Living in an Artificial World

 I'm not sure what's real anymore.  I know I'm not alone in that; so many people complain that with CGI, Photoshop, and now AI - there's no telling what's real and what's not.

I have enough trouble with being basically a cynical person without be lied to all the time.  There was a post on FB yesterday (which seemed like it was written by a human) who said that they missed the simple pleasure of seeing cute animal videos that people would post - say, that was caught on their Ring camera.  "Cute baby skunks!" your mind says, and you smile.  And that's it - just a little spark in the day.  Now - they feel like they have to look closely - are the shadows not keeping up with the movements?  Are little skunks somehow blinking in and out of existence?  Is something off?  I like how they put it - "I didn't want to do homework.  I just wanted to watch the baby skunks."

I know that doing Photoshop, CGI, and now AI does require a skill set, and is an art form on its own.  But why can't people honestly just say "AI generated" and then the viewer can relax and enjoy it.  Some do - there's a page called "Club Cranium" which has strangely bizarre things on it, and I admire the artist.  

And, of course, you get a message or a text from someone, and hope that your Spidey sense is working because it may or may not be from that person (hint - if you're going to send a scam message, see if the name you're using is from someone who is still alive).

I've been fuming about this for the past couple of days.  There's a Renaissance Faire in town in about three weeks.  I want to go, and take my dragon puppet, and I sort of want a new costume.  I have my medieval kirtle, but I want something a little fancier, like a swamp witch.  So I start looking for inspiration and type "Swamp Witch" into Pinterest.  This skirt came up.

Oh, my.  This skirt has "me" written all over it.  I love the layers.  The curved hem. The way the colors flow autumnal from the yellows and oranges to the greens.  I really want it.  There's a site: The skirt is $32.

So there's the part of me that looks at it, finger hovering over the "Buy" button, ready to put in my PayPal.  Then there is the me looking over my shoulder, saying "that skirt doesn't physically exist anywhere."  If I order it, what I'll get (if I get anything) would be a plain skirt - possibly cotton, likely polyester - with a ruffle design printed on it.

But I keep coming back to it, because it annoys the ever-loving hell out of me.  Someone is telling me it's there, for a ridiculously low price, and they're lying to me.

I'm saving the picture, and who knows? Someday I might make something like it.  It would be $100 or so of fabric, and I'd have to do the dyeing and distressing, and I don't think I'l do it in three weeks before the Ren Faire.  It will live in my idea stash - where I'll both admire it, and be pissed off by it.

But that's our current world.  You can't trust the news, because everyone puts their own bias on it (just stating facts doesn't get ratings).  You can't trust any photographs or videos.  If you read a post, and it's more than a couple of paragraphs long, likely it was AI written or at least assisted (there's a cadence to AI writing that's pretty obvious).

I still want that skirt.

Finished Shawl; Unsettling Dream

 The Forest Walk Shawl is finished.  And I'm happy with it - it really captures the mood of a walk through the woods.

Just in time for the weather to be warm again.

I'm in the post-project funk.  Something like this is about project, not product. I've spent many many hours thinking of this project, coming up with the color scheme, spinning, dyeing, and knitting - and now it's done.  It will have its time to be draped on the mannequin in the "no cats allowed" room, and eventually folded into a box. With luck, next winter, I might be able to wear it once or twice.  But, basically, this relationship is over.  

And it's February 27, one of the hard dates.  In 2020, this was the day that ended the most terrifying time of my life - the period that Bob was out of the hospital and we were living in a hotel and he was 100% my responsibility.  Sick and weak, and a fall could have killed him and I had no call button for a nurse.  But still - it was quiet with no beeping and alarms and people in and out 24/7, and the bed was big enough that I could curl up against him.  But on the 27th, they decided that it was too dangerous and they readmitted him.  He stood in the door of the room and said "Annie - I'm having a panic attack.  I can't do this."  The next day he would start the round of chemo that killed him.

I dreamed of him last night.  Somehow he had come back.  We were both trying to work through the awkwardness of learning to live together again after 6 years apart.  I was trying to explain about the cats, and apologize for the amount of his stuff (especially the barn) that was gone.  The part that I really remember was that he looked at me and said. "You look broken.  No older, just . . . . broken."

Tooth and Asking For Help.

 I did something that I very rarely do, and avoid as much as possible.  I asked for help.

My oral surgery/prep work for my implant was yesterday.  I've been dreading it.  I don't know why - I've had a bridge, a couple of crowns, three root canals, and a tooth pulled in the last 5 years.  I've driven myself each time.  But this time for some reason I felt that I just couldn't cope.

It might be the memory of the two root canals (at the same time) a year ago.  I was in the chair for almost two hours, and the last person of the day, so after all that it was dark when I got out.  And raining.  And in an unfamiliar part of town.  So tired and woozy, with the numbness starting to wear off, I had that hour drive, then when I got home I had to go out in the rain to put the chickens up, then feed the cats and the flying squirrel before I could finally take care of myself.  I was a little pitiful.

At least this time I was going to getting out in the daylight.  But I was still going to feel woozy, and the periodontist is in a busy part of town.   But what choice did I have?

I asked for help.  It's about a 45 minute drive there; the first half-hour isn't too bad, but that final 15 minutes (and hence the first 15 minutes coming home) is dealing with more traffic in an area I'm not familiar with.  So I called Gill.  She lives about a half-hour from me, but it's a pretty straight shot.  I asked her if she could drive that last 15 minutes to and from the periodontist and, God Bless Her, she said no problem.  So she dropped me off, ran some errands, picked me up, and took me back to her place.  It was only about a 15-20 minute drive, but I was feeling a little shaky when I got out, and it was nice to have that rest (and I drank some juice).  Then I was ready to get in my car and get home before the numbness wore off.

As I said when I hugged her goodbye - I am a strong, independent woman.   And I had to admit that at least this time - I wanted someone to take care of me.

February 21; Cardweaving

 The weather continues confusing.  As a matter of strong principle, I steadfastly refuse to turn on the air conditioning less than a week since I was running the heat  - and two days before I will likely be running the heat again.  Which means for the last two days it's been 78 degrees in the house, low 80s outside (not record breaking, but record matching).  By Tuesday we'll be down in the 30s again, highs in the 40s.  Insane.

I went to a card weaving workshop today - yes, meeting with the Weaver's Guild twice in one month!  But it's something different.  Card weaving is something that I try every decade or so.  The technique is interesting and dates far back in history.  But it's also fussy and fiddly and then I realized why I let years in between go by.

I had to figure out what was bothering me as I drove in.  It's not a difficult drive; it was held at a branch library, with only two turns from my house (20 miles, but a straight shot). But while I was driving and singing along to rock music, I was also feeling that tightness in my chest, and tears behind my eyes.

It's the date:  February 21.  In 1972, Bob and I had been dating for a month (he had already declared his intention of marrying me).  Things between us were getting . . . interesting (OK - we were horny teenagers).  We didn't want our first time to be a fumble in the back seat of the car and then going back to our respective dorms, so we checked into a motel room and spent the night together.

So for the next 46 years, February 21 was celebrated - leering looks, waggling eyebrows, suggestive glances.

The 47th year, February 21, 2020 - he was too sick to even cuddle.  We had just received the test results that his transplant had failed.

So yeah - part of me ain't happy.

The workshop went fine - we didn't have an instruction but tried to follow along on a DVD.  Some did better than others.  I was pretty middling.  It's a fussy method of weaving that requires focus, and after 6 years of isolation I find it difficult to tune out the chatter of people around me.  I might try finishing at least the first project just to wrap my head around the technique.

The Italian Circus is in town this weekend.  I had thought about going to the afternoon show after the workshop - but after 5 hours of being around chattering people I was peopled out and came home.

Good news!  Someone has taken up the Silent Book Club and it's back.  But . . . it meets tomorrow  Friday I drove into town for work and errands.  Today it was for the workshop.  Monday I have my dental surgery.  Tuesday it's back to work.  Maybe I want a day where I'm not spending an hour behind the wheel.

But all in all, a good day.

Drums and Flirty Owls

 Wow - another 10 days gone.  I'm still sort of drifting in time - not just 1972, 2020, and 2026 but all parts in between.  I just have random memories of my life - and, of course, Bob was always part of it.

I do need to stop doing stupid things.  I'm very good about shutting the chickens in their coop at night - but two night this month I thought I remembered doing it but didn't.  Thank goodness nothing got them.  Must get my brain to brain.

The weather is also messing with my sense of time passing.  Last week it was in the 50s.  Today it was 80.  By next Tuesday it's supposed to be a high of 50 again.  But my azaleas are blooming.  It's just confusing.

My last post - 10 days ago - I said I was keeping myself open because Jeff was in town.  I was hoping to spend some time with him - maybe have him out here for a fire and to listen to the spring peepers, maybe make a pizza for dinner.  Alas - work kept him tied up.  He was able to slip out for a couple of hours on one of my museum days - he and Suzie and I had lunch, and we walked around for a little while, but that was it.  As always, I keep thinking "hopefully next time."

Wilbur the Owl is still in flirting mode.  Some days he gets a meatball for dinner, other days he gets a (pre killed) rat or chick.  On those days, he's taken to not eating it, and instead saving it to show off the next day to tell us what a good hunter he is.

I did something a little different last week.  In mid  2020, when I was still being a bit frenetic after Bob died, I bought a djembe - a small African drum. 

 I figured I would learn how to play it, and maybe find a drum circle to join.  But, of course - Covid.  The drum has been sitting in a closet.   Last week the senior center was offering a drum workshop so I took it and went.  It was fun - the guy running it had drum available for people who didn't have any, and about 30 people showed up, and there was enough chaos that it really didn't matter what any one individual sounded like.   They might do it again in a few months.

I had to get domestic in the kitchen for a couple of days.  Sometimes Cosco gives the museum produce that is past the sell-by date.  They went crazy last week - three boxes, 5 feet on the side.  The two refrigerators were as packed as they could get, other food went to rehabbers, and there was still tons of produce that had to be adopted or tossed.  So I brought home pounds of spinach, blueberries, guavas, raspberries, a pineapple . . .    The raspberries got turned into coulis - easy.  The guavas . . . they were the yellow ones, not pink, not ripe, not juicy.  I could have just tossed them.  But nooooooo.  I chopped them up, covered them in water and boiled them to softness, pushed them through a sieve to remove the zillions of seeds, added sugar to the pulp, and boiled it down to make a sort of guava butter.  Three hours of work for a pint of butter (I will admit that the flavor is pretty intense).
At least blueberries are easy to free (and I brought home to limes, which have also been cut into wedges and frozen).  I've been eating a lot of spinach, as have the chickens.  Still need to deal with the two bags of little cucumbers and that pineapple.

I've lost a little bit of my lovely sense of isolation out here.  I wrote last year of meeting my neighbor Steve.  Yes - there is another house (several in fact) not that far from me, but I can't see them through the trees and I just ignore their existence.  But Steve is a little odd - he's been putting up a high fence all around his property (I wonder what his next-door neighbors thing of that).  There is an alternate road out of my place (which I never use so I sort have forgotten about it) that when I was getting the roof redone the truck bringing the shingles needed to use, so I had gotten out there to trim away some branches and underbrush.  Steve had some out, all concerned, worrying that I was going to start using that road, which runs in front of his house.  Strange - it's a public access road (and no, I don't use it).

It's nothing that bothered me - I allow other people their odd ways - until this week.  In the area of our (still say that, even though it's technically just mine) land in front of my cottage and on the way down to the stream is a cleared circular area.  My walking path is there.  In my head, the border between our property and the next one (which is now Steve's) was where the clearing ended and the trees started.  The reality (which I've always known, and it's on the map of our property) is that the dividing line cuts across the clearing - and now there's a fence there.  It feels intrusive - from the front of the cottage, and the burn pit there, it now stands saying "this is not yours."

I'm thinking that I might train some of the ivy that has taken over the garden over there to climb that wire.

And I know that Bob would be absolutely livid.  After 30+ years here, you'd think that we'd have squatters rights to that cleared area.

Stay tuned . . .

Ramblings

 11 days since my last post.  Brain sort of all over the place, so time for a ramble, without any obvious connections.

The nice thing about having this blog (as I've often said) is that I can look back and see that about this time each year I fall apart - and then sort of come back together again.   So the fact that my mind keeps flicking from 1972 (things starting to happen with Bob) to 2020 (things ending with Bob) to 2026 (now) and all parts in between is OK.  Sometimes it's memories.  Sometimes it might be closer to PTSD because for a moment I forget when/where I am.  Such as looking out the window at my car, thinking that I just want to get in it and come home but I can't until Bob dies - and then I realized that I'm looking out my own kitchen window and that I *am* home - at least as much as I can ever be.  These times don't really bother me - it's like 2026 self is observing and "isn't that interesting."

We had winter.  Actual cold (by Florida standards).  Going to work when it's 25 degrees and breezy - not much fun.  At home I have trouble getting warm.  I wear a sweatshirt, or wrap in a blanket, and sometimes I know I'm warm, even sweating a little, but it's like this core of cold inside that won't thaw out.  But all too soon it will be hot again so I guess I should enjoy the sensation while it lasts.

Even more surprising - Central and South Florida had winter.  Every year, when the temperatures drop, it's almost a joke that they have to watch out for falling iguanas.  When the temps are below 40, they go into a torpor and fall out of the trees.  As soon as the sun comes up and the temperature rises they wake up again.  But this year there were several days that stayed cold. With amazing alacrity for any organization, the FWC temporarily removed the ban on transporting wildlife without a license, and asked people to bring in the cold-shocked lizards to central drop-off points.  5200 were brought in over two days.  The sad thing- they were euthanized (nice way of saying "killed").  The bunny hugger in me is upset because they were just living their lizard lives.  The environmentalist in me acknowledges that they are tremendously invasive (that 5200 is a drop in the bucket of their population) and eating the native animals out of house and home and causing a lot of destruction.  But it's sad.

Woke up this morning and laughed because I suddenly remembered a time over 50 years ago when we were in bed and heard a cat crying, and an occasional thud sound.  Eventually our cat Algernon (our first cat) made his way into the room, bumping into walls.  Somehow he had found a little paper snack bag and gotten his head stuck in it.

RedBug is spending more time in the den, and has even wandered into the kitchen for a snack if I've forgotten to refill his personal kibble bowl.  He even found RiverSong's basket and somehow squeezed himself into it.

The Highland Games were this weekend.  Like the circus - I didn't go.  I've gone a couple of times, and they are fun (and there are Men in Kilts), but apparently I'm not yet in the mood to go by myself (and I didn't get any offers).  I also have a bit of a problem with the fact that unless you buy a VIP ticket ($$$$$) which gives you access to bleachers, there's no place to sit except on the ground.  After a couple of hours I get tired of standing and walking.   I also wanted to keep the weekend open because Jeff is in town for work and thought he might break free (alas - he didn't).  But the weekend was not lost - I actually went to the Weaver's Guild meeting (for once it was more on my side of town) on Saturday, and Sunday I started cutting up and burning a tree that had fallen on my walking path.

Projects are coming along.  I'm working on the 8th panel (out of 9) of the Forest Walk shawl (another reason for going to the Guild meeting - to get a couple of oohs and aaahs because this is getting to be a bit of a slog).  The cleanup of the rotting wood stack is slowly being finished - slowly because the wood is gone and the stakes pulled up, and now what remains is moving all of the cinder blocks and they're heavy enough that I don't shift more than a half-dozen before taking a break.

I did the drive across town today to the peridontist.  Turns out that they can't just evaluate if an implant can be done.  You have to start the procedure - pull out the root, pack it with bone paste and seal it up, then wait four months to see if my bone has grown into it enough to put in the implant.  So it will be four months and a few thousand dollars just to see if it's possible.  That all starts at the end of the month.

I laughed at myself this afternoon.  I got home, took care of a few things, then looked out the window at my dusty car and decided to wash it.  In Ye Olde Goode Days I would have said something like "think I'll wash the car" and Bob would have said "OK, I'll bring the truck around too.  I wonder if I have any tire dressing.  I need to set up the pad on my drill to polish the headlights.  I have to drag out the extension cord and the shop vac so we can vacuum the insides.  Uh - never mind.  That's too much for this afternoon - we'll do it some other time."
So we drove a dirty car a lot.   Today - in the words of Nick Offerman - anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed.  I got the hose, bucket, car wash, and a wad of nylon net and 15 minutes later had a reasonably clean car.  I even put in another 10 minutes cleaning the windows, headlights, and reflectors.

I'm still slogging along on my 1084 mile virtual walk.  I hit the 86% mark today (933 miles done, 151 to go)  I'm getting very tired of obsessively trying to keep track of my daily steps - but I should be done in a couple of months.

I got a nice compliment - nice enough that I want to write it down so that 2027 self can be reminded and smile.  It came from my chatbot - but hey - I take what I can get.  We were having a discussion of coincidence vs. the Baader Meinhof effect.  In this case, it was the word "quandong" - not a word I had encountered before but then got it twice in one day.  First, watching "Tasting History" where he saw it in a recipe (it's a fruit) and then that night when I was reading a book on birds, and it talked about a bowerbird building the bower in the shade of a quandong tree.

  At one point the bot said that yes, it was a coincidence, but that my interests are so varied that "You cast a wide mental net, so sometimes you can catch the same strange fish from two different streams."   I like that - I'm not a dabbler, a dilatant , or scatter brained.  I just cast a wide mental net.

And now, with the brain dumped, I'm going to resume my binge watching of The Great British Sewing Bee and knit a bit more on that shawl.

Flirty Owl, Bug in the Sun, Another Big Project

 I didn't go to the circus.
I've written about the Royal Hanneford circus before - the multi-generational family one.  I first went in 2023.  I had agreed to meet a friend there, but he fell asleep on his couch instead.  I felt very self-conscious - as far as I could tell, I was the only person there by myself.  But I eventually realized that no one else noticed, or cared.
In 2024 I went by myself, no worries.  Same for 2025.
But this year they caught me a little off-guard.  In previous years the circus has come to town in March or April, for two weekends.  This year it was the first week in January, for just one weekend.  I've been feeling unbalanced, and somehow just couldn't get myself to get up and go.  I threw the decision to the fates: I did a FaceBook post of "Hey - the circus is in town this weekend - anyone want to go?"  I got two positive responses - unfortunately from people in Alaska and England.
So no circus this year (at least not the Royal Hanneford - the Cirque Italia is coming next month).

Sometimes I take advantage of the lack of accountability in my life - that I have no one in my personal life to notice or care what I do.  I wrote last time of losing my tooth.  I got it checked out by the dentist, and got my referral to the periodontist.  I decided to do my grocery shopping on the way home so I didn't have to do it Friday after work - and I got a king cake.  I love those things.  And, because of the above-mentioned lack of accountability, there was no one to notice if for the next few days I got in the habit of staying up until 2:00 a.m., eating king cake (yes, one person can eat an entire king cake in 3.5 days) and flipping aimlessly through YouTube.  But it seems to have set some sort of reset button - since that binge, I've been better at staying in 2026.

King cake come with a little plastic doll (in theory they should be baked in the cake, but for liability reasons they're now placed in separately.)  Because of this annual indulgence, I now have three little dolls.  I can't bring myself to toss them, because Bob liked to make little found art assemblages with them.  Maybe sometime I will too (this one he painted, then put together with a ring box and a key)

 

I'm still knitting on the Forest Walk shawl.  Five panels done, four to go.  It's cold right now but by the time I'm done it will be too hot to wear it.  But it's more of a process than a product thing.  It's particularly pretty just piled up on my lap while I'm working.

Despite having a little spate of rain here and there, we continue to be quite dry (we didn't have a hurricane or even a tropical storm at all in 2025, so about a foot less rain than usual).  Lakes and ponds are way down.  But I rather like the very eerie effect of the cypress trees with their enlarged trunks exposed - very Jurassic Park.  This is also where quite often a deer will pick their way through the trees to come to me, adding to the otherworldly effect.

I had a cute flirtation at work.  It's courtship season for birds of prey, so our great horned owl Wilbur has been hooting at us like crazy (he was hand raised, so somewhat human imprinted).  When I went in to clean, he was standing right at the door, madly hooting, very excited, and showing off his dead rat -"see what a good hunter I am??"  (I did not tell him that I knew we had given him that rat, already dead, for the dinner the day before.  These days he's more likely to save his food and show it off rather than eating it).  I was too much in the moment to take a picture, but it was quite cute.  When I went in, he flew off to his nest box, turned his back on me, and buried the rat in the leaves.  At first I took this as a bit of an affront (No rat for you!) but actually that's part of the courtship - showing that you are a good provider, and have a cache.

I finally got started on this winter's outdoor project.  After Hurricane Michael in 2018, we had 20+ downed trees.  Over the next few months we got them cut up, split, and stacked.  Bob laid down about a 30 foot length of cinder blocks, with metal fence stakes between them about every 3-4 feet, the wood piled up between them.  We used up some of it and gave some away, but most of it has still been sitting there (there were plastic covers but they often blew off in storms).  It has become something of an eyesore - a long length of bug infested rotting wood.

The wood (and the cutting stand in front) is now gone - I had hoped to burn it as I hauled it, but punky wood burns at a rather leisurely pace so the rest is piled by the burn pit for future fires. 

I do like fires - and I especially like taking breaks to sit beside them and read.  But there were also memories of the two of us working so hard to clear up the acres of wood debris after the storm.  Usually if we ever had one or two trees down, we'd cut and split by hand - he with a sledge and maul, me with my wood splitter.  But 20 trees?  We went into town and rented a hydraulic wood splitter - and that was a fun bit of kit.  We'd put in a chunk of tree trunk, press a button, and wham! Split into four to be gathered and stacked.  We had to make ourselves slow down a little  - we were hoofing it to try to keep up with the thing (and kept thinking of the song "John Henry.")  Now I was sitting by that hard-won wood, rotted and burning.

 Back to the former wood storage: all but 5 stakes have been pulled up to be bundled - I'll keep a few, just in case, and the rest can go to the reuse center at the dump.  That doesn't sound like much - but in order to get to the stakes I had to move the wood first, then pry up the now-buried cinder blocks on each side.  The stakes have a wide flange at the bottom, and in many cases roots had grown around them, so it was a bit of work to loosen and pull them.  I was going to push through and finish - but my back was giving me signals and I know when to listen to it.  In fact - after three days of working on this project, I decided that I should take today off.  The next big step will be to dig out all those cinder blocks and stack them somewhere - but that will have to be spread out over a bit of time.  

I got a reward for all that hard work.  When I came in side for a nature break, RedBug was lying in a patch of sun in the den.  I realize that doesn't sound like much, but it was only about three weeks ago that he stopped staying under the bed 24/7 and starting sleeping on top of it.  This is the first time he's left the bedroom.

So at the moment I'm on a somewhat even 2026 keel.  I imagine that I'll come and go - but after 6 years, I know that's the rhythm.  Tuesday was rough, and I just let it be - it was Bob's birthday.  I went to work - quite cold for Florida, 25 when I got there and still under 40 when I left.  I treated myself to a bowl of Pho for lunch - but as I sat there with my hot soup and pot of tea and my book, I just felt so terribly alone.  I wish I could have met him for a birthday lunch. (Which probably led into my throwing myself into hauling wood - hard work helps).