It’s May Day! Which is also a distress cry, which I don’t get, but I don’t care, I’m just so friggin’ happy that spring is definitely here and the book is chortling right along and I almost have all of the bank stuff done and Krissie is whooping it up in Tahoe and Bob is (mostly) happy with the book and I’m delighted with it. Happiness all over the place.
How were you happy all over the place this week?
I want to say “Gardening! Hydroponic gardening made me happy all over the place!” And then smile. 🙂
Of course, I blogged the heck out of my hydroponics. Tomato crop coming in? It’s in there, with pictures. Even pictures of the red ripe tomatoes I traded the dotter’s boyfriend for his iDOO unit. Now I’m getting yellow ripe tomatoes in the Smart Garden. I’ve been calling the top of that bookcase “the Smart Garden 3 x 5 Ranch, Bar 0” A.K.A. “the Ranch.”
I named the two AeroGarden Harvests Harvey and Harvey, Too. The round iDOO unit is “the Bucket.” The iDOO 12 pod units are identical, except for color, and no name has suggested itself. The Harveys and iDOOs are all growing lettuce or herbs.
Meanwhile, back at the Ranch (excuse me while I chortle. a lot.), the bok choy crop is overdue for harvesting and/or pruning. I have to see what’s available for stir fry. I may have to slice up a New York Strip. Or can you stir fry tuna? I have some tuna steaks. I’ve never done that. If I do, that’ll mean another blog post. 🙂
You can definitely stir fry tuna steaks; often have I happily eaten my friend’s cooking of such. (I don’t stir-fry anything.)
Thanks! I’ll try that tonight for dinner. What’s the worst that could happen?
There were only three ounces of red pak choi from the harvest. Overall, the tuna stir fry was very adequate, but I wouldn’t want it every month.
Gary, I have enjoyed reading your gardening journey here and on your blog. You have tried a variety of systems. I want to start gardening too. What system would you recommend to grow greens, such as mustard, arugula, and kale? I probably will have to grow them from my own seeds because I don’t expect to find pods for some of them. I would like a 9-12 pod system that will sit on my kitchen countertop. Thanks!
Okay, the key word I heard was “kitchen countertop.” The second was “own seeds.” I think I own five packages of seeds, total. One is green onions, four are varieties of tomato. The QYO system (the one I traded away) had the highest extendable lights, and the tomato plants needed room. The next highest is the Click & Grow Smart Garden. The AeroGarden countertop units only accommodate plants under a foot tall. They sell taller units, but I wouldn’t call them “countertop” units. The iDOO units can go higher, but not as high as the QYO or Smart Gardens.
I bought seed pods for the Smart Gardens. They are a proprietary size, but they do sell empty pods for you to add your own seeds. They also sell 75 varieties of pods. See https://www.clickandgrow.com/collections/plant-pods including grow-your-own. Their lists include various kinds of kale, mustard and arugula. (Look under “greens.”)
The default for the QYO and iDOO is “own seeds”, But AeroGarden sells seed pod kits. 12 kinds of lettuce, six kinds of tomatoes, 6 kinds of peppers, and they have at least three kinds of kale.
My recommendation: Buy a Smart Garden – 9 and seed pods for everything you specified. I have five Smart Garden – 3s. Room for 15 pods. I’ve stated before that were I starting now, I’d have gotten two 9s, instead, for less money. And had 18 pods, instead. Click & Grow isn’t the cheapest, but it is the easiest with the largest variety of plants.
Good luck, and good gardening!
Thanks Gary! This is extremely helpful. I love these retirement hobbies/obsessions!
ALSO!
Check with Jessie. It was her post in Happiness is Warmth, January 16, 2022 that clued me in to countertop gardening and Click & Grow in particular. Credit where credit is due. 🙂
Or maybe blame. Nah, stick with credit.
Gary, you are much more conscientious with it then I am. My two Click and Grow are all I have and for some reason, some of mine seem to not do as well. My basil has consistently been good and I have not tried any lettuces. I generally start with the pods, then moved the established seedlings outside.
I also start things like geranium cuttings in a glass of water in my kitchen window where they get no direct sunlight, then plant them up in small pots and put them in the click and grow (I remove the top section, then attach the light with a custom cut piece that my husband carved for me) and this does very well to start cuttings. So far this spring, once my pods were done, I have done rosemary cuttings, deutzia nikko and lavender. One year I started my cuttings directly in the pod cups. That worked but not as well as starting them in a glass of water until roots showed then potted them up. Next year I am going to try more shrubs. My Mom was particularly good at starting roses this way. People always seem to be willing to share cuttings.
And don’t forget:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
World Naked Gardening Day
Status Active since 2005
Genre Annual naturism/nudism, gardening, guerilla gardening, permaculture event
Date(s) First Saturday of May
Frequency Annually, first Saturday of May
Location(s) International
Inaugurated Saturday, September 10, 2005
Founder Jacob Gabriel, Liz Miller, and Mark Storey
Most recent Saturday, May 1, 2021
Next event Saturday, May 7, 2022
Organised by Body Freedom Collaborative
Website http://WNGD.info
World Naked Gardening Day (WNGD) is an annual international event generally celebrated on the first Saturday of May by gardeners and non-gardeners alike.
If you’re gonna garden, ya gotta get nekkid. (This is why all my gardening is indoors.)
Update: I named the other two hydroponic units. They kept saying “I DO” at me, so I came out of retirement as a minister long enough to marry them. They are Phredd and Ethel. Their names are so much easier to say than “iDOO 12 Pod Hydroponic Gardening Unit, Esquire” or “AeroGarden Harvest Hydroponic Gardening Unit ][.” (I stole the ][ from my first computer, an Apple ][+. It was followed by an Apple //e. Apple seemed to have problems with the letter “i”.) The Ranch units are not so much named as labeled. Ranch One through Ranch Five. Anthropomorphism? Guilty. 🙂
Another update: The Romaine and Red Romaine in Harvey are crying for another pruning/harvesting. The Red Sails and Black Seeded Simpson lettuce in Ethel are just as loud. There are yellow tomatoes in Ranch Four that look awfully ripe. I’ve got shredded pepper jack cheese and bacon and crispy garnishes. A big salad is imminent. I have 23 lettuce plants. The next few months are going to be healthy. (I need more cheese.)
Yesterday was a beautiful day. My mother in law and I went to an arts festival. I got sunburned and neither of us are used to that much walking, but we ate fried food and she wanted to stop for ice cream on the way home. Oh, and she found something she wanted, so I actually have a mother’s day gift for her. Now I am going back to cleaning up my porch. Today is the day that I vanquish it!
Sounds like she is doing a little better?
She is, thank you. Some weepy moments but a positive day. She wanted to drive for the practice, since her husband did most of the highway driving And we stopped at an ice cream place on the way home that was a favorite of theirs, so she seems intent on keeping the good memories.
According to wiki, it is mayday because it sounded like the French word m’aider, which means “help me.” It was chosen because Croydon airport’s air traffic was between France and UK at the time, so both sides would understand emergency.
Learned something new today!
That always makes me happy.
I knew it came from m’aidez, help me in French, but I thought it was much older than air traffic and dated from nautical times.
What makes me really happy is that on Friday my nephew’s girlfriend told me she was going to get a cat, and after talking it through they decided they are going to give it a try with my little girl cat.
She and her brother have lived with me for 3 years now, and she and her brother still aren’t real friends. He’d like to be, or rather he’d like a playmate who he can wrestle, chase and fight with and curl up with to sleep; but she only tolerates him and remains wary of him, as he always wants to play rough and is much bigger. He’s also jealous if she gets attention from me, and chases her away if he notices.
So I think she deserves a chance at getting her own territory in which she can relax, eat her dinner without needing to move off as soon as he shows up, and her own human to ask to pet or play with her – things she now only does when she is sure big brother isn’t around to notice.
I should have read this before I answered below.
Thank you, Kay!
Yep, that’s right. English taking French words and making them into something familiar.
Tous cousines. Vive le weekend!
I am on the Eastern Shore with friends. We spent yesterday touring houses and gardens. Had some ice cream. Walked along the beach. Did a puzzle. Today we are going out for breakfast and… who knows. And tomorrow I can work from my friend’s house near here instead of driving back tonight.
It has been a good weekend!
Last day in Costa Rica. I took a surfing lesson on the beach in Samara. I have always wanted to try it – never made it up but it was so much fun. We went on a tour of a dry forest and as we were leaving, saw a group of Howler monkeys in the trees above us. They were making lots of noise – a cross between a dog and a gorilla. It was very cool.
My camera’s full of photos of amazing plants and flowers. But Tulips have started to bloom at home and can’t wait to see them.
It truly is a time of flowers. On my almost daily 2 mile walk around the neighborhood, I see something new in bloom every day! There are two lilac trees I stop to sniff, too. The bunnies are coming out more. The birds twitter, and the hawks sail in the sky. It makes me glad to be alive in Kansas. Plus, my cousin survived that horrendous tornado, which came within a mile of his house!
More than a week ago, I ate donuts. Last week I was thinking that I hadn’t properly thanked co-worker for her part of the experience, so I texted her how much I had enjoyed them – but that my pants were telling me to stop eating donuts. She texted back “Your pants lie. Follow your heart. Wear dresses” This made me laugh out loud, so I told my sister, who laughed out loud in a coffee shop. She told my niece who also laughed out loud. This made me exceedingly happy.
I also had TWO pieces of excellent cake in honor of my BIL’s birthday. So good. Not a donut, so it doesn’t count.
(why does spell checker think plural donuts are ok, but underline a singular donut? Not that I usually interact with a singular donut, but still)
Sometimes on his way home from working nights one of my sons will stop by an all night donut shop and bakery and leave in the mail box for his parents donuts or coffee cake. And then he will e-mail me so the dog will not bark at 4 A.M., if he should come into the house. A couple of weeks ago he dropped off a huge honey bun which we cut into four pieces and devoured during the day. Elastic waist on the pants also work.
Licorice Allsorts. They are hard to find in the U.S., but here & there, usually in a grocery store with a sweets area, you can unearth some. There is a store enroute home from work where I find them every third or fourth visit. At the moment, I’m at the beginning of a bag, so life is good. And stripey.
My dad used to buy these for my mum, kind of like some people buy their partner flowers. After he died and she was clearing out, she found a bag of them in one of his drawers. So they always make me think of my dad, even though it was mum who loves them.
Am in st Petersburg, Florida. Went to the Picasso exhibit and they had this very cool ap where you sit to get your picture taken and then they turn it in a surrealist portrait and send it to you. Best selfie ever!
My happy this first day of May was to look out the window and see that the moorings are being put into the bay.
Now if I can get someone to move the kayak that is between the shed and the butterfly bush that will make my day happier.
Mary, I have had for the better part of 40 years a beautiful handmade cedar strip canoe which has been a pain to store. Assuming we found a buyer, it could have sold for a goodly amount. After much discussion my husband and I decided to gift it to the son of our friend and neighbor (He is a fireman). He loves it. His family loves it. It garners lots of kudos whenever they take it out. And every time they see me now they have to tell me how admired it is and how much they love it. We are so glad we got rid of it and found a good home for it.
I’m pretty sure it was up against the fence last year. The grandkids would take it out every once in a while. Now it looks like Godzilla in the flower garden surrounding the shed. And it was a gift from our youngest son. I’m glad to hear someone is getting a lot of use from your canoe. A fireman, you say, then he is using it to keep himself in shape. One of my neighbors is a fireman and we often see him driving off with a surfboard strapped to his truck.
I got more than 9,5 hours of sleep without dreaming about work (endless to-do lists usually spice up my dreams in the early hours), so yeah, happiness.
Instead from what I remember I dreamt something about season 2 of Bridgerton. Much better!
My happy thing is my roommate and I officially moved into a new place! Basically we’re now living in a slightly less nice place (no more washer-dryer in unit. jagged sob) but instead of sharing a place with four people it’s just the two of us, so it already feels less like a dorm and more of a home. Also! We’re about a twenty minute walk or 5 minute train ride from Prospect Park, and I am so excited to be near green space again.
I finished the second draft of my WIP! Now I need to get the first 50 pages and synopsis polished to send to my agent, but for the moment, I’m just enjoying having hit this milestone. It’s longer than most of my books and a slightly different genre that I wasn’t sure I could write, so it feels like even more of an accomplishment than it would otherwise.
Plus, the frost didn’t kill my ultra-early plantings of radishes and tatsoi and lettuce, and we’re into warmer weather now finally, so they should be safe until harvest!
The small deep pink azaleas we planted last year are in bloom and I can see them from the kitchen table. The lilacs are in bloom as are the bluebells and the lilies of the valley. The Korean cherries in our front yard are finally losing their blossoms but they lasted a long time this year. And the apricot colored bearded irises I ordered just showed up.
Welp, when I got up this morning it was snowing but I am still here to get up so that’s something. I very nearly fell backward down the stairs yesterday and probably would have killed myself. It was a close thing but I managed to grab the corner of the wall and stop myself.
In other news, the dogs let me sleep all night which was a freaking miracle. This was the first time in months I wasn’t rudely awakened by canines. Night before last I was jolted out of my sleep by Hannah’s panicked screaming. She had somehow managed to get into our ensuite bathroom and then shut the door behind her. It’s easy enough to push open a door that didn’t latch properly, it’s quite another thing to turn the knob and pull it open on the inside. Thumbs to the rescue.
It was an extra helpful miracle because I’m sick and, even though I’m not sure and can’t test, I’m treating it like COVID and isolating.
I hope you feel better soon and the dogs continue to let you sleep😀
Veronica moans. I was asleep and heard this soft moan and woke up to find that she’d slipped down between the bed and the wall. I told her she was going to have to learn to bark if she wanted fast rescue. She barks at the street, you’d think she’d speak up when she’s trapped.
Oh gosh, the poor thing! Dreaming and comfortable, then suddenly trapped! It’s a good thing she did moan and that you did hear her!
Mayday, the international radio communications call for help, is from the french “m’aidez” which sounds approximately like mayday in English.
Happy to have a clean mammogram this past week and to have talked with several friends who no longer live in the area. Also, I have a few new ideas for writing and got a new poem ready for tomorrow’s poetry meet-up. Friday I let myself get a pizza, which I don’t generally eat because my body often rebels, from a place that isn’t a chain. But bacon, spinach, and goat cheese have behaved and are so worth it.
Mayday as a distress call arose from the French, “m’aidé” or more prosaically “Help me!!!!” Naturally, nobody but the French could pronounced it properly. Hence “Mayday.”
The wild flowers, AKA weeds, in my meadow, AKA lawn, are starting to bloom. That makes me happy.
I spent a few minutes stuffing all the little branches into bins because, yay, yard waste curb side pick up starts this week. And a few minutes more setting up the rain barrel for the season. I don’t think we’ll get enough really cold weather to damage it and rain is expected.
My connection to the new water main was done on Friday. They’ve still got a lot of work to do connecting the rest of the street. But the end is near.
And it’s May Day. Rabbit, rabbit.
I have a couple of weeks without a day job, so I’m looking forward to taking care of some things, and less pressure. I was just going to be off this week, but two siblings are coming for our mom’s birthday, which will be nice, but not a rest.
It’s a sunny wonderful day in Maine.
And, now that I think about it, my direct report (t0) at my contract said he’d welcome me back. Always a good feeling.
My happy this week is that they released the final episodes of Grace and Frankie.
Happy to see the show again but kinda sad that it’s ending. As with any series, there have been some ups and downs with the episodes and story arcs, but overall it’s just plain fun with a good heart. And such a lovely depiction of female friendship with–bonus points–women over the age of 50 with aspirations and joie de vivre. Plus, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are always fab:)
Ok. Small happies. I’m happy to be alive. I’m happy to have a good measure of financial stability. It’s not perfect because of debt, but I can solve this.
I’m happy the window unit is in my bedroom / home office.
I’m super happy to be on paid time off today.
HBO Max made me happy this week with Julia and with Minx. I loved both of them.
And I am contemplating a quick trip to the beach today.
Happy!
I’ve been enjoying every drop of sun – it’s cool enough that the warmth is pure pleasure, whereas in another month or so I’ll be missing the shade of my cherry tree on sunny days. Plus the long days. And the fact I’m not working.
Spent time with two friends, on different days, and enjoyed our connections.
Happy is a productive weekend. Around 6K new words on the WIP novel, plus I got a ton of weed management done this morning out front and am about to go outside to do some more of that in back. Plus water all the things, so my flowers will be happy too.
I’m happy that spring ballet is DONE! Last performance this afternoon. I celebrated May Day by planting some zinnia seeds which should bloom by the end of the school year for future happiness.
My dad. My dad was happiness this week. Doorbell rang on my birthday Thursday and I opened the door expecting MIL, and got 5 seconds of silence and was utterly confused. Just when I was about to ask: “Who’s there?”, a meak little voice said: “Happy birthday…”, and it was my dad! Turned out MIL and him had been planning this surprise since the end of March and I didn’t have a clue. We hadn’t seen each other for 3 years and it was happy tears all over the place. Best. Birthday. Ever. <3 (ALSO best MIL ever. <3 )
I also got surprisingly many visitors for my birthday on top of MIL and dad (4 extra people), plus cake, wonderful weather and dinner out, so what's not to be happy about? 🙂 Dad's been sleeping at MIL's but been here every day to fix things that needed fixing, like lamps in all rooms so we FINALLY have light for sighted visitors, the bahtroom vent so the steam actually gets cleared up and tomorrow, before he leaves for Sweden again, he's gonna fix our non-working intercom, so I don't need to open the door to ask who's there. He'll also come back later this summer and do the rest of the things he didn't have time to do these past couple of days. Conclusion: Great week. Now: Bedtime. Good night, everyone!
Shass, That’s a wonderful birthday story! Sleep tight!
Happy Birthday, Shass. It makes me happy that it was so good.
Oh, happy birthday.
Your happy story made me happy. Thank you and happy birthday Shass.
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday Shass! It sounds like a wonderful day.
Yay for lovely birthday surprises.
Happy Belated Birthday.
Belated thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes and…everything. Made me happy. You are truly wonderful people!
Flowers are blooming and ferns are slowly unfurling. Pretty soon much of our view will be obscured by leaves and we’ll enjoy warm weather’s privacy.
I planted five varieties of thyme along a stone path that kept getting washed out in heavy winter rains. I think by next winter the plants will secure the stones.
And it didn’t hurt. I know I’ve gone on and on about the knee replacement and foot surgery, but it’s a deep surprise to realize that I’m not in pain. Planting was no problem. My life has become special.
Happiness is seeing two plays in one weekend. Hadestown at the Los Angeles music Center and into the woods at the college of the canyons Valencia. It’s also knowing that there is a new Crusie book in my future.
Now if only I could get my head in gear and get back into finishing my book that would be perfect.
I love Into the Woods. Envy all over the place.
Official start into the world again came with attending a rose auction. Okay, there’s an attached rose show too which I look at as I whiz by on the way to the rose display for the auction. From the silent portion, came away with five, all rare. No looking at the moderns on offer, although some of them are rare too: Just try to find that special favorite from the 50s, 60s, 70s. From the live auction, we came away with two exceedingly rare roses, much to my surprise because–usual story–I hadn’t planned on bidding. Visited with dear friends, learned a bit, devoured a great Greek lunch (love that fried zucchini in dipping sauce), and explored a bit in the old hometown. What a day!
I saw a friend that I’d lost touch with and hadn’t seen for a couple of years. I think we might have the friendship back again. That made me very happy.
I saw two black cockatoos flying low over my back garden this morning, heading towards the mountain. They are the most glorious birds, and they fly with great dignity. Always makes me happy to see them.
Well, we now know the origin of Mayday, but does anyone know what SOS stands for? I was watching one of the FBI shows this week and saw an agent stop a car in front of him and the victim behind the wheel tapped out SOS with the brake lights. Mayday and SOS were the subjects at dinner and I forgot to ask.
PS, this has been a fun discussion this whole weekend from e-mails to Veronica to happiness.
Apparently it orginally didn’t stand for anything and was just the Morse code for a ship in distress (created by Germans?) and then got associated in English with Save Our Ship
I thought it was save our souls, no?
As I understand it, the mnemonics came after. Save Our Ship, Save Our Souls, Succor Our Sailors, Same Old Sh*t, Sh*t Onna Shingle (aka creamed chipped beef on toast).
In Morse code it’s dit-dit=dit dah-dah-dah dit-dit-dit, or three shorts, three longs, three shorts. Easy to remember, easy to send. Story has it, Titanic was the first to use it.
Marathon meeting went well, even after our home disaster — just as I had everything organized, I found that the printer was determinedly offline, giving me the cut direct! Ended by putting everything on a flash drive in PDF format, picking up my 95-year-old friend, and driving at speed out to the neighborhood of the meeting place, where I found an Office Depot that printed my file without mishap. Luckily, as I had a set of tags set up with each guest’s lunch order — steak, chicken, fish, salad, cheeseburger — and it would have been very awkward to have had to create some other system on the fly. Will now need to go to local Office Depot to get ROTC certificates printed up. Also had satisfactory political discussion with the friend — I said that once I learned that Brad Rafffensperger’s undergraduate degree was in civil engineering, I’d concluded that Trump picked the wrong guy to demand faked-up numbers. June, married to a chemical engineer for seventy-five years, fully agreed!
Since most of us have been on the receiving end of unsolicited commercial communications wondering if we wouldn’t like to sell our homes, I was definitely amused that a Beefeater published this one: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/beefeater-asked-consider-selling-tower-25441449?fbclid=IwAR2Wc6C5-GlYYR0kq7KRBxz6w4p6hTHEUu8qITS7Ga7bSNHvWFb2Wa3IFMA
Also impressed and pleased that Utah Democrats have decided not to field a candidate to run against Evan McMullin, the Independent. McMullin is respected in Utah and had a decent chance against Mike Lee, and hasn’t said who he’d caucus with in DC if elected. If the D’s hang on to the Senate, great. If it’s 50-50, he can be a tie-breaker. If the R’s take the Senate, he can caucus with the GOP and then be a fly in the ointment for them.
“Among many thefts, a John Deere dealership in Melitopol was completely ransacked, the valuable tractors and combine harvesters taken away.” When the John Deere folks learned about the theft, they used GPS — of course the equipment has GPS — to identify its current location and then to deactivate it remotely. This improves my mood because the Russians also stole a lot of Scythian gold items from the Melitopol museum, which had a world-famous collection of these items, most of them excavated from local tombs. Best known probably the fantastic gold pectoral. “Concern over the cultural artifacts of Ukraine has led international institutions such as Venice’s Civic Museums to send supplies to Ukrainian museums to help secure such priceless art and artifacts.
The Lviv National Art Gallery will receive protective fabrics, foam panels and data loggers for tracking changes in humidity and temperature from the museums in Venice, Italy, The Art Newspaper reported.”
Further note: The reconstruction of a Celtic gate in Germany, as usual, required much meticulous archeological work. However, the archeologists were able to conclude that the Celts favored Right-hand Traffic.
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/63961
I always appreciate your responses!
We have commenced Evita. I am exhausted. I did not audition for the next show tonight, which makes me sad. I was “eh…” on doing it but I am too tired and I have one conflict anyway.
Tech week had the following:
(a) the musical director either quitting or getting fired (I don’t know which) after he yelled at Evita and she yelled back, well deservedly, that we’re volunteers and don’t deserve to get yelled at. This was on my birthday, so what a present! We didn’t like him anyway, and got my old nice musical director from The Producers to step in immediately.
(b) someone riding by while the stage manager was smoking and claiming he stabbed a bitch 37 times “if you want to call the cops,” cops were indeed called.
(c) 5 costume changes in a row in half of act 2
(d) necklaces/bracelets breaking like, daily
(e) my apartment complex deciding this was the week to spray for roaches, now my apartment is an avalanche of shit because I had to move half of the contents of it to the other half of the apartment.
(f) my auditioning for a murder mystery company, not doing well, but getting in anyway!
(g) spending some quality time with certain people after the show, including he who will not be named hanging out with me until 1:10 in the morning, possibly going to have a hangout date with him next week before the show but we’ll see if that actually happens.
(h) the stage manager having to go out of town for the first week of the show. She got a substitute for most of the time off but NOT opening night
(i) the revolving door having some issues, the guy who designed it bets it’ll break during the show, nobody is taking that bet
(j) Evita surprise throwing up after drinking too much water, causing the actor/temporary stage manager on opening night STOPPING THE SHOW, then she said she was fine and continued on (even though the door also had issues).
(k) Getting a standing O after ALL of that, go figure.
(l) going to see some friends in another show (Saturday matinee) and then getting to hang out with them.
(m) the rest of the Evita show going well, thank goodness, though Eva’s necklaces breaking off Has Become A Thing, lol.
(n) Seriously just not sleeping. I used some vacation time for the roaches and the audition and took a sick day, but wish I could take another sick day this week. Too bad I can’t do that as I have to make up in-office time after being out half the week.
It’s been a long, exhausting week! I don’t have rehearsal any more but the murder mystery thing starts up, so I shall still be exhausted. I hope I actually sleep tonight, who knows.
Jennifer, you’re week sounds like a one of those wild, slapstick comedies — The Man Who Came to Dinner or Noises Off. I’m amazed that you haven’t broken a leg.
Sounds like you could write a play based on what happened for Evita alone. You have more material then Noises Off. Still congrats on getting through opening night. Also I think I’d have started stringing those bracelets & necklaces on fishing wire or something equally tough, having them all break must have been so distracting.
Heard a weather report last week “It’s beautiful for early March”. Dark cold grey wet humor.
I saw Six the Musical on Friday night for a friend’s birthday and it was outstanding. So much fun, and surprisingly historically accurate. I thought of Ann every time Catherine of Aragon was singing. The soundtrack has been keeping me happy ever since.
I had a wonderful weekend quilting with my friends. It was gray and rainy for two days, but yesterday was glorious. Fun times, with lots of great work being done.
When I got home yesterday, I found that the volunteer plant that had overwintered in a planter box had bloomed. I had planted a wildflower mix there last summer and was a little disappointed, but this guy hung on and now I have lovely flowers. I think they are coreopsis.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdDevcoumpV/
If this is truly a perennial, I may need to move it from the box to a more permanent location in the yard. But the blooms make me happy.
Finally got to collect on my 2019 Christmas present from DH: tickets to see Carol Burnett. Delightful! When I was a kid, I begged to stay up past my bedtime to watch her show, which started at 9 p.m. Last night’s event ended at 9. And I was glad.
My happy this past week was 1) seeing relatives and 2) smoothing over a bump in the relationship with one of those relatives.
My uncle died; he was of the age where death is sad but not a surprise. He & my aunt were local and the family came from all over for the service and to support his wife/children/grands and great-grands. He’d had a hard time of it for the past year and this was someone who lived a good, kind and generous life. I noticed at the service there were no tears; being glad he is not in pain won out over being sorry he’s gone. I know, you’re thinking uh…where’s the happy here?
I have not seen most of these folks since summer 2019 or earlier and getting to visit with them was special. Except for being struck by how much older the actual children are, it didn’t feel like years had passed since seeing everyone. Also, COVID had brought political differences to the surface and rather than completely destroy a relationship with another of the aunts, I had stopped engaging with her. It was particularly good to see her because while I’m sure we think the other one is bat-shit crazy in equal measure, we do love one another.
Another Happy: Ckaws for Suspicion by Deborah Blake is now open on my Kindle Ap. I love it when pre-purchased stuff just Poof! Appears in my email. Yay, Deborah!
Ooh, that made me think to go check mine and it’s just appeared there too. Yay!
Happiness is being in San Diego with my family after three long years of not seeing my parents (who are in their 80s), younger sister, niece and nephew, stepdaughter and her guy (who came in from San Jose), his parents (who also live in SD and who I adore), plus one of my best friends who is coming in from Sacramento. The pandemic kept me from taking my yearly trip, so this one was long overdue.
Plus ocean, my happy place. Plus, of course, release day for my new cozy. So I’m late here, but definitely happy.
( The less said about my flight out here, the better, however.)
Mayday is from the French maidez, meaning ‘help me’. It was put into use as a distress call as being something easily understood.