I am mentally exhausted tonight. I am in bed early. For our mutual enjoyment, here’s a picture of Roger C Carmel in bed. Because he’s hot and had an enjoyable mustache.
J.P.
Rightside.
As an American that went through elementary school in the 1970s, I learned that when one assumes the role of pedestrian on an American roadway, you walk facing traffic. So, in our U.S. ways, that’s the left side of the road.
It no longer seems to be a common theme amongst some folks here in our little development.
Early morning walks are a popular pastime here at Rancho Cancion and quite often I’ll see several of our neighbors out for a walk when I’m out for a stroll. The timing gets earlier as the sun gets hotter here in the Sonoran Desert, so right now folks are generally walking before 10:00 AM.
Most people walk as I described, facing traffic, along the left side of the road. I’ve noticed some of the younger folks (that have properly stayed off my lawn) walk on the right, or wrong, side of the road. Because I generally avoid people whenever possible, I cross the road so we don’t end up meeting face to face. That’s just not my jam.
Then we have the older neighbor who uses walking sticks. She generally walks on the right, or wrong, side of the road but today she decided to really keep me guessing and walked down the middle of the street.
I had to double my cadence so I could get around that chaos quickly. It boosted up my calorie burn for the stroll.
Socially On The Move.
After spending several months on my own Mastodon instance, I’ve decided to move to one of the larger servers. This particular Mastodon instance has 17K users and is focused on tech. I like the community, know several of the folks over there and am looking forward to more robust interactions on this newish platform.
I’m am now on hachyderm.io. Please feel free to follow me there.
Plains.
As I do research for my storm chasing trip coming up next month, I’m getting enthralled with videos like this one about The Great Plains. It’s such a fascinating area to me.
Caturday.
Truman is looking quite dapper today. He’s had a bit an adventure; he’s been outside (when he’s not suppose to be outside), he’s been playing with the dogs, and now he’s settled into this cat bed where he’s kneading and purring loudly as I type this.
Life is good in the life of this cat.
Progress.
I’m always fascinated by these promotional films from the 1950s. I love the style of the cinematography, the positive attitude presents, and the fashion and style the folks are wearing in general.
Here, the fictional(?) town of Hilldale finds out a new freeway is coming through their town.
Sequence.
We put a portable screen on one of the back doors of the great room. The intention was to create a chance of a cross breeze to keep the house cool during these spring months. It’s been lovely. However, Truman’s intention has been to use this new screen as an escape hatch.
Lucky and Jinx have been keeping an eye on Truman’s activities. While he did find one way out, we put up an additional barrier and now he’s checking that out.
Mired.
Yesterday’s shooting in Nashville was awful. Some sources say there’s been over 100 mass shootings in the United States in 2023 and we haven’t even hit day 100 yet. Unfortunately it feels like the country is numb to this sort of thing. Children should never be afraid to go to school. Teachers should never have to worry about evacuating their classrooms during a mass shooting. School was always suppose to be safe space.
There are no safe spaces in the United States in 2023.
According to some reports, the shooter, who was also killed, was a trans individual. Some of the news outlets are not reporting this, others are trumpeting it quite loudly. Apparently the shooter had been a student at this private school back during their school days.
There are some opinions I have that I won’t share here on this blog. My opinion of the recent trend of conflating gay rights with trans rights is quite complicated. My opinion is probably best left unwritten in this space. But the fact that the shooter was trans will definitely affect the increasing political spotlight on the subject.
And we don’t need that right now.
Love.
I have no idea why this clip crossed my mind today, but here we go. Let’s watch Charo perform “The Love Boat”. I don’t know why they’re in the lobby of a Holiday Inn.
