rattfan | Feels like summer

The weather is really warm. Around 25^C. Although this is only early spring by Aussie calculations – and I think counting it from the equinox makes much better sense – this feels like summer. Daisies are everywhere and I can feel my allergies rising in response to all this pollination. These days I love the warm weather because I can take my shirt off, at least at home. I wouldn’t inflict my physique on the general public; that’s not fair at all!

Today was walking around neighbourhood, taking care of stuff. First to the library, but there was a kids’ “storytime” going on which means too much noise for anybody else. Why do adults talking to kids have to sound as though they (the adults) have brain damage? And so loudly that it’s as though they think the kids are deaf.

Due to this; on to shopping centre to make an appointment for an eye test, it being due after 18 months. It turns out optician had a cancellation; could have the appointment in half an hour, so got a paper and went to have a coffee. Then was snagged by an Alinta saleswoman but the numbers blurred in my head, so I took the info and went away. I will compare it against what I’ve got, but I just can’t manage it when I’m expected to calculate on the spot.

The cost of new walk-around specs that are multifocals (this got missed last time) was duly horrifying, even with the insurance bringing it down, and I’m still thinking hard about whether it’s worth keeping it. I’m showing the beginning of cataracts but it’s not yet at needing the operation to fix that. Once I do, ironically glasses will become less expensive, I’m told; they won’t have to be as thick as they are now. At least the computer glasses don’t need to be changed. I can only afford the one set change right now and if it had been them, the other set would have had to wait.

My insurance does not cover hospital – that rate is too high – but I’m told it’s day surgery. We’ll see. I’ve got a call back in a year, but the optician says it could happen sooner or not at all. I love the precision (sigh) but it’s all she can tell me. I did hopefully ask how much time I could expect off work but the answer is “not that much.” Damn! I returned to the library on the way back and it was now properly quiet.

Once I got home, I did my weights while the muscles were still warmed up in the interests of not getting osteo and having my bones fall apart. Then lunch, first reading the specs for capsicums in my Garden Guide, since I’d saved seed from the one I was eating and have decided to have a go at growing them. Their season started a few weeks ago; still plenty of time. I watered all the pot plants with most of my saved rainwater – no tank, so I’ve been scooping it out of the wheelbarrow and storing it in my shed in whatever bottles I have. I also switched the bore water system back on in response to the summer weather. Apparently if you have a bore, you can water three times a week but I think that’s too much; I switch it off so it only does once or twice, depending on the temperatures.

The potted nasturtium I’m prepping for my mother is ready to go; it had only buds last weekend but now is sporting two bright red flowers. That one would be red, the rarest colour in nasts. I haven’t scored one among the nasturtiums around the garden, though there are some flame-coloured and blood oranges. You have to plant them specially if you want anything other than common orange or yellow.

Then read some more of John Ford’s Final Reflection, which I have promised to reread so I can comment on the comments and questions raised by an online friend of a DW friend. They have a book club of Ford’s works and I’m a onetime Klingon fan and member of several clubs back in the day. So I may have some insight or just some particular weird viewpoint; we’ll see. Since that was 30 and some years ago, the reread is necessary but I’m finding the book very memorable. If you remember that Ford is a gamer first, it makes beautiful sense and it’s such a pity that the later Star Trek movies (the book was published in 1984) chose to make the Klingons hulking Neanderthal types with little strategy beyond “thump it till it stops moving.”