Off Center in Everyday Ramblings

Yep. Not Perfect, Permanent or Personal. If I go back today and try to retake this shot to get it lined up it won’t be the same. The stream of time has moved on and things have changed. Still, despite all that, it is a gorgeous dahlia in the “other” community garden.

The cats are better. Carlo just had a bad morning, but Diego was out of it for a solid day. I am glad I did not throw all the food out this time. There is this new “natural” kind of dry food in the rotation that they weren’t very excited about and then suddenly, they couldn’t get enough of it. I mentioned it to Mrs. Sherlock when we were walking on Saturday.

I think the fiber load was more than they could handle. Diego hasn’t had any since and I have given Carlo just a few pieces as a treat.

Nobody but Mrs. Sherlock has been participating in my morning class practice and she mentioned a few weeks back after one in our continuing series of conversations on losing weight (we are back to texting our weight to each other on Saturday mornings, even though I told her I am not going to be losing any) that she thought she might want to add weightlifting into her rotation. We were having a blast doing Body Pump before the 1st lockdown.

This week we have been lifting weights. It is such a different vibe from gentle yoga, but I can tell she loves it. We’ll continue to do it on days when no one else shows up. There is this lovely woman we met at church that came to my studio classes for about a year that is interested in checking it out next week.

Getting the information to her we exchanged cookie recipes. She sent me this fun one with a history called “Joe Froggers”. It is basically a simple molasses cookie with dark rum. I was telling Mrs. Sherlock this earlier and she says she thinks she has some rum she brought home from Nicaragua back in the day. We will see if it is any good.

Fingers crossed. This is how one builds community, one cookie recipe at a time. :)

I signed up for the local League of Women Voters Action Committee and that starts later this month. And Mrs. Sherlock and I are continuing with our study group. I need to do something that engages me in the political process, or I am going to lose my mind listening to the news.

Kes is going to come up Sunday and offered to take me to the grocery. That will be a real luxury. Our case counts, sadly, are not going down. The powers that be are freaking out about the long holiday weekend because we don’t have enough hospital beds available for boating accidents and young people with their risk assessment capabilities not fully developed falling off cliffs because they were Instagraming themselves.

Most Honorable, who has a sideline interest in knife sharpening, and I had a lively discussion about how to sharpen garden secateurs a few weeks back. The cheap ones I bought early in the spring were dulling down. I tried one of those long steel rods but that didn’t work so he brought me a mini diamond whetstone. I found an Australian video on how to use one. It does make the pruning shears I have work better but it isn’t ideal.

Yesterday while doing chores, I was listening to a podcast about, of all things, the role of white men on television sitcoms, and at the end the two hosts talked about things they are loving. I have heard this feature of podcasts called all sorts of things, but I was astonished when this young woman said, “I absolutely love and would recommend my Felco garden clippers!”

I was on it.

It took quite a bit of noodling around on the forest management tool website, but I finally found a pair made for a right-handed person with small hands and ordered them. This morning I got a confusing email saying they were backordered. They haven’t charged through, but at least I know they are out there and can dream a dream of having them someday.

It doesn’t do anyone in the broader world who is going through a rough time (and there are so many that qualify, hello New York) if I am miserable. Having some flashy ergonomic steel-bladed clippers to look forward to for next year’s garden adventure is a practical way to address that.

Last updated September 03, 2021