Shots from the Lip

 Last time it was Jose.  Today it was Henry who came and installed two cameras out front.  We still need him to return with a longer cord to permanently connect that third, front camera....but we no longer will need to put on the front porch light at nights. I did a brief morning walk today and I probably will stay home all day and continue to rest as I do have brain fog to contend with. I hear and understand everything said to me...I have vision problems that should be attended to...but what concerns me is my ability for a quick verbal response.....it ain't happening....... It is time to binge upon Closing Time, finishing it before going to anything else.....and searching to see whether I have Something Happened already on either Kobo or Kindle. Happy day - Something Happened, already purchased but never read, is on my Kobo!!!!!

 I went out in the morning.  After 4pm, I will go to Trader Joe's for purple onions.  Soon I will play piano for a bit.   I've already completed an additional chapter of Closing Time and am now 85% of the way through the book.  It is insightful but there are sections that Heller 'experimented' with that I found difficult to read. I completed this week's issue of the New Yorker online today.   Libby, the public library online app is wonderful for a few magazines, New Yorker included!

 Tonight I return to do Sweet Dreams after two weeks off because of a vagrant who assaulted me.  Such was life....such is life.... I still have to get the bicycle sold! My clown nose arrived....I look funny with it and it screws up my breathing.  I also got a clown bow tie with elastic band to hold in place and a wig that Katherine did not want to keep so we'll give that away. I do not seek approval to wear this and will patiently await Halloween - hey, I get complete autonomy for Sweet Dreams because no one wants to monitor me during the evening - especially the nursing staff who do not need an extra job.  They now ask me to assist them, going to some specific rooms each time.... Yesterday, assuming my iPhone data was correct, the temperature reached 35C late afternoon in downtown Santa Monica.  Around 11am, yesterday, after class, I walked from 2d Street to the edge of the Palisades, looking out at the beach and ocean.  One could see, one could feel the h...

 Linda Jackson is a black American opera singer, closer to my generation than current generations.  Her teaching methods are definitely not academic.  There are 35 in the class - 8 men.  We are baroque this semester, going into detail for The Coronation of Poppea.  This is a long opera and since I am already downtown for my first class of the day, a hybrid live/Zoom class, I start class on my iPhone, staying online long enough to get attendance credit for the day but, alas, missing some of what Jackson has already started playing - and interrupting to comment - a really great video with the first baroque subtitles that are updated by a few centuries and make far more sense as modern language. I wavered:  do I continue with class or drop it.....I'll continue as I think I can get used to the contrasting teaching methods between John Achorn (Tuesday and Wednesday mornings) and Linda Jackson. I'm home now.....awaiting half of the shrimp dish I da bao'd from Duc...

 I cannot believe I shoveled down that which I did, yesterday, through more eating establishments than I have ever been in in one brief afternoon.......but I did, ending up with over-indulging in Danish sugar cookies to soften the stiffness of tequila, after not drinking for so very, very long..... With that out of the way, it is time to start going through all the food piling up in our freezer, purchased at various and sundry places when we saw bargains.....only we are buying faster than eating and the pile up seems to be a never ending problem..... I chose a yellow, sweet, football shaped melon this morning from Trader Joe's....and I think I'm going to have the pastrami dip I purchased from The Hat yesterday afternoon in Temple City......

 How truly misleading:  weather status on my phone shows it is raining now and will be raining all day long.  Don't assume that this is the only thing you should know in determining how you should face a day of rain as entire precipitation for the day, both before now and going throughout the entire day, should amouunt to less than 10cc's of rain that will be over by 11am. OK - I won't go out this morning....but this afternoon?? Oh boy, what a mistake to have truly relied upon the forecast going into the morning.....it was raining as we drove to LAX to exchange rental cars from one overpriced to one at half that price, far more tolerable.....and a rainy drive, the long way because Google Maps chose based upon an inaccurate thing  (which was also quite rainy) and into Monterey Park for the Duck House where we chose not to have duck but were quite happy with food and ambiance on a rainy afternoon in a Guangzhou family restaurant....it was indeed a wild, wacky, wet afte...