I wish I knew how I could be this tired all the time but never be able to sleep.

There are times that so many things are going wrong in your life that there's just no response to it all. Which essentially leaves you with two options. 1) let it all overwhelm you and just pack it in... or 2) carry on the best you can until things (hopefully) get under control and you can breathe again.

Thanks to this motivational pep-talk from Elmo, it looks like I'll be carrying on for another day...

And so... let's go.

When I got home from work today, I saw a medium-sized brown spider... barely visible on my floor because he was the same coloring. Which is ultimately my way of saying that I barely avoided stepping on a spider when I got home because I didn't notice him until the last second.

Then I did what I always do... run and get a small paper cup and a piece of stiff paper so I can scoop him up and take him outside. It's just a small kindness towards a Tony life that feels better than squishing the poor thing who happened to end up in the wrong place.

After dumping him in the shade outside my front door, the little guy started SPRINTING towards my front door. He was perfectly happy indoors, and decided that's where he was going to be.

After yelping while jumping back and saying "GAH! YOU DON'T WANT TO GO BACK IN THERE... MY CATS WILL EAT YOU!" I jumped inside and closed the door in time to keep him on the other side of it.

Then went to a window so I could look at him glaring at the front door.

I should not be surprised at all if he's back inside tomorrow.

So there I am petting Jenny, my skittish orange cat, when my phone rings. Because of my job, I can't turn my phone off or set it to only ring for known callers, because I can have people calling from anywhere at any time. And I have to answer.

And so I do.

After Jenny gets scared by the ringing and goes running upstairs.

At which point she hangs up on me.

Outright LYING to people over their finances is about as low as it gets. Fuck you. Making it sound like you're some official calling about a person's credit cards like there's a problem when you're just another fucking scammer asshole credit card consolidation company trying to drum up business by throwing out some random number and hoping it hits.

This scammer piece of shit should consider herself very, very lucky that I don't have the ability to make people's heads explode over the phone.

VERY.

When I got home I went to put away my garbage cans, but the clover in my front yard was full of bees! So I guess I'll wait until tonight so I don't disturb them.

Ever since I put out the bee watering stations, the number of bees which inhabit my yard has at least doubled. They're everywhere!

I'm so happy that I begged the HOA to let me keep it instead of spraying herbicides all over it. The stuff has pretty much taken over my lawn and I'm 100% okay with that!

This evening I was going through some of the memorabilia I've got stashed in my garage, looking for an old photo.

Along the way I started looking through some of the stuff that my grandmother saved, including a box of things from my grandfather's old barber shop. Including a photo of my grandfather standing in his old barber shop that was taken long before I came along...

According to the calendars on the wall, this was taken in April of 1941.

Also in the box was an atlas. Specifically a war atlas which was printed sometime in 1942, complete with a scary General Douglas MacArthur portrait. It was put together soon after the USA entered the war after Pearl Harbor on December 8th in the previous year...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

Inside is some rather cool historical context for the day. Like when The United Nations was an important part of America's alliance with the free world...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

And there's a recap of how we got to where we were...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

And then? BLAM! A summary of America's defensive capabilities and a history of using them in the war...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

In the middle is an atlas with maps of the world and commentary on their part in the war effort. And then there's a plan to smash the Nazis! Back when we actually fought Nazis...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

History fascinates me in a way that few things do.

Finds like this bring it to life.

And, just like that, Summer vacation is over.

Now I need a vacation from my vacation...

...which is how you know it was a good vacation.

The third deepest lake in the USA is Lake Chelan, which is an hour from my home (the first is Crater Lake in Oregon, the second is The Great Salt Lake in Utah). Friends and I decided to spend part of our week hanging out at the local big deep.

The weather yesterday was perfect. Plenty of blue sky and sunshine, which means the lake was fairly calm and we could take a boat out to swim and soak up the sun...

Half-way up the 50-mile lake is 25 Mile Creek, where we stopped for ice cream...

It was a fantastic day and a fantastic trip on the lake.

But not all was perfect when we got back.

The condo room I rented inexplicably has a set of stairs immediately after walking in the door...

Now, keep in mind that from the perspective of the photo above, you can actually see the stairs. But if you are on the top of the stairs, you don't see the sides. From your perspective, you can barely see stairs exist and it looks much like this...

Which means that I charged right through the door, concentrating on not catching my bag and suitcase on the closing door, didn't see the stairs... and walked right off the edge, catching myself on the little sink there.

I wrenched by back pretty good, and spent two days of my vacation in pain.

I don't understand how this is even a legal construction. Don't stairs have to have guardrails to keep you from falling off? I'd think that the owners would want to have a railing of some kind for safety. Because even after I learned (the hard way) that the stairs are there, I was still running into them (particularly at night, because the bathroom is just past the sink.

Oh well. I had pills on me so I could push through and have a good vacation despite it all. That's probably the thing to focus on.

Some friends and I decided to do some floatin' on Saturday.

It was bordering on hot, but the water was cold, so it all balanced out in the end.

It seems strange how the water just gets lower and lower every year. Used to be you could float until August. Now it's almost too late to float in July...

Lower...

And lower. I was close to dragging ass at this point...

Duckies were out again this year...

Some with babies...

I didn't see any deer this year, but I did see a raccoon, which is more rare since they usually only come out at night. Guess he just wanted a drink and a quick dip to cool off...

And despite being warned, there were no bears again this year...

And that's my first and only float in 2025.

Yesterday afternoon I was rushing to my car because I was in a hurry for a meeting. I was so wrapped up in the crazy number of things I had to do that I very nearly stepped on a butterfly that was laying on the hot pavement. Despite being late, I ran back to get some sugar water in an effort to revive him. There was no shade, but I moved him to a place that was out of the way and dribbled the water in front of him. He moved a bit, but didn't appear to be drinking.

I had done what I could then headed out to my meeting...

   
When I got back, I saw that the poor thing was back on the street and had been crushed... assumably run over by a car. I'm pretty sure he was a goner anyway, but it was still pretty upsetting.

Remarkably, his wings were still intact and, if you didn't look too close to see that his body had been destroyed, he was still beautiful.

I went on with my life. Maybe appreciating it just a tiny bit more.

But all I could think about was this... If I would have had the ability to put the poor thing out of his misery in a way that was quick and painless (assuming that butterflies can feel pain), would I have been able to do that? Not by stepping on him, which I could not do, I mean finding a killing jar or something. Despite the fact that my beliefs do not endorse taking a life... any life, including a bug... I think that I would. — If one of my cats were suffering, I'd certainly find a way to end their pain. Absolutely. It would kill me to do it, but I would force myself to extend that kindness.

And then my mind took this leap: Would I be able to do that for a fellow human?

And that's a different thing entirely, isn't it?

First of all, it doesn't matter if you're extending them a kindness... it's still murder. You still go to jail over that. But if it's somebody you truly care about. Somebody you love. And you know that they're suffering terribly, and you can end their suffering? Well... what is jail time compared to that?

I thought about this a lot when it came to my mom, but I was grateful to have found perspective at the time that she wasn't suffering. At least not how somebody from the outside would think of it. Her mind was gone. She didn't know and didn't remember. But I sure did. Which is to say that I wouldn't be ending her suffering, I'd be ending mine.

In which case the only life that I was entitled to take would be my own.

Alas, I am totally lacking in compassion for myself, and wouldn't extend myself that kindness.