I got up early to vaccuum and wash floors because Gamma and I had planned to go climbing or bouldering but then we postponed it by a week bc she had a lot of work today and as it turned out so did I, instead of climbing I went to the gym, then back at home I made some noodles out of which I made aglio e olio; the noodles were a bit too fine and clumped up somewhat but it tasted good. We had green salad made with the last lettuce from our raised beds and then while I was napping Alpha asked me if had gone to the store to get anti-vole screens yet and I was like, dang I forgot and got ready to jump in my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0 and run to the store to order some when I realized I could order it online so I did that and about an hour later I got an email that it was ready to be picked up so I put the cookie dough I had been working on into the refrigerator to cool while I was gone (but not long enough, they came out flat), ran to the store, picked up the 10 meters of galvanized anti-vole screening which cost about a hundred bucks which seemed like a lot but OTOH that is what (at least it feels like it) I spend weekly on cat food and cat treats and TBH the screens cannot work any worse against voles than four certain cats* do and will probably be more effective. Now I’m watching the news on TV with Alpha (Alpha and I are watching the news, Alpha is not *on* the news) and after the news the choice is either stupid rerun of some stupid detective series (German-language TV sure has a lot of detective series, so many that they run out of actors so you see the same actors in several series, once as a detective, once as the killer, or the victim) or go to bed early and I think I’ll do the latter.
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*The one exception is Daisy and her mouse dispenser – she waits by a vole hill and snatches them when they stick their heads out to see if the coast is clear. I presume she eats them too – she was on my lap recently and her stomach was growling and eeping and erping like two Foley artists fighting it out.
Tag Archives: bouldering
Anti-vole screens
Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Metamorphosism
Tags: alpha, anti-vole screen, baking, bouldering, cats, climbing, cooking, Daisy, exercise, Foley artists, ford tourneo courier, gardening, german television, mouse dispenser, pasta, salad, voles
Latest news on my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0
So yeah it occurred to me that I haven’t issued an update recently about my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0.
I still really like it although I suppose a certain degree of frustration will enter the mix once I have to get serious about maintenance things. I like the design, overall, the HP (125, more than other cars i have had), the cargo space, the camera for backing up…
What I dislike about it is mainly things that are not specific to the vehicle, but rather common among vehicles in general; its vehicle-ness, such as it burns fossil fuel, parking is expensive in the city, it is loaded with computers that spy on me.
I am extremely sick of computers spying on me. Like you complain about p0litics within earshot of your telephone and before you know it you are getting advertisements for r1fl3ry lessons in your social media feeds or whatever.
I admit I had been doomscrolling.
I admit I had been doomscrolling.
Did you know that doomscrolling on the toilet causes hemorrhoids?
Boy, there is a spelling bee word for you, hemorrhoid. I had to look up the spelling.
Here is what happened: I went bouldering with Gamma yesterday. This involved a bit of planning and organization as she has been extremely busy and stressed with jobs, studies and now also writing a dissertation. I will not go into greater detail bc it would sound like bragging. But anyway we met each other at the climbing gym yesterday, her stressed as I mentioned, and me deeply stressed and anxious over the state of the world.
And we climbed and joked around and talked each other back in off the ledges upon which we had been perching and had a drink after and chatted and both felt 100x better.
Even my sore knee, if which I had not been sure it would prevent me from climbing, felt better (actually not much better yesterday, but better today, supporting my theory that exercising my legs helps with sore knees, at least the one I recently completely destroyed (or so it felt) stepping over a cat on the stairs in an unconventional and as it turns out very stupid manner).
I still feel better today.
Anyhow I quit doomscrolling. I am changing the way I use Reddit. I am reading more science-related and arts-related accounts on bluesky and fewer politics-related ones.
Did you know that doomscrolling on the toilet causes hemorrhoids? What you did?
Did you know that loss of sense of smell could mean Alzheimers? This makes me feel a lot better about my experience this morning cleaning the litterbox, especially in view of the fact that it took me 15 minutes to recall a word last night (the word in question was “Zwetschge” which is Austrian for Pflaume which is German for plum or prune).
The conclusion is, I guess, that sometimes you have to put down the doomscroller bad news paralysis machine and count your blessings. Access your internal Mary Oliver (I communed with the corvids on my way to work this morning, gave some news to the bees at the beehives in the park I pass on my walk to the office) and read a few of her poems even if they sometimes tangentially remind you of dopey old guys reading them aloud at a funeral and crying (which, guilty what can I say). Say nice things to people. Do nice things for people, including yourself, especially if they do not involve commerce.
And most importantly: fuck shit up.
I am not saying do crime, i am not saying be criminal, i am saying there is a way things are that is foreign to the way things can or could or should be, feel free to fuck that up.
Turn your imagination back on.
Be a little psychedelic. Dare to be genuine. Weird macht glücklich.
So that is what I have been up to lately with my Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0
Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Metamorphosism
Tags: ageing, aging, bees, bouldering, climbing, corvids, dementia, doomscrolling, ford tourneo courier, fuck shit up, happiness, life, love, parenting, science, stress
Climbing update
For the first time in the past 6 months I was neither injured nor sick so I went bouldering with Gamma for the first time in more than 2 months or more – life kind of segued from various joint injuries and deaths and funerals to viruses to the famous eye lens replacement – and we were careful, especially of me, and I stuck to easy routes, and did not fall, and climbed back down instead of jumping, and stopped when the going got weird, and did not hurt myself, and got some good exercise, and Gamma rewarded me with the house pizza and a bottle of Radler (mix of lemonade and beer) and it was real nice hanging out with her.
My body is feeling wiggly right now, but it is nice to feel my body, and to be active again. I really missed it.
She listened politely while I cursed capitalism and the fairy tale of the free market, and while I babbled about Buddhism or rather the quasi-Buddhist quasi-concept of “let all that shit go” which has been on my mind lately, and although I have given up optimism I have also given up pessimism and worrying (theoretically) and this is an interesting vaccuum, for me, although maybe not for other people who are trying to eat their pizza while I talk about it not sure.
Sunday is Father’s Day here in Austria and I plan to go see an action movie with the kids and get something to eat. When Beta was a child we started a tradition of watching B-movies and criticizing them afterwards, listing all the historical, logical etc. errors and omissions (IIRC The Scorpion King with The Rock may have been the first, and I was real mad bc someone spray-painted my brand-new Doblo while we were in the theater), although I have difficulty finding anything to criticize on Abba-Teapot Peabody or whatever her name is although the prosthetic nose on Whatshisname Thorguy will be easy pickings I figure.
That is all.
For now.
Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Feral Living, Metamorphosism
Tags: bouldering, buddhism, children, climbing, fatherhood, grief, illness, injuries, life, memory, movies, parenting
On proprioception
This morning, I recalled the word “proprioception”, including the correct spelling, on the first try. No semi-humorous homing in on it like when my brain tried “cake pharmacy” for “confectionary”. Just the right word, spelled right, on the first try.
Fun fact: I took up bouldering *in part* to help ward off dementia, and the fact that I was able to remember a word I have never before used tells me that it is helping, or at least not hurting.
On the other hand, I for a while really suffered from the misconception that I was a lousy proprioceptor because a friend who occasionally coaches me is wont to yell things at me while I am climbing like, “MIG DU HÄNGST DA WIE EIN SACK!” and I would be like, “really? I had no idea!” Or last time, trying a route a level higher than I am used to, there was a spot where you had to do a certain move and I had no idea if I was doing it right or what I was doing wrong.
And because of this I decided that I had a serious proprioceptivity deficit.
But then I did an Internet search and read a couple articles about it and my conclusion is I am just a beginning boulderer, someone starting out at a new sport at an – let’s admit it – relatively advanced age – after a lifetime of non-sportiness and uncoordination, and so I’m not handicapped, I’m just shitty (but improving) at the new sport, which is completely normal and also great fun. If I had a problem with proprioception I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the middle of the night and navigate my house in the pitch darkness almost never treading on a cat, then sit down on the toilet (sitting, because no matter how good your proprioception is you don’t want to risk a standing wee in the dark, what if the cover is down, or someone is already sitting there? etc.), then wash and dry my hands and return to bed – finding everything perfectly (doorknob, toilet seat, sink, faucet, soap, towel) simply via orientation in space.
So my proprioception works completely fine.
I may have a vestibular disorder, however, according to one article I came across on my search, possibly vestibular neuritis or Meniere’s disease, looking at YouTube tutorials right now who needs doctors anymore welcome to the 21st century.
Posted in Das Gehirn, Metamorphosism
Tags: bouldering, dementia, proprioception, vestibular disorder
Remember back when we used to blog our dreams?
I was with Gamma, she had a conch shell the size of a lime.
Then I was at Horst’s place, except it wasn’t a place he really has, more like a house or part of a house, with a view of an ocean or sound, maybe near Seattle, or perhaps in Denmark. Or Sweden. Or Iceland. Or Norway. (All places I have considered visiting lately).
There were a lot of strangers in the place, coming and going between different rooms.
I looked out a window that overlooked a small blue wooden balcony overlooking buildings and, beyond them, water.
I was packing or unpacking. Going through my stuff in a bag. Perhaps I wanted to leave, I was getting my stuff together.
I found Gamma’s conch shell, or should I say Gamma’s Chekhov’s conch shell?
Because I noticed legs emerging from it, eyes, pincers, the whole package. It was home to a hermit crab.
Then I noticed there were other various snail-type shells in my stuff, that I had thought empty, but they were all running around, hermit crabs all over the house. I was scrambling around trying to gather them all up while also trying not to make a big disturbance as I didn’t know the people in the house and also trying to figure out what to do with them?
I would put them back in my bag if i could gather them all up and take them down to the water and release them.
Wrapped up in some newspaper I found a blotchy red-orange bass/grouper type fish, sort of gasping for air/water, I wrapped it back up and put it in with the hermit crabs.
Although the situation had potential for slapstick or panic, I was going about gathering the sea animals methodically and calmly, with a clear solution in mind. I happen to think that emotions in a dream are as important as any events or symbols, and this was free of worry or panic or anxiety or any other negative emotions. Which, if you are familiar with my dreams, is a breakthrough. It was a good dream, for me at least, and the sea animals were going to be okay too.
I had everything under control.
I have been bouldering lately, and I was talking to Alpha last night about how the things you climb are called “problems” and how I love knowing that they can all be solved, unlike problems in life, where you don’t always know that.
For me the dream was (among a lot of other things) about dealing with problems with that positive feeling that they can be solved, rather than with angst.
Posted in Das Gehirn, Metamorphosism
Tags: bouldering, dreams, fish, hermit crabs, problems