Tuples and Attributes

Yesterday saw the installation of some “turf” and river rock in the backyard. I’m now ready to start adding some metal art work all along in the planter.

I got away from home this last week and visited friends outside Phoenix and in Palm Desert. Had a wonderful time catching up with people and just relaxing.

Here are some pics of my friend Sharon and I out on Fish Creek Canyon north of Apache Junction, AZ.

My voice therapist sent me to an ENT to check out the reasons for my problem holding pitch. He scoped my vocal cords, and it turns out the left side is, indeed, not working up to par. He wants me to have a CT scan with contrast to check the nerve in my neck. However, as I just had a CT scan with contrast of my heart last week, I’m not feeling too keen to do it any time soon!

My voice is getting better; I can actually sing a few notes now.

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.