The Olympics

This is one of the many reasons that I love mrguy: "They should outlaw horse racing and gymnastics, for the same reason -- it's exploiting living creatures while requiring them to maintain unreasonable physical standards, for our enjoyment. I hate the Olympics. It's heinous."

This has been mrguy on the Olympics

Note: the original conversation started with my commenting on the silly headline from the New York Times: "It’s Norway’s Games Again. What’s Its Secret?" To this I just wanted to say "Snow. The reason is snow."

Anyhoo, enjoy your winter sports, people. I can't wait until the Olympics are over.

Shingrixia

The appointment for my second Shingrix dose had been timed perfectly -- on a Friday morning. That would allow me to recuperate on the weekend. But my doctor rescheduled to this Wednesday morning. Therefore the worst of it was during the work week and weeknights (sweats, little men punching me all over, joint pain, weird dreams). Occasional bursts of energy would be followed by deep exhaustion and a retreat to the lady room, where boy kitten spends his days. I had some nice floppenkatzen with bk, who really enjoyed his mama time.

He has been super solicitous, and has taken to stretching out on the credenza to watch us while we watch tv.

Meanwhile, work on the bathroom is almost complete. I look forward to being in the bathtub with less clothing, but for now I am just pretending that I'm bathing.

They're painting the bedroom, and without the curtains up we can really see the view left behind by all of the dead trees that have been removed in the last few years.

Yesterday, mom and her caregiver came over for lunch. Unbelievably there was no complaining. Absolutely none. She liked the bathroom and said "Glamor". She really dug the view. Mrguy just remarked that she also liked her lunch -- didn't complain that there was too much food -- and she made her little dainty happy grunts that signify that she really likes what she's eating.

The main event was our caregiver's storytelling. She told the story of how she met her husband (note: she refers to her first husband as "my husband" and her current husband by his first name). She and her mother were in her country, and in town buying a tomato when a very handsome man introduced himself and offered to buy them whatever they liked. They thanked him for his offer and said that they had enough coins for their tomato. He learned that they had mutual friends, showed up at their house and asked permission from our caregiver's parents to speak with her. The rest is history, as they say. Also history is her husband asking a member of the monarchy for a piece of property where they could build a house. After they started building, people in the community started talking about the land they'd been given. She and her husband worried about causing strife in the community and they bulldozed the house. Along the way we also heard stories about her husband 1) following a guy home who had a truck and a business to ask the guy about his business, and 2) starting an emigration club for people who wanted to come to the US. Still haven't learned the end of the story about the furniture business and the goat.

There were tears in these stories. It's the anniversary of her son-in-law's death last year, and there are lots of memories of him, our caregiver's husband who died, and other sadnesses of the season. We couldn't really interrupt in order to bring mom into the conversation because of the tears and Totie Fields-level lack of space between stories. Mom started to fall asleep. I was out of energy myself. Our caregiver suggested that the mama was pooped, and as we were getting the mama up the steps she said we should come over soon to chase the baby with them. What??? Mom now "sees" a little baby in her apartment and she and the caregiver have fun looking for it.

Wow

Camellia Show, Feb 2022

Two years ago I went to the local camellia show. This was right before the shutdown that was the starting line of the pandemic in these parts. In a sudden burst of activity I went to the Japanese Internment film festival, ate lunch with a friend from high school, had dinner with miss wartz (which was the inaugural togetherness of our pandemic times, which is now over due to lack of interest on her part, I think) and I went to the camellia show. It was kinda awkward, but interesting, and I looked forward to going to the show again when pandemic times were over.

OK, so they may never be over, but I wrote to the camellia people, confirmed that the show was on for this weekend, and went on over there. It was *exactly* as awkward as last time. I sat on a chair near the far wall, and listened as the guy I'd been emailing with performed a recitation of the national judging guidelines for the other camellia people. I was easily the youngest person there. After hearing about whether or not you could enter sports or not, which seemed to be the end of the recitation, they all broke for donuts and I broke for the camellias. So much beauty in one place!

Before I go on, I would like to say that I have had a conversion about my own camellias. I know I love the camellias from our old house, which were gorgeous beyond belief, but I've also come around to the beauty of our current trees. This is our girl. She has swirly pink petals, and I've come to love her. She has been blooming like crazy this season, which is a first.

She looks a lot like this one on the judging table, labeled as Debutante.

There were many pretty blooms, but I thought this one was pretty spectacular, like a cross between an azalea, rose and peony.

I spoke to one nice lady and asked her the rules for leaves -- do the leaves have to come from the same branch as the blossom, or can you pick the best leaf from your tree to represent you? You can pick your best. And on the way home, a half hour drive, I got to be reminded of why I'm glad I don't live in East County and why I wore a N95 mask, as you do...

"Some say Covid is dangerous. Some say the vaccine is dangerous. That's why medical choice is important." 

Howdy Mushrooms

I have always wanted to grow mushrooms at home with a kit. I was suddenly reminded of this the other day and I bought kits for myself and for my friends clam and the rev. I was kinda hoping it would be a fun way to introduce them and get us making mushrooms, but whatever. They enjoyed it, I enjoyed it, and now I'm going for batch two.

Here's the kit, soaked, scored and ready to go:

After a few days of growth it looked awesome and grew quickly:

And when it was time to harvest, I made a delicious oyster mushroom stroganoff and had it on noodles. It was so delicious!!

I have soaked my kit a second time and will try for batch number two. Better go water! It's almost 100 degrees in the aku room.