Last month I put out two editions of Friday Notes, and this month I almost missed posting any (today being my last chance). To some extent, that’s just normal ebb and flow, but it’s also that I’ve been distracted by Real Life™ (such as it is).
I’ve been doing a lot of (in many cases rather interesting) reading lately — words going in rather than out — and I think any writer will tell you that’s the easier direction. Sometimes the much easier direction.
But I do have some notes (and pictures)…
I don’t usually write two Friday Notes posts in one month, but I was dog-sitting my funny little “nephew” Bentley for a week, and every time I don’t post for a while it’s hard to get back into blogging mode. In fact, it’s harder each time. I increasingly find social media less and less interesting or rewarding.
Some of that is on me, but more of it is disappointment and disgust with social media and technology companies in general. A bit more on that below.
Mostly, though, I wanted to — at long last — post the last two notes that have been lingering on my Apple Notes app for years (in one case, since 2018).
So. Here we are in 2023. Weird. Very weird. As I’ve said many times, I remember wondering whether the year 1984 would turn out to be anything like its infamous eponymous book. And the year 2001, also famous but more from the movie than the book, once seemed like the very distant future to me.
And now I find myself two decades beyond the very distant future. (And still no flying cars or Moon vacation resorts.) Down here on Earth, in Minnesota, our mild winter finally got its act together and gave us a proper winter snowstorm. (Oh, boy, did it ever.)
I’m still recovering from all the shoveling plus a full week with my pal, Bentley!
This is my last post of 2022. I’ll be picking up my little pal, Bentley, tomorrow and dog-sitting over the New Year’s weekend and maybe a little into the week. So, my annual look back and look forward posts will be a little late.
In the meantime, remember New Year’s Eve is amateur night, so best to stay at home and off the roads. Have a safe and happy New Year’s! Go forth and spread beauty and light!
The worst of it is the three posts in my Drafts folder that I can’t seem to move forward. They sit there, woefully incomplete, mocking me while other posts spring forth, quietly get dressed, and move on out the virtual door.
They’re stuck, in part, by a need for diagrams, and I’ve been stuck between whether to load my increasingly obsolete graphics app onto my new-ish laptop or invest (time, money, effort) in something new.
And life keeps happening, and that leads to another edition of Friday Notes.
Drat! A day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes. I started off this morning writing a post to commemorate the 2/22/22 date but quickly realized I’d need a time machine to pull that off. Between yesterday’s blizzard and working on an upcoming post about Plato and geometry, I lost track of the date (a peril of being retired — dates don’t matter much anymore).
Not that I had anything date-specific to post about, and plenty of other bloggers did post, so no great loss. But having started, I may as well keep going.
Even if all I have are some very tiny treats.
They say you’re supposed to let sleeping dogs lie. Personally, I’ve always thought a sleeping dog was pretty honest — I’m not exactly even sure how anyone could lie in their sleep. Tell fibs in your dreams? (Some old sayings just don’t make any sense.) I don’t think we should let anyone get away with lying, sleeping or otherwise (especially Presidents).
I do think there is something extra sweet about a sleeping dog. Maybe it’s a matter of the trust they’re showing — how they feel safe with you. Next to you, they can relax and fall into a deep snoring sleep. Dogs can have concerns about being left home alone, and if they are in your lap they know right where you are.
In any case, from the terminally cute file…
One of the older notes on my idea board is a tiny Post-It™ with just a single word written on it: recrudescence. Wiktionary defines it as: “The condition or state being recrudescent; the condition of something (often undesirable) breaking out again or re-emerging after temporary abatement or suppression.”
It is primarily a medical term referring to a disease reoccurring; the second Wiktionary definition is: “The acute recurrence of a disease, or its symptoms, after a period of improvement.”
But when I encountered the word several years ago, it struck me as a very good word for this “post-factual” era: the Dark Ages rises again.
Stung! Ow!!
I’ve been dog-sitting my pal, Bentley, the last few days, and when we began our early morning walk today, she was checking out an interesting hole in the ground. She’s noticed it before, sniffed at it, and then moved on, so I assumed it was just a hole in the ground worthy of smelling.
But today, suddenly she reacted — pawing at the air in front of her. Because bees! Or rather, yellow-jacket wasps, which nest in holes in the ground. Small ones, but equipped with stingers nevertheless. I whipped my hat off and started trying to clear the air (there were only three or so that I saw, not a swarm), swatted one off her side, and then we high-tailed it across the street as fast as we could run.
As we walked away, I noticed that my left hand hurt: one of them got me!
You may remember my pal, Bentley, the APBT:
All tuckered out after a three-mile walk!
Last week the little dickens ate three-quarters of a cotton dish towel, which freaked her mom (and me) out.
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