Musings
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Friday Randomness
Apparently I’m blogging every day in April. This was not intentional at first, but once I got to the middle of the month, I figured, ‘In for a Penny, In for a Pound’. Now that I’m near the end of the month, but not quite there, the suspense is growing. Will I make it? Will I find enough content? Time will tell. One thing I could do would be to NOT do Friday Randomness, and instead take each of these little tidbits and make each its own blogpost. Nah. I didn’t take any pictures of last Saturday’s protest, but it was well attended (between 1,700 and 2,000). I have clicked…
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On Unicorns
Last week I ranted a bit about how unicorns have horns, and do not have wings. I feel strongly about this. Both Maya and Suzanne mentioned the term ‘alicorn’ which I had never heard before, but which I like a lot more than lumping a singular horse god (Pegasus) into a mythical species. It would be like saying ‘a Poseidon’ is a species, or ‘a Zeus’. Anyway, I looked up alicorn, and found these admittedly pretty yet historically problematic examples. I’m working on opening my mind a smidge. I know, I said historically problematic about a mythical creature. I’m ridiculous. I love this statue, the ‘alicorn’ is beautiful and is…
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Money Monday
Kyria had a post last week where she discussed her budget and spending for the first quarter of the year, while she’s been traveling in Western Europe. She’s within a few dollars of her budget (or would be if she hadn’t had to buy a new phone and laptop, one time expenditures), and is doing well. She asked if people budget when they travel, and I said no, I spend what I spend, and she then asked if I budget in my day-to-day life. The answer again, no, not really. Then Elisabeth had a post about how she keeps her grocery bill under control. Which got me to thinking about…
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Playing with ChatGPT
The other day, a friend posted a ChatGPT generated picture of her horse as a human on Facebook. Immediately I wanted to see what Mulder would look like as a human, so I went to ChatGPT and tried to load a photo. You have to have an account (free). So I signed up for an account, but instead of loading a photo, I asked it to show me what a Keeshond would look like as a human. Chat asked me if I wanted male/female/androgynous, and I said androgynous. It asked for personality, and I said kind of loud. This is what I got. I love the grey hair, which matches…
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Friday Randomness
In addition to many wonderful signs, I saw this wonderful FDT (Fuck Donald Trump) t-shirt at last week’s rally. So pretty, right? I also liked the ‘Turd Reich’ sign. This is not my photo, I took it from our congress member’s FB page. He comes to the rallies when he is in town. He’s in the center front of this photo, with his back to the camera. The rally was much smaller than the previous Saturday’s Hands Off rally, but that was to be expected. Still about 1,000 people came out. Tomorrow is more rallies, 2 around here, and I have to decide if I want go to both or…
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Spotted Photos – Yellow
Sculpture at top of this post: Aspiring to Pumpkin’s Love, The Love in My Heart – Yayoi Kusama When iHanna announced that the April theme for her Spotted Photo Challenge would be ‘Yellow’, I thought, oh, I don’t think I have many yellow photos, this is going to be quick. Wrong. I have a ton. You’re going to get photos of Maya, Mulder, France, food, and flowers. Maybe a few other things too. Ready? Here’s Maya at her first birthday party, held in a local park, where we had friends, family, pizza, and cake. It was a beautiful day. Here she is in Juneau, Alaska! We’re visiting my mom, my…
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Money Monday – Update
Update on my new PayPal Debit Card – Happily, I was right, you can select the same category for earnings every month. You have to wait until the first of the month, so I set a reminder on my phone for the first of every month, so I don’t forget. From April 1 to April 13, I spent $477.48 on groceries*, and I earned $23.87 in cash back. I’ve been thinking about the money that I earn, and decided that I would like to keep this money separate from other money. So I could leave it in PayPal, or I could put it in another account. I have a high…
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Book Shopping
Now that I’ve caught up on the books I’ve read/listened to for the last couple of weeks, I’ll tell you about my book shopping finds. One recent Friday, Ted worked a half day, and we went to Oakland for our Friday night dinner. We went early to do a little book shopping. We started at East Bay Booksellers, a favorite of ours that suffered a major fire last year, but they are thankfully in a temporary location just down the street while their store is repaired. Then we went to dinner at a local place we really enjoy, and then to Pegasus Books, another great Indy place in the neighborhood.…
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Friday Randomness
Isn’t the Maya Angelou quote above lovely? I found it soothing. We had a lovely time at Maya and Sloan’s birthday party last Saturday. We started off by stopping at the Ramazzatti wine tasting room for a wine that was recommended by Ted’s boss. Ted bought a delicious Chardonnay and an even better Cabernet Sauvignon, and we brought those to the party along with our bottle of Champagne. They were really, really good. I hope we will splurge again and have these wines in the future. (Oh, maybe for Ted’s birthday next month!) Ted’s cousin made the cakes. They are both a really delicious carrot cake. Sloan’s cake has no…
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Money Monday
The meme above has nothing to do with anything, it’s just cute. Today’s post is for those of you who enjoy credit card points. Credit to Sarah for the blog post title. [Update to add: Here’s the TL;DR version if this kind of stuff is confusing. PayPal has a MasterCard Debit card where you can get 5 cents for every dollar spent on 1 category per month. Unlike a credit card, you load the card with funds and then spend them, so there is no interest to worry about.] Like many of you, I enjoy earning money on my purchases via credit card points. I don’t really try with hotel…
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Friday Randomness
In an example of what we call ‘Cognitive Decline’ around here, Sunday found me at a local nursery, looking for a specific flowering plant, but not finding it. When a helpful employee asked me if she could assist me, I said yes, I’m looking for a flowering plant, often (but not always) a hanging plant, kind of fuschia in color, likes shade and cooler weather. “A fuschia?” She asked. Yes, a fuschia. Hence the color. Sigh. I bought 2. I liked the story of this complaint tablet chiseled almost 4,000 years ago, decrying the inferior quality of copper received, as well as poor customer service and mistreatment of the writer’s…
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Back in Stockton
Last week I was able to serve as an ‘emotional support cousin’, helping my cousin Carey to try to figure out the situation with her late father’s ex-wife’s final wishes. Confusing? Maybe. My uncle was married 3 times, first to Carey’s mom, then to K, and lastly to C, his widow. K never had children of her own, nor did her late husband B. She said that her plans were to leave her estate (such as it is) to her step-daughters (Carey and her sister), and B’s step-daughter. K passed away suddenly last month, and as is too often the case, a will and/or trust could not be found. I…
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Action is the Antidote to Anxiety
I saw a meme the other day that was 20 things you wish you had heard before, and the first item was this: “Action is the Antidote to Anxiety”. This is definitely true for me, and I think it’s a lot more helpful for my mental health to write postcards, attend rallies and demonstrations, exercise, and listen to music, than it is to doom scroll or listen to the news all day. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I wrote a lot (for me, I know some do more) of postcards to voters this week, for elections in Florida and Wisconsin. There were 2 protests this week in my town,…
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Miscellaneous Monday
This is my favorite thing that Maya has shoved in my face and made me watch recently. We had a good laugh. It starts with ‘my mom with the cat she didn’t want’, and we agreed, that’s Ted with Mulder. If you enjoyed this video, watch the next one, where mom makes kitty a beautiful dress and sings to her. Friday I slept until 7:15!!! I rarely am able to sleep that late, and it was DELICIOUS. I felt so well rested. I had a relaxing day, which included using a reverse vending machine to recycle some cans for CRV (California Redemption Value), which was kind of novel but a…
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Friday Randomness
I’ve long done Friday Randomness posts, and Elisabeth’s FIG Collective fits in so well, so here are my Random Thoughts/Figs for the week. Saturday – Time spent with friends. Ted’s BFF and his family moved away about 2 years ago, and I know that Ted misses him a lot. They were in the area for his MIL’s funeral. So it was a very sad occasion, but it was really nice to see them and spend some time together. After we came home, Ted was hungry, I was peckish, and Maya was not. So Ted and I walked over to a nearby hotel (which has a spa and is where I…
