I have done nothing for 2 and a half days. And tomorrow will be another day of nothing, unless my friend comes up with a reasonable idea. But really, staying in the a/c while the humidity is so high seems like a plan to me
I like a good frankfurter now and then. Usually I wrap one up in paper towel and nuke it for a minute. Sometimes, I’ll throw a couple on the George. But what I really like is a dawg-omelet with the Gulden’s mixed right in
The kids are safely back in Orlando, the house is blessedly quiet, and the kiln is heating up for its initial firing. Yep, that’s smart - heating a machine in the corner of my basement to 2167 degrees on July 3. But both windows in the studio are open and there are 2 exhaust fans running, so maybe our bedroom won’t get toasty. Have I ever mentioned the studio is right under our bedroom??
I just found out that one of the boxes I mailed on Saturday has arrived at its destination - the USPS has impressed me yet again!
Drae, whereabouts in MD were you?? I’ve got family in Harford, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties, as well as Baltimore City.
Well, while the rest of y’all are grillin’, sunning your buns, and jumping into pools, VunderWife and I are instead going to strip wallpaper, take down all that gorgeous paneling, slop paint in the new house, spray some Agent Orange on the back 40, and maybe test drive the new mower instead. It’s gonna be the hottest day of the year so far, too.
I made her promise that we’d be done and gone in enough time to watch fireworks somewhere tomorrow night.
Whoop it up tomorrow, and remember me…
It’s hot, humid and kinda buggy. Considering the rain we’ve had over the past week, I’m surprised there aren’t more mosquitoes.
Today, we went to the park. Tomorrow, we’re going to the in-laws for Airman’s stepfather’s birthday. Wednesday, it’s back to the salt mines. Thursday, I’ve got a meeting with the grad school dean. I’m kinda nervous.
Robin
Good evening all! Although the day started with cloud cover, the sun was out by the time we arrived at the lake for another day of play. The weather turned out beautiful and warm.
We had a great time and had quite a few people on the boat. There were a total of nine of us on the boat. No worries, the boat is rated for 10 people. Three of the folks on the boat were kids, so no weight worries either.
My Dad came out on the boat with for the first time, ever and had a great time. He tried wakeboarding, tried skiing, and tried tubing. He used to water ski, and after some initial difficulty he finally got up.
I gave my Dad and Mr. Taters quite the ride on the tube. My Dad called it exhilerating.
We currently grilling a roast and I’m making herb and butter rice to go with it.
Tomorrow, we’re going to a friends for the 4th of July celebration and I’ve been instructed to bring my tater salad. We’re also bringing hamburgers, pastrami, and havarti cheese.
I need to check my din-din now.
Back here again. I stopped at the liquor store and bought an Austrian white wine that was reccommended by the guy behind the cash register–hey, I’m nothing if not adventorous.
Had some odd things happen to me at the grocery store. While I was turning my cart into the check-out, a woman approached me (she didn’t like a woman. No, she wAsn’t a cross dresser or anything like that-she was about 5 feet tall and looked like a 12 year old child, but with an old face, dressed in a too large basketball jersey, but I digress). She asked me if I was paying for my cartload of stuff with cash. I said no. I was in a foul mood and said no curtly. I watched her approach another woman and thought–what is up? I was the last one in the line and the checker closed her register after me, so I told her what had happened. She immediately called security and I had to talk to the manager!
Now, the nice thing–while I was in line, waiting to pay, the woman in front of me turned to me and offered me her $5 off coupon (if you buy more than $50 worth o’ groceries)–wasn’t that nice? I suggested that she use it, but it expires tomorrow and she said she wouldn’t be back.
So, alot of niceness and a bit of drama–grocery shopping at its best.
Off to work in the am-hope it’s a good day. Then I am OFF until Monday–wahoo!
oh-MsR --why are you meeting with the grad school dean? Do I have to do that too?
:eek:
GRRRRRR! I don’t know what the problem is, but I can’t get my kiln to do its initial firing in accordance with the manual. Which means I’ll have to wait until Weds to call the factory and until the weekend to fire it. Poo.
I am not happy right now. Stoopit kiln.
Well crap, FCM. That sucks! I hope you can get it figured out.
I guess I better do some laundry now. Sigh…I really don’t feel like it. It going on 8:00 pm and I’m a little tired. Ah, screw it! I’m going to do it in the morning.
Oh, no. It’s not a bad thing. I suggested a handbook for graduate assistants, and she likes the idea. (In fact, there’s a thread in IMHO asking for things that should go into such a handbook.) I’m also going to use the meeting to bitch about my loan check being delayed to the point where it’s pretty much useless. I’m not sure if she can do anything about that, but if she’ll listen, I’ll talk. 
Robin
Ermmm, hot dogs just aren’t one of my favorites. I’ll eat a couple two or three times throughout the year, but as the mother of four, and in-home daycare provider when the kids were younger, I am hot dogged out! When I do eat them, it’s with grainy brown mustard, sweet pickle relish, and horseradish, guaranteed heartburn material!
I didn’t intend to poop out of the MMP last week, but the rain finally stopped, and I went and cashed in my gift certificate at the plant nursery. It’s a darned good thing I brought my checkbook as well, and I still see a few places which could use a few bedding plants. I know that getting my flowers in on June 29th probably seems terribly late for most of you, but the rule of thumb on the island is June 1st is setting out plants day, but this year our Spring/Summer is a month behind.
Skipping forward, skiffman has been home over the weekend, and yesterday was so nice the skipper gave everyone the day off! As it was a beautiful, very warm (for Kodiak) day, I decided that all chores could be put off and we could have a fun day. Skiffman and The Son went and bought a new patio set and a grill (nothing fancy until we get the deck enclosed, but it’s sweet to have patio furniture, a grill, and all my flowers on my very own deck!) and while the guys then went and got the banya swept out and the fire going, I called around to get a banya schedule together, and invited my very good friend to come over for grilled steaks and an evening on my fabulous deck. So out to the deck I went to arrange the new patio furniture, grill, and my flower containers, then the kids came out and we were having fun (sometimes teenagers are just funny, they kept me cracking up!) and then two of my #3 daughter’s friends showed up. We invited them to stay, and added hamburgers to the list of meat to grill. While the skiffman did a grocery run the kids and I sat out in the sun and my kids told such tales on me, it was shameful! Actually, they enticed me into relating stories about myself which, while often amusing in the re-telling, were generally not a good time while they were occurring! (I recently read a quote which claims that to a Real Alaskan, an outdoor near death experience becomes an adventure in the re-telling, and I concur!) Skiffman and my friend showed up and I sent the teens in to prepare the salad, while skiffman played with fire. My friend brought her awesome smoked salmon dip, plus a jar of smoked red salmon just for me, and we had a very pleasant time. By that time the sun had moved behind the big spruce tree, a big ol’ bald eagle swooped past clutching a red salmon in it’s talons. With the food gone, #3’s friend’s gone home, The Son was lingering around, so I sent him and the skiffman into the banya. My friend and I chatted for a while longer, and when The Son came out of the banya and announced that his dad was waiting for me my friend made her good byes and I grabbed my banya stuff and headed out.
Now mind you, I am a pale skinned person. It hasn’t always been so, there is enough Cherokee behind the woodpile that I used to tan a beautiful golden brown. However between moving to a mist shrouded island and having developed sle, I am about neon white now. It had been a very sunny day. Oh, and sunscreen gives me a rash. Y’all see where this is heading, correct?
A brief introduction to the banya: a small out building split into two rooms, one a small dressing room, and a larger room with a rock covered stove with a big ol’ aluminum washtub on top filled with water, which is fed wood from the outside. When one walks in, it’s very sauna like. Then you splash the rocks, steam for a while, and then scrub, using (spelled phonetically) tahiks* and winnikies*.
So I get out there and skin down and enter the banya. We have a meat thermometer in there to keep track of the heat, it was 175F. And I had/have the mother of all sunburns on my forearms, chest and face. It’s a special kind of pain to solar cook one’s self, and then walk into a human sized oven. I had my own little tub of cold water I kept splashing myself with! It felt good to scrub with the old man, we have always had kids throughout our relationship, as I brought two into the marriage, and then we had two more, so banya is one of our few Parents Only times. As I have mentioned I have long ass hair, which he washes for me, as well as scrubbing my back with the tahiks. bliss I always finish first and go out to cool down in the dressing room while he washes, and then he also oils my back with my favorite bath oil, and we go in, watch a movie, and sleep like the innocents! (he really is a very good husband)
Today my right forearm, wrist, and the back of my hand are really very red, hot to the touch, and swollen. I don’t think it’s any kind of emergency, but I am not certain how to treat it, other than applying wet, cold, soft cloths. owie The rest of my sunburn is just slightly uncomfortably warm.
Another Alaskan twist to the 4th, we will have our fireworks display at midnight tonight, as it never gets really dark here in the summer, so if we wait until the 4th, by the time it’s dark enough to be worth shooting off fireworks, it would actually be the 5th. It took me living here for a couple of years before I became accustomed to that! What I really like are the New Year’s Eve fireworks, cuz it’s very dark, and there’s often snow falling, which is very pretty with sparklies flying up through the flakes. Unfortunately I don’t get to see too many fireworks, as the pommies are deathly frightened by the noise, so I give them a slight tranq and stay home and huddle with them.
*tahiks are bundles of beach grass roots which are exposed by the winter storms. One gathers them, cleans the rubble out and boil them to remove any buggy type things. Then they are wound around one’s hand and dried, and used as a loofa-like scrubber in the banya.
*winnikies are the branches of the alder tree, picked at their greenest (right about now) and dried in small bundles. After they are dried, one takes a bundle into the banya, soaks them in hot water, used in a self flagellating manner. There is something herbal involved, but it truly relieves sore muscles. Unless you let Dora, a now deceased elder, winnikie you. Then your muscles feel fine, but you have welts! That woman was a force to be reckoned with.
*And if I have not mentioned it before, a banya is a Native steam bath.
Everyone have a safe 4th!
Evening! I’m doing some tidying before bed. I also dyed a bunch of white t-shirts dark plum. We’ll see if they turn out when dry. I am a bad, clothes-mad person.
I had a hot dog with cheese and chili and mustrad and onions for dinner. And fries and a coke. I feel all American, except not. I guess it was a happy Canada hot dog, cause of Canada Day just being past.
I hate tidying, so I’d better do some more while I still feel like it. See you all tomorrow.
Would you feel better if I told you I really love the Fairy Chat Mug? 
I finished another bag! Yay! I feel like I was productive today. See a picture here. It came out a little more Barbie/My Little Pony than I intended, but it’s cute anyway.
I did get food, finally. I felt a little tilty at the grocery store - never a good sign. I didn’t buy tofu pups, but I did buy Tofurky Italian sausage, which is yummy. And I bought hamburgers (veggie), hamburger buns, hot dog buns, ketchup, mustard and relish. Oh, and toasted almond ice cream, which is very tasty, too.
Laundry tomorrow, first thing.
Today its tuesday, is it allowed to post in a MMP on a tuesday? Just in case it is provoking the eternal anger in some hellish demon, I’ll go outside and sacrifice a hotdog, and if that doesnt do it, I better get ready the goat.
But what I was going to say was happy 4th of July to you all! Also it seems that not only do you lucky … get to shoot up fireworks today, you also get to shoot up a space shuttle. But I wonder how difficult it is to apply kethup to hotdogs in zero gravity?
Also, FCM, what is a kiln? For a moment there I thought it said kilt, but a kilt with a motor? Naaaah.
Kotick
It’s 0430, and I’m awake again. I’ll be damned if I’m leaving the lair…
A kiln is an oven - in my case, for firing ceramics. They can be as small as a toaster oven or a large as a room. Some are gas-fired, some wood-fired, mine is electric. I just got mine and I was trying to do the initial firing, which was to dry out the refractory bricks, seat the heat elements, allow aluminum oxide to form on the elements, and fix the outer layer of the brick through some magical chemical-and-heat process.
But mine won’t follow the pre-programmed instructions like the video and the manual states. Which makes me very unhappy. I’ll be re-reading the manual today - maybe I missed something simple and obvious. Failing that, I’ll be calling L&L tomorrow to try to figure it all out.
And yes, I’m up at a ridiculously early hour - hiya, Bobbio!! I think it’s safe to say once a cat climbs on your pillow and sneezes in your face, your sleeping time is over. So I’ve taken the dog out, fed both creatures, and here I sit, caffeinating myself while my sweetie snoozes.
Good thing I’ve just got a 3-day work week ahead - I’m not ready to return to the office. <sigh> But at least Robert has returned to his natural habitat in Florida and I no longer have to listen to Spongebob and *Fairly Oddparents * ad naseum.
Off to work.
Kaiwik -sounds like a nasty burn. I would stop putting water on it-you’re only drying out the skin. Maybe a cold pack (not an ice pack–and make sure there is a layer of fabric between you and the cold.IOW, wrap up the ice pack well). You may need some kind of ointment for your arms–call the doctor or local ER and ask.
Banya sounds heavenly. I could use one about one (never had one, but there is always a first time).
Happy loud parade and BBQ day, everyone. The earnest Canucks are all back at work today. They don’t see the brilliance of having a major holiday on a Tuesday…it makes for a long weekend and a shorter work week…
Kiln troubles? Uh oh. Is there enough power in the outlet? Is it plugged in?
I got nothin’.
I couldn’t sleep last noc. I shoulda logged on and chatted with Vunder --I distinctly remember looking at the clock at 0430, and 0135 and 2 something…
Yes, it’s plugged in 
and it’s on a 50A circuit, so there’s tons of juice. The issue seems to be in the programming, as far as I can tell. I only have to push about 6 buttons, and it’s not complicated. It’s just not doing what it’s supposed to do based on the video and the manual. It’s not like baking a cake, but it’s not rocket science either. It’s a plot, that’s what it is!
Stoopit plot.
Good morning to all the other early-birds out there. I was up at 5 am, the sprog having decided that that was a good time to wake up. In Sprog’s defense, he has no concept that you’re supposed to sleep in on a holiday. He’s happily munching on oatmeal and watching Barney.
I think I’ll go make coffee now and hope NPR decides to post their annual Declaration of Independence so I can download it and prove that I’m an American.
Happy Independence Day! May the fireworks not bother assorted pets and kids.
Robin