mallorys_camera

Yesterday, we rowed Petrichor up to the farmer's market in Troy! Once it stopped raining the weather was absolutely beautiful, making it a fantastic day to be out on the river. This was only S's second time ever trying to row, and the first time might have been about a decade ago. He did very well, although early on he commented that he had to keep an eye on his oar to make sure it did what he told it to do, which got complicated by the fact that he had oars on both sides of the boat to try and watch.

Getting the oars in:

I gave a little cheer every time we made it past a landmark to help keep morale up.

It took us about 2 hours to get this far, this time. During our morning practices we can usually reach this distance in about 35-40 minutes.

We had to pull over and stop to pee twice on the way up.

The Troy docks are taller than our rowing docks. But we did bring along some fenders, at least. It's going to take more practice to figure out our mooring system.

In this case, it didn't help that the town's fire rescue boat gave us a MASSIVE wake right in the no-wake zone at the dock. Sigh.

We reached Troy just in time for some lunch at a hipster coffeeshop, and then had about 30 minutes to roam around the farmer's market. We brought home rhubarb, green garlic, kale, eggs, milk, lettuce, a loaf of bread, and maybe one or two other things I'm forgetting at the moment. A good haul.

I'm still so chuffed by the adventure.

Yay boats!

flemmings

If I didn't know that going to restaurants on Father's Day was a bad idea, the amount of woodsmoke would have discouraged me anyway. Either the whole neighbourhood was barbecuing or something somewhere was burning. Whatever, it's been cough sneeze all day, except briefly to pick up the vines and such I cut down in the back yard yesterday. Must still bag them, a task I hate, but pickup is this week. In the rain, as ever.

Have also a bin of ivy that I got from the front walk last night. The ivy is an unmitigated pain because it isn't just encroaching on the walk, it's actually growing over the concrete edging. And the stems are beyond my shears' and elbows' ability to cut through.

Stooping and straightening of course tightens everything up, and stretching doesn't undo the worst of it. Is one reason I really didn't want to get out of bed this morning.

bill_schubert

A week or so ago I heard an unusual banging in the washing machine. I'd just put clothes in it so I quickly took a look. There was my phone all turned on and bright and sitting on top of the clothes in the shallow water. I pulled it out and dried it off and it was working fine. Then the USB charge port failed. So I ordered another Pixel, a 9a. During the order I said I'd trade in my Pixel 7 and answered the questions truthfully. And they sent me an email that comes before the trade in packaging.

Then I read some Reddit and fiddled with the USB port using a needle. NOW it works fine, actually better than before. I don't think it was getting a full connection before but it is happening now.

SO, now what do I do? It is Sunday so nothing has happened. I can cancel right now and it will all be as if nothing happened.

The new phone would end up costing $486 after trade-in spread out over a couple of years at no interest. So, really, not much. The phone I currently have works fine but does not hold a charge. I'm ABC, always be charging. The 9a is getting a lot of raves so maybe it is time to upgrade anyway and my subconscious that left the phone in the washing maching was trying to tell me.

Sigh.

Meanwhile I've thought about the Humane center and decided to go there tomorrow and talk to them in person. I really want to walk dogs at least at first. There is a ton of other things that they want and I might change but right now I miss walking dogs, spending time with them, getting advice and pictures. So I'm going to ask if I can just do that one day a week and see how it goes. I've had some good advice on doing it this way and am going to take it.

Still thinking about the phone.

adoptedwriter

Yesterday, while so many people I know were out there protesting, (which I think is awesome and something I would have liked to have done), I was getting dressed for and attending a three-hour celebration of life for a neighbor. (Technically the 37-year old daughter of a neighbor, but a “kid” who lived near us until her college time.) My daughter, MermaidFan, was a friend of her sister’s, and all these girls began their early years in the same day care center before advancing on to K-12 school together. In other words, we all go way back.

The gathering was amazing. The afternoon was filled with beauty, magic, warm hugs, a few laughs, music and excellent eulogy-type speeches. A quartet of singers, opened the celebration with a lovely rendition of Sting’s “Fields of Gold”, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLVq0IAzh1A), and eight presenters, including the deceased’s mom, dad, sister, aunt and three friends spoke. One friend shared memories from their childhoods. One reflected on their college years and the third basically gave tribute to the whole family and their overall kindness without judgement toward anyone who needed something.

What impressed me most of all was the fact that once you became a friend of this family, and especially the deceased sister, you became a forever friend. You became a 100%, all-the-time, important person in her eyes and that would never change. Even though I personally didn’t know “M” as well as I knew the younger sister and their mom, I lament the fact that this family is no longer complete. It happened too soon. It’s one of those, “I can’t even” things. After losing one of my own sisters in April, this hits harder than I expected.

“M” was only 37, but she’d led a full life of learning, reading, diverse friendships, fine food, fandoms, travel, career success and love. Her time was too short, but she lived her life well.

You can’t do better than that.

mallorys_camera

So, maybe 400 people turned out for the Gardiner demonstration?

More impressive than it sounds! The entire population of the village is only aound 4,000.

I went alone, but I did not stay alone. A sizeable contingent of Shwanagunk Dems showed up & as it turned out, I knew all the parade monitors from canvassing or campaigning:

Plus bonus celebrity sighting! Fourteen second mark on yr screen! Still got my People Magazine chops!

This is quite possibly the worst photo of me EVER TAKEN.

When you are fighting fascism, I remind myself, you must be fearless and eschew vanity.

On my way back to the casa, I stopped at the transfer station to drop off two weeks' worth of garbage & recyclables. (Icky, you may recall, does not believe in paying for garbage disposal). I passed Ellen walking her daughter's dog, so I stopped to chat.

Now, I haven't seen Ellen in two months or so.

And that was kind of strange because I'd been seeing Ellen regularly for months before that. In fact, Ellen is one of only two real friends I have in this area.

Was she mad at me? Had I done something to offend her? Something absolutely unforgivable? Though I couldn't remember doing something absolutely unforgivable, and generally, I'm quite good at identifying examples of my own obnoxious behavior (even when I don't agree they're obnoxious.)

I'd called her a couple of times: No traction. I'd left her a goofy little gift in her mailbox: campfire sparkles! (She likes doing bonfires.) A pro forma thank you text.

Well, I thought, it's too bad, but apparently Ellen doesn't like you anymore, and what was the one useful thing that Jack Kerouak ever said? Number 19 on his list of "Belief & Technique for Modern Prose"?

Accept loss forever

(Works great for missing earrings, too!)

###

One look at Ellen's face, and I could see: It wasn't me, it was her. She looked like one of the walking dead. Deeply, terminally depressed. Heavy bags under her eyes.

Ellen is one of those people who likes to pretend she doesn't have emotions, doesn't have an inner life. When I tried to hug her that time after she dug my car out of the ice, she waved me off, embarrassed.

Now, as it happens, the one & only time I have ever been inside Ellen's house was around the time she stopped talking to me. We'd been selling Duck Derby tickets together at the post office. (Small town boosterism! Never Enuff Weird!) I was about to go off & investigate the Sherpa Festival that had magically appeared in an abandoned meadow, except that it was a hot day, I'd been drinking lots & lots of water, & I really had to pee!

"Well, you can pee at my house," Ellen said. Ellen's house was about a mile away from the magical Sherpa festival.

When I went inside Ellen's house, I was shocked to see it was kind of a hoarder house. Rooms & rooms crammed with furniture that nobody used & this general sense of profound neglect. I imagined it had been that way since Ellen's husband died five years ago.

I didn't say anything. I hid my shock.

But when Ellen stopped talking to me, I did wonder whether it was connected to the fact that I'd been inside her house. Whether she was ashamed I'd seen too much.

Anyway, it was good to reconnect. Even in such a small way.

I was on my best banter! I made her laugh!

And after 10 minutes, I said, "Well, darlin', you have my number. Call if you feel like it. I always have your back."

'Cause really. What else could I say?

###

In the evening, I went to a D&D meetup.

My regular D&D group hasn't met in several weeks—ostensibly because the DM is getting married in a couple of months & his weekends are now occupied with wedding-related events, but really—according to the DM of last night's game—because he is a Trump supporter & disliked all the fringe types in the original group.

I didn't pick that up from the original DM at all, and I mean, really: If he is a Trump supporter, so what? It didn't affect the game—which was a kind of Viking wayfarer adventure.

And I didn't like last night's game. I went because I'm still learning how to tell the various dice apart, & when to throw them, & why—if I have 18 charisma points—I'm supposed to keep subtracting four.

Last night's DM was very big on underground crypts strewn with vomit, crusty scabs, & mummifying guts. Imagery that does not appeal to moi!

The other players were gay males. They were all very nice to me, tolerant of my blunders. One of them—pink Galadriel hair and fabulously manicured hands, each nail painted a different color—was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America party, so in between dice rolls, we talked politics, utterly boring the other players. Apparently, No Kings Day conflicted with many prescheduled local Pride Day events, and that's why so many No Kings events had been shunted to out-of-the-way locations. The primo locales had been booked in advance! There was some bad blood twixt the No King-ers and the Pridies!

Last night's DM is a very bitter guy. And dark—without knowing he is dark, somehow. Growing up gay in a Hudson Valley backwater 40 years ago was a very different experience than growing up gay, say, in Berkeley, California. More akin to growing up gay next door to Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wisconsin. The Taliban itself would approve of Wallkill's heteronormative standards!!!

Still, I found myself not liking the guy, which meant it was difficult to sympathize with him.

puddleshark

Followed the path beside the River Frome down to Swineham, through the reedbeds, where the breeze sets the whole landscape in motion, and you walk in a world of half-seen things and unseen things. The rattle of dragonfly flight, and a glint of sunlight on wings. The endless pent-up grumbling ("And another thing...") song of Reed Warblers. A black-capped Reed Bunting clinging to a reed as it sways back and forth in the wind - now you see it, now you don't.

( Don't get your hopes up. It's hard to photograph half-seen things... )

mellowtigger

I didn't see any reports of violence at the No Kings protests here in Minnesota. That's good news. After many were cancelled at the request of law enforcement and Governor Walz, I wondered what the actual turnout would be like.

It was great.

There was a 2-hour livestream of the event on YouTube, which I didn't know yesterday. Here's a photo from this thread on BlueSky, with many more photos posted in the replies. There are also good photographs showing up on Reddit in the communities for Minneapolis and Twin Cities, like this one about Minnetonka and this one from the desk of slain representative Melissa Hortman in the House chamber. This BlueSky photo, below, even made it to the generic Pics community on Reddit.

A special honorable mention to this 102-year-old veteran out doing his #antifa duty during a protest somewhere in the USA yesterday. Also to a random girl at a small town of Alexandria in Minnesota who held a sign that said, "I deserve better."

I wish I was able to attend, but I had to work. Thank you to all the Minnesotan's who showed up, at every location. But there should be a lot more N95 masks on faces, okay? Now, I need to get ready for work again today.

poliphilo

"Now I remember why we used to like coming to Tonbridge," said Ailz as we traipsed from charity shop to charity shop. Tonbridge High Street has so many of them. She bought a dress for herself and one for Wendy- who had treated us to lunch- and I bought a straw hat (made in China, of course.)

"Traipse" is a word I like to use. It has weariness built into it. Traipsing is so much more tiring than a good brisk walk over the same distance would be.

Yesterday was hot and still. I felt I needed that hat to keep the sun off. Oh, how my feet hurt and my legs ached!

summersgate

Boot. This was the subject of the Paint and Sip picture Chloe had us doing on Friday.

Finished today: Eggs. I didn't set out in the beginning to make frog eggs. I just wanted some green circles to doodle on.

It rained hard last night and this morning. The creek is up near the top of it's bank. This is where we put the bench that Chloe gave us. Last year this lawn did not exist - it was just high weeds and brambles. Between my weed wacker and Dave's mower we have created a lawn with a nice view of the creek. I feel like we birthed something! We're hoping that this is as high as the creek will get since it did stop raining a few hours before I took this pic. It would be a big bother to have to move all the lawn furniture, the picnic table and this bench to higher ground. We frequently have one flood each spring (where the water comes up over the bank) - we were hoping we escaped it this year.

Normally you can see big rocks sticking up out of the water here. The rocks are high enough that you can sit on them and enjoy the view up the creek. Most of the time the spruce boughs would be high enough over your head that they wouldn't touch you if you were sitting. We might get more rain in the next few days but at least it won't be a heavy rain - at least that's the prediction.

Tomorrow's going to be my house cleaning day. Sunday dinner, and it'll be Father's Day. I'll have a "sushi party" (everyone can fill and roll their own). That's an easy dinner to put together.

somedayseattle

Was channel surfing and saw one my all-time favorite movies had just begun. Happy Fathers Day to mw!!

bill_schubert

The Texas Humane Heros center is a refuge for the dogs and cats that are due to be uthanized at other shelters. It is a no kill center that receives almost entirely from them. They don't take animals directly from the public and do work to home all of the animals. Very different environment from the Ranch. And, btw, not religious camp which was an irritant to me with the Ranch. This is a professionally run center that has been in place for decades.

I went to orientation today and got the usual info for walking and such. They have a lot of employees (maybe 20 or so on a Saturday in evidence) and a lot of volunteers. Much bigger and more complex than the Ranch. And five minutes away from our house. Much less wear and tear on my car.

BUT the dog side, unlike the cat house, is more Sarah Mclachlan in appearance. We were looking for a dog maybe 15 years ago and went there. Not much has changed on the canine side:

They have plans for a new building but it will not start until next fall. It will really be a huge help. There are dogs in the intake section still in their small carriers and all the kennels are full. It is a much more difficult place to go but obviously they also are way more in need of help. Unlike the Ranch they use volunteers to muck out the kennel and do the laundry. Pretty much everything. I think if I push I can just be a walker but we'll see how it goes.

I'll likely volunteer for one day a week as a walker to start. There was a huge group for this volunteer orientation nearly all of which were students getting their volunteer hours in or, in one case, a court ordered guy. I didn't ask.

mellowtigger

This morning, residents of a town not far north of me (about 2 small city borders away in the metro) were ordered to shelter in place and to call 911 to ask if the officer at their door was supposed to be there, before engaging the officer. Why? Because someone with police uniform, gear, and vehicle shot 2 of our lawmakers inside their own homes.

I took some time off from work (I'll have to cut my lunch break short today to make up the time difference) to watch Governer Walz in the press conference on tv this morning. The DFL Representative is dead, and the DFL Senator is alive after surgery. For the non-locals, Minnesota's state Congress is evenly divided. All it takes is losing 1 representative and 1 senator to shift the balance of legislative power in this state. It appears that someone tried to do exactly that. Murdering-the-opposition-party is the logical consequence of letting any party think they can seize power over vacant seats, as happened here earlier this year.

I hope they catch the shooter(s) alive. I hope they live at least long enough to get a pardon from Trump eventually. I expect I-could-shoot-somebody Trump to do it. We live in the bad timeline.

I don't want to work today. I want to leave my job and go join the local No Kings protests. But, I'm poor and old and have to "keep my job". Ugh.

bill_schubert

Volunteer orientation. Taking us through the cat rooms.

mallorys_camera

Of course, the real reason Israel bombed Iran was not to curb the Iranian threat to Israel's continuing survival but to curb the parliamentary threat to Netanyahu's continuing survival: In the days leading up to Israel's attack, Netanyahu was widely reported to be on the ropes after his opposition submitted a bill to dissolve parliament, with his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners threatening to support the measure and force early elections.

This is just so fucking craven, I want to scream.

The boys throw stones at the frogs for sport
But the frogs die in earnest...

###

Meanwhile, I'm gonna go to the demonstration in Gardiner today.

It'll probably be the smallest of the Hudson Valley No Kings events, and, of course, Gardener is a liberal enclave so any marching around and "Fuck Trump!" screaming I do will be virtue signaling.

But I actually looked at the maps of the various demonstrations throughout the Hudson Valley, and it looks as though the only parade permits they could get were in out-of-the-way parks or half-empty strip malls far from Hustle & Bustle Central.

If I'm gonna demonstrate where nobody can see me, I might as well demonstrate where nobody can see me close to my house where the parking is manageable.

###

Apart from that...

I Remunerated & went to the gym yesterday in a kind of fugue state.

This living through a momentous time in history shit is very exhausting.

rebeccmeister

One of my research students estimated that we would need to complete measurements on 6 ant colonies per day, to get through all of the colonies that need to be measured in the time we have available this summer. Yesterday we managed to get through 2.5 colonies, so that's a dose of reality for what we will manage to accomplish. I'm personally fine with that, I just hope it doesn't discourage this crew too much.

In any case, we'll be mixing things up next week with a trip to the City, plus over to see a couple colleagues in Newark.

Full-time research students is a LOT of people time for me. I don't feel like I can THINK when there are other people around. Yesterday I went from rowing practice, to work, to a rowing social event, then home again to Zoom with family, so that left very little time by myself. That sort of situation is okay in the short term, but eventually catches up with me.

S and I have a fun plan for today, and hopefully I'll even have time to blog about it shortly thereafter.

There is eternally too much to do.

poliphilo

They promised us a thunderstorm. It would blanket the south-east, they said. Lots of banging and flashing. In the event we got some flashing but hardly any noise. This morning's weather is hot, damp and oppressive.

Yesterday's weather, building up to the storm, was sunny and still. I pursued my resolution to ground myself by going round without shoes and socks. It's nice to feel the grass underfoot. Towards evening as it grew cooler I got the lawn mower out. For that I put some shoes on.

You gotta be careful round lawn mowers. Last year, first time I cut the grass, I wasn't paying attention and tripped over ithe mower and almost certainly broke a rib or two. I didn't tell anyone because I hate to make a fuss, but there was pain for several weeks- and I had to steel myself every time I turned over in bed.

Back to the grounding. There was a period of my life when I was Nature Boy and all but dispensed with shoes. Memory tells me I once walked the mile or so into town barefooted in the snow but surely Memory is lying......

flemmings

The cool temps aren't as cool as I'd hoped, but will take them over the high 20s forecast next week. Am seriously considering returning Amina for the next person because what I want is easy care, tried and true Brit stuff, Miss Silver and Inspector Littlejohn, not complicated fantasy. However, Damned finally appears in the middle of postal shenanigans, so shall read that as a compromise: Brit (alright, European) fantasy. And thanks very much, G.

puddleshark

mallorys_camera

Damn.

Well, yesterday started out well enough.

I pulled out the last six wheelbarrels of thistles, brambles, bee balm, & other assorted weeds from my New Paltz community garden plot.

Before:

After:

I deserved a treat!

So, I trotted over to Hudson Valley Chocolates, and found Stephanie hard at work:

Stephanie is the French-born choclatier who supplies bonbons for the Mohonk Mountain House and various other upscale venues around the Hudson Valley. She has a small shop here in town that keeps whimsical hours: It's open when she feels like being open.

Wallkill is a place where the men walk around in teeshirts that say, Unvacinated, Unmasked, Republican, Straight. In the spring, summer, & fall, Wallkill is an intensely beautiful place, but it is filled with the most horrible people, so there's no reason to go anywhere near it.

But if there was a reason to go near Wallkill, that reason would be to visit Stephanie's shop, Hudson Valley Chocolates:

Got home. Nibbled chocolate. Began Remunerating. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Remunerating is dry stuff. I have to keep wiping my brain clean of excess jargon in between those weighty bouts of regression analysis. To do that, I surf the web—journal entries (and y'all do not write enough!), blogs, celebrity scandals, and when I'm really hard up, news.

Yesterday, the news was unrelentingly horrible.

From Ice Barbie's press conference at which a United States Senator—a Senator!—was handcuffed and brutalized to Israel's massive bombing of Iran.

This is all so fuckin' NUTS.

###

I can't remember the name of the podcast I sometimes listen to that once did a show about superpowers. Specifically: What superpower do people most wish they had?

I do remember that time travel was the most popular superpower—though not by a huge margin.

And if you drilled down into the sample of people who wanted to be able to time travel, they all wanted to be able to time travel for the same reason—so they could kill Hitler!

Well, now we all have the chance to kill Hitler.

That must be the silver lining in the current cloud, right?

poliphilo

"Does Israel have the right to exist?" asked the interviewer.

And the interviewee- who was Palestinian- replied "Israel exists".....

Meaning the present state of Israel is a political fact that it would be foolish to deny but the rights of the matter are something else entirely.....

You had have the same exchange about any piece of real estate on earth. The geo-political map is always in flux. Nations blink into existence, blink out again. Empires come and go, their boundaries in a state of perpetual change. Look at a political map from a hundred years ago and it'll be hopelessly out of date.

Forget Israel- that's so contentious- and let's look at the status of a territory that's a little less so- though who knows?- California. it has existed inside it's present boundaries since the 1500s. Before that it was a patchwork of tribal territories. According to Dick Allgire- who was giving us his take on the present unrest in L.A.- it is stiil- on paper- which isn't worth a great deal- the property of the King of Spain. When Spain lost its grip on its American colonies, California passed to Mexico, but only briefly- and then to the United States. Each one of these transitions was marked by violence. Does the United States have a "right" to hold onto it? Only for as long as it can. The protesters in L.A. who are waving Mexican flags have a point....

Every name on the world map is a notion, an idea, a dream.

In 1579 the English pirate Francis Drake landed somewhere north of the present City of San Francisco. He got on well with the local tribespeople and claimed the area for the English crown, naming it New Albion. This colony of his persisted for about as long as he remained in the vicinity- and if King Charles wants to reaffirm his right to the land he would first have to ascertain exactly where it is because people no longer remember....

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Page generated Jun. 15th, 2025 11:36 pm

Mallory's Camera

Reading

Saturday's adventure [rowing]

(no subject)

Cleaning my phone

Week 1: Quality

Accept Loss Forever

Half-seen things

I wish I was there

Traipsing

saturday

cue the carousel music

Very different set up

it was a political assassination

As if

Never Enuff Dying Frogs!!!!

A good week, a long week [work, status]

Nature Boy

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(no subject)

Silver Linings

Rights

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June 2025

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