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Category Archives: Are you kidding me?
Streak
If there isn’t anything too pressing going on that I need to get up for and if it is still early enough, I enjoy playing a few word games before getting out of bed in the morning. These are mostly … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Humor, Perspective, senior musings, Uncategorized, Weird
Tagged connect the dots, dot game, flow free, game apps, game streaks, habits, haptics, phone games, puzzle apps, scores
3 Comments
Not Fade Away
I have often used the word “exposure” regarding my initial connection to the Grateful Dead. Having been in a series of relationships starting back in high school with fanatical Deadheads, tapers and jam band musicians, it was just natural to … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Flashback, Friends, Humor, Memories, Perspective, senior musings, Uncategorized, Weird
Tagged a woman in the band, Autzen stadium 1978, craze, donna jean godchaux, Early dead shows, eugene, Grateful Dead, jam band, jerry-garcia, LSD, misogynist fans, music, my hippie days, still a deadhead, the Dead, tripping, weird trip, worst dead show ever
2 Comments
Weather Roulette
As usual, where I start with these posts is not always where it ends up. One of my kids sent me photos of outrageously massive, crashing and cresting waves on the ocean near where she resides, an effect produced by … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Autumn, Coping, Flashback, kids, Memories, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, Uncategorized, Weather
Tagged 1960's parenting, big waves, childhood memories, climate change, dinner bell, earthquakes, first grade, flooding, geological, hurricanes, meteorological, microbursts, parental mistakes, parenting faux pas, running through the neighborhood, six years old, storms, tornados, walking to school, Weather, what was she thinking?, wildfire smoke
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Muggy and Buggy
Those of us who can are spending as much time hiding in air conditioned spaces, parked in front of a fan, submerged in the water, or escaping the area altogether for cooler climes. Hitting 100°F with humidity is a condition … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Cooking, Daeja's Garden, Food, Gardening, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, summer, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Weather
Tagged bad hair days, buggy, cold summer meals, days of watermelon, firefly season, gazpacho weather, heatwave, hot weather dinners, humidity, matcha, mosquito hell, muggy, overpopulating, overpopulation, summer heat, tomato face, too hot for little paws, too hot to move, too hot to weed
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Sometimes I Feel Like Margot
The story takes place on Venus, where it rains all the time, the sun only appearing every seven years and lasting for one precious hour before the endless rain begins once again. Just one child in a classroom of nine … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Daeja's Garden, Gardening, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, summer, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, treasures, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Weather, Wildlife
Tagged antisocial, art exhibits, dog vomit slime mold, FOMO, FOMO as a catalyst, garden, Gardening, isolation, life, Little Rudi, look for the rainbow, mosquitos, only one bloom, original illustrations, papillon, Rain, Ray Bradbury, roz chast, si, so much rain, summer garden, summer wildlife, tulip tree, Weather, weeding, wet summer
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My Regression
The backstory is that the only place to park my car behind the house is underneath a rather large Japanese Maple tree. Over the last number of weeks it has been dropping clumps of red seeds, pollen and other combinations … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Humor, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, Spring, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Wow!
Tagged carwash, carwash as art, cheap thrills, child-like, eccentric or just fun?, entertaining myself, Japanese Maple, laughing alone, pollen, spending time alone, tree gunk, tree junk, weeks of rain
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Oh Say Can You See?
Yesterday my six-year old grandchild was out shopping with her mother and spotted this car with a decorative tire cover on the back. This morning she mentioned to her father, “I saw America’s butthole!” ~*~
Fighting Windmills
Early on I had a gut feeling where this would be heading and how it would most likely end up, but decided to hold out in the (futile?) hope that there might be some righteousness in all of it. Once … Continue reading
Posted in advocacy, Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, disability, disability accommodations, grief, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Rant, Regrets, senior musings, Uncategorized, Vent
Tagged Anthony Bourdain, bad closed captioning, business, CC out of sync, closed caption, closed captioning, CNN, CNN accessibility discrimination, CNN documentary series, CNN out of sync, CNN Sucks, corporate disrespect, deaf discrimination, discrimination, FCC Disability Rights Office, hard of hearing, hearing discrimination, hearing loss, Jake Tepper, left out, Linda Ronstadt, Martha Stewart, news, Stanley Tucci, The New York Times, Tom Hanks
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The Road to Uncle Moustache
It is beyond explanation why I often awake in the dead of the night with odd memories or curious questions about random subjects, some which can send me scrolling through the internet for verification and answers before being able to … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Dogs, Flashback, Food, Perspective, senior musings, Travel, Uncategorized
Tagged 1970's jerusalem, 1970's old city, Damascus Gate, existing, falafel stand, Herod's Gate, life, Memories, my hippie youth, old city, strange days, street food, thoughts in the middle of the night, travel, why am i awake?
5 Comments
The Panettone
She’s been gone many years now, but every December I can still hear my mother’s voice in my head talking about the panettone. “Would you like this nice panettone?” “Here, take this lovely panettone home!” She would offer, urge, somewhat … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, baking, Food, Holidays, Humor, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, Uncategorized, Weird
Tagged Christmas, holiday customs, i hate raisins, italian raisin cake, my italian mother, pannetone, regifting the pannetone, the gift pass on, who eats this stuff?, who likes pannetone
4 Comments
Retrograde
Whenever a string of mishaps and unfortunate events of daily living transpire, inevitably someone I know will say “Mercury must be in retrograde.” Considering the backward-moving appearance of Mercury that occurs a few times a year is merely an optical … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Autumn, Coping, Dogs, Earworm of the day, Friends, Holidays, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, treasures, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™
Tagged a string of mishaps, Autumn blessings, everything is broken, Halloween, homecoming parade, look for the light, mercury, my sick papillon, nostalgia, parade, retrograde, when things go wrong all at once
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Assumptions
I was driving around looking for a good space in a rather large parking lot that serves a number of chain stores. The plan was to meet and accompany a friend who had a few errands to run in those … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Perspective, Rant, senior musings, Shopping, Uncategorized, Vent
Tagged aggressive-looking vehicles, assumptions, big black trucks, don't ding my car, not always as it seems, not what you imagined, old guy, parking space hog, perspective, taking up all the spaces, what an asshole!, who taught you how to park?
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Paint It Black
In NYC, wearing all black appears to be de rigueur. It has been an observation over the last number of years that the sudden appearance of so many people dressed primarily in black has often been one of the markers … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, Earworm of the day, Perspective, senior musings, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™
Tagged black exterior paint, black painted houses, exterior paint trends, goth houses, Paint It Black, spooky color houses, trending house colors, urban sprawl, urban transplants, witchy houses
2 Comments
Something Blue
Every once in a while I will glance down from my upstairs bedroom window in order to catch the flashes of crimson fish in my neighbor’s backyard koi pond. Seeing them lends a tiny slice of serenity. I’m always glad … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, Daeja's Garden, Gardening, nature, Perspective, Photography, Seasons, summer, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, treasures, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Wow!
Tagged banner year for hydraneas, beautiful day in the neighborhood, blue, Blue flowers, blue in nature, colors of summer, crow tree, Hydrangea explosion, Hydrangeas, neighborhood
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A String of Senior Moments
Back over the winter, a woman called out to me as I was walking across the parking lot of a shopping plaza. A friend and I had been out doing a little pre-holiday purchasing together – we had just left … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, disability accommodations, Hearing Impaired, Humor, Perspective, senior musings, Uncategorized
Tagged can't find my phone, forgetful, forgetfulness, forgetting, getting sidetracked, hearing aids and phone, I forgot, lost phone, memory, memory hacks, memory lapses, senior hacks, senior moment, seriously??, sidetracked, where are my keys?, where is my phone?, why am I here?, why did i walk in this room?
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Respect
I’ve been bouncing between doing a little bit of yard work and planting myself in a chair on The Urban Porch during this spate of gorgeous days. The poppy patch, located in a corner of the front yard by the … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, Daeja's Garden, Dogs, Gardening, nature, Perspective, Photography, Rant, Seasons, Spring, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Vent, Views From he Urban Porch ™
Tagged disrespectful people, flower thief, garden police, neighborhood garden, picking flowers, picking up after dog, poppies, poppy patch, poppy police, signs, stealing flowers, yard signs
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Waiting for the Sun
So many of us get excited by celestial phenomena, and I’m mostly on that train, having repeatedly found myself shivering in my nightgown while standing on a back deck covered in snow – at 2:30 am in sub-freezing temps – … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, Earworm of the day, Flashback, nature, Perspective, senior musings, Spring, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, treasures, treasures, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Weird, Wow!
Tagged 95%, celestial phenomena, connections, crescents, Earworm of the day, human connections, Neighbors, sharing an event, solar eclipse, The Doors, totality, treasures, waiting for the sun
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Spring of Deception
A few days ago heralded the first day of Spring, the Vernal Equinox. We have arrived, and despite a few wistful sighs and moans, this area has mostly gotten off easy as far as a Winter goes. Of course there … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, Birds, Coping, Humor, nature, Perspective, Seasons, Spring, Uncategorized, Weather, Winter
Tagged Birds, blossoms, broken washer, fake out, false spring, laundry dilemma, northeast seasons, scilla, spring blooms, Vernal Equinox, washing machine blues, winter returns
2 Comments
Maybe It’s Fixed
I clicked on something. Maybe it has fixed all the subscription issues and blocks on this site. I certainly hope so. Again, I’m sorry to everyone who tried to come here, or tried to comment and couldn’t, or found themselves … Continue reading
And Then This Happened
“Are you OK?” “You’ve been so quiet.” “What’s going on?” A few people have noticed and asked, not just about the sudden absence of posts over the past few weeks (after there having been so many), but concerning an overall … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, Autumn, baking, Food, Holidays, Humor, Perspective, senior musings, Uncategorized
Tagged baking failure, baking goals, dessert fail, Filo nutella snowflake fail, I can't bake, i needed this laugh, laugh till i cried, no patience for baking, pastry on fire, snowflake pastry fail, thanksgiving
5 Comments
The Percale Fail, Updates and Mind Meanderings
Some minor updates and musings to share following the last post. This one goes all over the place, just because. All of the the invasive, toxic White Snakeroot with its scribbly looking flower heads was pulled up. It came out … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Autumn, Perspective, senior musings, Shopping, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Weird
Tagged Aso Shiso, chemicals on sheets, comfortable sheets, fig season, halloween decorations, hot flashes, Laura Ashley scratchy sheets, percale sheet fail, pretty sheets, Red Perilla, scratchy sheets, Shiso juice, softening sheets, The Urban Porch ™
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Hit the Road Jack
What a beautiful, breezy, blue-sky day! I sit here on The Urban Porch ™ with Rudi, watching the busy proliferation of bumble bees, honey bees, black wasps, Blue-winged wasps and swallowtail butterflies hovering about. There are all sorts of smaller … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, Autumn, Coping, Earworm of the day, nature, Perspective, Rant, Seasons, summer, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Wildlife
Tagged aggressive hornet, earworm, hateful hornet, most hated insect, nasty insect, stinging insects, wasps, wasps i have known, yellow jackets
2 Comments
In Five Days
It’s almost astonishing that my credit card has not warped and melted from all the use it has gotten over the past week. The “tap” feature on it suddenly stopped working during the last number of transactions, which may or … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Coping, Deafness, Hearing Impaired, Perspective, Rant, senior musings, Uncategorized, Vent
Tagged almost deaf, expensive hearing aids, expensive medication, healthcare failure, hearing aids, hearing discriminiation, hearing impairment, inadequate health insurance, insurance company rip offs, lacking health care coveerage, making ends meet, medicare won't cover, Oticon, reverse slope hearing loss, RSHL, senior expenses, surprise bills, uncovered expenses, unexpected expenses
1 Comment
Aurora
If anyone in the immediate neighborhood had looked out their window shortly before midnight last night, they might have seen a woman standing in the center of the street in the middle of a lightning storm, wearing only a long … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Daeja's Garden, Divorce, Flashback, Friends, Gardening, nature, Perspective, Seasons, senior musings, summer, The Urban Porch, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Views From he Urban Porch ™, Weather
Tagged aurora borealis, bee magnet, garden neglect, hosta, lack of inhibition, lightning, Memories, neighborhood, neighborhood colors, Neighbors, northern lights, rose of sharon, strobe lightning, summer bees, summer insects, summer storms
1 Comment
Nice Socks
One thing I do every year during The Birthday Week is indulge in a massage. This year that didn’t happen – I missed that window for a number of reasons…. but eventually I decided to just get a very badly … Continue reading
Uncivilized
Because it has been so weather-glorious, I’ve waffled back and forth about whether to do the happy thing and share a bit more about blue skies, nature discoveries and snippets from The Urban Porch ™ ……or instead launch into a … Continue reading
Posted in Aging, Are you kidding me?, Perspective, Rant, senior musings, Spring, The Urban Porch ™, Uncategorized, Vent, Weird
Tagged angry americans, back in my day, born into an uncivilized world, collapse of society, disrespectful people, lack of courtesy, rude people, something's gotta change, what is wrong with people?
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Departures and Arrivals
The population in the vicinity of The Urban Porch is experiencing many changes. My wonderful neighbor who has been renting the upstairs of the house directly next door for the last two years just moved out last weekend, on to … Continue reading
Posted in Are you kidding me?, Birds, Daeja's Garden, Gardening, nature, Perspective, Spring, The Urban Porch, Uncategorized, Wildlife
Tagged good and bad neighbors, homemade yogurt, neighborhood changes, neighborhood vibes, relief, spring flowers, trauma from bad neighbors, using up the harvest, what to do with celeriac?
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Suspended Animation
The happenings surrounding the Urban Porch over the last week have been laced with a series of incidents that have been both mildly and somewhat greatly dramatic. A few days ago I was out with the dog for his final … Continue reading
Socks of the Day
“Socks of the Day” was inadvertently born during the early days of the pandemic – that time of fear and uncertainty, when the roads and neighborhoods were suddenly empty of traffic and life, people scurrying to opposite sides of the … Continue reading
Quality Control…or The Golden Ticket
This is a rather absurd story about a doggedly ridiculous quest. Some people will totally relate and others will think “Oh my God, give it up girl!” If you get as weary reading it as I was doing it, feel … Continue reading
That Old *Beep-Bop* Lady
Down a path in the woods, slipping through an opening in a fence, we would sneak onto the remotely situated 13th hole of a nearby golf course in the early evening, after the golfers had all gone home. Kicking off … Continue reading
daeja's view 
My Big Apologies for the WordPress Difficulties
In response to those who have contacted me about the difficulty they are experiencing when trying to respond with a comment on any of these posts, and to those subscribers who have let me know they haven’t gotten the expected … Continue reading →