Impending holidays and stuff in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It’s the time of year when, back in my working days, very little got done. What with Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and having to burn up use-or-lose leave, things would get really loose in the office. Add to that office parties, luncheons, snack days, and such, it’s a pretty non-productive period in certain circles - at least it was where I worked. How about for you??

OK, let’s have at it. Happy Moanday!!

From the last MMP:

By my count, this will be our 5th cruiser (plus there was a trailerable mini-cruiser in there for a while.) So we’re not going into this with unrealistic expectations, apart from hoping the grandkids will like going out on the boat. The biggest change is that it’s not a sailboat. We’re new to the trawler community (assuming it happens, of course.) Anyway, we’ll see how it goes.

I think about a couple of friends of my parents. The wife and her sister had a sizable inheritance over which the sister was executor. She farted around with it for years, and shortly after she settled everything and distributed the shares, my parents’ friend died. So there was her husband with almost a million dollars, as a widower. A few months later, their only child died. Less than a year after that, he died, and his brother got it all. Such a wasted potential…

The marina is about half an hour or so from us. We used to spend our weekends there when we lived in Virginia. We’d arrive Friday evening and leave Sunday evening. Good times…

2

First! It’s good to be juvenile!

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN 'Tis 37 Amurrkin out (BRRR!) and clear with a predicted high of 75 and N.O.S. for the day. I shall go through all the drawers in the dresser, chest, and bachelor’s chests (fancy name for a big night stand) today as they need to be re-organized. I’m sure there’s stuff that we can get rid of, but the main task is to get everything more manageable. We shall also work on our sloth skills. Sup shall be beastloaf, mac 'n cheese, steamed cabbage, and peas 'n carrots. YUM!

In my irklife, the “Holidays” were referred to as the “Horror Days” cause nuttin’ ever got done it seems. It was like everybody went brain dead from Turkey Day until New Year’s Day.

Oopsie good luck on the pre-op diet, the surgery, and recovery, Hope you enjoyed your last meal.

MetalMouse hard not to beat ourselves up over mistakes. Hope you’re feelin’ somewhat better about it all today.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day! Rah.

Happy Moanday Y’all!

3

Huh, the holidays are always busy for me.

When I worked for the very large military medical treatment facility, aka The Depths of Hell, the holidays were business planning time. So, while everyone else partied, I was stuck working 15 hour days and trying to plan for Christmas. Even prior to working in that particular area, and in other parts of JBLM where I worked, we were always just slammed around the holidays. It was hard to take any sizable time off ever.

Where I work now, there is always something coming down from National; a hurry the hell up data call, or something new to implement. However, this year I decided I’m taking almost the whole week of Christmas off. I have use or lose to burn so between that week and every Friday off through the New Year, I will be able to burn off that leave. Someone will have just have to step in and deal with any emergencies, and if they really need me to deal with something, they can call me.

I’m wearing two hats this week, but it’s a short week with Veterans Day and being off on Friday, so that’s good. I’ll be working extra hard and probably longer hours, but I’ll live.

Oopsie, best of luck on the pre-op diet, surgery and recovery. I hope it all goes very smoothly.

4

One place I worked for a number of years did snack-a-day between Thanksgiving and Christmas. On M-W-F, people would sign up to bring in something to share - cookies, donuts, cake, bagels, even the occasional breakfast casserole. Honestly, after the first couple of weeks, it lost its appeal. Not sure why we didn’t drop back to once a week, but there ya go.

And then there were the office pot-luck lunches - OMG, so much food! Of course, you had the cheapskates whose contribution was a sack of paper napkins or a couple of bags of generic chips, while others brought amazing homemade offerings. And you just know who was first in line to fill their plates… I don’t miss that particular drama. In fact, I don’t miss work at all! :rofl:

5

Afternoon all. I have online classes this week, meaning sitting in on the computer an awful lot. I should probably be spending my lunch break doing something that isn’t sitting around on my computer, but.. well.. c’est la vie.

My Grandpa spent a lot of his life saving, playing the stock market, getting into all sorts of moneymaking schemes, then spent the final decade of his life waiting to ‘get better’ before spending any money. He kept going on about all the fun stuff he was going to do, all the places he was going to go when he ‘got better’. Unfortunately, what was wrong was basically him being old, and the only way one tends to ‘get better’ from being old doesn’t leave you with many places to go, and you don’t get to do anything while you’re there.

Some of the case got scammed out of him, he left a big chunk to the local church (don’t think he ever went there- maybe a last minute attempt to buy his way in just in case), and my Mum and Aunts got some. He maybe got some pleasure from looking at a number and anticipating what he was going to do, but aside from that, it was all a bit of a waste.

6

Happy day, everyone. Here’s hoping we’re all doing well.

I don’t know what I have planned for the day. I put some cubed steaks into the Instant Pot. Just to get them out of the way. I detest cubed steaks. No matter how much I try to tenderize them, they still have those fatty/sinewy/vile bits in them. So, they’ll end up being food for the dogs (The cats, too, if they want any of it), or else, my daughter will eat some of it, and the furry critters can have the rest. Maybe the IP will make them a bit more palatable. No idea. Still. Ugh. It’s just NOT my thing.

I need to run the rollersuck around, and do up a load of laundry. Towels, mostly. That’ll be easy enough to do, I guess. I see a nap in my near future, since I woke up at a stupidly early hour. Something like 2am. There’s really no need for that garbage. Seriously.

Have a good one.

7

Mornin, all. The dog still hasn’t adjusted to the time change, so he was up and asking to go out at 5. Tis a rousing 30 degrees outside, headed for low 50’s later on. Not sure what the day holds, I’ll head over to the shop and put it back together after finishing up the restaurant gig. Beyond that…I dunno.

Stay safe!

8

If I may - then why do you buy them?

FCD went back to bed so I am pretty much stuck in robe and slippers till he gets up, because I don’t want to disturb him. Damn the luck. :wink: I suppose I can empty the clean dishes from the dishwasher - they’ve had all night to dry. Dunno. We’ll see…

9

FCM, I buy them because my husband, and my daughter, like them. I swear, they don’t care what they eat!

10

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

OK, I’ll accept that explanation. :wink: :joy:

11

FCM, the cats are lovin’ what I crumbled up for them! They obviously don’t care what they eat, either. Ack. :nauseated_face:

12

Morning, everyone. It’s clear and chilly and I’m dressed and ready to waddle. During holidays at my work, it’s a lot like any other day - wee all have to make sure that people can get their medication, make sure that any new software works properly when it rolls over on the first of the year, so most of my holiday is spent managing others’ testing efforts; New Year’s Day is spent watching the code to make sure it did what it was supposed to do and telling IT if it didn’t. But I do manage to slip in some celebration.

This year, I’m hoping we’ll get to celebrate my mom’s anniversary - it will be a year ago Wednesday that she went in for surgery to remove her cancer. I never used to be a particularly superstitious person and I’ve become less so with age, but I’m afraid to get excited because people can be gone in an instant. All it takes is one moment for everything to change, so I’m going to hang onto this moment right here, right now, and Wednesday I’ll hang on even tighter. I guess that’s just one good reason to enjoy the cash you have - you really can’t predict when you won’t be able to anymore, so definitely get the boat.

On a less morose note, overlyboy had his first driving scare yesterday. Luckily it was pretty low-stakes. I had him drive me around for about an hour and when we finally got to a parking lot at his sister’s soccer game (I had him park in the empty one), he kind of panicked and forgot which was the gas and which was the brake. No harm done to us or the car - he just slammed into the curb really hard and scared the bejeezus out of himself. Maybe not such a bad thing if it serves as a good lesson to be super vigilant about what you’re doing with a ton of metal.

13

Morning all. Cool and crisp here in N. Ali-bama, spent some of this morning paying the bills, so that task is done, need to become presentable here shortly and do some shopping. One of the soccer parents gifted me a wheel of Cinnamon Buns, so I guess breakfast for the next week is taken care of. Feel better, won’t forget the experience on the soccer field, but hopefully will learn from it. Heading into the 70’sF this week, but then rain comes though on Thorsday and we’ll cool down again.

My workplace was a lot like FCM’s, lots of people (including me) had to take “use or lose” time off and that along with the seasonal colds/flu meant productivity was down–plus the companies we worked with often took a 2-week break around Xmas-New Year. However, we didn’t go overboard on the pot-lucks, but I sympathize with Taters having to plan the Xmas Party–we usually had a committee which I successfully ducked for many years.

And yeah, I had an uncle saved most of his life to go traveling around the world once he retired…and sadly had a stroke two years post-retirement and did very little traveling–so I’m…reasonably well-off and trying my best to spend it while my health is still good.

But not on trawlers…

Nona, not a cube steak fan either–I though it always fell between regular steak and hamburger steak, with neither of their good points. At least the pets appreciate you.

talky, happy anniversary to your Mom. And happy surviving overlyboy; if that’s the worse that happens, you’re doing well.

OK, onward into the day. All y’all take care.

14

I caught Monkey & Nikki licking each other gently this morning.
Considering how much time he spends humping her and/or she spends hissing, growling, swatting, and waddling away from him - I’ve been seriously worried that he’s causing too much stress and angst for an elderly lady who should be enjoying her last days in peace.
So it was nice to see then get along, if just for a few brief moments.

As promised, here’s one of my cross-stitch hoops that’s almost done.
There will be some space at the bottom, and I think I might add rainbows match everything in small, multicolored letters under the purple stripe.
I intend this as a gift (for my friend who is going through a rough patch) and it’s a bit of gentle snark on my part - she’s obsessed with having her outfits match, to the point of picking sneakers for their color. (Matchy-matchy is so UGH to me.)

So, no matter where she hangs this, it’ll match! Heh.

Four more lines of purple, plus optional lettering at the bottom, and I’ll actually be finished!

[Album] Rainbow stripe cross-stitch progress
15

Nothing like starting out to go to work and not getting any further than the garage. Dead battery. Again. Batteries just don’t last as long as they used to. Waiting until a secretary gets into school so I can call in “sick.” Then it’s either roust a retired friend or call AAA for a jump, then off to Nissan for a replacement.

I love Mondays.

16

Happy Moonday!

It was a chilly 34 degrees when I got to the park at 645. It was warming up nicely when I left at 845.
Echo got a little pissy with Loki, the golden puppy. He handled her well though. Being a puppy, he thought she was playing and went right back at her in his clumsy playful way.

I say buy the boat while you can. The parents of an ex lived very frugally and saved for all the things they were going to do after his father retired. Nobody expected his father to have multiple strokes and they never had a chance to travel or do any of the other things they wanted.
I think there has to be a balance between saving for your old age and living life while you can.

My mother called yesterday; Thanksgiving is coming. She wants us to come of course. I never really want to go, but I feel guilty if I don’t go, and I almost always have a good time once I get there, but then there is the drive home which I hate.
I think my son has to irk Wed and Fri, so he is not going to feel like going after getting off on Thur morning.
We’ll probably go though.
Then I have to drive back down there for a doctor appointment 2 weeks later. Then it will be time to drive down for Christmas.
Here it is November and I haven’t even started Christmas shopping. My heart isn’t in it this year.

My son’s irk schedule is making me crazy. I can’t keep up with it any more.
He is supposed to irk
WTF 4 days off
WTF 1 day off
SMT 4 days off
SMT 7 days off.
He has yet to irk that.
First it was OT so always an extra day in the week.
They shut down on Firdays for some kind of maintenance. So, when he had to irk on a Firday, he had to pick another day for a makeup day. Then they shut down on Sundays for a different kind of maintenance, so if he was scheduled for Sunday, he had to pick another day.
So, he is irking 3 of the 4 days, Monday thru Thursday.
Now I never know what freakin’ days he is supposed to be irking and what his schedule is for Thanksgiving week.
I know he has a card somewhere with his schedule. I need to see it.

Today I need to pay some bills, and order groceries for tomorrow’s pickup.
Of course, I’ll be irking. Ugh, I wish I could retire.
I need to have a conversation with OAOASO. I am really pissed and sent him a nasty text, which got me a very nasty response.

I know what you mean by the negative stuff getting to you MetalMouse. At the end of calls, my customers have an option to rate me. I never look. I could have 99 5-star ratings and 1 1-star rating and I’ll ignore the 99 good ones and obsess over the bad one.
Better not to look.

Good luck with everything Ooopsie.
If I had to choose between a banana and skim milk? My choice would be neither. Just the smell of bananas makes my stomach start rolling, and any kind of milk isn’t much better. I get queasy if I see somebody drink milk.

17

The hateful machine broke again, and they overloaded the bet.
BOOM SQUEAL BOOM SQUEAL YIP YIP YIP
Also, there is a cat loose in the hub.

I spent 30 years in retail, I barely saw my apartment between October and January. and there’s already a station playing Christmas music.

Good luck with the diet, Oopsie. And I’m Team Banana

That sucks, Quietly. Hope the replacement isn’t too much

18

Poor baby!!! :exploding_head: Yeah, I can see how crazy that must be. I forget that we’re not all office drones.

Well, we submitted an offer on the boat, contingent on succesful sea trial and marine survey (inspection.) If the seller accepts the offer, we’ll put down a deposit and try to get the sea trial scheduled before FCD’s next knee job. It recently had a survey for another potential buyer (who backed out) and the things the broker told us from that survey didn’t sound like a big deal. We’ll be using a different surveyor, and we shall see.

But if we wind up doing the deal, we’ll have the boat pulled out of the water in Oxford and stored “on the hard” over the winter to get some cosmetic work done. Then we’ll launch in the spring and bring it back to our local marina. And we’ll be boat people again. So we’ll see how it all goes.

19

Go Kitty go!

quietly I hope the battery replacement goes as smoothly as possible. Any chance that you have some warranty coverage left on the dead battery?

Moommm have fun with the boat!

We have another atmospheric river pointed our way, and we’ll take it! The state needs all of the water it can get. It’s finally getting cold enough for me. I really enjoy Fall.

Not sure what I’ll get up to today. Lots to do, not that many spoons.

Happy Moonday everyone!

20

$200! And it was replaced just long enough ago that taking it all the way into the dealer for the amount left on the warranty would take hours for pennies. I just sucked it up and paid the money. Now I have to buy the beers for our Monday drinking sessions for the next few weeks as well, since I pulled Paul away from his daily sweet-fuck-all loafing like a retired person to drive me to Auto Zone.

Oh, well. Better to have it crap out in my garage than in a couple of weeks in the middle of the Mojave.

My students would have just been doing an essay this morning, so I had the teacher next door put their prompt on the board for me so the sub doesn’t have to try to do anything. To celebrate the day off work I think I’ll…mop the floors.