I'll just entertain myself

Forever in debt to your priceless advice.
@PDiddie
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This reminds me of the person on LinkdIn who messaged me asking how do we unfriend each other.

I just created a TikTok account. So far, likely until I learn how to navigate it, it seems unrewarding.

What makes it a problem for me, I prefer to read posts rather than watch and listen, mostly.

Spring cleaning going very slow. Living in a space this small it's hard to find a place for things.

Small places are really hard to clean. To clean one part involves moving a dozen things just to get them out of the way.

That's what I've been doing for close to a week.

Just completed my income tax. I've been using H&R Block online.

His was the first life the river had taken in over fifty years. In one minute he gingerly stepped upon the water's frozen over surface. In the next, Bill plunged through it into the swift-moving current. He was inexorably moved downstream, trying desperately to make a hole in the hard crust while drowning.

A younger Bill Trainer had been an avid Bible reader As he grew older he went on to read of transmigration of souls - reincarnation. Later, the Tibetan Book of the Dead and works pertaining to Buddhism. He just dabbled slightly in the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran. None of it managed to lure him away from his atheism. Of course, the overriding theme of these studies concerned the aftermath of one’s transition from life to death. And yet - Not this lack of belief, plus anything he ever experienced, heard, or read gave an inkling of what actually occurred on the day his mortality expired.

The bright light of extinction separated him from the inertness. A darkness darker than sleep, absent even the deepest recess of mind, prevailed, for perhaps a single instant. But perhaps instead for eons. The only certainty was his awareness revived in an agonized event when he himself became an explosion of unimaginable proportions. He felt himself spreading in all directions at light-speed. Unable to react or retrieve an internal monolog to question or to test himself.

And he witnessed in the space created from nothingness the gradual turning of the explosion’s remnants into suns and worlds even while it all continued to expand. With unflagging patience he witnessed planets coming alive - teeming with millions of species. Flora and fauna: swimming, digging, flying. And Trainer experienced helpless emotion from time to time, for the planets mostly failed after the early promise of intelligence. Other planets produced intelligence, limited to loops that produced naught of creativity.

Finally, there moved forward worlds able to orbit satellites and to visit moons and neighboring planets. But most such societies raped their home planet of resources and poisoned the populace out of greed. There were others that obliterated the entire planet due to wars and failed experiments. Finally, one race of beings built robot space conquerors.

The robots evolved into self-sufficient entities that made the Sentients, as they were labeled, irrelevant. They constructed world-sized “Spiders” to weave a web connecting the vast reaches of space. With the web completed, Trainer felt whole, for the first time since his death.

The robots made of Trainer’s universe a super being, designed to break through barriers to add weaker dimensions to the web. Similar universes succumbed even as Trainer’s domain continued the original Great Bang, making it, one assumes, the big kid on the block. But in so supposing one would be wrong.

Bigger by many times over came an invading other dimension. It burst the bounds of Trainer’s universe, replacing all with its own web. As his empire crumbled, Trainer became a part of a greater whole, becoming diluted. Successive such invasions further diluted him, until it may truly be said he was dead. Purists may argue.

What is this from?

It's just something I wrote a while back.

Ahhh, OK. I didn’t see any accreditation.

I thought it was pretty good, frankly.

I thought of it as a throwaway piece, but on reading it over decided to keep it.

Spent a vast sum of money at the grocer's today. But the main thing that bugged me was I bought what I thought to be a real duster; the kind to use repeatedly. Turned out to be a Swiffer. Those things are convenient but way too wasteful. And I thought I was being careful about it.

Give it a chance. It might last longer than you expect

Yea I used those Swiffer dusters all the time, a box last a few months. I take them outside and shake them off, they last even longer when I do that.

My very old mobile home is easy for varmints to invade. At one time squirrels decided to live in my walls and attic space. I trapped them with a Have a Heart and eventually replaced the siding with concrete siding (Hardiplank). So the squirrels that replaced the old ones never could get in. I have to get rid of rats on a regular basis.

When I first moved here the big cockroaches were a huge problem. I learned how to find their nests and to clean them out thoroughly. Then I started buying the roach baits by the dozen and placing them virtually everywhere. After that we could pass an entire year without seeing any. But they always came back. Until recently. I don't have any baits out at present and I haven't seen a single roach in a very long time. I can't believe I exterminated them all. But it's nice to walk around and not see a single bug anymore.

A few weeks ago I bought a sleeve for a bad knee. The advertising made it seem like a prayer's answer. I knew in advance that when a knee is as shot as mine replacement surgery is the best answer. My wife had both of hers done. The sleeve made walking easier but I was not comfortable with it. This morning I discovered I was wearing it wrong. We haven't walked in the park yet, but already it seems better. Hoping for at least a bit of relief.

Yep; I was able to walk without my cane. It was not smooth sailing, but it's the best walk I have had in ages.

Pleased to hear it seems to be working.