Thursday, January 21, 2021

Inaugural's program

 I have been watching the replay of yesterday's swearing in, etc. and I am not bored at all.  One, I never realized Lady Gaga had such a swell set of pipes until I heard her sing the National Anthem.  Two, I thought poor Tom Hanks was freezing up there, no coat and no mittens.  Three, I always cry at "Amazing Grace" and I have never seen Garth Brooks without a hat.  Four, I thought Joe Biden did a great job in his speech.  I am not a fan of political rhetoric, but I have never heard anyone give a better speech, even though he had to conquer an impediment of stuttering to do it all these years.  I hope this is a beginning of the end of hate and the start of the peaceful land where everyone has a good job and a living salary.  I can hope, right?

I am passing time trying to get a handle on improving my photography, using books since I am stuck here (one room) and can't move around, or outside for a wide assortment of subjects or to do the exercises recommended in "25 Projects to improve your photography".  It is a pretty old book (it recommends different film speeds to achieve various effects) but with a little trial and error similar results can be done with a digital camera, and can be observed immediately after each exposure.  Beats the heck out of waiting for photos to be developed and printed at the grocery kiosk.  All the examples are in black and white, of course.  I know digital cameras have a setting for B/W but I am not sure if the result is done on the camera before shooting, or after on the image.  Guess I will have to check it out both ways.  Lord knows I couldn't find the answer in the owner's manual.

I have found and charged up 3 of the 6 Kindles, numbers one, two, and six.  I could explain how I came to own so many (six total.  I think.) but it will only make me sound like a hoarder (but not my house, which is routinely purged into T D K (that's Trash, Donate or Keep).  And I learned this long before Marie or Martha.  And when I finish, I don't feel joy at my tidying, only sweaty and achey.  I would like to be done, every 6 months or so, but the dust alone would give me a sneeze attack if I waited that long.  Right now it all needs to be plowed under, but I can't do it with my walker, and C has enough to do as it is.  As long as I can't write phone numbers on the dust next to the telephone, I'm good to go for now.

My mom did a clean house like no one I have ever met.  And she worked a 40 hour week as a cashier, so there wasn't a lot of time for the house and the yard (don't get me started on the lawn work.  Bear in mind that in FL the grass, weeds, shrubs and so on grow all year round.)  Anyway, guess who did all the chores? Right.  Just a couple of examples here.  Once I saw Mom outside after - just barely after - a hurricane, sweeping the driveway and the sidewalk where all the sticks and shrubs went; it was still raining.  And the wind scattered them back again.  One time Dad was teasing her that he knew a dirty place that she didn't know.  Finally he relented and told her it was the top of the kitchen door jamb; he was tall enough to see there and she wasn't.  Out came the ladder...  After a trip to the grocery store, she washed the tops of all the canned food.  After using the canned food, she washed (not rinsed) the inside of the empty can and then threw it away.  She wouldn't have a cardboard box in the house "because of the bugs" so packages were opened in the carport, and only the contents came inside.  I could go on and on, but it makes me itchy.  When she was near the end, at 80 years old, I went to her house to clean it up, and she didn't care.  That's how I knew she was nearly at the end; she didn't care.  









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