Kitties getting older

We had Poe in for surgery yesterday to remove two masses from two or her hindquarter mammary glands. She’d developed two small lumps over the last few months that we’d already had the vet inspect. They were mobile, soft, and produced a slightly milky fluid. No cancerous markers from pathology - we checked just in case.

But, after the aspiration, they both got much bigger very quickly. Fearing an injection site sarcoma, we took Poe into the vet again last week and opted to have the removed. At worst - early cancer - at best just inflamed from the testing.

Surgery went well and Poe came home a little hoarse and very loopy. She gets pain meds twice a day for four days and has to wear the collar for at least a week. It is pitiful and adorable but she purrs just as hard when we pet her.

Content

The plain reality of time is that everything gets older and slowly marches to an end. I try to take a Buddhist approach to death and attachment in that I recognize and consider that everyone and everything that I love will one day be gone.

I’ve been thinking about death frequently this year, of course, both others and my own and what it means to live. It is so easy to get lost in the days and not see the weeks and months and years stretching into decades and then? Maybe a century?

Maybe not. But I know that we only persist by the things we make and the people we touch.

This is not a bad thing. It just Is and is as certain as one day we, ourselves, will no longer Be.

Desert Island Desks

Are you a Pen Addict?

A few episodes ago and discussed in the recent podcast episode, Brad and Myke discussed what stationery they’d take to a desert island - 1 pen, 1 ink, 1 paper. This lead to much goofiness and a new Tumbkr from a show listener - Desert Island Desks.

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Of course I’m getting on that boat.

Pen: rOtring Lava, custom ground stub nib. This was my first Grail pen after dipping my toe into the fountain pen water. The pens I like the most have some distinct, modern design. High gloss bodies or non-round shapes or similar. I like my tools to be pristine, strong, and clean. This pen pretty much everything along with a Brutalist aesthetic (and Brutalist heft…) in the grey, textured exterior looking like concrete. Love at first sight… until I saw the prices on eBay - $400-$800. O_O.

But. But! Alyska, with her bargain-fu managed to find one at not even close to that price and gifted it to me on Christmas in 2014. I’ve been using this pen nearly daily since then. And I miss it when I’m not using it.

Psst.. (Have I mentioned recently that my wife is amazing?)

Ink: Iroshizuku Kiri-same, Autumn Shower. A good match for the grey pen, no? It looks old and worn in a well-loved sort of way. I’ve always coveted notebooks as artifacts of a person. My favorite movies all have important journals or notebooks with all sorts of art and diagrams and codes and I want the stuff that I write down to be like that.

It’s exactly the opposite of what I like in my tools. I want the things I create to feel old and loved, secret and personal. I get that feel faster with a light, washed out ink.

Also, if you’re still using Moleskine notebooks…. why‽

Paper: Leuchtturm medium hardcover notebook - I’m not sure if dotted or grid…. the Leuchtturm was the first notebook I found that stood up to ink while still packing a ton of paper - 249 pages. And they’re numbered. I gravitate to the white covers because they wear in quickly and plesantly, all dirty and ink-stained by the time you’re done with it. I think the ribbon on my last one has three inkblots on it, one that came in the first week of use (I was very bad at inking my pens…).

Regarding artifacts

Some of my favorite pages from my last few notebooks.

June 2016 home screen

Darn tasks undone… 

I like to track my home screen changes over time. I’ve been trying to get shots on the first of every month to understand how my priorities change, what things are important to me or deist reacting me.

What does my home screen mean to me?

The home screen on my phone is my portal to tracking and minor productivity. I desire to minimize distraction - games, notifications, even icons - so I have less cognitive friction to do something useful.

For example, only the following apps are allowed badges:

• OmniFocus
• Messages
• App Store
• Settings
• Unibox

I have some other notifications set up but they all funnel through my Watch - messages, VIP emails, calendar events. Nothing else.

The idea is that, if I want my attention drawn, I want it drawn to helpful things on my phone. So that’s app updates and tasks due today.

What has changed?

I removed one of the virtue tracker app/workflows - Rest. I wasn’t using it and didn’t care so: gone. The others I’m not super consistent but I just reworked them to require fewer steps to get actually more information.

I ditched MyFitnessPal and I’m thinking about getting it back. I tried 4? Maybe 5? calorie trackers in May and precisely 1 did what I wanted but it had The Worst Interface and food database of any I’ve tried.

I just want a tracker that can show via a badge how many carbs I’ve eaten in a day. Apparently I am the only one on Earth that does.

Distraction

I added FB back. Ehhh….

I deleted Neko Atsume.

I added LinkedIn for a few things in working on. (I really dislike the app and service…)

IG forevahhhh.

Icons

So much open space man. So nice. So clean.

I’m considering adding some encouraging text to the bottom of the wallpaper since it’s so open. It’s kind of part of practicing daily gratitude, part just using space effectively.

I mean I have this huge phone. Why not do something with it?

Does this make me more productive?

Eh? I don’t do “useless” things as much but I also don’t regularly review my task list. I think I just dislike phones as a whole.

I’d rather carry my iPad and, say, mount it on my monitor to have my task list open constantly rather than carry a phone.

Maybe I just need to set regular task list check in times throughout the day…

  <img src="_image.jpg" alt="">

June 2016 home screen

Darn tasks undone… 

I like to track my home screen changes over time. I’ve been trying to get shots on the first of every month to understand how my priorities change, what things are important to me or deist reacting me.

What does my home screen mean to me?

The home screen on my phone is my portal to tracking and minor productivity. I desire to minimize distraction - games, notifications, even icons - so I have less cognitive friction to do something useful.

For example, only the following apps are allowed badges:

• OmniFocus
• Messages
• App Store
• Settings
• Unibox

I have some other notifications set up but they all funnel through my Watch - messages, VIP emails, calendar events. Nothing else.

The idea is that, if I want my attention drawn, I want it drawn to helpful things on my phone. So that’s app updates and tasks due today.

What has changed?

I removed one of the virtue tracker app/workflows - Rest. I wasn’t using it and didn’t care so: gone. The others I’m not super consistent but I just reworked them to require fewer steps to get actually more information.

I ditched MyFitnessPal and I’m thinking about getting it back. I tried 4? Maybe 5? calorie trackers in May and precisely 1 did what I wanted but it had The Worst Interface and food database of any I’ve tried.

I just want a tracker that can show via a badge how many carbs I’ve eaten in a day. Apparently I am the only one on Earth that does.

Distraction

I added FB back. Ehhh….

I deleted Neko Atsume.

I added LinkedIn for a few things in working on. (I really dislike the app and service…)

IG forevahhhh.

Icons

So much open space man. So nice. So clean.

I’m considering adding some encouraging text to the bottom of the wallpaper since it’s so open. It’s kind of part of practicing daily gratitude, part just using space effectively.

I mean I have this huge phone. Why not do something with it?

Does this make me more productive?

Eh? I don’t do “useless” things as much but I also don’t regularly review my task list. I think I just dislike phones as a whole.

I’d rather carry my iPad and, say, mount it on my monitor to have my task list open constantly rather than carry a phone.

Maybe I just need to set regular task list check in times throughout the day…

  <img src="_image.jpg" alt="">

Memorial Day 2016

We spent the weekend visiting family (my in-laws) in Okiboji, IA. This is the first time in memory that I’ve done anything which included celebrating the actual Memorial Day holiday.

It was poignant. Both MJ (Alyska’s mother) and I lost a parent this year and had someone to remember. The photos below are from the cemetery laying flowers at graves for family passed long ago and family not so long ago.

   <img src="_img.jpg" alt=" Bunches ">  Bunches  




   <img src="_img.jpg" alt=" Stone Petals ">  Stone Petals  




   <img src="_img.jpg" alt=" Planting (with apologies to MJ for the angle...) ">  Planting (with apologies to MJ for the angle...)  




   <img src="_img.jpg" alt=" Those Recent ">  Those Recent  

Prior to this, Alyska and I visited a very old family cemetery.

It was lovely being a part of this and capturing some photos for it. It’s the kind of thing everyone hates doing in the moment - I dislike taking photos as I desire not to disrupt things - but is nice to see after when you do get a few impactful shots.

My family never really celebrated Memorial Day. We are bad at holidays in general and we’ve not too many veterans in the family nor did we do much to remember past family. I think we’re more of a memento group. There were always artefacts from family in close proximity in the house - pictures, awards, etc - which translates to a sort of constant rememberance that dulls to mostalgia over time.

My Dad’s birthday was Sunday, he would have been 70, and I only sort of recognized it as I was spending time with still-new family. Aside from the little guilt (there’s always guilt) at realizing I didn’t mark it specifically (we’re bad at holidays). I did look through some of the hournaling I did in February while I was with Dad in his last days.

It’s still a little fresh for a full-on Memorial Day, I think, and the artefacts around the house are still above a dull roar. We’ll see how next year goes.

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Olbrich in May

Alyska, Holly and I went to Olbrich last Saturday.

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Olbrich had the Badger Bonsai Society out displaying their trees. It was delightful.

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It was just a lovely day.

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Holly really got into it.

Also: HATS

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