Sunday Noodling...

 

Yummy udon noodles (my photo)

Even though the air quality around me has generally been in the acceptable zone (except for one day last week), my eyes have been SO UNBEARABLY ITCHY again. Sometimes they get so bad, I have to hold a cold, wet paper towel over them. Generally, I am better off when I can stay indoors, but I do have to go to work. And to game nights. And to the grocery store. Oh well. It could be worse ~ I could be blind.

I bought an automatic cat feeder for the (very rare) nights I might not be home at 6-7pm to feed Inky on our established schedule, but programming it takes a degree in rocket science. I have it sitting behind me in parts right now so as not to use up the batteries while I'm trying to figure it out. I decided to take a break to blog instead. I'm only going to use the auto-feeder once in a while, but even so I need to test it out when I'm home to be sure it works. The meals via the feeder will be kibble, of course, and Inky is on a wet food diet, which she seems pretty happy with, but luckily she adores kibble. She'd probably be happier eating it every meal instead of the wet, but vet says wet is best, so that's what we're doing except for the rare occasions I'm out at dinnertime. 

For a while now, I've been participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday, but that will be coming to an end shortly because all my old blogs have disappeared from the Wayback Machine. It's funny that I requested removal some time ago, but they asked for a whole bunch of information that I didn't have access to, so I let it go. Since then, I've made use of it by scavenging for old posts I can use for the FFF prompt, but now I will only have the previous two years of this blog, which isn't a lot. I wasn't even blogging every day in 2024 or even for most of 2025. Don't get me wrong: I am happy I have been cut from the internet archive. It bothered me to be on there in the first place after I learned it existed. This current blog is randomly getting crawled by them, despite the fact that I opted out of searches and stuff. Whatever.

Regarding stats, the daily views still seem to be too high, but I'm trying not to obsess about it. They're no longer over 1000, but even 300 seems out of line, considering the minuscule number of comments I get per post, not counting my own. I know people often read without comment (I do too), but even so. Not sure about this Feedly app I'm using either, as huge chunks of time pass with no updates, and I know it's not a true picture, since I follow myself. Last week, one of my own posts didn't show up in Feedly for over 24 hours. That said, Feedly is better by far than Blogger's reader, so unless something else comes to my attention, I guess I will continue to use it.

I went to Michael's this morning to get a birthday present for my friend, and all the Halloween stuff was out. Whether or not I end up doing anything special for Halloween this year, it still gives me great joy to see all the decorations. Too bad Party City has disappeared (the tiny little section they set up in Staples does not count); I used to love going in throughout the year to browse their costumes and accessories.

If anyone cares, I'm still working out every day. Some of the Leslie Sansone videos I bought off eBay aren't as great as the ones I already had, but that's fine... they still provide some variety. I need to go do one now, finish dealing with the cat feeder, and maybe schedule more posts for the week. It's getting up to the dreaded end-of-month at work, so you know what that means. Super stress!

Flashback Friday: Just Beachy

Crystal Cove, CA (my photo)

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a poem I found on the Wayback Machine. I posted this on my old WP blog on July 17, 2019.

In Other Words, the beach…

I have always lived near the beach:
East Coast, West Coast, Lake Michigan.
I prefer them at sunrise, cold, and empty,
Their stark majesty revealed to me alone,
Waves whispering secrets from the moon.

Flashback Friday: Twelve

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a quadrille I posted at my old WP blog on July 10, 2023. I found it on the Wayback Machine.

Twelve

Twelve wine bottles in a box

Twelve steps taken to detox

Twelve white pills an overdose

Twelve times twelve total gross

Twelve months make another year

Twelve long days of Christmas cheer

Twelve nights a grey fugue state

Twelve jurors to weigh my fate

Flashback Friday: Homonymy

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from my old WP blog from June 26, 2011. I found it on the Wayback Machine. The internal link is no longer available.

Homonymy

My daughter and I were noodling on love and relationships, how they mean different things to different people, and how it can be hard to settle on a definition that remains solid over time. During the discussion, I thought of this post at Gekko’s and said, “Some consider a relationship to be a vessel and love fills it up. Well, ideally love would fill it. The vessel might crack and love spills out. Maybe it can be repaired. Or maybe something else fills it up. “

My daughter said, “You mean a blood vessel, like to the heart?”

I laughed, “No!”

“A ship?”

“No, no. A goblet. A vase. How interesting you came up with the other possibilities.”

Isn’t it though?

Flashback Friday: Some Like It Hot

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from June 19, 2021 that I found on the Wayback Machine for my old WP blog. 

Hot Enough For Ya? 

Are writers pyromaniacs? They sure talk about heat and fire a lot. Romance novels are full of warm looks, hot kisses, burning desires, and fireworks exploding when people make love. The obsession with heat transcends genre however. Here are some titles from my list of read books. OK, most are romance, though some are horror (as if there’s a difference).

Sizzling. One Hot Cowboy Wedding. Devilishly Hot. Firestarter. Firelight. A Song of Ice and Fire. The Girl Who Played With Fire. Little Fires Everywhere. A Dream of Fire. Heart of Fire.

What about music? Fire It Up. We Didn’t Start the Fire. Fire Down Below. Fire and Ice. The Heat Is On. Hot Summer Nights. Hot Legs. Hot Child In The City. Burning Up. I’m Burning For You. And those are just the titles!

It’s kind of weird that fire/ burning is associated with love/ sex/ romance, when it also conjures up notions of hell. Then again, considering my past relationships, perhaps it’s not strange at all…

Flashback Friday: Gatsby

Gatsby and me, near the end

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from this blog on May 29, 2025. I had just lost my sweet kitty Gatsby, and the grief was so raw. I still miss my little guy, but now I have Inky to love too. She's a doll. I forgot about that excruciating leg pain from sitting weirdly on the floor to put together my bookshelf. It lasted a long time!

PS: I have even more unread physical books now, but fewer TBR on my Kindle. I have also given up the idea of keeping a series on principle; I keep only the books I love. There just isn’t enough space!

Spoke Too Soon...

Yesterday I mentioned that my headaches have decreased in the past couple weeks; I speculated that this might be because of all the Advil I am taking for my leg pain. Welp, today I have a migraine so there goes that idea out the window. The good news is that finally today my leg is feeling a little better. Maybe a lot better, hard to say. It was super stiff and hurty when I first woke up, but by the time I got to work it felt OK. Still feels OK mid-afternoon. We shall see how it ends up tonight. 

Forgot to say yesterday that I received the sweetest condolence card from the Cat Clinic signed by all the staff and the doctors. Made me cry so hard. I just love them. Loved the peeps at the emergency vet too, but it wasn’t the same because they didn’t know us. They were super kind and gentle ~ I really appreciated them at such a sad time. They also sent a condolence card, but it was for Pistachio. No idea if that’s even a cat since they take doggos there too. Oh well. Sorry for those who love Pistachio… did they get Gatsby’s card? Who knows.

I put the rainbow bridge card from the Cat Clinic on my new bookcase. Definitely a keepsake.

*

I wrote the above yesterday afternoon with the intention of finishing the post last night, but life had other plans. My book club friend S stopped by last night with a bag of gifts. I thought she was delivering prezzies to all the club members, but no. I won’t be able to attend the next meeting due to my granddaughter’s birthday party time conflict, and they had all contributed to memorial gifts for Gatsby, so she brought those by. I keep tearing up over the kindness and generosity of these wonderful women. I posted a pic of the beautiful heart-shaped plaque on IG: it’s a pic of his sweet face with a “forever in my heart” message.

We chatted for a while, and after she left I rearranged my bookshelf to accommodate the new Gatsby-related items I want to display. Then I became obsessed with completing my book inventory and forgot all about this blog post. I am still overwhelmed by how supportive everyone has been over the loss of my little buddy. The grief isn’t linear, and sometimes hours can pass where I’m OK, but then it all hits me again. As I said, I don’t want to forget Gatsby; I welcome the grief and tears. He was such a large, loving part of my life (and his memory still is). He deserves to stay uppermost in my thoughts.

My leg was better last night, but I didn’t sleep well, and it’s pretty sore again this morning. Physical pain isn’t always linear either, though I’m trying to be optimistic. It seems to be improving overall. I’m still being very cautious and babying myself… not that I normally do a whole bunch of jumping around. 

If anyone cares, I have 81 unread physical books in my possession and 104 on my Kindle. That may not sound like a lot to a book lover, but until I joined the online club last fall, I had only a very small pile of unread books on a little shelf because I would read them as soon as I got them. This huge number stresses me out, especially regarding the dead tree books. I need to read them and get rid of them! A few I will keep, but most will be given away or donated. I keep poetry books, nonfiction (that I enjoy), and series. Unlike a Kindle, my home does not have enough space to store a massive quantity of read books!

Flashback Friday : The Black Swan

Somewhere in time...

I’m participating in Fandango’s Flashback Friday today with a post from my old WP blog dated May 15, 2020, which was apparently a repost for that day's FFF of a post from May 15, 2011. Freaky! I found it on the Wayback Machine.

(The Black Swan was written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.)

Consequential Properties of Scalable Randomness

(From The Black Swan, pgs. 159-160)

This section deals with common prediction errors; I found it very interesting.

1. Taleb uses life expectancy here: the older we get, the fewer days we have left. Makes sense, right? If we live past our predicted death date of 79 to age 90, we don’t get 50 more years tacked onto the odds-chart. We’ll get around 5; and if we live to 100, we’ll get 2.5, etc. This is easily understood.

2. But with outcomes dependent on human variables, we can have extreme fluctuations. If a person tells you a project will be done in 79 days and it isn’t done by day 90, it’s not likely to be finished on day 95. If it’s not completed on day 100, Taleb says it’ll have another 89 days to go. “The longer you wait, the longer you will be expected to wait.”

This is so true, and so simple, and yet it seems less of a “common sense” item than the first one. Why is that? Maybe because for most of us, or possibly it’s just me, we want to trust people when they tell us they’re going to do something, and when they’re late, we want to believe that they’re going to fix the problem and finish up as close to the originally promised date as they can.

Anyway, I’m still getting a lot out of this book, though I read it in small doses, sometimes putting it down for a week or more.

Flashback Friday: Questions

 

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post from May 8, 2020 that I found on the Wayback Machine for my old WP blog. These were questions from a beloved blogger who has since passed away. RIP Melanie.

FUNQ’s 

1. What’s your favorite holiday/celebration?

I enjoy any low key holiday when I can wear a cute kitty tee shirt and possible sparkly hat plus either go out to dinner or have a themed potluck. Not a fan of big complicated holidays that involve a lot of work.

2. Do you enjoy snow, if you have it in your area?

We do not get snow near the beach in Orange County, California (that I know of), but I enjoy looking at pics of winter scenes elsewhere. I wouldn’t mind visiting some snow again someday. Oh hi! Brrrr! Bye!

3. What do you think of the current news (generally, not today specifically)?

Argh! 

4. Dog or cat or guinea pig/ferret/fish/bird?

Love kitties! Doggies are nice too. If I were wealthy, I’d want a gorgeous aquarium full of beautiful fishies. Pets are a lot of work though, even cats, when they’re inside as they should be. 

5. Do you like bacon?

I confess I do, but only super duper crispy bacon, almost burnt. Most places don’t make it crispy enough for me. I don’t make it at home because I don’t like my place to smell of meat. I’m fine never having it.

6. If you’re more vegan or vegetarian (someone please explain the difference. Briefly. I get confused!), what’s your favorite veggie?

Vegans don’t eat or use any products from animals; vegetarians just don’t eat meat. I don’t eat much meat these days, but I’m not vegetarian. I might go a few weeks with no meat, but then I’ll have an Egg McMuffin. My favorite veggies are mushrooms, beets (roasted), zucchini, and spinach!

7. Sunshine or rain/snow?

I like sunny days, but rain is good for us, so I don’t mind it. Mostly I enjoy overcast days without blindingly bright light.

8. Frozen treat on a hot day?

I love an iced mocha Frappuccino from Starbucks with whipped cream. Yummy! Frozen lemonade is fab too, but it has to be at the fair. My friend told me a few years ago you can buy them at the grocery store and they don’t cost $6.00 per little cup, but I want to overpay AT THE FAIR! 

9. Do you have a favorite type of tree?

Yes, a weeping willow. We had one in our backyard in New Jersey and it was awesome.

10. What generational nomenclature do you use? (explanation:  which generation’s lingo do you most identify with? Or are you a linguist who embraces ALL the words from every generation? )

I love words, but I was a teenager in the 1970s, so I probably use lingo from that era the most, including a lot of swearing (I try not to here). It’s all good, and I like to keep up even if I don’t use whatever is current.

Great questions!

Flashback Friday: False Verse

Somewhere in time...

I'm participating in Fandango's Flashback Friday today with a post I found on the Wayback Machine from May 1, 2017 for my old WP blog, since deleted. 

False Verse

I have two kinds of poems in the pile: those based on a truth, however faint and hiding behind paint and glitter to make it more interesting, and those based on nothing. Often the nothing verse is technically better because I wrote it in school, carefully, for a grade. One of my nothing poems that I’ve lost now was about a beach in Rhode Island, where I’ve never been, and the professor, an acclaimed poet, said it was good. When I revealed the lie (because someone said the color of the water was wrong), he laughed and gave me an A. I felt good about that back then; I don’t now. (I wish I still had that pome however.)

The reason my poetry was often based on lies/nothing in the early years is because I hadn’t done anything yet. I hadn’t gone anywhere. There was no drama in my life, no big heartbreak. The poetry professors agreed with me that poetry could be fictional; only other students thought this was breaking some rule. I never questioned my own stance back then, since the professionals were on my side. And yet… and yet…

I’ve changed my mind, at least with respect to my own work. When I reread my old poems, I immediately know which is which. The false verse is hollow and dead on the page, no matter how “good” it is. It has no emotional resonance to me, no layering. But when I read one of the truthy poems, I feel the truth again, however old and buried. I know exactly what inspired me to write that pome. Of course I don’t know what someone else would feel reading it (maybe nothing ~ maybe they’d feel more reading one of the false verse poems), but the point is that I know.

I haven’t written false verse since I began writing poetry again several years ago. No matter what I write about now, something in the pome is true, even if it’s just one line or one emotion. These aren’t just words strung together for a grade ~ they actually mean something. Also, the old pomes I poast here for my loyal blogfans are the true ones only. No false verse for you.

Happy May! ❤

Flashback Friday: Games People Play

I’m participating in Fandango’s Flashback Friday today with a post from my old WP blog that I found on the Wayback Machine from exactly 10 years ago. Note: I no longer play Words with Friends. 

Periodic WWF Rant

As some of you know, I love playing Words with Friends. I play with people I know, and I also periodically start games with random strangers, especially late at night when I’m bored. (Hey, it’s a way better idea than wandering onto yet another dating site.) It’s all super fantastic fun until I get so enraged I wanna poke someone’s eye out.

This happens one of two ways. Sometimes I’ll suspect a person of cheating ~ meaning I think he’s using some sort of software to come up with ridiculous 7 or 8 letter words that no one could possibly know. But, then again, if you play long enough, and often enough, weird words stick with you. I know some odd ones now myself. Plus we all experiment at times with different prefixes and combos and such… when the game accepts a word we didn’t necessarily expect, w00t! But still… a few oddball words in a row and I’m thinking, oh come on dude (it’s almost always a man). And if he’s also playing bizarre shorter words too, well, I just end up seething. If he’s a stranger, I’ll finish the game and then block him. If I have a few of these annoying games going on at once, I might get into a big huge mad. It happens.

The second thing that happens is someone may play a short word for major points ~ a short word that I never heard of and that WWF itself can’t even define but says is “valid.” Hey, if it’s valid, then give me a goddamn definition! And even some that are valid are iffy; some WWF words aren’t in the official Merriam-Webster Scrabble dico for sure. (Zen is one.) If this goes on repeatedly, guess what? BIG HUGE MAD.

But again… I know and play some of these words now too. New players might think wtf did she just play? Maybe they think I am cheating!* It’s all a matter of perspective. On the otter otter hand, people do cheat. I know I’m a good player, and I know about how often I “should” lose. So, I will naturally get suspicious at times.

OK, enough about people (bleh, people). Now, about the game itself. Since it’s so popular, why can’t I just download the dictionary, right? Erm, no. I went to the WWF Zynga site and looked up the rules (which are very brief and do not cover everything, such as timing out). It mentions their unique 173,000+ word dico, which includes some of their own words like zen and texting, and links to some weird coding page. I don’t want to click on anything there because I don’t know what it might do to my computer. So, no, I can’t haz their dico for reference, like I can in regular Scrabble.

Let’s talk about some of their words then. Take meh, which is now a word because it is, even though at first I was suspicious. But a word is a word when enough people decide it’s a word. We’re not waiting for a sign from the heavens after all ~ I saw meh in a newspaper headline this weekend. That settles that. But what about feh? MW says no. WWF allows it, though, along with shh, brr, grr, etc., that MW says no to. It’s annoying. (Note: the MW Scrabble dico allows those too, which is also enraging.)

I mean, I can learn all these “words,” nbd. That’s not the annoying part. The annoying part is that the game is called WORDS with Friends, not sounds with friends, not grunts with friends, but words. So, there should be some minimal standard. Like, idk, maybe WORDS perhaps? If we’re playing American English, then the words should be AE words, don’t you think? Not Yiddish, not Scottish, not noises your dog makes (arf is allowed). If brr is not a word you’d use in an essay, then why is it a WWF/Scrabble word? I don’t get it.

And really, we’re talking about rules of a game, not doodling around on a blarg so don’t bother. Do you really think I’d write “poast” in a romance novel? Feh. Grrrr.

Anyway, I may or may not give up WWF. I was hissing mad yesterday, but I’ve calmed down now. It is a huge waste of time… then again, I keep saying I’m going to start writing fiction for real again anytime now, but I don’t because I simply do not feel like it. So, with the Not Dating and the Not Writing, I have scads of time, oodles of time, gobs and globs and blobs of nothing but time…

*This new opponent quit the game after I played gleeking. Wtf is gleeking? Hell if I know. My SOP is to try anything in front of “ing” to see if it works. (It’s archaic for gibe, joke, says the dico.)

Flashback Friday: Spin Cycle

Thanks to the Wayback Machine I have found a moldy old poem to share for Fandango's Flashback Friday. I used to rant about the WM, and how I had never given it permish to archive my scribblings, but the process to delete my stuff is so onerous that I decided to embrace its existence instead. So, here's a triolet quadrille I posted on March 20, 2023 on my old WP blog when I read something or other about the Earth's spin reversing. 

Spin Cycle

I feel an elemental shift

As the Earth reverses its spin;

My sense of self starts to drift.

I feel an elemental shift

With this unexpected gift,

When the veil begins to thin.

I feel an elemental shift

As the Earth reverses its spin.

Flashback Friday: Second Choices

I’m participating in Fandango’s Flashback Friday today with a post I originally wrote on February 20, 2025. My darling kitty Gatsby passed over the rainbow bridge in May, and I now have sweet little Inky in my life. I no longer watch any Bachelor shows and don’t subscribe to Hulu. I still have not lost the pesky five pounds and still don’t care enough to make much effort. I usually have one large cup of coffee each morning now, which doesn’t seem to make any difference in my sleep or digestion. 

Second Choices and Pointless Meanderings

I changed my mind and resubscribed to Hulu, primarily because my friend C told me that they chose Pascal to be the next Golden Bachelor, and he's adorable and hilarious. The other reason is because I don't much care for the Amazon Prime offerings these days (except for the Mamma Mia movies I purchased and rewatch often sans ads), so I've been watching a ton of Netflix. It'll be nice to have another option. In May, my Hulu deal will end and the price will jump to $9.99/month, so we'll see how I feel about it post-Pascal. I console myself regarding the expenditure by saying that I don't go out to movies much, nor do I even go out to eat the way I used to. It's expensive, and restaurant food is too salty and high in calories/fat. My favorite place to be is home with my kitty Gatsby anyway, and since I don't know how much time he has left, I want to be with him as much as possible. I guess that's true for every loved one, but since he got diagnosed with KD3, I am more aware of the clock ticking.

I was reading about this other reality dating show where they said a woman noped being the second choice after the guy's first choice bailed. I get that. Looking back, I think I was second choice in all of my serious relationships, except maybe one. It's a really crappy feeling; mostly I tried not to think about it, but there were times it was unavoidable. After my divorce, I too noped out of being second. If a guy was hung up on someone else, moaned endlessly about his ex, kept boxes of her photos, forget it. For once in my life, I wanted to feel 100% wanted, and that never happened. Ultimately, I guess my desire for a relationship wasn't that strong post-divorce because being second choice was only one of a zillion red flags. No biggie. Just meandering. It's so nice to make my own plans and keep my own schedule that I can't possibly even imagine sharing that with another person now. I think it would drive me nuts to have to care what someone else wanted for dinner every night. Most nights, I barely eat dinner, and I like it that way. Lunch is king!

I've gained about 5 pounds during the last few years, and I am not happy with the way my body looks, but mostly I don't care. My clothing is flattering, and no one is going to see me without it. I'm not a fan of swimsuits either, though I recently bought a few new ones "just in case." I'd rather just wear shorts and a tee shirt, since I never actually like to go in the water except for my feet. Sometimes I decide I am going to try to lose the 5 pounds; other times I just shrug. I feel like the weight loss will happen though and fairly soon. Why? I don't know. It's just one of those OCD number things that will make me happy. I've given up coffee again, and that seems to be helpful. I sleep better, which is good for overall health and weight control specifically (when you're tired during the day, your brain demands sugar), and my tummy isn't so sour all the time.

I watched Anatomy of a Scandal on Netflix last weekend. It was really good! I enjoyed the acting and the twists and turns of the story. Highly recommend this six-part show.

I slogged through The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami for my 2025 Reading Challenge category of a 600+ page book. Since I've loved almost everything else I've read by him, it was shocking to be so disappointed. This book was a disjointed mess of random characters flitting in and out to tell long, ridiculous backstories as the main character drifted through his own life. He'd lost his job, his wife left him, and his cat ran away. It was like a country song but in Japanese, and I had a hard time caring about him when he was so apathetic and passive. Overall, the book was a giant snooze interspersed with gory war stories and magical realism. Two stars.

So, that book took me over a week to read, not only because it was so long, but also I disliked it yet felt compelled to finish and check it off my list. Next, I will be reading some light, fluffy fun fiction and of course more psychological thrillers, which is becoming my go-to genre over romance. I still love romance novels! But only Regency Romance or anything set before 1900, like the Victoria Holt books. Contemporary romances suck (as I have described previously).