Dig it!

Love it!

That cat is still hanging around the yard. It's getting harder for me to remain distant in terms of giving her attention (pettings, chase the string). She starts appearing more like early evening, now, although she still runs off to who knows where at times, ofc. Most of this week I'm out there with the tablet and she's sitting behind my chair and rolling around the door steps like it's her living room. Makes me want a cat.

Problem is, I still miss Mr. Black and at this point I don't want just any 'ol fuzzy wuzzy cat, I'd want another Mr. Black, re: size and for me, uber personality. Which is probably fairly unlikely. Thus this neighbor cat thinking I'm 2nd-mom is enough.

That and Louis Rossman's old and now somewhat ailing cat. Half the time I watch his vids because of that cat - who reminds me tons of - you guessed it, Mr. Black. :)

Oh - one time at night I saw something run past me outside and thought it was the cat. Started to approach (didn't have eyeglasses on) and got fairly close near a fence corner, when I suddenly realized it was a small/young skunk. I skedaddled. You smell skunk occasionally in suburbs, ofc, but 1st time I actually saw one in the yard.

Hanging out with a bunch of Gen Z for the weekend. Do not listen to the naysayers - they're a pretty switched on, caring, aware, and amazing bunch of people!

We have a (semi?) feral tomcat that to my great amazement has survived YEARS of Illinois winters. He must have an occasional home or a nice burrow under someones deck to have made it all this time on his own. He comes to my back slider to visit my two girls, and Ive tried to feed him before, but hes a rolling stone.

^ We've only seen a handful of cats pass thru on the fences here, over 5 years or whatever. Neighbor told us when we first moved in that cats often don't last long here (coyotes, river, fields around etc) and to keep 'em indoors. Still, we're in the suburbs, not some back territory. I always assume they have owners, even if they're not super attentive owners. But outside of knocking doors on 40-50 houses in a radius, there's no way to know for sure.

Anyway, after months and months of her never coming near, I appear to have been sorta-cat-adopted. Or at least our yard has. I've now put a bowl of water out and she seems to be in our yard hiding under bushes (day) or under the patio (night) most of her time. I found myself this evening looking up small sleep-shelters, worrying about winter - then stopped myself.

NOT MY CAT, darnit. Heh.

Cutting all my hair off that one time + diluted baking soda/water hair rinses (not a paste and do not rub it in) and only using a hair dryer on no-heat/only airfan setting appears to have largely fixed my thinning hair problems. Not that my hair isn't thinner/less dense than when I was 13. But it's a lot better. The super thin "spot/part" on the back of my head went away.

Last 3-4 years - either menopausal/hormone or some kind of other "inflammation" or over abundance of one of those face mites (maybe) causing mini-rash bumps that look like micro pimples but often itch like mad, mostly cheeks/lower jaw and around eyebrows and eye-sides. Not typical rosacea (not bright red/blotchy) or eczema (not scaly patches), not visibly obvious from a distance but when itchy drives me nuts.

Head and shoulders on the face, nope.
Selsun Blue on the face, nope
Tea tree oil, eucalyptus oil, other essential oils directly on face (then slightly rinsed off/pat dry) - nope.
Changing pillow cases ever few days, nope.
Selsun Blue wash, tea tree oil after - sorta helps. Sometimes I can't tell if a product is helping or if it's just coincidence timing re: flare ups/calm periods.
Already have very reduced processed food/carb diet. Maybe I'm allergic to broccoli.

On the bright side, all those essential oil attempts make the skin nice and soft. I still have very minimal wrinkling or laugh/smile lines etc. My age is mostly given away by gravity liking to make everything looser/sag/droop slowly to earth. And grey hair. And probably my desk-gamer posture.

Managed to stop dragging my feet getting into Infinity and been spending the past few weeks painting up the Yu-Jing White Banner Army Action Pack:

Bixie the Jade Champion. She may be an alleged murderer, but she's certainly not a legged murderer.

"O nei to fat gweilo!" Been on a kick watching some old Shaw Bros flicks so that helped put me in the right mind space to paint up this Shaolin Fire Team.

Shangji with AP HMG and Tinbot (popularly referred to as the "Shang Jesus").

@LadyCrimson Kinda sounds like mites: Eyelash Mites: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment

Drove home with a waxing moon shining off the dugout water in the lush Canadian Prairies this evening ...

Hubby: "Maybe we should spend the weekend test-driving some small mini-vans to see if there are any that you'd feel ok driving (he's tall, I am very short), re: long trips?"
Me: "Is your back feeling better?"
Hubby: "No."
Me: "Then what's the point/purpose doing it now? You already bought that biggish SUV thing recently, and I can marginally drive that. Tired of that already?"

+++ long pause ++++

Me: "Unless you were just looking for something to do on the weekend."
Hubby: "Maybe."

I can be like that. :D

To be fair, in my mind, hubby has a history of being obsessively picky about vehicles for various reasons, even long before his back went out. He buys something (used, he's not a new-car-price guy) and it's never good enough (and nothing will ever be as "perfect" as that old blue van), then he gets rid of it or complains about it for months/years, wishing/thinking he should get something else etc. I kind of tune him out at this point. :P

2 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Hubby: "Maybe we should spend the weekend test-driving some small mini-vans to see if there are any that you'd feel ok driving (he's tall, I am very short), re: long trips?"
Me: "Is your back feeling better?"
Hubby: "No."
Me: "Then what's the point/purpose doing it now? You already bought that biggish SUV thing recently, and I can marginally drive that. Tired of that already?"

+++ long pause ++++

Me: "Unless you were just looking for something to do on the weekend."
Hubby: "Maybe."

I can be like that. :D

To be fair, in my mind, hubby has a history of being obsessively picky about vehicles for various reasons, even long before his back went out. He buys something (used, he's not a new-car-price guy) and it's never good enough (and nothing will ever be as "perfect" as that old blue van), then he gets rid of it or complains about it for months/years, wishing/thinking he should get something else etc. I kind of tune him out at this point. :P

You could always Google "best vehicles for drivers with back pain"...

4 hours ago, rjshae said:

You could always Google "best vehicles for drivers with back pain"...

You missed the larger point.
He already did that (test drove a dozen or so) and that's why he bought the (5-10 y.o used, still cost a fair penny) Lexus suv RX or BX or XXX or whatever it is. Which he doesn't like very much. He still uses it, he just complains ... that he should've bought something else, like ... a minivan.

BEFORE he hurt his back, he bought three different vans (over several years) trying to find a replacement to his original ancient blue van and resold/got rid of all three because the seat or view or whatever didn't compare, and kept driving his ancient blue van. That was the point. If we were super rich instead of California sorta upper mid-class, by now he'd be buying a new car every six months, hating it, repeat forever.

In terms of his actual back and long trips, I mean, even if his back was 100%, it's not like we'd go on long trips but a few times a year anyway, and probably stay in hotels. Whether I can drive "his" car is only about emergency use. We have always had "his/hers" cars (and chairs, and desks) with one of us doing 99% of driving depending what car we used.

eg when I hear "lets go test drive" and hubby sticks me in as a reason, in my ears it's just an excuse re: he wants a new car.
I suspect most long-term couples have at least a couple forever buggaboo roll-eyes at each other contentions, and this is one of ours, I guess. EDIT: if buying another car to try was $500 each time, at this point in our lives, it wouldn't be a buggaboo. When it's 10k-30k each time, and the way cars usually lose resale value super fast, I get a little impatient. My buggaboo re: wanting to wash dishes by hand, costs nothing.

Edited yesterday at 07:14 AM1 day by LadyCrimson

Leasing a vehicle would land right in your target budget and then he could "try out" a new vehicle every year.

Took a Zoom meeting while at the gym - never done that before!

15 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

You missed the larger point.
He already did that (test drove a dozen or so) and that's why he bought the (5-10 y.o used, still cost a fair penny) Lexus suv RX or BX or XXX or whatever it is. Which he doesn't like very much. He still uses it, he just complains ... that he should've bought something else, like ... a minivan.

BEFORE he hurt his back, he bought three different vans (over several years) trying to find a replacement to his original ancient blue van and resold/got rid of all three because the seat or view or whatever didn't compare, and kept driving his ancient blue van. That was the point. If we were super rich instead of California sorta upper mid-class, by now he'd be buying a new car every six months, hating it, repeat forever.

In terms of his actual back and long trips, I mean, even if his back was 100%, it's not like we'd go on long trips but a few times a year anyway, and probably stay in hotels. Whether I can drive "his" car is only about emergency use. We have always had "his/hers" cars (and chairs, and desks) with one of us doing 99% of driving depending what car we used.

eg when I hear "lets go test drive" and hubby sticks me in as a reason, in my ears it's just an excuse re: he wants a new car.
I suspect most long-term couples have at least a couple forever buggaboo roll-eyes at each other contentions, and this is one of ours, I guess. EDIT: if buying another car to try was $500 each time, at this point in our lives, it wouldn't be a buggaboo. When it's 10k-30k each time, and the way cars usually lose resale value super fast, I get a little impatient. My buggaboo re: wanting to wash dishes by hand, costs nothing.

Sorry to hear about the challenges, LadyCrimson. Hope there is some way to mitigate and find a more wholesome way forward!

We had a tabling event at work. Carted stuff across campus, set up our display table, stood in front of my departments table working the crowd for 3 hours, broke down the table and carted everything back across campus.

We haven't done things like this in awhile, and someone let me age since the last time and let me tell you, I'm very unhappy about this fact. 😜