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last hot day

It's hot in the sun, at least.

I'm chipping away at undoing all (or at least by far most) of my project from last summer. As house projects go, I've surely spent more time on the front stoop than anywhere, starting with the many restainings of the old steps, and then including replacing wood in the old spots that covered the old (cut-in cement) steps. All along there's been a fair amount of snow removal---but a lot less these past few years. And then last year the many-step painting and stenciling project. Now it's the I-dunno-how-many steps. But I'm chipping away at last summer's work. Eventually I might leave a sort of faux welcome mat of it. But my idea now is to repair the pits from the winters so far on the new stoop, and the hidden pooling water. Then one thing I could do is seal it again. But I like the idea of a nonslip epoxy paint, which I can get in a speckled-y blue, and could stencil on later if I want.

Maybe for this fall, though, repairing the holes and possibly even living with the unscraped bits could do.

I mean, the other day I went out to start dealing with it, here in my week off and the last warm days, and I decided---to my delight & relief---that I wasn't even going to do anything, and maybe someday I'd hire a professional, but I'm not physically up to it.

Dunno why that changed yesterday. It just seems like I should be able to do it. And the chipping away last year's beautiful ephemeral art would be a weird thing to hire someone for, and would cost some insance amount. Plus I think I can patch the cement. There are a zillion options for that but I bought one option for it, the day before I decided I couldn't do it. (Have kept the receipt.)

The mental and emotional stuff is half the work---and there's a LOT of the other kind of work.

Chunk one of chipping today, from which I'm inside taking a break, was accompanied by an episode and.a half of Hidden Brain, the podcast by Shankar Vandantam (did I spell it right? checking . . . . . ALMOST! Vendantam) that my beloved physical therapist recommended. (It came naturally in our conversations about how people think. How we got onto that, who knows. But it was hawt.)

Okay, a little more rest, and then back to chores.

Money is getting tight, but my nightside table lamp finally fully died, and so today there should arrive its replacement, inspired by admiring Adrian Monk's lamps.

I'm also getting these:

Cuz I got a $5.99 remainder book for beginning drawing. I suck at drawing. Didn't connect the whim of buying it to possible future short animations, but if I actually get some drawing chops, I suppose that could help. There've been a few times I've been able to 2-dimensionalize what's in front of me and somehow produce a realistic version of it on paper, but mostly I just want to draw letters. Even on the first "doodle here" page of my new book, I was writing names of the pencils I was using. One was a "TINSEL TINT", vintage no. 2 Eberhard Faber I found in a drawer. I've got lots of pencils for writing, but this soft-lead thing'll be new.

Entry tags:

connecticut august 2025

(no subject)

I had trouble staying asleep for the first half of last night; I kept waking up every hour or so for a while. I was awake at 1 am and couldn't get back to sleep for at least an hour, which was very annoying, but when I did go back to sleep I stayed asleep until the alarm went off. I don't feel especially tired today, but I'm expecting to sleep better tonight.

Violet is obviously feeling better because she went to school today, but her mother has come down with the cold now.

It's another beautiful mild day today, but we're expecting some rain tonight and a couple of hotter days (in the 80s/high 20s) with corresponding warmer nights at the end of the week.

Update

The garden is still pouring out produce. I've canned most of the things I really need and now it is just a matter of giving it away.
Cleaned up quite a lot of horse manure yesterday so the compost pile is about full. It is composting away at about 120F, which is a nice rate but might not be quite hot enough to kill seeds. Sigh. Must clean out second side so it can take over the new compost duties.
Looked all over town for parts for the dust collection system and utterly failed to find any. The closest I got was a nice toilet flange, which, for $5 I brought home and will probably use. I then went back to the Grizzly tool site and found the accessory pages, which had exactly what I needed. They are on the way.
Ebay locked me out of their site just after I put up the Starlink setup. Then they demanded personal info to re-establish my login. I declined. Told the AI bot that I would give them the answers that I had set up for my account and nothing more. Maybe in two or three months the policies will change.
Every now and then I get scam calls that want to help me with my credit. I'm very enthusiastic, but they first have to round up a good chainsaw crew for the Ranch and give me contact info and the time they will arrive. Usually they hang up after a couple of minutes of this. I should probably slip in a couple of words about them trying to ruin my credit score... ;)
It is time to grab a combination lock and go down to the cow corrals. I'm expecting non-local campers tonight, someone I know who is coming through on their way to an endurance ride.

365 Questions 2025

1. When you have a random hour of free time, what do you usually do? Most of my time is free time in that I don't have to go to work. If I've got time where I'm waiting for something or someone (eg. waiting for a repar person) I usually play some kind of solitaire game on my computer because it doesn't matter if I get interrupted.

2. What makes you weird? I don't think I'm weird; I feel normal to myself. But I know I sometimes unexpectedly find that my opinion or my taste is wildly different from everybody I know, so maybe that makes me weird?

3. If you could relive yesterday what would you do differently? I don't think I'd do anything different.

Entry tags:

writing

The Come-to-Kali-the-Destroyer Moment

Finished the first draft of Chapter 1 and stashed it in the usual online places so it won't disappear if my computer decides to self-destruct or if human civilization vanishes & sentient cockroaches need a Rosetta Stone.

Chapter 2 should be relatively easy to write since it will mostly be the Amazing Adventures of Grazia & Neal, lifted with a bit of embellishment from my copious diaries.

So, I am actually thinking more about Chapter 3, in which Neal has to save Grazia in some way.

Plus, one of the (unexpected) things that came out in Chapter 1 is that Grazia is religious in a weird way—this is a prime example of how characters sometimes run away with their own story arcs—so Chapter 3 will have to include Grazia's Come-to-Jesus or Come-to-Bodhisattva or Come-to-Kali-the-Destroyer moment, and optimally, it will involve some colorful locale far from Ulster County, New York, because the fourth part of the novel will be a third-person description of the three women, Grazia, Daria, & Flavia, scattering Neal's ashes in various colorful locations, and it would be good to foreshadow those locations.

Chapters 4, 5, & 6 will be first-person Daria's POV and will have to contain an analagous Neal-rescues-the-gurl scene—hey! this is chick lit, where politically correct empowerment plays second fiddle to romantic fantasy—as well as some colorful locale.

Chapters 7, 8, & 9 will be first-person Flavia POV—where in addition to above, we have to stage a Mimi suicide attempt. This will come about when Flavia evicts Mimi from Neal's cabin.

Chapters 10, 11, & 12 will be the road trip & I have no ideas what to write for that beyond a vague impulse to set part of it at Wall Drugs in South Dakota. Which would just be so wrong on so many levels.

###

Anyway.

I won't be writing any fiction today because today I must Remunerate.

I finally realized there is absolutely no way I can go back and forth between economic analyses and light fiction writing on the same day. The brain is bicameral for a reason!!!

So, I'm gonna try out an every-other-day schedule.

Wednesday

The laundry is laundrying, the dishwasher will be washing as soon as I get up and put this plate in. Half the fog is gone but I got a swim in while it was still sunless. I had the pool to myself and it was lovely.

My bank swap seems to be going well. I need the initial funds to show as available in the new Chase account and then I can close out Key Bank entirely. They are showing as pending now. Should be able to get it all done by Friday.

My return phone hit a bit of a UPS snag over the weekend but it, too, looks like it will hit Google tomorrow and, hopefully, I'll have my refund shortly thereafter.

I have the final episode of Hostage (Netflix) to watch. I could have watched it yesterday but I didn't want to rush it. Great little series. I do love Suranne Jones.

Now the sun is breaking through. So glad I already got my swim in!

52/201-202: Anticipation

Twice in about ten hours I found myself sitting muddleheaded on the edge of my bed sweating in the twilight. One of my least favorite experiences, and reality doubled down on it. The first time was Monday evening when the sound of wheelie bins being dragged out to the street woke me from a long, Labor Day afternoon nap, and I looked out the window to see the barely gibbous moon hanging low over the parking lot where the lights had just come on. I felt somehow offended, but didn't know if it was on the moon's behalf or just my own sad crankiness.

Then I did barely alive things I barely remember, for an indeterminate time that seemed like a severely truncated eternity, and then had to drag my still breathing yet barely conscious carcass back to bed for more sleep, which was ended by the racket of the wheelie bins being emptied into the growling trash truck as the eastern sky paled to reveal way more clouds than is proper for this place this time of year. The vaguely remembered day which was the day after Labor Day has now passed, and the clouds came to nothing though lingering long, and now another sweltery night is passing. At least Tuesday's afternoon nap ended while there was still plenty of light in the evening sky, so I didn't have to go through that again.

The good (actually great) news is that starting Saturday we get a whole week of days with highs in the mere eighties and nocturnal lows in the low sixties. I feel better about having squandered some money on air conditioning over the last couple of weeks. The next part of this billing period isn't going to be very costly, so the next bill won't break my budget. There might even be a night or two when I can bake something in the oven. I've been getting tired of sandwiches and stovetop stuff and microwaved meals. There are a couple of frozen lasagnas that absolutely need traditional ovening to be as good as they can be. It isn't fall yet, and there's more heat coming later this month, but relief is on the way, and I know some day soon the feel of autumn will be in the air. A cause for celebration, even for those of us who no longer get out and do things.

Entry tags:

connecticut august 2025

(no subject)

Violet stayed home from school today because she wasn't feeling well. She wasn't feeling well yesterday morning either, but recovered by the afternoon, and today she repeated the same pattern. She says her nose is stuffy, so I hope she is just fighting a cold and nothing worse. I read to her for about an hour this afternoon, by which time my throat was very dry and scratchy, but we did manage to finish a book we'd started a few days ago. ("The Hamster Princess: Whiskerella", #5 in a series, all of which I've read to the girls over the last couple of years. Very funny, for both adults and children.)

This morning I went for a run after breakfast intending to cover about 5 to 6 km (3 to 4 miles) but the day was so nice that I extended it to 10 km. My legs were a bit tired by the time I got home because it's been quite a while since I've run this distance (I basically don't do longer runs over the summer or once the humidity rises) but I recovered quickly.

Entry tags:

chick lit novel

Untitled Chick Lit Novel

TITLE

Part 1: Grazia

Chapter 1

I drove up to Neal's house to say goodbye to Daria, who was red-eyeing it back to California.

GPS decided to take me on an exciting tour of the eastern Catskills. It was a lovely day, so not unpleasant.

Thing about GPS in the Catskills is that there is no cell coverage. Like nil, nada, niente. And the narrow roads have unexpected forks that GPS does not account for, and the unexpected forks always seem more attractive than the straight & narrow path—do we all see the metaphor here?—so it is very, very easy to get completely lost, especially for people like me who were born with no sense of direction.

When that happens, one must simply trust that GPS will make the necessary adjustments and that eventually, one will get where one wanted to go.

GPS, in other words, is a lot like the Judeo-Christian God.

###

( But wait! There's more! )

Postcard of the Day

awaiting proof of life

Tr*mp was supposed to come out at 2:00 and say something live on camera about the b.s. "Space Force". But really it's about showing he's not dead, or not close to it. What's up with the delay? Buidling suspense?

I've got the lawn mower battery charged while laundry's going around and this week off work. Decided quickly, to my relief, the other day, that I'm not up to continuing to strip the paint/stenciling, either completely or to some neatened "doormat", for winter. And/but now, today, 80 degrees out, the last of these warm days underway, I am considering another shot at it. Wrenched back on top of knees, but couldn't I go slow? And didn't I get up and down offa that stoop a coupla dozen times last year? Have I deteriorated that much?

How much is my deterioration behind the little spate of human sympathy for Tr*mp, should he be experiencing any of the grisly things postulated or outright wished by TikTok commenters in the is-he-dead/my-he's-failing posts? I do want him gone, and of course I'd still worry about what's next. But it'd be nicely to outlive him, and soon. As far as wishing extra suffering or any comeuppance or fear of hell or whatever, I don't think that works. I don't think it makes anything better, or diminishes any inflicted wrongs/pains, or even happens. It's not relevant. And wishing for it to befall someone is bad for us, I say. It's not that different from the death penalty that way, maybe.

This half an hour is taking forever, though.

Somebody having a watch gathering on TikTok is watching the C-SPAN feed. I've just called up the PBS one, and have the TV on too.

Whatever it is, I'm getting up and outside the house afterwards, for a palate cleanser, at least. Or to avoid rabbitholing into TikTok in search of a form of fellowship. Or to go out and be near others if the announcement includes him dying right there.

Monday but it isn't.

Growing up in the South East, sweater weather didn't even think about starting until November. (My first winter in Minnesota, it snowed the first week of November.)

But, when I first moved to this part of the country more than 30 years ago, Fall began the day after Labor Day. It was so weird. It was like someone flipped a switch. The week before was sunny and too hot and then on Tuesday, you needed a sweater. Global warming has put the kibosh on that. We have some more hot weather coming but this morning, Tuesday, it is cool and cloudy and even foggy out. Lovely. Alas, it's supposed to get up to 78.

Today is house cleaner day and I think I'll go the the dollar store while she is here. I have a dollar store list so I can just pound that out.

Only one baseball game today and it's not til 4.

Key Bank bit off my last nerve. I made a special point of going into the branch get info (as opposed to calling) and the woman told me that my remaining account - a checking account - was fee free. Then, over the weekend they slapped on a $25 service charge. Nope. That's it. I'm out.

My main credit card is an Amazon visa with Chase. And all I want with a backup checking account is atm's and a place to get five dollar bills if I want them and no fees. Chase has a brick and mortar just up the road. And their rules for no fees are crystal clear. So I opened up a backup checking account with them. I'll probably regret it some time down the road but for now, I'm cool.

My favorite swimsuit was still damp this morning after yesterday's swim. Not much but enough to be annoying at 5:30 am. It was only $19 so I thought I'd just go back and get another one. Amazon, of course. Only this time, it was $12!! Score. Be here tomorrow.

Happy September!

Here's hoping the fall is everything we could ask for.

*****************

( Read more... )

PSA text from celli

The IRS invites the public to participate in an anonymous feedback survey on tax preparation and filing options, which will run through Sept. 5, 2025.

The survey is being conducted as part of the Department of Treasury and the IRS’s efforts to fulfill a reporting requirement to Congress under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act. The law directs Treasury to deliver a report to Congress by Oct. 2, 2025, on several key issues related to free tax filing options for the public.

Treasury and the IRS encourage taxpayers to share their perspectives and help inform this important congressional report.

Translation: We have to report to Congress about the public's interest in Free File (filing directly on the IRS website) because they want to quash it, so here's a survey!

survey here

There are a couple of leading questions that I personally found HIGHLY entertaining. But I do recommend that if you are an American taxpayer you take a look at it/take it.

There was one question that asked what's important in filing taxes, and it had an "other" option that opened a handy text window, so I used that text window to tell them all about how filing taxes is a waste of time and money when the IRS already has all that information. There is absolutely no reason they can't just send you a bill or a refund every year, with a receipt, and you'd only have to file if you had to correct errors or had income or deductions that had been unreported for whatever reason.

Does anybody have an explanatory link?

So, responses here are not terribly helpful.

The OP is specifically confused about the use of the prhase "such as" in the highlighted sentence. I said that this is not wrong, it's just formal and old-fashioned, but like most Americans I've had very little formal education in English grammar and with google I still can't find either the words to define it or a few well-placed citations by prestigious authors.

Entry tags:

connecticut august 2025

(no subject)

I didn’t get out for a walk today because I was needed at various times to watch the girls while their father was out doing errands and their mother was working. I have definitely not been sitting still though.

Aria (6 years old) and I played a board game called Silly Street; we played three rounds and she won every time, partly through luck and partly through sheer determination not to be beaten. That girl is a killer competitor!

Oh my achin' back

I had a lengthy dream last night during which my left thigh from the knee to the hip hurt a lot and wouldn't stop. Then I woke up to pee and discovered that the thigh thing was no dream. It hurt. Lots. Then when I got up this morning, the hurt snaked down over my knee. I know it's my back and I had not been doing my back exercises and ugh.

I got up and got coffee and internetted and tried to interest myself in those exercises. And failed. But, it is another wonderfully cloudy morning so why not try swimming a few laps? I couldn't think of a reason not to. So I did.

Speed records were not broken but I did make sure my legs were working the entire time. I stopped twice for brief breathers but otherwise just kept going. I am sure it has been more than a year since I did any laps. It was really nice. The forecast shows some more cloudy mornings coming up. I might try it again.

But I really should do those back exercises.

Timber Ridge usually takes any excuse to shut down all the meal options and consolidate into one early afternoon buffet. Real holidays and faux holidays. Except for this year's Labor Day. For some strange reason, they are ignoring it. Very weird.

But baseball is on - one game at 1 and one game at 4.

I think I might go out and puzzle a bit this morning. But that's it for plans.

Entry tags:

Porous

The novel writes itself when I'm in the shower. Or driving in my car. Places where it's not easy to take dictation.

###

One of my favorite literary anecdotes of all time comes from Michael Chabon, talking about a block he encountered while writing a major scene in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh.

At the time, Chabon was enrolled in an MFA program at U.C. Irvine. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was his master's thesis.

The novel is about a young man who simultaneously falls in love with a man and a woman—very gaspworthy at the time (1988).

Chabon was writing about the moment his protagonist & the male objet du désir first have sex.

He didn't want to make it porn. (And then he unzipped his pants & unveiled his massive trouser trout...)

He didn't want to make it funny. (Ditto.)

He didn't know what to write and was afraid the novel was going to end right there.

So, he decided to go for a walk. It was some time past midnight.

Now! Anyone who has ever spent time in Southern California knows that nobody ever walks in Southern California. And especially nobody ever walks after dark.

In the comic I'm imagining, Chabon's this very, very tall man with seraphic wings of long, long hair and an antiquated waistcoat, chiaroscura-ed against the monotonous, endless, vapor-lit expanse of empty Irvine Center Road (though actually, Chabon's shorter than I am and doesn't have a Victorian sartorial fixation).

Chabon walked and walked and walked. And finally after a couple of hours passed another human being—a man holding a wad of tissue to his nose because he was having a nosebleed.

Eureka!

The perfect detail to denote the loss of a particular kind of virginity.

I love this anecdote because it demonstrates so perfectly how the Universe is always willing to collaborate with you if only you can keep yourself porous enough to be open to its suggestions.

###

Meanwhile, I trotted off to a craft fair yesterday.

It was a very bad craft fair filled with uninspired stuff and very high price tags. Bad people-watching, too. I suppose nobody uses the slang term "yuppies" anymore—invented by my pal Alice Kahn! And my X-boss Lanny Jones invented "Boomers"!—but that's what these craft fair goers were.

I passed a mirror and saw reflected in it an older woman with large strained eyes and a sagging jawline—and ohmyGAWD, that woman was me!

I tried to explain my shock on the phone to Ichabod afterwards: "No, honestly, it wasn't vanity! It was, well... This is really the first time I've noticed that my chin is starting to go. I'm finally getting what Marybeth used to call 'crepe neck.' I can't pass anymore."

"Pass as what?" Ichabod asked.

He loves me but finds me vaguely irritating—as the offspring of all parents with over-sized personalities do.

Pass as somebody younger? No, that's not it. I've never dissembled about my age.

"Pass as somebody who's not a caricature of themselves," is the best way I can describe it.

###

On the Work of Progress front: I have indeed come up with some very obnoxious behavior for Mimi. In fact, it may be too over the top for a chick lit novel. I blame David Foster Wallace.

But anyway, I can see the end of Chapter 1. Though I may not be able to finish it today because Remuneration.

Current Music: Biomigrant & El Monte Adentro: "Voz emplumada del monte"

Entry tags:

The cardinals' tea party

There is a cardinal pair in our yard, and I love them very much. I drew them having a cup of tea.

female and male northern cardinal with blue and white teapot and cups of tea

female and male northern cardinal with blue and white teapot and cups of tea

female and male northern cardinal on either side of a blue and white teapot

A mi me enseño a cantar la calandria y el cenzontle,
la calandría y el cenzontle y el pájaro cardenal
la calandría y el cenzontle y el pájaro cardenal

--Biomigrant & El Monte Adentro: "Voz emplumada del monte"
calandría = chalk-browed mockingbird (Mimus saturninus)
cenzontle = northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottus)
pájaro cardenal = northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)

Code deploy happening shortly

Per the dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.