12 Oakdale

Turns out the 40+-year-old VHS player does work, and I found a store-bought tape to try. Picture quality not great, but we plunged ahead. Unfortunately, the 2nd cassette would not eject. I am pretty sure we pushed buttons faster than that analog machine could handle. After watching  many YouTubes, we figured how to take the cover off and remove the stuck cassette. Unfortunately, it meant cutting the tape, but there were more to try. Which we did without putting the cover back on so we could watch what was happening. Play, rewind, fast forward all worked, but it was obvious my treasured tapes of Stephanie as a baby, my learning to wind sail, kids’ birthday parties, etc were all too damaged to keep.  I had hoped to play them on the big tv and take some short shots with our phones. No one wants the hours and hours we recorded when having a video camera was a novelty. Sigh, I accepted the reality. To the trash.  Years ago, I had transferred some of the tapes to a thumb drive....

4:38 AM  Up at o’dark hundred because I’m still a little on European time. Gracie approves because she gets fed even earlier. I am drinking tea again today, rather than coffee. I haven’t become a tea drinker by choice. Before we left, I efficiently used up all our coffee beans. Then I rescheduled the delivery of bird-friendly coffee and messed up the dates. Yesterday, we managed to forget to add coffee to the grocery list and didn’t think to buy any while we were there. Three’s a charm? I’d blame the last on jet lag, but the second was more likely to old age. Arrg. However, I am giving myself kudos for figuring out how to put my photos in a grid on blog pages. (See previous post as an example.) I certainly don’t know the coding language, or even which one it is, but I remember enough to be able to read the HTML version. Eventually I may make pretty edges and more complicated layouts, but this is good enough for now. We worked hard yesterday, getting all of our trip clothing washed....

About all I can say for my jog this morning is that I did it, and it was 10 second pace faster than the 7th-week jog last time. Certainly, noting to get excited about, but I was out there, after taking 4 days off. The two red shouldered hawks huddled together on the power line didn’t look like they had much energy either. 51° makes birds fluffy.  Yesterday, crows and hawks were mobbing the great horned owl that was sitting in Nancy’s pine tree. I’ve been hearing a pair call for the past week. I still can’t figure where their nest could be. This week, I’ve had trouble getting motivated to do much of anything. I started by getting out a box of photographs to look for pictures of Sean. These were ones I paid to have scanned onto a cd years ago and never even unsealed the box when they were returned. Even though the pictures were grouped with labels, I became overwhelmed. Every time I’d start to look at them, I just couldn’t decide what to do. Then I got the insurance policy renewal fo...

We celebrated Epiphany by putting away our Christmas decorations. We were supposed to be ambassadors at LAWD, but it began raining in the night and continued all morning. Not weather that encourages first time visitors. I had my own epiphany: rather than put away all the decorations with the idea that I’d go through them in the fall (hasn’t happens the past 2 years, even though on the calendar), why not decide which ones I want to keep and box the rest up for donation? Aha!  I cleared our dining room table for the discards. I was ruthless. Out went all the shiny balls, even the ones from the 50’s and 60’s I’d collected. We aren’t having Christmas trees anymore so they aren’t needed. I had a moment of possible tears for our past, a brief wish we were still young with children at home. Sigh. We aren’t, life is good now too. The martini glasses with hand-pained Rudolph’s: gone. Box of large jingle bells I have used once: out. So on and so forth.  By the time I was done, we had on...