Harvest Festival in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

Try green beans and sweet potatoes. I use both when I make homemade food for Nelson. Sis adds kale for her crew. It boosts the iron content.

When I was in high school, the classroom portion of driver’s ed was offered in school and the road portion during the summer. It was all of $12 to take it, which, generally reduced insurance premiums. By the time my two youngest sisters reached high school, the price had gone up to ~$200, which, for my family, wasn’t offset by the insurance discount.

For whatever reason, I totally dislike horseradish and wasabi. It’s not that I don’t like heat (I love Thai, Lao, good Mexican, and other spicy food), but there’s something else in both of those that just turns me off.

Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and fixing to do KP.

Sleep sucked last night. I awoke around one thirty for a bio break and by three, I was achy enough to be still awake, so I got up and took a half pain pill. I drifted off again around three thirty and at four, my bedroom smoke alarm began screaming. I got up, turned it off, did a patrol both inside and out, determined that there was no immediate threat (the alarm didn’t start back up, so I was comfortable that it was a fluke) and went back to bed. I woke up a little later than usual.

I’m all sheveled and waiting for Sis to get here for girls’ day out. Neither of us needs a lot at the grocery store, so we’re going to check out a couple of thrift stores whilst out.

Stay safe and healthy y’all!

102

Exercised and puzzled, though not related. Taking the wife to her last appointment in the series she’s been through. This one is, I believe, to assess her memory. She’s a bit nervous about it, but I think she needs a baseline. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if she wants to cancel it.

Sadie’s wand toy finally bit the dust. Looking pretty ratty and she barfed on it this morning. I put a new one on and she likes it, so play crisis averted!

103

Ditto. Hot is good but those are nasty flavors. Mustard is the same idea, just cloyingly weak. Yuck.

I had a full cognitive workup done at our local neurology / senior memory care center shortly after I retired. As a baseline. They told me “Well, you’re not 20 anymore, but you’re OK for now.”

I sorta think everybody should get one pretty early in their gray years, with periodic follow-up. If you are destined to have at least some sorts of mental failure, early interventions are available that have a lot more leverage when applied as early as possible.

Best of luck however that plays out for you both.

As to Driver’s Ed …
Drivers ed was (IIRC) mandatory in public high school in my locale & era and was taken during whichever semester you turned 16. If it cost anything, it was nominal. I don’t recall ever hearing anything about the process of paying from parents. Suggesting there wasn’t one.

As to my day …
Noon here, have had my breakfast out and beach session while the housekeepers housekept. Now I’m slowly drying and procrastinating away today. Sheveling, launching their laundry, and getting serious about getting the car fixed are must-do items for today.

So here I sit yabbering w y’all. RDOS FTW!

104

UK driving laws are very strict, so… yes, that’s a bit high, but not hugely. Depends on the area. You have to pass both theory and practical tests before being able to drive without a responsible licence holder in the car, and some of it you’re just not passing without lessons. It’s quite common for people who have been driving in other countries for years to fail the UK driving test.

Apparently the current average is about 45 lessons to pass. It winds up pretty eye wateringly expensive, even without the car or insurance.

I got a call from a joiner I’d messaged a few weeks ago (recommended by a friend, said he’s good and reasonable price, but because he’s good and reasonable he’s always busy)- he was gonna come round and quite for fitting a new kitchen this afternoon.
He cancelled.
I’m now sulking.

It’s really tough to find anyone to do stuff like that here at the moment. The fact he actually told me- with a reasonable amount of notice- that he wasn’t coming is actually better than average. Many of them just ghost.

105

Her long term memory is excellent. As I had hoped, the doctor told her she needs to get some exercise and walking in on a regular basis. She also needs to cut way down on carbs and lose weight, as her A1C is at 6.7 and her BP is climbing. She still needs to get a full workup, and they’ll call about an appointment.

106

If I want to work for a Mickey Mouse organization, I’d move to Orlando. - dogbuter
I had 2 printers crap out on me in the Mez, one workstation didn’t have the exception program(neither did the 200 Slide), and another didn’t have the scanner talking to the exceptions program(same in Irregs). Plus they kept taking clerks to sort and run packages, instead of..ya know..clerking packages so they could go out. So it was a chaotic mess. Plus a couple of us had to help Hazmat with reboxing 50-60 spilled on pacakges. I got out at 12:45. And we(should) start picking up volume soon for Peak. Anyways, I came home, and Spot and I played some ice cube soccer. When I set my phone down on my bed to grab clean clothes, Spot pawed at it, and started a Reel of some lady doing katana drills, and he was utterly fascinated. So I better keep the swords away from him.

Spot gets irked when he’s left alone. after all, there’s no point being a Small Egyptian God if you don’t have followers to smite.

It was a class in High School when I was growing up. I still know how to do a 3 point turn.

He still works here. Oh, you meant like the Orkin man!

I love it.

107

Okay, I wanted to update.
I had a training session Monday and also one Tues at a second job( both a few days a week).
I texted them and said I couldnt make it because I was grieving( my ex I was going to get back with).
The first one said, You’re not reliable, not a good fit. Bye.
The second one said sorry for your loss.
So I am training tomorrow.
Thats about it; going out often to try and distract myself.
At least my begging is over with.
My expenses for a month are 25 for rent ( a third of income eventually), 35 phone, 40 bus passes, and about 45 toilet paper.
Thats it.

108

I’ve been on fall break for the last few days. Other than performance and rehearsal obligations, I’ve been absolutely useless. Accomplished nothing around the house, didn’t practice, didn’t read a book, barely cooked for myself.

It’s been nice.

109

I never had driving lessons, Dad didn’t want us to learn to drive until we were 18 and he wasn’t legally responsible for damage we might cause. (Of course, they bought my baby sister a car when she was 18, but whatever)

So I ran away and joined the USAF when I was 17. When I got to my first duty station (after Basic and Tech school) I bought a motorcycle and went to the motor vehicles to get my driver’s license because I assumed that my active duty military card would over ride that pesky age requirement. I could drink at the E-club…

Well, I was wrong, at first they said NO! So being the smart, mature young person I was, I burst into tears because I was old enough to die for my country but not old enough to drive to my duty station?!?

They took my picture and sent me on my way. Armed with that, I got my base motorcycle license. Then I went over seas but had my valid US driver’s license and Okinawa was still driving on the right side of the road for half my tour, so I got my Okinawan DL without testing. By the time I was 21, everyone just assumed that I had been tested and knew what I was doing, so I just kept getting renewed and all with no driver’s training, no written test and no road test.

So far, nobody’s died.

But anyhow I actually came online to share an epitome I just had. Dad always told me that Ghosts spoke Latin because it was a dead language.

Well, I try to read the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire in Latin once a year just to keep my skills up and had settled in with a nice joint and suddenly realized that boo is a Latin verb meaning “to cry aloud, roar or bellow”.

So there’s your education for the day, LOL!

110

Started Typing: 4:45 PM ET
Clicked Reply: 5:37 PM ET

It’s amazing how much there is to catch up on when I miss just one day! :slight_smile:

Monday’s voice lesson went well. The lesson was with a full-time musician and educator who I studied with less than a year ago: she regularly performs both jazz and classical repertoire, so I trust her judgement in both genres and I know she’ll always be honest with me. I’d sent her a recording of my a capella excerpt the day before, and started our lesson by asking frankly if I was fooling myself about having any remaining technique: happily, she laughed and said no. Whew! Then she gave me a bunch of great feedback. I still have a lot of practicing to do, but I definitely feel better prepared for Sunday’s audition and much less worried about embarrassing myself.

Yesterday and today were largely uneventful, just busy. I’m about to leave the office: the cleaners came today, so I’m looking forward to going home to a clean house (inside). The power-and-window-washers will be there on Friday morning.

Last night my Yankees (finally) beat the Blue Jays, so they get to play Game 4 tonight. It’s another must-win game, and another game that I can’t watch – but if we win, I’ll be able to watch Friday night’s division-deciding Game 5 on Fox.

Isn’t there always with them? *sigh*

( :wink: :joy:)

Suggestion #1: Use a mirror.
Suggestion #2: Aim your cell phone’s camera at the spot and take a few random photos; maybe you’ll get a “good” one.

Ooooo, nice! Congrats, and I hope it gets here sooner rather than later!

It ain’t cheap to fix big Oopsies, either. :grin:

At least 38 years ago: it was in effect when I got my license there (in '87).

It’s been 40 years since my family lived in England, but I remember that it wasn’t uncommon to see the red “L” tags on a car for quite some time…seemingly permanently on some!

111

Congrats! Confidence is contagious and makes everything else better.

112

Well, Sis bailed on me today. She had a worse night than I did (she’s a lifelong insomniac). So, we’re on for tomorrow. I finished up a card set and am getting cleaned up from that. Then chillage.

113

What’s weird is that the person who was supposed to play them (the drama was that she simply wasn’t playing them. Apparently she was caught up on which set she should use. The director finally said “whichever one plays at the right time.” She did not come to the concert) is also the person who abruptly quit their voice teaching job at a local university and who I replaced the following semester. I had never met her.

Anyway, I’ve been neglecting the MMP for a while and missed your chorale audition stuff. Since it’s my area, I’m curious: what’s the nature of the group and what’s the audition process?

114

Howdy Y’all! Home from the Wednesday night doin’s/cookout. I did grill master duty and as a reward, I got a cold beer snuck out to me. Beer in the parish hall is no biggie, but this bein’ one of those family and kids friendly things made me feel like I was bein’ bad. I do so enjoy that feelin!:ogre: A good crowd on hand and everyone seemed to enjoy the cookout idea. Speakin’ of Cook Out, OYKW picked himself up some stoner food for sup.

I took a driver’s ed. class in high skool. I already had my license, but by takin’ the course I got a discount on insurance. A brand new Chevrolet was donated, but GM was on strike at the time, so we didn’t have the car until the last three weeks of class. That was fifty-five years ago. WOW!

115

Pilot, I missed the part about how your car got bashed. I once worked in a plant that made energy absorbing plastic-shelled bumpers for General Motors. It’s possible the sacrificial plastic honeycomb parts inside your bumper have been crushed, even though the shell still looks pretty good.

I finished the Summer House jigsaw puzzle. Damn, that was a lot of sky and tree leaves! I’ve gotten to where I sort the pieces by shape. Plus-shape here, H-shape here, all-holes here, 3-holes-and-a-peg here, 3-pegs-and-a-hole here, and none-of-the-above over here. That’s helpful when they all look like sky or tree leaves.

116

Ms Peach was an energetic a-hole this evening. But after 2+ hours of “play time” she’s calmed down…some. Currently she is roaming around the house deciding on which of the many chew toys to chew on.

The water feature at the museum is still proving to be a problem. We were supposed to be pouring concrete today, but apparently issues with the supplier. TBH, I frankly wouldn’t be surprised if the GC f-ed up. I’ve worked with his wife and she is not the most reliable of folks, nor wise. She once asked me to have junior high school kids move tens of thousands worth of sound and lighting equipment that did not yet belong to the school department. That was a big no from me. That shit stayed where the contractors left it.

I took a drivers ed class at a non-associated with the school system place. Don’t remember what it cost. I do remember that on my first attempt at the road test, my Dad had forgotten his license, I passed the test but didn’t get my license because of that. Passed the second time too, maybe a week later.

117

Driver’s ed was a required semester-long course at my high school – usually in 10th grade, though some of the younger folks had to wait until 11th. The only cost was for the learner’s permit, but I never did come up with the cash for it, which is why I hadn’t driven whilst in class (not that I was any great rush for it, since my mother didn’t have a car).

Which reminds me of a story she once told me. She did try to learn to drive when she was eighteen or so, but the second time she was behind the wheel, she – and the car, of course – came ve-e-r-r-ry close to joining an elderly couple who were sitting out on their front porch. She never tried driving again after that experience. :slight_smile:

118

Late evening all! Had tapas and Crianza for dinner, now enjoying a Hendricks martini at the cigar bar. Not smoking myself but enjoying the aroma. Something nobody anywhere ever said about second hand cigs. Which stench.

Also hoping to watch TOR finish NYY. Sorry northeastern Mumpers. Not an obvious blowout but so far after 5 TOR is leading more than NYY is. The crowd here is heavily NYY fans, so I predict an angry but genteel departure if NYY drops it. Yaay!

GF called. Her posse from the Sunday party are now trying to tell her I’m evil. Gee thanks ladies. She recognizes they always attack anyone’s hub or BF as evil or not good enough. Including her priors. Bunch of lazy misandryists IMO.

But unfortunately that means she’s heading towards a [lifelong friends or me; not both] bifurcation. I intend and expect to win, but I sure don’t welcome it being at that cost to her. I’d much prefer both over one. Idjits.

Why can’t people be charitable and nice instead of catty & jealous and raging Xian prudes? The fact they all have disastrous histories w men might be a factor. Might.


I could try. :grin:

I’ve not spent extensive time in UK since forever, but the sheer number of big red Ls when I was there always amazed me. Which suggests either lots of fresh immigrants, a beastly hard licensing process, or both.


Me too. Mild delinquency in genteel surroundings is one of life’s great pleasures. :grin:

About 51 for me. Lots in any case. WTF? How’d that happen?


I was parked in a parking lot and returned to find the person in the adjacent space had just barely, but thoroughly, scraped my corner when backing out. No big crunch, but also no note. So it’s all on my nickel to repair the consequences of their carelessness. High in vexation, high in dollars, low in real harm. Growl!


Outdoor dogs exist for a reason. Good luck however this unfolds.

GC disasters are a dime a dozen here in Flake-ida. Best of luck. IME hiring the subs directly is less headache. Even if you need 12 of them in 10 trades.

119

I went to the supermarket on my lunch hour today. Mrs. L.A. had a peppered turkey sandwich for dinner. I scrambled two eggs (with/cream) and stuffed them into a tortilla with shredded medium cheddar and salsa verde.

120

That sounds yummy.