Monday, June 13, 2016

Early Monday Morning

* That Saturday trip kind of ate my weekend. I didn't have a lot of energy to do much after church Sunday. The biggest thing was to go out and cut a bunch of blackberry (it's a wild plant and doesn't make good fruit, but is super invasive) and other weeds out of my side yard. I did this because the city included with everyone's water bill this month a list of what constitutes code violations ("tall weeds" are one, though most of my yard is better than my neighbors' on that front) and I just don't want to do that tango of getting written up again.

Also, with trash pick up today I could put some of the more noxious stuff (the so-called honeyvine, which has a stinky sap and also will spread like wildfire if you don't keep cutting it out) in the trash cart. Brush pickup isn't for a couple more weeks but I went ahead and stacked the branches I cut in the usual place; I don't think you get in trouble for that.

* One of the things that distresses me about adult life is the sheer amount of "maintenance" required: you have to exercise nearly every day if you want to be in good shape. You have to check your various account balances regularly to make sure nothing got messed up. If you have a yard, you either have to pay a person or you have to go out at least once a week and remove weeds and mow and do stuff like trim hedges.

* I also went out and worked because I was sick of the news. I watched some of the reports because I still labor under the delusion that an adult needs to know what's going on in the world, but I got so sickened by the political spin that was spinning up in re: the Orlando nightclub shooting. I dunno. When something like this happens and I see the various bits of political spin and the like, I think of the old story about the blind men and the elephant: someone is grabbing the leg and going "It's a tree!," someone else is feeling of the side and going, "No, it's a wall!".... It's a terrible thing that happened and there are going to be a lot of people mourning someone they loved. And that's the main thing that strikes me, and also the fact that there are a lot of people who feel unsafe now (though in the world, with how it is now, there aren't really any of us who are safe....I know this all too well working on a college campus)

 (And though for reasons I am not generally a fan of setting aside certain violent crimes in a separate class and calling them Hate Crimes - because really, the person who gets shot is no less dead if it was a random mugging than if he were targeted because he belonged to a particular group - if we're gonna call anything a hate crime, I think this qualifies.It's still early days but it turns out it may also qualify as terrorism...)

But yeah. I did shift at some point to cartoons.

* Dewpoints here are in the 70s, which is fairly miserable. I managed doing the brush cutting yesterday but did feel slightly dizzy and unwell for a bit after coming back in, and had a bout of shortness of breath, but that passed. (and it could have been asthma related: lots of grass pollen out there).

The upside is we are getting a little bit of rain (to the northwest of me they got lots), and normally this is when the rain shuts off for the summer, so every little bit helps. Also, it's supposed to be less hot but the humidity will be high, so that seems like a wash.

* The June Doki Doki box had the theme of "Harajuku Fashion" so it maybe it skews a bit young for me, and I have a couple things in it (which I will try to photograph later) I'd be willing to send off to someone who would use them:

- a green and orange "zipper" bracelet. It's fairly small, it just barely fits my wrist and I have slender wrists, and at any rate I'd never wear it.

-A hairclip/barette thing that is a bow with a fake blue eye on top of it (!) I guess "creepy cute" is a thing, this is that. Mmmmmmaybe I'd consider wearing it some hallowe'en but I doubt I'd remember to, and if someone has a young teen daughter/niece/granddaughter who would enjoy it, I'd rather pass it along.

- A Hatsune Miko/Vocaloid lanyard/key clip. I am not into this program (I guess it is a video game) but I know there are people out there who really love Hatsune Miko so I'd just as soon pass it along if someone wants it. (I thought it was an anime at first, that's how little I know about it)

Any of these things is small and could go in a puffy envelope so postage would be minimal and I'd like them to go to someone who might enjoy them. (First e-mail to me - address is on the sidebar - will get it. If no one here asks after a few days I might try posting on some of the Ravelry boards I frequent)

I did get some fun stuff: best thing was a blind-box Snoopy figure, the one I got is sky blue with little clouds on it. And a stuffed-toy "Hoppe chan." And a little hand towel - apparently in Japan paper towels in public bathrooms are rare, so people carry their own small hand towels? (One reason I enjoy this subscription service is that it's  chance to maybe learn a little about a culture different from mine).

Next month's box is "festivals" which should be fun, and also apparently they are promising one of the little Disney "tsum tsum" toys....the little plush toys are really my favorite things in the boxes. But it's just nice to have the box to look forward to, to know that sometime in the first week of the month you will get a box full of surprises, and at least one of those surprises is going to be something really good.

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