Thursday, November 24, 2022

Happy Thanksgiving!

In my neighborhood, this day will be wonderfully warm. Our temps will climb into the mid-fifties.

This morning, I’m thinking about thankfulness and feeling grateful for tender mercies. There are “internals,” including reasonable health, strength to carry on, and brain energy. There are “externals,” like a sturdy homestead, healthy pets, and opportunities for periodic part-time employment, and ongoing friendships.

A key external I’m thankful for is this blog. I appreciate my readers and enjoy writing. I try to remain upbeat, but sometimes larger social and political events control my finger landings on the keyboard. I’m thankful to all who read both my good and less better blogs.

May we on this pleasant morning feel optimistic about today and tomorrow? And speaking of tomorrow, may we again meet here?

Dear Friends: Let’s hope this Thanksgiving Day offers up healthy doses of pleasure and reflection. Diana

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Good gravy! I’ve worried about possibilities of an active shooter entering a busy store where I’m employed or where I’m shopping. In these days of holiday rushing, active shooters seem more common. I’m ordering more from online to avoid busy shops.

Early today, an active shooter in a Virginia Walmart murdered six. He was an employee! I’ve not imagined a shooter as being employed inside his target venue. Despite my experience as an employee in busy retail settings.

We employees often articulate a shared perspective of preferring to avoid a coworker because that person’s an “odd bird” or a “weird one.” Usually, an odd one departs for unexplained reasons.

We have learned that a weird employee, after leaving a workplace, may return as an active shooter. An early series of such murders, because of where they occurred, earned the label, “going postal.”

Maybe “going postal” encouraged us to not work for the Postal Service. We’d visit Post Offices anyway, for stamps and to mail packages.

Over time and increasingly, we grew more aware of actual and attempted public murders: The Kennedys, King, Lennon, and Regan, to mention some. After the Columbine shooting, there began a spreading of active shooters and mass murders, in schools, churches, and marketplaces.

Despite any concerns about entering public places, the odds more than not are in our favor. We might equate them to the safety or not of driving or riding in a car, crossing a street, riding a bicycle, or just walking the dog. We’re aware of the pros and cons and participate in those activities routinely.

We’re learning in a world now populated by 8 billion residents. Surprise after surprise begins generating fewer surprises.

Dear Friends: Wishing for us all, to find genuine moments of quiet, peace, and joy. Diana

Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Note: On this day in 1963 JFK was assassinated in Dallas. That and ensuing leadership changes began what today are continuous and ever-increasing social/political conflicts. The processes of governing have become complex and confusing beyond what anyone might ever have predicted or could have imagined.

Nowadays, we’re accustomed to assassinations. They occur all around us–in schools, nightclubs, neighborhood homes, and on the streets.

Today, and fortunately, we’re made aware of a mega-heroic act. An ex-military, professional warrior happened to be in a Colorado Springs LGBTQ nightclub. He responded immediately to gunfire; he tackled and brought down an active shooter. He got his hands on the shooter’s gun and steadily beat the man’s head with it. Someone else kicked an AK rifle beyond the shooter’s reach, and another person in high heels stomped on the downed shooter.

Serendipitous, right? People out, enjoying being together. A shooter enters, begins killing, and a trained warrior happens to be at the scene with his family and responds.

This story’s endings are rotten and great. Rotten is that people were killed, and great is that many more weren’t.

The cartoon header sums up much. Pelosi’s attempts to address gun violence have achieved only moderate successes. The Supreme Court agrees with a Republican majority that gun ownership and carrying is a constitutional free right.

Pelosi’s pants suits and high heels are recognizable images of her political strength and masterful management.

Dear Friends: We hope the next Congress reveals thoughtful heroes, participating for the greater good. Diana

Monday, November 21, 2022

Today, I’ll go to St. Charles Medical Center for a job interview. For a change, it’s about desk-style work, part-time, and suits my experience. That’s also my preference after months of experience behind a busy retail cash register.

I became interested in St. Charles after bumping into previous co-workers who now are employed there. They like their work, are paid well, and not interested in leaving their jobs. They encouraged me to explore opportunities, which I did, and thus, today’s interview.

Years ago, I worked in a medical environment. Working in Human Resources for Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles, I became assigned to its Bellflower Medical Center as an internal consultant to the management teams. That environment introduced me to a large hospital structure and to employee roles. I learned the processes for decision-making and communicating throughout the environment. Today’s interview may draw from that background.

For the past week of not working, I’ve enjoyed being home but slightly feel isolated. I enjoyed having the camaraderie of co-workers who like me are retirees. We viewed working in similar ways, giving it our best, and being mutually supportive. I felt that kinship again yesterday on returning to the market to clear my locker.

Interestingly, many retirees were very conservative; their political views differed significantly from mine. We sensed the differences and didn’t discuss politics. As a minority group, we elderlies focused on appreciating and supporting ourselves.

Today I’ll learn what St. Charles offers. For sure, many retirees are working there, as volunteers or in salaried positions.

Dear Friends: It’s weird, that I’ve not already sought employment in a medical environment. Diana

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Yesterday, another mass shooting and this time in a Colorado LGBTQ nightclub. It’s another awful expression of social hatred by an American, seriously mentally ill and maladjusted. Here’s what else is awful: I didn’t pause to read about that shooting. My brain said to the headline, “Not again,” and skipping that story searched for others of interest.

Mass shootings in America and other developed nations seem occurring daily. They follow similar threads. Shooters typically are young men. Most after shooting are found dead. They share have common histories, of frequenting online hate sites and describing online their own deep hatreds while posting murderous threats.

Citizens are learning to expect such activities. The few shooters who’ve been found alive and are in custody are troubling to manage. Should they be executed or not? Is it helpful to those suffering losses of loved ones to describe their anger and sadness, to a stone-faced murderer?

As for me? While a supermarket cashier, always on my mind was that store’s cashiering setup. Just inside large entry doors are its fifteen cash registers. There wasn’t a question about an entering active shooter’s ability instantly to wipe out all register operators. That fear intensified among store workers after an active shooter targeted, shot up, and murdered, inside a local Safeway.

An imagined scenario didn’t make me quit working in the store. I did for other reasons, and yet, feel relieved for not working in a front row of multiple cash registers.

The world’s population, having reached 8 billion, forces more a general acceptance of our social and individual differences. Our enlightenment and understanding are revealing many incapacities of our usual legal positions. Calls are urgent for a united Congress, or at least bodies willing to and capable of negotiating across aisles.

Dear Friends: I am sad over the Colorado mass shooting, and today will immerse myself in a computer world. Diana

Saturday, November 19, 2022

The weather experts predict today’s local conditions to warm up. The area’s current uninviting 12 degrees F by this afternoon will register at 40 degrees F. Later this morning, I’ll lead my horses to a neighbor’s pasture and leave them to graze. Today, the streets won’t smack of black ice and threaten our safety, going or returning home later.

Yesterday, needing vinegar and canned pumpkin, and being price-conscious, I visited Costco. That store was mobbed with Thanksgiving-focused shoppers. Moving my cart against traffic flows through the aisles required time and effort; I was happy to escape the store with little beyond my two designated purchases.

Today, I’ll find a similar mob of shoppers in the supermarket where I’m no longer employed. I will go there to clear my locker without having to face unending customers lined up at a cash register. Cashiering is very physical work and increasingly so as a celebratory holiday approaches. I’m grateful for gaining the skills to operate a register, and equally so for having quit.

I watched Costco cashiers working even more physically. Carts roll on a cashier’s side of a register with heavier items inside needing scans. Cashiers must also scan small items moving on a register belt. At least, many have helpers that make checking out quicker.

These days while not working beyond my home, I relish having the time to care for my animals. I can fool around, too, for example, playing at creating a logo.

Dear Friends: Moving on now with hopes to understand later, better, as to where. Diana

Friday, November 18, 2022

Still freezing here, the weather that is, and I keep myself bundled up. Today’s header photo shows the early morning path toward my barn from up at the house.

After quitting work outside my home, I am finding time for animal care and property needs. This extreme cold multiples animal needs. Maintaining warmth expends mega calories. I face frozen-over watering devices, sheltering areas needing improvements, and making corrections to feeding amounts and frequencies.

There also are my dogs. I let them be outside for a while and then inside for a while. This works well since mostly they sleep while inside. That gives me computer time for writing, reading, and attempting to create something cool.

Yesterday and today have the horror of black ice. Years ago, a couple of bad slips taught me that danger, which now discourages walking with my horses on asphalt toward a neighbor’s pasture. The horses will have to be in a dry lot until Central Oregon’s atmosphere heats a little.

It is lighter now and quite beautiful outside. But it’s cold!

Dear Friends: Icy weather is neat for carrying around and pointing a camera. Diana

Thursday, November 17, 2022

Well, there’s Peaches on a big rock, and somehow, minus his perch and hot dog. While he’s wrongly sized in this, I did eliminate an original image’s background and successfully moved Peaches from a cage into the outdoors. I think these represent a decent start to learning the complex software, Photoshop.

In examining photos taken with my camera, my mind plays with them. Individual images often have me wishing to combine a couple or more, to tell a story or to increase their potential.

This began years ago. I was playing around and combined several throwaway shots, creating one I have loved. It shows my donkey, Pimmy, gazing at the wintery moon over the Cascade Mountains. Of course, this morning I cannot locate that old image in time for this blog. I will post it tomorrow.

Anyway, here’s to sharing my accomplishment so far, Hoping to continue and create something better.

Dear Friends: Cool as AI is, it’s really less than what human brains may produce. Diana

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Today’s header photo shows Peaches in his cage savoring a hot dog. I decided to use Photoshop, remove the image’s background and then place Peaches and his snack elsewhere. These changes would be my first experiment in navigating the complex Photoshop software.

After removing the in-home background, I could see challenges in finding a suitable background for Peaches, his perch, and the hot dog. A temporary solution was to place them against a solid color background.

This image’s tilted perch won’t easily fit into a natural tree, as I had hoped. I wondered if the saved components could be fitted onto a stump or a rock. I didn’t see an appropriate natural stump but spotted a rock that might serve.

Combining these two images successfully calls for a clear vision of desirable outcome and a clever manipulation of software. By tomorrow morning, I hope to have progressed adequately to share.

Dear Friends: Photoshop has enormous possibilities and greatly inspires creativity. Diana

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

I’ve begun hanging and turning on my outside Christmas lights, starting at the barn. They’re warm greetings, although now might be too early for them. Homeowners usually activate their Christmas lights after Thanksgiving. Anyway, last evening, I enjoyed peering through the sheer darkness at a lighted string of multi-colors at my barn. I will leave them up until the end of January, or this time not take them down at all.

I felt like pausing and hanging my lights after quitting my part-time job. For the first time in months, I could relax and do whatever I wished. What changed things is that this winter season began suddenly and harshly. Continued snowing and freezing temperatures encouraged deciding to stay home and care for my animals.

First, I’ll string the remaining lights, and then seriously will start working with my own images and the Photoshop editing program. I enjoy the illustrations that artificial intelligence produces and surely will enjoy mine. What’s been missing is enough free time to focus, practice, learn, and produce.

Today’s header is from AI, and tomorrow’s might be a product of my efforts.

Dear Friends: This cold, beautiful morning is an invitation to use the daylight hours wisely. Diana