A D Day MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m old enough that my dad was in WWII (the big one according to Herbert T. Gillis). But are the young ‘uns aware of what happened on June 6, 1944?

Still in England where it is dreary and rainy. We did not attend any of the jubilee celebrations but watched them on teevee. Very fun and wonderful to see. I was supposed to go to Westminster Abbey today but I sprained by ankle so am resting while my friend is off exploring. Big strike on the Tube though so I may have to send out a search party for her.

2

Rest, ice, compression and elevation for that ankle. Hope it gets better toute suite so you can get out there and do things!

3

I’m guessing my 37-y/o daughter doesn’t know the significance of June 6, or Dec 7, or Nov 22, for that matter. I think her school’s history department was probably as sucky as our was 50 years ago. Heck, most of what I know, I’ve learned from documentaries and movies.

My dad was too young for WWII, but he was a Korean War vet, altho he spent his enlistment in San Diego. Kinda like me - I’m a Vietnam era vet, and I was in San Diego in April of '75.

Anyway, 54° to start the day here. My agenda includes filling the gas cans, mowage, vacuumage, emptying the dishwasher, a run to the convenience center, and picking up our travel credit cards at the credit union. If I’ve got anything left after that, I’ll take the mattress cover that I laundered back to the boat and cram the memory foam into it. I’m exhausted already… OK, that’s because I woke at 4-stoopit-o’clock. Bottom line - busy day ahead.

Happy Moanday!!

4

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 71 Amurrkin out and clear with a predicted high of 91 and partly N.O.S. whatever that means. Mowage shall be accomplished today as this will be the coolest day of the week and ‘tis badly needed as we are in danger of becomin’ the worst yahd in da hood and we just can’t have that. That will be the big effort of the day along with makin’ the death chikin for sup. I have decided the vegetative matter shall be peas 'n carrots. So it shall be mowage, sloth,nappage, possible quality cee-mint pond time, and the makeage and eatage of sup. Looks like a busy day. I’m tired already!

WetOne my dad was in WWII as well but he fought in the Pacific. Sorry about your ankle and hope it’s better soonest.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day! Rah,

Happy Moanday Y’all

5

Good morning everyone! Last week was Outer Banks, now enjoying my coffee in the Smoky mountains. Day’s plans include finding more ice for the cooler and exploring a bit of the Blue Ridge Pkwy. Other than grilling trout this evening, not much else is planned.

Almost forgot: temp shows 57 degrees, and it’s still outside (no wind).

6

Mornin’ all. Not much to report on from here, 'cept takin the truck back to my buddy’s shop to hopefully get the steering thing fully sorted. They replaced the rack, but it still wants to wander to the left, said it needs new tie rod ends. 15 year old truck in upstate NY, prolly kind of rusty down there.

Stay safe, y’all!

7

Morning all. Up before 6am again today, think whatever FCM has is catching, can’t seem to get a full 8 hours rest. List of things to do today, but all depend on when the plumber shows up and they didn’t give me a time, just that they’d call. So sittin’ around seems to be the major morning activity.

Heading for close to 90F, but rain moving in tonight and tomorrow it seems, so hopefully can get my outside the house stuff done.

My dad served in WWII and I remember 6 June and 7 December, but I can understand other (younger) people remembering 9-11 as a major date. Time passes.

VanGo, hope they can find the parts for the ol’truck there.

Yank, sounds like a nice, restful trip. Enjoy.

wet one, sorry you have to miss the Abbey, but London runs on the Tube, so a strike will really foul up things. Hope your companion likes crowds…

OK, back to the morning internettin’. All y’all take care.

8

Afternoon, mumpers! It’s 13c/56f out there, mostly cloudy. Weather app says “Sometimes, just when you think the sun is gong to come out, life gives you an anal probe”. I’ll stick with “mostly cloudy” instead.

My parents were too young to have served in WW2, but my grandparents weren’t. My mum’s father was in the merchant navy so although he wasn’t involved in the fighting, he was involved in keeping everyone supplied with stuff. My dad’s father died in the war…he feel off the church roof as he was putting wire netting up there! We had other relatives who worked in munitions factories, or were in the police force during the war but I don’t think there were any in the armed forces.

Nothing exciting to add to today, back at work, got icky things to do that I don’t want to do, and nothing that I do want to do! Except go home. I really want to go home. Only an hour and half to go.

9

Mowage is done, and I did a little weeding in my veggie patch. Time to shower and dress for going out into the world. FCD is coming home for lunch, then we’ll pick up his car. I’ll run my errands after lunch.

Roxy’s having a “graduation” on Thursday - I’m guessing for the kids who are going to public school next year. Hope my daughter gets some good pics. I have Tobster tomorrow and maybe Weds - daughter will be off but she’d like to get some work done at home. Funny, I get work done when I have him - it’s not that difficult… kids these days!

10

Busy from the spill over from Saturday business. Not sure when Granddad was drafted, he was in the Army in '46 at any rate.

: waves west :

So it’s got a nice rack now?

11

Update. Got more to grumble about than waking up early. Plumbers came and while the toilets are perfectly fine (yea!), apparently I have a pipe leaking in the ground so my spare bathroom is going to get torn up (boo!). Guess I need to call the insurance company.

Then gassed up car and hit the magic $100.00 mark (and am still about 3/4 of a gallon low). I’m sure many of you have already had the dubious privilege of seeing 3 digits on the gas pump, but it was a first (and hopefully-but not too hopefully) last for me.

Ah well, shopping -n- sammich runs went ok and am gnawing on my Jersey Mike’s #3 and chips. Swimming is still on the agenda for this afternoon and sometime after 3pm I need to pick up my dry cleaning (more $$). Mondays are my expensive days, I guess…

Take care all (where’s Friday when you need it?).

12

My parents were Vietnam-era, but 3/4 of my grandparents served in the military – though I don’t think any of them was active during WWII. I know that my maternal grandfather joined the Navy sometime between 1944 and 1946, but only because I have his Bluejackets’ Manual:

I opted not to go out on Saturday night. It was a nice weekend of mostly sloth, interrupted by brief periods of actually doing stuff…like, yesterday I ran the dishwasher and did the laundry! Woo hoo! I also trimmed the front hedges on Saturday, but I’ve been afraid to look at them since: they were loooong overdue, and I have a feeling they aren’t nearly as neat/tidy as I decided they were when my arms were about to fall off. :wink: I’ll know in about an hour, though, when I go to an appointment at the bariatric center.

A few weeks ago, I had an impulse to start re-watching the 1996 show The Pretender. I have the series (and at least the first movie) on DVD, but only the first two seasons are available via streaming. I wound up buying them, because it’s a show I revisit from time to time, and I figured two seasons would be enough to scratch the itch. Well, yesterday I decided they weren’t. :slight_smile: I still have all of my old discs (taken out of their cases and stored in two big CaseLogic wallets), but I no longer own a DVD or Blu-ray player: the only way I can watch discs on my TV now is via my old Sony Vaio laptop, which has a built-in player – which is the only reason I keep it. I connect it to the TV via HDMI and use a wireless mouse as a remote, and it works pretty well. But it had trouble booting up, and then it struggled with the Windows update (I loaded Windows 10 on it a year or two ago), and I got to thinking that it might not have much life left. So, I started poking around on Amazon. I don’t need a full-sized/featured Blu-ray player with streaming apps, etc.: I just want something that plays discs and can be easily stored away 99% of the time, and there are several out there, but OMG the reviews…I don’t feel like I can trust any of them! *sigh* Fingers crossed that the laptop hangs in there.

:anguished:

13

While I’m aware of what happened in 1944, more personal is 1985, when I lost a classmate to heart failure. First year of high school did not end very well.

One of my grandfather’s brothers served in the army in WW II and two of my grandmother’s brothers served as well. Both of my parents were born during the war.

Today was another holiday, and the weather cooperated enough for us to get a walk in today. The rain has come back and will stay until Wednesday. Some places got a lot of precipitation - there are some interesting videos of flash floods.

Made yogurt yesterday, which seems to have turned out well. Had some for breakfast, but it probably won’t last long - quite yummy with raspberries and a bit of maple syrup.

MetalMouse, hope the insurance covers the costs and the disruption is not too bad. Good that you watch your bills and noticed the increase.

And now I’ve learned something. My idea of Blue Jacket is a bit different.

Now it’s raining more, plus it’s sunny, so I’m going to go look for the rainbow. Have a good Monday!

14

Regarding D-Day and youth today, we are wondering what might be significant or relevant to, say, a twenty-year old. We might start by asking what events that happened 50 years before we were born seem significant to us. For me, that would something like the Boxer Rebellion or the Boer War, and the answer would be, it was entirely irrelevant when I was in school. Well, we did sing “Marching to Pretoria” in music class. History is often like pop culture: we tend to think we were part of or adjacent to and liked is the best and everyone should get that.

15

Exactly 50 years before I was born:
January 23 – The Ålesund fire destroys most buildings in the town of Ålesund, Norway, leaving about 10,000 people without shelter.

Later that same year:
February 7 – The Great Baltimore Fire in Baltimore, Maryland, destroys over 1,500 buildings in 31 hours
February 17 – Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly , with a background theme of Japan–United States relations, debuts at La Scala in Milan, to no great acclaim.
April 4 – 1904 Kresna earthquakes: two earthquakes strike near Kresna, Bulgaria, killing at least 200 people.
May 4 - United States Army engineers begin work on the Panama Canal. Now that’s worthy of remembering, yes?

And more. but yeah, it’s all too far back for me to have known about - heck, it was before my parents were born, and before my maternal grandparents were born!

OK, errands are done. Time to push the rollsuck around the carpeting.

16

Both of my grandfathers served in WWII. Dad got a Purple Heart in Korea and hubs floated around in a big ship during Viet Nam. I joined during the Viet Nam era but never got sent closer than Okinawa.

I mostly joined for the GI Bill, so got myself discharged to Hawaii. My GI Bill didn’t pay all the bills, so I got a job at the Arizona Memorial as a janitor. Most of the docents I liked to listen to are dead by now, memories fade and new disasters happen.

Beams proudly. Welcome to the cheese side! Yogurt doesn’t last long around this house either. Try cream cheese next, it’s pretty simple and so much better than store bought.

Hubs got some more beer started this morning, he’s using up all of his malt syrup and ground grains so he can start playing with his new system. He has much more discipline than me, if I had gotten a new toy I’d be playing with it by now.

I’m a really wasteful stitcher and was able to tell that I was going to run out of a thread for my current project. No surprise there, I always run out of something, so I ordered another spool. Three months ago, when I was gathering supplies for the project, that thread was 3.50 a spool. Last week I paid 5.75 for the exact same thing. AND the spool wasn’t plastic wrapped so the maker had put a sticky label right on the thread which messed up a couple of yards and annoyed me enough that I probably won’t order thread from that company for a long time. (I understand the price increase, I don’t blame the company for that. I do blame them for sending a deliberately damaged product though.)

17

I can’t remember what I’ve posted since arriving here in Mipples. We are now in our permanent apartment at Wrinkle Acres, but it will take us weeks to unpack all the boxes, half of which are temporarily in a vacant apartment. Way too much stuff, and way too little room.

The population here is largely a cross between The Walking Dead and Revenge of the Mummy. They are a pretty friendly lot, but most of them couldn’t hear a foghorn at six feet, which makes it devilishly difficult to have a conversation with them. I fixed one guy’s hearing aids; he had the batteries in backwards. One 95-year-old came and sat with us at lunch yesterday. After the sixth time she told us the story of her teaching career (word-for-word), I was pretty convinced that she has dementia. Why she doesn’t have one-on-one care is beyond me.

The food is pretty institutional, which is to be expected. Luckily, we can cook for ourselves. I’ve learned to avoid breakfast at all cost. It’s usually a choice between overcooked oatmeal or dry cereal. One day they had pancakes, and sorry sight those were: flabby, tasteless and barely warm.

On the bright side, the staff is very efficient and friendly, the apartment is quiet and comfortable, and there is heated garage parking. We’re going to have to work at meeting folks who are more able-bodied and more compos mentis, though.

18

Wet One I’m sorry that you missed Westminster Abbey. 'Tis very cool. I hope your ankle feels better, and your companion finds their way back.

Yank it sounds like you’re having a relaxing early summer. Do you have any pictures that you can share?

VanGo How is the sciatica?

BooFae I look forward to your daily weather reports. :smiling_imp:

looks for rolled up newspaper

Metal Mouse yikes! That sounds terrible. I hope the fix doesn’t set you back too much.

My grandfather was designing aircraft during WWII. My dad was slightly too young for Korea, and too old for Vietnam. My uncle was in the Air Force in Vietnam. I have 2 history degrees, so it’s hard for me to fathom not knowing these dates. I know people don’t, however.

Today I found ANTS in my kitchen. I have found a few ants in the last few weeks other places in the house. They’re coming in looking for water. Today they arrived in the kitchen. The Sunbeams and I spent time tracking the trails, putting bait at the origins, and spraying things down with Simple Green. We have the exterminator coming on Wednesday. Past experience tells me that I’ve already done more or less what they would do, using a different spray.

Now I feel like I’ve got ants crawling on me. Blech.

Today I need to accomplish various things, including mailing my ballot for tomorrow’s primary.

Tomorrow I’m off for another back procedure. I hate getting them, but the results are worth it. Now I need to figure out if there’s a more permanent fix.

Take care and Happy Monday!

19

Hello, Mumpers. I’m back. I took an unplanned break because while this is a nice playground full of gentle, friendly people, there are big kids who play rough out on the rest of the SDMB, and one of them led me to decide I needed to take my blankie and go home for awhile. I’ve also been busy with other things, namely other people’s problems IRL that I was asked to help with.

I missed each and all of you. Thanks for always being so kind.

D-Day? I made my US History students learn very few dates, but June 6th, 1944 was certainly one of them, and I’m very confident it stuck. They might not all think “Oh! D-Day!” every June 6th without someone reminding them, but they sure know what it signifies. My dad was in the army during WWII. The men on that side are late procreators: dad was 45 when I was born, and his father was in his late 40’s when Dad was born, so my grandfather was born during the Civil War.

Oh, and it’s assuredly not true that kids are only interested in events that happened close to their lifetime. WWII was and is fascinating to them, as are the 1960s and the war in Vietnam. I suspect when most of us Mumpers were kids, we were taught via drill-and-grill and almost exclusively from dull history textbooks, and the Spanish American War DID seem dry and unimportant, especially since nobody really explained why we were studying it or how it might apply to our own times. “Today’s current events are tomorrow’s history; today’s history was yesterday’s current events.” I used to say, and had kids wrestle with which events in their lifetimes would be studied in the future.

Betcha wish I’d stayed away a little longer, huh? :slight_smile:

BooFae, was the wire netting your poor grandfather was putting on the church roof to protect it somehow?

MetalMouse, I’m sorry about the leaking pipe. Sounds like it’ll require a mess for a time, but at least insurance will kick in.

Mooooom, I always love to read about those adorable grandkids of yours! Why is it that kids are clingier when their moms are around than with anyone else? My kids would gladly play on their own with grammas or their dad or babysitters, but if I stepped into the room, they instantly became barnacles. I loved it, but it does take longer to vacuum with a baby “helping” you.

Big hugs to all of you. You’re some of my favorite people, and I’m blessed to have you in my life.

20

Nope, nope, nope.

Boo rushes over to gleefully hug Nellie on her return, nearly knocking her down
{{{{{ Nellie }}}}}.