You're Doing It Wrong

The commute is kicking my ass — do I complain about that every other post? I need to get over it.

I was going to flip my closet last weekend. Dig out the open toed shoes and warmer weather stuff and put the winter stuff in the back. Except I looked at the forecast for this week and decided to wait another week. I took the lining out of my raincoat – maybe I should put it back.

I have a meditation app and it includes guided sleep meditations. Do you call that a meditation? I feel like being guided to sleep is different but I don’t know what to call it.

I was completely resistant to the idea. I expected that I would be intent on listening to the app which would keep me awake.

As usual, I was wrong. I have used it a few times when I felt wound up but needed to get to sleep. I’ve only heard the end of a meditation once. One time, all I remember is her telling me to get comfortable and take a deep breath. Next, I was waking up and hours had gone by.

During the pandemic I regularly visited and became completely invested in the California condors on the condor cam so I was pretty excited to learn that the Yurok Tribe has a condor restoration project. More info and live cam here.

One more bird thing: the Cornell Lab Bird cams. I love the Great Horned Owl and the red tailed hawks.

I took my bird feeders down because of the rain but the blue jay pair came out for some peanuts and one of them drank from the bucket, too.

These two raccoons come through almost every night and have a quick pit stop.

We also identified a new squirrel — definitely not fat squirrel. Must be a youngster because it practically flew through the yard, up on the fence, and then up the roof of the neighbor’s garage.

I still haven’t done anything in the garden. This is my latest start in at quite some time.

Great news! Apex Magazine is doing a Kickstarter to fund a paperback anthology of stories from 2021 including my story: Security Breach at Sugar Pine Suites.

Link to the Kickstarter and more info here

I inadvertently cut editors Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner out of the photo. I love that cover art and 48 stories. Lots of funding levels. Great project!

Another crazy busy weekend culminating in a super busy day. I was gone all day but optimistically jotted down a list of 9 things I thought I could get done when I got home.

HAHAHAHAHA! Luckily I put bathe on the list because I am up for that one and then I am getting in my pajamas and parking on the couch until bed time.

I finally realized that my favorite old jeans are finished. I have been hardly ever wearing them so they would last longer but they are so old they are disintegrating on the hanger. I’m going to put them in the garden clothes pile but I bet they fall apart. Always a tragedy when your favorite clothes give up.

When I signed into my dashboard it said that my privacy policy has gotten about 8x as much traffic as any other part of my site. I’m not sure what that means. Probably people researching and getting ready to sue me because my policy is so half-assed. I don’t know how to collect and exploit data. I don’t how anything works.

I think I wrote about our microwave (we call it the science oven) from 40 years ago died and we got a new one. I don’t love the new one because it seems so hard to press the buttons and it has some quirks I haven’t gotten used to. But it has a rotating dish — we’ve never had that before and also it’s so much stronger — things heat faster. We already broke a plate.

Last year the NYT had a recipe for Butter Mochi.

“Tender and chewy, this big-batch dessert — as comforting as cake and as fun as bar cookies — is always a hit at parties. ”

I clipped it and finally tried it around the holidays.

The recipe uses sweet rice flour, something I’ve never baked with before, plus tons of sugar and 2 cans coconut milk.

I felt like I followed the directions but the finished product seemed heavy and chewy and not a texture that I was sure about. It tasted good.

I sent a note to a friend to ask for advice since she has a recipe on her website for Banana Mochi Bread. She was reassuring about my results and even used the words “rubbery” and “not cake-like” to describe this dessert.

Here’s the thing: no one ate it except me. It made a giant 9×13 pan. Even my husband, who will eat just about anything sweet wouldn’t touch it.

I can’t bear to be wasteful so I packed it in the freezer and doled it out a piece or two at a time. I just finished the last one.

(And, I plan to try that banana mochi bread recipe one of these days.)

I took a little video of the Klamath, in Orleans, while we were on a walk.

A few weeks ago in the evening, my phone went off and the ID was the retirement home

The retirement home isn’t going to call and tell us we won the lottery so my heart was in my throat

The person on the call identified himself and said he wanted to let me know that Dad fell. He wasn’t injured but he had an abrasion that they treated. They checked him out and he could walk so they were not sending him to the ER.

We breathed a sigh of relief and said we’d follow up.

Two minutes later the phone rang again. It wasn’t Dad, it was his next door neighbor who fell.

This is probably their worst nightmare to get the residents mixed up and call the wrong family but we thought it was hilarious.

Oakie letting me know he’s ready to help by sitting on my laptop.

Damn! The times gets away. This weekend I did a bunch of chores and got out in the yard. I did my first pass on the taxes. I finished a little project for a friend. And I watched NCAA gymnastics conference finals. I’m still watching that. 5 more hours to go.

Morning Tishaniik walk with dogs and elders.

I’m not totally sure how music gets on my phone. Last time I drove to Orleans my podcasts wouldn’t work and I can’t fiddle with the phone while I drive so I asked Siri to play music.

And all these songs I like played. It was a miracle.

So for this trip I added a playlist called “current faves” and listened to that for another part of the drive when my podcasts weren’t working. I did ask Siri to play podcasts but she didn’t do it. I don’t know why.

Apparently I created “current faves” about 15 minutes after Apple invented playlists (the early 00s?) because it was a bunch of old songs from bands I haven’t thought of in ages.

Stroke Nine? Vertical Horizon? Snow Patrol?

I don’t listen to music enough to remedy this situation

On the way home I listened to a big section of Braiding Sweetgrass which I am enjoying but it’s super long and feels long.

Mom and Oakie cleaning up the asparagus patch.

I don’t have any big stories from my trip. The drive down and back went smoothly. We had some rain but nothing terrible which is actually bad because they are hurting for rain/snowpack down there. We went on some nice walks and did some visiting.

I will be back in June.

This post and the next are being scheduled. I am going to Orleans to hang out with Mom for a week. Hopefully I will have some fun photos when I return.

Someday I would like to go through our entire house and get out every towel, washcloth, dish cloth, rag, mop towel, and anything else like a towel and put them all in a pile.

We need to sort through and make a “GET RID OF ALREADY” pile, a mop pile, and then the ones we use for bathing.

Every little cupboard and cranny has some towels stashed in it. Some of them so ancient you can see through them.

But it seems like whenever I’m looking for hand towels, or the bath towels that I like, I can’t find them.

See also: containers for leftovers. We have lids. We have containers. But sometimes none match the others.