Thursday. Spent too much time on the tablet before turning out the lights last night at ten, awakening at six-thirty. A reasonable night's rest I'm guessing, but only guessing, the mood more slow than cranky, fighting the idea of walking to breakfast on another cold morning. OK, up. On to breakfast bundled against the cold, arriving in reasonable shape to have the corned beef hash and eggs over easy. Not something I eat that often as it can make the stomach queasy, but we're under our target weight and we remembered we were hungry as we drifted off to sleep last night. Not hungry this morning, but corned beef hash was the decision and we got most of it down.

Met a bus at the stop across from the Grand Lake theater while walking and so took the bus the rest of the way home. Bright sun, cold, remembering I'd forgotten to plug in the tablet to charge before leaving, something I often forget to do. No big deal, plug it in, let it charge through the rest of the morning, but again, I do this quite often. Forget. Another glitch to note in the morning routine.

Piddly stuff. Why mention it?

Just noting the glitches and if they're multiplying. It's more the head is in a bubble than in a fog, making the world outside alien territory. Well, somewhat more alien than we remember when we were younger. Not a thought we've much entertained before now.

Later. A walk to the Lakeshore ATM and then the greeting card shop to get a Christmas card for the nephew, finally remembering that Christmas is coming and I always send him a card with something in it. Not sure how you forget this, although it will go out the door and into the mail tomorrow morning, arriving on time. Fog or bubble, similar outcome.

Warmer in the sun, setting out wearing winter gloves, walking back with them stuffed in a pocket. Just one picture on the way, but that's to be expected. It will be as dark and cold next month as it's been this month, but at least we'll see if the El Niño results in rain or fails. They're saying more rain this evening and later over the coming weekend, but (I believe from what I've read) this is arctic rain and not El Niño rain originating out Hawaii way blowing in from the west.

You can't tell the players without a score card.

There are score cards?

Later still. The big entry on my “to do” list has been to seek out and sign up for secondary health insurance after getting notice our retirement insurance program was being dropped at the end of this year. I've been procrastinating big time, figuring that actually losing the insurance would finally force me to finally get off the dime. In opening today's mail I discovered the problem was resolved by my procrastination in not signing up with another insurance company.

A package arrived saying the retirement insurance company was keeping all of us (those of us, I assume, who hadn't sought out other coverage) insured, the insuring agent, at least, was keeping us covered. We just had to make the usual monthly payments. Nothing needed to be done, no new cards, just keep feeding them dollars in the usual way at the usual time.

I'm guessing this was done this way on purpose. The package was delivered late yesterday, precisely on the deadline to get new insurance. Were they able to dump quite a few (non-procrastinating) retired employees by notifying us late and thereby save themselves a bunch of money? Wouldn't surprise. Still, true or no, my procrastination has paid off for the first time in this life of mine.

Evening. Read an article on climate change and Florida in the New Yorker that also arrived in the mail today. Miami and the Everglades, what's happening now that ocean levels are continuing to rise. Written by Elizabeth Kolbert, the author of The Sixth Extinction, it reports on the various forms of resident denial such as, “new technology will come in time to save us all”, this up against the reality of water that's now rising right under their homes and feet.

This is a state who's governor denies the existence of climate change, who's governor sent a directive to state employees forbidding the use of the phrase “climate change” in any and all state documentation or correspondence. They don't have much more time before they fully understand how badly they're fucked underwater.