Thursday night things

 * The other day my department chair commented she had seen a fox out in the open area near the building. I was surprised - we do have deer, and for a while we had wild turkeys.But I thought foxes were more secretive than that. 

But this morning, when I came in, I saw the fox. The first picture is not that good, I took it through my windshield because I was afraid of scaring it

It didn't run right away when I stepped out of my car, so I got a slightly better photo, but it ran slightly after this. I saw the white tip of the tail so I know for sure it was a red fox.

There was also a nice sunrise. The colors in the photo are less vivid than they were in real life.

* I'm still picking away at the squares for the blanket but I'm concerned I WILL run short on the black yarn, but I think I *might* have another skein of it tucked away - it was to be trim on a project I may never make. I've got six and a half squares made from one skein, I don't know if there will be quite enough to get the nine I will need (I need seventeen, and I have two skeins.)

One tendency I have found in myself is that I tend to slow down on projects if I'm worried about running short of yarn - I wound up subbing in working on the F*R*I*E*N*D*S socks instead a couple evenings. 

* One of my credit cards got "limited" - I tried to order tickets online for my trip to see my mom in May, and it turned down the card I normally use for online purchases. That's the low limit one (I keep it FOR gas and online purchases, because there's less chance of a thief really going to town with a $1000 credit limit). I figured "Oh, I bought gas a couple times this month and I did order some stuff online, maybe I hit my limit" (I don't check that closely, like, I don't monitor it online all the time like some people do). 

Well, I got a letter this week - saying my account had been limited because of "suspicious activity" and it gave a number to call. (They said they'd been trying to call me, but they use my landline, and it just comes up "toll free number," and I assume it's a scam).

It turns out the attempted ticket purchase was the "suspicious activity" (I wound up buying it through my card linked to PayPal, which gave no such hangups). I told the woman that yes, that had been my purchase.

then she said "And I have to ask you another question.....were you made to attempt that purchase under duress?"

What?

I said no, absolutely not, I was getting tickets to go visit my mom. I wonder if this is some anti-human-trafficking thing but it seems weird a criminal would force someone to buy a train ticket. I don't know. I can only assume, and what I assume makes me a little sad.

At any rate, the card works again, so I guess that was it. (Also, I just paid the bill, which turned out to be under the limit)

* I finally finished reading "In at the Death." It was a Mordecai Tremaine mystery, a little known series (five books - not a very long series). I like these books; I like the character of Tremaine (I've almost run through all of them though; I only have one I haven't read.) But I think I've lost some of my taste for mysteries (though this one, the victim turned out Not To Be A Likeable Guy and that helps). 

I decided to start a new novel - looked around in my pile a bit (a lot of my books are currently over in the storage unit, and will be until I find someone to do the renovations - the original person I thought I had lined up fell through, I think I'm going to wait until summer to look more because I am just low on bandwidth right now). Anyway, I found "Dear and Glorious Physician" (by Taylor Caldwell) which someone (Lynn, maybe?) recommended to me as a good, distracting book right after my father died. It's a story (fictionalized, but it sounds like Caldwell did her research) of Luke, the author of the eponymous Gospel. I'm only a few pages in but so far it looks good - historical novels, when well-written, are interesting, and the subject matter interests me. And it's definitely diverting - a very different time and place, and different people, from my own life. (One thing I never understood was the "I can't relate to this book, so I'm not going to read it" - I always found learning about different ways of living and different times and places enjoyable, and would find it boring to read novels about people whose lives were very similar to mine. In fact, I read relatively few "modern" novels because I tend to read as an *escape* from "modern" life.)

* I got a little more brush cut and tomorrow when I get home from school I need to haul it all down to the curb, and if I have the energy maybe cut a few more loads - I've almost got all the privet that's sprung up cut and it would be nice to get all of it (for now;  it will always come back). I don't mind the brush cutting as long as I have time - it's easy work (mentally speaking) and it's a little bit of additional exercise, and *different* exercise from what I do, and I'm realizing I have to change up what exercise I do - too much of any one kind seems to cause almost like RSIs in me, where I get muscle soreness that is relieved by changing up what exercise I do. (I'm having more trouble with arthritis in my one hip, so I have to keep exercising - I'd rather do that than contemplate surgery this early, or take lots of medications)