It wasn’t meant to be funny

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One way that I have kept myself entertained over the last several months is by listening to various of the Great Courses (produced by the euphemistically named “Learning Company”). Between the two public libraries to which I subscribe (Berkeley and San Francisco) and the extension provided by the SF Library to Hoopla, there are dozens of these to which I can listen.

As a result, I have been learning about the Middle Ages, various assorted sciences and a bit of music. Just for a lark, I pulled their course on “Introduction to Infectious Disease.” It was produced sometime after the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Unfortunately, the author describes the US public health system as organized, well prepared, well recognized, and “able to leap tall buildings with a single bound.”

I had to stop listening, it just hurt too much. Yes, Dr Fox is accurate in that we recognized that diseases can spread rapidly. But stating that we were prepared for the current pandemic is completely ludicrous. Decades of under funding coupled with a complete disregard for safety, security, and human rights whenever anything got in the way of someone making a fast buck left the US woefully unprepared.

His intro was meant to encourage and laud the progress that had been made in the wake of Ebola. Instead, it just made me feel bad and not be able to listen to the rest of it.  After thinking about it for a couple of hours, I emailed the production company to suggest that they re-do the intro. Most of their material is on-line and it just isn’t that hard to update digital files.

In family news: in spite of traffic this morning, we managed to get to UCSF in plenty of time for George’s radiology appointment. Assuming we won’t get results till Thursday when he has a follow up. Otherwise, there is organizing, stitching, baseball – with a side benefit of Angel deciding to BBQ tonight resulting in a lovely supper on the back deck.

One drawer at a time

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I was thinking that tackling all the cleaning and organizing that needs to be done is overwhelming. I just look around, take a deep breath, and then go bury my head in stitching, sewing, knitting, audiobooks, webinars, or more than one of the above.

So I considered the old elephant story – how do you eat it (hello? Who in the world would want to eat an elephant anyway?) but the principle of “one bite at a time” would be most certainly applicable. 

That would mean one drawer at a time. Once the drawers are done, I can tackle the closets. And bins. And piles of stuff. And stacks of puzzles and books. Let me count – there are 10 drawers in my small living room cabinet. Six drawers that I claim between our two dressers plus a night stand drawer. Do I count the hanging clothes compartment divider in the closet as drawers? How about the bins in my cabinets in the sewing/craft/disaster room? Two sets of three under the one table, three in the sewing cabinet, three in each of the two small rolling white cabinets. 12 in one sorter and six in another (all of these are tiny) plus six in the tall storage cabinet in the corner. I don’t have to count the three drawers in the cabinet that I gave to Miriam. Oh, yes, there are also two drawers in the corner built-in. 

That is somewhere upwards of 60, which now seems like an insurmountable task. I have been avoiding dealing with the bedroom because I know that there are things that I need to donate, but the charity shops are still pretty much closed. 

And we are still not speaking about the garage. 

I would much rather be stitching or sewing or reading….

I think if I kept at is solid for a month, I could probably embroider all the towel and clothing blanks that I have which would free up a couple of bins which would let me get better organized. Of course, the reasons that I haven’t gotten things organized are not knowing where to start and having the challenge of decreased ability to function in disorganization. 

Argh!

Anyway –

at least I have made progress on Coffee Compendium

2 Aug 2020 – start

which shows complete through page six plus some portions of 9&10 also complete

end 2 Aug 2020

As of last night, completed through p 7 and all but the word “Turner” on page 8. And, in case you (just like me) have no clue what “Mary Turner” has to do with coffee – turns out (ouch) it is a beauty product with coffee and blueberries. 

I am thinking it is a waste of both….

It just isn’t the same

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Yes, I am more than comfortable, sitting in our back bedroom/guest room/TV room with baseball on the television, but it just is not the same. Not like sitting the ball park. Not being surrounded by fellow noisy (and noise making fans) and most certainly not bothering to wear As logo gear.

Admittedly, I don’t miss the PITA of riding BART to and from the game.  Nor cmoming home late. But I miss my game day friends, cheap food & souvenirs, and the pleasure of driving the occasional  opposing side right fielder out of the game. 

But all of that is not stopping me from watching the As play. without yelling, cheering, or cowbell it is just too quiet. I am also keeping an eye on the Twins as a back up team to support. Angel informs me that the Mets have to figure out their bullpen before they have a chance – the absence of a closer is costing them.

So that is the update.

Game stitching is the Linen & Threads 2020 Mystery SAL

August Clue

Which, as you will see over the next week – is not a clock.

Otherwise I am making relatively good progress on my Tempting Tangles Coffee Sampler. Originally released in 16 parts, I have parts 1-4 completed (except for a small blank spot) as well as 5 & 8. Now to finish up parts 6&7 to claim 50% completed…

Coffee Compendium.

Euclid Update

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Let me see, where do I start?

As you can probably guess, the last six weeks have been not a lot of fun. No one here has yet to acquire COVID-19 but that doesn’t mean that other illnesses haven’t intervened.  At least I have had enough sense not to make public the bitching, whining and otherwise self-pitying posts that have been written. I am in the process of separating out craft content from general whines and will release what is fit for public consumption over the next couple of weeks. 

The kids (ok, none of them are kids, with an age range from 27 to 41, but still, they are my kids) are all well; either working or in school. George, on the other hand developed some issues which landed him back in UCSF for about 9 days early July. Poor guy, he had the cheerful prospect of celebrating his birthday in the hospital. End result of the hospitalization is a guesstimated diagnosis. Follow up treatment is consisting of  by eight weeks worth of IV antibiotics here at home. At q12 hours (with total time for each set of infusions added up to about 5 hours) I am getting. a bit sleep deprived. He has more tests this coming week. 

Meanwhile, I have been avoiding cleaning and organizing in favor of listening to old favorites on audio, doing a lot of stitching, and spending time with Miriam’s cat in my lap when he gets bored. This, of course, lets me completely  avoid doing anything else. 

 

It wasn’t today

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After getting everything organized – I headed over to a 1000 appt at Volkswagen of Oakland.  There have been two ongoing challenges. The first is seemingly easy – the “check tire pressure” light keeps flipping on. The second is a bit more problematic. The passenger door no longer locks.

Now, in the good old days when you could just press down a button, it was easy to lock a car. Admittedly, a determined thief armed with a wire coat hanger could break into your car in the old days. With today’s electronic locks, most of the old fashioned break-in methods don’t worked and have been replaced by hammers and crowbars. Even not keeping anything worthwhile in the car doesn’t completely render a car safe from thieves.

And, when you think about it – if you are reporting a theft/break-in, one of the first questions asked is always “was it locked….

So there I am, with a passenger door that doesn’t lock. I get everything organized (yes, I said that before) and drive to Oakland. Attempting to check-in, I am not on the list. They look me up in the computer. George is the one who made the appointment and gave me the information. Well, 1000 was right. Unfortunately, the appointment was for yesterday….

But Chai is not coffee…

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Back last winter, I found this lovely coffee sampler at Tempting Tangles. Deb, the designer, does a lot of SALs (stitch-a-longs). This particular one was originally released in a 16 part series back in 2011.

After getting through the challenges of figuring out how I was going to manage the fact that the fabric I really liked and had wasn’t big enough for decent margins (stitch on what you have and add binding later) and closing colors to shift over to Sulky from the original Dinky Dyes or DMC I was ready to go.

Pages 1 & 2 were fine,

Pages 1 & 2

 

but then I hit page three…. and there it was – Chai Latte …

Page three – with blank space

 

So I worked around it and shot off an email to the designer.

Latte refers to the milk, not the coffee. A Chai Latte that includes coffee is an Espresso Chai Latte.  This leaves me with a challenge: I can’t see my way to include a tea in the coffee sampler. The list is alphabetical… and there is no where enough room to add Chai Espresso.

So, we shall see, and have to think…

Cat in Lap

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Some times it is just not possible to do anything useful. That particular word is related to the stitching I was doing, not from the point of view of the cat.

Kitty Ramon taking over

Completed

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Farewell to Anger

Considering 76k+ stitches, I am rather pleased.

Started 1 Jan 2020 (on Gold Coast NZ time) and finished 30 June 2020 – PDT. Artist is Leonid Afremov, design executed by Heaven and Earth Designs. Stitched on 16ct gridded Aida with ~ 90 colors. 

Mini-Puzzles

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Nautilus Puzzles has minis. They don’t take all that long to put together being about 50 pieces each, give or take a few.

But they are fun…

and the consensus seems to be

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that if I am feeling stuffy, or pretentious, I can always put more initials after my name.  Or just for the heck of it.

I am not really sure who, if anyone, I might need to impress – but there you are – MD, MPH, MSL, MFTM (RCPS-Glasgow). Said string could also include COL USA (ret) if I would want.

In a more sensible vein – Noah and I put in a small bit of time in the garage. Excess boxes and the plethora of books are the low hanging fruit at the moment.

And then there is stitching

Farewell to Anger at 85% complete

and new puzzles from Nautilus

I finally checked

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For whatever reason, I screwed up the courage this morning to visit Webadvisor. What is that you say? It is the extremely clunky and difficult to use registration/transcript program that UCHastings uses. 

Amazingly enough, this time (as apposed to a month or so ago) it was willing to log me in for the start of an extremely frustrating attempt to located my transcript. Believe it or not – hitting the “transcript” button gets you exactly nothing. No idea why it is there, nor do I remember if it worked in the past. But for now? Meh. Rotating down the list several times – I tried “grades” which led me to the choice of Fall2018, Fall2019,Spring2019. The first was blank. Go figure – I wasn’t a student then. Fall2019 actually gave me a list of the courses I took that first fall. Of course, since the MSL students are not on the same grading system as the law students, I have the explanation for why clicking the GPA button got me no where. 

[side note – programers are not stupid, that page could be designed so that it only gives you the options which are applicable to your situation. This means that the person who wrote the specifications was either shortsighted or the school was cheap on funds.]

Checking the Spring2019 showed that my incomplete had vanished and an MSL version of a grade was posted. This means that I am done, Done, DONE!

Now, do you suppose that they will ever mail me my diploma?

Should I add more letters after my name? Perhaps in the British or European style so that the numbers of letters after one’s name exceeds the actual length of the particular name? Having a short name could really help.

Just wondering…. 

Old Listens

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Really, I will not tell you how many audio books that I own. Or have a license to (after all, there is Audible, iTunes, Chirp, GraphicAudio). What I will say that is currently I have very little tolerance for blood shed or violence. Not interested in reading or hearing about “bad things happening.” You can tell me that I can’t just stick my head in the sand – but really, all I have to do is listen to the news to get my fill of ugly – I don’t have to voluntarily import more of that to my ears.

As a result, I find my self listening to old favorites – the San Francisco library provides access to Hoopla, so I have been scouring their lists for books missing out of various of my series. Following links for “similar authors” and otherwise avoiding the worst of ugly.

All of this finds me listening to a number of old favorites. And I can stitch at the same time!

It is the little things

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right now that I am concentrating on. The sound of flamingo wind chimes in the breeze as they dangle from George’s new patio umbrella.

the well traveled Flamingo

The taste of the morning coffee that is my daily treat from Peet’s and The simple pleasure of one stitch after another going through the cloth of the cross stitch project on the floor frame.

past 60% complete

All of which are within my sphere, under  my control.

alternate space station

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Seeing a great marketing opportunity – Nautilus Puzzles came up with a “Heye” like puzzle to celebrate the successful space launch. – The Space Colony

Alex and I started it a couple of days ago, sitting at the dining room table quietly enjoying looking at the pieces and putting together a bit of here and there.

Miriam decided it needed to be finished…

 

Space Flight

 

If you click on the picture – you will see a bit more detail. Perhaps better would be to go to the puzzle site – it is a real hoot… and they have a lot of pictures

Porto-whatever

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a Liberty Puzzle

I was thinking about starting a new puzzle, and found that I had failed to put this one away.

So, I sat and admired it for a few minutes before carefully placing it back in its box and cleaning the puzzle board for the next round.

[As you can tell – I am not going much of anywhere at any time…]

what can I say

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Not mine

It seems that there are two options for cat boxes – this particular one is call – to no one’s surprise….Sushi.

(photo furnished by the Eldest who just couldn’t resist the idea of more “cat in boxes or bags”

And they flew

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from Kennedy Space Center in Florida – Dragon with two astronauts successfully flew with the Falcon launcher returning and landing. As I understood it – it will be a bit more than nine hours from launch to docking with the International Space Station.

And, in just as momentous although without the same amount of speed – the first of the Cal Falcon chicks launched from the Campanile.

The rest of us? Home bound, land bound and dreaming of flight.

The Power went out

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There I was, last night, just before 2200. Happily stitching away on the rather large cross stitch that inhabits my floor frame and chatting with Jill, who is doing much the same while in her home on the eastern Australian coast. And, suddenly, as noted above – I am sitting in the dark. It is quiet. No motors anywhere. No signs of life. No computer, no wifi, no FaceTime.

Looking out the window – our entire neighborhood is dark. Ok, it is not our circuit breaker. The dark extends almost the entire way to the bay with only an occasional gleam of headlights as cars make their way along without the benefit of street lights or operational signals.

Over the next few minutes, I can hear the occasional generator starting up, breaking the peace and quiet. But it is dark. My phone is at 35%. Using it as a flashlight to head to bed will take the charge down further. George checks the PG&E website – yes, they know the power is out. These leaves me wondering if another squirrel has been crisped, since that was the origin of a previous transformer failure.

Somewhere after midnight the power comes back on. No, I wasn’t still awake. But the lights came on….

Sitting on the back deck

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I started up Youtube and picked one of the Cal Falcon cams. The minute I did, two things happened. The first was that I promptly heard screeching over the cam. The second was that several birds in the area immediately flew to the redwoods near the back deck and started strongly voicing their opinions about falcons in the neighborhood.

Who knew? Well, I should have. Bird cries and calls serve as identification within and between the species. Obviously, to the ears of one of my local birds – there is no difference between a falcon heard from my computer and one actually present in the area.

Since the crew seemed to be quiet after the first minute I tuned in, I went back and pulled up some of older clips featuring a lot of calls, complaining and ear splitting cries.

Things are otherwise quiet here. I am spending the mornings out on the back deck before the sun gets too bright. switching to indoors for a while, then back outside at the end of the day when the setting sun streaming through the living room window makes it impossible to see what I am doing.

There is a quiet rhythm to life and I am putting off all decisions about travel plans, baseball,  or what I will be doing next year.

Blockley

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As I am sure that just about all of us know by now that there are no universities holding actual, physical graduation ceremonies.

So, enter the Minecraft World – visit Blockley – and watch today’s Cal Graduation on Twitch.

The story behind the project is perhaps best captured by NBC (link here).  There is also an extensive description here –  complete with interviewers.

If you want to explore the campus – log into your Minecraft account – the specific server is mc.blockley.com