The air was noticeably better this morning, so we took our usual walk. Then we did something we hadn’t done for at least 183 days – we visited our chiropractor.

Diane started going there after her first Prius got totaled back in 2005 (actually, it was a different chiropractor – but when he moved to the Central Valley and brought in a replacement we liked him, too). We’d stopped going at the beginning of the lockdown, but we’ve been noticing more aches and pains of late, so we decided to go in for a tune-up – it seems to have helped!

I spent most of the rest of the day in front of the computer processing photos from 2009 – I finished our Labo[u]r Day Weekend trip to Banff. Not only did I reduce the stash of photos from 347 to 110, but I labeled and geotagged them all and did some editing. And then I went back to my blog entries from that trip and restored all the photos that had gone missing when I closed my Flickr account – those days look a lot better now!

I have two days left 2009 to deal with – neither of which has a blog entry to help jog my memory. And one day was a wine country tour, so those memories may need a lot of jogging!

I woke up this morning to an ominous text:

The FTB is the Franchise Tax Board, California’s version of the IRS. I couldn’t figure out why they’d be contacting me – I’d filed our taxes in time for the April July 15 deadline and they’d accepted my payment long ago.

I rushed to the computer, logged onto the ftb.ca.gov site (I did not click the link, thank you very much!), and found a notice of additional tax liability waiting for me. I’d underpaid our California estimated taxes for 2019, and now the state wanted its $37 in penalties and a horrifying 30 cents in interest. Fortunately, I had budgeted for this particular expense, so all should be well.

I was surprised when the paper copy of the notice arrived in today’s mail – I would have expected the text to beat the Post Office by several days, not just a few hours.

The Raspberry Pi, new RTL-SDR.COM dongle, and new antenna seem to be working reliably to capture the temperature from the outside thermomenter (in fact, it’s also getting the temperature from some neighbor’s thermometer, as well as occasional tire pressure readings from TPMS systems on passing cars), so I moved them off the kitchen desk and hid them behind the TV.

One project down, dozens to go!

I was born in Milwaukee; we moved away when I was less than two years old, and as far as I know, I’ve never been back. Despite that, I feel connected to Wisconsin. I was a Milwaukee Braves fan as a kid (the fact that the Richmond Braves were the Milwaukee Braves’ AAA farm club might have had something to do with it, too). I enjoyed the day we spent in Wisconsin in 2016 (and I recommend visiting the Peshtigo Fire Museum if you have the chance). I’ve even drunk beer from Wisconsin once or twice.

Today, I got an email from a Wisconsin-based spice merchant, Penzeys, urging me to support the Wisconsin Democrats by contributing a few dollars and watching a table read of The Princess Bride this afternoon.

I’ve read the book many times, but I’ve only seen movie twice – once when it came out and last year, in preparation for a trivia event – but I liked it and was interested in seeing a table reading. And I definitely liked the cause – I would be very happy if Wisconsin was one of the deciding states this year – on the Democratic side.

I made a contribution and Diane and I watched the event this evening – it was superb. We stayed glued to the TV the entire tine, including the after-reading Q&A – dinner was quite late tonight.

Mandy Patinkin was probably my favorite – he brought as much fire to the role of Inigo Montoya as he had to the original film. But everyone was fabulous, and the after-reading Q&A was interesting, to say the least.

Yes, there were technical glitches (especially in the Q&A), but that’s what live events are all about – and even though everyone was in their own home, you could see the chemistry among the cast.

There are rumors that WisDems will be making a replay available; I hope it’s true. They have already announced a Parks and Recreation townhall and Q&A for September 17th, which could be interesting.

On Wisconsin!

If COVID-19 is a circle, we’re halfway around it.

Today was Saturday, so there wasn’t much in my email this morning: the daily New York Times and Washington Post summaries and the Merriam-Webster Word of the Day; the weekly mailings from Road Scholar and the Great Courses, and the Daily Kos Elections Voting Rights Summary. And an ad from the Mercury News’ Promo Department with this enticing subject line:

Florida Man Added This To His Diet To Help Fix His Fatigue (It Really Worked)

Ӭ
I wonder if anyone in the Promo Department has heard of the Florida Man meme?

Tonight is S’lichot, marking the imminent arrival of the High Holy Days. Shir Hadash is having a Zoom service at 8pm; they had hoped to have an outdoor, socially-distanced service at 10pm but the horrible air quality changed those plans. We probably wouldn’t have gone to the outdoor service anyway, but I’d rather have been able to make the decision than have it forced on us by the pollution from the fires.

Shana Tova!

We tried another new recipe tonight, Slow Cooker Spiced Lentils with Veggies from the Mercury News. It was good, but next time, we’ll add more spices.

The hardest part of the recipe was getting to the Crock-Pot; we hadn’t used it in a while, and it was at the back of the cabinet over the oven, which was also filled with many water bottles, an RPI Class of 1975 pitcher and mug, several rarely used appliances, and various serving pieces which we’d been given as wedding gifts (just like the Crock-Pot).

Some of the water bottles had given their all and made a final trip to the recycling bin; the others, along with the pitcher and mug, got put into storage in the garage in a Container Store bin that I bought last year. The serving pieces went back to the cabinet.

And I used one of my Mom’s gifts to us for the very first time – a Sunbeam Electric Bag Sealer. I don’t know when she gave it to us, but the copyright date on the manual was 1995, so I know it wasn’t a wedding gift. I used it to reseal the bag of dried chiles we bought for this recipe – it worked great!

Thanks, Mom!