Prompt for June 2: One strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family

I have a strong belief that mathematics is important in our daily lives. Not the mundane we couldn't build bridges sort of math, no, the recreational kind. I'm the only person I know who buys the Mathematics Calendar by Theoni Pappas. It features a math puzzle for each day of the year with the answer being the number of that day.

Some are really simple like what's the smallest odd prime?

Others are a tad more difficult and require one to pull up some geometry, algebra, or logic. An example would read like this: In a circle with a radius of 5 centered on the origin, construct a perpendicular upwards from the positive x axis at the point where the height generated from the axis to the circle is of length 4, dividing that radius into two parts. What is the product of the lengths of the two parts? Actually it would just be a picture of a circle with labels of 4, 5, a, and b at appropriate places with the question "What is a*b?".

Now why isn't everyone driven to figure that out?

In that spirit I offer an Alien KenKen. It's in an unknown base with unknown symbols. Solve it using the smallest integral base.

Prompt for June 1: Describe today using only one sentence

One sentence? I can do it in one word:
Wonderful!

I got up this morning to find that my yellow iris are in bloom. I'm the third generation to have these plants. Living in a condo has limited my ability to provide them the proper environment - my deck is too dry, hot, cold, shady, and about anything else that could crush their chances to grow. It has been a losing battle for the last decade as fewer and fewer make it to each new season. But this year they are doing beautifully.

Then I didn't have to cover the late shift for a coworker who had called in sick. She made it in only a bit late.

Finally, a friend sent me this link to a comic strip called Pants are Overrated. The strips for May 10th and 12th actually had me in tears. Robert Krulwich has a great write-up about it. I agree with almost everything he says, only I think they should do more strips. It was like catching up with every old forgotten friend all at once.

Ralph Waldo Emerson 30 day writing challenge

Signed up today for the 30 day writing challenge.
Waited all day for email containing the 'prompt' for a subject.
Guess I'll just have to trust that a topic I pick is just as worthy.

Got a posting today from my brother Martin in Texas asking if anyone knows about the painting Grandma (Maude Otto) left him called 'Syrian Girl'. It is dated March 16, 1964, which is about a month after her 70th birthday. A quick check at Mom's notes shows this is just after Maude's mother had a stroke and just before her husband, Grandpa John, has his heart attack. She did a portrait of my older sister around then, too. Maude must have started down-sizing for the move from the farm into town at this time because she gave away some of her paintings to family members that summer. I imagine painting was a relief for her from all the daily cares. Or knowing her, she possibly just decided to use up all those tubes of oil paint rather than throw them away.

This is the woman who had a shoebox labeled 'pieces of string too short to save'. Full of very, very short pieces of string.

Anyway, I checked Grandma's notebook and didn't see anything about the Syrian Girl.

Learned something about resilience, though.