Monthly Archives: November 2018

I have this ficus that someone gave me over 30 years ago. It currently looks peaked and like it’s given up. It’s looked bad before and I tough-loved its roots and gave it lots of fresh dirt and fertilizer. But now I’m thinking of throwing it out into the garden pile. That seems so mean. But I feel so ambivalent about this tree. Does it bring me joy? No, but I’m used to it. This is how I make decisions.

Why change something I don’t like if I’m used to it?

If I get rid of it I’ll take a picture. Maybe if it snows, so I can make sure it looks terribly sad.

Whew, made it through the month. I will be back to my weekly posts, maybe.

NaNo Wrap up:

37565 / 50000 words. 75% done!

My stated goal: 50,000 words (200 pp) is unlikely but if I aim for that I can probably reach 35,000 (140 pp) which will get me roughly half way.

I had some sort of word count every day except Thanksgiving Day when I only had a very short time for writing. Next goal is to finish the first draft by the end of the year. I think I can do it.

I don’t believe in those zinc tablets that you’re supposed to take when you’re coming down with a cold. They supposedly reduce the seriousness or length of your cold. There is no science to support this.

HOWEVER, Bob was sick and asked me to buy some and I felt a cold coming on. Since we had them, I took them. Three tablets for three days. My cold never settled in. I felt iffy with the sniffles and I only coughed for about 3 days. A three day cough! Normally if my body has a chance to cough it digs in and gives me three full weeks to enjoy it.

So, I don’t believe in them, but I would use them again.

If you recall, back in March our condiment shelf on our refrigerator door broke. I eventually called Sears and the nice person on the phone found the part and arranged to ship it to me for about $50.

You can imagine my disappointment when my condiment shelf broke again, barely 6 months later. We could play solve the mystery about why this shelf keeps breaking but that’s not what I’m writing about here.

I called Sears again since I’d already done this once and the person asked me for the model of my fridge. I read the number I had in front of me and he said that wasn’t a model. I read other numbers that I had in front of me and he asked where I was getting those from.

From the little book that came with the refrigerator.

Can’t you just go look at the refrigerator? He described where I would find the model number.

No, I said. I’m at work. I need a job so I can pay for all these condiment shelves. Don’t you have it in your system?

No. He did not.

SEARS! It is 2018. There are online retailers who can tell me what I bought 10 years ago. You need to get with the program.

If you can believe it, I gave up about 99% of my wine drinking back in June. If you know me well you are probably agog right now.

I had that heartburn reflux thing going on so I did an over the counter medicine and cut back to 2 or 3 non-wine drinks a week. I generally only drink wine with company.

I feel better and my clothes fit better. WHATEVER, CLEAN LIVING.

Before that, I took this picture for my friend Raj and told him if we ever live in the same town we can do a podcast reviewing boxed wines.

This looks like a still from some sort of weird experimental European film.

Remember when the year 2000 was way in the future? It’s hard to believe it was such a long time ago but here I am much younger wearing some AMAZING pants which as I recall were very comfortable.

And I’m wearing my favorite of all time shoes that died in 2015 and I still haven’t found a replacement pair that I love although I have some Born sandals that are close.

It happens so many times that I’m a huge fan of a website and inevitably they are acquired by another organization or they do a crazy redesign of the site that I can’t stand. Or lately there are sites that start out free and then add a fee. I don’t mind paying a reasonable fee for something I use all the time but then a year later the fee doubles.

I hardly ever use Flickr as it is but I’ve been paying their pro rate. But now that’s doubling I think that’s going to be one more social media site that I nuke.

Another version of this is a company that I’ve used and liked is bought out by some big corporate that destroys everything good about the original place. But I don’t figure that out until I’ve purchased something from them and have terrible customer service and don’t like what I bought.

I’ve been a big fan of Heath News Review a site that reports on how the media covers health stories. Not very well, as it turns out. Of course the site that committed to the facts and science and points out conflicts of interest is the site that doesn’t have the funding to continue. But any number of B.S. clickbait sites go on.

Lots of great information there. Worth checking the site.

If we had to make Thanksgiving dinner only from things I brought in from the yard, this is what we would be having. And also if Thanksgiving was several months ago.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Update:

34097 / 50000 words. 68% done!

Yesterday I made up a scene I don’t need, trying to keep up with my word count. This has happened in the past when I get caught up in word goals and it never ends well because then I waste a bunch of time trying to fit that stuff in. Usually at some point around the middle I can’t figure out where I’m going next and need to go back to the beginning and re-group before charging ahead. It happened much later than usual on this manuscript. So progress, I guess.

I intended to try to take a better matching photo but this is the closest I got.

He’s supposed to be fast growing but not as fast as I hoped. I researched about fertilizer or any other tips for things I could do but apparently making sure he had enough water in the summer and shoring him up in a leaf pile for winter is doing the best.

That reminds me, I posted a photo of the house behind us. They had to chop down their trees. The neighbor told us that Friends of Trees was going to plant new trees and gave them a bunch they could choose from. His mother-in-law was fretting about what to choose and Donny told her: They aren’t going to even look like trees while we’re around. It doesn’t matter what you pick.

Hard love.