needs to vent, I can "listen" using skills training and years of experience as a facilitator in a support group.

Of course I'm presuming I'll outlive her. She's 16 years older, whatever that means these days, but I'm still connected to close family - in fact, close family on both sides - and am now mostly free of pain, unlike her situation, and can get out and about for activities I still love. Right now I'm in the planning stage for everybody's home-made holiday presents this year while still putting the gardens "to bed" for winter, both of which keep me feeling productive and useful.  None of which are  guarantees of more years to come, since nobody gets that guarantee, but they are incentives to continue.

On Overhearing A Neighbor

 Sunday was like summer in October for us, a light breeze and full sun, 87 for a high, a perfect day for those fall outdoor chores. We still haven't had our killing frost, or even a light nipping one. For me it was perfect for making and cleaning up fall cuttings by stuffing them into boxes. All I needed to do was move my folding chair a couple more feet to the side along a garden bed to grab the next batch of last week's dried clippings, break them into shorter pieces,  stuff the box for taking them for compost, and move on. I wasn't making any noise, so sound traveled perfectly from a few yards away.

Apparently some Grandmother had her granddaughter over for a visit, playing outside of course. There was another child there that  she was scolding, though I saw never of the children. I hadn't had even a  clue anybody was there until I hear one single, emphatically loud sentence from the girl:

"Stop that! This is my Grandma's garden and they love their tomatoes !" 

Hmmm, apparently somebody else didn't love tomatoes? What was their plan?

Oh, the thoughts running through my head at that. It's getting close to Halloween, and I can imagine all kinds of things kids can get into who don't respect tomatoes, not one idea among them that didn't involve mischief: picking and throwing them at... (where did your imagination just go? Maybe waiting for them to rot first? Were you thinking splatting another person? Messing with somebody's house? Car?  Would it involve breaking something? )

I love that the little girl defended Grandma's garden. It's rare to still have them on the vine this late in the season, so Grandma is likely thinking her unusual abundance is a blessing with food prices being so high these days... a very necessary one, especially if a young child is aware of them being valued. 

But the person being scolded, what was their plan? Where did it come from? Peers? Parents? Media? I never had the kind of upbringing that tolerated any of that kind of mischief, not with food, not with toilet paper, not with paint. I did hear of high school students using fertilizer on an unloved teacher's lawn that would darken the grass there for possibly years with some very rude words, but while laughing at the cleverness of it, I would never have considered it myself. I save much of my mischief for words on a page, while trying not to be hurtful.

How about you? Who taught you what's OK when mischief is afoot? What do you teach your kids? And who would you protect from it?