No. Yes.

    Credit/debit card payment stations in retail establishments normally give you your total and ask if you want to pay and offer the answers Yes or No from left to right. Lowe's for some reason has it No or Yes and I came within a millimeter of saying No. I suggested to the checker that they REALLY don't want to set it up that way, that it's awfully easy to give the answer you don't mean to. She said that I wouldn't believe how many people hit No and I said that I could well believe it since I had nearly done it. We were very amused about it all; hope the people who hit No are, too.
    This WAS going to be about how magnificent my beef stew is and how my half-assing in the kitchen is getting completely out of hand and how I really have to start writing down what I do so I can replicate these outstanding results. Then I realized that all I did that I don't usually do is put in Trader Joe's Green Dragon hot sauce and McCormick's Gourmet Collection garam masala blend. I may have put in a little more turmeric than usual, but let's face it, turmeric doesn't add much taste. So there you have it: green dragon and garam masala. Magic!
    I just pointed my finger at Amelia and said bang and she ran away. I said, "I didn't really shoot you!" I'm not sure which one of us is the drama queen.
    Dreams last night were weird and detailed but I remember very little. The really odd thing was being on the beach with a woman's voice complaining about the poor quality of the shelling. This should have reflected something from old-time radio, but I just can't remember anything like that ever coming up, nor why it ever would. Then of course a gazillion ants came from nowhere and I was no longer worried about someone else's complaints about shelling. Just damn odd.

Toy isn't well either

    My cold is getting better. My drone is not so well. Mainly, the Krazy Glue repairs have failed utterly. The blade guards are flying around instead of the drone itself; they get in the way of the blades and the motors shut down. So I'll have to follow the advice of my online friends and remove the blade guards. Considering my proclivity for crashes, one expects that the life expectancy of Toy can be measured in minutes. I will check in a hobby store for spare parts; it's likely to rain for the next several days so flying is not too likely too soon.
    I got to see my friend Walt for the first time in ages. I also demonstrated the drone for him, such as it is. It mainly hovered near the ground and fell over a lot, but did get off the ground well and truly once and did ok one or two other times. This is highly reminiscent of the previous drone, which seemed to get moods and then get over them for no apparent reason. Gremlins maybe. Walt lost his house in the flood but is holding up pretty well so far.

Further microscopically detailed dreams

    Don't worry; I don't remember much. It was a library with new policies. The reading room now was rented to you like a parking place, ten cents at a time. And I'm counting my change with great specificity. As I've mentioned, my dreams are usually non-visual, so it's a surprise when I'm seeing things accurately. Pity it was nothing more interesting than coins. Then I dropped a dime and chased it, by which time I was outside on the pavement. Then I was back inside but unable to find the reading rooms, which were either on the fourth or fifth floor. As there hadn't been any upstairs floors a minute earlier, I was a little confused. Also there were some fellows talking the entire time I was going through the coin rigmarole. I assume that this was due to old-time radio playing in the background as I slept.
    Now I fully understand that this isn't the most riveting anecdote in history. I'm just puzzled by it is all. It doesn't seem to have any relation with reality; it doesn't seem to have anything with processing events, emotions or anything really. It isn't a useful suggestion for how to run a library. Puzzling is what it is.

Living Years

    I should probably first apologize for the earworm. Sorry! Second, if I posted this already, double sorry. I remember mentioning it on Facebook, but I don't think I have here, but my memory is affected by cold virus. All apologies where appropriate.
    The other week/month (time slips away), I heard "The Living Years" by Mike + the Mechanics for the first time this year. I hadn't been dreading it exactly, but back when Dad was alive and I would hear it, I would wonder how I would react. It was roughly what I would have expected. I cried a bit, but not out of regret for anything unsaid. Just because I miss him and wish he were back. So that's OK.
    Since then, in the way of radio since the '80s, it's been on heavy rotation a bit, so I've heard it another two times. Both times there was no tears or sadness, just a kind of rueful smile. That and a tendency to want to lampoon the lyrics. These ARE the same guys who did a song called "Silent Running" with the refrain, "Can you hear me? Can you hear me running?" And you want to say, "DO YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHAT 'SILENT' MEANS?!" Anyway.

Memory and happiness

    I've had this topic at the top of my Notepad for months. I can't get it clear in my mind, perhaps obviously. The idea though is in line with the truism that older people are happier because bad memories recede. Well maybe we aren't happier but we do tend to go on about the good old days, and tend to forget about the bad old ones. I'm wondering if this is in any way connected to Alzheimer's and I'm wondering if there's any evolutionary pressure to have happy old people around.
    I guess it would be good for the species to have elders who are considered wise, and it might be easier to consider us wise if we're comparatively happy-go-lucky. Moreover, we might be more useful if we're able to share good things from the past that might be applied in the present. Of course, in the current political climate, it would be helpful if some old people would point out that the Trumps of the world are trotting out the same arguments that led to ships full of Jewish refugees being turned away and sent back to the Holocaust. So there are limits to the argument.
    What I'm mainly wondering is whether Alzheimer's or other forms of senile dementia are just an extension of natural memory loss. And then there's the question whether the kind of memory loss I'm talking about in elders (i.e., focusing on the happy ones) is a physical problem or a decision. Maybe as you get older, you just decide to define yourself as happy and thus to filter out the unhappy memories. I don't know. My memory, like the rest of me, doesn't have a lot in the way of filters. Gradually the unhappy memories have less sharp teeth. But they're still there, they're still there.

It's still yesterday, believe me

    I missed yesterday's entry due to being sick. It's not exactly the worst illness ever, but is whacking me over the head a bit, hence missing things like blog entries. Yesterday, it was a burning sore throat. Today, the throat has improved a bit and symptoms have moved into the boogers boogers boogers stage. And that was before I drank or ate anything. Eating breakfast now and expecting some drama as the day wears on.
    I'm skipping Thanksgiving totally or at least postponing it. I don't think interacting with other people would be the most thoughtful thing ever. I think I'll ask William if we can put it off until Monday or so. I will try to take a bath eventually at least.
    Yesterday I did take the printed version of one of my drone pictures over to Devon around the block who asked for it and also demonstrated the drone. I managed to crash it in someone's yard but they weren't home so I recovered it without gunfire or conflict. The Krazy Glue repairs didn't hold so I did it again; I don't think they'll hold this time either. Prop guards have very awkward fracture lines. Well, the Krazy Glue will dry up eventually anyway; might as well use it up instead.
    Right, that was yesterday's post; today's is coming up. Happy Thanksgiving either way!

Crash!

    Today was another nice day, if cold, so I took the toy through its paces at nearby Pacific Park. Didn't I just say that all the experts were telling me to take off the blade guards because they create huge wind resistance? Yes I did. Boy does that not seem like such a good idea! I had a crash or two today. None were anything I took very seriously; toy operated fine afterwards. However, two of the blade guards were split along one (of three) arms. I may be an idiot, but I suspect that without the guards, those would have been the blades all broky and useless. Mind you, I have extra blades, but they were a pain to put on and I have to assume that they would be a pain to take off, too. I don't have extra blade guards, but I do have super glue. 1,001 uses!
    If you thought that was dull, you should have seen my alternate topics! I finally went back to play Civilization IV without the expansion packs. To make a long story short, I was correct that the starter level was much, much easier on the basic game than after expansion. But a lot of the stuff that was added in the expansions is sorely missed. Still, it's much more of an edge of the seat game, even in spite of being very easy. I appreciate that that makes no sense, but there you go. There's a lot more stuff to do I guess is what it is.
    Also my dreams were as ever very odd last night, but you catch a break since I can't much remember them. The bewildering part was that I was sort of on a major league sports team but sort of a coach or sort of otherwise connected with them. Apparently my job was to keep their wildest player in line. I guess my brain woke up enough to say, You're 53; other than bowling, you're not getting on any major league team. Or something.