this is how we do it

 

 

the spider plant I brought to work in September as a tiny clipping - it is growing well at work and I am remembering to keep it watered

My theory of 'triage' alarms - which I know just look 'insane' to anyone else -  where I keep myself in check for what I should be doing and when.

I have a few extra ones for clock-in time at post office on Saturday and Sunday as well, which are not shown.  Several of the ones above are designed to wake me up so I don't sleep all night in one position or without drinking some water - because both of those things are very bad for me.  

When you are hypermobile and really fall into sleep, things seem to 'migrate' joints wise and I have woken up before and realized that I was sleeping with an ankle or knee bent completely wrong and it didn't hurt at all until I tried to move it.  Waking up and turning over a lot during the night keeps things from overstretching or falling into 'sublux' and staying there too long (as long as I keep in 'near sleep' and don't like get up and bake a cake or play a video game for hours etc. (turning on screens generally isn't great)).

I begin to turn myself over back and forth and check elbows and shoulders and knees and ankles etc at 4:45 although I usually don't actually get all the way up until about 5:15.  Every time I sleep five or ten minutes on the snooze alarm and turn over something else goes CRACK/CLICK and eventually it centers back where it should be to function.  The one bad thing about having this routine is that the dogs and cats know it and actually will try to wake me up a minute or so before the alarm - which can make it hard as they want me to get up out of bed immediately and go let them in or out (or out, then in) and I do have to be careful especially on the stairs especially if that left ankle is the one being 'uncooperative'.

All of this operating an uncooperative skeleton also really tires me out and I do good by myself when I can and just fall asleep when it is possible, instead of waiting for when it is 'proper'.  So sometimes I might fall asleep before I complete some of the important tasks, or be too tired to remember to do them until I've slept a few hours.  And if I wake up at 1:45 and realize my phone isn't plugged in, or I didn't start the dryer, or don't remember where the keys are - that gives me that much more time to right that problem before it is 'crunch time' of actually getting to work on time.  And then, even then, I leave more than a half hour early beyond the time I think it will take to get to work, just in case.. or I plan to, but sometimes I still have that 5 more minutes that needs to be done, feed chickens, unfreeze water dishes, etc.. and that built in cushion helps a lot.

I worked all through last weekend at the post office, helping out with Amazon Sunday for the first time in weeks, and they want me to do that again this weekend.  We went out for our groceries and got Christmas dinner items tonight after I got home from the office job.  I haven't paid so much at the grocery store in years... although we did some stocking up.

Languages : mostly Japanese, a little Czech.  I am still a bit annoyed with the Czech voice app but if I can get a bit more 'brain' I might do some more on it.  I really like the Japanese reading/story app still. 

Quests for Humans

 It's been busy weeks - on top of busy weeks.  The cold let up a little - we're getting some rain but hopefully no ice overnight.  Got the little car's heater fixed.  Mark had his birthday - I gave him some clothing and some candy that Esme and I had picked out when we got propane one day.  He watched a lot of the cartoons and movies he likes - and ordered some things for his computer that is only just now arriving.  

It doesn't feel like Christmas will be here in a few weeks.  I've only bought a few things and to be completely honest - I never even took the little tree down last year. It's still up from LAST YEAR.  But it does need to be taken down and cleaned and the lights replaced and put back up.  If I can figure out time that I have ambition that isn't used for making dinner and laundry and existing.  I've come home and just sort of collapsed on the couch for a while and not been very conversational a few times.  That isn't really my style - It's been a bit like the epitome of 'flattened'.. edging back towards human at the end enough to eat and talk.  Usually my style is to come home and eat a huge pile of food and chat way too much until I deflate from the anxiety of the day and then ease back down from the high-tension end of the slide into normal.  I've had fewer of the 'keep doing what needs doing but anxiety of single being in a single timeflow with multi-dimensional timeflow thoughts that I can't process so I stick them down in the box all day until it overflows' type of days.  But I'm not sure if this is better or not - the 'I've kept doing all that needed doing but my 'brain box' is only full of dead space - no brain, no thoughts, just 'stop' or 'go' and now that I've stopped I'm flattened' feeling is a bit worse.  I guess other people would explain that as : 'I'm tired'.  But I guess that is proof I do still have those multi-dimensional thoughts when I start to think about it... when I'm not so tired.

Today I pushed on and after work went to the bank (hard quest, it closes less than a half hour after I get out of work, about a half hour drive away from bank), feed store (also closes an hour after bank does, but only fifteen minute drive away from bank), then another store for Mark and the grocery store, and then home.  I am really glad the little car made it through all those stops.  When the mail truck was having trouble with its battery that was an ever-increasing anxiety making multiple stops without running the truck long enough to charge the battery in between.  Quests for humans, indeed... with difficulty settings.

Not to mention it gets dark so early now.  And is extremely dark and cold and sometimes icy in the mornings.  It could be worse.  I don't want it to be.  Boss was ranting to me about somebody taking days off and going to be fired for missing work - and I told her my anxiety stack is still on all the ice days of previous years and I can't say one word one way or the other about anyone else because I'm just doing my best to be there every day and anxiety about what will happen if/when the weather changes.  She tried to assure me that I can't control the weather.  Yea.  That is what worries me.

I called all of our errands and my work days 'quests for humans' the other day to Esme - as she helped us get groceries with Grandma, and propane.  I told her it feels like that sometimes, like ticking off parts on some video game quest until you get all the bits done - but then it's just done for that day, and it rolls back around the next day starting all over again.  I had a very very busy postal route the other day, but not so much I couldn't get it done.  I'm wondering what this weekend will be like - Christmas packages et al.  This is the time of year they used to call in some help.  I used to be that help, on the weekdays - but now I am at the office job during the week.  Last Saturday they said that they were surprised I finished it all without needing help, but I said I didn't know they were providing help yet, so I pushed through and got it done - by continuously telling myself during the day : 'It's not going to help to sit here and stare at it - up, onward, get it done' over and over until it got done.  Thus: the quests for humans.  There is a book I keep seeing that is close to that name but it isn't quite the same emotion.

And I feel like my hips, knees, ankles, fingers and wrists are all clicky at the moment - it could be worse, don't want it to be.  It's like my muscles are made of toothpicks bound together with lots of rubber, and the toothpicks are clicky and shifting around and hoping they don't break.  I am glad the weather has been good - hope that continues to be.  Just keep getting home from work, dinner, head to bed after a bit.  I played the game a few days (Sims 3) and it still feels like I've just wasted most of that time.  I discovered how some things work again - without going and looking things up - but still, it got nothing done in the real world.

I've sent out several copies of my Mikki Mack book to people - sold one locally, and still need to find a way to get the rest of the stack to the local gallery.  They are open later on Fridays (or, at least they used to be) so I might have to take up that 'quest for human' mentality and just push push to have that be something I want to get done so I make sure it gets done.  At the office job that is how I make things work - just push push and when I stop to breathe for a minute line up the next stack.  Same thing with the postal route.  Same thing with lots of things, it's the only way I keep the balls in the air.  I'm just still adjusting to that weird feeling of stopping and there isn't new material coming in from all sides of my brain that has nothing to do with the task at hand or minimal tangents.  It's like missing an old friend that don't hardly get any time to spend with, except the old friend is my creative side which is asleep in a chair in the corner.

Languages - lots of Japanese.  A little bit of Czech.  Not a lot else.  The Japanese on my highest Duolingo profile is actually getting into new words FINALLY.... why has it taken so long?  It really has.  And I do like the little yomu yomu app that has short conversations or stories to listen to.  The Czech language app is a bit annoying in that it is supposed to recognize your speech and there are so many things I cannot come close to pronouncing (acc. to the app) but yet I feel like I understand them and am saying them as best I can. 

The cold, and my book came!

We had a nice Thanksgiving, but the cold has started to set in now.   The cold has been really sapping me - I'm just coming home and after having dinner and doing anything really necessary, diving under the covers for hours and then getting work done the next day, same thing... Friday I think it was barely 6:30 pm.  Sunday we went out and got groceries and propane and a few other things done, but still - spent a few hours in a big coat at my computer but then still went to bed before 8 pm.   There were snow flurries on my way home tonight, and I also saw a big bald eagle in a field on the side of the road.  The defroster in the little car has not been working, but it is trying to overheat - so we will have to try to figure out how to check and add coolant tomorrow.

I've been doing Japanese and Czech languages, including speaking and listening practices.

My little cat book came in the mail finally - I had requested printing of it weeks ago in a small quantity.  It is simple and sweet and I am glad that it finally became 'real'.  I love that the drawing No Tell made for me goes all the way across the back of the cover, showing off Mikki Mack's glorious long fluffy tail (as it is described in the story).  The rest of the drawings inside are black and white and were done by me in the GiMP program just quickly to have the flavor of what I wanted.  No Tell was too embarrassed by how much I loved their drawing!  I still do.  

 

 

Mikki Mack, the quite pretty small gray cat with the gloriously long fluffy tail!

am a tro, what a day

 Last night when I was actually getting ready to go to bed (at 7:30, because I was already overtired and hoping to sleep well) the mechanic called and said to bring the car down to get the window fixed.  So, we did... and then this morning we went to town to get lumber and groceries.  I did make myself a good egg omelet with seaweed and arugula and hot peppers, hot pepper cheese and spices.  I feel I haven't been eating very well the last two months but it could be worse... and I have been feeling more absentminded, which I hope is from being overtired and not having as much free time to do the things I was used to doing.   And I played with a few language lessons this afternoon and then some more Sims (which, I'm still on the fence if that is any good for me...it sucks up time and I still wonder if I could get more out of baking or making lunch for the next day or this or that...) and then the mechanic called again and said the window was fixed and to come get the car.  So, we did...  that cost a bit more than I expected, but at least it's done.  After that, made dinner and did laundry and am getting ready to go to bed early again tonight to get up early tomorrow.  Am a tro, what a day, and that is a day 'off'....  

 I studied some Latvian today as well as the Japanese.   I felt proud of myself when I did the 'phone numbers' Latvian lesson where you listen to the string of numbers being read off and either put them in as you hear them or correct a series of questions where the number is written down incorrectly.  Both were hard in their own way, especially since I didn't review the numbers from my last bout with the language months ago and just dove in.  'Nola' is zero, by the way - that was the only one I couldn't sort after hearing them again for the first time in months.  Some of the numbers are almost the same as in many other Indo-European languages, but the word for eight is unique.  The teen numbers remind me of Czech, not the same words, but a similar form - but then, the 'teen' in all of the English ones is a similar relatable pattern that I don't think of easily, because I'm just too used to it.

I played with the Bern Istaba, a Latvian children's website to see if I could remember a lot of the basic words I learned there.  It was a good review, as well.

Did some more of the yomu yomu Japanese story app that reads the story to you while you read the text on the screen (in Japanese hiragana/kanji) and the subtitles (in English) side by side.  Sort of like a dual-language reader, which I had a few of back when (high school / college), in German as paperback books.   I like that quite a bit... am wondering if the language is 'stilted' vs what a real Japanese story would be to make it simpler for beginners.  It was quite repetitive.. which seemed unnatural - but I understood 75% of it and learned some new words with every chapter.  That's the sweet spot.

I browsed around the internet a little to look at the costs of some of the other language sites.  I would like to take a course in Latvian, but there aren't a lot of good ones out there.  Duolingo has a lot of courses - 40 or more, but it doesn't have Latvian or Lithuanian.  We do have the Transparent language learning free with our library cards here in our area - it's just been a while since I logged onto it.  It had Latvian!

fast forward friday

 It's cold.  The window in the little car decided today was a day to stop working - and it's electric, and without whatever broke while it was sitting in the driveway overnight, it won't go up all the way and it won't stay up, either.  The mechanic has ordered a part for it.  My keyboard is acting funny in the cold, as well, all of a sudden.  And because it is this cold - I really just want to go to bed and stay in bed until I have to go to work tomorrow.

Finished reading 'Lessons in Chemistry', (by Bonnie Garmus, fiction book) which I had set aside a few months ago - well, more like six months ago.  But it was good to finish it.

Saw some language polyglot person in a post that said they learned 'conversational' level in 15 languages over the course of a year.  Yea... probably not, especially looking at that list of languages they posted.  However, my idea of 'what is conversational' is probably higher level than most people would think.  I am thinking he means the absolute basics, hello, goodbye, how are you, where is the restroom 'survival' phrases.  

I think 'toddler level language' - to be 'conversational' you should be able to speak simply about what you need, want and think about things - as all the questions, understand numbers, have a good handful of adjectives, place names (library, bank, rooms, park etc.) and other nouns.  You should also understand at least half of what a speaker might answer back to any of your conversational / survival questions enough to get the information.  But maybe they consider that a higher level?  

 I would say I am 'adequate' in maybe 6 languages, and that is a much higher level than what I just said, able to read newspapers and watch tv, along with being able to read more although I might still check a dictionary on an uncommon word or to check the right form of the word to use.  I could say I am 'conversational' (my description above) in up to 11 or 12, and that I have a 'bare basic' of I know some key phrases and recognize even more words but my grammar definitely wouldn't be able to hold water in a conversation in about twenty different languages, total).

 Although this has taken a lot more than 15 months - and many more resources than a single app or class course each - I'd say I'm at 8 years on focusing on the Welsh and French (2017 when I discovered Duolingo those were the two I focused on), scattered amounts of Japanese and German from many stops and starts, and 3 to 4 years on many of the others as I really began my push in 2021 for Czech and Romanian and restarting Japanese - then added the others as I continued and while I was taking that Comparative Linguistics class at the online university course. 

That course had me look at Finnish, Greek, Irish, Latvian, Turkish, Zulu and Hungarian to get an idea of the structure differences of all of the different language families.  I tried Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Dutch to compare them specifically against Finnish and German.  I beat my head on Spanish, all by itself, for three or four months exclusively and then found Catalan, and Portuguese were both easier for me (through French similarities) and still have trouble with responding in Italian, although I understand it okay, the Spanish and the French both get in the way there.  I took a Russian A1 course this year because I was watching videos of a lady training big cats that she spoke to the in Russian.  I also though it would help me with Cyrillic letters for learning Bulgarian, as an offshoot of getting fairly good with Czech. - but I  can't say I'm conversational in that. I also took the first few levels of Chinese on Duolingo to support learning Kanji in Japanese when I moved from 'studying this a little' to 'actually understanding this and needing to go deeper now.'

I had a dream the other night that I was opening up a letter that said I was being published for a book that I have not yet written or even thought of.  I 'remembered' the book in the dream and it was so complete and funny and it could work - and then it fell apart like sand through my fingers as I pulled myself awake.  That happened once before with a detective story, as well - which I only got half of it down on paper before I couldn't remember it anymore.  I guess we'll see if I can get started on this idea, but with it being cold and working six days a week - maybe I'll need even a bit more inspiration or enough time with a notebook to lay it out.

I had gotten Esme a Christmas present coming in the mail because last year I waited too long and missed it - it was out of stock for months, and then I finally got her one of the versions, but not the one she really really wanted (She still said she liked the version she did get).  Well I got it early, and we decided to just give it to her early and let her enjoy it for the extra month instead of waiting for it under the tree and maybe it wouldn't even work (it was a game cartridge).  It worked.  She is happy.  She has this weekend to play it and then Thanksgiving break next week for a few days, as well.

it's been a long week and it's Tuesday

 It's gearing up to that again, it's been a long week and it's only Tuesday.  This is because I did the post office on Saturday and then went out to the store on Sunday and I really could just crash now after dinner and take a nap.  But there is laundry in the washer, and I need to get it to the dryer.  When that gets in the dryer I'll probably head off to bed.

The two trucks that were supposed to come in today both had mishaps, and are going to have to limp in tomorrow.  So I sat without a lot to do this afternoon except phone calls, mail and email - and fighting the eyelids that wanted to droop.  Ran out to the feed store after work, because there's no time like the present etc... even though I would have liked to have taken a nap even then.  Driving in the sun around 3 o'clock in the afternoon in November here is vicious - there is nowhere to look that isn't bright as blazes etc. 

I've let both of my Japanese Duolingo leader boards slide a bit - dropping to Pearl and Amethyst.  But then that is also doing only Japanese, and I haven't broken my streaks, just not doing as much xp as was usual for me before.  There's a twinge there of 'hey, go do some Latvian', but here I am writing a blog post, instead, with my little black cat sitting by my side.

 My Mikki Mack books should be coming sometime - and I'm going to give a few of them away.  They were inspired by a few different people, which, sadly, one of the elderly gentlemen passed away recently.  I had given him an idea the character in the book was based on him and his little cat, but with stories and characterizations from other cats I've known.  I saw an old work friend at the store the other day and he has had a few sad things in the past few years, as well.  He gave his regards for Daphne, as he knew her from a little pup, as well. I think I'll drop one of the books off at their desk at the old store with a note that the character is based off Mr. Art - because they'll recognize that.

monday monday, wait, it's not tuesday

 It's been so much of a Monday, it almost feels like it should be Tuesday by now.  But I'm headed off to bed, so that will happen in a few hours here anyway.  And somehow it is also more than halfway through November.  *squints at calendar*    Doing less Japanese than I should be doing.  

 Fussing around with the architect profession now on Sims 3, thinking about playing with the gardening dynamic after this.  It is supposed to rain a lot tonight again and be better tomorrow, then turn very cold.  The furnace is out at the office - after being asked to start turning it on to 'comfortable' for visitors and so you're not in a coat all the time... up from 'bearable with a coat' for me, which is where I had it on - so *sigh* now I'll be putting on my double thermal layers and fuzzy socks again until they get someone to get it fixed.  I bought some malted milk to put in my hot tea.

I've reached that two month review point, but now with working through Thanksgiving I know we won't have any time to discuss vacation days and then I was overhearing that it isn't two months, it's four - two for a half day, and four for a full day.  *blink*  But I am still liking the basic job, getting things done, keeping track of things, getting things we need and getting the bills paid etc.  And having my own bills paid helps so much.  I've had to make a lot of calls to electricians and plumbers lately, and that has had me saying 'oh my introvert' a little as I take a few minutes and regather myself and call the next one.  But I'm getting through it, and there isn't anyone there to ask me why I'm taking three minutes before calling another one... do what you do etc.

apropos of nothing, tried the ginger and sesame flavor Halo seaweed snacks today and it is good - I usually eat that with rice as a sort of 'pseudo' sushi snack.  So, I'll have to make some 'sushi' rice to eat with some of it soon, and the sweet-and-spicy chili tuna packet bought with the same intention.  I also bought two cans of brown sugar boba tea but haven't cracked into one yet.  

And what was the reason for these strange foods?  Went shopping with someone else and 'really didn't need anything'...a pizza, cheese, pepperoni and some canned vegetables were all that was on our list - but I ended up getting a few other things as well, and a birthday present, and that is how you spend money that you don't really need to *sigh*.  Although I did have a cat brush on the list, didn't think I'd find one, did - and have been using it on our little elderly cat because she has trouble grooming herself now AND likes to lie out in leaves and gravel.  So often, she still has bits of stuff stuck to her fur when she comes to sleep in my lap.  It's getting colder now, so if I'm going to be sat on so often I thought I'd get the little soft plastic brush and put it somewhere I could reach it from my chair.

bit o bit

 Not much to report here.  Work is hopping with things, and I'm playing some game when I get home but still feeling the 'this is not getting real stuff done'... mostly getting done being sat on by my little tortoiseshell cat for two hours.  Getting ready to order a dozen of my Mikki Mack books!  The gallery sent a check for another few book sales to me, but I want to get some Mikki Mack books to 'become real' (not just Kindle copies) and drop them off at some time.  Thanksgiving is coming, but they have told us we are working through it, although getting holiday pay for it as well.  Trying to keep my back stretched out and getting enough sleep - but with the tortoiseshell cat sleeping on my shoulder that one is hard, too - it's getting colder out and that is what she does when she sleeps inside.  I don't turn over enough with her camped there, and then I have more spine issues from that.  

There is still a bit of sad about Daphne - there's only three dogs at dinner and Charlotte doesn't know what to do with herself at some points, so we 'discuss' it and I hold her cheeks in my hands and pet her head until she feels a bit better.  The other day Charlotte told me that we had chicken food, and goat food, but no extra dog food - will I be getting some?  It was very clear- so I let her have a look in the big food bin and see it was more than half full.  Mark said : 'What did we ever do before she told us these things?' to which Sweetie let out a huge grumble and 'I can't believe you SAID that!'  (she is ten years old, Charlotte is three and a half or so) as if to say : 'Hello, right here, YOU HAVE ME, you THINK?  No, you never listen to me anyway but HURRUMPH.' and we had to laugh and apologize.  

 Sweetie is the ultimate nervous border collie on making-sure-we-do-the-things, but honestly Mark understands her better and I am the one that doesn't often listen to her as she has her opinions but isn't 'insistent' to action, only insistent to 'disapproving looks and heavy sighs'... Charlotte DOES speak my 'dialect' more - and her communication consists of more insistent nose points and bumps, is always at my heels (sometimes so much that I step on her) and catches me with things that I wasn't paying attention to - while Sweetie has her designated 'posts' she lays or sits at and she tries to tell us things 'when she sees us go by' - and occasionally has to present herself to my attention and 'sit down and have a pointed discussion' about it instead of being there all the time and then my catching off-hand mentions and comments about every little thing like I do from Charlotte (imagine Sweetie is a Persian cat sitting on her counter while Charlotte is a small bouncy chatty terrier or something constantly at your heels, except it's silent eyes and nose points and once in a while paw at something, pointed hopping up and down or booping with nose and laughing).  If I'm not paying attention at all, Charlotte will get up and put herself entirely into my lap (all 60 lbs of her), capturing my hands with her paws and make sure she is heard.  Sweetie will bump a little at my feet with her butt, and then roll her eyes and go slump under the table and glare.. it doesn't have the same effect. 

I have been studying Japanese, and playing Tetris, besides finding out how certain dynamics and tools work in the Sims game, much more than actually playing the game.

bits and bobs

 Got up this morning and did the dishes, some laundry, gave Charlotte a bath.  Several of the animals were commenting on how the dog blankets smelled like Daphne still, Loki was curled up in one for a good while today (he's a cat), but Sweetie gave herself 'a sad' as Mark said, and I gave her a new blanket and we washed the ones that were in front of the heater.  I had not felt Daphne was healthy enough to be lifted in and out of the big bathtub the past week - and thus, Charlotte hadn't gotten a bath, either, as we usually did them at the same time.  So, she needed one and got it today, while it is still warm enough to not be freezing afterwards.  Then I played a few too hours too many of the Sims game that I finally got working again with the update packs on my computer.  Not sure how to categorize this, but playing games is one of those upside-down curves for me - it's fun to a point and then well, I know that time could be used better somewhere else and I feel like I've wasted time with nothing to show for it... and the Sims is doubly so on that, because of all of the household tasks the Sims get either annoyed at or happy about finishing... it's kind of like a box within a box effect.  

It's mixed feelings - - I'm having a 'fun leisure' day in real life, but using it playing a game, which 'gets nothing done'.  I get annoyed that the Sim on my screen is 'making progress' but I have wasted four hours that was supposed to be fun, and maybe it was, maybe it just kept me from doing other things I should have done.  Should I have cleaned?  Should I have baked?  Should I have learned Japanese for an extra hour?   It was a bit too easy to do the game for the extended period of time that could have done many things in real life otherwise.  The game was lower-energy expenditure than many of those things, but that is only a benefit when I consider something like I could overwork my muscles cleaning or etc. instead of resting.  And for being lower-energy, it is almost zero output.  And this is why I rarely play games that are more than a few rounds of Tetris or Duolingo.  Duolingo IS a game, but I do feel that perhaps I get something out of it that I can bring elsewhere, in translating the languages.  Whether or not my Sim learned how to make food without burning their house down is not an accomplishment that transfers much.  Mark and I have talked about that is something that was hard on our generation and that the younger generations don't have it as much - we were taught 'if you're having fun, something has to be wrong' and also lots of pressure put on productivity and 'monetizing time and hobbies'.

I did do some Japanese language learning.  And I already hurt from 'something' the past few days that I haven't put my finger on.  Not sure if it is sitting in my chair wrong playing the game, sleeping in, much grocery-shopping on Friday, climbing the stairs, the rainy weather outside or the postal route coming back at me from yesterday - but my hips definitely hurt today as well.  I did the yoga routine two nights in a row but skipped last night because I had already done so much on the postal route.  I've stretched a little today, and have climbed the stairs many many times of course, but I told Mark 'It's like I'm getting old'... one definite thing about hyper mobility is that you benefit most from variety of movement.  And, counter-intuitively perhaps, repetitive things, even 'sedentary' things like sitting slumped in a chair wrong or tensioning your leg muscles constantly while sitting forward, all of that adds up in weird ways.  

The yoga type is 'restorative' or 'vinyasa 'flow'', style - for spine and flexibility.

goodbye to Daphne

 

 

She was born in the summer of 2012, and she has been such a good girl - spent her life here with her mom Nova (who passed a few years ago at 13), sisters Sweetie and Minerva and took Charlotte on as her 'puppy' as well when we adopted her (even though Charlotte was two years old, still 'a puppy'.

She was partially deaf - and could howl so loudly and high-pitched that people in the next county probably covered their ears.  The UPS and post men had a hard time as she would get so involved barking at them, often with her eyes closed, that she had no idea to get out of the way of their cars.  Just the other day Mark said she was barking at the UPS man and now we sort of think she had a stroke, and maybe a series of them, although at the time it was just a bit off her usual behavior.  She laid down in the yard to bark at them (not usual) and she couldn't quite howl or bark  with her usual voice even when I got home from work.  She's been 'halfway down' since the UPS delivery day, but she has bounced back and forth from almost her usual self a few times.  

She was sitting in the sun a few days ago with the Lyffan Manx cat and they were having a very good time together.  Back when Daphne was a puppy, we had a Manx cat named Mouse, and she used to follow her all around the road - we called  her Sergeant Mouse walking her pups.  When Minerva got lost in the snow and the thickets at two months old or so - for about two days, and we could NOT find her, we were so worried - it was Daphne that kept insisting on going out every few hours and she eventually brought her home.  It was a bit like a miracle - but she didn't give up.   She also really liked our goats - was heartbroken when our first one Kitty goat passed on at eight - was very upset the next one we got didn't like dogs (we gave that one to another farm, because she really didn't like dogs and wasn't happy either), and spent a lot of time with Melody, our blind goat.  They didn't get along as well as she did with Kitty, but still, they enjoyed each other.

 

We let Daphne out the garage door when she had a bad stumble on the stairs, four days ago maybe? where I had to pick her up and bring her up the rest of the way (she has always had sporadic trouble with that one back leg tendon).  We went to get her back out of the yard and she had fallen into a little hollow on the side of the road and couldn't get back up - Esme and I brought her back in the house and she was better again later.  The next day she seemed fine, and then the rainy weather started up, and she was arthritic and down again.  She went and in and out of the house with assistance a few days during the rain and was enjoying laying in front of the heater with other dogs and cats.  She would say she couldn't get up to go out with the other dogs, and we carried her outside, but then she could walk back into the house afterwards and ask for a treat, but then a few hours later she was again unable to get up again without assistance...

All a prime example of Bluetick coonhound stubbornness, which her mother was 100% bluetick.  Her dad was Catahoula leopard hound and lab.  Today she couldn't get up in the morning.  We carried her out to the yard and she could barely stand.  She went to lay down under the tree where she had the other day.  Mark came back to fetch her up and bring her inside and he said she walked a few steps under the big tree and fell over and was gone within a few minutes.  Her grandmother Misha had a massive stroke, as well, at 17, which we wondered if maybe Misha had had other strokes before that one.  Daphne was 12 (and a half, since she was born in the summer)

We will miss her greatly, the two-legged and the four legged family members alike.

at a year old

at a few months old

bits

 It's been three years since I started using Duolingo every day on my PC profile.  I did mostly Japanese today on there, and did Welsh and French on my phone profile (only what.. 6 months there?).  Doing well with the budget - had two months of good data to sort through and did some of that last night, while holding my elderly little cat in my lap because it was raining and she was cold.  Mark and I had been reading a news article about what other people's average costs for housing, electricity, groceries etc are - and wow, most of the country is so high no wonder everyone else is as worried about the economy.  

Our 'household costs' are really low compared to the people posting in that article, and even so, we were having trouble paying our bills each month and it was getting worse and worse - but that was with only a part-time job for one person (As many hours as they would give me, which sometimes wasn't much, other times was nearly full-time... but lately, the full-timers were working every hour they could get and all the part-timers were getting very few hours), and now I have a full time job AND a part-time job (but less hours on the part-time than before, because of the full-time schedule).  With me now working two jobs  we're finally getting it back in order.  I have no idea how anyone else is making ends meet at these rates, and with rent going absolutely insane that I see in people's Facebook posts, in the newspaper etc etc....  Our insurance went up five times this year, by leaps and bounds, house and auto, but mostly house.  The electric is now about 150% what it was last year, and that is still with levelized billing - it is just more expensive.  The insurance and the electric are the two things I can't fill out what to expect to have to pay until they arrive, because they keep going up.  We are very conservative on our groceries, buy generic and the best deal we can for quantities and cook at home almost 100% of the time and even so our average grocery bill for the month is notably more now than last year - it is almost 125% from a price I had written down a year or so ago.  Being a spreadsheet and numbers geek, even sporadically, gives some insights.  AND I KNOW that the amount of food, quantities etc. we were buying overall when I had captured that 'before' price was actually more than what we are getting for this price now - so, higher prices, less quality/quantity at the same time.  So, yea.. I know exactly why everyone has voted on the economy this presidential election. 

Work is moving to 12 hour shifts, 7 day factory operation - which they didn't want to do, but the upper bosses out of state say it is necessary.  It doesn't affect my schedule, being in the office - but I can feel the mood change.  People have kids, and other schedules in the house to worry about meeting up with to get things done, etc.  Even with expansion and raises coming, hopefully - if every thing keeps going well - 12 hour shifts of a hot, physical job is a hard thing to do when you had been previously doing 8.  And a lot of people don't have ways to get their kids to school or back home etc, a few of them don't even have their own car but share rides with family and other workers.

Just working six days a week at two jobs myself, even though one of them isn't as phsyical, does get to be wearing me down some.  I am up so early every morning whether I really want to be or not, even on Sundays - and have a hard time getting to bed at a decent hour at the same time unless I do languages and then crash immediately after dinner.  And I am bringing my lunches and they are not always exactly healthy, but I'm working on that - canned soup or ramen noodles, instant oatmeal, bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bowls of hot tea and thermos of coffee etc.  I am still doing the post office delivery route on Saturday - not doing the Sunday packages but letting the other part-timers split that and taking that one day off every week.  The physical nature of the office job is entirely different, walking some, sweeping, cleaning things - but also a lot of sitting in a chair typing and answering phone, copying, scanning etc.  It is a different thing on the body.  I finally got down on my yoga mat again tonight after putting it off for a while.  I can feel I haven't been moving these muscles the same way as the postal route did - and that I've been sitting more, and that I've been driving different vehicles again.  I got through the routine and cracked out my lower back, but I need to get flexibility back.

Our Daphne dog is 13 or 14 years old?  Even last year she was quite spry and running around the yard with Charlotte.  But she isn't doing well now - she is showing her age, arthritis every morning hard to get up to her feet and she can't get as much air to bark and howl as she had before.  The other dogs are worried about her, but she still seems happy enough to get a treat here and there and to sit in the sun when it's warm.  Today it was raining though, so she sat in front of the propane heater and wasn't quite as happy about that.

Got the laundry out.  Time to get myself some more sleep now that I've done that yoga routine, and hope I didn't overdo it and wake up too early hurting somewhere.

bits

 

  

I got Esme a Greek drachma for her birthday, and a book 'How to Tame a Fox (and build a dog)' - 'oh, it's about the silver fox project!', she said.  I thought she might find it interesting and it is nice to have something to hand to page through instead of just relying for it to be on the internet.  The coin isn't worth much, but I told her that - to our eye - she has been growing up quite wise for her age, and that we were proud of her.  And the owl is the 'owl of Athena' the Greek goddess of wisdom.

Grandma also gave her a few coins, which she is going to look up, and a pretty card with some for 'her shark fund', which is based on a joke I had made a few years ago about her going into an antique store and coming out with a wooden duck sculpture, after saying 'Now watch, I'll find a shark or something', to which I had to draw a comic about that.

I've got a cake in the oven for her for dinner tonight, and hopefully serve with bacon and eggs and cherries.

I found a little app called 'golingo' that is speaking exercises in multiple languages.  It only recognizes about 80-90% of my spoken French - maybe room for improvement, maybe error in the system.  It only gets about 50-60% of my Welsh and it has abbreviations like 'ut wyt ti' for 'how are you' instead of 'sut dych chi'.. don't know if that is North vs. South or modern street vs book learning etc etc... anyway, it's kind of a cool addition to learn something from.  A friend tried it for Greek, and didn't like it much at all. *shrug*  

I have been studying still a lot of Japanese, a bit more Czech, and French and Spanish (on the golingo), and went and dipped back into Latvian / Lithuanian vocabulary and had not forgotten too much of that.

I had given myself such a headache yesterday, trying to cut back on coffee for other health reasons for a few days... drinking juice and water and diluted tea, but it wasn't enough as I ended up with a raging migraine and all of the other fun joint popping and earache and other inflammation that happens when I try to stop coffee.  Back to half-strength today and I have to avoid the work coffee because it is just too strong and dark, it will get me right back to square one.  

tiny bit

 Did the postal route today, mostly normal bumping along and got done about three o'clock.  I started doing some more Czech again with the Japanese, because my grammar on that always starts to invert when I stay away from it too long.  Not much else.  I'm still pretty sure I have tomorrow off, but not sure what else I'll do.  Need to finish more laundry, and clean a few areas.  I'm pretty sure Mark wants to do some more grocery shopping - I grabbed a few things that can only be gotten at the one store in the post office town, in anticipation that we would get more at the other town tomorrow.

Made tacos for dinner, or at least - a semblage of them...  also want to go have a bath with the V05 coconut stuff I like and got some of today.

I've been having some pretty odd and very realistic dreams.  One of them the other night was drawing out 52.00 from a bank just before closing time, and trying to count up what I was given, which was a large array of very non-standard coins as well as some bills.  One of the coins looked like a silver walnut shell.  I was asking the bank teller, who wanted to go home, how I was supposed to add all this up and know I had the right amount?  There were also three dollar coins and even a 2.50 coin which I thought simply had to be complete fantasy - but no, there really were some three dollar and 2.50 dollar coins back in early America - although they were gold, and the ones in my dream were silver, with a face on the front and a bird on the back though, which was accurate and probably robbed from my brain actually knowing that quarters are like that (and the other coin types were modelled onto the quarter dollar, 'quarter eagle' is the 2.50 and the 'eagle' was a ten dollar coin!)

 

I doubt Esme will read the blog, but I did buy her one specialty coin for her birthday- a real coin from a foreign country, as a sort of souvenier.  I'm hoping it will come in time, it's not expensive at all but it looked cool and I saw something about it being a modern coin but resembling 'remarkably' the ancient variety of coin from the region in an archaeology article.   As in it was kind of lost knowledge that the ancient coin had a drawing on it so very similar to what they picked for the modern coin.. but people in 2024 are still pretty amused by the similarity.  

 I know that this is more for 'I would like her to have it' than her actually wanting it - but it's something that could last compared to a new stuffed animal (she has a thousand) etc etc..and it is harder to buy for a teenager, especially when they 'don't want anything' everytime you ask.  I've gotten her 'numismatist' things a few times over the years, some just because they were cool (the Dutch coins), one (the mercury dime) for nostalgia because my grandmother had given me one as a necklace,  the pennies I had saved as a young child that were wheat backs and then one year we even gave her several rolls of 50 cent pieces and a collector book for them just to prove to her that they were indeed real and still quite available.  Her grandmother gave her a few that she had brought back from Germany and Japan as well.  So, even though she's not really interested in coin collecting, she's mildly interested in the fact that I've made her a coin collection over the years *ha*  and we put it in a nice glass display case that she keeps, along with ticket stubs and other bits like iron patches or cards etc. from places we have went over the years.

 

 

 

I happened to still have these pictures on my desktop -- The 'dimes' I got her one year for Christmas, they are from the Netherlands and were just in the 'these are cool' dish at the local pawn shop.  I had went there to get an American 'very fine' graded mercury head dime because my grandmother had given me one of those and over time it was lost, so I wanted to give her one like it and tell her the story about how that one had been made into a necklace.

I also ordered her a book I DO think she will like, that I saw in a scientific article about foxes.   And she did pick out a game on the computer that she did want, and I got that for her.

bits

 It's almost the end of another week.  Went out and got the animal feeds today after work, but on the way back I stopped at a gas station and suddenly the car wouldn't start.  I called the mechanic and he tried to walk me through some checks - the battery had charge but the ignition in the Buick Century would not even click - no lights, nothing.  So, he asked me tighten the connectors to the battery but I didn't have the proper tools in the trunk (same as Mark originally didn't have the right things to change a tire with it the first time that happened).  So, he was good and came out to find me at the gas station and showed me that really was the problem - the negative connector had started to come loose every once in a while.  It's one of those new-fangled types, not the good old fashioned kind the other two trucks had that could be turned with a simple wrench - you have to have the right socket set for it and a small handled one at that because you have to reach down into the machine a little ways.  He told me that was an issue he saw with that car before - and ones like it, but showed me how to fix it and what tool I need to get to put in the trunk.  

 

Mark comments that the 'new fangled type' is on a 2001 car, and the types on the other 1998 and 2004 cars were adapted after-market back to the older style.  But the 'new fangled' I am talking about has been around nearly 25 years - and the new-fangled NOW is even worse for repair-ability by yourself.

 

So, got home, made dinner and fed animals, didn't do the laundry, and only did the minimum work on the monthly budget - like the car knew I got a paycheck *ha* no, not really, and the mechanic didn't charge a lot for the 'house call', but he definitely deserved something for coming out at 5 pm and helping me get home.  It's already been a long night, and tomorrow is coming at the same time as usual -- headed to bed.  I've borrowed Mark's socket set to put in it just until I buy one - but am not expecting to have the same issue with it tomorrow.  It was so strange to have it happen today with no warning - it might have been a little less power going up a hill between the feed store and the gas station that I looked at the temperature gauge and said 'its not overheating, why is it sluggish?' and that was the only thing that made me wonder what was going on - the radio played, the lights on the dash were on, and it didn't sound any stranger than usual except on that one hill.

Still doing Japanese on all platforms (two duolingo, clozemaster).  Getting a few more new words finally on the highest duolingo profile.  Listening to a channel called Anime.Mex? that is spoken Spanish commentary and also Spanish subtitles  over the spoken Japanese from the anime soundtrack.  The animes they are reviewing tend to be sort of more 'explicit' ones than I usually watch or read, but I know that is a very large portion of animes out there, as well.  And I am getting much better at following the slang and colloquial conversation.

bit of bits - When I come in from outside at work the empty darkness is 'green' in the building, but I found it much more interesting that the darkness of the cardboard boxes when the green overflare begins to go away is now red.  That happened to me twice, and I'm walking through that without a flashlight - the darkness is black, and the boxes look just faintly red, so I'm getting through it in the dark not just by memory or feel but by 'seeing'.  I'm not quite sure what that is - it goes away and everything becomes just black, but it was eerie the first time and the second time it was like 'there has to be some reason for this, infra-red, latent heat?   Mark and I have noticed many times I 'see' infra-red in full light (especially sunlight) as a mirage reaction.  I can tell when something is hot by looking at it, but it doesn't look red in the light.. it looks wavy or 'vibrate-y' is about the best word for it.  

 Also, I found a place today that you can stand and hear someone clear as a bell who is standing on the other side of the warehouse, some thirty feet away - but when you begin to walk towards that person the sound stops echoing like that and they get quieter, then of course louder as you get nearer to them again.  That was VERY strange - I turned the corner from my office and thought my boss was right there by the wall, or maybe just inside that office there - and looked down the hallway and she was on the other end of the building talking to someone else.  It's either vents or just plain perfectly-bouncing echoes as it is a metal building.

witterings and ramblings

 

A few things I wrote elsewhere I wanted to keep hold of: 

My brain is always going a million miles a minute, it feels like.. so this is just a taste of trying to put some of that down into text.

What is the concept of time?

"I've been thinking about this for years, since a dream I had in high school. Time is a fractured crystal/matrix on tangent point with the three dimensions of physical space, and -of itself the fractures in its own matrix become something like the Droste effect light going into infinite mirrors within mirrors - there is loss and duplication within the fractures of a magnitude we cannot quite grasp."

 I did have this dream - it was what, 1996, 1998?  somewhere around there, I remember looking at my computer in my mother's house and wondering how I could capture even a tiny bit of the idea to save it for later... I sat down and wrote 'The Crystal Matrix' and 'The Philosopher of Crystal Valleys' somewhere around that time.. and the type of dream still returns to me once in a while - and I can never quite grasp it - it falls apart the more I try to understand it.  I've written a bit about it in my book 'Time in December' in some ways, but had to mold the idea to fit the story in a way that was slightly more specific than the whole concept.  I do like the scene in the movie Interstellar (or, as I more commonly think of it, the movie with the girl named after Murphy's Law)... but I don't feel it quite hits the right 'umami' taste of the 'real thing' I experienced in the dream, very very close to the idea, but something was missing

 

Charlotte this morning : 

"Charlotte's blue heeler side was showing this morning - definitely herding dog there - I slept in today because it was Sunday and she was completely focused on getting me outside to feed the chickens, nose bump, alarm snooze, beleaguered sigh with chin on bed, nose bump, hard stare and excited eyebrows every time I move... okay you're FINALLY up....circle to door, sigh, head to stairs, ok.. yes human the coffee (but, chickens? you know about the chickens, right? *head twist and circle*), okay the cookie, I like cookie too.. but... chickens? Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, turns circles.. *I get the chicken feed in the container* OK oh boy! *nearly soar through air on the way to the door* we're finally feeding the chickens! If that dog could fly, she would have all the way to the coop with me."

Mark says I could make four panel cartoons of this sort of thing.. and that is the best I can do in description.

 

And, about the night before last : 

"I had this dream last night where my brain was trying everything to wake me up, zombies, extra limbs, fantastic glass objects with light streaming through them in a temple where the water was rising, going through books that don't actually exist, seeing people in an office that I knew were TV actors and saying hello to them as their characters, walking through mazes that defied gravity, crowds of unfamiliar people, a ghost, papers and signs in foreign language, vehicle issues where my key didn't want to work, logging into work terminals with the wrong password, trying to open combination locks from years ago - just one puzzle/problem thing after another and each thing I faced I was like 'ok'.. go through the motions, get through this thing and you just know something else will show up etc.. but none of it actually pushed me to awake - and then, I picked Esme up at the bus stop during the rain in my mail vehicle (instead of my normal one) which the mail vehicle doesn't actually have a seat there, and I never take it home in the first place ---- and THAT did it --- it was such a surreal mix of real and 'wait, what - that isn't how this goes, this is never how this goes' that it finally did wake me up. And I thought.. wow, zombies, extra limbs, Japanese and Escher-type mazes didn't do it, but being in the wrong vehicle at the bus stop does. *that's my brain, I guess*"

... "still what makes me almost/ (the most) amused is that all the far-beyond-reality stuff doesn't 'faze' my sleeping brain, it just tries to find the way around it as if I am already knowing it is a dream and 'meh, these things happen' etc.. but the actually almost real normal thing but still 'hey the details are wrong' task was what shook me awake. In the dream I was asking myself 'is the stripe on Esme's coat just like that, I don't think it is....' and enough of those mismatches made me question enough to kick me out of the dream entirely" 

 

I really wish I could explain the glass figures - they were absolutely ethereal delicate, breathtaking and luminous - like sundial-shaped shells - - I worried if I tried to pick them up they would shatter just from the pressure of the touch - they were sitting on a shelf in front of some clerestory windows, but the water was coming in from the stairs above, rising in the sunken temple area (blue-green stone, similar to the minecraft underwater temples) and I needed to get out of there and continue my 'quest' - I think at that point I was looking for a bookcase to put the books in my office that I was sharing with several characters from Fringe and Warehouse 13, but really in the dream, I understood that my brain was playing with me there with the actors/celebrities/characters and the books that didn't exist were foremost on my mind (if I can see them and they are books I can make them again etc.) that if I was going to have them for a while yes I did need a bookcase... and then of course other things happened, in the crowd there was a girl in a yellow dress, who was asking me questions and I suddenly decided I could phase us into a ghost mode and get through the crowd and bring them to where they needed to be and warn them and some other people about some things, give them some philosophy etc. which was fairly basic, and then continue on my quest, saw my mail van, delivered some mail, sorted out codes, had the combination lock question, 39, 11 and I don't remember the last one, maybe 5 or 45, I didn't get it open - it was from ten years ago, and then I saw my daughter and two other girls getting off their bus, but not at the bus stop, and picked her up, but her coat had the wrong stripe, and I didn't recognize the other girls, and that my van doesn't have that seat there is a shelf there (which has happened in dreams before, conflation with another vehicle) and then I was still right-hand driving and somebody on the side of the road wanted us to pick up furniture in the van and I was dubious that it would fit or that I could lift it, but I got out and loaded it up with superhuman strength, and realized the texture of it was all wrong and at that moment I was investigating why it didn't feel correctly under my hand and that kicked me fully awake

Grandma Irene's puppies

 We got the heating and air person over, and an electrician, today to fix Grandma's wall heater outlet, the heater, and the central unit.  I had called them from work and then went over there to meet the heating and air person, but they were just finishing up when I got there.  Now her heat is working for the upcoming winter.  Esme has been helping out with these two making sure they get some lap time, communication and checking on their food and water with Grandma.  Grandma has called the white one Patches, and the black one with a few white bits Tippy.  They are both girls, and we estimated about 8 weeks old at the most.  They came from a neighbor who was visiting the other day, and she said he had a lot of them he was trying to give away.

a month

I've been working as the logistics clerk for a month now - and I like it.  There is a lot of data to analyze.  There's mostly always something to do, and it is consistent.  Since it is a very small company, the job is a bit of a mosaic of things that at a bigger company might be done by several people - but in a small company it is enough to keep one person busy.  So besides arranging and scheduling transportation for how orders are received and the products are shipped (the logistics part), I am also doing cleaning duties, ordering supplies, answering the phone and keeping the utility bills and other things paid by scanning them and sending them to their billing department etc. etc.. It's a job that needs to be done and I'm taking an 'ikigai' approach to it, not as in MY reason for being, but there is a reason there is a job there and it needs someone to do it, and I needed a job that I could be a good fit for - so I am going to show up and do it to the best of my potential.  

 I'm still a bit worried about snow and ice this winter, and getting there so early in the morning before dawn... but taking it as it comes.  And I'm still doing the postal route on Saturdays (under the same sort of it needs someone to make sure it is done, and to do it well, and that person is me, umbrella).  That's a little stressful for the managers at the post office because now, finally, the carrier I was subbing for the last few years is just now taking her vacation days for the year after saving most of them, and I'm not available to cover for them during the weekdays because I'm now doing the other job.  If she might have taken her vacation a little earlier in the year I might not have been so broke that I went looking for a second job!  But, then, I wouldn't be here doing this, learning these new things and would still be getting really inconsistent pay checks through this winter that is coming up, scraping by or falling behind instead of getting the bills paid.  

I am glad these two jobs did fit together this way and I will continue trying to do them both.  It is covering our bills, and giving me a better feeling for this winter.  Maybe after another month, the office job told me when I interviewed, I can plan to cover a day here or there for the post office and use my own vacation or time off from the office job to do it.  We'll cross that road when we get there.

Laundry, - we need to pull the washing machine away from the wall this weekend and unscrew the wall panel and see if we can see where that bit of water is consistently leaking from.  It might be from the machine itself.. or the drain hose, we're just not sure.  We are pretty sure it isn't from the valves or it would be constant, and it is a small amount of water that only shows up when we run the machine.  Mark and Esme even asked me if maybe it is coming from that vanity sink on the other side of the wall that we rarely use - but I was using it for washing my face almost every night up to a few nights ago - and there was no water.  I just ran a load of laundry tonight and there is a bit of water visible at the base of the machine right by the wall.  

 We turned on the heater for the house.  Trying to get Grandma's heating on, as well - she has two new 6 to 8 week old female puppies and her house is cold.  Esme went up there to give them some socialization and hold them in her lap, and I've asked her to do the same tomorrow while she is on break.  I went up there today, too - and spent some time with Grandma and the pups while trying to get the thermostat to kick in - it didn't.  The person who gave her the pups told her they were older, so we had given her food for older dogs.  Then we all saw them with our own eyes (Esme, me, then Mark) and we knew they were younger and needed different food.  Mark and I ran to the store yesterday and got the puppies the right kind of food and I put down a water dish today which I thought Grandma had done yesterday -- and they will need some vetting in another few weeks.  I checked with Mark and they do not need worm medicine for another week or two, but then they will need it every two weeks for a little while, a very small amount each, as they are very small and will be small even as adults.

I'm still reading the manga Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You, studying mostly Japanese the past few days on three different accounts (two duolingo and one clozemaster) and doing the Tetris game on my phone.

taco tuesday

 They had some tacos at work, so I guess it's Taco Tuesday, somewhere, today heh.  And a trucking company sent us some stainless steel coffee mugs with lids, which that was cool to get 'swag'.  I did some Greek, Catalan, Japanese, French and Turkish in between different breaks, because my phone Duolingo had Super Duolingo free trial.  Now, I'm home after getting chicken feed and a few groceries, and going to do the language lessons on my PC account and read some more manga before bed.  Esme is having some leftovers, and because I had extra lunch today I don't feel like eating that much more for dinner.  There is a battered banana that was still in my bag that I might finish off later. 

manga

 Oh wow, I've read too much manga again today.  But, that is a good day off, perhaps.  I slept early last night, got up for an hour, and then slept all the way to five a.m. again - waking up without the alarm.  I also did laundry, and a bit of mopping, changed all the rugs, and looked at the garden this morning.  I almost took a nap, but then got up and cooked something.  But honestly, besides doing the normal amount of language lessons, I've read about six hours worth of manga today, at the least.  One of them was very good (Kimi ni Todoke 'Reaching You' in English)  in that it had a lot of Japanese culture concepts I then had to go look up, and find out what it meant - 'White Day' (like Valentine's Day), words for junior and senior and terms of respect for relatives and teachers, and a few words for foods I didn't know etc etc...  But I guess when I start seeing things half-manga drawing style in my mind's eye, and thinking of my cooking and cleaning being influenced by manga, I definitely have to stop *ha* right, eh?

but this was entirely influenced by the garden, before I began reading much manga this morning - shishito peppers, some bits of kale and a cucumber, chopped up, cooked in olive oil and biryani masala spices, eaten with rice and soy sauce and an egg for breakfast.  At least, it wasn't influenced by *today's* manga... I did wonder though, what is the reason most people don't cook cucumber?  It seems to do just fine in dishes like this for me.  I also cook radishes sometimes.

Mark had put the end of a pork roast in the oven early this morning and we had some of it shredded up for dinner, with canned apples for Esme and I.

bits

 Mark's nephew and his wife came through Hurricane Milton just fine, which is a relief.  It's been nearly a month at the new job, and they told me the amount of product we're shipping out is unprecedented.   After a few more weeks the warehouse will be nearly empty, except for what they are making now, and the materials they have to make it with (which are a lot, though).  The manager is selling it, and I'm setting up transportation, and the warehouse crew is loading it up.  The warehouse crew said it was more work than they wanted right now - but they were also having a really hard time finding things that had been squirreled away for months and months and hadn't been selling... so, it's going to be good in the future to have that old stuff gone and be able to organize putting the new stuff in ways they can get to it.. right?  They had already claimed it was ruining their sanity trying to figure out where to put the new stuff a few weeks ago...

 For spreadsheet practice at work I made a 'shipping price trend analysis chart' showing all of the prices they have paid for freight to every destination from the records they had kept (already on another screen that I update daily) since the company was bought out.  They had told me to play around with the spreadsheet program and see what I could make it do in whatever free time I wasn't cleaning etc.. and since I am calling and scheduling and taking bids on these freight trips - I thought it would be a useful tool as well.

I did Japanese and Turkish and French today at work, (before work clockin, at lunch and at afternoon break) although just a tiny bit of the last two.  Then I tried Spanish and failed badly on the verb cases and spellings.  Came home and punched out the next module on the much higher level PC Duolingo profile - but had a lot more time to work on it after dinner.  After work I had also put another cheap new tire on the mail truck and got a bit of groceries - not everything, but some.  Tired now, headed for bed.

I still think often : Why is a forty-five year old geek girl in Tennessee learning bits and pieces of so many languages?  And then I think .. why not?  I could put the same amount of effort into mathematics, accounting, business etc... and not get as much joy and progress out of it.  It's taken a long time to find out I was actually good at languages, after being told for so long that I couldn't possibly be (because of the speech impediment and dyslexia)... so I'm enjoying this thing my brain can do :)  and have to keep finding ways to make it more useful, but that is second chair to actually enjoying learning.

bits

It is starting to get cooler - and we'll probably have to light up Mark's propane heater soon.   I've been busy at my new job, and trying to get enough sleep at night in between it all - it starts so early, and then our typical family schedule runs until 7 pm or so... I am really wondering how that is going to work when winter hits, as it is already far before daylight that I have to set out for it.  It has been really good to know that all the bills for the month can get paid now - and Esme's birthday is coming up as well.

 

I'm still studying Japanese every day, and found a site for reading some manga, in multiple languages.  I read one in Portuguese the other day, and some of one in Turkish (although my Turkish is very low level, I understood some of it without going to the translator and then when I found the English version I was further impressed).  I am also sprinkling in some French and Spanish in there.  There was a driver at work that did not speak English, but I was too afraid to speak to him in what little Spanish I have.  I know that is still strange, studying all of these other languages and Spanish is the most useful, but not the one I find the easiest to grasp.  If only a driver from Houston spoke fluent Welsh ;)   

 

(Honestly, a goal of mine is to do Babbel or some lessons on italki or something at some point and get some good practice in doing actual production in conversational Spanish, but since it is one of my hardest languages to grasp, I haven't reached out to actually spending anything on it)



The manga I just finished reading was '365 days to the wedding', which was very sweet and different from the things I have usually found. The pair start out as barely work acquaintances and then claim they are getting married to avoid being sent on a bad assignment - but it turns into more, and they both break out of their shells and find out life is so much more than they were shielding themselves away from, and that together they can get through the embarrassments and constant worries and build on what they are discovering . Another one was really hard to translate the title of it - it was 'Usuzumi no Hate', which is translated from the Japanese as 'the color of the End, mission in the apocalypse' about an android girl with the memories of a real person? (they are still explaining some of that), who is trying to clean up a strange plague that has turned countless millions of humans to crystal - and is still extremely contagious and fatal to any remaining human life unless dealt with by the androids. That was the one I had started reading in Turkish before I found it in English. I finished all there is so far of Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) but it is definitely not finished yet. I had to read the last chapter of that in Portuguese as it was the only langauge available.




Of course, the hurricane (Milton) is about to hit in a few days as well - hope everything is alright for the people there. I know a few that are staying, and a family that is evacuating to the east until it is over with.




Languages:  (old style Duolingo, from DuoMe)

French                 L 25     XP 52905 22905 XP beyond Level 25
Welsh                  L 25      XP 30114 114 XP beyond Level 25
Spanish               L 23       XP 25613 +387 XP to next level
Japanese             L 21     XP 17741 +1259 XP to next level

Czech                  L 19     XP 13888 +1112 XP to next level
Romanian           L 17      XP 11143 +857 XP to next level
Portuguese         L 16     XP 9632 +868 XP to next level

Italian                 L 15     XP 7952 +1048 XP to next level
Greek                 L 14     XP 7226 +274 XP to next level
German             L 14     XP 6148 +1352 XP to next level
Finnish              L 13     XP 5515 +485 XP to next level
Catalan (en espanol)      L 12 XP 4303 +597 XP to next level

Swedish            L 11     XP 3848 +52 XP to next level
Russian             L 11     XP 3818 +82 XP to next level
Spanish (from French)     L 11 XP 3190 +710 XP to next level
Norwegian        L 11     XP 3097 +803 XP to next level
Hungarian        L 10     XP 2591 +409 XP to next level

Ukrainian         L 10      XP 2288 +712 XP to next level
Irish                 L 9        XP 2174 +76 XP to next level
Turkish            L 9       XP 2074 +176 XP to next level
Chinese            L 9       XP 2055 +195 XP to next level
Polish               L 9         XP 1798 +452 XP to next level
Danish             L 4         XP 299 +1 XP to next level

and Latvian elsewhere, and Lithuanian on babadum and baltoslav

and another duolingo profile on my phone that I had made in 2017 and took back up again because it was easier to do that than have dual login from pc... //sigh  I usually stick to about two to five languages per day unless I'm feeling overly bouncy and need brain exercise

Japanese on Clozemaster, did Russian on Busuu for a bit, Japanese on LingQ for a bit, French and Spanish on Kwizik, yomuyama and a few other things in Japanese, mangadex in whatever languages it lets me, cooking blogs in Portuguese and Norwegian and Latvian, children's games sites etc etc..