To paraphrase Jimmy Buffet, it’s 4:20 somewhere. 
Leaving from NJ/PHI today, and as packing the car, text says my flight is CANCELLED!!
American Airlines. Evidently their mechanics strike may not be settled. :rolleyes:
They gave me only two options for early flight tomorrow (non-stop). But I have to work on an online project tomorrow morning at a specific time. These flights wouldn’t get me back until after lunch. 
So good part is, I get another day with Mom, don’t need to rush out the door and can hit my favorite place where I used to work for drinks, food and a basketball game.
BAD news is the crazy runaround I had to do. Since I couldn’t take the recommended flights, I needed an operator. “Your expected wait is 93 minutes.” Nope. I opted for a call back and kept trying. They called me back in 30 mins. Rebooked flight, BUT… can’t rebook my seat on the phone that I paid extra for. Why? The guy can tell me how many seats are available (there were a lot then,) but I have to wait for a certain email, log on, select seats, etc. For all I know, everybody who was on my flight is booking the same flight as me. Who the hell knows?
Finally got a decent seat at additional charge (of course).
So let me tell you my vermin saga.
A few months ago, fairly shortly after I moved here, I found that my bread had been compromised. Something had chewed on it. My first thought, of course, was mice. My bread, along with nearly all the rest of my food, is kept in a cupboard above the counter. So I got up on a chair and looked/felt around the inside of the cupboard for any cracks or holes or any other evidence of mice, hoping to nip that problem in the bud. There was none, so I kind of shrugged and forgot about it. A month or so later… same thing. I go to grab some bread and there are little holes in the packaging. So I think: bugs? At this point, I figure if I had mice, I would know it. I would hear them moving around or find mouse poop somewhere. Also, all my other food appears to be intact. So I decide maybe it’s just a coincidence and the bread bag got caught on something at some point , but resolve to watch for bugs or other signs of trouble.
But again, a couple weeks ago- my last bagel was violated. There appeared to be clear tooth marks in it. Hmm. Bugs? RATS? At that point, I was certain something was getting into my bread and was worrying through the possibilities.
Then, last week, I foolishly left a package of pita bread with one pita left on the table instead of putting it away. When I went to get the pita out, it was half-eaten. The evidence was beginning to build against one particular suspect. I had thought this unlikely in the beginning because the cupboards are so high up and opening them would take some impressive gymnastics.
Until last night, when I caught the villain red-handed. Or red-pawed, as it were. I don’t know if he was emboldened by his last pita caper or if he just found the taste of pita so irresistible that he couldn’t help himself, but it was the pita that did him in. I was lying on the couch watching the Great British Baking Show and having eating a super healthy dinner of hummus and pita and had yet to summon the energy to put the rest of the food away because that’s my life now. So I’m half asleep, letting my brain be soothed by watching Kate from Liverpool get praised for her Genoise sponge and vaguely thinking that, if I’m ever well again, I’m going to make bread… when over the edge of the coffee table, I see a pair of eyes and one-and-a-half ears (he’s a T/N/R cat who didn’t get released) and then… the little bastard thought he was sneaky pulling that package off the table, but it scared him when it hit the floor and he took off, sans pita.
So the good news is that I don’t have rats. The only infestation I have is the one I already knew about. The bad news is hat I have to come up with a more secure bread solution and also that the cat(s) can apparently get into the cabinet. They’re not usually garbage can cats, which is part of why I had dismissed the cat idea before. I don’t see them get on the counter or into cabinets, I have a bag of cat treats on the counter that they never touch even though they love cat treats, and they almost never beg for human food or get into things they’re not supposed to have (with the exception of stealing my ponytail holders and either moving them around the house or drowning them in their water bowl). But still, I’ll have to be more vigilant.
I did, by the way, share just a little bit of pita bread with the little guy. I’m possibly too lenient a cat mommy. I would never share human food with dogs, but the cats are semiferal so, in the absence of any straight-up friendly cats who will sit in my lap and purr, I have to pretend that begging for food means that they love me or else I never get any love at all. So I’ll indulge them a little if it makes them trust me a bit more and means I get to pet them.
Child-resistant locks should keep your cats out of the cabinets. They’re cheap and available at any big-box store (Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc.)
So, How are you feeling Dorothy?
You guys have heard about the 2 lovely, high bred, uber expensive Siamese cats that allow me to survive and sleep under their roof, right?
I was laying on my bathroom floor (You don’t wanna know, why) I looked over and saw a big spider in the space behind the pedestal sink. I jumped up and ran out and looked back in. Oops, left my phone. I tiptoed back in and got it, ran out again. Slammed the door. Took off my shirt and stuffed it under the door. I’m so proud of myself. Everything’s under control. I’ll just have to schlepp upstairs to pee. I can do that.
Oops, nekkid! I go in the laundry room to get a shirt out of the dryer. Flashback to cats. They love the dryer. They have a bed there. I reach to open the dryer and Bear is out of bed in an instant looking at my hand in midair. I look in his beautiful blue eyes and I see a spark of evil. I move my hand closer, I swear he growled. Little closer and whack! Slap on top of my wrist. No blood. Hands to hips, I give him a stern ‘No’, he meows a warning back. I move my hand back into view. This time a definite growly hiss. I say ‘No’ and reach for the door handle, oh shit, forearm strike. There’s blood. I grab a towel out of the dryer and sling it over his head, grab an arm load of laundry and run. T-shirt on. Arm bandaided. I’ll live this time, to fight another day.
Nice cup of tea would be great. I put the kettle on get mug and teabag ready. I saw movement out the corner of my eye. I look at the bathroom door securely closed, on top is a cat going through the OPENED transom. Gah!!!
Bear is sitting on the ledge just inside the transom. I never was safe from the spider. I have to go in the bathroom to shoo Bear away and shut the transom. I heard a low growly hiss. My arm pains me, and Jesus Pete, the kettle whistles. When I looked back through the exterior door I ran thru I see beautiful blue eyes, sparkling.
Spellcheckers and grammar checkers. Ah, the joys of trying to get everybody to write the same way, every document to look the same.
I’m so glad Shakespeare, Twain et al didn’t have no fuckin’ grammar checker, because if it was for this shit which tells me that the passive voice should be removed we would never have had The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer’s Night or Those Two Idjits From Verona. I’m feeling tempted to start copy-pasting chunks of A Connecticut Yankee to see if I can get Word to have a stroke. Wonder what would it think about Dickens… run-on sentences anybody?
If there were no silly rules, we wouldn’t know how beautifully they are broken in great writing. (I’m pretty sure that’s a paraphrase of either Picasso or Sam Seaborn.)
But a lot of those “rules” are stuff which came from some 4th-grade teacher, or from a national curriculum, or from too many people not being awake in grammar class. “Passive voice, consider removing” would have every scientific publication written in English for more than 200 years removed. They’re not merely silly, they’re in contradiction with the whole corpus linguistic of English.
Give it Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Far shorter, and guaranteed to give any grammar checker fits.
I hate when the fact that I’m getting older is thrown in my face, and it’s happening more and more lately. This weekend, my daughter had a soccer tournament a couple of hours away. Like idiots, us parents decided we should drive out and come home Saturday night, only to drive back out there Sunday morning and back again. So about 8 hours in the car for a grand total of 1.5 hours of play. We drove out Saturday morning and got back again around 8 at night, only to drive out at 8 Sunday. We come back Sunday afternoon and go straight to our daughters’ softball game (they’re all on the same team and changed in the car), then my son has a baseball game at the same field immediately after that ended, so I go to that. Then I go to a friend’s daughter’s graduation party and get home and hang out with my son and husband for a while (I hardly saw him or my husband all weekend).
I didn’t have a single alcoholic beverage all weekend. I managed to walk more than 5 miles each day and was asleep before 11 both days. But I still look and feel absolutely trashed, like I’ve been on a complete and total bender. What the fuck, body? This used to be nothing for you - what the hell happened?! It’s like I hit 40 and every subsequent year another door falls off the jalopy.
Oh, I don’t know, I kind of like this itty bitty little wee one for a tree analysis…
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
micro rant … I have inherited my parents house in western NY, just south of Rochester. Back in the early 7os my dad was friends with a guy whos hobby was tracking down American Chestnut trees. I happen to have one in my yard thanks to him. So, the arboristI just hired to deal with my collection of pre-furniture [just joking, nothing is getting chopped down] informs me it is one of an incredibly small number of these trees that is not in an arboretum. There is a registry I could list it in, BUT people tend to find the GPS coordinates, go visit the trees and steal cutting, which can kill a tree if it is not done properly. Crap on a stick, I am proud of having the damned tree, I think it is way fucking cool I have such a rare tree and would love to list it but I don’t want people tromping all over my damned yard and damaging my poor tree by stealing cuttings.
I did give my arborist permission to bring students of his to see it if they need something [people write theses about them, go figure. I can’t keep an air fern alive and people base their entire career around stuff I can kill with my black thumb!]
I did have a friend suggest that I could learn the proper way to take and propogate cuttings, and make money on the side selling them … apparently most of the ‘american chestnut’ trees offered online by random nurseries are chinese or chinese/american cross. I could actually see myself with a small tree farm, I think it would be sort of neat.
What are you laughing about, Mary???
I would do whatever I could to honor the tree.
And come to think of it, your privacy.
I think those are much more conducive to your quality of life than whatever money or fame you could acquire by publicizing the tree and selling parts of it.
I think it is cool that you have an American chestnut tree. I would say do NOT publish anything that would allow anyone to know where it is located. We have too many folks who delight in destroying things and if they could track it down would cut it down maybe for themselves or just because. look at the beehives that have been destroyed for no reason.
If you could figure out how to do cuttings without damaging the original that would be so cool to bring it back from the brink of extinction.
Hum, a squirt of superglue into the mechanism might just teach the personal lock crowd a lesson
Heh, get used to it. This problem will increase exponentially. With me, by the time I reached my mid-60s, I was actually “handicapped”. :eek: So much for the Golden Years.
Unjustifiably confident in my abilities to make short crust pies despite never having tried it in my life and being uncertain of whether or not I’ve ever actually eaten one.
Also… a little weaker every day. PT said today I must use a walker, not a cane (which I had thought was a fair compromise- a little less conspicuous and unwieldy. But apparently we’re not actually negotiating here.) and should consider a wheelchair, at least for going out of the house.
I keep formulating this brilliant plan that I’m just going to wake up the next day and just fake it. Just act like I’m totally fine, all better, no worries, and hide all the problems. Then nobody will see and they’ll let me assist with surgery again and I’ll get stronger and pretty soon I’ll be back to living my life. But then, when it comes down to it, I realize the major flaw in this plan is that it would only work if I were not already doing the best I could and trying my hardest to put on a brave face.
My co-workers make fun of me for the cane already. They don’t mean anything by it. It’s sort of more good-natured ribbing. I get it. I’m just… permanently not in the mood for it. Maybe I should have a better attitude and wrap my walker in rainbow duct tape or attach flames or a bike bell or something and be a plucky optimist with a great sense of humor and an indomitable spirit, but it turns out my spirit is easily domitable and instead I’m just a crabby greyish lump of depression.
But at least I don’t have rats. And could definitely make some mad choux pastry if I really put my mind to it. So that’s good. I should watch Project Runway next and become a fashion designer. Or Doctor Who and learn to travel through time.
Here’s wishing you good luck with pies and walkers. Sounds like a country song. I’m pulling for you.