Sunshine, finally.

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I can't say if it has been dark for a long time, or if it just seems that way.  Overcast, along with odd hours until recently, though very few hours of sunshine.  I think a number of things conspired to make the last few weeks seem perpetually dark, and quite dark, which added emphasis to magnification.  Seeing that the sun is out is good, if I am probably going to take a bit to get used to it again.  As I have suggested, I live a thousand years in each year it seems.  So two weeks seems like a lot longer of a time.  Twere the thousand year analogy a truth, a week would be twenty years.  It certainly can seem it.  Anyway, the sun is up and out.  And I will be out in it soon enough.

I am feeling better, but still a bit tired, just internally rough along the edges with slight crimps and cramps on a few internals.  All given though, I feel as good as I feel in knowing the sun is up.  It's a good day, or is heading that way.

While I am out, should that occur, I will do grocery shopping as well.  Fruits, perhaps greens of some sort, more deli meats, and of course milk and cream.  Oh, and some sort of bread.  I love the idea of the paleo diet, I just can't be an absolutist about it.  And some meats are so tied to the tradition of being eaten with some sort of bread that I just can't break out of that.  If someone else would do the shopping, or I figure out how to get a... wait, I may be doing so in the spring.  Access to lots of beef/meat.  Prefer beef, though hog is okay.  I am a meat eater.  The rest, mostly, is for decoration or texture.

Well... on with the day.  Don't worry y'all.  I simply don't, am not ready to, discuss much about much.  I do thank you for your thoughts.  I'll... get around to something before too long.  Thank you anywhile, on the sly.

Yeah, I'm around.

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I just haven't felt like talking.

Oh, I saw it coming.  Thus the gloom in some posts.  I did, in one post, wonder if what I saw coming, maybe two posts in particular, but then I realized for whom the bell tolled.  I am simply not that lucky.  I... think I have mentioned that before.  Then, when I realized, there was naught I could do.  I could not even get up and out and over.  I could change nothing, regarding his health or my function.  I am still only barely able to do much.  I had a backlog that had to be settled.  Still do, really.  If you think watching your own life slip from your grasp, helplessly, is bad... and I know that... watching the life of another slip away is a good deal worse.  More so when you can't even go see them.  Maybe God simply said no.  He has done that before.  Not that I didn't try.  And, yes, I suspected not only what was coming, but that my running through the sands of time would get me no closer.  So it was.

I have learned to eat disappointments.  I have learned to put up with humility.  I have learned to live the life of the fool, the clown.  No matter how potent or capable I have, can, or will be.  It, like life itself, is not always a choice, certainly not as I would have it.  Some burdens, perhaps, are beyond me though too.  Unlike many, I still attempt to bear them.  Like many, that just isn't there always.  Those who have no choice, and can, are the ones who pay.

I did get the geese delivered, the last three.  I don't even know if they...  Yes, I was thanked.  Perhaps my gifts were so much foolishness.  Who knows if folks even enjoy such birds.  I am not sure such a thing is a gift to give.  Oh, I was thanked.  But that is what people do who were raised in, or taught by, a polite society.  An odd gift, in one sense.  Well, it is done.  Returning home for the night, I was able to undo the mini-freezer/fridge.  If nothing else, the item will be good for flash hard freezing items, and a bit as backup.  More so if I arranged a minor solar setup.  Though, yeah... who knows about such kit.

I made it to town to have dinner with the other friend.  There was something going on regarding a memorial for our friend.  It is, mostly, arranged.  I have agreed to be there, and it is at a time where it is possible.  I am not familiar with this form of ad hoc event.  I am capable of going with whatever happens, as I am sure folks will do their level best.  It is good to see others moving ahead with that.  I would have but I don't know these things.  For some rare family, I have been to funerals or such.  Most of my dead have only seen my back.  Not in rejection, just I had to be somewhere else or there was nothing I could do... no time, no way, other commitments, or it was simply too much.  No disrespect meant, just... it's how I lived and survived.  Lean, always moving, buried in...  No, I would not have thought of such a thing, not as a group.  Though I still plan a visit.  Late, but a change.  If also in my strange time.

So, I did what I could.  I am getting slightly better.  I still have a backload to arrange and tend.  And yet, finally, I am digging my way out.

Oh, and I have had so many question whether I am dying.  I am presuming it was because of the gloom of some of my posts.  As explained above, the bell tolled, but for him, not me.  Yes, I saw it, inexorably, moving in my direction.  And, again, not for me... or just enough for me to smack me away from it's intended prey.  Not the first time.  No, folks, I am not dying.  Neither, honestly, do I wish to talk too much about it.  Not quite yet.  Thought I would be good, with all that foreknowledge.  I was wrong.  I've let readers and some principles know.  But... yeah...  too fresh to dig into it.  Maybe the memorial will help though maybe not.  Don't worry, don't...  I'll be back at it in a bit.

Hopefully I can keep digging and pushing.  I can't change what happened, how, or my part of that story.  I can, when I can, do what I can... until I can't.  Later.

Cold dark mornings.

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Not brutally cold, and the sky is beginning to lighten, if it is cloudy on top of all else so just won't really get bright.  It's a trifecta of gloom.

Someone recently suggested that, perhaps, me falling off my medicine was a passive, or even active, attempt at suicide.  Well, no.  It hurts too damned much, the fall is too frustrating, and getting back on the stuff hurts.  The pains in the various stages can be from brutal to annoying.  But they always exist.  Not just this type, or that.  Muscles in the neck and shoulders always go through harshness.  My organs flip and flop like fish out of water.  Further, this never kills me!  No, if I want suicide, I know how to do it without an ounce of hurt, or even if I want it to hurt, I know... well... actually I don't know.  Back when I thought my problem was all in my head, and knowing the head can't actually be fixed, I tried stuff that was 100% guaranteed to kill me.  It didn't.  I do know things that are supposed to work.  I also know I don't control life or death.

My organs have been doing minor flips and flops, but it hasn't been too terrible.  It's different, but along the lines of waking a limb after it has been cut off from blood too long.  This is as mild of such a situation as it gets though.  I am already through the neck and shoulder pains and headaches.  I am doing better.  Just adding in the cold and dark and it gets a bit rough.  All good, considering.  A few more days to a week and I might be... hmm... better.  Perhaps I can begin hitting more daily, or not.  Perhaps soon on that, or not.

My friend has died.  I knew it was going to happen.  Especially if they didn't treat him.  I was not able to get up to see him.  I felt so trapped.  Ghosts have no arms or legs to gnaw off to get going.  Just couldn't get up and ready and out.  They aren't having a formal funeral for him, just a graveside affair.  His sister will keep me informed.  I'll visit as soon as I can.  While this doesn't help, it is actually pushing me to attempt to get out, to visit his grave as soon as possible.  Life was difficult for him, so in that, I don't begrudge him rest.  I just pray he is in a better place, and ask those of you who might think on such things as wise to also pray for the relief of his soul.

I need to get on with my day.  Later.

A debate about civilians, French or any other really.

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Some are suggesting that French civilians should have know how to coordinate themselves defensively, then offensively.  Someone suggested that, at the theater for example, people in the upper floor could have thrown items such as chair, down onto the muslims, distracting them so that the people on the same level could have attacked.  It sounds wonderful.  In truth, given what people are, have usually been, and will be, it simply doesn't work.

People are easily rounded into two groups right off, men as one group, women, children, and the elderly in another group.  One group has some chance at rushing and attacking, the other group has some very weak opportunity at that and capacity for it.  Almost any group of people is going to be at least an half, perhaps two-thirds, of the weaker group.  More, of the men, only a very small percentage have ever faced even a fist-fight.  Those who have faced more might well be burned out, or simply disinterested.  Why would a warrior sacrifice himself, again, for groups of people who have relinquished their right and ability at reliable easy self defense?  Especially knowing that many of those people despise him for what he is, what he has done, and even if he saved them they might well spit on him.

It isn't complicated.  Most people cannot defend themselves and many more wouldn't.  That is exactly why we are in the difficulty we are in.  Me?  In a large arena, I would simply find another way out.  I wouldn't call for others to go with me, or attack if I was mandated by the state to be disarmed (which I am).  I would leave those who can't or won't choose life to their fate.  I have done everything in my life to change the odds and yet the people seem to want to be hunted and murdered, by their state or actors of the state such as immigrants, criminals, or such.

I can't help those who won't help themselves.  God suggested quite the same.  While, in time, the lion will lie with the lamb, it will be up to the lion.  And I doubt if he will lie with them if they choose to be herded to slaughter.  I know this lion won't.  I can be with them, safe from me.  But I won't be with them if they choose to remain a food item.  And I certainly won't go with them, blindly, into that blood-soaked submission.  I don't blame the true sheep.  They are what they are.  But if I can't be armed, I cannot defend.  We will go our own ways until we can be together, one way or the other.

Mostly good.

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Toward the end of the day things get really rough.  Sometimes when waking.  Going back on medicine works that way.  As I have mentioned, it isn't that, always, this time, that I just quit.  I lost track and couldn't remember medicine this time.  In this case, I was trying to get out to see my friend, and tripping over all of the life and other undone work and projects between where I was and where I wanted to be.  It all added up to end up being too much.  That may not make sense to you, or maybe it makes perfect sense.  I think everyone goes through it, just... in their own way, at their own level.  Some things have to be build up to.  First a basic layer, then various mechanisms to 'gain height', then an object or dozen to get off the ground.  Then, eventually, to get into the air and moving.  At any point, if there is a failure, it can be a temporary setback or a catastrophe, where another attempt means a complete new rigging.  My attempt, this time, was ended in disaster.

I am just now, what a week after?, kicking around trying to find my footing again.  I seem to actually be finding it, but in a very minor way.  I have one of the geese placed, but from almost as soon as I received them.  I placed calls last night and contacted two of the other three recipients, so will be delivering one tonight and one tomorrow.  That while trying to contact the last recipient.  I hope to finish dishes today as well.  Then maybe begin clearing the kitchen and breaking down boxes.  I'll get the boxes into the back of my vehicle for the next time I am in town, if I happen to hit boxes.  To be honest, if I can get those things done I will be happy.  If I get most of that done I would be happy.  Well, and a shower or bath thrown in.  I cleaned most of the bathroom in my last work marathon.  I suppose I wouldn't mind hitting it, in a small way, again.  The only way to keep half on top of the bathroom is to hit it heavy, then light, then do that every few days, at least for me.  Mopping next, I suppose, one of the later days in the week.

Cleaning and all that is very similar to creating messes.  It is done in layers.  Little bits, over time.  My problem is memory and sensitivity.  When I am a ghost I can't see things of flesh.  Things that would normally bother me simply don't.  And remembering, even if I can't see, doesn't work.  Though part of it is simply being a guy.  That's the truth, like it or not.  Still, I'll do what I can.  Gimped by manhood as I am.  :p

Sleep was good, woke well.  I'm not feeling too bad, if not great either.  Coffee, eggs, and... who knows.  But not right yet.  Just an hour or two to sit and think, read, and write.  Later.

Hmm, tomorrow.

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Or not then either.  Back on medicine and it's pretty harsh.  I want to sleep.  Haven't been able to nap.  I want to do some work.  Can't.  I have been playing a game, but I keep snapping in and out of sleep.  Sore, a bit confused, tired.  Not grumpy.  There simply isn't much I can do.  I'll keep at it.  It's like I just donned clothing that weighs a ton.

Nap?  Nap.  It might be a bit before medicine works out.  Then again, dropping off and going back on kills some folk.  Someone asked if my failure to comply, or willingness to go back on it full strength was suicidal.  Nope.  And I can't do either, easily, all of the time.  However, when I fall, I can fall so hard and fast that it isn't a choice.  And, when I go to get back on it, I usually try it the hard way first... full bore.  That's my gig.  If that fails, then I back it down and find steps I can take.  It's just how I do.  This time, oddly, I seem to be able to just take it like a man and an half.  It's beating me up, but not too terribly.  Well, and I did alter what I take, changing amounts and types, which has made some of this much easier.

Even so, I have the puppy-dog exuberance.  I want to play, and work, and tease, and chase.  The girls are getting just a bit... put out... with me.  While I can't quite chase all that much, I can sure play if they get too close.  Thankfully Sam enjoys being perturbed.  Sassy is a give or take gal.  If she is in the mood she will throw down right along with me.

I'll keep at it.  But first a nap.  I just hope I can wake in time for dinner.  Tomorrow will be the better time to get the geese out, since I don't know when dinner is arriving.  However, I can make those calls to see when it would be most appropriate to deliver the geese.  Or if they even want them.  That I'll do, then nap.  And, yeah, I did give the dishes another once over.  I think they just need a rinse in a bit, then a hot soak.  I hope to finish them tonight, or tomorrow.

Later, or good night.  Not sure I'll write again.

Alright, good lens.

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Being a total noob at anything, then taking a risk with a used piece of equipment?  Nerve-racking.  Still, sometimes, when enough data pulls clear, and the odds are favorable, a hefty risk seems worth the chances.  When it arrived, as I suggested, I suspected it would probably be a, basically, full manual.  Oh, sure, it does have autofocus.  However, that format doesn't speak to my camera, and my camera is rather limited as to inputs.  There isn't a range of focal lengths or apertures.  Just one of each.  Though too, I had forgotten which button I used to focus.  I remembered after I put the 50 mm prime back on and took a few snappies.  The girls like it, and don't like it.  Girls are girls!

I will work with the autofocus later.  The thing I did get was that, when everything is done correctly, I actually can get pretty good shots throughout the zoom.  I am not sure about stepping through the f-stops though.  That may or may not be available.  However, with proper lighting, through the zoom length, and with the macro (a sweet add to this lens by the way), I can get it to function.  That initial incompetence and ignorance, however, made me wonder if I had made a serious mistake.  Good to see I just set it up, let my nerves untangle and fear relent, then got back to it in a timely manner.  Wonderful.  Yeah, yeah.

After that I had to dig around for the battery charger, for the camera's rechargeable batteries.  I have three batteries, though I ought to buy another.  The body itself only takes one, though I purchased a grip that allows for another battery.  Four batteries and four of the largest/fastest memory chips available, and I should be able to take a lot of photos over a week without recharging if I watch what I am doing.  Each battery is good for ~800 shots, and the cards?  Each 64 gb card holds 1,864 RAW (or 4,660 JPEG, if you go that way).  So, actually, I am card heavy.  Better to buy three more batteries.  Yeah, I'm weird.  I buy so that I can stretch without recharge.  Though too, if it's really hot or cold?  Cut the power by 1/3, or more.  A secondary reason to set up a warm enclosure, figure out how to heat an area up.  Gear as well as body.

Now that I have a few things going, and the world is closing down a bit for winter, perhaps I can tinker with the camera.  With the macro I can begin doing photo essays when I cook or bake or tinker in the kitchen, or on the computers, or such.  Perhaps even use photography to push me toward keeping the cave cleaned and sorted.  Not sure if it will work, not sure even if it does that I would share that part.  We'll see.

Almost nap time.  Later.

Awake, for a while actually.

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Not a bad morning.  I am back fully on medicine, if I can keep that going is another thing.  I have been trying, but it has felt more like I am a puppet with the strings cut lately.  I am not too sore now, so might get to a few things today.  I did get the trash to the curb yesterday but skipped getting the recycling out.  There was only one bag of that and I am done with soda, so recycling won't be stacking up quickly.  The boxes, when I break them down, will be taken in to town, to the recycling center there.  Far too many to get them out with any kind of reasonable speed.

I am feeling good.  It's been a while that I have felt good, with no pain.  I am still tired.  Too little sun.  Tis the season, and long from reversing direction.  The cool is here, freezing temps are becoming the norm or heading that way quickly.  I am planning to get the hoses in and perhaps make a trip to town... Scrap that last.  I have geese to deliver.  I obtained phone numbers last night, and wish to begin making contact and placing fowl with good homes.  Tomorrow, if I can, shopping... or... sometime this week.  You know how that goes.  And, just restarting medicine, plans might need to be adjusted.  Still, feeling well enough to aim at a few goals.

Even if it slows me down, I am sure enjoying the cool and dark.  Summers are just too much.  And while the winter might slow me down (more, in some ways), I am not as alone in that, and I enjoy it more than being slowed via a slow cooking process.  I much prefer to cool/cold and dark to the blistering dry heat of summer.

Never mind.  I'm hoping to get a few things done today.  I think, I feel, I seem, to be heading back to the batting box.  If there are any homeruns, or even base runs, in me only time will tell.  Ya heh.

Food thoughts.

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Beside not having eaten yet this morning, a few ideas about food have been floating in the upstairs goo factory for a while.  Things I have meant to include in posts.  The timing never seemed right, or I got caught up in other ideas.

The first is a new understanding.  I had always thought that sashimi, aka human edible raw fish, needed to be fresh.  Like right out of the water, right when being caught, or very close to it.  I suppose that was true for a long time, especially before refrigeration.  And, I would guess, it probably is the best, if also something most people cannot enjoy.  Most of the world population does not live close enough to large bodies of water to enjoy raw fish before it goes bad.  As such, at this time, the truth of sashimi grade fish is that it is supposed to be frozen.  Caught fresh, frozen immediately after whatever form of cleaning, descaling, or such.  Why does that matter?  It means that, on a more or less level playing field, I can buy a fish, from time to time, with which to create a true sushimi dish.  And there is some possibility that I might trust local shops a bit more to prepare such, if that is easier.  Yes, boys and girls, I like "bait".

Another thing is... scotch eggs.  I have been considering trying these, but...  The first few recipes I reviewed for this food must have been pranks.  There was no indication of whether to remove the shell when the eggs where still wet, and put them into the sausage shell or whether to  hard/soft boil the eggs first, then crust them with the sausage.  So hungry to try those at home, but no good instructions.  It was just a thought, anyway, so I didn't really dig.  Recently I found a more practical means of producing such foods.  A picnic food, or so they say.  Now, hard-boiled or soft, breading the eggs themselves, the sausage as this vid does, or both... many options.  Still, here is one of many examples.

Oh, on this particular one, h/t AoSHQ (well, they didn't originate the thought, just reminded me this morning, still...)

There was something else.  I have simply lost it.  I might figure it out and add it later.  As I mentioned, however, I am hungry.  I didn't eat dinner last night.  That might do well this morning.  Hungry to be sure.  Oh, and if you think of, or are introduced to some odd or different or even slightly spooky food?  Give it a shot.  You only live once... well... you being operative.  Might as well explore.  Explore while risk remains, curiosity is fresh, and opportunity exists.  Later.

Rough, but a better rough?

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Yep.  That is as rightly as I can phrase it.  I keep not taking meds, or dropping off.  Not a choice thing, or ornery inclination, simply... I forget?  Yeah.  I'll start it up again today.  All the dark, perhaps.  The cool is creeping in as well.  I am fighting, I am simply not winning.  Thought that I am fighting means I am not losing, or worse just sleeping.  I may be recovered from the day I pushed a bit too hard.  Then again, I thought that if I got enough done I might be able to get out.  Sometimes that works, not this time.  I am going to hit a few things today.  The dishes, trash, and recycling.  The dishes just went for a hot second third soak for a second wash.  Most of the trash and recycling is out.  I won't even try to get the boxes out.  Instead, I may break those down, put them in the back, and take them to the center in town.  There are simply too many.  I have not been keeping up on those at all.

Dreams of late.  But not just... these have been different.  A lost woman.  But she isn't trying to kiss or kill me now.  It is more like she is trying to, oh, come to some sort of agreement.  She didn't like being forgotten.  She seemed jealous of other women.  A ghost in the machine that is me.  I have been looking for a way to lover her, let her go, and move on.  I don't think most will ever quite know that.  Oh, sure, we, even I, have done that with people.  But not with people who were forgotten to such an extent that their haunting was a terror.  Even the memory of her had been buried.  A child too, unborn or in the process.  I still don't have many details, just feelings, and that she was a lovely woman, girl.  We both had each other wrapped around our fingers.  I had to go through something like this about other memories, and people.  But a woman and child are so much closer than anyone else even can be.

I don't know what will happen.  I just know that we have been talking and holding on in order to become familiar enough to finally let go, but in such a way that I don't simply forget, mostly.  Being as close to a ghost as I am, and what else I am, memory isn't always available.  And yet there should be more than night terrors, anger, doubts, and such.  If I could remember her name I might even take a trip to where she was buried.  I am not sure I ever went.  Being in the Navy at the time, and keeping her off the charts, I doubt if I let anyone know.  As well, I might have been gone, if I don't think so.  Very shortly after, but I was there.  This was required for anything else to happen.  Of all the things, I think this was the most difficult to 'remember'.  Easier in some ways.  I am doing enough better that, when it came do, I just didn't ghost through the memories for a decade, as I did with the others.  Bumping into to their ghosts and running away, or sleeping, or becoming so much more ill that I couldn't deal with it.  More difficult, but being capable of facing it full time, much shorter.  This might work itself out in short order, shorter order.

Yes, a few jobs today.  But I don't want to push it as with last time.  Trash, dishes, and bringing the hoses in.  Tomorrow a shopping trip.  I have been making sandwiches with the deli items.  I have also been growing clove sprouts, which won't be ready until tomorrow.  Just some added greens.  I wish I had the forethought to set those up ahead of the purchase.  The problem with that is, even if I plan to get out, I may not do that as scheduled.  Remember, I have been trying to get out, even to SLC, for a week or more.  Can't do what I wish, not always, and certainly not when I want.  Still...  I am saving the sandwich makings for when the sprouts finish and green.  Just sounds good.  Though I might also buy lettuce and onion.  Crisp and sharp adds that final bit to a sandwich.

I best get on to waking.  Later.