Evening Trip

Nothing much going on here. This past Thursday I was on the 'net and I happened across an advert for a "pumpkin fair" in the nearby city of Hopewell. Little did I know that Thursday, October 26, was National Pumpkin Day. I didn't know there was even such a thing as a National Pumpkin Day. So I called to Nuria and told her we were driving to Hopewell to attend a street fair. She was, of course, up for it. She's up for anything that gets her out of the house for a while.

I used Waze to get us there, which I think took a route that was not the shortest but had the least traffic. So maybe the route we took was the shortest in time if not in miles. I parked and we walked around the streets looking at the vendors and their wares. There were the obligatory pumpkins, of course. There was a man singing and strumming a guitar. There were all the kinds of odds and ends that you would expect at a food fair.

We wandered to the end of Library Street. (It's named Library Street because along one side of the street, the entire block is taken up by the Appomattox Regional Library.) This was our view:

This is the intersection of Library Street with Appomattox Street. >>
This is a historical part of Virginia. Some parts were settled in the early 1600s. We were not far from City Point, which played a significant role during the Civil War. City Point was the Union advance supply depot, situated deep in the heart of the Confederacy, only 20 miles from the Southern capital of Richmond. From the end of June 1864 to May 1865, City Point provided all supplies necessary to support the 125,000 men and 65,000 animals of General Ulysses S. Grant's Army.

We walked across Appomattox Street and found ourselves looking at a gently sloping hillside that ended in a large, level park, and then the slope resumed down to the Appomattox River. Or maybe the James River. The river we could see was actually where the Appomattox flows into the James, so which river we were looking at was not exactly clear. It was really a confluence of the two rivers.

A road looped around to a parking area near a young children's playground. Beyong the trees, we could see water. So we continued forward.

Nuria on the path ahead of me. >>

The river is easy to see, although in the photo it blends with the sky so you can't tell exactly where the far shore is located. There are some amenities, like places to sit and have shelter from sun or rain, or just rest your legs.

Waterfowl in the river. >>

This is a nice place to sit and think of nothing important.

As evening approached, we walked back to Library Street and around the corner to my old but faithful Jeep and fired it up. We stopped halfway home to buy a couple of What-a-Burgers and fries, and we continued home to consume them. The evening trip was pleasant.

Cosmic Chess

I learned to play chess when I was a young teenager. Every afternoon when I got home from school, a friend would stop by my house and we would play chess.

I mention this daily chess game because I've come to believe that we humans are also involved in a kind of chess game during our lifetimes on earth. Except, we aren't the players. We are the chess pieces. We are the kings and queens and bishops and knights and rooks. And mostly, just as on a chessboard, we are the pawns. 

Our ethereal chessmasters pluck us from our current position and plop us down into another square on the board. It happens all the time. You're in an automobile wreck. Your house catches fire. Your friend gets sick and dies. You win a lottery. You discover your spouse is cheating on you. You're sent to a battle zone. You make a new friend. Your bus rolls over on a curve. You get a deadly cancer. On and on and on. 

We don't control where on the chessboard the cosmic chessmaster places us. All we control is our reaction to our new situation. Is it anger? Is it depression? Is it hopelessness? Is it acceptance? Is it forgiveness?

The more games we play, the better we become at playing this cosmic chess. If you keep your eyes and ears tuned for it, you can pick up clues from others who have gone a little further than you have gone. You may not get answers, but you can get clues—pointers—to where the answers may be found. In the meanwhile, as you search for answers to difficult questions, your best guide might be found in the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

True Life

What if we have it all wrong? We tell ourselves that after our life on earth is finished, our souls go to an "afterlife." Good souls go to a good place called Heaven and bad souls go to a bad place called Hell. All very neat and tidy.

But any thinking person knows it's not neat and tidy. Humans are born into all kinds of circumstances, some good and some bad. We encounter very different experiences. We are born with different temperaments which influence our reactions to the things we experience. Some of us are exposed to temptations that others do not experience. Some die at age one while others die at age one hundred. "Life isn't fair," is a well-known aphorism. Given all those things, how can a just God send each of us to eternal bliss in Heaven or to eternal suffering in Hell? Any thinking person knows that it can't be that simple.

But here is where we might have it wrong: suppose life on earth is the afterlife. This is where our souls come to get an education. Our true home is on the "other side," the place we think of as death. Only, it's not death. It's our true home. We depart from it periodically to come to earth (or some other dimension) in order to get an education. We spend time as mortal beings and we learn important things about ourselves and about others, then we return home. Our bodies die, but we do not die. We live on and on and on. What we call death is the door to true life.

Why do we have to leave Paradise to live on earth? Because we can't learn anything by living in Paradise. We have no wants, no needs. That's why it's called Paradise. In order to grow and develop as spiritual beings, we must leave Paradise periodically and live in a place where existence is not perfect. That is how we learn and grow.

So, we're all attending school here on Earth. We have our challenges, our difficult situations. But we learn and we grow. And we do it again and again until we get it right. We have different challenges because we are learning different lessons, and because some of us are young spirits and some of us are old spirits, and no doubt there are other reasons, too.

Do your best to learn from every lesson. Try to be fair to every person you encounter.. Have compassion for others, even those who don't appear to deserve it. As a wise person said, "Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes."

Nuria at Work

My lady friend Nuria went to work at Macy's this morning. It was her third day of work after two days of training. Nuria works in the fine jewelry department. And she's gettin' it done! She's making sales, using the computer and all-around knocking it out of the ball park. And today, the General Manager came to see her. He told her, "I wanted to meet you because I've heard good things about you." 

Nuria said, "Really? This is only my third day at work here."

But the GM wanted to meet Nuria because word gets around and she's already impressed people. That does not surprise me. You have to know Nuria to understand why it didn't surprise me. She pays attention and learns quickly. She's a hard worker and a dedicated employee. There are so many people who want a job just so they can earn some money. Nuria is retired and doesn't need money, so she works for the enjoyment of helping others. The money she earns is icing on the cake.

If every employee in America was like Nuria, the US economy would be kicking the world's ass. Pardon my French, but it's true. She's home now and running around the house doing who know's what. She just emptied the trash can beside my desk, so I know she's going to take out the trash.

Tomorrow she has the day off from work, and she's taking a trip with her senior center friends. I have it in my appointment scheduler: James Monroe Highland Tour. 

James Monroe was the fifth president of the United States and the last of the founding fathers. Highland was his home near Charlottesville, Virginia. It was also called Ash Lawn. It's one of those places that history buffs love. Regardless, I'm sure it will be an interesting trip for Nuria and her friends.

But who's going to make my lunch? What's that—you think I'm going to make it. Sure. I feel Whopper Time coming on. Okay, maybe Whopper Junior time. Oh, I know. A quick trip to Walmart to pick up one of their pre-made salads and a bottle of wine. See you on the flip side. (For you young'uns who don't know what the "flip side" is, ask your grandpa.)

Magna Carta

The song of the day is 1969's Airport Song by Englsh progressive folk/rock band Magna Carta. In 2019 the group announced their final concert, after 50 years.

Home Repairs Pt 2

Followup from this morning's post:

The window guy came and gave me an estimate. I wanted to replace 11 windows, including the window that contains the air conditioner, but that was a no-go. Window World can't make a window that will hold the air conditioner, no way no how, as they say. So I ordered 10 windows. Nick the window guy says the air conditioner is too tall to fit a window opening because the lower sash won't open high enough and there's not much that can be done about that, except to buy a new, shorter a/c unit, and the unit I have now is just four years old, so no. Not going to replace it. Still, a lot of cold air can leak through that window, through and around the a/c, and I need to do something about it.

The awnings on the front of the house have to come down, and I'm not going to pay to re-install them onto the house. Anyway, I may not need the awnings. The new windows are double-pane "low-e" windows with argon gas inside them, so they don't transmit much heat through the glass. They should be a lot better at keeping heat inside the house in winter than the old single-pane casement windows.

Total damages so far: $8294 for ten windows. They'll take down the awnings and dispose of them. I'll take down the Venetian blinds and probably won't put them back up. I have curtains on the inside walls and I can close the curtains at night for privacy. The curtains I have now don't close all the way, so I'll have to buy new curtains.

I have a feeling that I'm just getting started on this money-spending adventure. Already this year I've paid for a new sliding patio door ($2430) and a new electric garage door ($1895). This adventure reminds me of that 1986 movie named The Money Pit, with Tom Hanks and Shelly Long. Yes, it was about a home they bought.

I just happened to think: will these improvements make the real estate tax I pay twice a year go up? I mean, will it go up more than it usually goes up when I do nothing to improve the house? That would be just perfect.

Home Repairs

Nuria and I had some excitement in bed last night. No, not that kind of excitement. Get your mind out of the gutter!

Nuria and I were lying in the bed, in complete darkness except for the flickering light from the electric firelogs, when suddenly a noise like the firing of a gun startled us. 

For a few seconds, neither of us moved. Then I got up and walked around the bed to the window. One of the half dozen small panes in the window had a hole about 5 to 6 inches in diameter. It looked (and had sounded like) someone fired a gun through the window.

I knew what had happened. My brick house was built 77 years ago, and during its lifetime the house has settled—just a little, and a little bit unevenly. This has caused enormous stress to build up on the casement windows. The frames are made of steel and will deform a little bit under sufficient stress. However, glass is very inflexible, so when the stress became too great, it shattered. 

There were pieces of broken glass below the broken pane, both inside and outside the window. Nuria and I rushed to cut out a piece of cardboard, wrap it in plastic, and tape it over the broken part of the window. (You can see it in the photo. That pane is one of eight in the window.) The cardboard stopped the gush of cold air pouring into the house. We went back to bed, but I couldn't sleep and finally got out of bed and went to my computer. I looked up the website for Window World and placed a request for an estimate. It's time to get all the downstairs windows replaced.

I followed up my midnight request with an 8AM call to Window World and made an appointment for 3PM today. I have a dental appointment scheduled for this morning so I requested an afternoon appointment with the window guy.

Nuria is at work, but she will get off at 1PM today. She seems to love her job, although being on her feet all day is tiring. She'll be here this afternoon to,  no doubt, ask a few questions of the window salesman. It's going to be a sunny week, with a chance for showers Friday. Replacement windows are usually made to order, so I doubt they can replace the windows this week. 

So far these last few months, I've replaced the big garage door and a patio door on the house. Why not replace all the first floor windows? I have a feeling that I will have to replace all the Venetian blinds, too. I can hardly wait to see what's going to break next.

Paradise

God did not throw humans out of Paradise. Humans threw themselves out of Paradise. How can we return? Ah, but had we the answer, who would listen?

---

This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people..."

Walt Whitman

Moncrieff

The song of the day is 2022's Warm by Irish singer Moncrieff (Chris Breheny).

Stuff

Yesterday, Nuria and I went to the Walmart pharmacy and got our covid and flu shots. The pharmacist shot both of us in the left arm. It didn't hurt, at least not significantly. We got the shots at 11AM. By bedtime, we were both feeling pretty ragged.

I had to get up early today to prepare for a doctor appointment at 8:45AM. I stayed in bed as long as I could, and at 7AM I dragged myself out of bed to take a shower. I was really wobbly. I felt like death warmed over. This is the last time I will get both shots on the same day. Both Nuria and I really felt like crap. 

I need a new headset to use with my PC, so after visiting the Walmart pharmacy to get the shots I went to the electronics section of the store and bought a Bluetooth (cordless) headset. I came home and spent two hours trying to make it work. I had no trouble pairing it wth my PC, and it connected, but it did not show up in the list of audio devices on my PC so I could not get it to work. I took it back to Walmart this morning.

Nuria wants to work and has been accepted to start a job at Macy's on Friday morning. One snag: US Customs and Immigration sent her work permit to her lawyers in Chicago instead of to Nuria in Virginia. All of her other documentation has been sent to Nuria with copies to her lawyers, but somehow the work permit went astray. She called the lawyers and asked them to forward the permit to her by Fedex next day. They said they did, but they were lying. As Nuria discovered, they've only created a label for it. After 24 hours the work permit is still at the law firm. Meanwhile, Nuria was supposed to start work on Friday but she just got a call from Macy's saying that they will expect her to start work on Thursday. As I type this, it is Wednesday. She won't have her work permit on Thursday. She does have a copy of the card, and that may be enough for now. We can only cross our fingers.

Breakfast for me was an Atkins bar. Lunch was two fried eggs and a pork sausage patty. Total calories so far today: 540. I'll have a light dinner. And yet I've ceased losing weight. In fact, I'm gaining back the weight I lost, even though I'm eating a starvation diet. I guess if I quit eating althogether, I would resume my weight loss. But that doesn't feel like a healthy way to go. Dieting sucks.

It's quarter past 3PM. I think the effects of the vaccines will wear off tonight or tomorrow. I hope your day is going better. And get vaccinated.

Calm Down

The song of the day is 2022's Calm Down by Nigerian rapper, singer, and songwriter Rema (Divine Ikubor) featuring American singer and actress Selena Marie Gomez. A behind-the-scenes video can be viewed here.

Rod McKuen

I was looking at Google Maps. I wanted to know the name of the bridge connecting San Francisco with Oakland. I have driven across that bridge in times long past. It's a segment of I-80 now, but it wasn't always. When I drove across it, it was just called the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge. On the east end of the bridge I-80 connects with I-880, while on the west end of the bridge, I-80 blends into US-101. Halfway across the bay there is an exit from the Bay Bridge down to Treasure Island.

My attention wandered to the north end of San Francisco. That is also the terminus for the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. When I traveled that bridge, I paid a toll to use it. I wondered if the toll booths were still there.

Just beyond the north end of the Golden Gate bridge , US-101 skirts past Sausalito. That was the stomping ground of poet Rod McKuen. The critics didn't like his poems, but I and millions of others did. McKuen wrote music, too. "Stanyon Street" was the name of a poem and a song, in addition to being the name of a street in San Francisco. I bought several of his books, though I don't know what became of them. I would never have thrown them away, but life has a way of robbing you of things that you want to keep.

I discovered McKuen through a nurse in a hospital where I was a patient for three weeks. That was in '70 or '71. She loaned me one of her McKuen books, and I liked it enough to buy several of his books. Maybe it was the era, the age, or my own age. Maybe, and I think this is the reality, it was the zeitgeist of the late '60s and early '70s. McKuen tapped into that generational mood.

Rod McKuen died in January, 2015. He was 81.

And the nurse? I dated her a few times, but she was twenty-one and in love with a man of forty-five years. Our dates were fun, at least for me, but I knew there was no future in a relationship with her. So I let her slide into my history, and she lives there along with Rod McKuen's poems and my trips to San Francisco and memories of the Embarcadero and Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf.

Nuria's Job

Nuria, my domestic partner, has been organizing our home, which is a polite way of saying "making my stuff disappear." But that's okay, I like being able to see the top of my desk. She also has put Halloween decorations on the front of our house. She's really "into" these holiday things. And speaking of "holiday things"...

She's also decided that she wants a job, so she applied for employment with the local Macy's store. But I'm starting at the end of the story.

First, Nuria had to get permission to have a job from US Customs and Immigration Service, because her permanent resident card hasn't been issued yet. She applied for permission to work in January, 2023. She received permission from USCIS two weeks ago in late September, 2023.

Nuria wants a temporary job for the holiday season. She does have an impressive resume, and she took three letters of recommendation to her job interview, which impressed the interviewer, who told her no one brings letters of recommendation anymore.

Her resume impressed me, too, and my own resume includes designing missile guidance systems as well as electronics for self-navigating mobile robots.

Here is a portion of Nuria's resume or, as she titled it, her CURRICULUM VITAE (a document that is usually used for applying for positions in academia, but why not call it that?)

STUDIES:

PRIMARY: 6TH GRADE. / 1958-1964

SECONDARY: 11TH GRADE (HIGH SCHOOL CERTIFICATE) /1965-1970

AMERICAN BUSINESS ACADEMY: BILINGUAL SECRETARY/1971-1973

INGLEWOOD ADULT SCHOOL: HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA /1974-1976 ( L. A. , USA)

ADDITIONAL COURSES:

MUTUAL ALAJUELA: HUMAN RELATIONS AND COMMUNICATION/1976

LEOPOLDO BARRIONUEVO: THE SECRETARY AND HER SUPPORT/1989

LEOPOLDO BARRIONUEVO: THE PROFESSIONAL MODERN SECRETARY/1990

INSTITUTO LATINOAMERICANO DE IDIOMAS: GENERAL INTERNET, EXCEL FOR WINDOWS, AMBIENTE WINDOWS, WORD FOR WINDOWS/1996

INSTITUTO UNIVERSAL DE IDIOMAS: DELTA AIRLINES ADVANCED ENGLISH COURSE/2000

GALILEO UNIVERSITY: BASIC GALILEO PROGRAM, FLIGHT RESERVATION FARES/2001

PATRICK HENRY HIGH SCHOOL: ESL CLASS/2002-2003 (ROANOKE, VA, USA)

ROANOKE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: READING AND WRITING ESL COURSES/2003 (ROANOKE, VA, USA) 2002-2003

BB&T UNIVERSITY: CERTIFIED TELLER COURSE/2008

TIME WARNER CABLE: CUSTOMER CARE/2010  

WORK EXPERIENCE:

• I WORKED AS BILINGUAL SECRETARY AT THE JUAN SANTAMARIA AIRPORT FOR ONE YEAR. COSTA RICA
• I WORKED WITH MUTUAL ALAJUELA, FINANCIAL INSTITUTION FOR 25 YEARS AS SECRETARY, CREDIT AGENT, COLLECTION AGENT, MORTGAGE AGENT, TELLER. COSTA RICA
• I WORKED WITH INDUSTRIAS DE CONFECCION POLIANDY, AN APPAREL COMPANY, AS BILINGUAL ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT FOR 5 YEARS. COSTA RICA
• I WORKED WITH TIME’S SQUARE TRAVEL AGENCY AS ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT FOR 2 YEARS. COSTA RICA
• I MOVED TO ROANOKE, VA AND I WORKED CLEANING AND ORGANIZING HOUSES, ALSO HELPING ELDERS WITH DOCTOR APPOINTMENTS, GROCERY SHOPPING AND BABY SITTER. USA
• I WORKED AS SENIOR TELLER AND CLIENT SERVICE WITH BB&T BANK. I WAS ALSO IN CHARGE OF THE CASH VAULT AND BALANCING BRANCH LOG BOOKS FOR 3 YEARS. USA
• I MOVED BACK TO COSTA RICA WHERE I WORKED WITH CONVERGY’S FOR TIME WARNER CABLE FOR ONE YEAR.
• I WORKED FOR FISCHEL A PHARMACY FOR ALMOST 3 YEARS AS CLIENT SERVICE AND SALES.
• I WORKED FOR OPTICAS ALVAREZ, OPTICAL SHOP, SETTING APPOINTMENTS, CUSTOMER SERVICE, SALES, MARKETING, VISITING COMPANIES AND SIGNING CONTRACTS FOR 5 YEARS.

AWARDS:

• LITERACY VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA - ROANOKE VA/VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR/2003, ROANOKE, VA
• LITERACY VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA - ROANOKE VA/ SARAH RUBUSH AWARD/2004, ROANOKE, VA ENGLISH WRITING AWARD/REFLECTIONS WRITING CONTEST/2003, ROANOKE, VA

Nuria was offered a job at the interview. She starts October 13th.  Macy's pays a starting salary of $16/hour. 

If I decide to get a job, any kind of job, I'm going to let Nuria write my resume.

Lunch at Olive Garden

It is 3:45PM. Nuria and I just returned from a late lunch at Olive Garden. I ate soup and salad. Nuria ate chicken scampi and part of my salad. We both drank tea. The check was $48.24 including gratuity. I remember when you could eat a pretty good dinner for that amount. 

A dollar in year 2000 had the same purchasing power as $1.82 had in August, 2023. To put it another way, your money is worth 55% of what it was worth in January, 2000. I hope you have your money in a high-yield saving account, though the best ones are paying only 5% now (October 2023). That will barely keep up with inflation, although the inflation rate has been coming down in the months since June 2022 when the annual inflation rate peaked at 9.1%. 

But I'm stating what everyone knows and there's nothing to be done about it, so why complain? But it has to be worrisome to retirees who are depending on their savings plus social security to get them through the month. It's a good thing I'm independently wealthy, with millions of dollars in cash and bonds stuffed into my mattress. And Nuria thinks it's just a lumpy mattress that we sleep on.

Correction: Nuria sleeps. I lie in bed awake until I get up and watch some YouTube. Last night I went to bed at 10PM, and I got up at midnight and went to my PC and watched YouTube videos until 2AM, then I returned to bed. I was wide awake so I got back up and returned to bed at 4AM. At that point I was tired enough to finally drift off to sleep. My circadian rhythm is screwed up. I can sleep, just not at night.

If lunch at Olive Garden sounds good, here's what I ate: Soup, Salad, and Breadsticks. The soup was Pasta e Fagioli (there are four kinds of soup you can order) and the salad was the house salad. It is served with garlic breadsticks. All of it was quite delicious! Soup and Salad and Breadsticks is a lunch item and is served until 3PM.

I thought the ice tea was overly strong which gave it a slightly bitter flavor, but the small amount of ice in the glass soon melted and diluted the tea enough to make it okay. It was just tea sweetened with Sweet 'n' Low, so one can say only so much about it.

Nuria's entree was Chicken Scampi. She ate some of my salad which made her full before she had eaten all of her entree. So we brought home the leftover salad and chicken scampi. We'll have those leftovers for dinner tonight. Nuria said there will be enough leftovers for both of us. I asked her, "Uh, have you seen the size of my stomach lately?" There may be enough leftover food for her, but I have my doubts that the leftovers will satisfy both of us.

If I'm writing about my lunch, you know I have nothing to write about. But if I have to write about nothing, at least I try my best to make the "nothing" sound interesting. And with photos.