Another year slips by again. I guess this is the time to review the year's events.
We lost Regina's brother Jack, who had to fight a long illness. At this time of year, especially, our thoughts turn toward Jack and his family. I remember watching Polar Express in his living room there in New Jersey over Christmas when my daughter was just a little baby, with the whole family.
So many people that were there are now gone.
Genevieve currently does design work for books. She is learning quickly, as is our way, and making her own way. She can be fast. With Art. Productive. And she can do the nuts and bolts work too. Whatever they want, she can aspire to. Like me, but she is way more on the ball.
Gen got to see her Sumo Aonishiki win in November. One can see the Ukrainian in both of them. In fact their faces are somewhat similar.
Regina is enjoying the ways of retirement. I figure she got lucky that she chose to retire at such a time, because her job was handling grants at the local university. Such things must be far more difficult now, and also less giving. How sad it must be seeing things just be destroyed by lack of funding. Thinking of the arbitrary ignorance behind such parsimony, and the damage it causes, is bad enough, but seeing it first hand must be much worse.
Regina and Gen have taken up identifying local birds while they swim. We have a bird feeder. I found the Tanagers interesting. They were here in Spring, but not Fall. I look on the bird map, there is a small spot in Inland Southern California, not far from where were are, and that's it. They also gave me a chance to say "Paddy Tanager the Caddy Manager," like 600 times, and Regina's like "now I can't stop saying it."
Apparently they have a phone thing that can identify the bird by its call. That really helps the beginner. There are hawks around. Watching the birds can show you things that normally you would not see, like a murder of crows robbing some mockingbird's nest. Crows can be assholes.
I keep busy with work around the house and programming. A recent effort has me converting my programs to C#-UI3. I never thought I would get much use from AI things, but I get nice quick replies to my VB to C# conversion questions from Google AI.
I also fix things as necessary. An older house is wanting things like new faucets and new valves under the faucets, and paint and fixing. One current job on the front door I proclaimed as "The Thousand-Year Door." I do take my time.
This year was the 50th anniversary of the loss of my mother, it needs to be noted. There is just me to mourn, given I lost Claire and my father last century, also. How few are left, that she touched?
I managed to stay healthy, in the relative sense, this year. Of course I am now 6-7. Years old.
Time passes by so fast. I sit on the couch here with the cat, Nancy. Will she live to see twenty in April? Time will tell. Strange old cat. I've know her since she was born.
I got her to drink a lot more water by trying water bowls at different heights. I have two now that are 4-1/2 and 6-1/2 inches high that she uses. She does not need it for food, but likes it for water. She uses the highest one the most. The base has to be narrower than the bowl, for paw room. The idea is to make it as easy as possible.
I had noticed that her back was twitching and she was scratching the ground when she was drinking, and thought maybe there would be a way to help that. So I went through a scientific process.
I also water down her pate a little, as to make it less difficult for her to eat, and sneak her more water, and melt her pill.
She yells at night. Lonely. Wake me up, and that's OK. I can't help but love the little cat. She's alright. Always here with me at night.
Hope the year was good for you, and good luck with the next.
