The Boss of Me in Everyday Ramblings

Yesterday morning, Mrs. Sherlock, Frieda and well…a big pile of old snow down by the river. This is the parking lot of the Oregon Ballet Theater where the practice and rehearsal studios are. When I lived in San Francisco I took adult ballet in the practice studios of the San Francisco Ballet until they needed the space after a year and booted us out. Sometimes if we needed a sub, we would get one of the dancers that I saw on stage teach instead. They were so kind.

Anyway, I have fond memories of this sort of place, not that I have ever been in this building. It is quiet now. Pandemic.

Tomorrow they open up vaccination appointments for folks 70 +. That means Mrs. Sherlock, Charity and Kes will all be getting vaccinated in the next few weeks. I will be so relieved. We are 47th in terms of states getting older folks vaccinated.

Kes and Most Honorable got their power back just before 11AM on Friday. That was a huge relief. The rest of their neighbors had theirs back by that night, so a full seven days without power. Most Honorable used the microwave to heat up a cup of coffee and Kes heated up her buckwheat warming pillow thing.

Because their refrigerator was completely empty (as was the extra freezer in the basement) they moved it out and cleaned behind and underneath it. As Most Honorable taught remotely from his campus office on Thursday he was able to charge up all their power blocks. He said it was a good thing because they were all almost out of juice. They used the hotspots on their phones and judicious texting to communicate and check in with the power company.

They have so many trees down it is like chainsaw city there. You can take your downed branches to a few local parks where they will have chompers to grind them up.

We had a massive tree in our Park Blocks in the center of town come down Wednesday morning. Charity and I saw it a few hours later when we were walking.

It broke out the windows in a 92-year-old woman’s apartment. Apparently, she was non-plussed and her neighbors came over and helped her clean-up. One of the women that was there is in my hiking club and she was telling us about it on this wonderful Zoom social all about native plants in our area. Mostly trees and wildflowers. The guy that gave the talk is someone I have hiked with not knowing that he had a PhD. In Biology and was a specialist in how plants work.

I took copious notes. Mrs. Sherlock was on the call too and we made a commitment to learn more plants this year. I took her down and we looked at “my” community garden before we went on our walk. I won’t know which is my plot for a couple of weeks.

Once we all get vaccinated, we will be able to hike in small groups again, double-masked, with hand sanitizer and our own sign in pens.

In anticipation I ordered a book on native wildflowers. I had no clue there were so many trilliums. I love this idea that the local ones are called Wake Robins because they are early to flower and that is about the time the robins start appearing in large numbers.

We have our discussion unit on Homelessness this week and I have homework for that. I have journal questions for my intuitive eating course. There is this 47-page new gardener pdf from the Parks Department.

I bought a domain and a year’s worth of website hosting for my yoga business and I need to not let perfect be the enemy of the good and just get the thing operational.

It is absolutely crazy that those enhanced unemployment benefits our dysfunctional government gave to folks struggling to survive earlier last year are taxable! A number of them are going to be in for an uncomfortable surprise through no fault of their own.

Every day I wake up so glad I was able to retire from traditional work. I put in a lot of effort and hours on the yoga classes, and it provides a framework to hang my life on as well as enough money to pay for my supplemental health insurance.

I am the boss of me though and that makes a huge difference.

Actually, I think the cats might be the boss of me, but that is another story for another day.

Last updated February 25, 2021