When DH and I went to McD’s this evening, I got a Happy Meal, because I just wasn’t hungry enough for a normal adult-size meal (too tired). Turned out to be just about the right amount of food to suit me at that point.
Evening all. Soccer went pretty well, it was 58F when my U8 team played, in the 60’s when the U12 played, in the 70’s when I refereed a U10 game and then 82F at 3pm when I refereed U9 Game. So I went through a number of clothes changes through the day to keep from either getting to cold or to hot. Got home about 4:40pm and decided with a lot of soccer tomorrow (noon to 5:30pm Sunday) that I would get Sunday dinner on Saturday, so got properly dressed and had a Steak with the usual accoutrements at Longhorn. Been home for several hours and just haven’t had the energy to reply until now. Still in the 60’sF and the house is comfortable. Oh, also picked up my summer comforter from the Dry Cleaner, so I have managed to do something constructive today.
I usually have a pen or two in the pocket of my referee uniform, occasionally I forget to remove it before washing or it leaks on it’s own and it’s new uniform time (I have some spares for emergency use).
Cookie, hoped you enjoyed the kids (ETA–I see you did).
Oopsie, nice piece of LEGO-work.
Shoe, glad you’re ‘relaxed’ and hope the workplace drama doesn’t increase.
BBBoo, good on ya for cat-sitting and for the Cornhuskers win. Are you ever tempted to actually go to one of these games (I imagine the tickets for the football are rare and high-priced, but I think the volleyball would be accessible.
Pilot, I have a nice long all-white beard, not quite Santa Claus length but right up there in what i call “Civil War General” territory. I plan to let the U8 soccer boys color it next Saturday (their last game) and the U12 boys will get the opportunity to shave it off at the end of our season the first weekend in November. Will eventually grow in back in a few months.
Wheelie, hope the second job comes through. And nice pictures!
Flyboy, yea, on-board wi-fi is always expensive. Usually most cruise lines will collect your luggage and deliver it to your cabin except what you carry-on. Enjoy your trip.
What is this hair thing on the top of your head that you are talking about. The pitiful dregs of my once-dark locks are fairly silvery now and one day soon will be gone for good.
swampy, hope it works out for new Priest Guy.
Cupcakes, that sounds like the old "God only made a few perfect male heads; the rest he covered with hair
JtC, sounds like you had a fun day.
OK, need to finish the day’s internettin’ and then rest from my toils, since I will have to referee at least 3 (and maybe 4) games tomorrow. Take care all.
Since I know you are all waiting up to hear about the 
game of the century (#1 vs #2, both unbeaten), here it is:
We won in the 5th set! We had to come from behind in two different sets. I watched every minute but I couldn’t tell you how we did it. Nothing flashy that’s for sure, slow and steady seemed to have pulled off the big one, A Really Big One. Can’t wait to read the paper in the morning. Been a long time since Nebraska won two big games in the same day at home.
Left Indy at 5. Breakfast stop then back on the road.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 52 Amurrkin out and mostly cloudy with a predicted high of 82 and mostly N.O.S. for the day. The big item on today’s agenda is deheathenization where I get to lead Mornin’ Prayer, followed by a McN.O.L. Then it will be nappage, sloth, and general overall uselessness the rest of the day. Sounds like a good plan to me!
Boo yay for both 'Husker wins!
MOOOOOOM safe travels back home.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then purtification for deheathenization must commence.
Happy Sunday Y’all!
Mornin’ all!! 0623, so an hour pre-sunrise and I’ve been balconatin’ & caffinatin’ about 30 minutes now. NWS sez 71/22 on the way to 87/30 with no wind and very few cars. The few stars are bright, no apparent clouds anywhere and there’s no sign of a horizon yet.
Oopsie: Yes, the centerpiece is a bit small looking, but it’s real elaborate. Which makes up for the size and leaves you more usable table. All in all, very snazzy. It’s sure not the Legos of 40 years ago.
Meant to ask last time. Which game is that?
Wheelie Even a stupid cheap sharpener like this will get knives back in shape with no more than ~5 minutes work each.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00032S02K
If you want to splurge an extra $5, this is easier to use and safer, but harder to store:
(That’s interesting. On my page on Amazon that’s listed as selling for $9.89 but on the preview here it says $14.95. Crooked bastards.) These also show up as boxed previews on my preview page but just as bare links once I posted. Odd.
There are lots more flavors of knife sharpeners out there, but something akin to these two are all you need. I only have one of those little ones and it can improve a decently sharp knife to very sharp with just a few strokes every few days of use. If you’re like me, one of your knives gets 80% of the use, another gets 15%, and the whole rest of the collection gets maybe 5%. Once they’re all sharp, the 5% group only needs to be re-sharpened annually.
Great Zoe pix and I hope the walk to the bar proved worthwhile. I’ve spent a lot of nights after long days in places with nothing to do & nowhere to do it. It sucks for sure.
May have to be offline for a few days. Like jumping into cold water, it’s hard to do, but kinda nice you get used to it. 
If you can broadcast wifi from your phone to your tablet or whatever you can use that while in port. We did that a lot in certain countries. Still doesn’t work underway, but that’s the time to set aside all earthly connections anyhow. Have fun!!
Swampy: Hooray for (probably) having found your Priest. Good idea to take precautions against scurvy & malaria; that shit be nasty. It occurs to me it’s been a couple weeks since my last counter-dose. Will remedy tonight.
Now half-hour before sunrise the stars have faded, the sky is a pretty pale orange along the horizon and I see a wall of distant clouds emerging from the ocean. They’re almost as tall as my eclipsing condo, so sunrise will be running 10 minutes late today. Just like Boofae’s trains.
Yaay for kidly energy!! 12 grands and 1.5 great-grands. Gotta make Granddad smiling & proud. And tired! 
[About which more below].
Doggio: Spot sure is good at RBF. Shame about yet another non-working cow-orker. Not your circus at least.
Metal mouse: Waay back in the day I got past Civil War General into ZZTop territory, with the scraggly hair to match. This guy is not me, but that’s the general look I’m drifting / aiming towards. My head is grayer but still some of the same blond thing, mine’s also some more receding, and he has much more prominent cheekbones. That pic is a few years younger / younger-looking than I am too. But we could be brothers or at least close cousins otherwise.
Like last year I bet the boys will enjoy painting your beard. So much kidly enthusiasm.
I think “Nothing flashy” could be the Nebraska state motto. Both for the state, and its schools, and (most of) its people. Your flashy wit and fetching smile notwithstanding.
Yaay Big \color{red}{\textbf {N}}
Yaay FCM won’t be long now!
G’mornin again Mr. Swampy
Now at 7:30 the Sun’s about to de-eclipse from behind the building, the birdies have been exchanging “good mornings!” for awhile, traffic is slowing increasing, and I’m heading inside. So this mighty missive took just over an hour to had-craft for y’all’s enjoyment and edification.
My own news in the next post … stay tuned.
Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off today. The usual clean, handegg, and afternoon sloth is on the adgenda.
My day yesterday was kinda boring & frustrating at first, but ended Grrrr-eeat!
As part of retirement I got a partial sick leave payout in a tax free account I can use to pay for medical care & medical insurance. Sorta like an FSA some of you may have / had. Yaay, at least for awhile until it runs out for good. So I’m trying to submit claims for the Medicare Parts B, D, and G I’ve now been paying on for 2 months. Turns out that 100% of the documentation I can get online from the insurer is too vague or non-specific for the reimbursement account vendor, so they keep rejecting my claims. Catch-22 again. Gaah! Monday promises even more time on customer service hold trying to defeat the forces arrayed “for my convenience.” Yeah, right.
Had a nice afternoon nap, a small snack, then it was time for the day/evening’s main event. Meet Daughter and her Horde at a “trunk or treat” sponsored by the local YMCA. I’d never been to one of those. So off we go in the late afternoon. Daughter had wanted to arrive early and that was a good thing; voice of (her) experience talking.
Last week she got 3 new foster kids: a 2yo, a 3yo, and a 5yo girl. Her Ladyship and I haven’t seen these kids yet. These three add to her one adopted 3yo plus another 3yo who she’s had since not quite newborn. So ages 2, 3, 3, 3, & 5 totaling 5 girls. And she still has 2 empty slots, with no idea when they’ll fill.
We meet in the Y parking lot before much of a crowd has formed. The event will be outdoors in a big grassy playground / athletic field. The 5 yo quickly figures out who we are, gets an enormous toothy smile, spreads her arms wide and comes running & leaps up on me. She does not want to let go; being held is her happy place. Not clingy or scared, just really wants some human touch. Adorable. But painful for what it signals about her prior life. Comparing her and her sibs, it’s obvious the young two have a different father than she had. Which is often an unfavorable omen. The 4 young kids are restrained in the quad stroller. For now.
Anyhow we get tickets, wait a while as the clear sky slowly turns to twilight beneath a perfect half-moon and eventually a crowd of easily 500 kids and another 400 adults forms, with us near the head of the line. 90% of kids are costumed, as are about two-thirds of the adults. And of course all the few dozen staffers.
Once they open the gates and we get inside it turns out the grassy field is too rough to use the stroller. Fortunately all the kids are old enough to walk. Though not nearly old enough not to run away into the crowd and be lost. The 5yo is mature enough to be 90% self-tending, but the other 4 need a hand held pretty continuously. Daughter had taken the precaution of installing a wrist band with her mobile number on each kid. She also has an Apple kid-tracker permanently attached to the adopted one who’s a perennial runner. Pro-tip.
So the next 90 minutes is the 3 adults mentally counting to 5 pretty continuously as we’re all inventorying and re-inventorying the horde. The show has about 20-25 car trunks mini-vans set up with dioramas, costumes, and most importantly candy-hander-outers. The kids are having a great time. Even the just barely 2yo gets the idea almost immediately. You end up having to let go of them so they can receive their treats, so we’re forever swapping who has a hold of who.
They had a DJ so we had lots of kid dancing too. Which is mostly madly jumping up and down, although the 5yo is learning to sway pretty good; she’s gonna be a dangerously cute teen.
Lots and lots of fun costumes to be seen on young and old alike. The kids only got worried / scared a couple of times. Lotta MILFs in the crowd but nobody was dressed too vampy for a G-rated kid event.
Eventually Mom was tired, so the fun came to an end and it was time to pack the horde into the stroller, wheel them to the van, clean most of the melty chocolate off most of them, strap them all in, and go. The 5yo wasn’t teary, but boy she did not want to leave us behind. There were lots of rounds of goodbyes and hugs. Now I know how a teddy bear feels. Exhausted, but very heart-warmed.
It seems for once Daughter has gotten a set of kids with no significant defects. Most of her kids were / are special needs somehow. These three new ones seem to just need some serious luvin’.
After that Her Ladyship and I went out to a fancy brew-pub for sorta-late dinner. BBQ ribs for her, and a Burrata chicken parm with penne ala vodka for me. Plus a decent Cabernet.
Once home it was time for her to dose up on psychopaths while I read.
My Sunday will probably include an afternoon beach. Her Ladyship has her monthly sorority dinner tonight so I'll be on my own. Might hook up with another pilot, might not.
Cheers all! Happy Sundaying.
Neighbor might say something, but unlikely, unless the plant actually touches his newly painted balcony. As it’s an annual, I expect it to collapse when we get our first freeze. Which could be next week, or sometime in January. It’s already started to list to the side. I prefer to cut it before it collapses. Hubby wants to let it be, and I’m lazy, so I just rotated the pot so the plant will end up on the grass if it falls over.
Boo, I’m happy to read you get to watch your beloved team play. Google says they even won!
wheelie I hope there’s more paid work in your immediate future. Must be a relief after too much time at home. But then there’s the gorgeous kitty to take pictures of. Actually two of them! Kitty pictures are always good.
oopsie I am rather tempted to buy that Lego set for my husband. It looks very nice. Also reminds me that I should get out the fall decorations.
Moooom I’ve done the drive across PA and OH many times. I don’t envy you at all. Hope it’s smooth sailing.
Swampy hope the new priest gets and accepts the offer. My friend’s church has been without a new leader for more than a year and she decided to stop going until they get a new one in. Which doesn’t help the church much, if it the users give up on it.
We have one like that, but simpler. Easy to use and well worth it. Happens to fit in the knife drawer, which is a bonus.
pilot the child wrangling sounds like a lot of fun.
Took the car out for a Burger King run. We normally drive it once a week for hubby’s band practice, but one of the other members has a kid in the hospital, so practices are on hold for a while. Family first, of course.
Also working on the to-do list, so we don’t get too behind on home maintenance. Yesterday I made baked fusili and cheese with gorgonzola and parmesan. That means that tomorrow’s lunch is already made, since the recipe makes 6 servings. This morning I cooked oatmeal with apples and raisins on the stove, and then baked a morning glory cake for this week’s breakfasts. And then I baked some pumpkins to make pumpkin purree.
So I need to make the pumpkin purree and then I can clean up the kitchen. And then clean the bathrooms and wash a load of delicates. Fun times!
So much for a day of rest. Happy Sunday!
She’s at least half right.
A dull knife is a dangerous knife - they’re a pain to work with, they mush/mangle your food, but worst of all, they force you to use extra force which makes it all too likely to slip. Too dull to slice a tomato will still fuck up your hand.
You’re right, though, to want to salvage them by sharpening. If they’re “good” knives, that is. If they’re the relatively inexpensive kind you can get at any big box, then it might be a wash, budget wise.
Caution: if you’re in some backwater Nowheresville, there may not BE much of an Uber presence, if any.
At work we have an experienced Dough Roller Guy, and a newbie. I can tell without turning around who’s rolling dough, based on whether the pizza is egg-, lemon-, or football-shaped, or not.
In my limited experience, taking pieces of dough and sticking them elsewhere doesn’t work. Better to fold the dough and re-roll to “push” the edges over to the skinny side of the oval.
Boy, that ^^ made perfect sense in my head, but it sure looks like gibberish written out.
That’s awesome.
I’m so glad you got what amounts to a mini-vacation. Kitties (even if they are ghostly ninjas) AND the game on a big screen? What fun!
Is that noticeable, huh?
Pardon me, sir/madam, your cat appears to be broken?
She has a very boopable nose, and very neat (both appearance & maintenance) socks.
Yup, yup! We were following the game at work, partially via our phones and partially - and more entertainingly - via the updates from customers who were either in particularly good moods, or venting some serious angst.
Plants vs Zombies. (There are many; I have Part II.) It can be relaxing in a mindless way (“braaaaiiiins!” “sorry, none here”) or it can involve strategy in a way that engages parts of my brain that don’t get stretched enough.
I wonder how. Sometimes the boxed previews get to be a bit much, and I’d rather have just the link.
Truth.
This made me tear up. And smile at the same time, knowing she’s in a much better situation.
Utterly adorable.
Her Ladyship okay with that?
(I know what you meant.)
Today’s gonna be interesting. We got a pre-order last night for today, for NINETEEN large pizzas. Over $500 worth! 
Last night, the ebb & flow very closely matched the game. Started slow, then a fast uptick. At one point, we had more “timed” orders (where people call ahead, wanting to pick up their food later at X:XX o’clock) than standard orders, and I ain’t never seen that!
Slowed a bit as the game started - I noticed the street was devoid of cars - then we got slammed close to halftime, and again after it all ended.
I don’t give two shits about football, and even I joined in on the fun of talking smack about the rather magnificent spanking the State team received.
I even caught a snippet on the radio on my lunch break - and I don’t ever listen to sports on the radio, I can rarely be bothered to even watch - and rather enjoyed coming back in with an update for the crew:
“1st just ended, Mich leads State 14 zip.”
Then:
“That was the most football I’ve ever talked in my life. Did I do it right?”
Things I say to my cat 
Things I could say to a sketchy hooker:
“I’m not touching your junk.”
“Ow. Don’t stab me in the head.”
“Great, you got your nails stuck in my sweater.”
Time for coffee, Part II.
Morning all. Made the Sunday NY Times run to the local Kroger (they only put out 1-2 papers so it’s go early or go without…might get a subscription for delivery as an Xmas present to myself). Referee at least 3 soccer games today starting at noon and if my legs hold out, maybe 4 games (they are only 40 minute games, so no biggie, but those 8-year old can run all day). It’s 60F now, but between 70-75F for the afternoon, so just about perfect weather for it. Just remember to take my water and my lawn chair…
Pilot, have I mentioned recently that your daughter is a saint? And as the father of said saint and general kid-hugger, you’re pretty good yourself. And yeah, what those kids faced before probably doesn’t bear too much thinking about. Glad they found your family.
FCM, by my calculations you ought to be in Ohio approaching Columbus, depending how long breakfast stop was… Safe journey home
swampy, happy praying!
Divided now between a knife sharpener (for lazy klutz me, probably an electric one) and a new set, either from Wal-Mart. Probably make a decision this week sometime.
shoe, thanks for the interesting news from Pizza-land and congratulations for learning the culture of Michigan (such as it is and what there is of it).
doggio, why do people like cats, no matter how ‘awwww’ thier pictures are? It is a puzzlement.
OK, need to do some internettin’, then eat early enough to let digestion begin before soccer starts. All y’all take care and have a good Sunday.
To be clear, this is my new wife’s daughter, not mine. I had no hand in her creation or upbringing, so deserve no credit for the results. That’s all on Her Ladyship and her first husband of long ago. But I’m damned proud of Daughter nonetheless, and feel honored to help her in my small way.
You’re no slouch in the kid-hugging and kid-life-improving department yourself. You do far more, and far more often, than I have an opportunity to.
Most of them are just cuddly enough to put up with being Jeeves to their little furry Bertie Woosters. Plus, emergency rations in case of Zombie Apocalypse.
Aaaah yes, but who is emergency rations for whom?
House Rule #1: “First one dies, we eat.”
I’ve ordered a Wacky Pack meal from Sonic for the same reason.
Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and fixing to do the week’s meal prep, IOW, the usual Sunday chores.
Stay safe and healthy y’all!
It’s remarkably similar to Texas, which is especially hilarious given how much state pride each has.
The climate is quite different, of course, yet the “if ya don’t like the weather, wait five minutes!” joke is standard in both, along with the redneck/beer/guns/football/giant-pickup-trucks adoration.
BBQ is a lot more hit or miss up here, though, and virtually every older car has rusty salt damage around the wheel wells.
For me, though, the slow but constant change in seasons alone more than makes up for it.
Thank you~the longer I live here the more appreciation I have for one of our past license plate mottos ~ “Nebraska Nice”. That we are, plus we have hippie and his lovely bride, so we win big again. No mountains or oceans (back to nothing flashy) but sunsets and sunrises (not that I see that many nowadays) that take your breath away.
Didn’t you see all of us nodding “yup, that’s right” along with you?
You’d think the Michigan fans would be used to that by now.
Perfect. Less is more in this sitch-fewer words to trip yourself up.
I have a daily digital subscription. I have to do it-we no longer have a real local newspaper and I have to keep up with the world. It works-I probably spend at least two hours a day reading it ‘cover to cover’ as they say. Cheaper than Prozac and Zanax (and cable). I do the mini-crossword every day as a wee bit of brain aerobics. The full crossword is beyond me since the brain injury. The Times and the MMP fill my cup-go for it!
Truth. I’m in awe of what he does too. Day in and day out for decades to come hundreds of kids are going to be better off for having had a metal mouse in their young lives.