Morning, mumpers! It’s 4c/39f with no predicted change today, and with rain showers. Weather app sums up the day as “Rain, cold and fucking sadness.” Yes, it’s grey and grim out there but I’d take that over snow any day!
Yesterday’s xmas event was fortunately moved inside so we didn’t have to freeze outside on the pub’s car park. The pub manager said they’d been expecting about 20 stalls for their xmas market, he’d messaged everyone telling them it would be inside, and asking them to confirm attendance but a dozen of them failed to respond at all so it was a pretty quiet event in the end. They had carol singers and other entertainers during the day though, so it wasn’t too bad.
JtC you’ll be pleased to hear that it was very successful for us, we raised around £360 which was far more than we were expecting and will go towards this month’s bills. It’s not bad considering we were running two tombola stalls at £1 a go
I’d only intended to be there for a couple of hours but it got quite busy for us, so I stayed all afternoon and didn’t get home until nearly 6pm. Luckily it wasn’t my turn to cook so I got to put my feet up for a while!
Today I’m working from home, and have the afternoon off so I suppose I’d better try to be slightly productive in the few hours I’m allegedly working!
Neither wet nor wild here - just slightly before 5AM. FCD will be with his mom much of the day for med tests. I plan to take the trash and recycling. Excitement abounds!
I wrapped the gifts for the grands last evening, so I’m ready for Christmas. And that’s pretty much it.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 50 Amurrkin out and partly cloudy with a predicted high of < snerk > 69! < snerk > and N.O.S. for the day. We had BooFae’s wet and wild weather Sattidy and yesterday. I need to take care of a few errands today which I shall do this mornin’. Then the rest of the day can be spent in sloth, general overall uselessness, nappage, day drinkin’ and other non-productive pursuits. Sup shall be steak, sallit, and Those Friggin’ Good N.O.T.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alas and bother of all bothers, I suppose I must purtify and don attire acceptable for bein’ amongst the great unwashed. The things I must endure!
Back from Food Lion - I got some diet cokes on sale, and I got a big head of cabbage and some ground beef - gołumbki for supper!! My grandmother’s version, anyway. She never cooked them in tomato sauce, tho I know some people do. She also didn’t mix pork in with the beef. She did cook hers with chunks of potatoes, but I skip that, mostly because of the size of the pot I have to use. Anyway, the rice is steaming - next step is to scald the cabbage, but I won’t do that till after I make my trash/recycle run. And I need to chop and saute some onion so it can cool before it gets mixed in.
There’s sun today! Not particularly warm out, but at least it’s not dreary.
Mornin’ all on a shiny fresh MMP in a shiny fresh week. Almost 8am as I start typing, so an hour after sunrise & my get-up. I’ve managed to make coffee without obvious incident, launch the caffinatin’, & clear a bit of email.
Neither wet nor wild here, unlike yesterday early morning which was wet if not much wild. Presently 73/23 on the way to 86/30 with just a bit of high clouds trying to hide the sun and tempt me to try balconatin’ again. Only to move and bring the blinding beast back into my face. Clouds are sneaky that way.
No big plans for the day. My ears are mostly unstuffed & otherwise I feel normal. Seems I’m semi-congested a lot of the time, as is Her Ladyship. Who is of course still slumbering cutely as I type, and will for another hour+.
Yaay for non-dreary! That used to really tear me up in St. Louis. Cold was unpleasant outside, but could make indoors pretty darn cozy. But gray & dreary outside was unrelentingly depressing indoors even in a windowless room. Somehow you (well me) knew it was out there spreading gloom on all and sundry. Don’t miss that a bit.
It’s 8:30am where you and I are and you’ve already been groccing, gotten home, and are now cooking something complicated. You are amazing.
Happy Moanday to the folks on conventional schedules!
Picking up the last tidbits from last night / last week …
That is so cute. That’s gotta make Mom feel so proud and satisfied. But it is hard to get much done with multiple hour-long phone calls happening.
Her Ladyship is very much a believer that phone calls and texts can wait until later; one simply doesn’t interrupt what one is doing, and especially not when one is with other people, to attend to incoming interruptions. With two frequent exceptions: Son & Daughter. They (usually) rate immediate attention; others do not.
There’s room for more than one. It’s OK, you’ll always be The (retired) Floozy Queen at least to me.
We had a “pot for newbies” thread awhile ago. That was one of the cautions. Yeah, between strong doses and long-delayed response, eating something is kinda like jumping off a bridge; you’re committed to the whole thing including sticking the landing long before you’ve felt any of it.
Speaking of intros to pornos.
I’ve sure read about them here many times; never got up the nerve / give a crapness to try them. Doc recommends the aerosol saline nasal spray which I use some. Probably ought to be a daily program, but I’m getting tired of adding ever more daily maintenance tasks. Kinda like a car, I just want this bag o’ bones to just work, not need constant fiddling with. Needing to feed it more than once a day is already an imposition.
You’re a dear. Thank you.
I know you keep rodents, so the sentence makes perfect sense in context. But all by itself it sounds like you happily toss the leftovers out the back door to attract the feral rat population! Here Rattus rattus, come to Mommy!
When I ran the condo which was adjacent to a nature preserve, a city park, and a waterway, we had a never-ending problem with rats. Made much worse by the many little old ladies who kept putting out food for the sorta-feral community cats and the actually wildlife birds. It got to the point that the city park management was bitching at us for attracting rats onto their premises. Somehow the cats didn’t clear out the rats. They also didn’t reach any sort of equilibrium; just lots of each and more on the way.
I’m not all wild-eyed fanatic about chex mix like some folks around here (cookie and 3 whole batches in about as many days), but back in my worry-free carb-insensitive days I could / would eat a lot of it at a sitting. I’m curious … What do you (shoe) think are the good bits and what are the less-good bits suitable only for rat treats? I always ate everything without much preference.
More volume but more people means the same amount of time at work. Plus starting an hour early means I got home an hour earlier than normal. I’ve had my oatmeal, Spot has had his dry, flavorless bits, and now everybody is gonna nap.
Howdy, all. A very foggy 30-degree morning to you! Not much planned today other than the usual exercise session, but I really need to start thinking about Christmas cookies.
We went to an “event” last evening that the wife identified. When she showed me the description, I said “are you sure you want to go to a Catholic mass?” She insisted that it wasn’t a mass, just Christmas carols, but I pointed out that it said “lenten service”. I was right. An hour of painful sitting on a rock-hard pew, and no carols. Ah, well. I’ve managed to avoid any sort of church service for over 30 years. It didn’t make me better, but it didn’t kill me either.
Yeah, it’s excessive, but it’s once a year. I just make a standard recipe, but leave out the bagel chips and pita chips, which I find to be nasty. I substitute Bugles. I also prefer just peanuts to mixed nuts. Otherwise, the spices are traditional.
G’mornin’, kiddos! A toasty warm high-20s and misty-foggy here, very pleasant. I busted out my emergency credit card and filled my tank and put air in my tyres, so I’m ready to cruise on down to Minneapolis right after work. I am extremely fortunate to have a robust group of pals down there who put me up whenever I need to visit the cities.
I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about the interview/job. I wrote a bang-up cover letter, got fresh resumes and such all printed on The Nice Paper, and spent the weekend watching project management workshops. The IT coordinator here at Current Job is supposed to write me a recommendation too, so that should hopefully look good. I’m as well-prepared as can reasonably be expected.
I haven’t set foot in a church in some years now and would be perfectly content never to do so again… Except that I do love a Christmas service and rather miss the pageantry and gentle solemnity. Someday when I make it back to civilization I’ll find an acceptably progressive church that I can pop into come Yuletide and get my Advent fix.
We only go to these places when there is a non-church affiliated group doing a concert. The acoustics in some of these places are terrific, especially for things like a chamber orchestra.
Good morning all. Finally called the local Heating and cooling folks, have my heat back on for the time being. Apparently the panel works fine but there is a pressure switch that needs replacing and they can’t get that until tomorrow, so I’ll just pump up the heat for now and hope it lasts.
From the previous MMP:
Thanks for the concerns, problem is that they have been in the long pipe running underneath my slab from the main water entry to my second bathroom and have been relatively small holes in what amounts to be a 15-18 feet of pipe (my estimation). If I do bring the plumbers in I’ll ask what the cost would be to dig up and replace the whole line, probably a lot but maybe better than slowly bleeding money away. We’ll see.
At least it is 53F outside so not freezing outside, which is good.
cookie, niner, been to my Brother’s church 1-2 times in the past 10 years, usually for their kids or something, but that’s about it. And yeah, being a lapsed Cat-Lick, lenten service is just that.
niner, best of luck with interview #2.
boo fae, congrats on the collections and on the generosity of folks.
OK, need to get shopping and sammich off my to-do list, then onward into the day. Have a good week, all.
Apart from half a dozen funeral masses since the mid-90s, plus a couple of tours of cathedrals in Ireland, I’ve avoided churches of every flavor for a lot of years. I know my mother is aghast, but I’m not going thru motions or subjecting myself to predictable sermons. I just can’t.
Meanwhile, cabbage has been stuffed and the pot is in the fridge till it’s time to plop it on the stove and cook it. Trash and recycling has been dispatched. FCD stopped here briefly - his mom’s appointment was lots quicker than we’d anticipated - and he picked up a tool bag to do some stuff for her and his brother. I invited her for supper - dunno if she’ll come or not. But she’ll get leftovers.
Oh, and the kitchen is tidied - just in time for me to mess it up making my lunch.
My sister used to live in East Baltimore in a 100+ year old row house. She referred to the many rats in her neighborhood as “city kitties” - yeah, she’s a character, as several folks here can attest.
OK, time to find something in the fridge to sustain me until supper time.
Thanksgiving, vacation last week, 309 emails in my inbox. A couple hundred were automatic notifications of attempts to send a file to an FTP folder that I apparently fat-fingered to where it shouldn’t be. (No idea how I could move the folder into another folder.) I marked all of those as read and deleted them, then moved the folder back to where it belonged. The sender’s automated system tried again after 10 or 15 minutes, and the transfer was successful. There were a lot of ‘All Employees’ emails from El Jefe and his elf, about holiday activities, anniversaries, etc. Those got marked as read and deleted. I answered a couple/few format/programming emails and filed them. So now I’m down to 57 emails/files in my inbox, 25 of them ‘high priority’. We’ll be getting more data through the month, too. Fortunatley it slows down after the first half of the month, and I’ll have everything done before Christmas.
Our Christmas party is at a very nice (and expensive) place in downtown Seattle. I really enjoyed it last time. The schedule is: 0800 to 1130, irk; 1130 to 1500, Christmas party; 1500, go home and enjoy the holidays. Only… It’s on the Friday before Christmas, and it’s 120 miles to the orifice. And another 120 miles back. That’s a long way to go for a free lunch. Being the Friday before Christmas, traffic will undoubtedly be horrendous. And it will probably be raining. And I will have had some drinks. I’ll save the company a couple-hundred dollars and irk from home. But I’ll log off early.
It is decidedly not wet here in the desert. The weather app here says “Oh look, the sun finally decided to fucking show up.” Not that it’s even been that cloudy lately. Highs are in the mid to upper 60s (though we might hit 70 tomorrow), with overnight lows in the neighborhood of 40. Pretty pleasant for December.
Boo Fae, I had to look up “tombola.” Looks like kind of a Brit version of Bingo? Fun! Glad the event went well for you.
I just got word that the project in Phoenix will be starting a week from today, so at least I get one more paycheck before Christmas. It may only last one week, however. Whatever, I’ll take it. I’m trying to decide whether to fly or drive. I’m leaning toward driving, but Mrs W wants me to fly. She’s a worrier. We’ll see.
JtC, I may not have much spare time if it’s a one-week job, but feel free to PM me if you feel like driving up for a dinner one night.
We’re still awaiting the first real storm of the season here in the southernmost part of the bay area of California. We’ve had a couple of isolated rainy days in November, but they didn’t amount to much. Weatherpersons are breathlessly predicting an “El Nino” year, but I’ve yet to see any of it.
Drought depresses me and cold rainy weather cheers me up. A prolonged rainy winter means little to no destructive smoky fire season during the following summer and autumn.
So there I was, contentedly refilling my pill containers when my morning blew up. See, I write checks for my kids every year. Substantial checks, I might add. The understanding is, of course, that they will promptly deposit said checks in their accounts. Well, one of them didn’t, and then when he finally got around to it, it bounced because I (assuming that everything was okay) transferred some money out of checking and into savings, thus inadvertently shorting the account. So I get a panicked phone call from him this A.M. and had to go charging out to the bank because - you’ll laugh like I did at this - I couldn’t access my account online. Then I got to talk to a guy who apparently took the Troy McClure school of banking course, as it took five tries to finally get across what was going on and to get a wire transfer done. I hate banks; I really do. And some CUs are no better.
We’d have wet and wild, except it’s too darn cold. We got dumped on, for a total of 19 cm (7.5") and then it got cold (-6°C / 21.2°F), so the snow’s going to stay for a while.
Finally got back to the gym today, after a 4 week absence, to find out that they will be closed between Christmas and New Year’s Day. They were open over last Christmas, but I think they have problems with staffing. Guess I’ll have to take a break from the gym over Christmas.
My sister and BIL moved to L.A. in July. Yep, lower Alabama. She confessed that she hates it there. She hates everything about it from the house to the traffic to the stores. Her husband said well, we can move back to no. Illinois if you want. The only plus to them living there is they are near their daughter, which is huge. I told her move up near me. We can find a nice one story house, you’d have me and a ready made group of friends. I know it won’t happen but I’m looking at real estate listings….
I’m thrilled for you, this is a bad year for fund raisers because money is so tight everywhere.
Awwwww! You are too kind
I’m sure you will do great! Here’s hoping you will be talking about moving soon! (Will this cause issues with your girlfriend? Sometimes distance doesn’t make the heart grow fonder.)
I enjoy the pomp and pageantry as well. There is a priest who does the Latin mass on certain days and I try to get to one every so often.
Can the line be bypassed along side your home? You don’t get hard freezes so would only need to bury it 6 inches or so. Of course that would be pricey as well, but might also be better than what is happening now.
I doubt that you will have time considering what your schedule tends to be when you are working, I was thinking that if you were here for two weeks we could do some tourist stuff on the weekend.
I have driven to Los Vegas and back within the last year, it is an easy drive with plenty of places to stop and stretch. Sky Harbor is horrible at the best of times and is even worse over the holidays. I would suggest you drive just so you arrive relaxed and ready to work after a good nights sleep.
We got 2 tenths of an inch on the first. I’m doubting the weatherguessers as well.
I know that they were idiots who probably ignored everyone telling them to take it easy, but it still must have been scary and I’m sure they never tried edibles again. I don’t what that to happen to people, I want them to enjoy it.
I’ve actually OD’d myself on edibles a couple of times, but I knew what was going on and just went to sleep which is a super waste of money and good weed.
I guess I’m just too much of a pothead for all of that new fangled stuff, I’ve only ever heard of micro-dosing since you told me about it.
We went to the dispensary today. In New River, after they got the outlet mall, they got a honky-tonk bar, a truck stop and a dispensary. We have two dollar stores. Grumbles.
Hubs thought he would give weed another shot so bought an electronic pipe. I tried and liked the pipe, so he ordered one for me as well. That is very sweet, but we both know that I’ll go back to my familiar lil’ one hitters before the battery dies the first time.
We stopped at the diner in Black Canyon for a breakfast and when we got home I grabbed my packages and went to the post office. Ugh. I know better than to go on a Monday, everyone who lives in that town has to use a PO box, so there was a line of people with yellow “package” notices in their hands. The post office is closed on weekends so folks can’t pick up their packages but they can get their yellow slips in their PO boxes with the warning about picking up promptly because they only hold package three days.
Today is bright and sunny so hubs fired up the smoker and then broke the kitchen shears prepping the turkey. He got my long handled loppers, doused them in vodka and finished de-backboning the bird with them. (There is a very good reason I smoke so much weed.)
Was that a coincidence, or something to do with the bounce?
I’ve had similar surprises with delayed checks clearing. Always exciting. Damn shame your kid flaked and head-faked you. I’ve tried to be more diligent about watching any big checks or transfers in flight in or out to ensure they land before I act on them. But somehow one slips my mind every so often. .
WetOne I hope they didn’t buy in lower Alabama. A LOT of experts recommend renting when you move to a different city so you can learn the reality of living there while hunting for your permanent quarters.
I did not do that when I transferred from St. Louis to Miami, and there were definitely some things that we might have done differently had we rented long enough to get the lay of the land locally in detail before pulling the trigger. In our case which major city and state wasn’t optional; that much was decided for us. But within the great Miami metroblob it was totally up to us. Our decision wasn’t a disaster by any means, but even in fairly early hindsight it was non-optimal.
Evidently your Sis & BIL have freedom to move around the country at will. Retirement aged? Someone like that really ought to sample the culture and day-to-day living in depth before making a big change.
Now that I’m retired I’m sure I’d go live AirBnB for a month or 3 before taking the plunge to actually move to any other major city and definitely before moving to a culture or climate I’m unfamiliar with. If I do move elsewhere in the Miami metroblob it’ll only be after a lot of due diligence day-trips & maybe a couple weeks’ AirBnB as a last ditch check before pulling the trigger.
Yes, Yaay for success, and all the more so on what was a rather unpromising day.
Sounds like good old-fashioned rural git-er-done! to me. At least he left the chainsaw in the shed .
As to me:
Exciting day of sloth here. Sheveled, breakfasted, went mini-groccing, snack-lunch at home, and now time’s a-wastin’ in our respective recliners. Booo-ring!!
I’m a bit run-down feeling; I’m evidently not quite over whatever filled my ears yesterday. But no discomfort, so darn happy of that.
Oh yeah …
Y’all might recall my tale of triumph from a couple weeks ago at the groc store shortly pre-Thanksgiving. The store with the tiny parking lot and the usually boorish parkers and how unexpectedly easy parking & shopping was that day? Welp … payback’s a bitch.
Went there today on an ordinary non-holiday Monday at 2pm. Oughta be easy. Ought.
Two tree-service bucket trucks were parked in the lot servicing the big trees. Which took ~10% of the spaces out of service and meant cars had to creep uncertainly past them in a narrow gap to get from one parking row to another. It was gridlock. The whole lot is only the size of the interior of a good-sized grocery store, and it took well over 10 minutes to park and well over 15 minutes to leave. It wasn’t wet, and it wasn’t wild, but it did add to my blood pressure. So but not quite .
Afternoon all. Have shopped and sammich’ed, sauna’ed and swam (1500 yds!!) and am now home with a nice toasty house (hopefully that will become a permanent thing once the switch is replaced; I’m scared to change the setting now lest it trip itself off again). Dinner and more sloth should take up the remains of the day.
Am trying to go without using any water here in the house for 24 hours so I can see if there really is a leak or just my imagination. Not as easy as it sounds, so far bathroom duties have been taken care of at Jersey Mike’s and the gym, but the temptation to run water or flush is so ingrained I have to watch myself. There may be some usage from the ice-maker in the fridge, but that shouldn’t amount to much. See if I can hold out until 9:30am tomorrow…
Pilot, Madam Karma is in a known and illicit relationship with the Demon Murphy, don’t cha know? Glad you did manage to get the shopping done.
Flyboy, been there, had a pile of e-mails waiting for me, about 60% was stuff I could delete just by looking at the title, much like you.
Wheelie, looks like there are fairly cheap flights on Spirit and Frontier, but baggage and other fees could push that up. About 5 hours driving so maybe a couple of fill-ups going and coming. But a car will give you a little flexibility. Your call.
lucky, if cold rainy weather cheers you up, well, let there be rain and cold…I’ll take bright skies and warm temperatures.
Cookie, glad you could get things straightened out; was it noticeable in your checking account that he hadn’t cashed it?
Dicey, that’s some wintry weather you’re having; if that happened in my locale (North Ali-bama) there would be a rush to the grocery stores and much panicking and horrible driving. Hope you do better.
wet one, not sure where their daughter is, tell them to come a couple hundred miles north to Upper Alabama (around Huntsville/Decatur) and I bet they’d find it more compatible.
JtC, not likely, they’d have to take it across my driveway so much digging and drilling would be involved.
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but not quite 
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