Random 5 for October 18, 2020 – Odd habits, foliage, mercury, people, sunlight

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Starry starry night! – You know the isolation is making you weird when you start to name your face masks. Since this looks like it will be ongoing for a while, the beloved husband and I have invested in some nice looking fabric masks. We keep them along with disposables in the cars and anywhere else we might need them. Starry starry night and snap, crackle and pop are both in my car.

Leaf peeping – Our leaves have started to change colors. Just a little though. We are late this year but that doesn’t surprise me. It’s a weird year.

Mercury is in retrograde – People were nervous about this so I looked it up. Mercury retrograde will either sap you of your usual zest and leave you feeling lethargic, or fill you with chaotic, scattered energy that might have you feeling restless, unfocused and anxious. So for me it’s business as usual.

Even worse! – This retrograde will last until November 3 which is Election Day in the US. The last thing we need is even crazier people without zest or chaotic. Oh wait! That sounds like our government!

A woman of the earth – Since retirement, which allows me to get up at my natural wake up time, I find myself getting up around 6:30 a.m. during the early light summer and almost an hour later as the sun rises later. I can remember groaning when I had to get up in the dark during my working days. Don’t miss that.

So how was your week? Mercury got you down?

58 thoughts on “Random 5 for October 18, 2020 – Odd habits, foliage, mercury, people, sunlight”

  1. Pingback: Bloggers, Dreams, and Outings – Lori's Lane

  2. I believe this mask thing is here to stay – maybe not as a mandatory condition, as it is now, but certainly a prominent feature in the world ahead. It is the new normal whether we like it or not – so I’ve been slowly building my mask ‘wardrobe’. Now all I need is somewhere to go 😏

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  3. Heaven help us that Mercury is in retrograde because can 2020 can any crazier as it progresses, especially the last two weeks before the election? And before the election, on Halloween we will have a blue moon and the time change on November 1st. I hope the angst and worry is not as bad as it was as we neared Y2K! I once worked with a woman who read her horoscope religiously every morning and if it predicted “bad karma” she stayed home. I remember I had to finish a project as she did not come in that day – the next day I said “you DO know they are generic predictions right?”

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    • I remember Y2K vividly. A dear friend took out thousands of dollars because she was convinced the banks were going to crash. I on the other hand, didn’t take out any extra money. Maybe I was too many “end of the world” situations when I was a kid to believe.

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      • Boy, that was the extreme. Our nice neighbors and my mom’s good friend lived across the street in a house with no basement. They were convinced something bad would happen and asked if they could spend the evening until the clock turned midnight so my mom said “sure” – in conjunction with that I had to ensure everything looked perfect downstairs for their arrival. I kept saying to my mom “nothing is going to happen.” You know the rest of that story.

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          • We were on an old computer system (DOS) at work and had no e-mail to the outside world. Our accounting system would often crash at month end and it was a blessing that they feared Y2K so much or we’d have never gotten Windows. We had to adapt to a lot of things all at once – Outlook and Word (from using no e-mail except inter-office Pine) and leaving Word Perfect behind. We were allowed to switch off between systems til we were fully acclimated to the Windows.

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              • My boss ordered our Windows 10 equipment in March 2019 – our computer guy installed the server only because my boss bugged him about it and said “I paid you for the server, two desktops, two laptops, accounting software and your labor and have nothing to show for it.” To appease my boss, he put in the new server. A few months later the desktops were configured, but we’re still on Windows 7 as he has not installed Microsoft 365 – no complaints from me. That’s the only reason I went to the Block Editor in April 2019 – I didn’t want to learn everything at one time.

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  7. LOL! I have really been on the fence about getting nicer face masks. We got a four pack of plain black ones – double layer of t-shirt material. I keep looking at pretty ones, but then I’d really rather this doesn’t go on for all that much longer. Though really, it almost certainly will. It’s a dilemma! Glad to hear the leaves are changing – that is such a pretty time of year!

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    • I was on the fence using a box of disposables ones I bought early on. When my daughter-in-law started to make and sell them on Etsy, we bought a few. They are more comfortable than the disposables and then there is the pretty factor. I don’t intend to stock a lot. Even if this goes into next year and it seems that it will, I don’t go out a lot. I bet they have some Halloween themed ones too! Skull and bones seems fitting.

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      • Being able to buy from a family member is definitely a plus – that would prompt me to get some pretty ones as well. And the pretty factor is definitely something to consider! There are lots of Halloween ones out there – you are right.

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  9. I like your choice of masks. A couple of years ago, the Seattle Art Museum had a van Gogh exhibit. I was surprised at how unremarkable his early paintings and drawings were. Most of the ones that mattered were painted in the last two years of his life. I find that amazing.

    I’ve never been able to see any relation between astrology and the reality of my life. And yet, I’m always curious, sort of half-hoping to find a connection. Maybe that’s why people are susceptible to conspiracy theories. The world seems so crazy and hard to predict. There must be an explanation. Right?

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    • We are always looking for the “why.” Especially now with all the crazy. I have a friend who is into all this and fortune tellers. I’m too pragmatic. I’ve never been a Van Gogh fan. Starry starry nights is my husband’s mask and it is pretty and it is prettier than the painting. I lean more towards Monet but haven’t seen any of this work on a mask.

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  13. “Business as usual”. That made me smile.
    People forever have been trying to explain crazy stuff,…when the reality is people are just crazy HAHA
    I’m sure some really are effected because they’ve read they should be effected and of course the sources of it are ancient, wise, and have to be right for it to endure all this time and besides there has to be some reason, right? HAHA Easier and kinder than people are just nuts?
    Our crepe myrtles normally go red and gold just before Christmas, but they started dropping early – partly because of all the vicious winds this fall. Hope it doesn’t mean a cold wet miserable winter..
    Th only good thing is that masks are cooler to wear in winter. (And we have them stashed everywhere – not pretty ones though. I have not yet given up and made masks normal fashion HAHA

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  14. Well that explains everything – Mercury is in retrograde!

    Husband and I have very plain masks but I enjoy looking at what people choose when we go out, which is seldom. I have seen some with pumpkins and Halloween themes. Can’t wait for Christmas masks. It seems perfectly normal for you to name your masks.

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  15. Funny, this is when I start seeing some friends, who I thought were perfectly normal, rational people, post “OMG, Mercury is in retrograde! That explains so much!” Actually, it doesn’t. Maybe I’m just a cynic… or maybe it’s because Mercury is in retrograde that I just roll my eyes lethargically, sapped of all my zest to think positively about the human race.

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  16. Mercury doesn’t appear to have much of an effect on me . . . despite the pandemic, the election, and the looming dangers of climate change, I feel calm, cool, collected, and at peace.

    Others (particularly the less charitable) might view my current demeanor as “extreme apathy” rather than as “zen enlightenment and acceptance.”

    So be it. 😛

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  17. I am alternately restless and lethargic. But I think it’s because I am desperate to get out of the house and do SOMETHING…but there’s nothing open and nothing new to do.

    So more pandemic than Mercury.

    In good news, plenty of walks for dogs.

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  20. Mercury in retrograde always seems to make it into the news when it proves the idea that Mercury in retrograde influences us. I don’t know that I think it does, but for those who believe it there is comfort. Like you, I see people’s behaviors lately to be business as usual. But it could be Mercury doing its thing…

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  21. Our pet sitting schedule is very light during the pandemic so we have plenty of mornings that we don’t have to get up before we want. The dogs will go to about 7 am, which is fine. During the summer it is soooo much easier to get up early, but we are enjoying the days we get to sleep in for now.

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    • It surprises me as I am a morning person. During the summer I was hitting the roads for a walk by 6:45. Today I woke up at 7:30! The cats have been good. They also sleep later with the darker mornings. During the summer there are 4 staring at me very early.

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