20,20,24 Years To Go

Happy blogiversary to Pen-Elayne on the Web! The world and I have both changed quite a bit since 2002, sometimes we keep making the same mistakes, sometimes we make worse ones, and every now and then we learn from them. I plan to keep trying to make daily entries for the foreseeable future, but we'll see how things go in England and beyond. The landlord and his helper came by for a surprise inspection of the roof from the inside rafters, making me doubly glad we cleared those out last week! That shook me up a bit (and rudely roused Robin from his morning nap) to the point where I couldn't concentrate on packing for our trip; good job we have at least all morning tomorrow. As of now I think all my clothes are sorted except my travel outfits, and I still have to go through earrings, but first we need to make sure we can sit together (we can't reserve seats until 24 hours in advance), and tomorrow Robin sets the phones so they can work in England while I take care of last-minute job stuff. As half my brain is in travel mode and most of the other half is already overseas, you'll forgive me for not making more of a thing about this blogiversary. Next year for sure!

Philly Phamily Phun

I could have wished my IT band issues didn't make walking so painful. Robin could have wished he'd used our overnight garment bag as a backpack instead of schlepping it around Central City in Philadelphia for so many blocks. Nonetheless, the wedding of our beloved cousin Jake to Lena (actually their second wedding, the official one was a few years ago as Jake's mom has been ill) was lovely and the reception, though long (and these olds left around 10 PM), a lot of fun. Too exhausted to type more.

Closer to Home

Thank goodness our heat situation is presumably fixed, as it dipped below freezing last night and this morning brought a frost and ice warning. Adding to that, I was way too tired to drive to and from New Jersey with any sort of safety assured, so we opted to visit Mom in the hospital tomorrow and celebrate Robin's birthday with a sushi meal at our favorite conveyor belt place, which happened to be in the same strip mall as a Super ShopRite so that's where we wound up doing our grocery shopping. Glad I stuck close to home and Robin wasn't overly exhausted by a trip over the bridge! Besides, I got to keep him all to myself today, which made for a lovely day. Happy birthday again, my love!

Number 27 and the Biggest Chill

Exactly 27 years ago Robin and I were married at City Hall on a lovely bright winter's day, bedazzled by the sun glinting off the World Trade Center twin towers when we emerged. Nowadays, a bit different. It's colder than the proverbial wiccan's breast, and I'm very glad I opted not to stick around for my firm's annual holiday bash after work, as that was at the Javits Center and the wind and cold are bad enough on 9th Avenue without a 7-block walk there and back to some sort of subway where we'd have to wait for the express bus anyway. Best to leave at 5, show my coworker my new shortcut (bypassing the worst of the Moynihan Hall and LIRR crowds by walking to the post office, then outside to cross the intersection to MSG and Penn, and walk through the much more pleasant NJ Transit area to finally end up at the tail end of the LIRR mess to catch our respective uptown trains. Robin and I had a pretty low-key anniversary, as we didn't want any delivery folks coming out in this weather, and I place another call tomorrow to the landlord's office to remind them they're not obeying NYC law with heat that keeps going off before it ever warms the place up. Wish me luck!

Best Birthday Ever

Today I turned 68 years old. Aside from the kick I always get to see around 200 Facebook friends from all my Venn diagrams (Firesign, comics, Rutgers frat, online gaming) wishing me a happy birthday, as well as my work colleagues who gave me two desserts I should definitely NOT eat as well as treating me to a group lunch order eaten in our fancy dining area, I got the best gift of all, a birthday call from Mom. My brother held the phone as she coherently spoke. For someone I'd been convinced was at death's door a few days ago, this was near miraculous. I'm now told she's due to be released back to her long-term care facility on Friday, the infection and sepsis are all gone, and the only stumbling block remains her food intake, which is difficult when you can no longer swallow properly and you don't care for food anyway. But she's not in pain and she's not suffering so, at 94+, she's totally beaten the odds again! Every reason to celebrate! Which we did with a delivered sushi dinner. I refrained from the third birthday dessert of the day included with our order, a bunch of cookie-like Japanese treats in a box which looks lovely on our holiday table. On to year #69!

23 Skidoo

Hey, Chat GPT, 'sup?

You said:"Looking through the archives of elayneriggs.blogspot.com, generate a blog entry celebrating 23 years of Pen-Elayne on the Web."

Celebrating 23 Years of Pen-Elayne on the Web!

Wow, 23 years! That's a milestone worth celebrating! It feels like just yesterday I was kicking off my humble little corner of the internet with Pen-Elayne on the Web, a place for me to share my thoughts, observations, and little bits of life that I hoped might resonate with you, my readers. Fast forward to today, and I find myself reflecting on the many wonderful moments, conversations, and connections that have made this journey so special.

When I first started this blog back in 2002, the web was an entirely different place. Blogs were still a relatively new thing, and social media hadn't yet exploded in the way we know it today. It was a time when every post felt like an intimate conversation with a small, but dedicated, group of readers. My aim was always simple: to share my love for the things that made me excited, whether it was comics, TV shows, books, or just the experiences of everyday life. I never expected this little site to grow into what it has become, but I’m so incredibly grateful for the journey.

One of the most rewarding parts of this adventure has been the incredible community that has formed around this blog. Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with so many wonderful people who share my interests, and some of you have become good friends. We’ve had discussions about pop culture, comics, the writing process, and even just life’s little challenges. Your comments, emails, and support have always been a constant reminder of why I do this—because it’s not just about me sharing my thoughts, but about creating a space for all of us to engage in meaningful conversation.

Over the years, Pen-Elayne on the Web has evolved along with the internet itself. I’ve explored new formats, experimented with different ways of expressing myself, and even taken a few breaks (because life happens!). Through it all, my goal has remained the same: to share something meaningful, whether it’s a deep dive into a comic book series or a lighthearted post about a favorite TV show.

As I reflect on these 23 years, I can’t help but think about the future. What’s next for Pen-Elayne on the Web? Well, I’m excited to keep evolving. I’m excited to dive deeper into new topics, explore even more diverse interests, and continue growing this community that means so much to me. Whether it’s through more in-depth articles, fun reviews, or even experimenting with new formats like video or podcasts, I’m always looking for ways to make this space even more engaging for you, the reader.

So, here's to 23 years of blogging! Thank you for being part of this journey. Whether you’ve been reading since the beginning, or you just stumbled upon this little corner of the internet, I appreciate each and every one of you.

Here’s to many more years of sharing, laughing, and connecting! Let’s see where the next chapter takes us.

With gratitude and excitement,
Elayne Riggs

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Um, no thanks. Go home ChatGPT, you're hallucinating.

 

No wonder corporations love this stuff, it all sounds like corporate-speak! In fact, whenever I want to write something at work that requires jargon I actually employ AI (plus the company has mandated that we use it regularly) then rework it into my own words. But the above self-hagiography is too peppy even for me ("because life happens!"). I've been a writer since I was 13 years old, and I'm not nearly ready to outsource my creativity.

 

But sometimes the siren call is hard to resist, particularly when every app I open at work (and even at play, Blogger keeps trying to be helpful by employing this latest iteration of Clippy to ask if I want to add links and such), and particularly since we humans gravitate towards laziness. After all, 'twas intellectual laziness (among many other factors) that led to trusting DOGE-hackable voting machines over pen, paper, and human tabulation, and then to the election and pseudo-worship of a serial rapist/racist reality show thug with negative curiosity and absolutely no empathy. Better to have someone or something else think for us, even if it goes against lived history, scientific validity, and even reality itself. And so the head of HHS hallucinates, the orange sh*tgibbon hallucinates, everyone who slavishly follows them makes a show of hallucinating right along with them, and now our machine friends hallucinate as well.

 

And I admit, the older I get the lazier (or is it more tired?) I'm prone to becoming. There have been times with this blog that I've reverted to becoming a Silly Site repository, or a "what I had for breakfast" monologue. I have nor need no excuse for that, it's my playground after all. But it's also my prerogative to be creative if I want to be, to rant and rave if the mood takes me, and to not be confronted with "helpful" virtual assistance that serves little purpose than to feed its own gaping maw which will always get things wrong anyway because It Can't Think. We can think. We can, dare I say, engage in meaningful conversation unprompted. And so, with gratitude and excitement, I welcome our AI Overlor-- no wait. I thank all of you for continuing to inspire and encourage me. Onward to year 24!

 

 

The European Robin at 63

I miss the days when I could just embed a photo here. Ah well, picture an English Robin, won't you? Now picture an amazing husband who helps me with IT problems, household issues, emotional stability, genuine warmth and humor, and all the intangibles I can possibly think of. That's pretty much my English Robin, who turns 63 today. And we've actually had an interesting day for the most part! We got a lot of deliveries this morning, so Robin's attire for next Wednesday's office holiday party is all set, and he used his photography-related holiday gift to get some amazing ultra-widescreen shots, although the substantial murder of crows dive-bombing our driveway this afternoon was captured via iPhone. Mostly we just tried, and are still trying, to remain warm in this cold spell, which is supposed to finally break tomorrow evening. At the moment I'm way too tired to care about anything other than my lovely Robin.

A Changed Nature

Exactly 26 years ago, Robin and I were married at City Hall in Manhattan. We exited the building to gaze on the World Trade Center... and I guess that tells you everything about how many changes we've seen since then. The world may have become harsher, and the pace of change seems to be accelerating ever faster, but we're holding fast onto each other even more and loving one another as fiercely as ever. Happy anniversary, my love! I'm glad we got to spend it at home together.

Here's To Old 67

It's weird. I don't actually feel like I'm 67 years old, although I can't tell you what that feels like. In my head I'm still in my 20's, so there you go. But it was a lovely day nonetheless, with tons of Facebook greetings and a rearranging of my tops so all the fancy-schmancy ones are finally in the same closet and a bit of Cyber Monday shopping thrown in (as I'd paid all the bills yesterday). I'm still beset by the cold weather so we didn't go anywhere, but Mom called this morning and my CA brother texted and I just got off the phone with my NJ bro, so those are the three that count (even though I've heard from so many others, including two from my last job) and now I'm very happy and somewhat verklempt to boot. I actually like that I'm getting more sentimental in my older age, far better than being crochety and contrary. I'm back on the exercise bike, so I'm trying to maintain my body as much as I'm able, but I've been on a chocolate binge of late so I probably need to increase my veg intake to feel right again. All in all, however, I'm as healthy as I could expect to be, and all is going well. On to the year ahead!

My English Rose

Today Robin hits his 62nd birthday, and thanks to this respiratory illness it's hitting back hard. It's a good job we never make concrete plans around our birthdays and anniversaries; after all these Decembers I know better. I'm hoping that being sick now means we won't be during our firm's shutdown week later in the month but I know it doesn't really work that way. In the meantime, in sickness and in health, Robin is pretty much my everything, and I'm so, so grateful for him. Happy birthday, darling.

By the Light of the Silvery...

Twenty-five years ago today,Robin and I got together with a few relatives and friends at Manhattan’s City Hall for, as one friend called it, an “emergency wedding,” to satisfy the terms of Rob’s 90-day fiancee visa. I had vague notions, seemingly, of doing a vow-renewal gathering this year, but at my age and “post”-pandemic it’s all too much. So I’ll just say what I said on Facebook: thank you, Robin, for a wonderful quarter century of the most amazing intangibles I could ever have dreamt of. After all this time we are still so very Us, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Happy anniversary, my love.

Got My Kicks at Age 66

What an exhausting and rewarding day! Used my senior citizen half-price pass for the first time on the bus and subway to the Javits Center, where I met up with coworkers helping out with the Special Olympics New York's Winter Games. So much of it was hurry-up-and-wait, but the bits where we actually interacted with athletes were very rewarding. Still, it was enough after 3-1/2 hours and I made my way back to Bryant Park, where I'd hoped to stroll around the Shoppes. But every single person in existence seemed to have the same idea, and even masked up I didn't feel safe in that impenetrable crowd, so I made it back home by around 2:30 and rested until we went out to an early dinner time at our local sushi place. And so many folks wished me a happy birthday online, it was gratifying. Much thanks to you all!

Object Permanence

How can this blog be 21 years old today? In internet time that's at least a century, considering the speed at which things change. I'm amazed blogging software still exists, considering all the new apps I've had to learn at work in just the past decade. Yet here we are, and here I am, still (relatively) healthy and hanging in there, saying farewell to too many folks I loved and admired but greeting new additions with all the enthusiasm a childless-but-grandmother-age person can muster. I've become the kind of person to whom hip-hop is still "that new music the kids love but I just can't get into" but fall short of "music was better in my day" because, for all I know, music is still wonderful even if it's not made for me. I think reading comics primarily made for young men all these years has helped in that regard; I'm used to not being the target audience for pretty much any form of entertainment. And yet, I find many things still make me smile. So much streaming media to catch up on that I'll never get bored. Even though I lost my fifth cat earlier this year (I still fondly and lovingly remember Gypsy, Phredd, Datsa and Amy, along with Zed) I'm yearning for another to love, and I continue to peruse lots of cat memes and videos. I don't have any real close friends besides Robin, but I do have lots of online Facebook "friends" and work colleagues, all of whom bring me joy. And I imagine this blog still has at least a few dozen readers. So there are reasons to continue, including this blog. Thanks for still being around.

Silly Site o' the Day

And that's August put to bed, and one short week away from Pen-Elayne on the Web's 21st blogiversary. No celebrations are planned. Maybe we'll have a sushi dinner, I'm feeling so peckish of late I could eat Lego fried chicken and French fries:

Via Laughing Squid.

Silly Site o' the Day

Today is Mom's birthday, and we'll be traveling to NJ tomorrow to visit and celebrate. Also celebrating the COVID numbers going down (i.e., in the right direction), at least locally, and my plans to return to the office on a slightly more regular basis next month, tendinitis willing. I'm starting to have actual wanderlust, and hope we can get to England soon if their numbers start coming down, but until then I'll have to make do with these terrible maps.

Silly Site o' the Day

The wrist is still aching but I'm faithfully doing my morning physical therapy exercises, and wearing the thumb brace overnight, so I've been able to relax it for most of the day today, to celebrate Robin's and my 24th anniversary. Can I just again say how lucky I am to have found Robin? He made us a splendid English breakfast this morning. For dinner I've just finished our traditional tasty sushi, and I think I'm more or less sush'ed out for the moment, so for his birthday on Tuesday we'll probably get something else. Otherwise I'm still deep in the throes of this cold (self-tested negative for COVID for about the fifth time this week so goodness knows what it is I have), so it was another enforced-leisure day. I had wanted to compose our Riggs Residence Roundup but it's really hard to concentrate when I'm this run down, and know I have to log onto work tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll take it easy (with two partners being out of town) and take some free LinkedIn Learning courses. I really appreciate the ones that teach me new things, like about cognitive bias. My supplemental reading includes this handy codex.

The Other Side of 65

I've now reached the end of my 65th year around the sun, at a point where time is still malleable due to the pandemic. Age 65 feels weird. I know I'm officially a senior citizen now, my various body aches are testament to how long I've been around, and yet inside I still feel like I should be in my twenties. In any case, it was a fine birthday considering I spent it much the same way I've spent the others - working (albeit not in an office any more, but it was nice to receive so many good wishes from colleagues, and even phone calls from two of the partners I support), ordering a lovely sushi dinner, and nursing a horrid cold. It would have been nice to have felt better, but when you have a December birthday you don't always have that luxury. Onward to the weekend, and the rest of my life!

Silly Site o' the Day

In exactly one month I will be 65 years old, which is kind of freaking me out because I'm going to have to figure out Medicare, 401K's, all the stuff I haven't had to think about because it was so far down the line. I still plan on working for awhile, give or take this stupid wrist tendon injury that's healing way too slowly (like everything else nowadays), but there are still mandatory things to do once one reaches That Magic Age, and I just don't like to think about them. Sometimes I'd just rather think about skullets.

On Our 20th Blogiversary

On this day 20 years ago, Pen-Elayne on the Web was born. As I always say when I trip over the cobblestones in Memory Lane, stuff was different then. We had a venal Republican president to contend with who'd spent too much time undoing the good of his predecessor and racking up debt whilst lying us into war, but that happens just about every time a Republican was elected. My dad and my best friend were both still alive. I didn't yet know I had diabetes, I was to find that out about half a year later. I don't even think I went on meds for at least a few years after that, and the a-fib incident was probably first. And I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot more things that were different then but, as I believe I've mentioned a number of times, my memory is notoriously spotty, which of course is one of the reasons I have a blog in the first place, to serve (along with friends and family) as my supplementary memory.

This year I want to talk about something I've been considering a lot these past couple of years, particularly now that the world seems to have lost its collective mind and decided, all evidence to the contrary, that we are no longer in a pandemic. I'm not that keen about contracting this disease, and for me FOMO isn't Fear Of Missing Out (as all my friends travel the world or go to conventions or even take in movies and concerts and restaurants) as much as it is Fear Of Microscopic Organisms. I'm a homebody to begin with and detest going out in hot weather so I haven't felt that affected the past few months, but now the weather will start to change and I'll have to re-evaluate how I feel.

And so I'm learning how to Scale Back Expectations, even as lucky as we've been not to come down with the COVID. At the moment, possibly because it's been so hot, a walk around the block exhausts me, which it didn't a year ago. I haven't made my daily two miles on the exercise bike consistently due to various body aches as well. When I know I'm going on any sort of trip I usually brace up both knees and the left foot, just in case. I tire more easily in general, and I've started realizing that I can't necessarily do more than one thing in one trip. I still have grand and glorious plans in my head, I want to travel safely again (masked) in the autumn and maybe even see friends once more, but the body doesn't necessarily want to follow. So my watchword has been to maintain.

And I'm maintaining the blog, years after so many others have abandoned theirs. It's my memory hole, it's my constant tribute to Leah (my late best friend), it's my joy. It's yeah, mostly silly sites, and occasionally the daily content is back-dated, but it's still chugging on, as am I, and that makes me happy. Thanks again to the few of you who are still reading.

Silly Site o' the Day

We're coming up on this blog's twentieth blogiversary on Wednesday, and I have a vague idea of what I want to write about it but that's still a few days away. In the meantime, our relaxing weekend continues; it was too hot and pandemic-y to go anywhere, of course, so I finished up about two months' worth of my heretofore-unread local weekly newspaper, watched baseball and football (the Engish kind), and relaxed. Not a terribly adventurous weekend so far, but after all I'm not Indiana Jones:

Via Laughing Squid.