Thursday Thirteen #610

1. Good news! I'm a great aunt! No more information because I don't have permission from the parents to say anything or show photos, so I shall not, but it is exciting to have a new baby in the family. We've not had a wee one for a long time.

2. Other good news: I've been asked to give a poetry reading later in the summer at the local library. Publish one poem and suddenly you're a poet, I guess. Or maybe I've always been a poet, just unpublished.

3. My mother's birthday was last Thursday. She would have been 75 years old, but she passed away at the age of 56. Now that I have turned 56, that does not seem old at all. I was in my 30s when she died. She has been gone for 19 years, which is about as long as I lived with her before I married. There is no way to understand what someone else is suffering or going through, really. I tried but I was young, and even now, I can't know what she felt or thought.

4. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of my grandmother's death in 2007. She was 87 when she passed away. She outlived her daughter by seven years. My mother was her eldest child. I wonder what it felt like to lose a daughter like that.

5. This magazine project for the county is hanging over my head like a sword of Damocles. I feel like I have a grasp on what I want, but the process of getting there is like having paper cuts and hang nails. Sheesh.

6. In spite of the many balls I seem to be juggling in the air lately (far too many for me), I'm finding time to listen to books. I don't seem to have time to actually read them but I enjoy listening to stories whilst folding laundry or something.

7. Almost every day I dance to Uptown Funk. It is the quickest way to put a few "moderate activity" steps on my Fitbit. It's also fun. My Fitbit says I've walked 2,000 miles now since I bought it. Given the state of my health, this is good. I mean, it should probably be double that but I'll take the 2,000. I started using Fitbit on May 1, 2017. So two years for 2,000 miles. That works out to about 2.7 miles a day, or an average of around 6,500 steps. Not quite the 10,000 goal but my doctor seems ok with the effort.

8. A friend told me the deer were eating her flowers. It's a doe with a fawn so she is not taking drastic measures to stop the flower carnage, but I have noticed that some of these mother deer do like to eat odd things. Like my rose bushes. They have thorns. How do you eat thorns?

9. Speaking of deer, two just ran down the hill outside my window, moving lickety-split like something was chasing them, only I see nothing behind them. Maybe something over the hill spooked them. Last night while we were eating dinner, a gaggle of turkeys sauntered across the back yard. They were all toms. I think the mating season is over.

10. Sometimes when I see the animals looking in the windows (which they do, I have pictures), I feel like I'm the one in the zoo cage, and they're looking in on me. The introvert in her habitat, being spied on by curious deer, nosy bears, and noisy turkeys.

11. My friend gave me a Supergirl poster for my birthday. I am such a nerd. I have a Supergirl poster, a Lord of the Rings calendar, a picture of Gandolf, and a small collection of dolls that includes Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Arya Stark, and Xena: Warrior Princess in my office. (I don't play with them, they're still in their packages.) My brother tells me I was a nerd before it was fashionable to be a nerd.

12. I would like to make a video with dolls or clay or something, just to see if I can do it. I'll stick that on the bucket list for when I have time.

13. I also have a kitty cat that sings "Soft Kitty" to me when I push its paw. A friend gave me that, too. I think that goes with the nerd thing.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 610th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.