The Mimosa

Aunt Ree Ree was a fan dancer in the '30s. She traveled to Hawai'i and Mexico.

There was a large mimosa in her front yard and on summer evenings we'd sit on her porch and enjoy its scent.

When, in '91 i sold my house, i brought a mimosa w me. When Sofie (the cat), Antoinette (the tortoise) and I moved in w Michelle we soon planted it, a nub barely two inches above ground. After 35 years in the shade of three large trees: an elm and two cottonwoods, it's remained diminutive. But it blossoms profusely and adds its wonderful scent and reminder of days of yore.

Clouds

It's happened, on occasion, that i've been the beneficiary of another's largesse. When Kristen was at Ghost Ranch last year and received the small version of the iphone 16 pro and it was too much trouble to get to the post office to return it, she re-ordered and gave me the little one.

At the time the cameras were the most advanced. My photos rarely make use of its capabilities, but they're now significantly better.

On the other hand, yuh can't go wrong w a subject this dramatic!

100 pts Drop

In market lingo we say points instead of dollars. It sounds more statistical, less like gambling.

It fell 10 points yesterday and 90 today. Luckily, and i say luckily because that's what it was, i went for the Bird-in-the-Hand and sold. 

In his book How To Make Money in Stocks, William J. O'Neill warns of greed and says to sell when a stock is up 20-25 pts. Mine was up 30.06.

This morning, when i awoke it was at 214.00, down 59 points. The biggest drop i'd seen in my 16 1/2 months of trading was 51 pts. I figured it had to be at the bottom; I started buying.

As i was placing the order for the 4th share - i buy one at a time - a notice appeared saying

INSUFFICIENT FUNDS. 

I knew i had plenty of money but i'm somewhat a believer in magic, omens, oracles and such, and this caused me to pause. Over the next 30 seconds the stock fell to 210. I waited. 

Still convinced it couldn't go much further i bought at 208.65. My last was at 194.00. I watched as it continued down and closed at 182.54.

On Thursday, the day b4, i had watched it drop from 283.77 to 229 and then climb the 40+ pts back to 273+. Part of me wanted to hold and see what the morrow would bring. But the Bird-in-the-Hand part won out and I sold at 272.37; it closed at 262.70.

So to awaken to 214 was a BUY signal. We'll see what happens Monday.

Quotes

 

24.May

From: intoxicated by my illness by Antoine Broyard

Thursday, 21, May, 2026. William Kittredge

Theodore Roszak

Tania (at the end of her amazon review of Becker's The Denial of Death)

the burden of fabricating one's own religion, as argued by Becker, leads to a hypervigilant state, facing the fear that no beyond can prevent creatives from exhausting every bit of themselves in the artistic process.

The Changed Self

Watching the stock ticker climb. I fell from 253.53, or thereabouts. Buying one share at a time, the lowest was $206.83. 

                    🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑


I "zero out" my account to $4,000.00 at the end of each month, or as soon thereafter as I close out any positions. It makes it easy to see how I've done. This month is $540.00 short as I transferred that amount to checking at mid-month.

This was a few dollars higher a few minutes ago. SOXL, as a 3x ETF, is highly volatile. It's early in the day and if I sold now my cash wouldn't "settle" soon enough for me to trade again until Monday; a limitation of low-budget trading.

But then....

From: Where the Wastleand Ends by Theodore Roszak.

Mon.1.June

Closed positions on SOXL & TQQQ this morning w reasonable profit. Goal is $20,000.00/day = $400,000.00/mo = $4.8M a year.

Cicadas & Scotties

 

It's a Jungian Thing

 

Carl Jung is credited with coining the term "serendipity." The scientists and card-counters'll tell you about odds, but I’ve seen too many “coincidences” to believe in happenstance.

Back in 2020 when hoarding toilet paper was de rigueur, I bought a bidet. It didn’t come with a dryer so I had to get used to a slight dampness “back there.” But it was no biggee.  

Now, after these five-plus years and having gained even more weight (actually, my arms shrank but that’s not politically correct), it’s gotten hard for me to reach my bum.

Back when I was camping I simply poured water over my backside in the manner of other peoples throughout the world. As it turned out, there was, serendipitously, a second, hand-held shower with a hose.

But the diverter wouldn’t turn. It was then our German-named Native-American housekeeper, Wilhelmina, came to the rescue.

She told how as a young girl the children had teased her about her name until she, crying, asked her mom for a different one. She told how her Grandfather took her aside and told how she was named for his mother’s mother, who was a very special woman. And from that, she knew how much she was appreciated.

Proud of my German heritage, I explained how the W (double-u) is pronounced as a V in German. Thus, we have Volksvagon and Verner Heisenburg and Vilhelmina. And Vilhelmina got Maintenance to come and turn the diverter. She said there were only two other rooms that have hoses: 116 and 121.

It's things like this, things not necessarily life-saving but that make a difference, that incline me to believe in serendipity…and maybe guardian angels.