What the Fred?
1 Like
What? What is happening here?
1 Like
Are those mushrooms?
Looks like Franz fell into the dough machine. They looking for a missing baker?
6 Likes
Glad I wasnāt sipping on a beverage when I read your comment! 
1 Like
I think we were at about 0%.
I went outside to look and couldnāt see that anything was altered or different. My landlord who was working next door looked at me like I was crazy as I gazed upward
at the beginning of totality.
1 Like
Not that I can tell. It looks like over cooked break inserted in the bottom of the loaf. I emailed the company, they want a picture. I sent them this one. The story continuesā¦
2 Likes
I did not understand what Ope meant. My parents are both from the midwest and I still have a good number of relatives still living there so I was surprised that I was unfamiliar with the word. Then I looked it up. LOL. I had no idea that was a Midwestern thing. Doesnāt everyone do that? Iām going to start listening for it. Ope, sorry feels very natural to me. I know I have not fully absorbed the midwestern way of speaking because I call soda, soda like a Californian. Not pop like my midwestern cousins do.
2 Likes
The button that is supposed to trigger the deep clean cycle for Dysonās air purifier/humidifier is infuriating on a level that I canāt even begin to describe. It can take upwards of a half hour before you find its sweet spot and it thinks its been turned on. Iām sure thereās a joke hereā¦
3 Likes
Iām sure itās been conspiring with my tv remote.
1 Like
my brother died today. this is not news, this is not a surprise, the long ago acquaintance would think he had been deceased over a decade ago. āoh, yeah!, that guy, i thought he was deadā.
no. he lived, and lived, and lived. his addiction more so.
he fucked me up. in good, and very bad ways. he beat me. physically. mostly psychologically. why? because he was bored. but he was also diminished. a profound learning disorder didnāt allow him to comport and therefore be taken seriously. he was marked ādumbā ā anyone who has ever known him would say heās whip smart. having profound abilities and being restricted by lack of materials must be a definition of rage. i forgive you. and iāve told you that.
he was an artist. not in output, in temperament. i studied, i learned, i worked. he just did. when i was eighteen and just figuring out how to āreallyā cook, he, almost as an aside, produced some kind of soufflĆ© with kimchi of all things. it might have been the perfect bite of food. could he have been a chef, a creative director of some sort? yes. he never did. he never worked in any conventional sense.
was he a good person? not in any way that i would measure that. he was Dionysus. there was no malice, no vengeance, or avarice to his being. there was trajectory, living voraciously. when you walk a forest path, there are crushed leaves along the way. we never got along because of this. over time we resigned ourselves to some sort of detente. our imagining of the world didnāt coincide.
there is some kind of joy in living as if no practical realities exist. he had those years, many of them. that we are just specks in a universe is a notion that drove his behavior. but what do you take from that knowledge? in the rush of wealth and dubitable accomplishment i never respected you (for that), i always judged you (for that), but i always loved you.
when the reckoning for your choices came, it could have been an awaking. maybe it was for a time. flying you away from a foreign prison, after years and years of advocation, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, you were grateful. who wouldnāt be. but where you apologetic, where you repentant? what did it really mean, other than you just being able to continue along that path you started?
i jot this out of extreme anger and grief. you acted that giving and taking were equivalent. they are not, the former takes far more precedent than the latter. you gave a lot, but you took much more.
17 Likes
Take care.
That was an amazing insight and a beautiful piece of your soul.
5 Likes
I understand.
I see you.
I hug you from afar.
I hope you find your peace, as your brother has finally found his.
7 Likes
My heartfelt condolences. Grief is complicated.
Wishing you peace.
2 Likes
I am very sorry for your loss. Itās hard enough losing a family member, but even more so when our relationship with them had been tenuous at best.
Thank you for letting it all out - it means you feel safe to share your anger & anguish with us.
I wish you eventual peace 
6 Likes
So. I spoke with a ski friend for an hour today. I had to give up downhill skiing this past year, due to some benign health issues that affect my ability to be a safe skier on the hill, after skiing for 40 years.
Iām okay with that.
This particular ski friend is in her late 60s. Iām 50. I skied a lot. I volunteered for our ski club for 12 years. I was the trip leader, the bus captain, social coordinator for 350 person galas and 150 person Xmas dances. I organized a cookie exchange in 2019 before my life changed.
I miss some people. I donāt miss the politics in a 1500 person not for profit ski club essentially run by 50 volunteers.
Today, same friend asks me what Iāll do to replace skiing if Iām not skiing. I mention I already walk a ton, Iāll hike, Iāll garden. I canāt travel right now.
She starts suggesting I take up rowing.
I mention I have no upper body strength and rowing machines are so boring, and I have no interest in going to the gym, to work out on a rowing machine.
She then replies, I mean in a boat, on the Lake.
Donāt get me wrong. I have friends who rowed, I have friends who coxied. (Sp?) They had the special jackets. Iām just not part of that club.
If I wanted to row, wouldnāt I have rowed in high school? Or college? I was part of the track and field team for a moment.
I joined running clubs and learn to run clinics in my 30s. I have taken tennis lessons. I have taken golf lessons. Bollywood dance. Ballet boot camp in my 40s.
I donāt really like boats that are smaller than ferries.
I donāt want to get up early. I donāt want to fall in the lake. I live a mile from Lake Ontario and I havenāt even walked near Lake Ontario in 3 years.
I also donāt really want to take part in group sports at this stage in my life.
What is with people? Who takes up rowing on a lake at 50?
Who pushes rowing of all things?
I flipped the question and asked her if she has ever tried rowing . She has never tried rowing . Too cold at the lake, she said.
Iām ranting here rather than posting a status update.
7 Likes
I just spent a little under two hours digging up/turning over a portion of the front lawn in order to plant a patch of organic sunflowers.
I hate having a lawn due to the waste of water - the guilt is very heavy; as renters, though, weāve little say in the matter. Landlord hasnāt commented on my other āincursionsā into the lawn area in the past and I hope this too isnāt provocative.
When I finished the shovel-work I glanced at my phone and saw the news about the drone launch.
Feel sick and sad over the strife and suffering in this world of ours.
Then a squirrel ran up and barked at me over the lack of nuts in the feeder and somehow that made me tear up. So I peeled a tangerine and shared a few segments with the fluffy tailed fellow being.
7 Likes
Thank you for that heartfelt piece of amazing writing.
Iām very sorry to hear of your loss and more importantly what youāve gone through up until now.
I sincerely hope that youāll find some peace now, though I fully understand that it wonāt be at all easy.
7 Likes
