Things Gotten Up Too in Everyday Ramblings

We finally had some beautiful, even kind of warmish, sun and the local crocuses opened up yesterday. Makes a winter weary heart sing.

Besides teaching my classes I got a few things done this week. The biggest one was my taxes. I was hanging out with the guys at coffee and those that are married were saying that their wives had complimentary traits to theirs. Very practical to their impractical way of being in the world. As if it was clever of them to have complimentary wives in terms of getting things done.

I was thinking, yeah and when you are a woman with an artistic bent you have to be both halves of that compliment. Hence the 5 hours I spent on my taxes.

That said, I am not sure I would let someone else do my taxes that wasn’t a professional. But next year I might check out AARP. Everyone I know who has used them has been happy with their services and it would save me money. (I use tax software one pays for.)

We are due for another bout of rain in the next few days, so I won’t be planting any seeds in the garden plot. Everything is behind last year and none of my seeds came up last year other than the ones I started at home. But I did get down there and pull the first dandelions and weed a bit. Not so many weeds yet.

This is the slowest spring I ever remember. The first few daffodils are opening but they are battered. No quince yet, and even the daphne’s are late. I did notice that the camellias are finally coming on. We usually see them in February.

Carlo is asserting his unique personality. He is not at all clingy. He likes to snuggle for short periods but prefers to be next to me. I am down with that. It has made Zoom meetings much more manageable. He does follow me everywhere. If I get up, he gets up. I had to keep Diego (after much experimenting) on a strict diet with only a slight variation. Carlo went along with it, somewhat begrudgingly.

Now he is turning into a bit of a picky eater with a healthy desire for variety. None of this feeding him the same thing day after day. He has put on a little weight in the last month, and I need to nip that trend.

Still, he is good company and very little work. I feel lucky to have him.

I still don’t have confirmation that the contractors will be able to do the inside work on the kitchen during the proposed dates. Therefore, I am procrastinating on packing up the kitchen. I hope I don’t regret this. I did hear that they are trying to accommodate my plans. That is a teeny tiny something.

The month I used the chemo cream on my face is over and I didn’t really have a choice but to accept the red blotches on my forehead like some glaring birthmark. I get to heal now and although the area gets itchy, I am thrilled to be getting on with this. I only used a small portion of the tube of the chemo cream and paid a pretty penny for it. Now I am supposed to throw it away?

There is something wrong with this picture.

Speaking of pictures, one of the guys on the board with me has a recognizable profile and one of the other guys in the coffee group is a painter and last week when I wasn’t there did a sketch of the guy on the board. He then went on to make a small painting of the sketch this week. The room where we sit in is used as a gallery space and when I asked (we all asked) about the other people in the painting I was told to turn to my left where there was a big painting of a guy in a red and white apron barbecuing and smoking a cigarette that was recently hung.

Our painter had faithfully reproduced the not very good painting adding our board member front and left. To get all meta, the board member took the new painting and stood in front of the big not very good painting right where he had been inserted and a bunch of pictures were taken. It was a hoot.

Next week we might ask ChatGPT a bunch of questions live as none of the other people in the group have played with it. Hey, it gets me out of the house and in a group situation interacting in person.

There is only so much Zooming a person can do. Yesterday two of my students went out together to a wig store and bought brightly colored, relatively inexpensive wigs, one a bright pink pageboy and wore them to class today.

The things we get up to in yoga. :)

Last updated March 18, 2023