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July 16th, 2021, 12:30 pm
27 Things to Do in Nine Months: July 15, 2021 to April 14, 2022.
severina2001 posted a To Do list: 101 Things in 1001 Days - July 12, 2021 to April 08, 2024 which struck a chord with me. Perhaps I too would profit from doing the same sort of thing, only over a shorter time span. My initial thought was a year, but that felt like biting off more than I could chew. Then I thought, nine months? Instead of having a baby...I already did that, three times...I could Get Stuff Done. Nine months could be both challenging and short enough that I might keep at it.
Note: This is a 'sticky' post and will remain at the top of my LJ so that I see it every time I'm here. Scroll past it and enjoy. FanSee
( 27 Things to Do in Nine Months: July 15, 2021 to April 14, 2022.Collapse )
October 31st, 2021, 09:41 pm
Dune
Long ago and far away, Dune was published in August of 1965. I was a married lady with three children and a husband who loved his job but was not highly compensated. (Walter counseled unemployed teenagers, aged 16 to 22, on what the Pennsylvania Department of Labor called "The World of Work." He got them into training programs and found them jobs and yelled at them on an as-needed basis.) We could scrape by on Walt's salary, but we were a lot more comfortable when I took jobs with a temporary office personnel service; think Kelly Girls. Most of the jobs I was sent on were full time, eight hours per day, five days a week while they lasted. Then I'd be home for a day or two, maybe longer, before I got another assignment. That worked for us.
One day in the summer of 1967, I got sent to an insurance company to do some sort of analysis on an adding machine; I can see the building from the apartment I now live in. I remember there were four of us on the job: me, about 28 years old, a guy in his early twenties, a young woman a little younger than him, and another woman, also younger than me, of whom I now have very little recollection. The first day was taken up by job training. The four of us were given stacks of old documents and shown what to look for in them, what calculations needed to be done, how to operate the big, old, noisy twenty-key calculator, and how to manually post our results to the workpapers we prepared. The woman from the insurance company stayed with us all day, making sure we understood how the company wanted everything done. It was important that all four of us used the same format for the workpapers that were our end result.
The second day, our new boss showed up, made sure none of us had had a brain wipe over night, then said she'd be back before lunch to go over what we'd done so far. She also gave each of us a lunch room pass to the cafeteria. We had to pay for whatever we purchased, but it was below market rates and tasty. I was pleased because I needed to keep expenses low, low, low.
Lunch break was an hour...noon to 1:00 p.m....and we also got two fifteen minute breaks, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon. All were announced by a building-wide buzzer, sort of like being back in school. In between the three breaks we worked steadily. The clatter of those big calculators made conversation difficult...almost impossible, in fact. That second morning, when the clatter stopped, the young guy turned to the three of us 'girls,' and said, "Have any of you read Dune?"
I nodded, Yes, but the younger woman exclaimed, "Oh my God, YES! Isn't it the best book ever?"
That night I stopped at the library at the end of my block and looked for Dune. Thank heavens, it wasn't checked out! If I was going to be able to keep up with the conversations at work, I was going to have to become very very familiar with the 700+ pages of Dune...and I did want to keep up!
It was wonderful! The three of us tore the book apart verbally, discussed every aspect of it, and exchanged reading lists of all the other books we had loved and obsessed over...because if someone obsesses over one book, you know that's not their first rodeo. We were polite and friendly with our fourth co-worker, but I don't think any of us were surprised when she started going out to lunch every day.
Once we all finished up on that job, and my fellow Dune enthusiasts went back to continue their college educations, that was the end of my involvement with Dune. I didn't go see David Lynch's Dune that came out in 1984, nor did I watch the Dune mini-series in 2000. This time around, however, the reviews convinced me that this was a version I wanted to see. As soon as I made up my mind to that, I started re-reading, knowing that...after half a century had passed...I'd enjoy it more if I were less hazy on the details.
I did enjoy the film, wrapping my arms around me, sometimes holding my breathe. Visually it was gripping. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen, whether the scenes took place in the desert or when they depicted the three cultures: Atreides, Harkonnen, and Fremen. I had a little more trouble with the casting, specifically Timothée Chalamet as Paul/Muad'Dib. I saw Chalamet in "Call Me By Your Name," and was impressed but after seeing that movie, I would never have considered him for this one. He just doesn't look the part. Long, lanky, lean: he doesn't appear to have more that the minimum musculature necessary to function in our planet's gravity. On the other hand, Paul Atreides is fifteen when he gets to Dune; I could believe Chalamet was an adolescent.
Now that I've reread the book, I'll be seeing the movie again, I hope. I will for sure reread the book before I see the second half of the movie, if it get made. If? John and I went to a multi-plex with at least six or eight theaters, and it was playing at only one theater. Not a good sign, not at all. At least I voted for a sequel with my body and...probably...John's. Since Pam didn't want to go, he might well have waited until it was on TV. FanSee
October 10th, 2021, 05:20 pm
Sunday, 10 October 2021: A Good Day to Cocoon
The weather forecast I heard for today said we'd get rain. That may have happened while I slept from 1:00 a.m until 9:30 in the morning, but not a drop while I've been awake. It has been overcast all day, though.
October 7th, 2021, 07:35 pm
October 8, 2021: Friday Five
1. What is your favorite carnival ride?
The Tilt-a-Whirl.
2. What is your favorite thing to do outside?
Always walking, but in clement weather I like to sit and read, preferably with a little breeze fluffing my hair.
3. What is your favorite household chore?
Laundry. You start with nasty, dirty clothes and end up with a closet full of clean, fresh clothing. Well worth the effort.
4. What is something that you always have with you?
My cell phone.
5. If you could visit any single city in the world (that you have not visited before), where would you go?
A toughie. I've traveled a lot. I haven't been to Vancouver, Canada yet, however. If I could go anywhere, I'd go back to Copenhagen, Denmark.
October 7th, 2021, 07:22 pm
2021 Reading and 2022 Movie Challenges
It's the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2021, and I've read 38 books which, if I keep up the pace, annualizes to 47 for the year. My goal was 50...such a nice round number!...but I'll be satisfied wherever I end up. I am currently reading Tuchman's two-volume history of WWI and its lead up, and on deck is a third history of that conflict. Those three alone will probably take me most of the quarter such that my total will be barely above 40 for the year.
I'm creeping along with my movie challenge which runs on the fiscal year. It's a much more challenging challenge for me, and I may hurt myself patting myself on the back if I watch 25 movies by 30 June 2022.
One of the problems I have with my movie challenge is tracking the movies I do watch. Books are easy. They are all either on my Kindle or sitting on a bookshelf. I've decided, in the interests of tracking movies watched, that I'll make individual posts to my LJ when I watch, then post a link here to that entry. We'll see how well that works in practice. FanSee
( 2021 Reading ChallengeCollapse )
( FY2022 Movie ChallengeCollapse )
September 28th, 2021, 01:25 am
Monday, 27 September: A-maze-on Packages...and sparrows.
Got up this morning to a message saying a package had been delivered to the South Building...all packages are going to the South Building now because the intra-building package delivery room is still recovering from the hurricane Ida flooding...so I scurried over to pick it up. As usual, I had no idea what was in it.
Really? All that packaging for a box of raisins? And this sturdy little box was nestled in those inflatable pouches Amazon so loves, so it arrived undamaged. Of course, it would also have arrived in good shape with out the pouches if the box had been smaller.
So now I just got a second notification of the arrival of a package, and once again, I forget what I bought. I can tell you this much: it is squishy. So, not a book or a DVD or anything else firm.
Ta dah!
This is an auto-magical reorder, so I don't know when/if it appeared in my Amazon queue. It's appearance is good news for my daily bowl of cereal.
So far today picking up my Amazon packages has resulted in 2,200 steps, or about a quarter mile. The crucial question is, Would I have put in a quarter mile without the incentive of having to pick up my packages? Doubtful. FanSee
September 24th, 2021, 06:35 pm
Friday, 24 September 2021: Daily Life Is...Daily.
September has been a quiet but pleasant month, at least so far, and it's already September 24th, so how much can go wrong?
Just typing that is like tempting fate!
I continue to try to walk outdoors every day which, for me, mostly means walking in circles to avoid the worst of the traffic in my area. Happily, these are also pretty walks.
( Does the internet make life too easy?Collapse )
September 21st, 2021, 08:08 pm
21 Sept 2021: My Get-Up-and-Go
Today my get-up-and-go got up and went. Where, I don't know. I did put my foot down...actually both feet, one after the other...and made myself go for a walk to nowhere, around my apartment complex.
I gritted my teeth, checked my steps on my phone compulsively, and got my total up to 1,557 steps, or more than a quarter mile.
When I got back to my apartment, I collapsed on my couch, turned on MSNBC. put my feet up on my coffee table, and slumped back on my couch. That allowed me to gaze at the sky from my wall-to-wall windows:
7:00 p.m. on 21 September, EDT
Nice, huh? FanSee
September 17th, 2021, 12:47 am
16 September 2021: A Bump or Three on the Road of Life
My life is generally just dandy: I have enough income to cover my daily expenses, I have enough savings for an occasional splurge, I love my family and I think they return the sentiment, and I have the support of dear friends although I do wish we could get together more often. But even the best of lives has its little bumps, and I just encountered two unexpected bumps and one expected one.
The worst of three was a visit to my dentist on Tuesday.
( An expected bump: my appointment with Dr. Backiel.Collapse )
( The second expected bump and the unexpected one.Collapse )
Bonus: Smoke surveys his kingdom. FanSee
September 14th, 2021, 10:06 am
14 September 2021: Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's Off to the Dentist I Go
But first...
Yesterday I documented my daily steps for the period July 15 -- July 28 HERE. I'm going to finish off July and post my August steps now, for my own records, but I'll spare your eyes and put them under a cut.
( July 29--August 31 steps.Collapse )
I'm seeing my dentist this afternoon to have the cap put on my implant. I'm seriously considering walking there:
Google tells me it's 9/10th of a mile. The temperature is predicted to be 87F at 2:00 p.m., so the jury is still out on arriving at Dr. Backiel's office drenched in sweat. Walking home might be smarter, but how shaken up will the experience leave me? So many unknowns, warring with each other! FanSee