The other morning I woke up with a song running through my head. This, itself, is not really so strange; my dreams often have narration and soundtracks. Generally speaking, though, the songs that earworm their way into by head are tied to something I’ve recently been listening to: Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club” or Dua Lipa’s “Illusion”.

But apropos of absolutely nothing I know of, I woke up with “How Are Things in Glocca Morra” on repeat in my mind. This is not even a song I really know. Strangely, it was just the melody itself, no particular singer’s voice in my head. I had to look up the lyrics, as all I could recall besides the title line was “Kilkerry and Kildare”.

I think I’ve heard Petula Clark and Julie Andrew’s cover the song, but certainly not anytime recently. It’s a lovely, wistful song, but why it started playing in my head, I’ll never know (It certainly wasn’t from what I had on before I went to bed; I had just spent an hour or two watching lectures on the Black Death!).

Now that the weather here is very cool, Brindy gets to go on errands with me. She much prefers waiting in the car to being put in her kennel. Lately, instead of staying in the back, she prefers to hang out in the front seat. I put a towel down for her and she often curls up on it like she would in one of her beds. But her other favored position is this:

It certainly doesn’t look that comfortable to me, but she will stay in that position for ages and even appears to fall asleep (as she is doing here).

The workers finished the planter wall on Friday. What a difference! Now I just have to live with it for a few days and then decide what comes next.

Here’s a look at my backyard when I moved in:

First, I added the cover:

Now, I’m adding a planter around the back and sides. Here’s what it looks like after the first day:

At the rate the guys work, they will probably finish today!

Here is a picture of Brindy on a normal day:

And here she is on the evening of 31 December when it sounded like we were under bombardment from 7:30pm on:

If you can’t tell much difference that’s because there isn’t any. None of my dogs have been at all disturbed by loud noises. In fact, I used to take my previous dog, Tuple, to the trap shooting range and she loved getting out and walking around the parking lot while all the shooting was going on.

Certainly hunting dogs seem to have no problem with guns going off practically on top of them. Makes me wonder if different breeds react differently or if it’s early exposure to noise or something. Whatever, I’m glad my dogs don’t care about fireworks and the like.

This is not, perhaps, my most coherent post, but I felt the need to reflect a little on this tumultuous year.

The year was full of highs and lows. The lowest by far being the death of my partner, Jackie. The highest, being able to spend time with friends in both Eureka and Palm Desert. Second on the low list would be having a stroke and on the high list it would be attending a flower-making conference in Portland and connecting with the people there.

I bought a new house and had lots of things to do to it and yet still haven’t had even one offer on my old house. This is a long time to be paying for two places!

I have spent much of the year getting physical therapy for a SI joint problem. Then switched the physical therapy for speech and voice therapy to deal with the aftereffects of the stroke. I’ve had to have two new crowns put in and a tooth extracted and a bridge put in. In the summer, I found out I had some sleep apnea and have since been learning to sleep only on my sides. After monitoring my heart after the stroke, it turns out I have some atrial fibrillation; I go in for a chemical stress test next week to check that out further. To bring the year to a close, I found out yesterday that the reason for my vision problems over the last few months is that my eyelids are drooping to the point I need surgery to lift them.

And yet I feel good. I am happy in my new place. Physically, I actually feel quite fine. While walking any great distance isn’t that comfortable, I am able to use my rowing machine on a regular basis. I miss both my mom and Jackie tremendously but I’m gradually learning to get along without them.

I hope to visit my friends again throughout the next year. And I hope to get at least one real vacation in. And I hope you and yours find 2025 to be an improvement over 2024.

I’ve enjoyed playing a number of RPGs (Role-Playing Games) over the years. I’m old enough to remember when they consisted of typing “turn left” and “open the door” and receiving some text-based response to tell me what I found.

The first really stunning graphic-based game I played was “Myst” back in 1993. It was beautiful for its time, but quite static. The company Sierra put out a lot of animated looking games and provided hours of fun. Then, in the 2000s, computers and graphics cards became robust enough to create worlds that could be explored on one’s own terms rather than having to follow a linear plot.

I prefer games that concentrate on storylines and characters as opposed to shoot-em-ups and over the years I’ve enjoyed most of the Fallout series and the Elder Scrolls series. But by far my favorites have been BioWare’s Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. The first Mass Effect came out in 2007 and the first Dragon Age in 2009 and I have played every game in both the series.

Because these games are so involved, they don’t come out very often. There have only been 4 main games in the Mass Effect universe. The 4th game in the Dragon Age series just came out this Halloween. I waited a bit to buy it, knowing I would probably become quite immersed in it, but then it went on sale for a mere $39 and I bought it on December 16th and installed it on the 17th.

It took BioWare 10 YEARS to complete “Dragon Age, The Veilguard”. If you’ve ever played one of these games, you’ll understand the huge amount of effort that goes into making these programs. Frankly, I don’t know they do it.

All of which is to say that so far, I have clocked just under 75 hours in the game since the 17th. I’m estimating I’m probably 1/2 to 2/3s through. So if you don’t see much from me for another little while, it’s because I’m off in the northern realms of Thedas trying to figure out how my little team is going to bring down 2 rogue gods!

Most people have to look very closely in order to understand why this is my “Holiday Paisley” shirt:

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