Happy Halloween

Melancholia

The last few days last week were not the best days.  I'm not going to dwell on them, but I should probably develop a protocol for self-care and mood improvement for when I recognize symptoms of melancholia lodging in my chest.  Points in my favor:  I did not exacerbate things by listening to Annie Lennox, Stephen Sondheim, or K. Flay.

Tuesday (10/23) night was an editing night:  I polished up some older manuscripts.  I'm beginning to think that three months in a drawer does wonders for improving my ability to spot stupid sentence constructions, missing words, and syntax errors.  And... uh, yeah... these stories had been submitted to a few markets already.  I console myself with the thought that they were the best I could make them at the time.

Wednesday (10/24) I went to my second--and last--Zumba class.  Well, OK, maybe I'll take an intro to Zumba class if they offer one.  I decided I was too busy trying to figure out what steps (and hand motions) I was supposed to be doing to get any aerobic benefit.   Also, I was getting frustrated and I figured I should go work on the elliptical instead.   (The tempo was just a little too fast, the sequence of moves was chopped up into two-measure motions and by the time I figured them out we were onto a different two-measure motion, I wasn't loving the Reggae-based Hip-hop-whatever music, and I was really wishing the instructor would call out the steps.  It's also possible the 5:45 PM class time was hitting a sugar low time.)  I guess I'll do "John-ba" at home to 80's music.

I also applied for insurance, which, while I'm grateful for the cover, is a real pain to sign up for.  There are about three websites one has to visit, and two of them feature a bunch of forms to navigate through.

Friday morning, I had raccoon eyes.  I promised myself that I'd get lots of sleep over the weekend... and promptly stayed up way too late playing a video game called "Rime" which started out as a light-hearted puzzle game where one scurries around fixing Greek-like ruins, but has gotten progressively darker, where one scales lizard like up sheer cliff walls while avoiding getting carried off by a giant raptor. 

Saturday The Family went to Eugene's first Coffin Race.  It was go-carts with a Halloween theme.  Many folks were in costume, and there were some very clever carts decorated as hospital beds, coffins, and obelisks. Then we went to a low-pressure farm site to buy pumpkins.

Sunday night was more Rime, and after swimming -- and nearly drowning -- through an underground maze, I bumped into a statue, which broke and released a wraith which sucked my essence out through my face.

Halloween Decorations

The neighbors up the street have hung this over a corner.  I'm probably dating myself because the first thing I though when I saw it was the U2 lyrics:  "they look for you, but your spirit is in the air -- baby you're nowhere."

Other neighbors have put up spiderwebs.



I guess we need to get pumpkins....

Saturday Gym

Grumpy / tired / sore today.  'Nuff said.

Went to the gym:  35 minutes on the elliptical with about 333 calories.  Downstairs 12x(50+60+70+70) lbs on the lat pull-down.  3x15 hanging curls on the Roman chair.  3x12x10lbs 45 declined press-ups.  A number of side-and-front-raises with 5lbs.  12x(20+30+30)lbs triceps pull-down.  Oh, and some assisted dips mostly for fun than anything else.

Lunar Album with Mars and Venus

Wednesday night's (10/18/2018) conjunction of the Moon and Mars.

Moon conjunct Mars, Sept 19,2018



















Full moon near Mars, July 26, 2018

















New moon near Venus, July 19, 2018

Dec 7, 2013 (shot through a telescope) 

















Feb 20, 2015 (also shot through a telescope)




















 Feb 26, 2009.  The moon is next to Venus.  

Zumba!

Gym report:  Well... Mark was right, I do dance like I'm taking a Zumba class.   I'm not sure how well Zumba classes will work out.  The class was pretty much "just start dancing" and then the instructor did some uncalled, fairly complex cha-cha-grapevine-yoga steps -- I think if I hadn't already taken some dance classes I would have been pretty lost; as it was there were several times where I just tossed any notion of doing the hand and arm motions out the window and tried to not kick my left foot when we were supposed to be kicking our right feet.

On the plus side, it's learning something new, and there are a couple of steps that will improve my balance. 

Gym Report

Went to the gym Monday.  Only got to about 260 calories on the elliptical.  12x60 + 2x12x70lbs on the lat pulldown.  3x12 Roman chair curls. Assorted free-weight stuff... um, inclined press 3x8x10lb er, kneeling triceps pull-thing 3x8x10lbs, side-and-front lifts 8x5lbs.  Triceps pull-downs 12x20lbs+2x12x30lbs. 

And it turns out Zumba classes are included in my gym fee... so maybe I'll go Wednesday night.

Dancing Music

Last spring we go a new patio table. It's larger, which means we can have more folks eating outside with us, but it's rectangular, which means in the late afternoon when the evening sun swings west, one has to move to the far end of the table or get an extra dose of sunlight.

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The other day I was curating a playlist and Mark commented that the transition from one song to the other was jarring.  I was a little confused because I usually compile songs together because I like them (they might have clever/snarky lyrics) and I think they'll be fun to dance to, too.  Okay, I also will add a song because I think it's funny.  In this case, I went from a song with a strong Rock-n-Roll feel to one with sterile Techno feel.

As we worked through the list, with me trying to figure out what Mark was getting at and trying to craft better transitions, it came out that 1) We Don't Know What Dance John is Dancing (for the record, it's usually a modified Cha-cha) but he's Really Into It, and 2) OMG, you would totally get into a Zumba Class--you should take a Zumba Class at the gym--because you really aren't getting enough cardio with your current routine; you could go and hang out with all your Zumba Woman Friends who would totally be into you taking a Zumba Class like the Belly Dancers were all your best friends when you were belly dancing.  And you could pal up with the instructor to make a play list and maybe even become a part-time Zumba Instructor yourself.  

Mid October Reflections

I'm enjoying the weather Sunday afternoon and writing in Café John in my bare feet.  The sun is out and bright for a mid-October day, and already at 3:30 the day is growing cooler.  In about two hours' time, the long dusk will start:  our house will be in the shadow of the hill, but across the slough the westerling light will paint the hills ten blocks away a ruddy hue.

Early last week we had a few days of extreme grey -- the kind of day when dawn is merely a lessening of darkness and the sun's path is hidden behind a rumbled swath of cloud.  If it were fog, it would be mysterious; if it were rain, it would inspire to curl up with a warm drink.   But it's distinctly bland weather that leeches color from the turning leaves and flattens buildings' details, and the only response is to feel a paw-touch of dread at the meaningless existence as the cogs of the Machinery of the Universe grind everything into dust.   Even hibernating through it would be too much effort.

So when the sun came out last Thursday, I was glad -- and now I'm enjoying writing out in it.

On the Gym Front:  I managed to get to the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Usually I spend about 30 minutes on the elliptical for about 300 calories (and read The New Yorker).  Then it's downstairs to the lat-pull-downs (12x60lbs + 2x12x70lbs), the Roman Chair hanging curl (3x12), and then inclined presses with dumbbell weights (3x12x10lbs) and then some forward-and-side rises with lighter dumbbells (3x12x5lbs). I try to end with tricepcs pull-downs (12x20lbx + 2x30lbs).

Friday when I went downstairs, I had the entire weight room to myself, so I grunted and breathed heavily after the slightest rep.  And then I giggled and tried to top the previous lift's drama.  Which probably wasn't so good for keeping my rep speed up.   I did not drop weights on the floor.

On the Writing Front:   Last week I edited three short stories that have been getting rejected.  In one case, the prose was clunky--I reworked some descriptions so the setting wasn't overly described, and that helped.  On the second, I think it probably needs one more pass to make the epiphany stand out. The third was already more-or-less perfect (hah!) and only needed minor touch-up; I've submitted it and we'll see how it does.

Ah, the novel.  Well... the process of breaking short stories out of the novel's corpus will have to be the next project.

Astro-Photography

 I pulled myself out of bed this morning and tried to take photographs of Orion.

I set the camera for a 15 second exposure time, which made the stars cold and not so twinkly.

Right off the bat, I pressed a series of incorrect buttons as I felt around the camera in the dark to try to find the manual focus setting and turned off the side LCD.

I managed to get a shaky shot of Taurus (I was aiming for the Pleiades) when I tried to take one photo before the 15 seconds was up....

Because the larger LCD screen was turned off (and I still haven't figured out how to get it back on), I really couldn't see what I had pointed the camera at, and had to make a series of guesses by zooming in on Orion's belt (or in the case of Taurus, Aldebaran)

At least the night before I'd gotten an arty shot of the crescent moon.

Halloween is Coming

In about twenty days it will be Halloween.  I'm wanting to ease my way into it, because if you start too early, you get holiday fatigue.  Also, The Child wants to fill the house with gory things, which is sort of the secular side of Halloween.   

We used to do a corn maze, but haven't gone the last few years.  I'll have to see if I can talk the family into going again (maybe we'll have to invite some friends).   Oddly, I don't have photos of us in the Corn Maze -- or at least, I can't seem to find any.

We were crafty one year, and made a large shadow box for a party (the kids were sort of into it, but I recall the shadow puppets, being on sticks, quickly turned into objects to whack each other with).

And we had fun snacks with cupcakes made up to look like gravestones.

Cats and Autumn

Cicero brought a rat into the neighbor's yard and started playing with it; this gave me a good opportunity to stop painting the side of our house and grab the camera. 

The autumn has been dry, so the yards in our neighborhood are still on the brown side. 

I'm recovering from the mandatory Autumnal Student Cold.  This has interrupted my return to the gym, which is delaying my attempts to shrink the bicycle tire around my abs.