Late evening stuff

* We really WERE lucky. A couple people died (one in Kingston, one in Sherwood Shores), and a lot of building damage, including a church and parsonage in Kingston that are essentially destroyed. We may have gotten a little hail here, and heavy rain, but that was it - I only had some small branches down. Some students had damage to property (houses, or one person lost a small fishing boat when the marina was damaged)

* Another sad story from here today: several high school students were killed in a car wreck near Tishomingo; a truck hit them. (I think they were from Tishomingo). I know exactly the intersection where it happened and yes, it is a very poor visibility/poorly designed one (basically a merge coming in from the right, and if you're on the main road, it can be REALLY hard to see if someone is coming in to merge, and if I remember correctly, they are supposed to yield but lots of times people don't). It's one of those intersections I don't like driving through and am always extra careful about because I figured it looks like an accident waiting to happen, and sadly that was borne out. I wonder if there will be calls to rework the intersection to make it safer now.

* I'm still working on the color-bar afghan; I've got one of the bars sewn up (it's tedious) and I started the black squares (I have to make 17, and then I have to make like 21 of the white squares). I'm trying to alternate sewing and crocheting the last sets of squares so I don't burn out. 

*  I opened the "Oddball" box - this month's theme was creativity, so it was fun. I've already made the "scratch off" postcard (it comes with a stencil, and it's like those boards where you use a stylus to scrape off an upper layer and reveal color underneath). I may not send this post card out, or if I do, put it in an envelope, because I'm afraid the mail machinery would damage the picture. There was also a box of beads and findings for making jewelry, and some greeting cards you color yourself (and some crayons, though I think I might use colored pencils instead), and a little rabbit you make gluing together pom poms, and a couple other things I'm not remembering right now. I'll see how future crates are but if they're like this one I'll keep getting them; this one was fun and one or two of the things I might set aside for my niece. 

* I watched most of "Harold and Maude" (it was on Flix) tonight. I know I saw it when I was younger, maybe in my 20s, on video or in a revival theater. It's a very odd movie and yet there's something endearing about it. I found myself looking a lot at Maude's train car (that she lived in); I'm always interested in atypical houses and also that kind of bohemian decorating style.

And I think the movie hits differently for me at 53 than it did when I was in my 20s. (NO I am not going to go out and take a lover many years younger than me!) But the idea that Maude still has a pretty vibrant life (well, until the I-won't-spoiler-it-if-you've-not-seen-it, but it's implied that it's by choice and part of her quirks) despite her age. And yeah, I guess I HAVEN'T really lived all that much....though I'm not sure what form "living more" would take for me, I tend to be rather staid*

(*students were talking about Applebee's in lab the other day, and I made a comment that "I ate at one once or twice and frankly didn't think the food was very good" and one of the more outspoken guys was like "No, the food IS trash, but what you want are the cheap (alcoholic) drinks" and yeah, that tells me I never need to go to Applebee's again.)

But as I said: I'm not sure what form LIVE living might take for me, other than maybe going to more parks and museums and seeing more cool stuff, and if it ever becomes possible again, taking art classes and the like (ages ago, my campus sometimes had continuing ed classes in pottery, but that was all swept away by the 2016 budget cuts and then finally nailed in a coffin by the pandemic, but if they ever started again - well, maybe I just adjust my schedule so I can do that)

And yeah, I guess: Harold is staring into the abyss in his own way, though much more dramatically and neurotically than I have (And really, for me, it's "I'm looking into the abyss and I really want to look away and forget the abyss exists, but life keeps turning me so I have to face it")

* And yeah, Saturday is Bill's memorial service. The bank where he worked for many years is catering the lunch but a few of us have been asked to bring cookies (this time I will make the jam bars I usually make; those are simpler). I presume the bank will haul their big grill-cooker they have to the church and do hot dogs and hamburgers; that's usually what they do when they provide lunch places. So Friday night I need to bake jam bars. 

One of the women at church noted "we need to have receptions for a HAPPY occasion" and frankly short of someone hitting a milestone anniversary, or having a kid, or getting married, that's not going to happen.