Category: Good Things

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Practically overnight my cucumbers sprouted.

IMG 1420Yippee!

I was getting worried.

So now I have lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. All working toward harvest day.

Now if only I can get the carrots and bell peppers to make an appearance. The carrots are in fact sprouted, but they’re developing at a slow pace. just a few little green threads at this point. The peas have also sprouted another week or so and I’m going to have to come up with some kind of trellis for them.

It’s nice that amidst all the insanity that some things are constants. Gardens still grow and puttering around in the yard in the early morning brings me a great deal of calm and pleasure.

Next on the agenda is the front yard. Over the past few winters, a lot of the landscaping has taken a big beating and I’ve lost a lot of the plants that brightened up the yard at this time of year.

I’m hesitant to put in too much because who knows what the county will decide is “BAD” to have in the yard this fire season. I don’t want to invest a ton of money, time and water only to have some asshole tell me that X,Y, or Z is a fire hazard. 

But I’m thinking about cheap color at least until the fall. It would give me some pleasure and brighten the place up a bit.

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It’s nice to be in my home state

IMG 1244My Brother’s place feels like home. It’s spartan. very little junk, and everything that’s here is something that my brother loves or which has obvious significance.

It’s strange that I feel so at home here, and did so instantly.

My sinuses lost their minds in the hours after landing here. They’ve calmed down considerably and now my skin is relaxing too, it’s the humidity here. 

Ibrothers.jpg.jpeg slept soundly once I fell asleep it took some time for my head to quite due to the  rigors of traveling. Once I went to sleep I slept well and deeply.

My memories of this area are surprisingly good. My brain automatically pointed out poison ivy. I wasn’t even aware that I was avoiding it until I went to reach for some of the berries, then I remembered and thought, “Huh” 

I’m in my home environment the world is right and I’m comfortable.

I’ve had a bit to drink after a day with my brother. Brother(s) actually, I got to spend time wIMG 1249ith the eldest sibling from my Father’s second marriage. he’s only 4 years older than me and looks very good.

I’m smiling a lot for no reason, and it’s not just from the booze. 

Okay, I’ve had too much to drink over the course of the day. But I don’t care.

Spending time with family is like the warmth of a fire on a cold night.

It’s comfortable and good. No-one is trying to outdo the others, we’re just laughing and enjoying being in each other’s presence.

I’ll admit that I was tense about this trip, but that tension was only about the flight and having to deal with the bullshit of security and close confines.

There’s joy in being here and in the company of people who generally think like I do, meaning in my family.

There’s also joy in faith in people generally who might disagree, or potentially take you to task about your beliefs but if it comes to that. Southern politeness and decorum will be followed.

It’s nice to feel that I have freedom of speech again.

I suppose all of this is to say that it’s nice to feel like I belong.

Social rules are those that I remember. I know, perhaps this place isn’t as diverse as other places, but I have to ask… 

Is that so wrong?

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I slept like a baby last night

I guess the message was received and my unquiet mind decided to let me rest.

I’m in Big Bear for a couple of days. Lat night  I was warm and the town was pretty quiet traffic noise aside. 

Having a lovely cup of coffee after sleeping for 9 hours, then lounging under the covers for an hour.

All is good with the world regardless of what the news says.

Will be cleaning the B&B unit later today and hopefully there will not be any hiccups.

I haven’t bothered with a shower since I’m only going to be working up a sweat with the cleaning. 

Once I’m done with that and the new folks are in place, I’ll have a shower then take a walk into the village. It’s cold but that’s Winter. 31F last night as a low, that’s a lot warmer than it was the first weekend I was here.

I’m planning the week ahead and I’ve got to get the car washed. I should’ve done that last week but honestly it was too damn cold to be playing in the water even in the small desert town I usually do the car was in.

Still looking for a job and still trying to write. It’s been tough sitting down and actually just writing lately. I’ve been too easily distracted and the internet is a large part of that distraction.

Hopefully after I’ve finished the cleaning, I’ll hap time to just re-read and continue writing. That’s going to depend a lot on how tired I am but I’ve got hope.

I hope your Sunday is as peaceful.

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I can move my body without too much pain today!

That’s a very good thing, because when I hauled my carcass out of bed yesterday morning I was sure that I’d broken every major muscle and joint in my body.

It makes sense. I’d spent 3 years metaphorically chained to a 3×3 area in front of a desk in a cubicle, not doing a whole lot of physical activity. Then all at once, I was demanding a ton of physical activity of my joints & muscles, my body had every right to be seriously pissed off. Guess what? It was!

This morning there are only minor kinks. My hands are working properly again so working on my computer is a lot easier. So it looks like my body and I will not be divorced anytime soon, I was pretty sure that I’d be served with divorce papers from God yesterday morning. This was especially true when I started carrying things up into the house from the car.

So it’s on to the next things… Unpacking and integrating things from the apartment back into the house. Oh Joy! Followed immediately thereafter by moving the automatic bill pay items from the Credit union in San Diego to the Credit union up here. While that is a pain in the ass, it will ultimately be for the better because of the address snafu that is jamming me up with the Credit Union in San Diego. I’ll be closing the San Diego account as soon as all the finances are settled.

Leaving CaliforniaI did play “Rearview Town” from Jason Aldean as I left San Diego. The other thing that was funny was how many U-Hauls were heading up the I-15 on Monday. I thought I was part of a mass migration. I’d been noticing a lot of folks in U-Hauls over the past few months but had chalked that up to me being more aware since I was moving too.

I’m wondering if there was more to it, since I had trouble locating a one-way truck for my move.

I’ve often wondered if California has “Moving Cams” at the state line. Cameras like that could count the number of moving trucks headed into and out of the state. I wonder if it would be about equal or if there are more folks moving out than coming in.

Anatomy male muscular system rigged 02I am going to arrange to get a massage. As I was thinking about that, I remembered my massage therapist has a chart of the muscular system on the wall and sometimes he’ll say point to where it hurts. He knows me, so mostly it’s a joke between us. But this next time I see him I think I’ll be able to point generally in the direction of the wall and truthfully say, “There, pick anywhere at random”.

I’m sure we’ll laugh and then I’ll be screaming like a little girl at a horror movie.

But today is better than yesterday and that’s all I can ask for.

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The new machine is up

Macbookpro2019It took a while, but the techno-demons have been cast out of the new machine.

Setting up a new computer is always a pain in the ass. In this case it turns out that the old machine had gotten a bit senile in it’s last days and corrupted the backup I have at the apartment.

So when I restored the backup(s) to the new machine, I also restored the corrupted files. OOOOPPPS!

Neither I, or the old workhorse realized there was a problem, so there was no way to anticipate the issue and since the old machine wasn’t working there was no way to check before I brought the new machine online.

Under normal circumstances, if I’d just been doing a normal computer replacement I’d have checked the backup before restoring to the new machine which would have avoided the problem.

It’s 4 AM

I woke up thinking I was late to work. I’m going to go back to sleep for a couple of hours. I guess it’s going to take me some time to get over the odd schedule I’ve been living on for the past 3 years.

Since I was awake I figured I’d check on the computer. It looks like everything has been sorted at the apartment hooray!

Now I have to clean up the backup on the mountain to complete the setup and fully retire the old machine. Just a couple more details to finish & files to load, and those can be done mostly automatically. I’m still in San Diego and will head up to the mountain later today.

It’s nice to not be worried about timing or rushing to get somewhere.  I can take my time without worry over losing my job. That’s already happened!

This new keyboard feels strange. I do like the touch-bar but it’s going to take some getting used to.

I’ll probably come back to San Diego on Tuesday. I’ll take the opportunity provided by being on the mountain during the week to make arrangements with a storage facility nearer the house to store the larger items from the apartment.

The plan is to take the smaller items up and reintegrate them into the house storing only those things I don’t need in the storage facility.

Depending on the job situation I’ll move stuff from there if I need to.

The Job market is very weird right now and I don’t know how long a period of unemployment I’m looking at. Who does? It’s a lot harder to land a job than it used to be.

In the mean time I’ve got a couple of books to write and perhaps that will help with the income side of things. After all those stories have been fermenting in my head for a few years they should be about ready to pour onto the page.

It’s 4:30, I’m going back to sleep.

Have a great Sunday