Meeting in Denver

Yesterday, Jack and I met athenais who was making a weekend trip to Denver. We met at the coffee bar at the Tattered Cover, but decided it was too crowded for easy conversation and adjourned to a nearby pub. Jack and I first met athenais at a party in Maryland, and some time was devoted to figuring out where exactly that was. It was over two decades ago, so fuzziness on the details can be excused. We had the server take several photos of our groups, which included the friends with whom athenais was staying, but only this one by koroshiya turned out well.

Flu shots

I took my mother to get her flu shot yesterday at the Senior Health Center she uses. We had not planned to do so, but she heard about the flu shot shortage and wanted to make sure she got it. The line was long, but moved quickly and she was done in about thirty minutes.

I usually get one each year, but may not this year since I am not in one of the high risk groups. I started getting them after we moved to Colorado. I was sick so much my first year here that I wanted to do everything I could to minimize getting ill.

Paste Book

Paste book

One of my most useful stamping tools is this homemade paste book. I made it by removing the front cover from a salvaged binder. This is one of the heavy duty binders which allow the pages to lie flat, but any binder should work. I keep it filled with scrap paper in which I punch holes. I use a Rollataq to apply adhesive, but one could also use a gluestick or paste applied with a credit card. After a sheet of paper gets sticky, I tear it off and throw it in the trash. This way I always have a clean surface and don’t get unwanted paste on items.

Gmail

This summer, when I first started using Gmail, I changed almost all of my email discussions lists to my gmail address. However, in the past few days I have changed them back, because I had stopped reading the discussion lists since the interface was too slow. I use Thunderbird under Linux as my email client, and it is much faster to press the “n” key for the next post than it is to click the newer link and wait for the conversation to load.
I set up mail forwarding on my account (a service provided by my Internet provider) and use this to forward my mail to my gmail address. This way, I still get the storage and retrieval benefits of gmail, while being able to read my email rapidly.

A Good Thing

hay in barn

I always feel pleased after a delivery from our hay supplier, when the empty hay aisle is filled with sweet smelling green bales. We buy from a supplier who stacks the hay for us. The guys who delivered it this time were new and inclined to whimper when I insisted that ninety bales of hay had always fit before. The hay has be stacked carefully so we can still get through the doors in the back of the stalls to feed the horses.