CPAP, night 2

May 18, 2016, 5:18 am

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- My watch monitors my sleeping habits and says I got almost four hours of deep sleep, which is double what it typically said before.
- I only remember waking up three times. The first two were typical bathroom breaks and the third was just waking up feeling quite rested at 3:15am, 45 minutes before my alarm. Sam was on my bed and I just snoozed with him until the alarm went off.
- My setup is a nostril pillow because of the beard, thankfully I've managed to keep my mouth closed without adding the chin strap. Right now my only complaint is that the skin around the edges of my nostrils and directly below hurts. A lot. That's with the medium size pillow, so I'll try the large one next.

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A house divided

May 18, 2016, 3:52 pm

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After a week cooped up in Garrett's room most of the time, Sam was getting a bit restless, so we decided to switch to an upstairs/downstairs plan to keep the boys separate. Right now, Sam's upstairs, and Steve's down in the basement. Hopefully Steve is enjoying it because he always hates the way I keep them upstairs weekday mornings while I'm down here working. Last time I was up there, Sam was asleep on Garrett's bed, which is funny since he has the run of that level. Except the main bath. That door's usually open, but I closed it so he can't get into my CPAP stuff that I washed this morning and left to dry on the counter. It's cool to see that Sam's been hunting the toys and leaving them around as offerings even with the collar on. Here he is enjoying the really nice couch up there that we almost never use.





I might make my trips down to Edgewater Beach a weekly thing for now, and decided this morning would be great for it.



Man, I need new wiper blades. My friend that I work with is in the process of taking ownership of an auto shop, so I figure I can wait a couple of weeks and get them from her. I also really need to get it washed, which I always put off for a very long time. Anyway the smears on the window are mostly only visible in the shadows of the trees and I like the way it looks toward the end. That sunrise was a real treat to walk around in. This is definitely one of the times where I recommend looking over on flickr because I took far too many photos to include here. I also had a fun time playing with Snapchat while I walked.







I really love when there are clouds in front of and behind a mountain.




Here's a good shot of the former dock site where the graffiti was revealed when they tore it down. I saw that heron fly over there looking like a pterodactyl and he stayed there the rest of the time I was down there, almost an hour at least.



I tried putting my phone in my safety harness to get a time lapse of some walking. The results were promising, but not worth using because it was too bright. And I ended up needing my phone soon anyway because the sky took a turn for the dramatic.





3.8 miles in 1:20, 8,562 steps

I'm not sure if I've ever done four laps before, but I was in the mood for it. The program indicates that I climbed 120 feet, but that's four very slow climbs of 30 feet each and I certainly didn't feel like it was anything but flat.

Back at home, the air plant I've named Monica continues to amaze. I think she might have a baby soon, too.



Steve's having an afternoon freakout now. He usually runs upstairs and around a lot when he gets in a mood and hopefully he's not too put out by the door at the top of the stairs being closed. It's definitely weird having a litter box and food station down here.

CPAP, night 3

May 19, 2016, 6:05 am

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Right now the plan is to clean my gear every other day, so yesterday I had to pull it all apart and wash the gaskets, humidifier tray, face harness, and nasal pillow. The strap that holds the harness to my head will need occasional cleaning, but it rests on my hair, so I'm not as worried about it as the parts that lay on my skin. I hand-washed it all with Dawn in the bathroom sink, put it on a plastic plate to dry, and closed the bathroom door on the off chance that Sam decided to come in and jump on the counter. I've only ever seen Steve jump up there and he's living downstairs right now, but it's always a good idea to get into the habit immediately. That door is normally propped open because I like to let the air flow throughout the house during the day, and if it wasn't propped, it might slam closed.

But there were still some droplets of water on the pieces, so I may just use the hair dryer. And my nostrils were killing me last night, so I used a little Neosporin before bed, and the nasal pillow will be a wash today. I'm still trying to find what the recommended moisturizer is, the brands specifically sold for this are ten dollars an ounce! Ridiculous.

My sleep last night was pretty great. I only got up once to go to the bathroom, and that was also the only time I drank any water. Before the CPAP when I was snoring with my mouth open, my mouth and throat would get so dry. Wasn't an issue at all last night. The second and final time I woke up, there was a bit of moisture in my nose and I was just trying to lay very still and go back to sleep. After a couple of minutes, I decided to check the time and see if it might be worth it to take off the mask and go blow my nose, and it was 3:59! My alarm is set for 4am, so if you think about it, I really only woke up once throughout the night. Pretty amazing.

Today's a swim day and I expect it to be pretty uneventful. But my iPod's charged so at least I'll have music this time.

Sam's tail was sent in for a full biopsy after it was removed and we got the results yesterday. The results confirmed myxoid fibrosarcomas, which is cancer, but the margins are clear. Only five more days until the sutures come out and the collar comes off. But we still get to have supervised time where he doesn't have to wear it in the meantime.



I really have no idea why the back of my head has been so hard on that poor loveseat. Garrett likes to sit on a blanket so his side looks perfect. But it's perfect under a blanket.

One thing that's nice to see is that Sam's still hunting his toys and leaving them as offerings around the house while wearing the collar. I managed to catch him yowling with the duck last night.



I'm keeping my bedroom door open while we're doing the upstairs/downstairs thing and he spent the whole night in my bed, which was nice. I'd leave my bedroom door open all the time if they'd behave, but they usually don't.

Addendum

May 19, 2016, 9:49 am

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I realized when I was in the pool that it was stupid of me to balk at the $10 price tag on the recommended product for my nostrils. What's $10 compared to possibly a couple of months of relief? Plus, I still don't know how much the nostril pillows go for if you have to pay out of pocket, but I suspect it might be more costly to replace one than to maintain it. So I popped over to the medical supply center when I left the pool and grabbed this.



Looking forward to trying that, along with the next size up of nasal pillow. I've been using the medium but the large might be more comfortable.

That swim team I recently shared the pool with was in the pool when I arrived. At least, I think it was them. Same coach, but only six swimmers, as opposed to fifteen or so last time. Have a lot of people dropped out? Who can say. It was nice that there were so few because we weren't in each other's way at all.

And just like how I noticed before that they entered the pool without showering, this time they went from the sauna to the hot tub without rinsing off, walking right by the sign that says they should. The lifeguards were around and didn't say anything, so I suppose they don't care and mentioning it would make me the annoyance. I always thought it was a bit odd that they want you to rinse after the sauna because I'm sure people swimming and sitting in the hot tub also sweat directly into the water, but I do as they ask.

Speaking of lifeguards, Zoey the swim center cat jumped up onto one of the raised lifeguard chairs today. It was quite cute and I wish I had a picture. She's free to come and go as she pleases and I've seen her wander in the front door behind people as they enter. The other day when they were bringing the new lockers in, they had the door propped open for a long time and I saw her looking at it as if to say, "Can I go out this one? What's going on?"

A very nice song played on my iPod just in time to be the last song of my swim and it reminded me that I've been meaning to recommend that album here. I discovered the amazing-but-stupidly-named Got a Girl via the Secretly Timid podcast, and loved the song they played so much that I bought the album immediately. Got a Girl is Dan the Automator with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who happens to be one of my favorite actors. I love that she's also made such great music. Same goes for Milla Jovovich. Anyway, the whole album is good, but this is probably my favorite track from it and it's such a treat when it comes on.



I've reached an age where there's just not too much new music being made that I care about, which is fine, because I've amassed a huge library over the years. So when Information Society, Imperial Teen, and my other old favorites release something new, I'll buy it for sure. And I recently picked up the new Nervous Curtains EP, also because of Secretly Timid. My friend Nan who's on that show contributed vocals to their amazing cover of The Visitors by ABBA.

Oh and our friends Jenn and Jason have an awesome band named Mutiny Mutiny and you should go buy everything they have. I'm not just saying that because we're friends, I also like their music and always keep it in the rotation.

SchadenFriday

May 20, 2016, 10:35 am

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Friday!

May 20, 2016, 4:42 pm

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Night four with the CPAP was pretty great. My lubed-up nose handled the gear well and the larger size is nice. One side effect of all the extra deep sleep was a ton of dreaming, including a very long, not-so-great one about family. My mom's stepdad, who was indeed an asshole in real life, was movie bad guy awful and the terrible near-hostage situation he was holding everyone in just kept going and going. Oh well. Again I only got up once for a bathroom break.



I decided it'd be a Gulch day starting at the bottom. The heavy equipment is all over in the parking area and they seem to be done with the new work that goes up the hill. But I parked on the street to be sure.



The plants are growing like crazy in there and that's just one of the reasons I'm enjoying using the trekking poles. If you hold them upright just slightly ahead of your legs, they push everything out of the way.



Decided to climb all the way up to the top via the Northernmost trail. It was nice to be able to see the sky when I got up there.




And when I re-entered by the ball fields, I got what I think is my favorite across-the-gulch shot yet.



Lovely flowers.



This makes me want a fern. It's not really in the cards, though.




3.87 miles in 1:55, 10,855 steps, 396ft gain

I wasn't really planning on going back the same way I came like that on the Eastern side. I actually wanted to go down the center, but took a wrong turn and followed a path that I forgot goes in a loop. That's fine, though. It's one of my favorite paths there, and it gave me a chance to refresh my mental map. I was confused because I happened upon a shortcut I recently found that leads up to the big bike stunts area, but I was confused about how to get there via the regular way. That loop goes all the way around it and I forgot that.

Here's a shot I took of where they've cleared heading up the hill for the water main, when I arrived.



I decided when I got back to climb up and see how far it goes. Turns out it's all the way to a residential street up there, which makes sense, because the water main would service those homes.



It's hard to really convey how big it is, but you can see the road down below in this picture and it's pretty far away.



I'm curious what they'll do about that cleared part once the project is finished. It was a natural barrier before and it's not like you can just magically make everything overgrown again. My suggestion would be to create a new path for that neighborhood to use to walk down into the woods, but they might object to that. Obviously I'll be watching what happens.



I'm happy that I finally found a nice little frame for the two smaller drawings by mischiefduck. They've just been leaning on the wall by the bigger ones for years now and would blow over all the time.



Friday's also air plant watering day, so here's what I currently have. I count 40 plus the piece of moss. Another 15 are on the way.



The shelves I recently put up in my room are now full of items I've found to put air plants in. A few are in the Etsy shop, but most of them aren't yet. There's no point in putting out tons of listings all at once, so I'll do one or two a week. Maybe.

I sent an update to the woman who sold me my first air plant to let her know that it's now a much more serious hobby for me and that if she ever needs any urgently and can't wait for shipping she can come to me. We ended up becoming Facebook friends, too.

CATURDAY

May 21, 2016, 6:00 am

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BONUS Saturdogs

A great Everett Sunday

May 22, 2016, 6:26 pm

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Garrett left on a business trip this morning, so rather than go out for my walk early and miss him, I stayed in until he left, then headed out to Spencer Island.





I was worried heading out that I'd end up running into a bunch of people since it was later than my usual time by almost three hours. In order to minimize that possibility, I stayed away from the paved side and went straight to the hunting trail, then the island loop. One of the first things I saw was a hummingbird!



Another green, gorgeous day.





There's a heron in the center of this one.



The amount of light was pretty good for nice photos.




4.8 miles in 1:46, 11,170 steps



I didn't even bother reviewing the video from the drive out to the island, but I knew the one from the trip home would be really cool, and wasn't disappointed.

After I got home and showered, I messaged our friend Melissa who lives near it to ask if she wanted to meet me at the Farmers' Market and then do lunch, and she said yes! I generally don't make spontaneous plans, so it was nice that she happened to be available.



You may recognize the new location from recent posts of mine. It's nice having out there in the park on the water now, there's tons of open space just a few steps away.



Brunch was at Sol Food, a local favorite Garrett and I went to for the first time back on February 15th, right after he bought me my first air plant. I discovered today that they have a back patio! We moved out there and enjoyed it for a bit, but when it started raining they had to bring us back in because they're not allowed to carry hot food through the rain. I had a burger with manchego, chimichurri, and tomato. It was great, but chimichurri makes the bottom of the bun all oily, so I ended up eating it with a knife and fork. The fries there are otherworldy.





That's Melissa in the lower left corner of the second one. I didn't even notice she was in the shot at the time. Spending the evening with DVDs now. I watched the remake of Point Break, but barely paid attention to it. Now I'm watching the old classic Creepshow and wish my sister Faith was here. We saw it in the theater and during the cockroaches segment, one of us reached for the popcorn and brushed her leg, causing her to scream, jump, and throw the popcorn everywhere. At least, that's how she tells it, I can barely remember.

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A different kind of bucket list

May 24, 2016, 5:07 am

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I went to Japanese Gulch with mainly a simple hike in mind, but also a new goal. scearley tweeted a picture of a Honey Bucket Selfie contest, and since I encounter Honey Buckets all the time on my walks, I figured I'd enter as many times I could. The grand prize is your own portable toilet, or $1,000, which is what I'd opt for. There's currently an extra one at the gulch because of the water main work, so it made sense to start there in case they take it away soon.





Down the road a bit on the way to the main entrance to get a picture of the other one that's always there, I turned back for another view of the cleared hill I talked about previously. This puts it in perspective more.



The one that's regularly there. I couldn't get as nice a picture as I'd like to because part of the project they're still working on is right next to it and it's surrounded by orange safety stuff. Would have been nice to get a picture of the dog park in the background.



I wasn't planning on going very far up either side because I forgot to put the mosquito repellent on until after I got dressed and wasn't sure how effective it was after being sprayed onto my clothes. But the Honey Bucket is right by the OG trail and since I have my trekking poles, I can go up that way and rejoin the center trail via this scary bit.




3.85 miles in 1:34, 9,508 steps, 385ft gain

Just a simple trip up to the top and the end of the access road I like, and back down. Nothing particularly interesting about the drives either direction to warrant a hyperlapse, so I didn't process those. One person cracked me up by signaling left before turning right, so I made a vine of that when I got home.



Had a very quiet day at work and decided to go out for lunch. I decided to finally try the sushi place near Garrett's office for yet another chirashi bowl. This might be the best one I've had, though my one complaint is that the bowl wasn't shaped very well for getting the last third or so out with the chopsticks.



I've been putting off getting my car washed for a long time, so I did that on the way home. I really love how they light the soap up now.





Oh yay, I finally figured out how to embed Instagram videos!

I paid for the full service car wash and after they filled my tires, they pointed out that my left rear tire had a screw in it, so I drove straight to the tire shop across the parking lot from our neighborhood bar and waited there to hear the news. They said it was too old to repair and that all four were worn down to unsafe tread levels, and I should replace them. My little trip out to lunch ended up being very expensive!



But it's totally fair. The car was free, and when we had it inspected when we took possession, another location of the same shop said the tires had a little more life left in them. And the guy was right, it drives so much smoother now. Between the new tires and the fresh wash, it's almost like a new car. A new used one.



And my two new air plant orders came! The ten toward the left were a really good deal on sale, otherwise I might not have gotten quite so many. There's not really room in my display for all of these so hopefully I'll get some order soon.



I love the type on the left, the bulbosa. The way the leaves spread out allow them to hold on to stuff and they're easy to display.

Getting things done, putting others off

May 24, 2016, 3:04 pm

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I keep forgetting to mention, but those shoes I recently bought? The first ones in years that weren't athletic shoes. Yeah those are going to get put away and worn when I need to dress nicer. They're not uncomfortable to have on, but walking in them, even a short distance, is awful. Completely exhausting. I'm beginning to wonder if people who won't walk anywhere just have never had the right shoes. In related good news, I noticed that a pair of the type I've been wearing for years that I love that was sitting in the garage is actually in really good shape, so I washed those and brought them inside. One more pair to wear after I can't stand the current one any longer. That won't be too long from now, both the heels on the inside have torn open, exposing some plastic. But they don't hurt yet.

Sam's followup visit for the amputation and his concurrent dental work was this morning. The tooth extraction sites are in perfect shape, and he's allowed to eat crunchy treats again. The stitches where his tail used to be are out! They've asked me to keep the cone on a couple more days, which I wasn't expecting, but it makes sense. It's off right now and he's sitting next to me grooming, but if he goes for the stump and won't stop, the cone goes back on. And of course it'll always be on when he's not supervised. But I've decided both cats get the run of the house again; I'm not worried about Steve doing anything to the stump.

And of course Sam's grooming almost incessantly since he hasn't been able to much lately.

It's a little messy downstairs because of the second temporary cat setup. I'll be cleaning up down here as well as doing other housework before Garrett gets back, but not until the day before or even the day of. It just doesn't make sense to clean up too early. Sam puked up a hairball on Garrett's bedspread last night, but if I wash it any sooner than Thursday, that's almost like asking for it to happen again.

I had a pretty uneventful, but good, swim this morning. I got there right when they opened so I'd have plenty of time between it and the vet appointment. It's been a while since I've been there so early and I prefer it a bit later, but it was fine.



I just got back a bit ago from the grocery store and a flooring remnant store across the street from it. Garrett's dad made the cat tower we have downstairs and the carpet on it is trashed. I hoped to find some cool color of carpet, but they mostly had tan. At least I was able to find something a little bit interesting, and it was $15. Most of the remnants were $45.



Here's Sam a bit ago enjoying the view but not noticing that Tito was relaxing outside. Actually both Sam and Steve were looking the same direction, at nothing, but I couldn't get all three of them in a good shot.



I added two items to my etsy shop today. I could actually add tons more, but as I've mentioned, it doesn't really make sense to create a huge backlog. Even though I have 55 plants right now.




Thankfully this nice art piece that my friend Barbara gave me out of the stuff she's getting rid of while downsizing holds a lot of plants. This really helps manage my inventory.

Designated Beach Day

May 25, 2016, 6:56 pm

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I'm falling into a pretty steady pattern of swimming on Tuesday and Thursday with a walk at Edgewater Beach on Wednesdays, which I really look forward to. I got there before the gates opened today, so I parked by a tiny little park down the street. Good alternative right now while there's still construction at the gulch.



I was pretty tired because I stayed up until 10pm after bingo last night. They were selling jell-o shots for 50 cents and my friends and I had one each, and I think just the vodka in that was enough to mix with my other drinks in an icky way. Steve also woke me up at 3am and never let me go back to sleep. And I don't really know what happened, but I woke up with my CPAP next to me on the bed. The website says it was on for less than three hours. What I'm curious about is if I turned it off in my sleep, or if it came off and the machine shuts itself down if it's not being worn after a while.

Bingo was fun. An old friend introduced me to her sister-in-law Lisa who lives in Lynnwood via Facebook and she came so we could meet for the first time over dinner, drinks, and bingo. Melissa also joined us. Lisa won two rounds of bingo and Melissa won one. It's an ongoing joke that I never win, and I'm fine with it because the prizes are silly anyway. I keep coming pretty close, though. On two different blackout rounds, I had 24 of the 25 spaces.



I asked Kendra, the host, if she'd be interested in having me remake the sheet of patterns. Not only did she say yes, but she said we should come up with new ones. This excites me.

Anyway, even though I slept less and not very well, and didn't feel so great, walking felt awesome. But as soon as I stopped, I was exhausted and had a headache. I had a pretty good nap this afternoon, though.

Down at the beach, I created two more entries for the Honey Bucket selfie contest.




There are more at the ferry terminal and I tried unsuccessfully to get good photos from far away. That's fine, though. I'll get them next week. It's good to spread the entries out anyway. I'm happy to report that I might have a pretty good chance judging by other entries on the hashtag. Not only are lots of them not even selfies, but people aren't following all the contest rules.

Sometimes the HDR mode kicks in just right on the phone. I love the way this one looks.



Rat graffiti I've never spotted before.






3.96 miles in 1:31, 9,401 steps

I don't usually go so far West, but I had some fun ideas for Snapchats featuring stuff in that park. Fun morning. And I've had a pretty productive day as well. Made excellent breakfast and lunches, and did a lot of housework.

Swimtrack

May 26, 2016, 5:48 pm

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My little iPod has been doing a pretty great job lately. Mostly it's shuffling in Information Society, Orgy, and Got a Girl, and that's just fine by me. At first I thought I had accidentally turned on the "play in order" mode when I heard three Orgy songs in a row, but then something else came on. If you aren't familiar with them, they burst onto the scene with a cover of "Blue Monday" by New Order, which I think is amazing. A lot of people hate covers, though, and even more think New Order is somehow untouchable. Whatever. They had a few more somewhat popular tracks and then faded from view. But a quick glance around and I see they're pretty active, so I should probably see what their albums that I haven't heard before sound like. Here's a very neat video they made.



Speaking of covers, and Information society, and what I'm listening to in the pool, I know I've mentioned that I love Orders of Magnitude, InSoc's latest. But it's all covers and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I only recognized a few of the songs! After a long afternoon of housework (Garrett gets back tonight and our friend Ana visits tomorrow) I decided to finally sit down and make a playlist on YouTube of the original versions of the songs from Orders of Magnitude. They're not what I would consider a twee or wacky band in any way, so a few of the songs on the album are delightful and surprising.

Tomorrow I use up the last half day of my 7.5 use-or-lose vacation days I was instructed to take by the end of the fiscal year, plus another half day from my current pool of PTO. Garrett's also got the day off since today's a travel day. Not sure if I'll go out for a walk in the morning or not, but on days off I don't feel a huge obligation to get out there.

Today at the pool, there were two guys there who may or may not be part of that ever-dwindling swim team. I suspect they were, because they did the same routine I've seen them do before. No coach was there, though. Maybe even he's quit!

SchadenFriday

May 27, 2016, 6:00 am

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CATURDAY

May 28, 2016, 6:00 am

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BONUS Saturdogs

Hoppin' down the bunny trail

May 29, 2016, 2:40 pm

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I've known for a few days that I'd be walking at the Lowell Riverfront Trail today so I could get Honey Bucket selfies for the contest.



I'm not even sure there were any there when I first started going there. This one above was previously near the railroad tracks and was being used by workers there. I have no clue what they were doing, but even now there are signs warning that there's construction in the area. Nothing looks different to me. At least not there.



Way at the end of the trail near the new residential construction, there's these.



And I of course got my very favorite shot in the area.



Other than that, nothing new to report. So mostly I sent stuff to Snapchat. The rabbits were quite brave today. I got very close.







3.56 miles in 1:26, 8,714 steps

Nothing particularly exciting happened on the drive out there, but I liked the rain on the windshield on the way back.



Once I got home, I noticed there was only one can of cat food, and we go through two a day, so I went to the store to grab some more. Glad I did it when I did, because I saw these two a block behind the Safeway.



I showed this photo to the checker and he said he's seen them crossing the extremely busy street the Safeway is on! Apparently they go back and forth between the park on our side of it, and the cemetery on the other. Hope they're careful.

The shirt I bought from the fundraiser the Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary arrived today. Not sure if the color is right for me so it may be a house shirt. We'll see.



Other than that, I've just been hanging out at home and chilling with Garrett and the cats. I watched both versions of The Bling Ring.

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A true day off

May 30, 2016, 6:25 pm

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I woke up at about 5:30 today with no alarm and it was already so bright that I really didn't want to go out for a walk. A swim sounded nice, though, and I was surprised to find on their website that the Snohomish Aquatic Center wasn't closed for the day. So after I finished my coffee, I figured I'd head out for a swim if Garrett was still asleep by the time I could get ready. But he emerged as I closed the box I keep my goggles and iPod in. That was fine, though. It's good to relax sometimes. Rather than have breakfast right away, I decided to run to WinCo so I could get the stuff to make German potato salad for our lunch with Bev and Dennis. It came out great.





The sunlight streaming in did a neat thing while I was cooking.



Monica's doing great.



Obligatory Bella photo.



Bev isn't feeding this squirrel as much for fear that he'll be around too much and eat her garden. I kinda think if she feeds him, the garden will be safer.

A simple day in four parts

May 31, 2016, 4:46 pm

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1: Swim

2:


3: X-Men: Apocalypse

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Tuesday vibes

June 1, 2016, 2:21 pm

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The four-day work week after a Monday off is always a little weird. Swimming yesterday was the normal thing to do on a Tuesday, but not the normal thing to do on the first work day. Going down to the beach today on a Wednesday and getting the recycling and garbage ready when I got home was also normal, but not. It'd be great if we'd switch to a four-day work week, but when they're rare, they're weird. The beach sure was nice, though.



I could tell during the drive down that it'd be a nice day for cloudspotting. Ended up sharing eight photos to the group I belong to today, which I think is the most I've done so far.












Two more entries for that silly contest.




As always, there were tons of visual delights, and I had a great time taking pictures. This song came on while I was by the lighthouse, though, and cast a bit of shadow over the morning. I don't even know how soon the ferry terminal will move and take everything away, but it's already starting to feel like every photo I take is part of a love letter to the beach before it's gone.











I've never seen the tide here this low. It was out far enough to form little islands in the water, and I could walk from one part of the beach to the other where its normally underwater.



I particularly love how clearly you can see three rows of mountains here. It looks like the titanium jewelry we used to make at a shop where I did a mentorship during high school. Except not all purple and pink and green.



This is interesting because the beach is in Everett and you have to go through Mukilteo to get to it, and then the terminal is even further in that direction. Not sure how they came up with Mukilteo for the address.



I've said before that I have a knack for walking in areas on their garbage day and this neighborhood is no exception. At least I don't go by any houses when I'm at the beach.





Finally got another copy of the Light single by KMFDM, my old workout disc. I listened to this--and nothing else--while exercising, six days a week, for three years. That's around 1,000 plays! For some reason, only four of the nine tracks were in our library, so I had to fix that. Looking forward to hearing the whole thing again.



Heard from our friend Barbara that today was time to grab some frames and a few other things, the last batch of awesome stuff I've gotten as she downsizes. She lives the same direction as I went this morning, and I wasn't originally planning on sharing the videos, but they were doing road work and the small backup I waited in was nothing compared to how shockingly long it was as I headed back.



I make a quick appearance in this one because she asked me to put something in the mailbox, which is a bit down the road.



Here's Barbara's cat Drama, the less elusive of the two she has. Still pretty elusive, though.

The classics are always a sure thing

June 2, 2016, 11:32 am

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Years ago before I even discovered podcasts, I'd mostly listen to music at work. Streaming stuff so I could hear things I wasn't already familiar and once in a while find something new to buy. My favorite service for this purpose of all time is Digitally Imported, also known as DI.FM. If you like electronic and dance music, that's a great place to hear it. I just counted, they've currently got 91 channels. If you're after a particular electronic genre, you can probably find a station dedicated to it.

The station I was most drawn to was Electro House, and I soon discovered my favorite show, DJ Anna Kiss's Lip Locked. It's syndicated on tons of stations, but what ended up working best for me was to listen in iTunes so I wouldn't have to tune in at a certain time.

She's really cool and we're friends on various social networks, and I even got the chance to hang out with her for a while in Portland when I went to her show. That night was a bit of an ordeal for me as she didn't even go on stage until 1am, about four hours after I arrived at the venue. It was still a great night and I've listened to the recording so many times.


There I am in the front row. That's where the icon for this post came from, too.

I didn't make it down the second time she played Portland, but notlostonme and I got in for free when she played in Seattle, even though our names never made it onto the guest list.

What you've noticed by now if you've read the descriptions in the links is that she's a very versatile DJ who plays a lot of genres. To me, that's the best. Unfortunately, from what I can gather, someone with a vendetta against her used her versatility as a basis for a coordinated campaign of complaints to DI.FM and she lost her spot. So that's a bummer, but it's just one of her online venues. She fell out of the habit of updating iTunes, so even though I've kept up with her comings and goings online, it's actually been a while since I heard her show! I mentioned it a few days ago in a Facebook comment and she almost immediately got through her entire backlog, and everything's up on iTunes. The least I can do is try to listen.

The podcasts are an hour each, and that's how long I swim, so it's perfect. This morning I emptied everything off my waterproof iPod except the new KMFDM single, and put on the latest Lip Locked. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I hit the button, it wouldn't shuffle onto Lip Locked. When I got home, I pulled everything off but it, and tested to make sure it played. It did, so that's what I'll listen to when I get back to the pool on Tuesday, and I'll work my way backward with the old ones and forward as they come out for a while. I'm pretty excited.

While it was a bummer that I didn't get to hear Lip Locked today, the KMFDM single was a good consolation prize. Listening to all those tracks again really took me back, and also made my hour in the pool fly by. It was a strange day at the swim center. Two lap swimmers and one woman in the deep end when I arrived, and I had the pool to myself for the last half hour of my swim while one guy used the hot tub and one used the sauna. The sauna guy left before I got out of the pool, and I ended up in there for a while before I left. I eventually realized that the instructor who coaches lap swimmers on Tuesday and Thursday wasn't there, so maybe he notified a bunch of people ahead of time that he wouldn't be around, and they all skipped the day.


Zoey joined me in the locker room! She also spent most of my swim hanging out on one of the diving boards, which I've never seen her do before.


The boys were super cute this morning.




Today's breakfast was a nod to the kind of sandwiches I was making during the height of my bagel frenzy. Lemon juice squeezed directly onto both sides of an onion bagel, cream cheese, pork left over from dinner, and cabbage shreds. The only thing that would make it more like the classic version would be romaine instead of cabbage.

Late-breaking news

June 2, 2016, 4:01 pm

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Extra adorableness from Sam.