It’s the twilight of the summer … again

Summer declines and roses have grown rare,
But cottage crofts are gay with hollyhocks,
And in old garden walks you breathe an air
Fragrant of pinks and August-smelling stocks.

—John Todhunter (1839-1916)

August was when we went to the cottage as kids – for the whole month. My most often thought of memories include picking fresh raspberries for our cereal (I still put them on my Cheerios and it takes me back there right away) and saying goodbye to the lake on Labour Day weekend. Usually sitting on the limestone rocks at the top of our little hill. Goodbye Lake, Goodbye Trees,  Goodbye Pathway. I don’t remember the last time I said goodbye, though. 

That was Loborough – after that,  my parents had a cottage in the Kawarthas and while we went lots of weekends and it was fun I wasn’t living at home then and doesn’t hold the place in my memory that the Kingston cottage does.

Also, August is “the dog days of summer”, referring to Sirius (the DogStar) — August was when it was high in the sky in ancient Rome in the hottest period of the year. And of course, August was named for Augustus Caesar, great-nephew (I believe) of Julius Caesar and the first Emperor of Rome. How do we (and why) remember these things?

So, what’s new since yesterday morning? Nothing but no-bake brownie batter cheesecake. We gave a lot of it away, although I did eventually indulge in a piece.

August is a good month astrologically, especially the last week. For me anyway (as per Susan Miller). We’ll see how it all goes.

Two walks down, dog is out finishing up with his pack. And then the day will go on. Not sure what’s on my plate today. It IS a full moon in Gemini I think and supposedly a harsh one. Maybe that’s why I can’t focus. I thought about getting back to PADI this morning, then I think, why right now? Doesn’t look like La Paz is happening anytime soon. Eventually… yes but I only have about 1/3 of the course left and can do it anytime. And will not do my open water dive in Canada. I refuse. Too cold. I could still do the course up to the open water, and then it would be done. Just not today.

I cleaned up the pantry yesterday. Made it look tidy. I don’t know that I did a lot more that was useful. I cooked chicken breasts for the week. Gumbo tonight (we have Andouille sausage!)

Look how tidy that is …

Oh yeah, I have to go make the casita look better for the show. I had to turn around to get the sound better so now I need to fix my backdrop. There you go, something useful to do. I think I’ll use the bullhead that Judy gave me in there. Goes with my hat.

Ok, I have a nice setup. I’ll take a picture somehow. Not sure how but I’ll figure it out. With the iBook. It’s a whole other thing. I set that up in the casita permanently for Zoom.

Wednesday now, Day 145. Hmmm. Episode 0 is recording today. With clips tomorrow and pickups. We’re really quite serious about this now. And it should be fun. Today is the three BB’s, having drinks and talking about life. And it will be edited, so the pressure is off. And we will be funny but we will also be very serious and discuss very serious Boomer issues.

Issues like death – of a parent, of a child, of a spouse; blended families in your third act; depression and suicide; retirement – the silent killer?; coming out in your third act; finding a mate online?; getting ill, DNRs and assisted suicide and things like that.

I suppose you might wonder how we plan to be funny. Well, when we talk about death, I happen to have given two of these to our daughter for CW and I:

She didn’t think it was funny but I’m serious 🙂 You can get yours at Archie McPhee.

So, today, I decided to pull one tarot card and I shuffled and shuffled and nothing jumped out. As I was shuffling, I saw that one of the birds of paradise on the wall was dead, so put the deck on the credenza and went over to get it and throw it out.

Came back to the deck and one WAS sticking out now and clearly said, “here you go!” And there it was. You know how many times this card has jumped out of the deck, out of 76 cards, when I ask about the house?

You might as well stand on your head, you’re going nowhere soon.

I was thinking that I get this card a lot. And while The Fool and The Magician are what I consider “my” cards – I think I have to adopt this one too. And, now I’m wondering how much this has to do with a past life in the Gunsmoke days (I’m serious) where I was hanged. And what that bloody message is. For heavens sake, stop being so subtle, what are you trying to say?

Oh, I know. Don’t think I don’t. Be content with what you have. Sit on your hands. Bide your time.

I use a book, and my own notes from a class 30 years ago (LOL) and the internet. This is from House of Intuition:

When the Hanged Man appears in readings, it’s usually a time to suspend any action. This is the card of being in limbo or being in transition. As the Hanged Man rests between the world of spirit and the world of man, so too are you in between the old world and the new. Usually, the Hanged Man indicates that the old circumstances are falling away, but the new circumstances have yet to arrive, leaving you feeling listless.

You may be tempted to make big changes in response to your restlessness, but the Hanged Man warns that now is not the time for action. Rather, you should surrender to the deeper underlying process that is generating change in your life. If you hang tight, the situation will naturally change on its own, without your having to do anything. 

And my instinctive response:

Now it’s Thursday, after dinner. A quiet day. The days are all very quiet. I’m going to go to bed early tonight and read. Like by 7pm. I need to get back to Mary trump’s book. I got sidelined by “The World We Create”, which I haven’t finished yet either but I need something light if you can call Mary’s book that. It’s not telling me anything I don’t know. And it’s a breezy read.

Lots of work ahead. We are postponing the launch of Boomer Bitches™ and are officially “back in development” – but we’re taping and editing at the same time. Just didn’t want to launch too fast. I’ll show you some clips in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, we’re coming up with some signature cocktail recipes for the website.

Not really, but when things get bogged down or slow, I feel like this LOL

No showings. They died. Not sure what happened but it could be Covid raging through Mexico City again. I can’t go there (the ‘we may never get out of here’ scenario). Just can’t 🙂 Besides, we can always get out — we’d just walk away from all the money we have (the house). So it’s not like life or death. Quite.

But I do need another writing project. We may get a couple more script jobs but while I’m waiting. But I think there’s a book to be written about why we are leaving Mexico. It’s mostly the street dogs and the mistreatment of them, the crazy gringos (the rescuers, the posers, the sexpats), the cartels, the corrupt government, the unregulated conditions for things like food that mean you have to take tapeworm and inchworm and all the worms medicine every six months because you probably have them. That’s a good start. There’s a book in there. Of course, I would pepper it with the wonderful things, like the weather. Is that a full stop? Not sure.

Ok, it’s Friday now and the day is almost over. We’ve probably got a new launch date (we’re looking at two) and they are three freaking months away but that’s good, we’ll have lots of content and clips by then, I guess. I have to get my head around it again. I really got thrown for a loop when we lost a bitch there, a while back. But everything happens for a reason. And sometimes the reason is that I’m stupid.

But you’ll see us November 3 also, on our live Facebook watch party for election night. Our first guest bitch is super hilarious. And has no f-cks to give. We may just keep her for good. This is not a show for children. Or wimps. Or anyone concerned with maintaining a prim and proper reputation. We’re posting under 18+ age restrictions.

The show is grandmothers, and grandfathers sometimes, talking about everything from death to money to sex to religion to drugs. And drinking. And more. There was an astrological reason why we could not launch between September 9 and November 13. So, we went with it, given the show is called Astro Happy Hour, LOL. It’s like the pandemic – it gives us some time to sit back and reflect.

I got flowers today anyway, trying to manifest a showing for Sunday. I think I told you that we’re taking it off the market after the rainy season and once the condo (pre-sale in Nanaimo) sells, we’ll put two more bathrooms in. That has been a relatively frequent complaint – believe it or not – that the guest rooms (3) have to share one bathroom.

They want them to each have their own. The cost – to put in two 3-piece bathrooms, very spa style, white subway tiles, pedestal sink, white everywhere. Not big bathrooms. And this is where no bathroom existed before (either spot, we are taking away the walk-in closets). For two, including the parts and bits, in Canadian (USD in brackets): $4,500 CAD for two ($3,500 USD for two). It’s so much cheaper to renovate here. But we still have to sell the condo first.

Note the religious candle on the far right (this is in the casita)

Now it’s Saturday night. Nothing going on. Nada. Zilch. Linda, the astrologer, did little mini clips for us about our charts. Interestingly enough, and I believe this could be true, especially given the past life I was taken back to where I was hanged (see the hanged man, above): My chart says that from the moment I was born, I expected to be betrayed and abandoned and let down by people. I must say, when it did happen in my life (only a few big times really), it didn’t shake me that much. Probably because I expected it.

She also says I was left to myself to find out who I was – and I’ve spent a lot of time looking and trying on different hats. Left to myself – more like went off by myself. At a young age.

A lot of my planets are in one quadrant of my chart – some houses have no planetary influence. Which doesn’t mean it’s a bad outlook. But more that I’ve concentrated on one part of my life for most of my life. Which has been trying to figure out who TF I am, LOL.

I have been a million things and I’ve been good at a lot of them. From blackjack dealer to entrepreneur to writer. To producing. Better at some than others. Organizing things and getting them to run smoothly is my superpower. Blackjack dealing depressed me, as much as I love to play cards, any cards. I’d get off at 4am, hop over the railroad tracks to our boat in Vancouver where we lived and cry until the sun came up.

I really didn’t like taking peoples’ money. They threw it at us. One dealer told me about a guy from West Vancouver who regularly sat at his table and often dropped $10,000 – $20,000 at a sitting. One night, he did that, went home and closed the garage door, left the car running stuck a rag in the exhaust and killed himself. How do you come back and deal blackjack the next day?

I still have my bow tie. And that was 27 years ago (stock photo)

Anyway, when I quit, first our direct boss, the pit boss, had several talks with me, trying to convince me to stay. Then someone higher up brought me into his office for “the talk” and the whole time I was looking him in the eye and he looked like the devil. He was lit from the back and he had this ring around him. If he thought that was going to change my mind, he was wrong, it cemented my decision.

On my last night, I decided that I wasn’t going to take any money from the guys and gals at my table that night. I just kept repeating over and over in my head, I’m going to lose, I’m going to lose, I’m going to lose. We have rules, we don’t make judgement calls, so this was all intention. And I lost. They had to bring me two new trays of chips because my tray kept getting emptied. From losing. And there are thousands of dollars in each tray.

The rules are right on the table – draw to 16, stand at 17. No variation.

And their reaction was hilarious. One pit boss leans against the column and watches over the shoulder of the players to see what’s going on (the ‘eyes in the sky’ have picked up that I’m losing consistently). Then, another one, then another one. Suddenly, I’ve got an audience in black suits, watching every move. Then, they don’t even make bones about it. They’re watching me outright, clearly thinking I’m cheating somehow. They looked like the mob. But I had nothing to fear – I wasn’t cheating. To this day, I’m sure they think I was. It was great way to go out 🙂

There, you see, there’s always something to write about. That’s a good BB story to tell one day. I didn’t write the name out because I’m tired of hunting down that little trademark sign and it’s late. LOL.

So, I guess I’ll close. As you’ll see below, Linda warns us that this is a slow week and nothing is going to happen WTF is different, I ask? Just have to try to rest up this week. I think things pick up next week and in two weeks, well, look out.

Okay, folks, that’s it for this week.

Stay safe, stay informed, stay kind.

I leave you with our astrologer’s words of wisdom for this week (we just love her, don’t you?):

Share

8 Comments

  1. Steve Melbye

    The Nancy Drew Thing -too ?
    Keep me in mind if you need a house sitter for awhile if you need to travel – I’m open most time frames and am clean / thrifty /honest. I’ve followed your blog for many years !

  2. Diane Cole

    loborough was a special cottage, sat many times on those limestone rocks and rowing down and into creek in search of any critters we could find and their were lots! Tom and I body surfed together on a raft I laid on his back and nearly pulled his trunks off more then once LOL