viewHunkered down...
16 March 2020 – 21:00
... just like we're supposed to be. She and I are doing our best to abide by the “guidelines” given for personal behavior during this time of the Kung-Fu Flu. We're not panicky at all but, given our ages (71 y/o for me, 62 for her), it's only smart to be careful and take care of ourselves.
Actually, I fear more complications may come from the economic effects of the hysteria than from the disease itself. Our planned move to the Philippines is scheduled to take place in about six months time. Hopefully all the planes will be flying and travel restrictions lifted by then.
We've already found a house over there that will be perfect for us and are planning to have our agents look at it and have papers drawn up. Hopefully I'll be able to put a deposit on the place to hold it for our arrival later this Summer. Hopefully.
#SeniorLiving #plans
by Roscoe
viewSaturday was fine, Sunday is quiet.
15 March 2020 – Noonish
As expected, Saturday was full of social activity, mostly related to Church activity and the Knights of Columbus. It started with emails received related to Archdiocesian documents released late Friday, and ended at night with news about the implementation of policy set forth in those documents. The hours in between included Lectoring at Mass, discussion with a priest and a deacon, and a recruitment talk with a man interested in joining the Knights.
Maintaining the balance of busy days followed by quiet days, this Sunday will be easy and slow. It's been that way through the morning and hopefully will continue slow and easy through the rest of the day.
#SeniorLiving
by Roscoe
viewCoasting slowly through a lazy Friday
13 March 2020 ~ 13:30
A few minutes ago I heard a knock at my door. A friendly neighbor had a question about a project we are both involved in. We had a short chat, he left to get on with his day, and I came back inside to get on with mine.
With no urgent chores ahead of me, I'm hoping for a quiet, restful day. Tomorrow will be socially active: I'm scheduled to Lector at Saturday evening Mass. I want to be at my best for that, so I'm planning an easy Friday followed by a good night's sleep.
#SeniorLiving
by Roscoe
viewNext time the cut will be closer.
11 March 2020 ~ 13:00
The midday temperature in my little corner of the world is moving steadily up through the 70s, the sun is shining brightly, and the yard called out for attention. So I hauled the mower out of the shed and went to work.
The side yard needed the most work so I made some quick passes over it and it does look better now. The rest of the yard can wait for another week or so.
Before putting the machine away I adjusted the wheels to let the blades set much lower. The cut will be close to the ground and the results much more noticeable the next time I mow the lawn.
#SeniorLiving #SevenTwoProject #chores
by Roscoe
viewLike a ghost from my past...
For most of my adult life I've been a segmented sleeper. After first putting head to pillow I'll usually sleep for two or three hours or so, then find myself fully awake for another hour or two before falling back to sleep for another two or three hours.
During that insomnia break during the middle of my night I'll fill my time in any of a number of ways. Sometimes I may switch on the AM radio by my bed and listen to a talk station, or I may grab a book and read for awhile, but most often I'll move over to my computer and hop onto the Internet to see whatever there is to see.
Up in the middle of last night I was browsing messages on Fosstodon.org when I came upon a reference to Wordgrinder, some kind of software I'd never heard of. Curious, I did a search and it to be like a ghost from my past. A very good ghost!
Many, many years ago the first word processor I really fell in love with was WordStar. And now I found Wordgrinder, a free and open source and VERY no-frills writing tool designed for the GNU/Linux Operating System. Downloading and installing it and opening it up I was... so happy.
Oh, yeah. I'm going to spend some time playing with this!
#SeniorLiving #segmentedsleep #insomnia #software
by Roscoe
viewFor those keeping score, Monday was a good day.
It was a long day, but a good one. There is one specific and time-consuming chore I delegate to every Monday. That would be doing my laundry, and that usually swallows up the middle part of the day, from late morning until late in the afternoon. Such was the case this time. But now it's done for another week – mostly.
And there is another chore that comes on the second Monday evening of each month: my Knights of Columbus Council's business meeting. As an officer of the Council I'm pretty much obligated to attend. This month's meeting was a good one. Everything ran smoothly, and it was good to be in the company of my Brother Knights.
Between those two regularly scheduled chores there was some correspondence and logistics to handle related to this Summer's move to the Philippines. I imagine that between now and the move itself there will be similar items needing attention on most days. Those handled this day went well.
All in all, this Monday was a good day.
#SeniorLiving #KnightsofColumnbus #chores
by Roscoe
viewSaturday morning chore
This morning found me at my neighborhood barber shop for a sorely needed haircut.
The shop is located almost exactly one mile from my front door, so when I have to walk there and back I get a healthy workout. But when I can catch a ride, like this morning (thank you, Sylvia), it's just a few minutes out of my day.
#SeniorLiving #SevenTwoProject #personal #blog
by Roscoe
Some days I'm surprised at how little it takes to tire me. Friday was one of those days.
Mid-mornings usually find me napping after a good breakfast but that didn't happen Friday. And that may be one reason that the day fatigued me so. 09:30 found me waiting on my front porch for a friend to pick me up and take me to his home/office where I was to help him with his new computer. He arrived, we went, and we worked for about two hours before I returned home shortly before Noon.
The work on his computer was stressful and frustrating for me, though we did complete some of the tasks he wanted done. You see, I've been pretty exclusively using Linux Operating Systems for over twenty years, and his new machine runs Windows 10. Two totally different worlds, those: the Gnu/Linux world, and the Microsoft world. And I was trying to help him through territory that was very foreign to me.
Returning home I was mentally exhausted. And that exhaustion stayed with me through the rest of the day
#SeniorLiving #personal #blog
by Roscoe
Nasty neighbor across the street (not the horrible old man with the dogs I've mentioned in this column on occasion; this is the other one, the Mexican drug dealer) has decided this is a good night to work on some kind of construction project in his front yard. And he's using a variety of power tools. And I'm trying to get to sleep.
In the past I've used late night talk radio on a bedside AM radio as white noise to help me drift off when outside noises bothered. But talk radio these days is filled with passionate ignoramuses of one stripe or another. And their stupid questions, comments, or arguments serve more to infuriate than relax me.
What I've settled on tonight is a YouTube lecturer speaking before an academic audience. His viewpoint is one I largely agree with. The volume is turned low enough to let me sleep, I hope, when and if sleep comes. And the subject matter should be interesting enough to draw my attention away from the noise across the street.
Will this work? Will this lecture be effective white noise? I suppose I'll find out.
#SeniorLiving #personal #blog
by Roscoe
... always makes me happy.
The graphic above shows the position of pieces at the end of a Correspondence Chess game I won this morning with a Rook-Bishop combination check mate of the Black King.
This game was played at lichess.org: a server-based chess club where I play all my chess these days.
#SevenTwoProject #SeniorLiving #personal #blog
by Roscoe