the swirling bits

 So I'm downstairs, heating up coffee and 'swirling' - and by this, I mean my brain is constantly washing and swirling over multiple regions of thoughts again and again and it's a little like sitting with a big cup of coffee swirling it around in your cup to make sure you aren't drinking the grounds??  Exit now if you don't want to see my representation of just a slice of what goes on in between these ears..

I'm also doing while I'm swirling, and it is just the most classic form of ADHD housekeeping and planning and some inside-out form of reminisce--now--plan middle-out thinking you could ever imagine.  It gets things done, but I've had others (Mark included) explain observing such is 'painful' and 'I have no idea what you're doing at any moment there, it seems to be five things at once, always.  And I cook the same way.)  And- it is, five things at once.  And it adds up, as long as I keep at it and don't sit.  I'm : washing rugs, sweeping floors, wiping counters, staring at the window (involves thinking about moths that have often been there), thinking about sewing, upset about the sewing machine, optimistic about the sewing machine (cycle), thinking about weaving, thinking about baking, planning on cooking rice, thinking about a sketchbook from twenty years ago that is in the left hand pull-out shelf of my desk and paging through it mentally while I'm washing a sink, reminding myself I have three pages left in my current little sketchbook, sketching the last few things I saw on Pinterest in my head in a mental sketchbook with pencils that I have upstairs, layering schedules around me like rings of Venn diagrams in space and guessing what will happen later today, reminding myself about chickens when first light hits (did I mention it is 3:30 am?).. *drink coffee*

 

I'm reminding myself to sort laundry (which is upstairs), brain-sorting the laundry that SHOULD be in that load and where it has landed and where it goes (before ever doing it in real life), doing a review of Welsh on my computer, bouncing back up from that thinking about that crochet project in the bag I did one row on yesterday, yarn for that, thinking about the yarn on my desk (how it got there, where it's going, how necessary it is to be there right now, the effort it takes to move it, how soon it will get back there again), the project I started and tore back out yesterday, my library book (it's due date, the depressing about not finishing it vs. the depressing it felt reading it, it has such a cheerful looking cover, bah, the trip to the library, Esme saying she was fine with her own book for now and didn't need to go again soon), thinking about the gas level in the truck after yesterday's running around and fuel efficiency logarithmic models vs exponential growth which is the best 'asymptote' representation and if that is even a word, yes it is, why is it in my head right now though, and return to thinking about the art supplies to be sorted, (mentally emptying the entire desk piece by piece and wondering if it is worth the effort), 

 

thinking about when I was looking for that ring yesterday (blue box, 2 inches, tucked into drawer but not the original drawer vs. constellation of four other rings that are similar and where they are), that when I was looking I thought I should be throwing out and going through that other stuff I found, sweeping the entry way, throwing out a frog, exchanging cats, bringing the goat in for breakfast, knowing I should clean the cat counter but being frowned at by large cat currently eating there knowing what I'm thinking, thinking about eggs - quantity, storage, value, where to use them, thinking about rice, thinking about leaves outside (maple, veins, soft) (and it's still dark out there, so why? because when I'm sweeping I so often look up and see them there and it is pleasurable to see them, the thoughts are intertwined), thinking more about laundry, wondering where that other red dishcloth is now that I've replaced it and did the laundry, well not all the laundry, will start that after this load and it's probably in that bag, thinking about the laundry bag upstairs and exactly which items are in it 

 

drinking more coffee, thinking about making coffee, thinking more about baking, thinking about all the array of ingredients and where they are and how much there is of them and what they are used for, return to thinking about rice and all the ways I used last week's and that Mark has this other kind he makes for himself which the kitchen dinosaur toy is currently camped out on the lid of, telling myself I should sweep that back hallway, talking to the cat and the dog about the rugs, being glad I made the rugs, saying I should make another one - oh right, it's in that bag but I haven't committed to it being a rug yet, 

And now it's five a.m, but the laundry is started now and hopefully won't wake anybody up when it spins down, and the dogs and cats and goat are happier - and the roosters are crowing, but they'll be happier when I go feed them and change their water when it's light.  Then I can check on the pepper I planted yesterday and all of the other things, and maybe push myself to do one or two other little things like move the French book on my desk back to the shelf and so forth...

5:30 Put the French book away, and ten other things - found the ring, it still fits, I still don't like how it feels against my vein in my hand, there are twenty other little things in that box, beads, a pair of dice smaller than a dime, old earrings, a sachet pouch of Allspice and Star Anise flowers, put it back where I had kept it.  Onward.  Chickens want food.

3:30 pm  : Too much adventure, episode 99

Took Esme to town earlier this afternoon, got greenhouse potting soil and some groceries Grandma had wanted ( and two we had forgotten ) and came back home - forgot to give Grandma the groceries at her drive before we went to our house, and so started the truck back up at our house just minutes after parking it, and drove up to give her those - and just as we would have turned into her driveway the car went completely dead - flat.  We had stopped at a lot of places in town, much more than usual, but still I wasn't expecting this problem in the summer at all (it has the problem in the winter if you let it sit too long between starts).   I joked 'I was thinking too hard right there', and I was thinking too hard at exactly that moment because she was riding in the back up the driveway and I was thinking at that exact moment that I was in charge of her safety when I turned into Grandma's yard and to slow down and take it very easy and -- flat, no lights on, no sound, no movement, just like the car turned into a brick. (ask me about how I used to make the lights flicker at Lowes and the electrical team would tell me I was thinking too hard, they even tested it a bit, asking me what was in boxes in topstock and how many of something was up there without looking etc).. 

 

but anyway, Esme got lessons in what a car battery voltage should be, what ours was (10.6 volts, and 11.7 after beginning charging, and 12.7 more than an hour later before we gave up and came back down to our house to to rest again) and then she got more lessons in how to put the charger on it and continue to monitor progress.. but it took Mark walking up with me the third time to push the truck out of the middle of our gravel road and into the ditch to get it to start up again.  I pushed it, and he steered.  It didn't start for him before I pushed it and Mark wasn't sure if it was possible that could have kicked it over.  I've seen it in old movies, but who knows?  

Frankly, I was very reluctant to reverse it into the ditch by myself or even with Esme there because I am responsible for her safety and a car running backwards in neutral even with good brakes still makes me tense)   It started and stayed started so we brought it home, and are going to mess with it a bit more later tonight and tomorrow to see if it has deeper issues like needing a new alternator.  I had been texting the mechanic a couple of times during this and he told us to check what the voltage was running and it should be 13 to 14 volts running, if it isn't - then he needs to know so he can order the part.

After that many times walking up there I'm 1.) really glad that it wasn't further down one of the roads around here where there isn't anyone for miles.  2.) grateful we were able to get the charger extension cords to reach that far  and 3.) really tired after being up so early in the morning as well and going to do things

8:00  It is so tempting to go to sleep now, but that means I would be back up at 2 or 3 am so I'm holding out... 

Cat in Space, yarn and bank errors

 

 navy blue cotton thread cone

ordered this thread online to try to weave something in all cotton - it is quite a bit thinner than I thought IT would be, but about the thread width of what I had previously wanted for another project.  So, we'll see.  It said I have 800 yards of it to try probably both projects out.  Been making a bit more progress on the navy blue weaving - did a big block of the blue and will be switching back to the red in a bit.  I have to pull it over the top to continue weaving soon.  I still didn't take the navy and green acrylic mat off the other small loom.  I did make a big waffle-weave dishcloth for the sink (needed a new one) and two potholders, both in just plain red yarn.  And that was my weekend, other than grocery shopping and working much more than usual.  It's Tuesday and I'm saying the weekend is done now, so see what that tells you about that /ha /sigh

This morning I was up from like 3 am to 5 am then even slept in and would have forgotten about the small route they had put me on except something nagged me in the back of my brain - and when I checked the schedule again yes lo and behold, there was me scheduled for it.  So I put some of what we were supposed to get done today off to tomorrow and went and did that.

It rained some yesterday and a lot this morning - and then even a bit more.  The garden appreciated it and nothing looked flooded.  I bought one more pepper plant for the garden when I went for chicken feed, and planted it after I got home.  

rant : 

I had a hassle with the electric company and a fee that was really their mistake, but I paid it, unhappily.  I was disappointed in their logic, and felt down quite a bit yesterday after I talked to them because it just didn't make any sense what had happened - they should have known better trying to double cash a 78 day old check when they were already paid in full (for the three month bills since then!) - there was no way to win-for-losing ...I would have gotten some fee from them or the bank any way you slice it apparently - yet, THEY 'have to get their fee back' from me and the girl was very bubble-gum chew and 'but yea, that happens, we don't like, control it or anything, it's all the computer now'.  Well then, the computer can be better, can't it?  Can't it? 

...(and there my faith in logic becomes Stoic Spock and I have to reorient that not everyone is this stupid, I'm sure... )  Esme and I have had this discussion about similar things - in the car, describing how many people don't think ALL the time, they simply don't have to juggle five streams of thoughts that are overlapping and reminding you about this thing and that and doing calculations - their mind is focused on one or two things at a time that are right in front of them usually and when they finish with it - they move to the next thing, and sometimes their minds are even just blank, and they like it that way, they often aim for it.  They don't watch a show or read a book and have it reverberate with a hundred other connected thoughts for weeks and years later.  They're definitely not estimating the number of cows in that field or thinking about dispersion patterns or trying to compare the electron shell diagrams of Strontium and Tin while driving to work.  They don't remember the last things said in one place returning like echoes of the past when you return there, or have a constant back-checker making math calculations adding things up and dividing percentages after they leave the supermarket.  

 

Strontium and Tin

 

They probably don't have a 'collision detection' system running all the time about what calamities might befall everything around you - people running into each other, cars on the highway, things falling, burning, breaking, times and schedules (it helped today, with the 'boy you should look at that schedule it looks weird from here (here being looking at it for thirty seconds last week)) - it involves everything announcing what could go wrong with it in some extra 'awareness' box like a red light on your mental dashboard that won't stay off... my mom called it the protector instinct, when we discussed it when I was a bit younger than Esme, before I got a good handle on it - it can get really loud some days when I've already got too much to juggle and keep track of actually doing myself and yet sometimes especially with radio or music I can tune it down to a normal level.  This is how my brain works - and Esme has some extent of it, and she finds it annoying at the very least but does understand it.  I know I'm being cynical in some percentage except, that she listens to my philosophy rant and says it 'explains a lot, actually' - about the world she sees, about why we are always anxious (because we don't 'turn off' our brains)  and why everything so spectacularly doesn't work in many places, even after a millennia of people fighting over the right way to do things.

Anyway, gah.  The more I think on it, the more lost I will feel about it having no solution.  So, I'm weaving, and knowing I need to sort a hundred other things in the house and I've only begun to do so in my head here and there and pick up and move a few things at a time.   There are one or two things in 'space' I would like to lay hands on again and I know where they are or were before the storage container fell a few months ago, and that I put them safely somewhere new, but when I tried to get them earlier today I didn't take the time to feel 'down the rope' to where they were now.  Instead I ran into something else that would serve, and grabbed that up, and hung up the phone on finding the thing until later.  I've done mostly Spanish today and will do my Russian program in a a bit. Hopefully, I can continue and finish running the errands tomorrow.

 

 

Lyffan in from the wet outside, after her dinner.  Mark had seen her chasing frogs when we first called her for dinner - after a rain like this there are hundreds of little hop frogs that appear all over - she was 'completely occupied' he said - and  so we watched a bit more of a movie for another hour and then all the cats were finally ready.  Now she is sitting here sorting out her belly fur and trying to fit in this too small of a space, and maybe knock my garbage can down.  Minion usually sits here - right next to my computer space, but she is downstairs taking Loki's chair away from him that he has been in all day.  I saw him stretched out in the hallway floor and that's unusual for him, peek in the bathroom and there she is licking her feet in his chair with Charlotte lying on the rug saying 'I don't get it - but I'm not involved, I just sleep here.'   As I type this Lyffan has now fell asleep and is shaking her paws and whiskers chasing some outside creature in her sleep.

 

seems relevant short story idea : several geeks in a big office with headphones on jacked into some machine they haven't been told exactly how it works yet.  And yet someone is standing there with a clipboard trying to see what the results are.  Hey, do we just say 'Aliens, Hello?' or what?  How are they going to hear us?  Where is the microphone?  Do we just think really hard : 'Hello?'  No, man, you have to try something original, like 'And here we are back from Planet Earth with another line of smooth jazz and greetings to tell you, 'hey, we're listening'.. to what though?  How does all this work?<--that was the line of reasoning in a dream this morning just before my alarm went off.  

bit o bit o the onwards

 At one a.m. thoughts

Lately when scrolling in between language programs after work and before dinner or sleep: kick self to get 'onward' and go do something (either more language, yarn, clean, garden etc), fall over about 8 or 8:30 pm if I'm working the next day

And also at midnights : get up and poke around, usually because a dog has whined they want out, but sometimes just a dream shortcircuits my thinking with some impossible setup or realization... pour coffee, open duolingo, fall into same routine of scrolling after the coffee is done and the language program has gotten done, look up at the clock, kick self to get 'onward' and go back to bed, try to get some more sleep before 5:30 am rolls around, stare at the alarm with one eye, push snooze until nearly 6 am or the dog has whined too much to fall back asleep for ten more minutes

onward

Did package run, had a lunch date cancelled but picked up an avocado and came home and made good food.  Esme said she had already eaten - so made the recipe down below.  I have another heavy shift tomorrow.  I've continued some Danish - interesting mix of the other languages coming into focus there - and did Japanese and French and Spanish today so far, as well as the Russian course I've been working on.  Not charting now, though.  Will sit down with some yarn and work on something while it is still so very hot outside, do the laundry, and then will head out to the garden perhaps as I didn't water this morning (but did last night)

Have gotten several of these plum tomatoes from the plants I bought at our local high school plant sale.  They aren't what I expected, at all - these plants.. but they're producing something.  I've got a sneaking suspicion they are also determinate - but we'll hold the flag out for a bit longer on that.  I'm still waiting for the first blush of pink on the other tomato plant.  I had a couple of leaves from the small collard patch, as well, to check the taste. 

tomatoes billed as : 'Gardener's Favorite' I bought at a plant sale 

earlier this year, not quite what I expected!

Recipe :

light olive oil, frozen yellow squash, frozen greens bag (kale, nasturtiums and other bits from last fall - wow, it was good though, in the whole mix) and some 'chicken parmesan' 'skillet seasonings' mix I've been using up

half of a (regular sized, slicing type) tomato, cut up, added to the above mixture as it started to heat up - I stashed the other half of that large tomato in the freezer

cut up avocado, put it on my plate

stirred in about four tablespoons of rice, added black pepper

served with a torn up tortilla

Danish : (for spelling practice)

dejlig - lovely

hyggeligt - cozy

undskyld - excuse me / sorry

hvor - how

engelsk - English

En dejlig aften : A cozy evening

Det er hyggeligt - That is cozy

Et hyggeligt hus - A cozy house

Kan du hygge dig - Have a cozy time

Hvor er det hyggleligt - How cozy 

Jeg hygger mig med dig - I am having a cozy time with you

bit : I had read somewhere - in one of my culture lessons maybe even a year ago - about the French habit of lightly perfuming their pillowcases and even their body at night, often with lavender, to assist with sleep.  And they will often use a different scent on their body during the day and when out in the evening to differentiate to their subconscious when they smell the other scent it is 'rest' time vs active time.  At the time that I read it, the article didn't make much of an impression on me.  But, I have remembered it.  I usually use an hour of music on my computer set at a low level when my brain can't slow down.  Once the music has proceeded through the album song by song, it shuts off, and if I haven't fallen asleep by the time I hear that last song - I might get up and put on a different playlist.   However, a few times this week I did put a little bit of lavender scent along my shoulders, since I already had a lavender scented lotion.  We'll see.  I can't say if it worked well or not, until I've tried it a few more times.

we're in the long work weekend

well the chart is done - 15 languages in total, for the week, and I'm coming up on two months with working through the Russian course three lessons at a time - I like their format, and may continue the B1 French course when this one finishes (I'm halfway through, it says) or switch over to Spanish and see if that can help me a bit more.

 

2 am: Super long day-after-holiday, gotten so used to the holiday packages being worked on the holiday but this year we were told to take the 4th off and we did.. but that doesn't mean the packages aren't there waiting for us for the next day, along with the packages that would have been there anyway!  It was just a taste of what the extra surge of the sale later this month will bring us, I guess.. Christmas in July sort of thing.  I crashed after dinner and got up a few minutes ago to do some Catalan and let the dogs and cats in and out. 

When I was delivering mail today I had to go to a certified mail at someone's door and the first waft of their pizza-type food that came out of their house when they opened the door smelled wonderful on an empty stomach, but then the 'back half' of the odor hit me and I could tell it was a chemical food-product and not real food.  And that turned my stomach a little, so I knew I wanted real food when I got home.  I went and ate a pop tart while delivering anyway, but sometimes you get what you can get, until you can get better - and I was trying to drink enough and eat a little to keep myself from getting a headache.

Saw a recipe Carottes Râpées (French grated carrot salad).. makes me think, although I'd really like it about halfway cooked like noodles.  We still have that big bag of carrots to use - and I haven't felt like soup lately and Esme is cooking more little things for herself especially when I'm at work - although she needs to work more on the real food part and not just microwave or cans.  I say that, but the way I learned to cook was circumstances of not having anything easy to cook available - and I don't want to put that on her entirely, either.. part of mine was learned at home as a kid and even moreso when I was in college.  Tonight was a long one at work, so I got home late, and she had just eaten a big sandwich just before I walked in the door, and Mark was getting ready to cook himself a hamburger.  So, I used fresh cherry type tomatoes from the garden today, along with peppers and onions and a few tablespoons of hamburger Mark cooked extra for me, and taco seasoning, and a few tablespoons of rice.  I needed some 'real food' and that fit well enough along with some peanut butter toast.  I eat a lot of peanut butter. 

It will be hot again tomorrow, as well. Another day of delivering tomorrow... work at putting myself back to bed. 

update, 8pm : It was actually a fairly short route, which was good as I was starting out with that bit of a headache, and was still battling it when I got home.  Lots of broth, a bath, dinner with cucumber sauce on pizza (B vitamins) and lots and lots more liquids.  It is 8 pm and I'm headed for sleep again.  I just started on the Danish today on the phone and on the computer - it was one of those I avoided because I had so many other irons in the fire I didn't need more - but after doing Japanese today, and making myself take an extra break to drink more liquid -  I thought - why not?  It is a lot like German, which is also like Swedish and Finnish, and it sort of makes a little rounded parallelogram there as I am learning the words that are close to the words I know, and some identical, but all jammed together a little different. 

thoughts, pensées

 I had planted ordinary plain basil in my garden for what the fifth time, from seed - recently?  It was a few of those dollar store packets, 4 for a dollar, not much seed in them etc etc.. It was one of those experiments in futility I've been laughed at again and again for... but I thought, yea, why not, this time I'm standing in front of this, pondering buying and planting again as an exercise in futility perhaps, but also in hope - and 'this time for sure' as Mark says.  So instead of waiting months and putting it away for some day - I went out that very day with the little packets and put them in a pot that had been sitting in my garden getting watered - and I made sure to keep watering it, with the rest of the strawberries and such, just in case those seeds succeeded.  And so far, if I can keep water to it - they have - the basil is up and has second leaves all over that little pot.  

So, why did my other attempts at basil fail?  I don't know - I waited too long with the seed, I put them 'someplace special' in the garden that wasn't already a part of everything, and thus, they somehow didn't get enough attention?  The one lime basil I thought failed actually didn't - there are four plants, but they're tiny and I had overlooked them up until now considering the amount of seed I had planted the 'germination' rate vs the cheap packets is dismal.  But - I don't really think that anything was truly wrong with all the regular basil before - it's just perhaps luck as well as utilizing what was in front of me at the right time.  I'm hoping I'll get some good basil leaves to use in cooking later.  

 

a pink tomato variety I'm waiting on ripening

 

I thought about all this while I was pulling a strawberry plant out of a nearby brick out there, it having wandered -- and looking at that pot, and the one next to it with the last strawberry plant I pulled out of somewhere, that is also thriving there.  As I walked down to the garage with the pulled plant, asking it if it had a chance, telling it I was going to give it one, and we'll see what happened, this was the best I could do - I thought about the other situation right next to it, and what philosophically I could get out of this, besides 'keep at it', 'keep looking in front of you' and 'do what you can where you can'... basically, just keep trying.

 

The other thing I did was bring my new garden hose and fittings up from the kitchen into the studio, to be closer to the front door -- I keep passing it by where we dumped it that day putting away the groceries, and knowing I need to do the work to put it on the hydrant and check if all the fittings work together - but I keep passing it by all the same. Bringing it up here will be one less step for when I pick it up and take it outside.  I don't feel I was ready to do the project the day we bought it - it was my birthday gift - and I've been dragging my heels since.  I wonder if there is a fitting I'm missing, and yet, I haven't pushed myself to check because I don't want to break anything taking the old one off the hydrant when we need it so badly in the heat.  It's not going to do itself.  *kick tail* 

 There.  I did it.  Bringing it upstairs first, and then going out after another hour or so for the rest was the key factor.  Besides carrying it upstairs there was the cutting of all the zipties and untwisting the twist ties and unwrapping it from the coil and doing all the rest.  I didn't need any other fittings - but now I'm wondering about the old hose if it would do best as a secondary switchout (would buy another quick connect end for it) or move it elsewhere.

 

 

little butterfly asked me why I was chasing it - well, look at those colors!

It's the Fourth of July, and we're not sure if we'll do anything tonight.  I have to work for four solid days after this - so I always look at that horizon and say 'I'm already tired for next week'...  It is also going to be stupendously hot.  We bought a watermelon yesterday and cut it up, shared some of it out.  That's celebrating, right?  

Speaking of starting and keeping at it, I finished one knit dishcloth yesterday and am part way through a second one.  I know those don't take very long, but they still take some time, preferably while I'm doing something else, like listening to the French podcast or watching a movie.  If we don't go anywhere later I'll take the green and navy weaving off the little loom at the very least and tie off the warp strings, but maybe not weave all the other ends in.

my left hand picked up a pen today and I saw this little dragon nesting with rabbits in the scribbles 

The Catalan is kicking my tail today working with some of the idioms and phrases

I read an article about how many words you know in any language, and of course, it was an ad for a kind of learning software that uses that as a term 'known words' and you mark if you know it or not in all the lessons they have.  I used that software for Japanese for a little bit - but I haven't been back to it since it now wants me to join with a payment plan.  

 

But I was thinking, after reading just a bit of that - how many words do I know in Latvian.... I know it actually is a lot, since I do the vocab program (which is free, BaltoSlav) and regularly score 60-80 in a session, with maybe an average of three sessions being what I mark as an occurrence on this chart. When I do the other program (Babadum) I choose to goto 50 or 100 or 200 points, which means I got at least that many (but maybe some duplicates) correct.  DuoLingo only thinks I know about 4000 French words - but is it true, or do I know more?  It feels like a lot more there - and many more than 3000 Welsh words.  But in actuality, we usually use a small portion of the words we 'know' to actually speak the things we need to every day - unless you are a voracious writer of many topics.  *eyebrow*  

 

I decided to do a little 'reverse' Czech - that is, as if I was an English learner and using the interface in Czech - which really battened down some words for me when I am learning Catalan from Spanish (the only way it is available).  I found the same thing with the Czech - words I only previously knew one 'facet' of suddenly made much more sense and seemed more 'whole' when using them in the interface and having to select the English word for them and reverse-translate sentences.

And I mean, I like charts.  I was doing a Czech word list (that contained lots of declensions, forms of the same word) for Mark, but I'm not about to go counting them on my own for every language.  Stands back and thinks about that... tempting, but no, at least not right now, I've got other things to do. // but maybe I could do a little book in several languages, if I get any ambition towards quantifying a set of words that would be good to make a set for.  I just can't even keep track of flashcards anymore.