Sunshiny day

Well, okay—I’m not entirely sure how I feel, but I’m going to go with hopeful. So here’s a blast from the 90s.

 

Two toes or three?

If you have not tried Trader Joe’s bake-them-yourself croissants, you really should. They are amazing.

(Technically, they’re pains au chocolate and croissants aux amandes, not the regular crescent-shaped croissants.)

The challenge is you have to remember to take them out of the freezer the night before, because they need to proof overnight. I’ve found that I can’t actually eat an entire pastry, so I cut one in half and make two breakfasts out of them.

This one sort of fell on its side during the night and baked up looking so:

It struck me as resembling a sloth. Whaddaya think?

 

 

You are what you drive

It’s been a while since we’ve had vanity plates, so here’s a collection.

This guy wears his hobby on his fender.

This one's had enough of your shenanigans.

I don't know whither this one's the former NBC news anchor, but he's at the gym right much.

I think this one believes he's the god of the sea.

This one's stating the obvious.

Well, maybe.

One way or another, more than one Nubian.

Get that cheap wine out of here!

Not sure about this one.

Get into your yoga space. 

Like, groovy, man.

Something of an adventurer, perhaps.

Just chillin'.

Possibly a sports fan. Or a marketer.

 

 

Driving range

As you may or may not know, I know nothing about golf. In fact, the only thing about the pastime that makes any sense at all to me is the nineteenth hole.

Even so—I assume that golf course designers go to the trouble of laying out concrete paths around the landscape for the express purpose of having golfers use them for their little electric carts and not drive said carts onto the grass.

So I wondered about these two carts out on the course I sometimes walk through.

It was pretty early, before 0700, so maybe they thought it was okay.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Autumn begins

We passed into meteorological fall last Tuesday, and I am grateful for the crisp mornings with temperatures in the 50s for my morning walk.

We’re not at the point where the leaves are turning color (although they definitely are falling), and I don’t have to turn on the heat yet. But I love stepping out into a day with a tang to it. I think I’m especially grateful for this after my week in Singapore, where the weather sapped the energy out of me.

We could still have some high temps and humidity in store, but that’s okay, because I know we’ve turned the corner.

 

 

Keeping with the theme

Since I’ve been posting about the moon the past couple of days, let’s have Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” for today’s earworm.

This is an interesting representation of it by someone calling him/herself Rousseau.

 

 

Morning light

I love Artemis with me on my morning walks.

It’s one of the best reasons for getting out while darkness is still upon us.

 

Welcome back

Rebooted my morning walk routine after a break in Arizona. A diminished Artemis greeted me.

And then the W&OD Trail, with early cyclists.

Home.

 

 

Adventure travel

A couple of travel-related points of interest from my trip to Arizona last week.

First—renting a car these days is quite the economic shocker. My Kia Soul (in the “economy” category) cost $266.93 for three days. Plus a “deposit” at pick-up of $466. (I just checked; it has, in fact, been refunded.)

But what was also a slice was sliding into a car that’s at least 20 years newer than the one I drive on the regular. I consider my trip a triumph in that I figured out how to use cruise control. And that on the one night I had to drive, I got the lights working, and they weren’t high-beams. (My car’s lights stay on whenever the engine’s running. It’s Swedish.)

But the other moments of excitement came at DFW Airport, when American Airlines changed the departure gate for my flight from C4 to A39, which is in a different county, without updating the boarding pass on my mobile phone. Thank God I checked the departure board, and then asked the ladies at Amex’s Centurion Lounge front desk to double check. One of them gave me instructions (take the Skylink) and made sure I got on the first elevator leaving the lounge.

Because the flight was already boarding.

Well, I had to haul ass, but I made it to the plane. Not the only one to have been flummoxed by the gate change-boarding pass issue.

It’s always a good end to a trip when you catch your flight home.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: help a sister out

I spent Wednesday through Friday last week in Arizona, because issues had arisen around my sister’s fiduciary. Since she went into an assisted living facility late last year, we’ve been kind of unlucky with the people entrusted to manage her money.

The first one might have been okay, but he came as a package with his wife, who decidedly was not. We had high hopes for the second one, but he and his minions have sadly not worked out. I would ascribe the problems to lack of transparency, coupled with really poor communication. And, tbh, my sister’s hearing loss means that trying to talk with her via her mobile phone means she comprehends about 35% of what you say, on a good call. But whatever—her medical power of attorney friends had hit a wall and here we are.

So I printed out months of fiduciary and bank statements and spent Wednesday flying to Phoenix and then driving to Cottonwood (with a stop at one of the groadiest McDonalds on the face of the planet, so I could get on a conference call). I have to say that finances are not my thing—I stopped balancing a checkbook in the 1980s, and even just looking at balance sheets spikes my heart rate. But my sister needed me, so I did my best.

I spoke at length with her, sat in on her conversation with a prospective new fiduciary, talked with her lawyer, and then backed my sister in her chat with the soon-to-be-ex fiduciary, as she told him she likes the new one, and will transfer to that woman’s service.

I held my tongue (a gargantuan effort, if you know me) with this guy—except to ask him, “Tell me about the NSF check.” (Yes, he wrote a check on my sister’s account—to pay one of his invoices—without sufficient funds to cover it. In June. And has not as yet refunded the $35 service charge. If you’re looking for a fiduciary in Northern Arizona, I know whom to steer you away from.) He professed himself astonished to find that he’d done that (even though he moved money from her trust account to cover it the day after; either he writes them so often he couldn’t recall this particular one, or he was lying).

Well, anyway, the situation is resolved, and my sister is going to be looked after by someone who will make the full effort to communicate. (And my sister is going to make the effort to stand up for herself.)

And I am massively relieved, and immensely grateful that her MPOAs have been doing such an amazing job in advocating for her. And I’m grateful I was able to go out there and do my part. It's her birthday today, and I am deeply grateful for having her in my life.

Also—I got to see some northern Arizona dawns, and look at these clouds.