The Hermits' Rest

Apps? What apps?

What app eats up most of your screen time — and do you even feel bad about it?

Great news for me—I have another fun question to answer while not much is going on around the ranch but work, heat, dogs, and my sore mouth. I have overdone the NSAIDs and it’s making my old lady red spots go into overdrive. The pain is a bit less, so I’ll cut down starting tonight.

Barely need to rub on the skin to get this. Yuck.

However, the question was about apps. Here’s what my phone has to deal with every day.

Merlin Bird ID: it has its own phone, so it’s on much of the day, but I only look at it every couple of hours. It’s very important for my bird data, you know. (Yeah, I’m such a scientist.)
Facebook: sorry, haters, but I keep up with old friends, new acquaintances, and lots of horses and dogs. I’m encouraged by the kindness and interesting ideas I come across. I skip repetitive ads based on the things I’ve been talking or thinking about, and only very rarely do I see offensive, ignorant, or mean content. I’ve curated my feed. No, I have no secret other than liking what I like and ignoring the rest.
Finch. I check this cute self-care app 3-4 times a day. It reminds me to do kind things and lets me engage in harmless play with a few friends. It’s really good for my mental health. I can send my friend code; just ask.
Crossword: the Redstone Games crossword app is great. There are themes, different creators whose puzzles you can play, and many levels of difficulty. There are always new games. It’s good for keeping your brain sprightly. I play a game or two per day. Lee is constantly playing.
INaturalist. I’d say I add one or two observations per day or hundreds when I’m traveling. I love to look up whatever plants, birds, insects, or other creatures are near me. It’s endlessly fascinating.
WordPress or JetPack or whatever they’re calling it. I do blog a while most days. Yesterday was too uneventful for me to dredge up anything, so I skipped. I like WordPress just fine. I have always enjoyed putting words on the internet and formatting them. It’s what I do. For me.
Others I use often are Clime weather (official live radar maps), Google for asking questions, LinkedIn to check on work buddies, Gmail for the occasional personal email, Zoom/Teams for chatting, the camera app (duh), and boring banking and financial apps.

Do I feel bad about any of it? Heck no. The only app I felt bad about using was Bejeweled. I used it to escape from my daily life for about ten years. Things got better and I stopped.

Benito is settling in well. He’s very attached to Lee.

No doubt younger readers have very different app preferences. These folks have never known a time without apps. I guess books and drawing paper were my “apps.” I got lost in them!

Make it go away

If you could erase one trend from history, what would it be?

I’ll tell you what trend I’d like to eliminate: charismatic psychopaths taking over the leadership of powerful countries and embarking on unstoppable campaigns to satisfy their need for praise and power.

Can we make this trend go away? Not without a destructive struggle, I fear.

Okay, people who came here to read the prompt response can stop reading. I’ll go on to ranch news. First, the dogs are making progress. And, hey, I discovered in the archives that we got Penney seven years ago this week, and she was my most recent acquisition. So we aren’t grabbing dogs Willy-nilly. (Kathleen rescued Goldie.)

Benito has started to both play with and assert himself with Harvey. I just hope they establish their boundaries quickly. It’s hard to keep B calm for his heart worm treatment when everyone wants to play and play. But they do sleep a lot.

We have noticed much less mounting and marking from Benito, which is really good. I’m not fond of that stuff.

As for the rest of us, we are muddling along, with no one feeling all that great. My jaw swelling has gone down, but I still hurt. I’ll let the dentist know, and I’m taking the antibiotics on schedule.

Sharing some white-mouthed day flowers, which got sprayed today. They were pretty, but it was time to trim some overgrowth.

Big thing for me: I am finally going through all my clothing from work and ranch and will be making some lucky thrift store shopper very happy. I got two boxes full of clothes today. More to come! This is one of my “issues,” having too many clothes. Comes from not having many growing up. But I go overboard. Sigh. I guess I could have worse issues (and probably do).

PS: haven’t lost a fish in my water garden! Yay!

Old technology memories

Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?

I still feel bad in the tooth department but I’m gonna answer this question anyway, since nothing exciting happened today(which is good). Anyway, I miss two things from the olden days of my youth, back in the 20th century.

One is standard transmissions in cars. It was just plain fun to drive a stick shift when I was younger. You felt like you were actually telling the car what to do, as opposed to today’s cars that control the speed, yell at you if you stray out of your lane, and park for you. Cars used to be fun.

The other thing I miss is just for the fun aspect, and that’s intercom systems in homes and offices. It was so much fun to yell at your siblings on intercoms (we didn’t have one, but well-off friends did.) I know it was supposed to be so cool to play the radio throughout the house…but I liked paging parents. And oh, my, did we have fun in my first “real” job in Illinois, calling each other into our offices and being silly until we were reminded that it WAS a business.

All I know is we removed a lot of those systems when remodeling houses.

Genuine news! Finally have the first half of the year of temperatures in my blanket. July was hot!

I’m trying really hard to feel less down in the dumps and to make sure my mouth is healing. The dogs are still entertaining, though!

My excuse was flimsy

What is the best excuse you have heard lately?

Today’s question was quite appropriate. I did something monumentally dumb and my best excuse is that I read too fast. My other excuse is mouth pain making me grumpy and prone to misinterpreting things. So I embarrassed myself in front of many Internet strangers (and a person I know).

Positive note: our property is covered with these beautiful golden rain lilies. A reward from the storms.

What happened is I got a text telling me that my subscription club was ending and that I had until September to use all my points or they’d expire. Or something to that effect. My mind immediately leapt to my monthly subscription to nail strips from Color Street (such a weird name, I know). I look forward to the monthly surprises, so I got sad.

You know, my extreme nail vanity I can’t control for long.

I immediately told my friend who sells the strips, who was shocked. I then posted about it on a Facebook group for super-users of the strips. Before I was able to see any responses, Rebecca asked me to show her the text I’d gotten. I then saw my mistake. It wasn’t my Color Play subscription that was ending, but the Color Club for my hair coloring stuff, Overtone. Oops.

By the time I got back on Facebook, a tizzy was occurring in the nail group, since no one else had heard anything, including the “stylists” (MLM marketing term). I quickly changed my post and apologized, though people kept demanding I change my original post, which I had already done. I felt so embarrassed.

Luckily people were mostly forgiving and one even asked about Overtone.

But wow, my excuse for that mistake, while honest, was merely the best I could do, not a good one.

What makes us ourselves?

Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?

Oh. I have been reading so much about the self, nature versus nurture, what the heck reality is…my main conclusion boils down to:

I don’t know and don’t think it matters

This doesn’t imply that it’s not fascinating to seek insight into how experiences and genetics affect your physical and mental health — after all I enjoyed The Myth of Normal just recently, and I’m currently reading about the nature of consciousness.

Flowers are conscious beings, according to Michael Pollan.

My point is that I’m fine not knowing the answers to these questions. In fact, I think I enjoy pondering the possibilities and learning about other scientists and spiritual practitioners propose so much that if we knew exactly how much nature and nurture contribute to who we are, I’d be sad.

Perhaps it’s human nature to want an explanation for what we perceive. On the other hand, for some cultures and individuals, not knowing is something to be treasured, a great mystery. (I do not advocate for choosing ignorance of course—you need to know what you don’t know.)

Right now, I’m choosing to be curious while enjoying being alive without really knowing what that means. I’d make a lot more sense if I were more awake and less achy from the tooth thing. I feel pain, therefore I am, said some wise person.

Update on dogs. Benito is fine. It’s hard to stop him and Carlton from playing in the evening, though. Curiously, the dynamic has changed, and Carlton is now doing dominance behavior over Benito. Hmm. Maybe they’re equals now. In any case, they sure stick together.

B is next to me, C is on the next pillow.

I’d rather be a dolphin than Benito

If you had to be an animal for a week, which one would you be and why?

I liked today’s question. I thought about many possibilities, brought on by the book I’m reading about consciousness. I wondered how it would feel to be a bird, a fish, or a snake (those were my other ideas). But I settled on a dolphin,

Why a week as a dolphin? I’d love to live on the water and perceive how that feels. Of course, dolphins know what air feels like, so it’s not like many fish, who don’t know there’s any other option. I’d love to learn how dolphins communicate, what matters to them in their world, and what kinds of emotions they have. It would be like experiencing another culture and language but much stronger.

I wouldn’t want to be a captive dolphin. They are probably depressed. Image from Pexels

This kind of experience would probably lead us humans to rethink a lot of our assumptions.

I could be one of these happy guys I saw from a boat.

Okay, but why wouldn’t I want to be Benny/Benito? He had a hard day today and hurts all over, I’m guessing, having been neutered and given many vaccinations. It’s for the best in the long run, of course.

Plus, Dr Amy and team found out he is heart worm positive. I guess his previous folks hadn’t given him heart worm preventative every month. So he is embarking on a long road to recovery that involves keeping him inactive. Yeah. Good luck. Maybe the medicine will keep him tired.

I’ll miss that testosterone once it’s out of my system.

Poor little guy. I’m glad he made it over here so he can get the care he needs.

Currently he’s sleeping under the covers next to me.

A cute thing about today was that when he got home, instead of Benito following Carlton and pestering him, the tables were turned. Carlton didn’t stray from Benito’s side, like he was caring for him. So sweet.

We are liking the nickname Benito for Benny. After all, he’s Hispanic sort of. He just has to get used to it. This way when we scold him Penney won’t think she did something wrong.

We just had to keep the dog

Believe me when I say this: I’ve never had any interest in owning a chihuahua dog. Most of them remind me of rats, yappy rats. Nonetheless a chihuahua mix now lives here. Benny is shaped more like a loaf of bread than a rat, and he is way less annoying when he barks than the other four house dogs.

I have you this look and won you over, right?

I was impressed that his teen “owner” was willing to let him stay, but she was not home enough to supervise him or give him the attention he craves. Benny is a very social dog. I’m happy to see he isn’t constantly on top of Carlton now, though he follows him like a shadow.

Carlton holds his own just fine and has less trouble with Penney now, which is a bonus. As long as all the dogs get their doses of attention, all is well. Even Harvey doesn’t grr at Benny. They have achieved detente.

It’s a good thing everyone is getting along, since we had another big rain here, unusual for July. The two horses Kathleen has in the front field had to go hide under trees, until the arroyo filled up. But then, they weren’t hot and there were no flies.

I enjoyed watching Benny and Vlassic together after the rain. They get along fine. I think Vlassic told Benny how much nicer it feels lying on your belly with those annoying testicles out of the way.

I’m glad Benny won’t be tied up outside or in a cage and ignored all summer. He’s really a pretty good dog, and will be better once trained to not mark indoors. Tomorrow’s vet trip should help with that. If it doesn’t flood more.

This Hackberry Emperor hid from the rain on our porch.

Book I treasured

Which book have you read more than any other?

Still on yesterday’s book theme, I guess. I thought about it a while, and there are two books I re-read so many times I lost count. One was Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell. She was a very good horses’ rights advocate, and she sure convinced me that horses should be treated kindly, even working horses.

I have a feeling I wrote about this before, and I did, a whole blog post two years ago. So go read that. Obviously the blog prompt writers repeat themselves!

The repetition did give me a chance to think of another book I read so much it fell apart. It was a book about Star Trek (TOS)* that listed every episode, its name, the cast, etc. Allow me to go find out its name. It’s not on the shelf next to my James Blish novelizations of each episode. Yes, I had all those beauties, mostly first editions.

The best I can come up with is The Making of Star Trek. That was by Roddenberry and someone else. But it was 1976, too late.

I don’t have book cover photos so here are the fish again. Three of four goldfish.

Or perhaps it was the World of Star Trek by David Gerrold. I had both, but this one came out in 1973 at the peak of my fascination. I do remember I annotated the book extensively and kept it by my TV chair (which is still with me, in my office). Yep, that book probably got read more than even Black Beauty.

Well, I hope someone found this interesting. My one Trekkie reader, I guess.

Oh. We have been given Benny the brown chiweenie or something related to that. His owner says he obviously seems happy here. Yeah. He’s not in a cage outside. I woke up this morning with him and Carlton sleeping sweetly beside me. Anyway, we can get him neutered and updated on shots now.

I just kept coming back until you got the hint.

And I had a very complicated day at the dentist. A simple crown replacement turned into an extraction, prep for another root canal, and something or other on a third tooth. This leads to the need for expensive repairs. Glad I have a savings account and pain meds.

Book Report: Steve Martin Writes the Written Word

I find Steve Martin funny, charming, musically talented, and a fine actor. As a writer I give him a solid B/B+. He’s not a bad writer, but not one whose words would get published as hardback books if he weren’t already famous. So, you don’t need to run out and buy Steve Martin Writes the Written Word: Collected Written Word Works by Steve Martin. You can get it when it comes out in paperback. Or I bet it’s better with him reading it as an audiobook. You’d get all that wryness and tongue-in-cheek-itude better.

There are short stories, odd lists, and two novellas in this collection, including Shop Girl, which became a show or movie or something. I found it okay, but didn’t really like the characters. The Pleasure of My Company, a story written from the viewpoint of a very neurotic but likable fellow, I enjoyed more.

It occurs to me that much of Martin’s ability to make you laugh comes from tone of voice or slapstick, neither of which come across very well written in written words works.

I left the book at the condo so someone else could read it, though they tried very hard to return it to Anita.

Fish update

I did promise yesterday to show you the rosy red minnows that went in the fish pond yesterday. They all came up at feeding time, so I could get photos in the murky water. They’re busy chowing down on that algae.

I got another couple of goldfish photos. One is not a fantail, so it’s easy to ID!

Animal comings and goings

While I was on the East Coast looking at waves and birds, there have been shifts in the population here at the Hermits’ Rest. One is a familiar friend/nuisance (depending on behavior that changes moment to moment).

Yep. Apparently Lee woke up Thursday night to find Benny in his lap. He no longer has his collar on, but still is a fully functional manly dog. So much for the people 2 miles away promising to fix both their fence and the dog.

He’s still madly enamored of poor Carlton, who patiently rebuffs Benny’s attempts at fathering very ugly puppies with him. Benny is apparently an example that yes, dogs can be gay. He is Carlton’s constant shadow. At least he’s settled in enough on this visit that they have started playing more and mounting less. That’s very welcome.

I assume at some point the teen girl will come home from Grandma’s house (or whatever) and ask about him. Then her dad will have to come here and listen to another lecture on neutering and keeping track of pets. Until then, we will take care of our guest, unless he decides to go home. He’s a nice dog other than the boundless energy when I’m trying to sleep and his Carlton fixation.

Also while I was gone the population of the fish pond went from 0 to four. Kathleen bought me four pretty goldfish and had Lee put them in.

We needed them since the algae is creeping in.

They are my favorite kind, so I’m pleased. They are all still alive. Kathleen predicts they’ll die on day 15, since they have a 14-day guarantee.

She tried to get minnows yesterday, but the pet store didn’t have any and didn’t appear to be caring for their other fish.

Same fish. The other two saw the camera and fled.

However, today she was at College Station and found healthier minnows. I’ll get photos of them tomorrow, but they look like minnows, and they will be in this green water. Just imagine it.

We still have the same number of birds and equines, so that will have to do for the animal report.