Petronia

Warm and dry and breezy day, a relief after the mug of earlier this week. May content myself with window fans tonight.

Woke at too early a.m., went to bathroom and then back to sleep in the AC coolness. Woken by a scam phone call several hours later ('This is VISA security. We have noticed a charge on your card for $400 on ebay this morning etc etc'-- they always give round numbers, which you'd think was a tip-off, or maybe these guys come from countries with no sales tax.) Wondered why I hadn't heard the garbage trucks which I always do hear even with closed windows and white noise. Maybe an unwontedly late pickup? Was then struck by horrid thought that maybe Tuesday's holiday had shoved everything one day along and there was my green bin out rotting in the heat. So limped downstairs and located the garbage schedule which said Thursday July 3 garbage day. Then wondered if today really was Thursday, but phone assured me on that point. Heat and isolation really do rot the brain, and I'm not sure what to do about either.

(Garbage pickup wasn't late. I just didn't hear it. And someone kindly put my bins back for me but not NND who usually does it, because theirs were still out.)

But did have an hour long massage, which helped some of the owies, at least for a while. 'Your quads are really tight, ' she said, 'and your hip flexors, and your hamstrings,  and your piriformis, and and and.' Apparently my shoulders are looser than before, which isn't much comfort because my shoulders still hurt.

Laundromat achieved but I'll have to go back soon because socks. Oh for the days when I didn't wear socks in the summer. Oh for the days when I felt safe on the basement stairs. But it won't hurt to do laundry in hot or warm water once in a while. 

Chuffedness of the day was resetting the cordless phone's time, which had unaccountably vanished after a recharge. Chuffed because the manual was exactly where I thought it would be and the instructions clear, so go me. This after I didn't go to recycle Sunday because the bag of batteries wasn't where I thought it would be and I didn't locate it until much later.

Reading-wise, finished Saint Death's Daughter and sent it on to the waiting hordes. I liked it well enough, even if at times it reminded me of de Bodard's Aztecs. And I still wonder at the cover blurb promising love, tenderness, and joy. I mean yes, there was that too, but only after you'd waded through an awful lot of  carnal, bloody and unnatural acts, accidental judgments, and a ton of casual slaughters amounting to genocide. Game of Thrones may be worse but only because it's longer.

Currently on the go are:

The Odyssey in the ancient Penguin Classics translation. If I ever do read Wilson, it might be an idea to know what she was working against. Because frankly, Odysseus is a dweeb, a fact I evidently ignored fifty years ago;

Damned, latest and last? of the Scarlet Revolution series. Should have reread Elusive to remind me where we are but I got immersed and have not got lost yet;

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, partly as fallout from The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, partly because a big thick book is good sitting in front of fans reading. Am finding the Stephen/ Lady Pole sections much harder going than the last two times. The Gentleman fits very nicely with Ima Ichiko's observations on the habits of youkai (ie their values are very different from ours) but though this is true, what's nauseating about the Gentleman is that he recalls the worst examples of humanity. I will note that my last reread was ten years ago when the world seemed still to be a sane place.

The day was pillow hot and muggy so I stayed in and ordered Vietnamese delivery. The chicken and vermicelli wasn't as good as Pour Boy's but the Vietnamese coffee was excellent. Swiftered the kitchen floor, lick and promise but better than nothing. Then as the afternoon progressed the weather turned warm and dry instead of hot and muggy, so went out with clippers to attack the hedge and whatever of the linden I could reach. Practically the first thing I did was catch my thumb in the little lock thing so I bled all over the clippers, and my back went into spasm, and the linden branches were nowhere close enough to cut. Returned to the sofa and fan and the three books I'm reading, none of them eformat so no bicycling either. Thus my useless Canada Day.

Last night was thunder and rain, welcome enough in that the sidewalk up from my place has become a dog turd trap, ie some animal stepped in dog doo and meandered up the street leaving marks from here to Yarmouth. The marks are still faintly there today but at least better than it was. Also storm brought in, if not cooler, then dryer weather, so the day was sun and warm and breezily pleasant.

Back has been a literal pain all this week, doubtless from couch potatodom, and legs no better, but I made me go out to Wiener's to inquire about extend-a-cutters because the linden is becoming ridiculously umbrageous. On back order, Marty says, should be in at the end of the month. Umm, this *is* the end of the month, isn't it? so after Monday? Yeah, next week, sort of. OK, must come back next week. SND texted me to say the tree people couldn't come right away to do the cherry, so they'd decided to postpone trim until fall or maybe spring, and I foolishly said Maybe I should just get the whole tree done since lord knows it needs it, and they said Good idea happy to chip in. Which means calling up tree services moan groan tremble. But it really does need extreme cutting back.

Then had bento at my old(est) place and dropped by my secondary bank because BoM will give me fives. Except it didn't give me anything. Kept telling me to remove my card after I'd removed my card, then printed a receipt and shut down. So I had to stand in line and wait for a cashier to be free, while hoping there was a way to tell that the ATM actually hadn't dispensed the cash. Must be, surely, or else people would be constantly trying that scam? Anyway, guy had no doubts as to my honesty, voided the ATM withdrawal, and gave me my cash. But from now on I use the left hand machine only, just in case.

There's the yearly recycle event at Central Tech tomorrow. Might go down with that bag of batteries I found in the bunker, though Wiener's will take light bulbs if I remember to bring them. I must move to move but I seriously don't want to. Couch and beanbags and fan and books/ tablet is all I'm up for.

So got out, first time since Friday, and had a conversation with an actual human being, the same one as Friday ie my physio. I am indeed growing feral: not quite at the anchorite stage yet, but not far from it.

Today was still warm but bearable: 27 is a far cry from 35, and the air was no longer the hot pillow over the face of the last three days. Will probably still use the AC tonight because it won't get under 22 until morning.

Neighbourhood FB page has people commenting on the use of a park that is not, in fact, in the neighbourhood. Complaints of people smoking, people smoking crack,  people playing music, and most peculiarly, 'people praying in public'. I really wanted to jump in and comment, ' The horror, the horror!' but I may finally have learned in my old age not to poke the trolls.

Still haven't finished anything except my forgettable bicycle reading and another five or ten doujinshi. Which still give me unplaceable fantods for no good reason. It's not just the incestuous rape tropes that so abound in yaoi because even the gen ones do it. It may just be, as Finder Jean said lo these many decades, 'These people are all so unpleasant.'