Saturday, September 17, 2016

Summer is on its last legs

We spent the early morning hours...after 7 AM...walking through the Farmer's Market here in Chico. We try and do this every Saturday as it's good exercise and we can buy good food. Especially heirloom tomatoes! The market is quite large now, taking up a full 3 rows in the city parking lot. In December it will be down to just 2 rows as the summer vegetables and fruit disappear. This morning we found a small melon for just $1.25 and 2 tomatoes for $2.90. Yes, heirloom tomatoes are expensive but oh so worth it.

We walked the length and width of the market twice and it was obvious that fall was on it's way. A lot of the stands had noticeably meager offerings. The peaches and nectarines disappeared 2 weeks ago, much to our dismay. They made a great topping for oatmeal.

Since we will be taking a bus ride, next Saturday, to San Francisco to see the SF Museum of Modern Art, I thought we should do a little more walking in preparation for the 7 floors of exhibits in the new building. Well, it's obvious now that I will have to bring my pain medications with me. We hadn't even strolled a mile and the pain was becoming intense. Now I'm home; I've taken some pain meds and I contemplate my life. I've completed 5 marathons, half a dozen half marathons, numerous 5K and 10K races. I once mapped my mileage as if I were crossing the country and I did. Plus. I put a 26.2 and 13.1 decals on the back window of my car. Now I can't even go a mile without pain and the state just delivered my blue 'Handicapped' emblem to hang from the rear view mirror. Color me depressed!

The bus ride to SFMOMA was arranged by the Chico Art Center.  It will cost us $180 for the ride and admission. I think it's a bargain. Driving and parking in Baghdad by the Bay is perilous! This way we have a comfortable seat in a modern coach with a restroom. Even if we traveled there ourselves we would still have no more than 5 hours to visit. And 5 hours is not enough, or so I've been told. We have a map and we will visit what we really want to see and come back some other time.

I have plenty to do here while I wait for the pain to go away. I do the data input for new members of a local charity. The Blue Bag, or the Chico Food Project. Once every two months the members will put a blue bag filled with food (packaged) on their front porch. The Blue Bag volunteers will drive by and pick it up and leave a new and empty blue bag to be filled in two months time. The collected food is then given to local groups that need the food, such as the Jesus Center, Salvation Army, some churches, etc. It's usually close to 6 tons of food after all is done and counted. It's a very successful project and I have to input new members every two months as well. I have 16 this time; added to the 1,000+ that we already have. The small town of Paradise, just a few miles away, has been doing this for years now and they have 1,500 members. We have been doing it for just a few years.

I also have my own projects here. I am still trying to arrange my photo collection (26,000+) while I continue adding to it. There are no perfect systems for this. I'm using Apple's Photo and not their iPhoto. For some reason that I don't quite understand, I get lots of duplicates. I didn't store duplicates originally but after a few weeks, there they are. And Apple's system doesn't follow a file if it's moved. Lot of systems can do that. If I change the folder that a photo is stored in, my Photo system acts as if it's lost and puts a yellow tag on the photo. It does leave a copy of the original but it can't be modified in any way. The hard drive knows the location of every file on it. The path to it should be irrelevant. Oh, well, it keeps me busy and my ASD mind demands these kinds of collections. I would bet that I've seen all 26,000 photos twice and they never lose their appeal. Not so much the visual, but the order is what appeals to me. Now I'm double filing them by using Apple Smart Folders that look for the keywords attached to each photo. Of course, I'm the one that has to type in that keyword on each photo. All of this activity does wonders for my depression. I used to use alcohol for it, but this way is much healthier

Earlier this week I had planned to post something here, but, when it came time to do it, I had forgotten what it was. I tried to remember it for at least two days without success. Memory failure are my biggest headaches. I was going to get a soda from the usual place in the kitchen. I went to our bedroom and the attached bathroom and then the laundry room before I found the correct place to find my soda. I can tell stories like that every day. I get some good exercise by just allowing my brain to guide me in my searches.

Maybe I will remember that fascinating subject for the next time I post...or maybe not.

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