Virtual Brush Box

Awareness of the outside world. “The donors are people who need pacemaker upgrades but whose previous implants still work.” AARP: Donate Your Pacemaker…to a Dog, University program helps canines lead longer, healthier lives. Fiedler, 2020. A tidbit about donating pacemakers has been making the rounds on Facebook. The links I found are all dated 2019/2020 and the individuals discussed seemed to have moved on to other jobs. Do they still do it? Pacemakers in dogs, yes. CanPacers, Companion Animal Pacemaker Repository. Donations? At least one in 2023, People: Dedicated Dog Owner Gets 12-Year-Old Canine Friend a Pacemaker to Save Pup from ‘Scary’ Disease, Bender, July 28, 2023. Hat tip to M, to A, and to my lovely research assistant.

~~~

Year ago last Friday, we came up driveway with Jasmine & Rose in the back seat. [Jasmine and Rose Have A Big Basset Adventure]

It’s been both hard & easy.

Hard. Old age is not for sissies of any species.

Easy. Everyone is happy. Everyone eats well. [Asking The Questions That Need To Be Asked, Dog Version, (don’t worry, the answers are good)]

After some adjustment, everyone has good bathroom habits. Rose will stand at the door, crossing her doggie legs while I put my shoes on/get my coat/open the door/do whatever mysterious things people insist on doing. Jas does well most of the time and tries really, really hard. We’ll leave it at that.

For everything else, they are easy keepers. Maybe too easy. They would like more kibble. We would prefer they didn’t look like overstuffed sausages. Rose will go for short walks to the barn. Both dogs will hang out in the sun on pleasant days. Rose will promptly trot out and back in when informed it is time for her to do so. Compared to the constant supervision of a puppy, they are pieces of cake.

This is clearly a doggy house. With big dogs. With big, old dogs. A fastidious, non-dog person would be appalled.

Honestly, that was true before ladies arrived.

Happy one year anniversary in Alabama, Jasmine & Rose.

Dog posts [Archive]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. I am fond of the spoon theory as metaphor. I use it often, in private. I do not use it in public, for example on this blog. I have been told by someone with more social conscience that the term is inappropriate for me to use. I’ve wondered why. So I searched it. Here’s what came up.

No. The Sydney Morning Herald: Stop appropriating the language that explains my condition, Chainey, 2016.

Rock on. A Humble Peddler of Weres: Spoon Theory & “Appropriation” Also good discussion in the comments, for a change.

Always return to the source material. ButYouDontLookSick.com: The Spoon Theory written by Christine Miserandino.

~~~

Another hat for winter morning walks with the horses.

From Dale of Norway. The clothing was described to me as not cheap and very, very warm. As in, don’t buy if you run hot. I can wear sweaters in the summer. Warm is good. They were right about the not cheap.

It took a while. Seller got it in the mail right away. Then DHL lost the plot. Not home. Not home. I changed the delivery instructions to Leave it, No Signature Required. Got my favorite message, Could not deliver, Facility Closed. What? Went back online, No, Really, Just Leave It. No hat. Changed to Pick Up Downtown. Way too far for me to go for a hat. Could someone else pick it up? Sure, as long as they have ID, and the sales slip. and a letter with your permission, and your ID, and … I don’t remember the exact requirements, but they struck me as onerous. Swapped back to home delivery. At which point I exceeded the number of times I was allowed to fiddle with my account via the online form. Off to customer service. Sent message, discussion, and screenshot of GPS. I have to admit, the folks were polite and responsive. My inbox has over two dozen messages. I kept hearing that so-and-so was on the case. That my package would be there TODAY. No hat. Finally, hat.

This is a package that has been on a journey.

Ah well, I got a second blog post out of it. [Cold Weather Clothing] Part 1

Environmental note. Socks were attached to their cardboard backing with reusable elastic bands rather than bits of plastic.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Dressage is having a moment, apparently. “The onus is on all of us to continually educate ourselves and be willing to walk away from trainers or facilities that don’t seem to have the horses’ welfare at the forefront.” Horse Nation: Operation X: Where Do We Go From Here? Schmidt. November 28, 2023.

~~~

Pervious weekend.

Both horses walked both mornings.

Milton hitched both afternoons.

Per usual.

The bad news. Nothing has changed.

The good news. Nothing has changed.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. While I slept, a night shift postal worker picked up my chocolate order from Tennessee and drove it to Alabama. I don’t think we – at least I don’t – have the faintest idea what goes on to keep our world functioning.

~~~

Last Wednesday morning. Dipping below freezing for a few hours happens often. Twenties all night is unusual for us. Hence draining the hose the night before.

Lesson for the day. Ice is hard to photograph. I suspect this is true with any camera. In addition, the phone’s autofocus picked everything but the ice. Even when I manually locked focus on the screw threads of the faucet, it still didn’t agree.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. The tree, American Museum of Natural History: The Origami Holiday Tree. The planning, AMNH: The Making of the Origami Holiday Tree. Short video, NBC New York: Origami Holiday Tree opens at the American Museum of Natural History — a first look, Gaudino, November 20, 2023. Galleries of past years, Origami USA: Origami Holiday Tree.

~~~

Now that I am almost halfway through the alphabet, I’ve decide to match the color to the letter, if possible. Hence, lilac.

[Fractal Alphabet]

Onwards!
Katherine

Elsewhere on the Internet. Stories from another culture highlight the tropes in our own stories. Strange Horizons: The Ghost Did What?! Translation Exposing Providentialist Thinking. Palmer. Issue 27, November 2023.

~~~

This is blog post #4270. More relevant for the purposes of this discussion, this is post #2017 in a row. Wednesday 15 November 2023, I reached 2000 posts in an unbroken series since 26 May 2018. [Bright-Eyed, Bushy-Tailed, & Back to Blogging]

Reasons

It keeps me amused. As I’ve said before, “My blog has a purpose – to keep me from going batshit crazy.” [I’m Baaaaaack]

It provides a sense of deadline. I have rarely (almost never?) written or taken photos as an artistic pursuit, for sheer joy of it, for myself. Call it what you will, if I don’t have a reason, it doesn’t happen. In the past, that reason has been either that someone paid me or that I had a class assignment. (To be completely accurate, I would have to include vacation journals, but only big vacations, and holiday snaps. But I digress.) Somehow, the blog satisfies my sense of purpose. [Photo Safari The First, Beeswax Creek Park]

Related to the above, I enjoy the puzzle of figuring out what to put up each day.

Yeah, but why daily?

“I thought about going to weekdays only, but didn’t. Among other reasons, ‘The idea of breaking my streak bothered me even more than I thought it would.’ ” [Blog Milestone] quoting [State of the Blog, Weekends NOT off]

Plus, I have the sense that if I didn’t do this daily, I wouldn’t do it at all. I’m not being absolutist. Okay, I’m not *just* being absolutist. I know this phenomenon. I have lived this phenomenon. I would have good intentions. It would live on my To Do list. I would not get around to it. Days, weeks, months would slide by.

Some days, the discipline of daily blogging is the only thing that keeps me motivated.

Visual reposted from post #2000 on 9 July 2017. [Letter Art: MM]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. A search on Christmas Sports yields the results that are all about TV broadcast schedules. For instance, Front Office Sports: The NBA’s Christmas Tradition Could Finally Be Challenged…By The NFL. McCarthy. December 24, 2022. Article is specific to last year, but covers background historical facts. “Since the 1980s, the NBA has become synonymous with Christmas Day, similar to the NFL with Thanksgiving or college football with New Year’s Day.” Lede. (Note. Could access on my phone but not my desktop. Shrug.)

~~~

One K New Place

Kowaliga Bridge Boat Ramp over Lake Martin on the Tallapoosa River. Combination photo shoot, walk, & bike ride (for those of us who indulge). Once around the parking lot was .4. So one mile was easy. Watched folks taking their boats in & out.

A fast mile for me. Flat & easy path …

… no …

… wait ….

1 KILOMETER. No wonder it was fast. Seriously, I just noticed this as I was doing the post. That makes much more sense. Four mph is peak speed for me. [In Which I Set A PR, Walk Report, Magic City 5K 2021]

Somewhere between 2-3 mph is consistent with my usual strolling pace and stopping to take photos. I was wondering if our morning walks were having an effect. No. Measuring was having an effect. [Cold Weather Clothing]

What can I say. Milton’s lesson was that morning. Hitching Milton is a team effort, mentally as well as physically. [Milton at Work]

Rest of the walks were mornings in the pasture. We missed three. One when Milton worked that morning (I made up for it later). One for rain (took the day off). One when we had to be somewhere early (Milton’s lesson, walked later, above). [Milton’s Morning Mosey]

Daily walk mileage counts toward my slow virtual amble down the middle of the country. [Biking and Walking Virtually, Mississippi River, Table of Contents]

5K Not New Place

Was having a cranky day. Decided to do the monthly 5K. At least get something done that day.

Found an interesting place. Did I really want the carbon footprint of driving 40 minutes each way just to check off a new place? I go back & forth on this question. [October Walks]

So, I went for a stomp around the pasture.

I forgot that the perimeter of pasture, complete with hill and winding dirt path takes 30 minutes per mile, rather than 20+ minutes. Finished in a solid 1:30.

10K into NYC virtual walk. [Archives]

Other

Biked twice. My plan is to bike once a week, on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, I am a fair weather biker. Doesn’t take much to keep the bike in the barn.

Biking down the Mississippi River. Can’t do that IRL. [Biking and Walking Virtually, Mississippi River, Table of Contents]

Onwards!
Katherine