Who's a good boi?

 

About five years ago my daughter moved out with our two smaller dogs, Cheech and Chong, leaving just me, my monster cat (Moses) and the Boxer at home. That silly, lovable Boxer passed away in July 2017. I think. Dates are fuzzy for me. I said "No more dogs. Let's keep life simple with just the cat."

 Alas, I saw this baby advertised. I don't know why. I had been pet free for two months. I lasted two whole months. I went to pick him up. He was not neutered and came to find out from the vet that he had heart worm. She could not "fix" him until that was treated. It took a year. It was rough at times. Something about the worms were flushed from the heart into the blood stream to get rid of them. I don't know. I could be wrong about that - but it was just horrible to think the dog had that going on inside of him. Ugh.

Well, he endured. He was "fixed".  His roaming (running away) was curtailed a bit. I never did fully trust him out in the yard like I could with Cheech and Chong so he was on a cable run when I let him out. 

When you get a stray, you never know how old they are and the vet can only guess. I named him BB for Big Baby. He was afraid of storms and he whined when I first brought him home (could be because he was not "fixed").  He was a very Big Baby. He was a beautiful dog and he was very well behaved (except when he ran away).

His back legs became more and more arthritic. Until one day he just could not get up. My daughter and I sent him across the rainbow bridge and added another box of ashes to my shelf. That makes 3. Sable, Slade and BB.  Sable was our first dog (who ate the chocolate/peanut butter buckeyes) and Slade. Oh, my Slade. I can't talk about him. Just yet.

Well, my daughter moved back in and then back out - but Cheech and Chong have stayed with me along with that monster - Moses. He is something else.

I've told myself (again) after Cheech and Chong pass - no more pets. I want to retire within the next five years or so and I don't want to be tied down by pets.

I suppose BB looked like our first dog, Sable. And I am just a sucker for black dogs I guess; and those big beautiful brown eyes.

Porch Pony

This last May, I turned 60. I told family and friends I was not celebrating this year due to the corona. Family did okay, but friends - not so much. Anyway, family sent some gifts. One day I received Omaha Steaks. The next day two of those HUGE boxes of Whitman's Sampler chocolates and I guess one of my brother's heard me say "I received steaks on Friday, chocolate on Saturday if there isn't a pony on my porch tomorrow, I'm gonna be pissed!"

It was a couple of days later.  I got my pony.

LOL!   It still is fun to be the baby of the family.

No Country for Old Men - And now the book.

And now, the book.

My goodness. I saw the movie years ago. Before 2012, that is the year I began keeping a record of each movie I watch.  I'm finally getting around to reading the book. I have to say, I like the way it is written. It moves along quickly and keeps me interested.

However, if I had not seen the movie - I would have trouble telling who was what character from the book. It gives their last names and I don't think I knew their names in the movie, except for Llewelyn. Now that I've seen the movie, I can picture each character.

I am going to crack two others this week. I like to go back and forth. When I get bored with one, I read some of the other. I remember my Mom reading four books at a time. She was always reading.  My older sister 1944 suggested "My Husband's Wife" by Jane Corry. I tried to start that one last week, but I was already reading one called "The Dragons, the Giant, the Women-A Memoir" by Wayetu Moore and it had a little girl telling the story and so does My Husband's Wife (starting out anyway) so it got confusing.

The other I may crack open is "Trust No One" by Debra Webb. 

Are you a seasoned e-reader? There are several formats for e-books. epub, mobi, azw and azw3, not to mention pdf and html. I use calibre. It can read all formats. Well, pdf I open in Adobe of course and html in a browser but I don't read many in that format. My fave is epub because that is what I started on with my Nook. I still have the Nook, it just won't hold a charge. I purchased a new cord and same - I can read it if it is plugged in, but what good is that? So, I just read off my computer screen. IBA's have no place in my life. I hate to use the word never, but I can pretty much be certain I won't be using any Apple products. I believe Kindle uses the azw and azw3 format.

There are several others, but not as popular as the top 3. epub, mobi and azw3. And Calibre works on Linux. Every once in a while I'll need a Linux fix. I'll format a laptop in the latest version of Ubuntu and re-learn everything, just to do it. Though mostly a command line prompt, you can use a GUI interface for Linux and browse the Internet.

My niece told me she was bored and got on the Dark Web the other night. I think a lot of people have seen the tv show "Dead to Me" where the main character browses the Dark Web so they "google" how to do it. I did go there back in 2016. I am not sure if there is another way to do it, but I used Tails and Tor. I got it working and I asked my niece if it was still clunky looking. She said yes.

Developers on the Dark Web don't bother with all the bells and whistles and advertising that we see. I wanted to see if I could do it because I was managing the filter for the schools and you know those pesky kids. They are a thousand times smarter than us Boomers and can figure things out lightning fast. When flash drives first came out there was a software techs could use to stop end users from plugging in to the usb ports. Well, it worked by not allowing the device to create a new e drive or f drive or whatever next letter in the alphabet was available. Nowadays - you have to be able to use the usb port for so many things plus a flash drive. What was that program they used? Oh, I can't recall and I found a site with the top ten and none of them ring a bell.

Poor Bolt

When I finally put the back wallpaper up on Bolt's tank he tried to climb the columns to the ancient ruins. It took him a couple of days but he finally started to ignore them.

Bearded dragons are very popular. My daughter got her first one in 2017 and raised her from a baby. This one she purchased a year later from a private owner. Her female died recently. The females can have clutches of infertile eggs. She had a successful clutch of 25 - 30 about a year ago. This time, she had problems with laying the eggs and passed away.

Heart-shaped blue saphhire

My daughter got engaged last evening. Yes, I went out to a bar in public with about 10 people in attendance.  That is the limit in Ohio, I think. It was supposed to be a surprise but when her beau informed her that she "HAD" to have Saturday the 1st off from work...she knew.  And little hints and other observations. So, I made certain I was there for her.

I was the only one from our side of the family and that is okay. All the others were his side. They are a wonderful people who believe in marriage and God and all the good things in life. They are not like me. A cynical, jaded old woman.

I am going to try very hard NOT to shove any negativity my daughter's way. I've been negative about marriage and relationships all of her life and every once in a while I can hear myself in her words and expressions about the same thing.

I come from a family of 8. 6 married and 5 are divorced. Marriage is not for the lazy. I myself, am ambivalent about the necessity of marriage. I am not affiliated with a religion so to me there is no "sin" in co-habitation out of wedlock. I have a child, so you can see I could care less about ruining my reputation or worrying about what others think if I have a child out of wedlock.

I used to believe in love. When I was younger. Now, I'm more like "Hey - you don't have insurance in your job but she does - go get married so you can get health insurance."  A union of necessity.

I gauge her beaus by how they treat animals and their parents. This tells me if they have empathy and respect. Two things I want in a partner for my daughter. This one has both.

I have always worked - have always had health insurance for both me and my daughter. I purchased my own home. No child support was sent my way. To me (not being religious), there is no logical reason for marriage. Absolutely none.

Hey...where in the heck is the spell-checker?  I can't remember!

Too Much and Never Enough

Been on a reading frenzy lately. I'm still around. Still on the computer for about 14 hours a day. Now that I am working from home, I rarely leave the screen.

My gosh, I almost didn't get in to post this. I could not remember where to go, could not remember what my login email was (old, old, old) and security answer was not working. Whew. Finally, with my cryptic notes that I keep on the computer, I managed.

I think I read the above book in 2 days. I also had the book by J Bolton - but it is hard for me to stay interested with that one, so I moved on.  But of course the one above kept my interest.

I do all my reading on-line with e-books. I like non-fiction more than fiction.

For pets, I am down to 1 bearded dragon, 2 dogs and my Monster cat. Over the past couple of months I lost one dog and one beardie. Sad, both of them.

I don't mind staying home. I don't mind working from home. Now, about twice a month or so, I have to drive to a school and install or replace some equipment physically. Summer is usually a busy time for that (because if the Internet is going to go off-line they want to do it when the staff and students are gone) but this summer I only had 2.  And one I did not have to do anything but babysit the job while 3 other guys did the work. I was just there in case my equipment wigged out. It did not. I was a bit put off that I wore a mask and the three guys working did not. So, I sat in another room for most of the day reading.

I think reddit has replaced my need for blogging. I make comments on there (I am incognito under a false name) about tv shows I watch, flowers, books - things that catch my interest. I steer clear of politics, religion and sex. It is not hard to do because just reading a few posts on those sub reddits has me moving on to another topic. Like horses, or kittens, or baby goats.

It's been a while. I think I am ready to get back into the blog posting. We will see.  Above is my cat Moses. He is a Manx.  He is in the dishwasher. This is by far the strangest cat I have ever owned.

I'm still rescuing animals. Currently I have the one cat (above), 3 dogs and 2 bearded dragons. The dragons were not my choice.  I have to say I am used to them now and I don't mind feeding them bugs and worms. They also eat a lot of greens. Greens that I did not purchase before. Bok choy, mustard greens, parsley, butternut squash (which is way delicious!), kale and a few other interesting food items.

Had a bout with cancer. Be glad I was not posting pics during that phase. Some people look good bald. I'm not one of them.

Went through some emotional rough patches.

Work is somehow better than it used to be. 

Looking forward to catching up with old friends. I hope they are still on board.

What a year for re-makes!  I watched "King Kong-Skull Island," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Beaches,"  just to name a few so far this year.

I enjoyed this version of King Kong. Other movies have been horrible. I am thinking to myself, 'Oh no!  It's true!  That have finally run out of movie ideas!' 

Laughing to myself. No, of course they haven't. It just seems to be a dry spell. As far as I am concerned, anyway.  I look forward to watching G Hawn in the movie "Snatched."  Not a fan of A Schumer, but that may be changing. I hope there is more W Sykes than just what the preview shows.

A shout out to "Fences" with Denzel and Viola.

Seeing the underbelly of the beast

I think my first exposure to B Cosby was listening to the album with my siblings to the "Noah, right!" comedy sketch. We roared. There was the "Fat Albert" cartoon, a few movies and his stand-up (or rather him sitting in a chair) routine. I loved him. He was very talented, made me laugh.

It just goes to show you that you cannot and should not think you "know" someone by watching them "act" on television. I recall watching a favorite actor on a talk show and have hated him ever since. He acted totally arrogant and like a buffoon. It begins to dawn on you that there is a lot of ugly in a lot of people.

B Cosby was (is) a great entertainer. If he is guilty of what a lot of women are claiming that he did, he sickens me to no end. I cannot imagine what his wife and daughters are going through. I wonder how many actors/actresses are also guilty of nefarious deeds and we just go on idolizing them. What a circus we have created with our celebrity worship.

Being a great actor/actress is one thing. Abusing your status to manipulate and use others for your own hedonistic pleasure is despicable.

Know when to quit

Kathy Griffen has set women back 50 years. Thanks a lot. You could have just gone and hid under a rock, but no. You had to go and make a "crying, blaming, hysterical woman" out of yourself. Exactly the kind of stereotype we have been fighting for years. Especially against men such as Trump.

This photo was taken Friday during my lunch break. It was at a nearby dollar store. Seriously, the sign itself had to cost more than a nickel. Five cents!?  What in the world?

Little Helpers

I thought this photo was adorable. My niece has one daughter (about 11) and three little boys ages 4, 3 and 2. I think. Maybe it is 5, 3 and 2. This is the (almost 3 year old) helping the two year old. I am going Sunday to the 3 yr old's birthday party. I went back and looked at my family birthday list. The girl is 11 ½, she is R1. R2 = 5 ½, R3 = 3, and R4 = 1 ½. Yes, my niece also deliberately named all her children with the first letter R. And, they are unusual names - not ones you see everyday. I expect her to be in a mental institute in about 7 years. Give or take. I know I would be.

I never was a fan of T Woods. But, the possibility of his arrest being publicly displayed bothers me beyond belief. I do not watch videos of this nature, so I have no idea if it was real or not or what transpired in it. I don't care to know. It is a personal tragedy and for it to be displayed in such a way is a vulgar, outright disgrace. I am also no fan of K Griffin and I could care less if she was let go by CNN or any other network for that matter. I am also no fan of Trump, but show a little respect.Or at least show a little tact.

I'll get off my soapbox, now.

Channeling Turner

I've mentioned before that J.M.W. Turner was one of my favorite artists. It started many many moons ago when I read the book "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins. The cover on the paperback book was part of the Turner painting "The Fighting Temeraire".  The right half of the picture with the stone and the setting sun was used as the book's cover.

My photo above from September 2016 reminded me of the skies that Turner would paint that looked as if they were on fire.

Napping in the warm sunshine

Here's my baby  err...old man  dog at my daughter's house. She said he lays outside on the deck in the sun all day long. She watches him for me while I work. When she moved out, she took the two black dogs we have (Cheech and Chong) to her house. The boxer has serious separation anxiety. I cannot leave him at home alone. My neighbor says he howls all day long when he is alone. He also scratches the wood on the doors and almost tears the place up.

I found him in 2009 (a month or so after I picked up Cheech and Chong). The vet said he could be anywhere from 1 to 3 years old. Boxers average lifespan (I believe) is around 10 years.

The movie had an interesting cast. Will Smith, Helen Mirren, Ed Norton, et alii.  I needed tissues at the end of it.  Collateral Beauty. Not stellar, but good enough for me. Usually,  I am better at predicting the ending, but this one caught me off guard. 

Now I am off to find a heating pad for an earache. And, my crown came off of one of my molars this morning. Okay, okay...I was eating a gummy bear. I used to hate those things. Now, I am back to hating them. Along with Payday candy bars (which made me lose a filling).  As the dentist said "I got my money's worth out of that filling."  The crown...not so long.  Hey..it's gold, or a composite of it. Maybe I should take it to the pawn shop and tell the dentist I swallowed it. Things always happen on the week end.

Helen (above) always seems to be unruffled in photographs. I'd like to have a bit more of that demeanor within myself. I'll have to work on that.

Easter 1966

I am the one in yellow.  A co worker and I were on a subject the other day and the subject came up as to what is the largest religion in the world. I thought I had read that Buddhism was. I looked it up. I don't know where I got my information, but according to the Internet - it is Christianity, then Islam and third is irreligion. The others fall after.

I asked "What is irreligion?"  I really didn't know. She didn't either. I looked it up. Oh, it is having NO religion or not believing in any particular religion.

I was brought up Christian. That is why two of my sisters and two of my brothers are all dressed up on Easter morning.

I sat here for a few minutes wondering - what image do I post after all this time away? I decided to look to see what my last image was that I uploaded. It was from April 3rd coming back from a funeral (too many of those lately) where a rock flew up off the Interstate and hit my windshield. Sigh. I notice that the top crack is much longer than this photo depicts. If you can see the little dot it is heading for - that is a chip from a previous hit. I do not know what will happen when they meet up.

It took me a while this morning to remember how to get into my blog. I perused my files searching for login instructions. After a few false leads, it just popped into my head. I had already logged into my gmail account I use - perubee. And once I typed in the blogger address (with the correct welcome to my world) I was in.

I won't give you any lame excuses or reasons as to why I was away for a year or two. And, I am not positive I will post on a regular basis. This is more therapeutic for me than any other reason.


I need to update my header as we have no cats, now. And, I don't plan to get any more. Two male cats that I had were stupendous pets. The other male and the two females were royal pains. We have 3 dogs, the Boxer and the two pups.

I will leave you with a site that I love to use.

www.protopage.com

No matter if I am at work, at home, at a sister's house, working in Columbus or in Indonesia, I can pull up my protopage and all my bookmarks are there neatly categorized into:

tech
linux
education
shopping
art
news

etc....

So far, I only use the Bookmarks widget and the digital clock. I see where I should use the Photo widget, Google calendar, To-do list...

It is free - a wee bit of advertising at the top of the page - you have the option to close that.

I imagine the posts will come regularly as I feel I have a lot to put down on paper or screen.

A Little Monkey and Tails.

I had this cute munchkin visit me yesterday for a bit. Her father (my nephew) was passing through.  He and his wife have a set up where he takes this little one to visit his friends from around where he grew up (they have children also) for the week-end, and her older son (from another relationship) goes to his father's grandparent's for the week-end - resulting in the Mom getting 2 days all to herself. They call it a mental health day (or something similar). I think that is wonderful! Although I am not positive when my nephew gets any totally alone time.

She is the cutest little 3 year old and she climbed the neighbor's swing set/fort like a little monkey.

I am going to try harder to post more often. I have so many things I can do on-line that almost all of my time is spent sitting here at the computer. Almost everything I do can help me in my job in one way or the other. Helping people is still one of the biggest areas in my life for me. Online, I am a reader of redd!t and have several divisions that I read to see if I can help. I also get several ideas and tips from readers to benefit myself.

Just last evening I was reading the area about Tor (The Onion Router). This one has been an example I use when I am instructing the techs about the filter. Most of them have no idea what it is, or how it works. Sigh. But that is an entire book in itself and if you know me, you are probably aware that I can get very long winded when I start talking tech.

Anyway, the user mentioned Tails.  I had not heard or read about this one. So, I had to investigate and of course I had to have it. For testing purposes and to present to the techs how end  users (the savvy ones) are getting around the filter in the schools and endangering their network.

I had to find 2 USB sticks with 4 GB available. (I had always referred to them as flash drives, but I kind of like this term). So I did have one empty 4 GB one (how did THAT happen?), and the other had just back up data on it - so I moved that to one of my external HDDs.

So, I started this new endeavor.  Four hours later I went to bed. LOL!  I am learning a lot, but I am also being very, very cautious. I have screwed up my system before trying this stuff and I should have known not to start this after 9 p.m. I was much too tired to think this through and follow long, intricate instructions.

It is one of those deals where you are going through the steps one at at time, and you come across the step that reads "If you don't have such and such, click here to set that up (or install it). So, you follow that link and you start installing that program. You get halfway through the steps and you come across another one that reads "If you have never installed such and such before, you need to change this or that before you can enable it". And I follow the link to THAT site. It went about 4 sites deep and I was getting very tired.

Well, it didn't work my first go round. But hey, I did learn a lot. And, I will try again today. Maybe. Of course I will - I am too excited to get this puppy on a flash drive and see what I can do with it in my work environment so I can bring it to their attention to watch out for this work around.

I run into the techs who have the attitude "So, what? They are always going to find a way around the filter. I can't stop them all."  This might be true, but I can see that he/she has given up the fight. This saddens me. Yes, there will always be a rogue student who knows so much about technology that he will consider this a challenge (sometimes they don't mean harm, they just want the ego boost that they were able to beat the system) and brag to his friends and share his knowledge.

But once in a while, guys......once in a blue moon - I get a tech who gets that look in his eye, the "Oh really?" look and they write this down. They hopefully are going to take action to block or attempt to block this activity in his or her district.

And that is why I do it. That is why I share what I know with others. I want to make the schools safer for the students. It may be a losing battle, but I can't just say "Screw it. Let 'em see it. They're gonna see it anyway."  Well, I'd prefer them NOT to see it in an educational environment. In other words "Not on MY watch."

Did anybody watch the movie "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?"  You know how I love my movies and I have so many I can talk about. I like Tina Fey in MOST of her movies. I am not a HUGE fan, but at least she does not make me cringe. For this movie, they delicately add humor to a horrifying situation that so many live through. But then there was MASH. I know the humor was exaggerated, and there were only a few times when the show brought us back to the reality of the horror of war.

It is slowly coming back to me. I had trouble remembering my password today. I had trouble finding spell check. But it is coming back. I need to go and ready all of YOUR posts this past year (or has it been longer) to see what is going on with you.

I have a lot more to write (tell). This year seemed to be a bad one for cancer hitting my friends. They are fighting the fight. A lot of little children in my family. I always like that. I was the youngest of 8, and I was 12 years old before any of my siblings had a baby. They then came thick and fast, but that first grandchild (for my Mom) and first nephew (for me) was doted on. My sister was the type who packed up her husband and baby and drove 50 miles one way EVERY week-end to stay with us (at my Mom's house). And on Sunday evenings drive 50 miles back.  Well, her husband drove. Her husband did everything for her. Nice in some ways, but over the years (as she has told us) it can be very smothering. We used to chide my sister when the gas stations changed over to self-serve. She had ALL the gas stations marked out who would pump the gas for you. It was ages before she was able to pump her own gas. I'm not sure she can, even now. Hmmmmm..... LOL!

Ah, I'm almost afraid to show my face around here. In the past year, I have posted once. In September 2015. Before that it was May 2015? I think. I am rusty circumventing my way around this blogging application and things do look different. Somewhat. Do I have a photo? Let's see....

Thanksgiving 2015. I am the blond at top left. This is not even close to my immediate family. This is about half of our "immediate" family. It was nice enough to sit outside for the pic.

I will try to ease myself back into this environment and maybe give some "excuses" as to why I have been MIA.