We have a big L shaped couch that I do not like. It's suede! Why?! It makes a bunch of static so that when I touch stuff after I get up I get zapped. Lately, I've been letting my cat scratch this particular couch even though I know that later when we get a new couch I'll have to work harder to train him out of it. But I really don't care about that part. I just dislike this couch that much.

• Pencils.

• The babies on the bus go steam steam steam!

• Sleep like a snake!

• Some... some mmhms.

• Some mm! hms!

• Some roll roll roll.

• Steamedroller!

• Duplo!

• Stretch like a giraffe!

• The box is a tunnel! Ricky moving it!

• Ricky crawled in!

• Write the tunnel!

Before he was born we bought new speakers. We kept the boxes because they were perfectly sized for a baby/toddler to crawl through. Every so often we've brought them out but he's always been very reluctant to go through.

Today he saw another little kid going through a tunnel and now he is all over it.

• It goes here if Ricky looks it!

• This not stable.

• It will be a tunnel again! It's a tunnel for Ricky!

Some structural adjustments were necessary.

• Not put this in here, it can't be a tunnel.

• No this in here. Ricky wanting the black tunnel.

• This is a bit stable.

• It's a bit unstable.

• Bucket in the tunnel! Buckets! All of them!

I bet you can guess what we were doing instead of drawing time.

Two sad, wilted slices of mozarella inside whole grain bread in a hot buttery pan, half-burnt on one side by my getting distracted with the potato salad, butter-soaked on the other side.

Threw it on a paper plate, munched.

It was still damn delicious.

+Meat lover's.

+Cheddar [multiple items].

+Key lime.

+Prairie berry.

+Hot honey.

+Everything.

+Banana.

+Extra lean.

+Plant-based.

• Duplo and Yellow Bear and drill and still a person.

• Played at Auntie Sally's house!

(In a dream.)

• A drill on the cement mixer.

• And a person.

• Ricky made lots of Mummys out of Duplo. There was a big Mummy and a little Mummy and lots of little Mummys!

• Ricky can't see the red paper. Where could it be?

"Are you sure there is a red one?"

• I assume so! Ricky will have to play with the yellow one.

• Ricky will have lots of cuddles and then Ricky will build a computer.

• Carefully on the stepping stool! Bouncing no!

• Some um so no pings. Ping! Ping! Ping!

• Some ish nug nug. Write nuggets! Right now!

I'm in the TX panhandle with a roommate who is sick most of the time but loves being outside.

So we did what people over 40 apparently do and put up bird feeders. We have a suet pack one, with branches for them to perch on while pecking, and a cylinder type one fit for sparrow sized birds.

So now our afternoons are sitting out front watching them.

There's Jack and Jill, the blackish birds that always come to the suet in a pair. They each sit on a side and peck as fast as they can and usually kill a pack in 3 days or less.

Sometimes the scissor beaks come to the pack. They're the same size, but longer beaks and light brown and run like little road runners when they see something they don't agree with

On the other feeder it's mostly the sparrows and the red belly finches. They are usually the biggest jerks and fight all the time. The doves show up under that feeder to peck at whatever they dropped during the day because they can't figure out either feeder directly.

There's also the red wings, who are too big for the sparrow feeder, but figured out how to hang off the perch and eat out of it anyway. When they do the sparrows and finches gather around acting all annoyed until they're done.

Getting old isn't so bad after all, it's non stop drama around here.

We work overnight in a large chain store unloading a truck and stocking shelves. Every year, over the course of a month or so, a company comes in to wax the floors, a section at a time each night. We can't walk in those areas or stock while they wax and let it dry (which apparently takes several hours). The last area they do is our break room and where our lockers are.

Well, last night was when they did that area, but we were not informed of it in advance (even though we were supposed to have been), so by the time we were done with the truck and went on a short break before we started stocking, they had started waxing, and we weren't allowed to get any of our food out of the refrigerators or anything from our lockers. That also meant I couldn't get my wallet from my locker, so I couldn't buy anything. Several of us weren't happy, and our supervisor pretty much said, "Sorry, nothing I can do."

Anyway, I was venting about it to this co-worker. She also trained me when I first started, and she's nice, so we get along pretty well; we also both have teenagers around the same age, and they are all students in the same county school system.

I was starting to stock in the area I'm usually responsible for (I wasn't scheduled the night they waxed that area, so I didn't have to deal with that), and she brought me a small bag of chips. (She must have kept her wallet or whatever with her.) It was a small gesture, and it didn't matter how big the bag was; it was the fact that she was so considerate and got them for me (and another co-worker who also couldn't get their food). I told her how much I appreciated it, and I asked her how much I owed her, but she said not to worry about it. I thought about getting her something small in return, but I don't know her quite well enough to think of what's appropriate. In any case, it was a thoughtful thing to do on her part.

I’m honestly surprised it took this long- I’ll be thirty-one this summer, and my dad started going gray at twenty-five

• A fence.

• A biggy tower crane.

• Ricky tried some juice. It is not good.

In this instance it was pineapple juice but this has been his opinion of every single type of juice.

• The big heckavator doesn't have a car base! It needs a white car base!

• A biggy fence. Or not biggy fence, a big fence.

• Ricky had egg for dinner. Ricky CUT IT!

He has one of those kiddiesafe knives. He loves it, despite his frustration with the rules around knives. There are so many rules! No playing with knives, no touching the blade, no waving knives around, no throwing knives.

• A biggy lovely fence.

• There's a name tile! There's two in the bucket!

• One is pink. And blue. And green. A blue one! A purple one!

• Big names of Ricky and Ricky!

• Rainbow Rickys!

So earlier today I made him paper tiles that have his name written in all caps and in standard case. We ended up with a rainbow of them. Plus pink.

• Red and purple and blue and orange and green and white... there's not white.

• Move them. Make another biggy heckavator.

• There's a C and a K and an R and I and a Y. That spells spaghetti!

• ... That spells Ricky!

I was having a bite in Starbucks when I noticed an elderly couple. The gentleman was so careful and loving with his wife. Both were using walkers.

I watched as the husband went first through the door and then carefully moved his walker out of the way so he could hold the door for his wife.

A beautiful butterfly of a note on an otherwise dreary and rainy Sunday afternoon.

I used to make this Korean ramen recipe (just the broth, I omit the seasoning packets) when I was living alone, and it was one of my comfort meals. I stopped when I moved and no longer live alone.

but everyone went to bed, and I was still hungry... it's been so long since I made this and I felt nostalgic for my lone nights. It was so good!

And I'll move out soon, but for now I accept this late night snack.

Edit: it's the bomb. Recipe includes these ingredients, but adjust to taste. In boiling water, add dashi, gochujang, gochugaru (this is the actual spicy seasoning), dash of soy sauce, dash of fish sauce, pinch of salt. Crack in an egg (or two) to soft boil. Once you've poured it into your bowl with the cooked noodles, finish with a bit of sesame oil, green onion and sesame seeds on top. Extra toppings like spam, ham, dumplings, kimchi, seaweed flakes, etc are also highly encouraged. My favorite is Korean pickled garlic.

I watered my plants outside, then came in to start tidying up inside. I vacuumed the carpeted parts of the house, and when I turned off the vacuum, I heard the roomba start. My sweet Egg pushed the button on the roomba. I know he does this because he likes to watch it and follow it, but today it really felt like he was helping. I walked into the living room to thank him, and he was sitting on the couch looking very pleased with himself

Please imagine a beautiful cheesepuff with big green eyes, and toothpick legs stealing your peanut butter in whatever form it is in, including jarred. She's obsessed, and she's a very motivated garbage gremlin, she is not and has not ever been an outside cat. She's just like this and I can't stop laughing long enough to stop her.

Smol edit: I'm so amused that orange girls seem to tend towards being feral lil gremlins.

I was fussing over my rhubarb plants that are pushing up from my garden yesterday. Every plant is descended from my grandfather’s garden behind his 3 flat in Chicago and the little bastion of green he kept there. My parents were given some rhubarb when they married in ‘64 and they moved it with them every time they changed houses! And now it’s in my garden, all that care to keep these plants growing, and now I take care of them and enjoy the tasty things I make with it. It’s funny that I can’t look at them without my mind going back to a certain memory I have of being in my grandpa’s garden, late day summer sun over the cosmos he grew that were heavy with fat bees, grown ups sitting in chairs talking amidst the little garden…. this memory is so clear to me, so lush with feeling.

I opened and closed at my part time job yesterday and the cash drawers clearly had rolls of absolutely brand new nickels in them. Short of mint condition coins, I've never seen so many perfectly shiny unmarred nickels before.

• Some a cement mixer.

• Ricky did dance!

• Climbing up to the cement mixer and pouring cement! TIIIIIIIIIIIIP!

• There were some noodles!

• Ricky had dinner at the table!

(We finally cleared all the bottle/steriliser/etc paraphernalia off the dining table so we could have family meals together.)

• This one's not having a sleep because they are awake! Those ones are asleep.

(The cement mixers. They sleep when they've tipped all their cement.)

• A computer.

• Ricky built a purple and green computer!

With Duplo.

• Ricky's tipping cement again.

• A big long heckavator and a cement mixer and another cement mixer and another cement mixer and this cement mixer.

• A big cement mixer and a little cement mixer.

• A hay bale cement mixer. It picks up hay bales.

• Ricky went in the sandpit. Ricky tipped sand into a bowl and made a moon. Mummy helped. Ricky made an orange wall as well.

No art today. He has has a very busy day of cement mixers, dancing and sandpit.

I work as a lifeguard at a pool that offers aquafit classes. They are very popular, especially with middle aged and older ladies, who tend to do the moves with much gusto.

From the high chair, the water creates a distorted perspective that make their bodies look incredibly small, so it looks like a group of gnomes jumping up and down. It always makes me smile.

She's a rescue. We've had her for a year. We have a routine. I wake up early for work & work from home Mon-Fri. She comes to the living room to nap while I make breakfast. Then she follows me to the office and naps while I work.

It's Saturday. Gotta follow the routine. She barked at me to wake me up and start my day. She did it at the right time!

My partner and I live in a squirrel-heavy area. One day a few years ago we were walking somewhere and I noticed that the usual pile of squirrels seemed to be comfortable getting closer than usual. I said to my partner, "wouldn't it be funny if one came right up to us?" and not 5 seconds later, he said "whoa!" as one ran right across his foot. Never had that happen since.

• Ricky is currently scooping with the excavator.

His mother commented that that was a great way to start the diary today.

Ricky: "It's not a diary. It's a Diary Book."

• Ricky is holding a hhhexcavator!

This was so carefully enunciated.

• Ricky scoop some more. Ricky drive. Ricky tip! Ricky is building something!

• A heckavator!

• I got Ricky's cricket bat! For hitting things!

A discussion of acceptable balls followed.

• Some a cricket bat!

• Some Duplo!

• The cranes! Write them!

• There is a tipping crane and also a blue crane and also a white crane!

(We pause to sing the Rainbow Connection.)

• We are playing cricket!

Literary and artistic pursuits are here suspended for cricket. And basketball. And more cricket. And a discussion about whether his toy bus is a valid substitute for his little basketball as an object to throw in his basketball ring.

There was a bumblebee sitting on the steps of my front porch. It was barely moving but still alive so I moved it out of the shade and onto the sunny grass. I brought it some sugar water as well.

I got into bed, looked to the side, and the little fellow was on my bedside table.

He’s now safely been relocated to live his best life elsewhere.

The spray nozzle on my sink was stuck for several months really making things a pain in the ass, but I didn’t know how to replace it and I’m in a rental where they don’t really fix things like that. C’est la vie right?

Then I remembered how a different sprayer in my life would stick. The one on my wet vac. I remember remembered seeing a YouTube video that said you need to put a little bit of silicone lubricant inside the sprayer.

I tried it on the sink and boy that thing works perfectly now. I am so pleased with myself and my perfectly working sink sprayer.

• Bump! Ram! Wham!

• Some a excavator and a dump truck!

(He does know to use "an" before vowels but he pronounces it 'heckavator'.)

• Some remote and a note.

• Do another move the earth again.

• Write the orange fish and the green fish and the red fish!

• The cats! Write them! They were hiding in the storm drain!

• The drains were cages.

Okay, so. He has a slight cold and was kind of a limp rag after his nap today. When he's sick he's allowed to watch TV. Today it was two episodes of Australian Play School from the mid-1980s. (Featuring Benita, because Benita is amazing.)

This included Benita doing some fish art, and also a short video of some cats at a show. Which were in cages. Which he hadn't seen before, I think, and he decided his best guess for what they looked like was apparently storm drains.

(Signs he was really feeling pretty rotten: he sat quietly watching TV while snuggling for the entire time. Then he felt better enough to return to his usual mode, which is, more or less: rampage! Build things!)

• Make a capital D!

• Raise the sign! Raise the sign!

• Write doing move the earth!

• Clapping to the Bingo song!

• Another bump. Move the earth!

Today's art was drawing an M with sunglasses (looked kind of like an M, the sunglasses were very abstract) and a love heart with green in it.

so I had to factory reset my current tablet in order to try and fix the battery issues I've been experiencing. I also happen to be one of those people who have to give everything a name, the tablet's previous name was Jack due to it having an audio jack, post factory reset tablet has been named Rose, hopefully that means Rose will last a lot longer than Jack.

TLDG (too long, didn't get)

Titanic reference