Toucan Tire

 

Today on our walk we spotted the elusive Tire Toucan.

Again there were no Mask Brigade deliveries in my sector.

Masks and Low Bono ponderings

My mask collection (Top) Union mask, Atomo Coffee; (Bottom) Two by Ellen from early in the pandemic, a plain mask from Target. (Not shown): the other Target mask and my orange bandanna, ket ni the car, and a white mask from IRS. 

Friday's Low Bono roundtable was interesting, as after we pondered the BOG's tabling of the Mission Statement proposed changes, we circled around the issue that our legal community's various charitable efforts were very praiseworthy but also a reflection of how screwed up our legal system is. Examples were provided to me that it's hard practicing in multiple counties because procedures differed; on the one hand, this might allow for local preferences, on the other hand this drove up costs as it restricted who can effectively practice where (and everywhere reinvented their own processes). Because some statewide utility for basic court procedures (e.g. divorce) might improve things but there are countervailing interests, plus startup costs.

Free Pantry Thursday

On the walk today I saw another free pantry. There's a couple near my house as well, a very neighborly response to the current crisis.

I like this dense pack of flowers!

Over time we have watched this house be deconstructed, but maintain its street number. Will it be rebuilt?

I like how the sunflowers match the siding.

At some point this week, I learned that Pegasus is taking appointments for book drop-offs, through their website. I was amused to learn the next available appointment was in September, but I took it. This will encourage me to clean out stuff!

Arthur On Alert!

The photo of the day was Arthur, who had come meowing for attention, showing me that there was a strange cat in the basement. Good boy!

Driving home from the morning walk I saw a lot of goods set on the curb on Thistle. I photo'd them to put into Buy Nothing (having learned my lesson not to bother posting the clothes and taking responsibility for distribution myself).

 I took my coins to Safeway to run through the Coinstar. It was worth paying the 12 per cent fee to convert that to cash - but cash was the last thing I wanted at this point, so I bought cat food and other groceries.

I got my delivery from Frelard Tacos, and it was excellent!

Lego Free Library and Toastmasters Tuesday

For our morning walk, I waited as usual for Hannah and Julie to come out of their house. Meanwhile, they were waiting on the sidewalk for me, but in the eye of the sun. Thus we all waited until I got out of my car. There's a lesson there somewhere, although I don't know what it is.

Today was the day we saw the Lego Free Library (It didn't have legos in it, but it was super creative)

I am putting in a lot of time working on my various Toastmasters projects, but things move slowly as I am easily unfocussed by having a very unstructured life. This will improve.

Club 832 tonight was fun as usual. Leah's presentation was wonderful. At the end, she mentioned she was developing this in support of a nonprofit she supported and, quite appropriately, but a link in chat to the youtube version of her presentation. It moved me to contribute, and you should too:

Also at this meeting I had the pleasure of evaluating a presentation on why someone should hire the speaker. She clearly does UX for a living so I could not comment on the presentation as a presentation so I expressed it as talking about how she succeeded in her objective, in particular how questions arose in my mind and the presentation answered them. My ultimate tip, or challenge, was adopted from someone offered me at another club, which was to smile and people will reflexively smile back. I feel this may be important in a presentation of this nature, because the speaker is naturally proud of her work and looking null or sad contradicts the presentation. This is something to think on more.

Tamale Monday

My first sunflower to blossom this season is about knee high.

I got a lot of deliveries today: my last order of flea treatment from Chewy (Costco has much better prices), Carditone (it turns out I had been taking only have what my doctor recommended); and above all the dozen or more tamales from Frelard. I froze most of them but enjoyed one right away. Mostly I suppose I ordered these to support local business but I also enjoy them very much!

Today was the day that Leah from Toastmasters practiced her speech on Zoom with the help of Karen, who hosted, and myself. It was a good presentation but I feel we offered some helpful tips. I'm very interested in seeing the results tomorrow; it is obviously intended for use on some project so in helping with this speech we are also helping with the project.

Walking Sunday

Sandy Swetnick (who may have an additional last name, what with getting married decades ago and all) PM'd me a link to her salon Zoom meeting this morning. I logged in as soon as it was available and made another pot of coffee.

Last month,  the salon was mostly a series of monologues by a couple of people who like to talk, occasionally punctuated by a couple of people in the sciences who had inside knowledge on AI or epidemiology. Those latter few were very interesting but not pushy enough to overcome the noisy. I resigned myself to enjoying the company and multitasking.

This time I resolved to be more proactive. When Deb came on, I gave a shout-out to her embroidered pillow, which led her to briefly talking about her situation. Briefly, but it taught me. I feel that Sandy was being more proactive in encouraging the quieter people to speak and, unfortunately, one of the previously frequent talkers was out sick. Good health to him, but this time everyone was part of the party. I think it was Sandy who asked the question about the age we felt we were, as opposed to the age we looked - which was an excellent conversation starter. I also am learning to react broadly while people are talking, to gesture and smile broadly, not to merely passively stare at the screen like watching TV. I'm not sure why it's more engaging, but it is.

For my walk, I picked up some cables offered on "Buy Nothing". The location was just on the other side of Westcrest Park, so I figured it would be a straightforward stroll, but I underestimated the power of habit. I fed the ducks and then set out north, bypassing the park because I almost never go there. Once I got into the park, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Google Maps had the trails on file and gave directions that were probably accurate enough but sometimes waited until I was in the intersection. This is often a problem driving due to the dangers of abrupt maneuvers in traffic; you wouldn't think it a problem walking, but the problem was once in the intersection I was not clear what "turn right" meant. This may be a perceptual thing, it's hard to say.

I walked down to the bank to deposit Heather's check, passing through the Greenbridge development and looking at the retaining pond. I had to scramble a little to get to its southern shore but a little depression in the wire cage surrounding the rocks indicated that mine was not the first foot to climb up.