Friday Randomness
How is it Friday already? I have no idea. This week was back to work, which somehow went really quickly anyway. A week and a half off was really nice though. Do you like my house horse, Clip Clop, above? He’s darling.
Anyone want to do yoga with me? Yoga With Adriene has a new practice every Saturday in January. I know we’re one week in already, but if you’re at all charmed (like I am) at the idea of us doing the same practice on the same day, let’s do the Saturday practices! Search for Yoga with Adriene on YouTube. I’m not sure what time the new practices will be posted, usually pretty early. Not sure if I’ll try to manage the live stream or not, I’ve never tried to figure that out.
These sweet brothers are the current residents at PetCo, where I volunteer 2 days a week to clean their kennel while they await adoption. They are very loving and sweet, but they made me cry a little, because they made me think about my mom. Why? Because they are here for adoption because their mom died. Which reminds me of my mom’s sweet Hooligans, Merry and Pippen. (Link is to her post about the same thing.) How confusing it must have been for them, when she left for breakfast with friends one Saturday, and they ended up taking her to the ER, and she was whisked off to Anchorage for care and they never saw her again. My brother and SIL could not take them in, as they had cats of their own at the time, so they were surrendered to the no kill shelter. I hope they were adopted together. SIGH.
In more cheerful news, I put these little gummy bears in the little free library yesterday. I bought them on Christmas Eve at the Chevron station when I panicked about stocking stuffers. Then I walked over to 7-11, and found gummy worms, which Maya likes more. So these are extra and will not get eaten. As I was walking with them, I thought back to my time in Junior College. There were a group of us that would sit on the brick steps and chat between classes, watching the world go by. In the hot (HOT) days of August, we discovered that if you lick the flat back of a gummy bear, it will stick to the side of a brick, and you can then watch it melt like a bad LSD trip. Ah, to be young, right? Notice the copy of Moby Dick a few books to the right of the gummies.
I took this picture back when Mulder was almost 1. He’s thinking maybe he can get the squirrel on the fence, but there’s no way that’s going to happen. See the little tree/bush in the background? I liked it like this, short and kind of bushy. It’s out of control now, and we don’t have the right tools to trim it ourselves.
See how it’s gone straight up as we’ve badly trimmed it over the years? We can’t reach the top, and I don’t want it to get worse. Actually, that angle doesn’t look that bad. Look at this one.
See how it’s all leggy and reaching over like a crazed plant? I don’t like that. I mean, we could call a gardener, but who is going to come out for such a small job? Good news! Our friends’ son has recently gotten into landscaping, and is going to come and trim it back this morning. He said it’s the perfect time of year for a ‘hard pruning’. There’s another plant that could use some similar help. I’m hopeful for a prettier plant this summer/fall. (Does anyone else find the big eucalyptus tree in the background menacing? We live in constant fear that it will drop a branch on our house, mainly because they are old and have dropped branches on our fence and our neighbor’s yard in the recent past.)
Yesterday would have been my first husband David Bowie’s birthday, and our favorite radio station, KEXP, played all Bowie for their morning show. When Life on Mars came on, it made me laugh, because when we had COVID a couple of years ago (last year?), Maya lost her voice and enjoyed testing it out by singing the high part, “Is there life on Mars?” LOL.
Today’s plans, aside from gardening help and my regular exercise, will include taking care of the cats, and then linner (late lunch, early dinner) with my friend Neva. We usually get together in December to celebrate Christmas and my birthday, but this year our dates didn’t mesh, so we postponed to now. Excellent, actually, because I like stretching it out a bit. I always make fudge for her and her family, and this year is no exception. For packaging, I bought a little cookie box from the bakery at the grocery store, then I used the front of a lovely Christmas card we received this year as a decoration. Nice, huh?
How about you? Have you ever watched gummy bears melt? Do you have garden challenges? Are you watching the new season of The Pitt? If you haven’t watched yet, the first episode is NSFD (Not Safe For Dinner.)
14 Comments
StephLove
Now that Beth is retired, she is thinking of volunteering with cats at a shelter.
I have to admit, I have never watched a gummy bear melt, but when North was in middle school, for homework they had to put one in water and watch it swell– it was a lesson about osmosis.
I used to make fudge at Christmastime, but I haven’t in years. Yours looks scrumptious.
J
I hadn’t thought to put one in water, what a fun idea!
Jenny
Wait- are you sure you don’t want to adopt two sweet cats??? They might be the perfect fit for you! They look adorable, and how sad for them to have lost their mom.
I’ll check out the Saturday Yoga with Adriene! I do like her, I need to do yoga and I keep not making time for it. I’ll try to do her new one tomorrow and report back.
J
Aren’t they sweet? If Ted weren’t allergic (like, REALLY allergic) we would certainly have adopted at least 2 cats by now.
Whether you do yoga tomorrow or not, I’m going to imagine that we’re doing it together! Yay!
AC
Eighteen years ago: I see that I read and commented on that post. It makes me a bit sad, for both her and the cats.
J
Yes, me too. Sigh.
Birchie
Well I know what I’m doing the next time that a pack of gummy bears comes my way!
Life lessons from Mulder: always dream big.
J
I hadn’t thought of that weird experiment in years, and then it suddenly popped into my head as I was walking yesterday. Funny.
Margaret
My cat doesn’t tolerate other ones, or I wouldn’t be able to resist a couple more. I don’t have the streaming service for the Pitt or I would watch it. As it is, I watch two medical shows already! That’s probably enough. David Bowie was your first husband? Mine was George Harrison. 🙂
Nicole MacPherson
Oooh I would totally eat those gummy bears. I got Jake a bag of Frank’s Red Hot gummies for his Christmas stocking and yes, that sounds super weird, but they are GOOD. Also they are naturally portion-controlled because you really can’t eat more than a couple at a time. We all ended up eating them so I just picked up another bag at Costco this week.
Diane
Ooh I saw Adrienne”s January series and was tempted, but I feel like I barely get 15 minutes of yoga in a day; 30 + miutes would be a stretch for me. (Pun!) Maybe I can pick and choose and do her shorter practices when they come up. I managed to do Yoga almost every day last year (I think I missed one or two days in December when life was really full.), and I want to keep that streak.
I lvoe haribo gummy beears – they are the perfect gummy bears, IMH. Although these days we are really into Haribo Twin Snakes – sweet AND sour together!
Lisa’s Yarns
I’m finally watching season 1 of the Pitt. My brain could not handle the intensity when I tried to watch it last fall. I am loving it! Noah Wylie is sooo good!
Everything is covered in snow here and then we got rain so now it’s slick and awful out. I hate rain in the winter!!
nance
Mulder would love my house in the morning when all the squirrels raid my peanuts on the front porch and the one I call Short Stack (she’s missing half her tail) climbs up the screen on the front window to get a peanut off the top of the window frame. Of course I would let him on my couch to see all of this, along with Piper.
What the heck, bring ClipClop too. It really is a big couch.
Rick is always admonishing me about pruning. I like the shrubbery less manicured and more free and easy looking (within reason, of course). He likes things tight and tidy and shaped. Somehow, we coexist.
I used to buy a 5-pound bag of gummy bears from the warehouse club solely for Rick. I don’t care for them. He finally asked me to stop buying them and I didn’t ask why, but we no longer have gummy anything in the house.
I love your gesture of putting the candy in the Little Free. I’m sure it made someone’s day, which is more than I can say for Moby-Dick. LOL
Daria
Aight, Julie, we’ve been through this before- David was MY husband. LOL Isn’t he amazing…
I would love to do Adrinne series, but cannot add any more things… You know we joined the YMCA? So now I can do classes there- yoga, pilates, cycling (did it today, survived), strength, and swimming. I can swing by after work for a short sesh or a longer stint on weekends. I think I finally- FINALLY- broke my hate of exercise.
We have a bunch of Little libraries in the neighborhood and beyond and I have left books there many times. Also, took books out. I LOOOVE the fact that you did that- so cute.
The Pitt… We watched the first season and omg, so good, but I was crying many times, especially during the scenes of father dying and the two siblings deciding to put him on life support or let him go; and the scene with a brain-dead high schooler. OOOOOFFFFFF.