So we're getting ready for the funeral

I'm dressed and ready; YKWIA is shaving.  We have to be there in an hour.  It's cold outside, much cooler than yesterday (the high I think is supposed to be 39 degrees).  The crows have been taunting the dog; the starlings have been flying in a flock up and down in the yard.  It is very windy.

The kitten went into the bathroom during each of our showers.  He is careful not to get wet, but he likes to keep us company.  The cat is asleep on my bed, something he usually only gets to do on weekends after breakfast, as I keep my room closed so the kitten will not play with wires or orchid roots during the day.

Tomorrow I'll have to get up much earlier and go to work.  Today my backup is dealing with the stuff I normally do, and I'm grateful, as I need a break.

I just wish the break hadn't included Mrs Fore's passing.  She was such a lovely person.  I will miss her terribly.  I've only known her since April, but she was so good to us, and really rather adopted us both.

Okay, I have some final things to do before we go.  Hope you had a good Thanksgiving break (if you're in the US, anyway).  Otherwise, at least I hope you had a good weekend.

Did you know?

That if you sign on to an unfamiliar computer, say, at a library, Google will send you a notification (not a text, a notification) asking if it's you and then have you tap one of three numbers to correspond to what the computer says?  That was a little creepy.  Very useful, but still creepy.

I'm on the computer at the Beaumont library because it's not quite time for the public visitation for my friend, but I didn't want to go back home, but rather stay on this side of town.  The funeral home is right down the street.  I took YKWIA, who will be helping our friend with the family visitation, so he had to go earlier.  But I'm all dressed and ready, and there seemed to be no real reason to go back home until later.

So I'm where I feel most comfortable, a library, looking through books and music. I pared down my keys to the car fob, ignition key, and house key only to realise when I got here that I don't have my library card, the actual card being with my Kindle and the key ring card being on the rest of the ring at home.  But they let me use my licence to check out a few things, which was nice.  I can apparently sign in to a computer using my name, but when I went to the reservation kiosk it asked for my library card number, which I was able to glean from the Lexington Public Library application on my phone.

Anyway, the plan is to spend some time doing some things here rather than go home.  It's just a little over an hour till the public visitation begins, and the library closes at the same time, so it was fortuitous.

The last few days have been

very nice. I've read.  I've relaxed, taking a nap here and there.  I've listened to music, and I've done stuff around the house like raking leaves (again) to try to get ready for the vacuuming truck that comes by.  I got 2/3 of the yard done this afternoon, and I'll try to do the rest tomorrow.  I came inside to hydrate and got caught up in a 'Black Mirror' episode, and realised I was really tired and with the game called off tomorrow, it could wait till tomorrow, when the weather's supposed to be a little better anyway.  I have a two-foot pile of leaves in the road verge at the moment; it'll just grow a little bigger.  Most of the main leaves are already there.

Tomorrow I'll do my normal Sunday tasks: floors, bathroom, trash/recyclables, laundry, and cat litter boxes.  I did the dishes tonight so I think they're okay.  But the evening will visitation for the little lady who died, whom I cared a good deal about.  I'm going to take my friend over that afternoon to help with my other friend, who will be in a wheelchair so he can attend the family hour of visitation, and then I'll come at the regular time for the public.  I would take our friend, but my car is an old Ford Taurus that is so low to the ground that we have trouble getting in and out of it, much less someone with mobility issues.  I am not a big fan of visitation--I find it a bit morbid, to be honest.  But for her, I'll do it.  She was such a wonderful person, who lit up a whole room.  I was looking at Thanksgiving flowers the other day and found myself thinking about bringing some, and then remembered that she was gone.  That's the worst thing, I think, after someone dies--all the little things you want to share with them that evaporate in your mind as soon as you realise they have passed and you'll never share with them again.  It brings the pain up all over again.  That was certainly the case for me when my mom died.

So for now, though, I'm listening to Mumford & Sons, trying to decide whether I should 1) go to bed or 2) read some more.  The book (Kate Morton's The Distant Hours) is very well-written, the prose is lovely, and I'm about 50 pages in and I like how it's unfolding.  But I'm a little tired.  I'm in my pyjamas and I've brushed my teeth.  I'm ready for bed.

Today I got something I'd ordered as a lightning deal from Amazon, which I almost never do.  It's 128 GB SD card that is meant to go in a camera but can also go in laptops with the right reader, and I have one on mine.  I got it for $19.95, which was roughly half of the normal price, and it works, it's inserted into my computer, and I've backed up some files to it.  It's not great as a long-term storage option (they do break down over time, just like flash drives), but it was cheap and easy and while I have my documents backed up in other places (OneDrive, Dropbox), after what happened with the Windows update in October when I lost all my documents, I thought that it would make a good local option that wasn't at the mercy of cloud providers, and I can't afford a USB removable hard drive at the moment.  Also, if something happened to my laptop I could just switch out the card like I do with the microSD card in my phone (that has pictures and music on it).  So we'll see how it works out.   I took a few minutes earlier to back things up to the card and to the cloud.  I need to do that with the desktop, which YKWIA uses.  I also spent some time yesterday at the storage unit (looking for a couple of cutting boards, with no luck) and found my Civilization IV game, and so I pulled out the old DVD-ROM external drive I have here (it's from when computers didn't have them yet, and my computer is so 'advanced' it doesn't have one at all, so even though it's a little slow and clunky, it works--although not to play CDs lately, something in one of the Microsoft updates apparently broke that, too, so I guess the only CDs I'll buy in the near future are ones with AutoRip, where they do it for you, as otherwise, I can't get the CD music on my phone.  Anyway, it does work for CD-ROMs, and I was able to get the game onto this computer, so I'm happy, as it's one of the few games I ever play consistently.

Okay, I guess I'm just babbling about my life now.  It's going pretty well.  Work is still stressful but not as much as it had been.  I am very blessed right now.  I do feel a little guilty posting the pictures of Thanksgiving and the abundance of food for two people.  I live paycheque-to-paycheque, and I don't feel particularly affluent at all, but on the other hand, I have so much compared to some--a home to go to, food to eat, great companionship, and relatively good health, really.  I don't mean to flaunt it, but I think of the homeless, or the starving children in Yemen, or the refugees seeking asylum, etc., and I do feel guilty, although I really was just trying to express how grateful I am for life right now.  I don't have enough money to donate to any causes right now, it's been a struggle lately, and we had to pool our resources to make Thanksgiving happen, but maybe I could volunteer some time around Christmas.  Which reminds me, I guess I need to get some cards to send out.  We don't really celebrate Christmas, as I'm pagan (I celebrate the Winter Solstice, Yule) and YKWIA is Jewish.  But the holiday season is still a good time to think of others.  Chanukah, which of course is a minor holiday in the Jewish year, although most Christians, I think, just see it as Jewish Christmas, is coming up quickly--it starts December 2nd.  My plan is to get YKWIA some good house shoes, as his shoes have nearly died.  (I can say that here, as he doesn't read my blog, because as he puts it, he knows what goes on in my life).  But I'll have to wait till the next payday, which happens in the middle of Chanukah.

Okay, the cat wants to cuddle, the music has stopped.  Time to go to bed.  Good night.

I had a great Thanksgiving

It was a lot of work. I think we had about ten dishes overall: the Quorn 'turkey' (made from mycoprotien/fungous/mushrooms), rolls, gougers (this time with Bleu cheese), butternut squash with Gruyère cheese, curried pumpkin soup (also made with butternut squash, so much easier to peel than the kabocha was a few years ago), mashed potatoes (of course), green beans with shallots, Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, homemade cranberry and sauce with red wine, and pumpkin/caramel pie (the latter two were cooked/baked on Wednesday night). The pied took a while to come out and cool, so we were up late then, and got a late start on Thanksgiving, starting the preparation and cooking about 12:30 in the afternoon. We ate around 5:30 pm. I think it was the best Thanksgiving we've ever done. Afterwards, I cleaned up (that was a task), and he put everything into containers and into the fridge because he's good at spatial relations and can damn near bend space, if not time. Here are some photos:











We were both asleep by 8 pm, although I did wake up and woke him up at 11 so we both could take our medicine. We weren't up very long, though.

I slept well, and was able to sleep in till about 9 am or so as I'm off today. I'm actually off till Tuesday, as I have a funeral to go to, for the mother of a friend, the latter of whom had adopted me like a granddaughter. She'd just had her 94th birthday, and was a lovely woman with a huge personality that just lit up the room. I'll miss her a lot. The visitation is Sunday night so we won't be playing the game. I'm going to take my roommate early so he can help our friend (who has cancer) during the family visitation.

But today is a relaxation day. We'll take our friend some food. I'll stop by the storage unit and finally put my summer clothes in it [they were in my room for a good long while, and then the car]. I need to go by the library and take back The Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington, which I have out from interlibrary loan, now that I finished it this morning. I'm also going to take back some CDs, and Imagine Dragons one and one by OneRepublic. I plan on starting The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, which YKWIA had checked out and said was excellent, so I wanted to give it a try.

I guess that's all for now.  I plan on getting some rest before going back to work.  Days off are rare.

Love this

Source: Best Health Degrees

:( Sad today

It's rare that you meet someone who is an honestly good person who adopts you as part of the family even when you are not related by blood. Several months ago I was fortunate to have someone come into my life who did just that. She died today at the age of 94, peacefully in her sleep, and the world seems emptier without her. Requiescet in pace, Mrs Fore. I will miss you terribly. Following so close after my father's death, I can only hope that the old adage of death coming in threes is wrong in this case.

Requiescat in pace

I've written a little about the estrangement between my father and myself in this blog over the years.  The photo below is a photo of my family, one of only a couple of photos of my mom, dad, and me together. We really were three individual people with no real cohesiveness as a family, except at dinnertime, which we spent together. My mom had ceramics as a hobby, my dad had his radio room, and I read a lot, escaping into fantasy. My first six years of life my dad was mostly in southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. At 15, my parents divorced and my mom and I moved back to Danville and I withdrew further into myself. I tried to keep a relationship with my dad for a while, but there wasn't much of a foundation to build on and a lot of negativity to overcome. Finally, 25 years ago, when I was 26, we broke off contact with each other entirely and went our separate ways. I changed my name. The years passed. I got a better perspective of just how dysfunctional my family was, but also how it probably was from my parents' perspectives. With age comes wisdom. I used to be angry with my father and later realised that some of that anger should have been directed elsewhere. I haven't been angry in a while. We just never were going to be the family I wanted us to be. I accepted it. My mother's death last year brought some closure regarding that. We had talked out some of it. And the rest didn't so much matter anymore with her gone.

The other day I found out my dad was in hospice. He died last night, peacefully. I don't really know how I feel. I'm kind of la-la-la-ing in my head. I wish we could have had a better relationship. We couldn't. Just because you're related by blood doesn't automatically make people love you.

Anyway, for what is worth, I wish you peace, Daddy. I'm sorry we couldn't make it as a family. Rest in peace, Allan Joseph Broadbent, August 19, 1947-November 8, 2018.

It's hard to believe they're both gone.  They were my world when I was younger.  We moved from place to place due to him being a career airman, and with no siblings of my own, my main interaction, for good and bad, was with them.  They were just 19 when they married, and I was already on the way.  Neither of them was particularly ready for a child, an admittedly good child who mostly read but was overly-sensitive and kind of a cry-baby and too bright but socially awkward for her own good.  

What a glorious day

It's a beautiful sunny Saturday, with the sunlight streaming through my bedroom window, which is nice, as the plants (and we) have had to endure several days of gloomy, rainy weather.  Our area actually moved trick-or-treat from Halloween to Tuesday due to inclement weather.  So the kids were out on a sunny evening that had mild temperatures and then the next day it was pouring and would have been terrible for them.  And since then there's been wind and rain.  So it's nice to see the sun.  Plus the kitten is playing with the sunbeams in the hall.

I slept 12 hours last night, even with being up in the middle of the night for about an hour.  It was good to get some rest.

Halloween was an absolute success.  Many of us dressed up in the hospital.  I got a co-worker who gets up at an ungodly 4 am each day so she can work out and get ready to call me at 4:30 am so I would have plenty of time to do the makeup, etc.  I left home at 6:30 am and arrived at UK's lot at 6:55, and at work about 7:10 am, so I was a little early, but not much, and there was time to chat with others, play a bit on the laptop I brought, and take pictures.  Thankfully, I was not the only person on the shuttle to wear a costume; Mr Incredible was there as well, although the guy lamented that the pyjamas that he was wearing (they were cheaper than the costumes with the muscles) had no pockets, and therefore he was carrying his phone, keys, and badge in his hands and had no idea what he would do with them during the day.  :) Welcome to the world of women, who rarely have pockets and if so, they're never deep for anything of note.

I had street clothes, the lightest I could find, as I knew I'd be hot, underneath mine, although they were polyester so that probably defeated the attempt at staying cool.  And I had no pockets.  But once I clocked in, I put my badge on my pants waistband so I'd have my keys and badge with me without ruining the effect of the costume.  Granted, the whole point is to ID someone, but I was more concerned with the fact that our badges unlock various areas of the hospital and I didn't want to get trapped anywhere. :)

Here are some pictures from that day:

At home, after finishing the makeup

In the break room

Up in our department

Also in the break room

So I think it went really well, it delighted the kids, and we had great fun.  Today I'm going to pack it away and take it, along with the summer clothes that have been sitting in my room in a couple of tubs, to storage.

I have a lot to do today:

1. First, get caffeinated and ready for the day.
2. Go to the pharmacy for YKWIA when he gets up.
3. Get gas for the car.
4. Drop off the summer clothes and the Maleficent costume at the storage unit.
5. Do a couple of shelves (dusting) in my room. I do two shelves every Saturday to keep all the books in the house clean, on a rotating basis.
6. Launder the bedding.
7. Go on a grocery run.
8. Do the game notes.  Last week we barely survived an evil witch and yes, I called it, Cthulhoid faeries.
9. Do some cooking.  We're making pumpkin beignets, among other things.
10. Straighten up my room.
11. Read more of The Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington.
12. Make bread.
13. Water the plants.
14. Watching more of 'The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina' on Netflix; we've watched four episodes and it's really good.

What I do not plan to do is go anywhere near the University of Kentucky, the stadium--Kroger Field--or downtown.  There is a Kentucky-Georgia home football game that determines who goes to the Southeastern Conference tournament, and Kentucky is usually incredibly well, bad, at football, and a season where they've lost 1 out of 8 games is almost unheard of.  We are well known for our basketball programme, but football?  Anyway, the fans can be a little intense, which is why LEX 18 (the local NBC television station) posted this on their Facebook page:

I personally don't get the appeal of sports. I don't get that sort of fervour at all.  But hopefully, win or lose, it won't come down to that sort of thing.  Since the last major incident was a car being flipped on the street next to us at work, the police are using our gated lot as a staging area to keep order.