mallorys_camera

In spite of the constant stream of scammers and robocalls and robocall scammers that I get, I really must stop answering my landline with a curt Yes?! because occasionally there's a real well-meaning person on the other end. As today, the third call of the morning after This is VISA security and This is doors and windows, was my doctor's locum reviewing my bloodwork from Monday. My blood sugars are up from last year when I was evidently doing something right. 'Of course the holidays see a rise in blood sugar but do you think there's some changes you might make now?' Well, I allowed, I could stop drinking Black Russians. She agreed that would do the trick. Not that I've been drinking Black Russians this week, but I have been putting vodka into my cocoa. However, the bottle is finished and I won't buy another, so we'll see in another three months. But equally I'll be moving more now that the worst of the snow is (fingers tightly crossed) over for the nonce. Exercise, exercise.

This week I finished Lost Souls etc and Strange Houses. Doubtless read some Dr Priestleys-- yes, ok, Death in Wellington Rd with the poisoned pigs, and The Domestic Agency. Rhode's problem, more apparent in the former book than the latter, is that he never gives too much information. Mystery writers ought to give us more details than we can use. If they don't, every piece of information we get is significant, so that if Chekov's Australian cousin is mentioned in chapter 2, for sure he will turn up, probably as the murderer, by the end of the book.

The other problem is a hardwarish one: Kobo's Rhodes will occasionally just hang as I'm reading and refuse to go either forward or back. This only happens on my phone, but the upstairs tablet won't load Kobo at all. This happened last week so I went and bought The Mystery of the Yellow Room to see if it happened with other ebooks. Answer is no, not, and it's a fun read even with the Belle Epoque Gallic piling up of adjectives. (Yeah, OK, Lovecraft did it too. Not just the French.) But can I quibble at a translator who talks about 'the assassin' and not the more natural murderer. Assassins in English are political murderers, not people who shoot inoffensive young women in their bedrooms.

rebeccmeister

Cats: 3, Rebeccmeister: 0

I think maybe this time he squeezed out near the door? Hard to tell. At least he didn't go very far and he came when I called him?

Oh cats.

summersgate

Gerbera daisy baby. They definitely look cuter in a pot.

Connections. Just thinking about how we're all connected. War makes no sense and never will.

somedayseattle

Yesterday the Hospice doctors said Erica's mom MaryGrace has about 72 hours left in this world. It's a morbid minute-by-minute countdown. Erica is handling this surprisingly well. Having lost MeMum a couple months ago and then this depression/string of greasy feces of my life I am having hardcore bumming. MG and I were friends. Losing her is hard but I really feel for Erica and Drama Queen. DQ has been by her bedside for the last 4 days. She has no plans to leave until it's over.

On an unrelated, cryptic note......315? JFC.

somedayseattle

Toay was an absolutely stunning 72° sunny day. We got out for a bit of a walk today. I had an appointment with a cardiovascular doctor and he said the several concerns they had were moot and I was doing just fine. I won at nickel bingo.

You would think this would be enough to pull me out of my crud/funk. It might’ve been had my funk not grown deeper when I fell off the bed and smashed my face on the floor Saturday morning. Busted my nose up as well as my lip. Had to call the EMS. A pretty embarrassing day. My life has gone from Da Weirdest Parade to Da Trash Truck Rodeo.

Like Grandpa Leirey used to say "It's always something".

bill_schubert

On my journey to figure out what to do with the body that seems to accompany me everywhere I'm trying new things that ultimately result in being back to the basics of where I always knew I should be.

First was Noom, which I really liked. It started my journey to go from 230 to 210. That was a big deal. No drugs to help, just knowledge. Noom took me through much of what I already knew but it was like having a friend along to help. A great program. But I plateaued at 210 and could not break through that floor.

I should say that the govm't says I should be about 170 or so. That would make me an emaciated beanpole and really unhealthy.

Last August I started taking HIMS version of GLP1. And it obviously works. Reduces food noise. I lost another 25 pounds pretty quickly with only a couple of plateaus. And I could easily have continued to 175 or lower.  But my skin was hanging off me, my right knee joint felt like it needed to be replaced and I could not move well. My pickleball was desultory. I just was not being athletic.

So I had a talk with ChatGPT. The upshot of that several hours of discussion was that it was time to get off the weight watch and get on the muscle growth. Ultimately ChatGPT convinced me that I needed to stay under 190 but other than that don't worry about the weight. But I need to reduce my belly button girth from 42 to 38 or less and the only way to do that is through resistance training. Build up muscle bulk.

I had an A1C test about that same time that indicated mine was high but it has been hight for most of my adult life so no panic. BUT more muscle bulk will help control it.

After Noom ran out (it lasted a year and then kind of fizzled) I tried a couple of different food tracking apps and finally found on that is simple, both web and phone based, and can shoot PLU codes making food recording so easy.

My protein was about half what it should be and I needed to do some strength training, resistance training.

About that time I found a guy in England that I follow online by the name of Will Harlow. He's a physio exercise guru for seniors. His site, for which I pay $550 a year or so, has videos during which he does the day's routine with you in its entirety. Just like having a personal trainer. It is an excellent system and I'm a month into it with huge differences in the way I move and feel for about 20 minutes focus a day.

I now start and end my day with protein. I've got huge vats of whey protein (a brand specifically selected by ChatGPT) that I drink in the morning and once or twice during the day. I eat yogurt with granola and chia seed in it and focus on protein any other time I eat. If I really work at it I can hit the daily goal but it takes a lot.

So exercises that are really not too arduous and maximize protein. Nothing earthshattering, nothing new, nothing I should not have been doing all along. But at 72 it is different. I'm not going to be a muscle man but I am going to be able to get out of my seat without using my hands, get up and down from the floor easily, play pickleball with some athleticism for six hours a week without getting tired. Basically stuff I should be able to do, have done before, and now I'm doing it again.

And I started spacing out my GLP1. Instead of every 7 days I'm taking it every 8 days. As long as my weight stays close to there it should be I'll keep that up and then move it to 9 days. I still track everything I eat so I'll know immediately if things aren't right and move the dose frequency back to where it was. But I don't want to be on the drug forever.

All in all it is an interesting experiment. GLP1 and an AI helped me figure it out.

Such an interesting time we live in.

summersgate

I'm still not in tip top shape. No appetite and queasy. Still diarrhea. But I can live with that better than with nausea. And now Dave seems to be sick. I hope he didn't get the norovirus. He could be feeling sick because yesterday when he went out on his boat he found there was a gas leak. Possibly he's still feeling sick from inhaling fumes while he was trying to clear the gas out of the enclosed area where the tank was. And Andy's not feeling very good either. Last week Dave took him to the vet and she gave him antibiotics but he's not a bit better yet. Doesn't want to eat at all. Tho if Dave gives him some "real" meat (roasted chicken or burger) he will eat it.

I did go for a walk down to the creek with the dogs yesterday afternoon. The light was beautiful.

This log I like to sit on has a nice view.

Looking towards the lake.

These volunteer daffodils showed up after Dave mowed a shortcut to the house 2 summers ago. I think they somehow traveled from grandma's patch which is up by where Andy is. We're doing our best to help them proliferate.

I don't have much planned today. Crochet. Possibly if I start to feel better I'll sweep the floors. Rest in bed. Looks like a dark rainy day.

rebeccmeister

I think it was maybe Saturday where I let the cats out on the catio, then came back later and observed that George was clearly NOT inside the catio but rather just outside, nosing around in the grass like he does. Hmm. I was able to call him over and hauled him back indoors, but didn't have the time or wherewithal to figure out how he'd escaped this time. Had the extra layer of netting made it easier for him to climb the bush and up and out somehow?

I found my answer this morning:

The staples that had held the bottom of the chicken wire to the ground had pulled up. This should be simpler to remedy, at least! The cats will be glad; they have been frantic to go outside again and have been charging all over the house and yelling about their discontent.

We finally have the first sign of spring at the house: the snowdrops are up. This is them yesterday:

This is them today:

There are flower and leaf buds appearing on a number of things.

We're still going to dip back down below freezing again on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, but it's a start.

I need to trim the raspberry canes.

poliphilo

A year ago I opined here in DW

1. That the US President seemed to know what he was doing.

2. That the Epstein kerfuffle was done and dusted.

3. That Zelensky was finished.

Oh dear.

In March 2026

1. The American President is thrashing around like a wounded shark.

2. The Epstein scandal spreads and spreads and the horror deepens and deepens.

3. Zelensky is still in place and the war in Ukraine drags on- with another war having usurped its place in the headlines.

The one thing I thought then and still think now is that the old world order is falling apart.

I got the big picture right and all the details wrong. I should bear that in mind next time I'm tempted to pontificate.....

fauxklore

I’ve been rather swamped, trying to get some things organized at home (with little progress, alas) and doing a lot of work for the Women’s Storytelling Festival which is less than 2 weeks away. You can still get tickets here, either in-person or virtual. And you get access to the recordings for an entire month.

Theatre Going: After my trip to New York in early February (which I already wrote about here), I saw a couple of shows locally. I went with my friend, Cindy, to the Taffety Punk Theatre Company production of Beowulf at the Capital Hill Arts Workshop was wonderful. Storyteller Marcus Kyd mixed the story of Beowulf with other stories about heroes - Eddie Aikau, John Henry, and the Oversteegen sisters. He was a very engaging performer and managed to get a whole bar full of people singing Hrothgar’s genealogy to the tune of “This Land is My Land.”

At the end of the month, I went to see The World to Come at Woolly Mammoth. Pretty much everything I’ve ever seen there was pretty strange and this was no exception. The plot involves a group of four people (three women and a man) at a Jewish home for the elderly. The world has started crumbling and everybody over the age of 75 has been forced to move into a retirement community, where they’ve slowly been cut off from the rest of the world, being deprived of television, mail, and visitors. And then the flesh-eating ostriches show up ...

Storytelling: I also went to three story swaps. One was at the Quince Orchard Library in Gaithersburg. It had multiple themes - love (for Valentine’s Day), Asia (for the Asian New Year), and Horses (specifically, for the year of the Fire Horse). I combined all three to tell a Mongolian story about a wife taking revenge on an abusive husband. The next one was the monthly Voices in the Glen swap on-line and I recited a poem I wrote about looking for my muse. I recited the same poem the next day at the Community Storytellers on-line story swap.

Poems: Speaking of poems, I am still keeping up with the Stafford Challenge. Here are the titles of my poems for two more weeks.

Week 6:

21 February 2026 - Soup

22 February 2026 - People of the Notebook

23 February 2026 - Novocaine

24 February 2026 - Game Night Haiku

25 February 2026 - Holiday Edition

26 February 2026 - Levi Strauss

27 February 2026 - The End of the World

Week 7:

28 February 2026 - Silly

1 March 2026 - Measuring Time

2 March 2026 - Hospital Waiting Room

3 March 2026 - Poe-try

4 March 2026 - Midweek Meditation

5 March 2026 - Whelmed

6 March 2026 - The World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling

A Few Medical Things: I had an annoying periodontist appointment, involving deep scaling of one quarter of my mouth. I hate waiting for novocaine to wear off. And I hate the noises involved.

I also had my mammogram. Taking flat pictures of round objects is painful. At least nowadays, you get the results back in under an hour. And all is well.

I still need to do some bloodwork and my annual physical.

Moving on to March, I took Cindy to the hospital for outpatient surgery. I am not good at sitting still, so waiting for four hours was hard on me, even though I had a good supply of books and puzzles with me. Still, us older women need to support one another.

michaelboy

I am familiar with the terrain of your shoulders
yet my hands have never known their country.
And I know what it is to watch you sleeping
because that resonant rhythm is my own.
The unheard words that you speak at night
I’ve caught each one, then opened my hand.

rebeccmeister

It is interesting to observe what's happening globally in response to the abrupt closure of a major global oil shipping channel. The impacts on fertilizer prices and ultimately food prices may wind up being pretty terrible. Of course, at the moment, most people are just thinking about prices paid at gas pumps, and are watching global markets fluctuate wildly depending on incoherent statements made by someone who might not have fully thought through the consequences of the decision to attack another country.

I appreciate the person who created a short video highlighting how much money gets incinerated every time military weapons are fired and/or military assets get destroyed, and contrasted that with the financial justifications used to gut public support programs in the U.S. over the past year and a half. Friends who help with domestic food aid efforts are reporting terrible increases in the numbers of people and families seeking help now.

But suddenly I know so much more about which countries are most heavily dependent on foreign oil imports. I don't know that anyone seeking to get people to decrease reliance on fossil fuels would have imagined this sort of scenario as a way to do that. People REALLY don't/can't do well with abrupt cutoffs.

summersgate

I had a Visual Migraine (again) earlier this morning. Feeling fragile. I thought I was all better yesterday afternoon, just because I wasn't nauseated anymore but I'm having lingering effects from the norovirus. Just not feeling tip top. Stomach a bit queasy today and diarrhea still.

Finished this baby rose last night. I'm thinking these baby flowers look better standing up in a pot.

The ice on the lakes is all gone now and Dave's gone fishing for the first time this year in his boat. I had big plans to clean house while he is gone (I didn't do it on Sunday) and putter around but I think for now I'll just go back to bed.

smokingboot

He doesn't really know what he wants for his birthday, so I've no clue.

But I'm calling it now, balloon animal cufflinks are not the answer.
https://babette-wasserman.com/product/balloon-dog-cufflinks-yellow-gold/

smokingboot

Dear friend's cat died yesterday. As ever the words don't work. She is devastated. He was such an excellent boy.

I got myself an ice-cream out of the freezer, and was eating it when the doorbell rang. Some guy was there with a parcel for us, Amazon or something (clearly not Evri or it would have been bunged over the back wall.) We chatted for a moment and he told me it was his mum's birthday. I wished her a happy birthday.

'Oh she's in a better place now,' he said, 'she passed last year. But you know, she was 88 and they say you've learned all your lessons by the age of 82. So she's definitely in a better place. She passed all the tests.'
He carried on talking about her for a while, and I listened, seeing no grief in him except perhaps this sign, the need to talk about her. Eventually I asked him if he would like an ice cream in celebration of her day. He declined but blessed me for offering it, and away he went.

And somehow this old song is in my head remembering him and the death of beautiful Malkin and this gents' memory of his mother, all these things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Y7IxGG9zg&list=RDS4Y7IxGG9zg&start_radio=1

poliphilo

Alan Bennett has been an old man for ever so long- and now, at ninety, he has released the latest installment of his diaries. In spite of cataract and a failing memory for words (especially names) he still writes beautifully. And still has interesting things to write about- and meets as many celebrities in a day as I have briefly encountered in a lifetime. Writers, actors, politicians- he knows and has known them all. He sits outside his London home and they saunter by, exchange an observation or two and provoke memories. The tone is ruminative, humorous, melancholy- mildly but never deeply philosophical- and if he has demons he keeps them well tucked in under his skirts. When his birthday comes round they ring the church bells in the Yorkshire village where he has his other home. Few writers get to be so well loved.....

If you want the book in hardback it'll cost you £25.00. That's too much. I shall wait and source my copy from a charity shop.....

poliphilo

Paul said we should listen to the speech Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave to the Australian Parliament. It had given him hope he said.

It was a very smooth speech of course, unruffled, a statesman's speech- but under the glistening, icy surface you could sense the land masses shifting. He was saying that "middle powers" like Australia and Canada should build their strength through co-operation- and move out of the shadow of "the hegemons"- by which he mainly meant the United States. The old order was collapsing and the smarter smaller nations should set about building the new. He didn't mention the sick old man in the White House but the message to him was clear. "We don't trust you any more. We don't need you any more...."

summersgate

I feel like I've come back from the dead. I had some kind of norovirus/stomach flu that started soon after I posted yesterday morning. Yesterday, before this bug started feels like it was weeks ago. It had me thinking about how many people die of dysentery every year (looked it up - 1.1 million) and how this must be similar to that (though norovirus doesn't last as long thank goodness). What a horrible way to die. This afternoon I started to feel better, drank some bullion and ate some jello and went for a walk down back with the dogs. When I got home I tried to remember how the sun looked falling on the hills farther down the valley.

Far Hills.

Being sick really made me appreciate NOT being sick and how much I love this life I have. And how sorry I am that other people aren't getting to live their own good lives.

The daffodils are coming up. Grandma's patch down over the hill. Not a very good pic. I tried to save something of it with photoshop. Just one bud so far.

mellowtigger

ICE is still in Minnesota and Minneapolis. If you had any doubt, based on the lack of coverage in national news, just see these Reddit posts showing photographs of trucks delivering loads of new vehicles to the Whipple building. March 9th (#1, I'm not sure where post #2 went, #3, #4, #5, #6, also #6, #7), March 5th (#1 and this video saying there were 3 more), March 2nd (#1 and also #1, I think). ICE is definitely not gone. I don't know if these delivered vehicles were then driven out individually or on trucks, or if they still remain there.

We know that ICE is stealing license plates from cars of observers, making it more difficult for USA citizens to use their cars for anything. It's reasonable to suspect that ICE will use those plates on their own vehicles, as a disguise to hide their true identity. It's not unreasonable, since we know they are doing illegal plate swaps on vehicles, even using duplicated plates. We know that local law enforcement doesn't care when ICE commits crimes, even when it happens right in front of them.

We know that ICE steals children then tries to bureaucratically hide them. Fuck ICE for terrorizing young people. I don't use language like that lightly. I only ever do it when it's important. Like when children keep getting killed in this shithole country where 1/3 of the population worships greed and violence, defending it and voting for it. I still join my patrols, hoping to dissuade ICE from abducting more children, or at least to record the event, so people are not forgotten amongst the lies that ICE and this Republican administration tell.

You can see maps of known ICE abductions at this webpage, below. It's 238 days until the 2026 elections in the USA. Trump will use ICE violently and massively again before that date arrives.

https://iceout.org/

Sadly, Mni Owe Sni will disband this week, due to it being located on a documented Dakota burial site, so they'll remove the prayer camp. This article (MPR News) has good reporting on the tribal discussion about the presence of the camp.

flemmings

Finished Strange Houses and then went to the internet to find out what I just read. Internet was mostly reddit, whose black-out spoiler redactions do not appear when highlighted. But a lot of people had the same suspicions as I about the architect jumping at once to 'murderous child killer cult' while other people noted that that's just the way Japanese horror rolls. Which, fair enough. And also noted that what's important is once again the things not said, sigh. But the general impression was that everyone but the narrator and the architect are lying and what's actually happening is a conspiracy, yes, but not the one we think. Although people did seem to think the weird cult thing was true, which to me is, ok, if you say so. Do not think I'll be reading more of his work.

I know better than to go for a blood draw on a Monday especially a Monday when I've just lost an hour of sleep, but it's going to rain all week and then snow. So out I went at 10 new time and came in to a posted 45 minute wait. But I waited, and then waited some more when they called my name because they said the room available was too narrow for me. Told them I could walk without the rollator but they were all No no just wait. And when they called me again I went without my walker just to show them. But the nurse got my vein first try, no having to use the other arm as in December, which is either her being more skilled than the other or my veins being pumped up from my water drinking. Whichever, I am grateful.

Could have done without the two large guys who barged into the elevator before I could get off it as I was leaving. Men, said Jessica. And am now headachy and am going out to dinner with bro and s-i-l tonight, but again, nobody made me get my draw this morning.

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Every Day Above Ground

March 2026

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Mallory's Camera

Reading

(no subject)

Well FINE, then, George. [cats]

wednesday later

every night is bobblehead night if you have a broken neck

looking back on when things first went astrayTT

Weight and strength

wednesday

Cats: 2, Rebeccmeister: 0 [cats, gardening]

Eating My Words

Mostly February

Lightning bugs light up while flying upward

Was it an intended or unintended consequence, one must wonder. [politics]

tuesday

Desperation

The birdhouse in your soul

Alan Bennett At 90

New World Order

monday

ICE is still here

(no subject)

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March 2026

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