Fin De HalloHanuThanksChristKwazaa - A Post Holiday MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
341

Happy Sunday!

Happy New Year!

It was a nice 46 degrees at the park this morning.
Not too many of us there, five people and seven dogs.
It was quiet.
We left early because we forgot to charge the lasers, and once they died Cerby started barking.

He did well last night. After the initial outburst at the fireworks, he settled down.
I got woke up around midnight, but Cerby was quiet.

No armpit this weekend. I forgot to talk to them, and they never contacted me. Just as well, I don’t feel up to it anyway. I think I’d rather wait until after Ripple’s surgery. He smells so bad, and his wound is oozy.

Nothing special planned for today.
I’ve already slept half the morning away, anyway.
I need to check if trash goes out tonight.

The only thing I call abut with football, is as long as the colts and the ravens lose, I am happy.

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Minor amazement: when I did a minor grocery run (decided to go in person just to get out of the mini-cave for a little while), drivers were behaving remarkably sanely dealing with problems like dead traffic lights and branches/palm fronds in the road. You don’t typically see that level of intelligence and reason among drivers in this area.

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June 8, 1949, so over 73 years. They were teenagers when they married. MIL was telling us today, when they got married, they had $50 between them. They lived with his parents for a year, till they could save enough to build their own house. Over the years, they built 4 houses - not had built, but built themselves. We helped with one of them, since it was near where we lived, but it all started with them digging a basement, by hand, in Richmond, Indiana in 1950. Right up to their last house in Ocala where FIL built all the doors and cabinets, as well as all the trim woodwork, with MIL helping with the finish.

It was a tough visit to the hospital - he was totally out of it - never opened his eyes while we were there. He twitched and moaned, and his nurse said he’d been like that all night. I’ll be amazed if he lives long enough to be transported to the apartment - he hasn’t eaten for most of 2 days. Even MIL thinks he’s close to the end. She was a mess.

But she is thinking ahead a little. Once he dies and things settle a bit, she plans to fly to Texas to see her middle son, assuming he doesn’t die before then. And she doesn’t want to come live with us - I guess she’ll stay where she is till an apartment comes open at the senior complex. They’ve been on that waiting list for 4 or 5 months.

We met Daughter and SIL for lunch, then I took FCD to get his brother’s car and he headed back to the hospital. I’m home, about to put away the clean dishes and reload the dishwasher. Being on death watch is surreal.

344

I have hockey and handegg on at the same time. Life is good

Oopsie, last week the high was in the 20s. Today I have the windows open. Next week the highs will be in the 40s. N.C. weather, brought to you by Sybil.

345

Oh, and we stopped by a liquor store since FCD wanted some wine, and I thought I’d get some amaretto. I picked up a bottle of De Kuyper amaretto, but it didn’t have a price tag on it and the guy working today didn’t know how much it was, so he called the owner. 750ml - he claimed it was $31.99 - needless to say, it went back on the shelf. I’m guessing he was thinking about the larger, fancy-name amaretto, but I don’t care. I won’t be going back to that particular store. Since they changed hands, it’s changed too much. And it’s not like it’s the only option around her, by any stretch of the imagination.

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Fcm, it is a difficult time, I hope all goes as well as possible. I wish you and yours peace and strength.

347

That is a true statement.

348

The beans are still cooking, and the ham hock is still simmering. The collard greens have been trimmed, cut, and washed. The dry ingredients for the cornbread have been combined in a zip-top bag. In an hour I’ll see about removing the bones, skin, and fat from the ham hocks. In a couple of hours I’ll bake the cornbread. We’ll probably eat around 8 bells.

349

I’m jealous. I was going to make beans/hamhocks today for a few people, but ran out of ambition.

350

Thanks so much for sharing their earlier days with us. We kind of walked in toward the end of the movie. It’s good to know the beginnings. What a terrible loss. You’ve mentioned MIL’s vision issues before. Does someone come in to clean?

And let me make sure I have this straight: MIL’s husband is dying, one son is dying, and another is in terrible shape? Oh, my, my, my, my. That’s too much for anyone to have to handle. I’m so sorry.

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It’s hard

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nellie - so far, she does her own cleaning, but I expect we’ll help with the big stuff when we can. She’s not completely blind, but close. When the other son gets out of rehab and back to the apartment, he should be able to help.

But yes, FIL has parkinson’s, dementia, heart problems, and he’s dying. Middle son has parkinson’s, diabetes, kidney failure (he’s on dialysis) and he’s close to blind. Youngest son nearly died of an infection that he ignored - he’s got mental and emotional problems and he’s in rehab because of seizures that have left him weak. Of course FCD isn’t exactly the picture of health, what with 10 spinal surgeries and dealing with neuropathy in both legs. It’s challenging.

353

Howdy Y’all! We deheathenated, got back to da cave, and started on stuff for the big feast. Company started arrivin’ around twelve-thirty, which was fine. We et at two and everyone was out the door by three-thirty. Dishwasher got loaded and we took a little nap. Now we are up again and the biiiiiiiiiiig trash can has been hauled all the way down to the road for pickup tomorrow. I foresee an early bedtime tonight as we were up 'til midnight with the game and all.

MOOOOOOM bein’ on death watch is extremely weird and surreal. Havin’ done that with both of my 'rents I know of which I speak. However, I am glad I was there both times.

shoe I am sure you can think of a way to show your “appreciation” of GC on his natal day.

Speakin’ of natal days, tomorrow is OYKW’s bday. He wants waffles, bacon, and scrambled aigs for his bday sup. I shall also get him a small ice cream cake from DQ cause he likes those. We don’t make big deals of such things, but 'tis nice to do a little sump’n.

doggio and MetalMouse it occurred to me that the natty will be Dawgs vs Frawgs. This amuses me greatly.

354

Ham hocks and black-eyed peas don’t take any ambition! Just put the beans ham hocks, water, and bay leaves into the slow cooker and let it go. :wink:

For the collards and the cornbread, I did mise en place, de-stemming the collards and slicing them up, and combining the dry ingredients for the cornbread, when I felt like it. So it felt like almost no work.

The pork is in the bean pot and the greens pot. I’ve put the greens into the stock. Just waiting for the oven to heat up to 400º before I put the cornbread (in a Crisco-slathered cast-iron frying pan) into it. Quite a lot of skin and fat from the ham hocks. That’s been sliced up and put into the fridge. It will be boiled in oil eventually for some chicharrón-like things.

355

The black eyed peas, collards and cornbread turned out well and is et. I took a serving to Miss Ann and one to my next door neighbor (the poodles’ dad) so’s I don’t have to put so many of them in the freezer, which is pretty full right now. I didn’t use ham hocks in my BEP, but the bone and leftover ham from Christmas. I used some of the same in the greens.

356

Howdy all. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I spent the entire day yesterday watching college football. From 1 PM to midnight. On my second NFL game now. Watching Green Bay beat the Vikings bad. 24 to 3. Of course it’s just halftime.

I cooked a beef roast with carrots and onions, black eyed peas, collards and rice it was so good. I just need to now make fridge room and the clean up can wait.

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Yeah, I’ve made the dish more times than I can count. But my knee is bothering me, so. . .waaaaahhhhh.

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It’s late afternoon at Casa Rat, and except for getting out and eating dinner at Red Robin (Yum!), I have done nothing of consequence today. Hopefully I’ve re-calibrated and will start acting like a semi-responsible member of society tomorrow, but no promises.

Have read all but absorbed little, so everyone take good care and I’ll catch you on the next MMP.

359

I cleaned, recycled, took out the trash, cleaned the litterbox, did 3 loads of laundry, watched 7 hours of sports, and squeezed in some day drinking. I wish I was off tomorrow, so I could recover. Oh wait, I am! :smiley:

27-3 now in the 4th. :cheese: :cheese:
Happy New Year!

{{{{FairyChats}}}}

360

It is indeed.

:people_hugging:

Is that what kids are calling it these days?

Hurray! Back before I became a retired drain on society, I would always get all of the things done first just so I could spend a day working on my sloth skillz. Just think, some day, you will be one of us!!!

I hope this day off thing stands for the delivery drivers as well because 1. They deserve it and 2. Water fell from the sky all day and our front yard is a claypit. A delivery truck would get stuck and if the driver was as smart as GG and got out of the truck, they would end up not having the best day of their life.

We need to have a couple tons of river rock spread out there again but it won’t happen until things dry out.

It was rainy all day, and then it sleeted for a while before the wind started blowing things sideways. As our plans included slothing all day, we did a professional job of it.

I got the center of my new project going and it looks very pretty. This one will be challenging because it is basically class notes and drawings, not a nice clear graph like I am used to using.

The yard flock has grown vast and during breaks in the rain would come and cover the yard and feeders. Some of them hid from the rain in the porch rafters or even hung on the swinging chair chains. GG was in constant motion, stalking the birds from the glass French doors to the catio and then into my room and back out again.

Then the wind and sideways rain started and I realized that I couldn’t hear GG. This is never good, so I got up to look for him just as Hubs was also getting from killing monsters.

GG was out in the catio, in the crows nest of the tree. He was standing up and leaning into the wind with his eyes slitted and tail lashing joy*. We let him play out there for a measured 10 minutes and then called him in because while his little Maine Coon brain liked getting wet in 39F sideways rain, his big slave was worried and the smaller one agreed. GG is a housecat, his body is used to living in a climate controlled environment.

Once GG was inside, hubs grabbed him up and wrapped him in a towel before I could get a picture of him and his skinny little rat tail.

The towels have been washed and are in the dryer. Dinner has been finished and kitchen cleaned. I’m just about to a point in my project where I have to turn a counted corner while using a pretty picture for a pattern. Hubs is setting the kitchen up for beer cooking in the morning, he’s got the scales out and is doing maths and scribbling on his recipe. GG and VBC are snoozing on their bed, so all is right in our world.

*he looked like he wanted to star in the kitty version of the Titanic.