So much has happened since we last spoke. My cat had high blood pressure as it turned out and medication now has it under control for now so she's holding her own. In the meantime, one of our other cats was declining fast and we FINALLY got a definitive diagnosis after years of trying, after my cat got a ultrasound. Sadly he has intestinal cancer and it's spread to the lymph nodes. He doesn't have long to live, but the symptoms are being treated somewhat successfully with medication to shrink the tumors so he can keep food down.
My friend's partner is managing well emotionally now, but she's now had a couple of ministrokes and is refusing any in home visits or check ins so we're worried about her. She just turned 90; he was quite a bit younger and died at 82.
Today I am in grief mode so my intuition is picking up on something imminent. Times of death are so hard!
I think my frequent walks in nature are key to me staying emotionally healthy amid all I've gone through. They help me stay centered and move through everything, processing fully. Plus we've seen some amazing things recently; this is the best time of year for abundance as the last of the birds have arrived for the winter, but the first to arrive are still here too.
Reading about other cultures in novels and stories, no matter the genre is always interesting. I love a good historical novel as well and can recommend a wonderful author. I fell in love with her books, then later we became friends and I became one of her team of editors. Niada West; River of Red Gold; What the Bear Saw and Rest for the Wicked--her California trilogy. She wrote it from multiple cultural perspectives, richly woven stories covering California from when the Spanish first arrived to the early 1900s. They became required reading in universities in the US for fine literature and in the UK for history. Be sure to get the later editions as she added more with each edition as more information came in. They're over 90% factual and without the documentation I could never figure out which bits were fictional. I'm glad in later editions she included that information in an appendix. I got to see the original sources. Most of her main characters though are fictional, but not all.
Can AI? It can be programmed to do specific things and recognize patterns. Humans can do much more and go beyond programmed parameters. What takes humans so long is often resistance to change. Once that is set aside, people learn extremely fast.
Ah that tree; it's sitting in my curio cabinet and I get a laugh every time I see that silly thing.
Still in a tough time, but at least mail box is fixed, email is working and power is steady. My friend is doing as well as can be expected, once she got past the shock and overwhelm which is a relief. We were all so worried about her. But we got another shock; another of our cats was just diagnosed with advanced intestinal cancer. They're trying to shrink some of the tumors with prednisone so he can live a bit longer but it doesn't seem to be working well yet.
I did have a nice Christmas in spite of grieving. It's amazing how many emotions one can feel simultaneously, opposing emotions at that though. New Years plans, modest though they were fell through so we just had a quiet couple of days at home. And celebrated on Jan 2nd by getting out in nature.
I hope your holidays went well.
I'm just in the habit of daily reading; I have been since I was just 2 years old. I've never watched shows daily; there were years I didn't at all. So I schedule a small set time for TV or net shows and a set time for reading and it's part of my daily routine right now. When traveling, I still read daily, but don't go online or watch tv. The genre I don't care for is true crime. I also don't care for excessive gory violence, reveling in cruelty (some humor is about that too), predictable stories with shallow characters--more characterizations than real people, and every genre has some of that, some genres more than others. I do enjoy good humor and wit, characters that are interesting and likeable, stories that are unpredictable but tie together well, stories that have caring and kindness. Seems right now, the focus is on wallowing in greed and excess or morality plays, neither of which have any interest for me. I truly disliked getting preached at, even if I agree with the point of view.
Oh, they are trying to replace people with AI in jobs but AI is still pretty primitive. So for now it isn't going to happen; those who try are going to find failure in their businesses. This gives the space for people to learn new skills and ways of doing things that incorporate AI as useful tools to increase their productivity and thus worth to themselves and their employers or businesses.
Yep, it has been quite soggy, windy and wild. We don't decorate but I can now brag the most minimalist holiday decorating ever thanks to a gift my sister in law sent us. It's a wooden tree about 8 inches high that consists of a stake and 3 rings of "branches" with no tops. When my husband and I put it together, we looked at it sideways, went OK...and had a laugh. When he asked her about it later, she said the branches were hotplates (they flatten when you lay them down). It is still very odd and a bit silly. rofl
I spent the day over at my friend's as planned and it was needed as last week has been really rough. A friend of mine died unexpectedly and I found out at a meetup of friends last Sat.
While we were all process ing and trying to figure out what we could do for his partner who is elderly and frail and fiercely independent and over 100 miles from me, my email went down. So while still reeling, I spent most of a morning working with ATT tech trying to find out if it was a regional outage. Well, their tech dept is now guided by AI that demands they try all kinds of steps to determine it isn't the customer's system even if the know already there is an outage AND they don't let the tech's know there is. So when it became obvious long before all the hoops were jumped through that it wasn't my system, the tech noted 99% of the calls in the call center were from people trying to find out the same thing. And the final irony; the AI elected to let me know there was a regional outage, not by releasing that info to the tech dept. but by sending out emails! Ah yeah, an email we can't access letting us know we can't! emotion_facepalm 2 hours after that, I got my email back and there were indeed about 10 emails from my group of friends figuring it all out and we did a really good job, the process helped us all and led to some good ideas on how to reach out to his partner. Plus another dozen or so emails unrelated.
Then we discovered a couple of mailboxes in our bank of them got broken into so no mail was being delivered to anyone who has a box in that group. And they didn't let anyone know. After a couple of days of no mail, my husband was supposed to go down there and check and he never did. Finally our postman hand delivered some prescription medicines to him and let him know what happened. Fortunately, all it was was 5 days of junk mail....rolleyes
It's hard enough dealing with stuff like email and mail when not grieving. That Sat. all the joy went out of the holidays for me, but the peaceful day at my friend's helped. We had planned low key; turkey sandwiches, appetizers and a couple of desserts. Still managed way too much food of course. I made the turkey the day before; every year I buy an organic turkey and have the market cut it into parts and vacuum wrap for the freezer. I have this year's turkey now but I had half a breast piece left over from last year's that I roasted and sliced. After exchanging gifts, we ate and played board games and visited for the day. My husband and I stayed just long enough to miss the worst down pours
As for reading; I do that daily, no matter what. My gift wish list is almost always all books of interest, lol.
I hope they start paying attention to the potential security risks because I know for sure the bad guys will be using AI tools to take advantage and until holes are plugged, a lot of people will get ripped off due to just using AI to do their search for them. The first large companies to do so will have a huge competitive edge and great selling point so there is motivation.
I am glad of it too and hope quick access to it when needed is there. Right now it only is when there are cancellations as there are more people needing help than people to treat them.
It would be a good idea not to put up anything the kitten could wreck. Time to get creative if you want to decorate using materials she can't harm. Or yep, just relax, let it go and disappear into that hoard of books while you've time to enjoy them.
For me it's Firefox. And I do my own research, don't rely on AI results.
Benign vertigo is an inner ear problem where a crystal breaks free of a nerve fiber and bounces around, causing dizziness and visual spinning. I got it treated before it got too bad so it wasn't very violent. I got lucky in that I didn't have to wait too long for a PT appt to fix it. Yep, you experienced a bit of what we've been dealing with here; I live near hwy 5.
That is low key. We're having turkey sandwiches (I'm roasting up a piece of my organic turkey the night before), exchanging gifts, socializing and playing board games. As for reading, I do that daily anyway. So many great books out there being written right now. I like the festive aspect too, but I'm not Christian and I have a houseful of cats so I don't decorate. My friend does and some years she's gone overboard with it, even living alone. My husband doesn't care if we decorate or not. Do you decorate?
Thank you for the gift. I'm holding off opening them until closer to Xmas and the 8th day of Hanuka. I've got a nice collection waiting now. mrgreenheart
It will be interesting to see what it grows into. It's certainly a misnomer now; a huge bit of marketing in the name alone, pure hype. A great article on some of it from Consumer Reports. Just the security risks alone means I won't be using it any time soon.
I'm doing pretty good now that I've got benign vertigo under control and the sun is threatening to actually show for the first time in 2 weeks. I'm looking forward to a low key relaxing holiday over at my friend's. What plans do you have?
I certainly wouldn't trust an AI program for emotional support of any kind, nor have any kind of relationship with one. As I said, it seems totally insane, a poor imitation, like pretend food to feed a starving person. As far as therapy, it could be useful with a real person to access as a guided exploration done by the person processing or working through something. It could ask questions based on what it is told to help a person gain insight. But using it alone? Nope.
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My friend's partner is managing well emotionally now, but she's now had a couple of ministrokes and is refusing any in home visits or check ins so we're worried about her. She just turned 90; he was quite a bit younger and died at 82.
Today I am in grief mode so my intuition is picking up on something imminent. Times of death are so hard!
I think my frequent walks in nature are key to me staying emotionally healthy amid all I've gone through. They help me stay centered and move through everything, processing fully. Plus we've seen some amazing things recently; this is the best time of year for abundance as the last of the birds have arrived for the winter, but the first to arrive are still here too.
Reading about other cultures in novels and stories, no matter the genre is always interesting. I love a good historical novel as well and can recommend a wonderful author. I fell in love with her books, then later we became friends and I became one of her team of editors. Niada West; River of Red Gold; What the Bear Saw and Rest for the Wicked--her California trilogy. She wrote it from multiple cultural perspectives, richly woven stories covering California from when the Spanish first arrived to the early 1900s. They became required reading in universities in the US for fine literature and in the UK for history. Be sure to get the later editions as she added more with each edition as more information came in. They're over 90% factual and without the documentation I could never figure out which bits were fictional. I'm glad in later editions she included that information in an appendix. I got to see the original sources. Most of her main characters though are fictional, but not all.
Ah that tree; it's sitting in my curio cabinet and I get a laugh every time I see that silly thing.
Still in a tough time, but at least mail box is fixed, email is working and power is steady. My friend is doing as well as can be expected, once she got past the shock and overwhelm which is a relief. We were all so worried about her. But we got another shock; another of our cats was just diagnosed with advanced intestinal cancer. They're trying to shrink some of the tumors with prednisone so he can live a bit longer but it doesn't seem to be working well yet.
I did have a nice Christmas in spite of grieving. It's amazing how many emotions one can feel simultaneously, opposing emotions at that though. New Years plans, modest though they were fell through so we just had a quiet couple of days at home. And celebrated on Jan 2nd by getting out in nature.
I hope your holidays went well.
I'm just in the habit of daily reading; I have been since I was just 2 years old. I've never watched shows daily; there were years I didn't at all. So I schedule a small set time for TV or net shows and a set time for reading and it's part of my daily routine right now. When traveling, I still read daily, but don't go online or watch tv. The genre I don't care for is true crime. I also don't care for excessive gory violence, reveling in cruelty (some humor is about that too), predictable stories with shallow characters--more characterizations than real people, and every genre has some of that, some genres more than others. I do enjoy good humor and wit, characters that are interesting and likeable, stories that are unpredictable but tie together well, stories that have caring and kindness. Seems right now, the focus is on wallowing in greed and excess or morality plays, neither of which have any interest for me. I truly disliked getting preached at, even if I agree with the point of view.
What about you?
Oh, they are trying to replace people with AI in jobs but AI is still pretty primitive. So for now it isn't going to happen; those who try are going to find failure in their businesses. This gives the space for people to learn new skills and ways of doing things that incorporate AI as useful tools to increase their productivity and thus worth to themselves and their employers or businesses.
Yep, it has been quite soggy, windy and wild. We don't decorate but I can now brag the most minimalist holiday decorating ever thanks to a gift my sister in law sent us. It's a wooden tree about 8 inches high that consists of a stake and 3 rings of "branches" with no tops. When my husband and I put it together, we looked at it sideways, went OK...and had a laugh. When he asked her about it later, she said the branches were hotplates (they flatten when you lay them down). It is still very odd and a bit silly. rofl
I spent the day over at my friend's as planned and it was needed as last week has been really rough. A friend of mine died unexpectedly and I found out at a meetup of friends last Sat.
While we were all process ing and trying to figure out what we could do for his partner who is elderly and frail and fiercely independent and over 100 miles from me, my email went down. So while still reeling, I spent most of a morning working with ATT tech trying to find out if it was a regional outage. Well, their tech dept is now guided by AI that demands they try all kinds of steps to determine it isn't the customer's system even if the know already there is an outage AND they don't let the tech's know there is. So when it became obvious long before all the hoops were jumped through that it wasn't my system, the tech noted 99% of the calls in the call center were from people trying to find out the same thing. And the final irony; the AI elected to let me know there was a regional outage, not by releasing that info to the tech dept. but by sending out emails! Ah yeah, an email we can't access letting us know we can't! emotion_facepalm 2 hours after that, I got my email back and there were indeed about 10 emails from my group of friends figuring it all out and we did a really good job, the process helped us all and led to some good ideas on how to reach out to his partner. Plus another dozen or so emails unrelated.
Then we discovered a couple of mailboxes in our bank of them got broken into so no mail was being delivered to anyone who has a box in that group. And they didn't let anyone know. After a couple of days of no mail, my husband was supposed to go down there and check and he never did. Finally our postman hand delivered some prescription medicines to him and let him know what happened. Fortunately, all it was was 5 days of junk mail.... rolleyes
It's hard enough dealing with stuff like email and mail when not grieving. That Sat. all the joy went out of the holidays for me, but the peaceful day at my friend's helped. We had planned low key; turkey sandwiches, appetizers and a couple of desserts. Still managed way too much food of course. I made the turkey the day before; every year I buy an organic turkey and have the market cut it into parts and vacuum wrap for the freezer. I have this year's turkey now but I had half a breast piece left over from last year's that I roasted and sliced. After exchanging gifts, we ate and played board games and visited for the day. My husband and I stayed just long enough to miss the worst down pours
As for reading; I do that daily, no matter what. My gift wish list is almost always all books of interest, lol.
I am glad of it too and hope quick access to it when needed is there. Right now it only is when there are cancellations as there are more people needing help than people to treat them.
It would be a good idea not to put up anything the kitten could wreck. Time to get creative if you want to decorate using materials she can't harm. Or yep, just relax, let it go and disappear into that hoard of books while you've time to enjoy them.
Benign vertigo is an inner ear problem where a crystal breaks free of a nerve fiber and bounces around, causing dizziness and visual spinning. I got it treated before it got too bad so it wasn't very violent. I got lucky in that I didn't have to wait too long for a PT appt to fix it. Yep, you experienced a bit of what we've been dealing with here; I live near hwy 5.
That is low key. We're having turkey sandwiches (I'm roasting up a piece of my organic turkey the night before), exchanging gifts, socializing and playing board games. As for reading, I do that daily anyway. So many great books out there being written right now. I like the festive aspect too, but I'm not Christian and I have a houseful of cats so I don't decorate. My friend does and some years she's gone overboard with it, even living alone. My husband doesn't care if we decorate or not. Do you decorate?
I'm doing pretty good now that I've got benign vertigo under control and the sun is threatening to actually show for the first time in 2 weeks. I'm looking forward to a low key relaxing holiday over at my friend's. What plans do you have?