Dwarf Planet in Purple

OK, any day on which a Red Sox player becomes a first-ballot member of the Baseball Hall of Fame has to be a good day. Congratulations, David Ortiz!!

Still, clouds loom on the horizon. Julia (the cat) has high blood and urine sugar and dilute urine (with a bladder infection), so she is getting (expensive!) antibiotics to treat the last. Once the infection is fixed, she is going back to the vet to have her sugar tested again. I may have another (expensive!) diabetic cat on my hands.

Church work continues apace, as we trustees continue to grapple with the reality of having a smaller congregation and an aging physical plant. We are making slow progress on our two biggest repairs: replacing the deck and improving the HVAC in the Meeting House. (The deck is not a luxury item; it's a raised wooden platform that connects the two buildings and in fact is the only way to get in and out of the Meeting House.) At least we are getting a couple of prezzies from the county government: it will fix our water runoff problem AND pave our packed-gravel parking lot properly. (The water runoff comes from the surrounding neighborhood, but it is digging a big trench on our property. Long story there.)

I really, really need another source of income. I know I've been saying that for years, but it is really obvious now that my lifestyle is not sustainable. Please think positive job thoughts for me!

Where to begin ... ?

I guess I should just start with the personal deets. I'm in good health. After nine and a half years of freelancing, I'm really used to spending a lot of time at home. One of my clients is taking a long time to pay me, though, and since the stock market is doing its ultra-roller-coaster thing, I am extremely nervous about the tiny little sliver that's left of my retirement fund.

I am getting very good at using Zoom for videoconferencing. Heck, it even enables me to attend two different meetings (barony meeting and Toastmasters club officers, or church budget team and Toastmasters club officers) in different towns on the same evening. In the "real world" or "meatspace," I'd have to choose between one or the other.

The boy toy and I are taking turns going out shopping (because that's a recommendation). Yesterday I went to the local food co-op (really, a small supermarket) to get a few things that were 5 percent cheaper on the monthly "patron appreciation day." I couldn't help noticing how bare the paper-products shelves looked.


Today was *supposed* to be Opening Day for Major League Baseball. Ha ha ha, COVID-19 had other ideas. So MLB came up with the idea of picking a classic game from each team's history -- a winning game, of course -- and streaming it. For the Nationals they picked Game 7 of last year's World Series (of course) and for the Red Sox they picked Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, which was a lengthy and hard-fought victory when our dear Sox were down 3 games to 0. So, yeah, I actually listened to large chunks of both games.

During disasters, people do things they don't normally do. The boy toy has been baking bread -- he made a very tasty loaf of rosemary bread -- and then he moved on to something non-edible. Since the last round of hair dye we used left our hair feeling drier than usual, he decided to make an all-natural "deep conditioner" out of pumpkin puree and honey. We have lots of frozen pumpkin puree and non-frozen honey. He blended some of each together and this morning we doused our hair with it. His hair, which is quite a bit thicker than mine, came out great, but mine came out ... gritty. I have *not* had a haircut in over a year and the little bits of orange pumpkin pulp got caught in the split ends. Or something. Bleah.

I have been giving the boy toy haircuts for several years now, and after today, he actually volunteered to give me a trim. At least a couple of inches. Another sign of the times. :-)

Finally, something that has not been covered as much as it should have been: Happy 80th Birthday, Nancy Patricia Pelosi! What a nice middle name you have. :-)

Got the car. First thing, I broke off the driver's door handle. Another thing to the list of things to be fixed....

Got the article done ON TIME. Despite my computer eating some of my prose. Quite chuffed about that, actually.

Electrical work required by the condo association (replacement of circuit-breaker box) has been completed successfully.

Red Sox win first two games of World Series. YAY!!!!!

Working early voting starting tomorrow. Need to say good night....

Relive it here. And here.

Can't believe it's been 10 years since that fully-eclipsed-moon magical night when the Red Sox finally won the World Series.

Game 1 of the World Series is in the books and it is a SOX VICTORY!!! Boy, those Cardinals need to learn how to catch a ball. This ain't high school, gentlemen!!

Now, I am just finishing off my second bottle of Sam Adams Octoberfest tonight, but I must say, this is one weird (NSFW) music video about Massachusetts by some Norwegian group. Now, that's NOT Boston City Hall, people don't refer to "the Massachusetts" and "the Suffolk County," and the "perfect harmony" bit certainly glosses over the whole Boston busing crisis. And where the hell did they find Pingryville? Even I had to look that one up!

I have to start by mentioning that I'm watching the ESPN Sunday night baseball game, Red Sox versus Yanks at Fenway. Bottom of the third and the Sox are threatening to score. Hope they do -- this is the rubber game of the series, and the season has not been kind so far to the 1-7 Sox.

Anyhow ... on Saturday I went to Lochmere's Night on the Town event at the Elks camp in Annapolis. I hadn't pre-registered because the boy toy had been wanting to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival, but when the weather forecast was cloudy and cool and possibly damp, he declined. I didn't get there too early -- indeed, I had to dodge a HUGE traffic backup on the Beltway and take the back roads to U.S. Route 50. So lunch was technically sold out by the time I arrived; I had to wait till mid-afternoon and then snag some leftover food.

Fortunately, I was just planning to have a relax-an-event anyway. While awaiting the opportunity to nosh, I sat in on a medieval-pinwheel-making class taught by Mistress Sigrid, and I made my own lil' pinwheel from wood and parchment paper. (I'll probably give it to Eleanor the Naked Baby or any other small children who come visiting at our Pennsic encampment.) I browsed the baronial yard sale known as "Lochmart," I chatted with some of my fellow heralds, and during evening court I worked on the practice tablet-weaving band that has been sitting around the house for a while now. (Actually, I straightened out the cards so that they were all going the same way, and I practiced just the plain old "two turns forward, two turns back" shtick. But even weaving without a pattern can be tricky if you keep getting distracted as I do/did.)

Of course feast was sold out too, so I just came home and noshed on some satisfying leftovers for supper. I do love to feast, but it's probably just as well I saved $9.

Today was mostly cloudy too, even though previous forecasts had said "sunny." *sigh* So I slept kind of late and missed the service again, and then I dawdled and was late for the Wicca 101 class. So I learned something about grounding and centering, but I missed the part about casting a circle. Darn.

Then the boy toy settled in for some laundry and cleaning, and I was OK until I came across a bag that had a lot of stuff from 1981 in it. I could tell it was from 1981 because of the dates on the letters from my parents. Mom wrote most of the letters and signed them "Mom and Dad," but a couple of times, my father wrote a separate message and slipped it in the envelope, and those notes were signed "Daddy." I didn't cry, but I got all sad and thoughtful. Having two parents ... that was such a long time ago now.

(For those of you who don't already know: my Dad died the year after I graduated from college, and my mother died 14 years ago. So this is not a divorce thing.)

Some homemade chicken soup and a great Josh Beckett pitching performance, though, and I'm doing better now.