Mermaid Seen, Game Played

Today's walk we went a little slowly because our legs or IT-bands are recovering from exercise. It's just a thing we have to do.

I admired the creativity in this wall painting using the crack to give the mermaid an action, but it's also disturbing. I'm so glad my house doesn't have such problems!

During the day I prepared for and practiced for Zoom Game Night, featuring both my MSU Hobbit friends on the east coast (starting 3:30pm my time) and Time Bank people on this coast. As it happens, only 2 hobbits showed and no time bankers. Oh well, not all ideas are winners. We did have a good game of Stone Age although I had the advantage of having actually watched a Dice Tower explanation so I understood some of the scoring asymetries. I built up my economy before putting point on the board and that made all the difference. It felt a little odd to score more points than the other two players together, since they're both smart people, but not everyone is smart the same way I guess.

St Francis Watches The Chickens

St Francis Watches the Chickens

On our walk today we saw that some of the chickens we often visit were out of their usual area and prowling the yard. They were still fenced from the street but we were concerned that the household had a dog that might want to play with them. Let us hope that St. Francis protects them.

Again today after my walk I put in another 30-45 minutes of exercise: some HIIT with Madfit, abs with Christine Khuri, and yoga. I tried going back to Sarabeth yoga and the yoga itself was just as fine as Kassandra's (to my inexperienced ears) but the presentation felt less connected. There's all kinds for all kinds of people! 

 I collected kitchen utensils I no longer use - chiefly knives that had sat in the kitchen drawer since Kris left - in preparation for a Ridwell collection November 23. It's a little early but I'm happy to put the stuff to good use and also to make space! I don't subscribe to Ridwell but I have friends who do, and I'm happy to supply them with what I have to pass on.

I also had Zumba in the evening, featuring Imp sitting on something tall behind me, so I angled the camera to let her be included - not that she noticed, she was just interested in a shoelace.

I'm pondering whether to get the flu vaccine. 

 CON: 

• I have never had a flu vaccine that I can remember (maybe as a kid??). 
•  I don't remember getting the flu as an adult; I don't seem to be especially susceptible to flu. 
• I have almost no contact with people, thanks to the pandemic.
• Other than the occasional masked shopping trip, my only human contact is walking with my 2 walking buddies (4 or 5 times a week, about 3.5 miles) which can be sweaty if we walk up to the Highpoint watertowers, but we don't do anything likely to spread infection. 
• Flu shots are low risk but nothing is no risk. 

 PRO: 

• My walking buddies got their shots; I suppose it would be fair for me to do the same.
• Nothing is no risk, but flu shots are low risk.

I emailed doctor about this, and got the answer I expected.

We'll see.

Walk Run Walk

 This morning I did a Walk Run Walk. Julie and Hannah have a class today so instead of our usual early morning walk (which was on Wednesdays featuring running a mile on the track) I resolved to do it myself, around the neighborhood. I didn't feel up to running a solid mile but I was comfortable planning to walk a block, then run a block. I figured each block was as long as a side of the track so I needed to do 16 running blocks, spaced out by however many walking blocks. Also, I had some food to distribute to the little free pantry so I wore my pack.

I survived!

Tuesday Toastmasters Backstage

 Running parts of any volunteer organization involves a lot of backstage work - stuff that is not evidence during the performance but important to making the wheels go round. Tonight I have a meeting of the executive committee of Toastmasters Club 832 (West Seattle) where I am serving, this year, as Vice President/Membership and Vice Presiddent/PR. In this capacity and especially during the pandemic this involves mostly working on our web presence. Our simple website runs a version of Wordpress that is may versions behind and the "Contact" form has died. This could have ramifications! I have to figure out whether to go through the hassle of upgrading or to experiment with FreeToastHost or something. We'll see.

On the plus side I've got the ritual down for posting a meeting photo every meeting - generally a Brady Bunch picture of our Zoom screens. So far this has involved editting several images together, because it never happens that everyone has a good picture. I'm also experimenting with posting facebook events. What I learned from "Boost"ing an event is that it's important to have an ad that catches the eye, because a blah ad does nothing but spend the advertising dollar (only $6 that I donated, but still...)

Getting Back To Normal

On my Monday morning walk I saw a house's cement foundation painted like a picket fence, which delighted me. I had been gradually painting my plain foundation white to dress it up a little, but this took it to a new level.

It's unfortunate that the photo looks a little out of focus; it seems the camera focussed on the flowers. Oh well!

I am gradually getting back to normal with the news of the election sinking in and the stress of the campaign fading. There is still of lot of bad stuff to come but at least we may some day hear the last of Trump - even though he is fighting to hold on to power and much of the GOP is helping.

Today I asked Jon the Hobbit and Sandy (was Swetnick) Martin if they and the MSU Hobbits would be interested in game night Friday; they said sure so I passed on the information. I hope it will be a fun event, mixing that group with the Time Bank people.

Twitter Suspended Me For This

Twitter suspended my account for 12 hours because someone reported a tweet; if I appealed the suspension they would look into it some time or other. I guess the smart play is not to appeal but I'm curious how this goes. Obviously they aren't favoring critics of Trump because the image someone found objectionable is this: