Generally speaking, I think Cave-In keeps getting more fun all the time. This one struck me as particularly playful. As a complete sucker for literary references, I really liked the joke about “Ozymandias.”

The parody segment was very well done, really silly and satirical, but I had a hard time watching it. Now, not having Netflix, I haven’t seen Tiger King, but I watched some commentary about it just to try to find out what all the fuss was about, and that was enough to give me nightmares. So I kind of had to watch the parody out of the corner of my eye, but I liked the line about, “If they dug up that septic tank, they’d find all sorts of crap!” I’m also a sucker for the gag that goes, “She said I can’t have these ogres!” and then cut to the other character saying, “You can’t have these ogres!”

As for my call, it is my birthday this week, though not today. But for years now, and without really doing it on a conscious level, I’ve started rounding my age up in January prior to my birthday in June. So I’ve sort of been thinking of myself as being 40 for several months now, but talking about it with Weldon made it real in a way that it hadn’t been before, and that’s kind of weird. I appreciated it initially when he tried to make me feel better, and I also liked it when he changed his mind and started commiserating with me instead. Incidentally, there was a part in the middle of the conversation where I appeared to just start laughing at nothing. The reason is that I was thinking so hard about what I was going to say that it took me a while to process what he said about being a millennial “with a bigger number.” 

And yes, Weldon made good on his promise and sent my certificate the next day. I’m just gonna go ahead and call it a birthday present due to the proximity. 😉

I realized something about myself with this call: I have an unfortunate tendency to talk at length about a lot of extraneous detail before I get to the main point that I’m trying to make. Kind of like Rachel Maddow, except that I know the difference between North Dakota and South Dakota. The point I was trying to make is that in the early days of the pandemic, my workflow didn’t stop completely, but it did slow down. There were a few clients that kept ordering large numbers of content on a regular basis, but it tended to be shorter, lower-paying articles. So quite apart from being home from work with nothing to do, I’ve actually had to do more work than normal just to try to make close to the same amount of money as usual, and not always succeeding. That was the point I was trying to make, but I know there are time constraints on Cave-In, so now that I realize that about myself, maybe I can be more concise in the future.

Even though I don’t really feel that I’ve had difficulty coping, there are things that I do during whatever downtime I do get to keep my spirits up or at least distract myself:

• Yardwork: You name it, my yard is probably overrun with it.
• Revisiting TV Shows From My Youth: I recently found out that the original She-Ra series has its own YouTube channel, as do Rocky & Bullwinkle, which we used to watch on video tapes from the library when I was a kid, as well as on Nick at Nite at my grandma’s house (she had cable).
• Casual Bird-Watching: Weldon wouldn’t be impressed with this one, but Sioux Falls is sort of at a nexus point where the eastern and western migratory paths cross, so we get a lot of bird species around here. I have a pair of binoculars, so I could go out and make a whole thing of it, but lately, I’ve just been watching the birds in my backyard, which draws a lot of them because of the aforementioned overgrowth.
• Reading: Okay, so I haven’t done as much of this lately as I would prefer, but I found out recently that our library system has a summer reading program for adults, and I would like to get involved in that. 
• Games: I got a new smartphone recently, so I’ve been playing with that and trying to figure out all the things it can do, so that’s kind of fun. I found a game that I like called “Song Quiz,” which involves playing a song clip and asking you to identify either the title or the artist, with bonus points for both. It’s easier than it should be because sometimes the clip they play includes the title.

Speaking of cell phones, I don’t know if anyone needs to hear this, but ever don’t do business with Consumer Cellular. I needed a cheap phone in a hurry a couple years ago, and I let a salesperson talk me into buying a Consumer Cellular phone. BIG mistake. I’m back to Tracfone now, and it’s SOOOOOO much better. More services for less money, better customer service, better choice all around.

I don’t mean to sound like a commercial, but Consumer Cellular REALLY screwed me over last year, and I really don’t think anyone should do business with them, EVER.