Grab a leaf rake in the MMP!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Howdy, y’all!

Friday afternoon I got a newsletter from one of my favorite DC jazz venues about their upcoming shows, and I wound up buying tickets for three of them. I now have tix for 5 upcoming events at various places: 3 in November (including Lisa Fischer and Harry Connick, Jr.), 2 in December, and 1 in January (Wicked). This is pretty ambitious planning for me – especially the November schedule – but I’m looking forward to each of them. (Plus my own show in December! :notes:)

Friday evening I learned that my application to be an at-large member of my NAACP branch’s executive committee was accepted! The full slate will be presented at Thursday evening’s general membership meeting (held via Zoom), and voting will take place separately (also virtually). We aren’t anywhere near the limit of allowed at-large members, so it’s not like I’m running against anyone: I think I’m “in” as long as no other members object. Everyone’s two-year term starts on January 1, and I’ve already gotten an email about scheduling the first 2023 executive committee meeting. :slight_smile: I think being part of the branch’s leadership but not holding any particular position and/or chairing any particular committee will be just right for me…we’ll see!

Yesterday afternoon I finally got my bivalent booster (I went with Moderna) and flu vaccinations. When I read in bed I lie on my left side, so I decided to get both shots in my right arm. After at least one of my previous COVID shots I remember my entire arm being super sore for a day; it hurt to use/lift it at all. But at this point it’s been ~23 hours, and so far there’s just some soreness at the injection sites…nothing bad, and no flu-like side effects. :crossed_fingers:

Recently I’ve been thinking about joining a county softball league in the spring. I played municipal softball for one season 24 years ago, when I lived in a different county: it was fun, but I was no good and the team was a little competitive for my taste. I’m in better shape now, though, and I guess I’m feeling inspired by all of the baseball I’ve been watching lately! In this county there seem to be two main organizations, and both offer “senior” leagues (for men 50+ and women 40+). I’ll probably look into one of those: even though I’m not in horrible shape anymore I’m still over 50, not athletic, and mostly just looking for some exercise/socializing (but not alcohol). We’ll see what early spring brings, and how busy I think I might be with the NAACP stuff.

Tomorrow I’ll go back to the office. When I was there last week the VPN connection on my customer’s laptop didn’t work the way it should, and IT is pretty sure there’s an issue with a setting on their end: I’m going back tomorrow to let a network engineer do some troubleshooting. Other than that I’ll be alone in the suite, which I don’t think I’ll really mind because windows. :smiley:

I’m a big Iron Maiden fan, and if I ever have another dog I might just have to steal the name “Maiden”! :smiley:

(I’m sure there’s a different story behind that dog’s name, though!)

You know, I honestly don’t remember the last time I went to a Wal-Mart! There’s one not far from me, I just go other places for my stuff.

When I had my old car, I bought a small compressor that I kept in the trunk: mostly I used it whenever the seasons changed, and the tire pressure would go just wacky enough to set off the TPS. So handy! When I bought my current car I “upgraded” my compressor, and gave the old one to my nephew (who had just gotten a car).

When I watched For All Mankind, that always took me out of the story for a moment!

I have two watches that’ve needed to have links removed for several months, and I must thank you: your post reminded me that I have an eyeglass repair kit, which reminded me that I also have a watch-link-removal kit! Last night I did a quick YouTube search, and adjusted both bands myself in less than 25 minutes. :slight_smile: So, thank you!

Exactly. And any reasonable renter should expect it. I’ve been a renter my entire adult life (well, almost: since '94), and I always expect my rent to go up whenever my lease renews. Luckily, the increases with my current landlord have been quite reasonable so far.

Awwwww!

I suppose it’s time to get on with the day…which will include doing a lot of nothing. I had a couple of tentative “if I feel like going out tonight” things on my calendar, but I’ve already decided that I won’t. :slight_smile: It’s almost 2:30pm, and I’ve been on the computer since I woke up: time to relocate to the living room, have a late lunch, and catch up on some TiVo before this evening’s Yankees game starts.

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Waaaaay back when I was in “A” school in Millington, TN, the rule on the base was that all cars stopped for pedestrians. I guess that was pretty much a universal rule on Navy bases? Anyway, once when I was home on leave, I was walking in downtown Baltimore with my dad and I just stepped off the curb to cross the street. He immediately pulled me back as traffic did not stop - sometimes not even for red lights…

Lessee - we rode down to the apt to give the chicken to the inlaws. FIL was hallucinating pretty badly. When we arrived, he was in their kitchen talking about going into the basement (no, they don’t have one) and later he insisted there was a bird with a dirty backside on one of the ceiling fan blades. FCD keeps trying to explain to him that he’s the only one seeing these things because of the Parkinson’s and after we left, I told him he shouldn’t try to reason with his dad - it just makes both of them frustrated.

I know this is really hard on him, and he feels really helpless, but there’s no magical cure for dementia and his father won’t get better.

Last night, he started yet another conversation with “If I ever get like my dad…” and I told him flat-out that unlike his mother, I will seek help and I won’t insist on caring for him on my own. And I mean it. Especially since I’m older than he is - who knows if I’ll be around when he’s as old as his dad. I know he worries about his old age, but I can’t take that for the next 30 years.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a chicken in the smoker and I baked 15 russets - some were too round for twice-baked. I like the nice, elongated shapes. Anyway, they’re cooling and soon I’ll scoop 'em, mash and mix the innards, and refill the shells, then wrap them up for the freezer. I’ll send 9 to the in-laws and keep 6 for us.

For now, my sweetie is napping and I’m going back to my utterly predictable cheesy historical romance book.

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Afternoon all. Body has been exercised and sauna’ed and I took advantage of the sweaty condition to shower and clean myself up. Out for an early dinner in an hour or two, depending on when I get hungry. Up to 74F outside, so far a real nice Fall season.

Still reaching out to stroke my beard or run a comb though it, I think my unshaven look will be rather brief this time. Simply think I look better in a beard.

In general drivers around here respect the crosswalks, but jaywalking is likely to get you yelled at, at the least.

Oopsie, Congrats on the tickets and the acceptance. Haven’t played softball in 30 years, not sure if there is a 70-older league or not…

OK, back to tackleball. Take care all.

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Chores are done and Sunday dinner et ('twas good) and after KP, I’ll continue messing around in the studio. Tomorrow, it’s back to the salt mines.

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One parcel of bacon equals three stacks equals 12 rashers equals six servings equals three days.

I’ve wrapped up seven pounds of bacon into 8 ⅔ parcels and put them in the freezer (minus one in the fridge). So assuming our normal rate of consumption of two rashers each, two days a week (Saturday and Sunday), we have bacon for the next six months.

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Happy Sunday!

It was a not so bad 40 degrees at the park this morning.
Not too many people were there.
Cerby is getting braver.

Echo and Cerby got into a fight under my bed this morning. I was awake already, but that got me up.
I’m getting more than a little tired of Echo’s bitchiness. She is lucky he doesn’t fight back, because he could take her down hard.
He is a stubborn thing too. He likes to stay outside, which would be fine if he didn’t bark at everything. I don’t worry about anybody trying to steal him, I think he would leave them in shreds. I do worry he may jump the back fence/gate. They are only 5 feet high, and he can see through them. I know he can do it, but I think he doesn’t know he can do it. I’d like to have a solid 6-foot fence, but that will have to wait.

I still get nervous when I drive through the spot where I hit the deer. I swear every bush, weed, tree stump, whatever, morphs into a deer shape as I drive by.

My mother said the reason Baltimore never had a step of the curb rule is because people would pretend to step off the curb to get you to stop, so they could rob you. I know more than one woman who found out the hard way that you do not leave your pocketbook on the passenger seat without locking your doors. They had them snatched while sitting at a red light or in heavy traffic.
I was sitting parked one day and a guy came up to the truck, opened the passenger door and got in with me.
Him: How you doing?
Me: Just fine, how are you?
Him: Doing good.
Pause
Me: Why are you in my truck?
Him: Don’t you want to buy something?
Me: Uh, no.
Him: Oh, sorry. Have a nice day.

I used to have nerves of steel; I don’t know what happened.

I polished the kitchen sink today. It’s been on the list for a while. I used to do it on a regular basis and I’ve let it go for a long time. It looks better. It’s a small thing, but the kitchen looks a lot better when the sink sparkles. It also inspires me to do more cleaning.
I have a million other more important things to do.
I finally printed out a list and presented it to my son. He can’t do most of what is on there, but he cleaned all of the window sills, except for my bedroom and his bedroom.
I really need to re-pot the plants today. I’ve been putting that off for weeks. It’s supposed to be in the 70s tomorrow, so that is going on the list for sure. Better to do it outside when it’s warmer. Today is only in the 60s.

I think dropping off the taxes was such a load off my mind. Of course, I still need to pay them, which is going to hurt, I’m sure.
Now I can focus on wth is going on with my son’s unemployment.

Oh damn, one of the congress people is sending people door to door to talk about him. Set all the dogs off, but Cerby went berserk. I think the poor canvasser is sorry he stopped here, I hate that candidate and the poor guy got a piece of my mind. He actually wanted to talk to my son, but Sah-son is not going to talk to anybody. He had been sleeping, until the knock on the door.
Cerby sure wanted a piece of him though.
If nothing else, he is a great watch dog.
However, all the excitement stirred up Echo, and once I closed the door she went after Cerby again. Maybe she could use a little Prozac.

Lucky Monkey, I hope he realizes just how good he has it.

Ooopsie, I never would have taken you for an Iron Maiden fan.

I’m sorry about your FIL, FCM, but I think you are right there is no sense in trying to reason with him. I donnot blame you for not wanting to be responsible for BIL.
One of my pet-sitting clients used to get me to sit with her mother who had Demetia. I could barely take it, and I was only there for a few hours. I cannot imagine doing it all the time.

Red, I used to take in strays. Or rather I had them dumped in my yard with notes attached to their collar. I had to rehome several as they could not handle sharing a space with other dogs. I think it’s too soon to decide anything yet. Everybody is adjusting. Even Ripple is a bit off his normal behavior.
He has been through a lot MetalMouse, and I do have sympathy for him. I’m sure he is confused; this is his third home.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Aussies, and joined some groups on FB.
They do seem to be challenging dogs, probably because they belong on a farm with a herd of sheep. That is one of the recommendations, try to find a trainer with sheep who will let the dogs do their natural work to help calm them down.
It would help if Echo wasn’t such a bitchy dog. She still gets pissy with some of the dogs at the park.

I like bowls, but I also like minimalism, and since minimalism is cheaper and easier to clean, I don’t have a lot of bowls.

It’s fortunate I didn’t want a lava cake. My son asked me if I wanted one (the come three to a box now) and I said no. He said that is good because he already ate all of them. I’m trying to cut back on junk. I succeeded yesterday, and so far, today.

I hope you are feeling better Taters.

Good Luck with the CPAP Boo I hear people love them once they get used to them.

Poor GG, you have doors that bite.
Cerby follows me into the bathroom and I am not amused. Ripple and Echo know they are not allowed in there. Cerby has no concept of personal space.

Trash goes out tonight, and I have most of it bagged up and ready to go.

I hope to get to bed early.
Tomorrow is a new day, and a new week, and I hope to make some lifestyle changes and get a bunch of shit done.
We need some order around here.

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Howdy Y’all! We deheathenated, got back to da cave and had N.O.L. followed by nappage. ‘Tis a beautiful afternoon, so we sat out beside the cee-mint pond for a while and day drank. I think if it’s on Sattidy or Sunday durin’ the day it’s not considered day drinkin’, but weekend drinkin’. Not that it matters to me, cause I have seven day weekends now. Retirement be fun! Oh, and the biiiiiiiiiiiig trash can has been hauled all the way down to the road for pickup tomorrow.

MOOOOOOM I agree with you on findin’ someone else to deal with BIL and his stuff. I would not want to be responsible for all that either. Plus it’s not fair to you to have to deal with it all.

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Same with me - both places - at least when I drove in the dark. I don’t do that any more, but when FCD is driving, I’m still hyper-vigilant.

I don’t mind helping FCD - I know he’d do the same if our positions were reversed, but I wouldn’t expect him to take on the responsibility of any of my sibs. He agreed - we just need to figure out how to designate a representative if necessary.

Chickie is smoked - it’ll be tomorrow’s supper. Russets are stuffed, and the caps I cut of became N.O.T. skins with cheese on them. I didn’t have any sour cream (dammit) but ranch works. That was supper. And I bagged 9 spuds for the inlaws and 6 for us. There were several really big ones that can be cut in half for 2 servings. MIL will get hers tomorrow. Ours are in the freezer for future meals.

MIL’s youngest sis and her husband may come for Thanksgiving. They’ll stay with us. The caveat is that their car is in the shop awaiting a part, and the shop has no idea how long it’ll take to come it. So we may not know till the last minute whether they’ll be here or not. It’s about a 10.5 hour drive (they live in Avon, IN - just west of Indy) so doable in one long day.

OK, time to assume the chillage position. I’m done for tonight!!

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I am never leaving my apartment again. The world is way too scary and weird out there. I walked to visit a friend and then took the babushka cart to the grocery store because they Canada Dry ginger ale for half price. I had my headphones on. On the way home, a nicely-dressed twenty-something guy walking toward me flagged me down. I lifted my headphones, and he said, “I have a question for you. Do you have a boyfriend?”

I said, “Yes,” (I’m no dummy, and Old Flame isn’t really a bf, but for now, he counts.), then as I turned away, I said, “Have a nice day” because my colleague C. used to say, “ALWAYS be nice to potential shooters.”

He said, “You, too, if you want one.” I walked away and saw his shadow behind me… He had turned around and was following me! When I’d gone 4 blocks and he was still there, I pretended I got a phone call and said loudly, “Are you still at the shooting range?” and pretended my “boyfriend” was on his way over. It didn’t deter him. He turned down my street after me, got in front of me, and tried to block my path. I ignored him and went around him. Luckily he didn’t follow me into the complex. I don’t think he saw where I went from there.

The weird thing involved my new neighbors, but this is already too long, so I’ll save that for another day.

Sari, when you were asking for names, I thought of “Chaos” but decided that name would be asking for trouble. It does sound like he’d do better as an only dog and out in the country. Wow, what a nervous dog! I hate to think what he’d be like OFF the meds.

JtC, the scary salmon had me laughing again. GG may have been a ploy to get your hubs vaxxed, but he’s turned into a day-brightener for people he’ll never meet.

FCM, can you distract your FIL when he hallucinates? I’ve read that’s a good approach for many people with dementia. Man, between him, your legally blind MIL, and your mentally ill BIL, what a three-ring cirucs you have going! Oh, wait, add a ring for the grandkids. May I say how spiffy you look in your ringmaster duds?

Oopsie, good luck on the election! And I love how eclectic your musical tastes are!

I’d better get the plants watered before my kids call.

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Leftover poke Cheops for dinner. Goo helped me eat mine. I also had a spoonful of mashed potatoes and gravy, and The Missus got the bulk of the potatoes & gravy.

There’s a big brown bunny in the yard, keeping the cats interested.

Speaking of cats we saw a familiar one earlier today. Later, there was a small grey cat with a ringed tail that came into the yard. She (?) was so cute peeking at us from behind the wood shed. I think I’ll call her Ringo.

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I kinda sorta want a part time seasonal job to pay for the possible Floriduh trip. Fannie May called but the pay is minimum wage, $12 an hour. I felt guilty turning down the interview but a girl’s gotta make more than that. The gift shop at my former employer (hospital) has been outsourced and is hiring for $14 an hour. I may apply……

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Cleaned, watched the wrong handegg game(Packers lost, Panthers won), took out the trash. I’m having a Wisconsin Old Fashioned to drown my tackleball sorrows while the sweet N.O.T. and poke loin bakes.

nellie, yeah, that’s scary

\m/–\m/
And congrats on the committee selection.

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Which I, of course, would call ‘poke lions’.

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I hope you can, hobbies are much more fun when you aren’t stealing time from sleep because you have to get up to go to work.

Cracks up. I was being really careful to avoid using the word “pot” cause I knew someone else would do it for me :slight_smile:

Boo, I got your PM and oddly enough, you requested just the bowl size I don’t have. Well, except for the Corelle in the cupboard. You do know what that means, don’t you? That means I have to go shopping, hurray!!! This is the very best time of the year to shop for handmade items, I’m really excited to get started!

I went back to the yard sale with the lovely bowl because I remembered her having a pretty cereal sized bowl, but she had sold that one too, the bitch! I punished her by buying these instead.

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I’m going to ask our housekeeper to put them up on the pot shelf for me because Hubs would hurt himself doing it.

That was my experience as well, I was also happily surprised.

Way back when, we had a St. Bernard. She had always known hubs with a full beard until the day he shaved. Poor confused dog barked at him, STRANGE MAN IN OUR DEN, DANGER, ALERT, DANGER!!! She did figure it out but still looked sideways at him for a week or so.

Small things add up. I’m glad you sound more optimistic today.

Too bad your imagination didn’t give her a whip to snap at everyone to get them sitting pretty on their stools.

Grumpy Old Cat is 18 years old and in kidney failure. We probably only have a year left. No matter how long GG lives, he’s probably never going to get over his fear of cooking salmon. There isn’t a day that goes by that we both don’t get a good laugh out of something he does.

That guy following you sounds pretty scary, but I did laugh at your pretend phone call to your boyfriend at the range. Shame it didn’t work.

Hubs made beer yesterday so I took the spent grain and some empty egg cartons to a friend with chickens and of course she gave me a dozen eggs. Hubs is so strange about non-commercial eggs sometimes he thinks they are the best things ever and other times he refuses to eat them because reasons. He grumped about them today but this time it was minor insult that my friend thought we couldn’t buy our own eggs. Yeah, right, suck it up Buttercup. Ya feeds the chickens, ya gets the aggs.

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I just assumed she had one now. How ELSE would she keep everyone in line? Oh, wait, she’s nice, dammit. :slight_smile: That’s some beautiful revenge you got on the bowl lady, JtC.

WetOne, I hope you get a job that pays well so you can travel to Floriduh in style.

That was nice of her. (Him?) BTW, I’ve always thought there must be a good story behind that name. Yes?

I no sooner hit Send earlier when my daughter called, and her brother immediately after. Which reminds, me, JtC, I regaled her with GG tales, and she thought they were hysterical. She does cross-stitch. I think you two would get along swimmingly. Heck, I think you’d all like both my kids. They’re funny and sweet, and I’m not just saying that because I’m their mom. I had each of them in class, too!

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Those pieces have such pretty glazes!

I did several glass-fusing classes and I enjoyed it but gave all the pieces away. One fall I even did blown glass Christmas ornaments (and some fused glass ones). I did keep one for myself but this spring I dropped it dusting and it broke. I have now given up dusting. Time will tell if I ever go back and do some more fused glass. I suspect grandbabbies have supplanted glass art as my new hobby.

Today at Harriet’s we hot glued single serving applesauce cups on a cardboard box and then spray painted it blue so she can be a Lego for Halloween-her idea. No special reason for the blue except that blue was the color of spray paint her parents had sitting around. Hot glue and rust oleum are wonderful things. At a loss to find a use for duct tape yet but the week is young.

Very windy here all day~the southern half of our county (rural and several small towns) got evacuation orders to bug out because of swiftly encroaching grass fires. We kept our windows closed even though it was a gorgeous day because it smelled so bad. They set up an animal sanctuary at the county fairgrounds so pets and farm animals could be evacuated too. So far no injuries reported.

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I’m sure we would as well! Stitchers understand suddenly being ignored when someone is doing something complicated with string, spouses tend to pout :slight_smile:

I know your kids are great people, how could they not be with such a wonderful Mom?

Very wise choice!

The hourglass shaped one has a Roku glaze. It feels slightly pebbly, the one to the right has a lot of subdued blues and greens that don’t show well in the pic.

Harriet’s costume sounds like a great piece of art all by itself! So very creative too :slight_smile:

Grass fires have to be even more unpredictable than the wild fires we have here, cause grasses regrow kinda clumpy. Fingers crossed that everyone stays safe.

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Her. We adopted older cats, so we kept the names they had at the shelter. Our late Tonka was 8 when we adopted him, and Goo was six. We never found out how either of them got their names, but Tonka was big and truck-like. Our late, young, Creamsicle was a stray, and we’d been calling her ‘Creamsicle kitty’ when we’d see her before she adopted us. Abbey was only 2 when we adopted her. We kept her name too, including the extra ‘e’. As for Goo, Former CWO2 Wifey had been stationed in South Korea. She says ‘Ay goo!’ means ‘Oh, shit!’ in Korean. I’m skeptical, but I know better than to question her.

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I forgot to mention that if any of those strikes your fancy, just say so and it will be on its way :slight_smile:

Now for the nightly GG story.

Many years ago, a friend gifted me with a handknitted a Javalina cat toy.

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It has survived decades of abuse and VBC would drag it around once in a while. I put it in a bathroom drawer to make it more of a challenge and VBC was up for it a couple of times a week. Once we bought her a kitten, she didn’t need piggy to drag around anymore, so it was forgotten.

Tonight I remembered that it was there and put it on the floor so it was looking in at the cat bed. GG woke up and saw it and froze. Then hairs started sticking up. Not all at once and not in any sort of normal progression, his back leg FLUFFED while the other back leg had about 12 hairs standing on end. VBC just looked annoyed because her warming blanket had moved.

After a good five minutes, GG got up the nerve to jump off their bed and sneak up on piggy. By this time he was fully fluffed and was slinking around like he knew how to hunt. It took him almost ten minutes to finally get close enough to piggy to be able to smell VBC on it, then it was OK.

Hubs misses so much while he’s killing monsters…

(yes, it is their bed and towels are easier to wash than bedspreads)

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Late evening all. If I waited 25 more minutes I would be able to start the new MMP, but I don’t think I’ll last that long. Not much outside of eating meatloaf at the Logan’s Roadhouse has trouble my afternoon and evening, BBC America was running a Dr. Who Marathon leading up to the big reveal of the Newest Doctor (if there are any Whovians here, I won’t spoil it but it was a bit of a shock), and I switched back between that and tackleball until I tired of both and came back here.

JtC, thanks for one last GG story of the week.

Sari, is there any sort of behavior training (outside of whacking here with a newspaper) you can do with Echo? Good luck with the pack.

Yeah, I’m waiting to see what the kid’s reaction is tomorrow (we have practice).

nellie, YIKES!! I’d change my route if you can do so and make sure you stay in populated areas–and have 911 on speed-dial. Maybe it’s nothing but it sure sounds serious to me. Take care.

OK, now 11:45pm and finding the right keys is hard, so off to bed and I’ll catch all y’all on the next MMP.