Looking to the East - An MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Yay SCL about the job!!

I had General Tso’s chicken and a pepsi for lunch today–that was the first pepsi I’ve had in a while and boy did it taste sweet. laughs I’ve been trying to wean myself from sodas by switching to diet, which I really don’t like the taste of. Well, the diet ginger ale isn’t too bad; but I haven’t been buying any regular soda. Plus I’d stopped drinking caffeinated soda several years ago. Now if only I could wean myself off of all the other stuff I like that isn’t good for me!!

I am so glad that tomorrow is Friday. I almost wish that I was going on the vacation my cousin and her husband are starting tomorrow: they’re heading to Arkansas to that Diamond Crater State Park and are going to search for diamonds! :smiley: I think they’re also going to visit Hot Springs. It’s their first real vacation in years and I think they’re really looking forward to it.

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Hmmm, I don’t think there are any MMPers in Miami, FCM, although there are probably lurkers. Maybe they’ll come out of the woodwork.

:rolleyes: on the hunting buddy, Bobo. Gotta wonder about people sometimes. And, yes, that is the precise purpose of the MMP. Feel free to stop by randomly.

It’s sweet of you to think of me, kai. Your description of your garden was beautiful, by the way. I wish I had your gift for writing.

I’d planned to plant some fall bulbs this year, but the various ailments that decided to take advantage of me all at once have slowed me down. Might still risk it in a couple of weeks, but it’s a very wait-and-see project. I need to get the garden cleaned up in the next couple of weeks, I think. I’m pretty sure yard waste pick-up stops for the winter at the end of October and there are quite a few items that I don’t want to throw in the compost pile.

And, yes, I’m spoiled as far as meals go. I’ve always liked one-dish meals, but have graduated from calorie-laden casseroles to various veggies and occasional multi-item meals. Tonight’s veggie was: corn.

Hi Nava! We’ve missed you. Hope the rest of the move goes smoothly. Will you be taking the car back to Spain? :smiley:

That piano falling sounds spectacular, gotti.

Yay on the potential job, SCL! I’ll keep all my appendages crossed for you.

I know I missed some people (did LOUNE ever make it out from under the tweety birds?), but I’m tired (such a surprise), so I’m gonna crawl into bed.

It’s almost Friday!!! Yay!!!

GT

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Yay on the job, SCL! I hope it works out for you. And extra yay for benefits!

You’ve figured out the MMP, Bobo. See? Non sequiturs abound. That’s what we thrive on. :smiley: It’s not so hard, now, is it?

I found out my dear friend in Miami has stuck me at a table at the lunch after the bar mitzvah – with four, count 'em four teenage boys. :eek: “Because I know you can handle them.” :eek: I hate to tell her, but my boy hasn’t been a teenager for several years now, and I never had more than one at a time! Oh well, I’ll just give 'em The Look. And then feed them some more sugar and send 'em home to their moms. :smiley: I may be honorary Aunt MT, but it’s much more fun to be evil honorary Aunt MT! :smiley:

Back to the congressional [del]drivel[/del]. I sure hope I finish it before I run out of steam. It may be a close call tonight. :frowning:

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That is the hellcattiest hell cat picture I’ve seen in a long time.

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I don’t have any pictures, but some of the looks I’ve gotten from MT’s Emily could kill, I swear. She’s very sweet, and then she turns very scary, if you don’t do what she wants!

Four teenage boys? Oh my. Your Look, though, is almost as good as Emily’s Look.

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I’ll try to get a photo of Emily’s Look. She could definitely give Lucretia Hellcat a run for her money. Of course, most cats can, with sufficient motivation. And insufficiently obedient humans is generally considered sufficient motivation!

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I won’t put Smokey in that competition. Even when she’s displeased with me, she always has a perfect little kitty face.

drugs are kicking in now. all day long (after that leg cramp in my right thigh this morning) my leg has felt like some boxer used it as a punching bag. It still feels that way. I took an extra half a Skelaxin in hopes that I don’t get another cramp tonight. Those things are insanely painful
offffffffffffff to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep now :wink:

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Morning all.

Oky-doky …

taxi, congrats on the planned townhouse purchase! We are still in savings mode, so I think it will be a couple more years before we can escape the hamster wheel of renting!

SCL, fingers crossed for the new job!!!

Optibob, you understand the MMP now and will fit in just fine. Minirants are to the Pit as the MMP is to MPSIMS. This is where you come to talk about the daily stuff you want to share and have nowhere else to post it. Feel free to share your whines, successes, daily meals, [del]bowel movements[/del] … well, you get the idea!

Well, we are in transition to a new meal schedule for Noor, based around breakfast, lunch and dinner, with morning tea and afternoon tea, plus a late-night (10pm) bottle. This will drop Noor back to 4 bottles a day, with “solids” only for morning and afternoon tea (e.g. baby biscuits, Vegemite toast soldiers), and solids in the form of veggie sticks (e.g. carrot, broccoli) for lunch (plus her bottle).

I have done some more reading on weaning and I think given HRH’s steadfast refusal to open her mouth for spoon-feeding, we will try baby-led weaning. She has no problem holding carrot sticks, biscuits and toast soldiers, and everything goes into her mouth that way (although some of it gets congealed in her fist). She scoffed 3 baby biscuits in the space of 30 minutes yesterday while we were out shopping, so maybe if she has more control of the feeding process, it will go a little more smoothly, although it will likely be a little more messy!

Once she is more comfortable with real food, I will try again with spoon-feeding and introduce cereal for breakfast and some pureed veggies and fruits for dinner. I feel much more relaxed about it now that I have a bit of a plan.

My parents arrive next Monday, so we are in a state of panic here at home, trying to finally finish cleaning out the spare room and tidy up (not easy with HRH wreaking havoc at every turn! :wink: ). We are almost ready - the bed is made up and I have a few groceries to pick up and I also need to buy some small side tables to use as bedside tables.

Gah, HRH demands my attention …

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“Toast soldiers”? What is that? I know what the Vegemite is, and I shudder at the thought of feeding it to an innocent child (as a provincial American, it smells to me like my cat’s hairball medicine), but I guess you feel the same way about the peanut butter we feed to our kids, so I’m not criticizing, only shuddering. :smiley: But a “toast soldier”?

I am nearly done with this loooong [del]drivel[/del] job. Actually, I shouldn’t call the last few pages drivel – it was the testimony of the wife of an soldier who was killed in Iraq just a few months ago, and it was tearful and very moving. More power to her, I hope the provisions in the law she was testifying about come to pass. But it’s not the kind of thing that I can turn my emotions off and ignore, since her emotions were so raw. Usually with congressional [del]drivel[/del] work, I just go into autopilot mode and let the words flow through without attention to their actual content. It’s much easier that way.

Especially at 2:00 a.m., when all I want to do is to go sleep. Especially since I have to get up fairly early in the morning to take Papa Tigs up to catch public transportation to an appointment at the Baltimore VA hospital, not getting home before I have to leave for my flight to Miami, which caused us to spend 45 minutes trying to figure out how it would all work out, especially since the various modes of public transportation intersect in some key places but not in others. We finally came up with a solution that involves private car, the Metro, the regular train, the Baltimore light rail (much like a tram), and a shuttle bus between lines in Baltimore. That’s four different modes of public transportation between the two of us. It’s quite ridiculous!

Back to work. Sigh. I’m nearly done. Or so I keep telling myself…

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MamaTigs, toast soldiers are long strips of toast. I just cut the toast lengthways into 3 long rectangles, so it’s easier for HRH to hold onto. Also very handy later on for dipping into soft-boiled egg - YUMMY! And the trick with Vegemite is to smear a very THIN slick of it across the bread, over butter and/or under a cheese slice. Vegemite is a different taste (especially if you’ve never tried it before), but if you’ve eaten it since you were a littlie, then it’s really good, and Noor seems to enjoy it more than just plain toast! I am also planning to try smearing apple puree over toast and see how she likes that.

I like peanut butter a lot, but I have never gotten into the whole PBJ thing - YECH!!! My parents had a friend in Canada who used to go fishing at Crater Lake (I think that’s what it was called) in BC, catch and fry some nice rainbow trout and then add them to a PBJ. Now THAT’s disgusting!

Nighty-night MamaT!

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Trout on a PB&J? Okay, that is disgusting! I mean, a good PB&J is a thing of beauty, but adding fish to it? Ewww!

And I’ve heard the thin coating of Vegemite thing. I’ve just never been able to get it past my nose. As I said, it smells like hairball medicine to me. It may taste good; I’ve never been able to actually put it in my mouth and find out. Call me an ignorant Amurkin, I don’t mind. :dubious:

Is it bedtime yet?

ETA: Yay! First on page 8, and I wasn’t even trying!

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Vegemite? Oh dear, Dotty, you need to give Noor the good stuff. Get thee to a Marmite store, sharpish!

Doggio - will happily forge a sicknote for you in aid of hockey. What do you fancy being off with?

I’ll keep things crossed for the job, SCL - how I’ll cope driving over to the doting parent tomorrow is anybody’s guess!

Is Nava driving to Spain then? When did that happen? I hope she remembers to take the car…

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Up and caffeinated. Water is falling from the sky. :eek: Nelly took one look outside, turned around and went back to bed.

BooFae, I think a spot of plague would do nicely.

Rosie, if you want painful, try leg cramps in a waterbed:
[sup]ouch[/sup][sub]ouch[/sub][sup]ouch[/sup][sub]ouch[/sub][sup]ouch[/sup][sub]ouch[/sub][sup]ouch[/sup]

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Sounds good to me, Doggio - I’ve had a nasty bout of consumption myself. I think I may have to go home early today too, looks like a fit of the vapours coming on.

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Wow! I actually slept pretty well.

It’s finally Friday!!! Yay!!! Did I mention: yay!!!

GT

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grumble Who turned on the light? There’s more sleeping to be done. snuggles back up in the blanket

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: pours ice water on LOUNE :
: flees Intarweb for Meatspace job :

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Good morning!! YAY! It’s Friday!!! And I’m done half an hour earlier than usual. Even better. :slight_smile:

I’m looking forward to the weekend. Going to do a little Christmas shopping and crafting. Now just to get through the workday.

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Mornin’ y’all. Brekkie is et, and caffeination underway.

I’m about to add VunderBob’s Corollary to Murphy’s law: If the house needs to be cleaned, there will be a fire or rescue page I have to attend to. It happens every time, and last night was no different.

When I got home from work, the order for the evening was getting [del]VWife’s shit put away[/del] the house ready for the cleaning lady today. As I was just starting to the chore, there was a rescue page in Mayberry for a 38 year old woman having a high fever and skipping heartbeats, with a history of congenital heart problems. Since I had not signed up for duty, I invoked the 3-page rule. It got to the third page, and I called in and went, with VWife being her stereotypical :mad:. Tough shit.

I get to the scene, and I know the place well. The patient is the mother of the Mayberry VFD token eye candy, Erin. That makes this call family.

We transported her without incident, and had a good time teasing mom and daughter both on the way.

We were returning home, and there was a page for a fire in Hooterville. As we drove, more information came in. Turns out it was a controlled burn in a properly constructed pit with an attendant and water on hand; the only problem is that NC reinstated the statewide burn ban, and this fire was illegal.

We get to the state line, and it starts drizzling. Within 2 miles, it was a driving downpour, and we pass the trucks heading the other way. Hooterville VFD gets on scene, and has to put it out, when the rain would have taken about 5 minutes longer to do the same thing. :dubious:

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That’s aggravating–using expensive resources when mother nature is doing the job just fine…
Beautiful day today-cool to cold, windy, gray. I love this weather (I really do-see why I would fit right in in UK or Scotland?). I feel more alive than I have in days. Sinuses are also behaving themselves-I was about to beat them into submission.
Sorry to all here who are Sick. My sympathies to all.

Dotty–I was going to say something about HRH, but the trout thing got my attention and held it. That is truly the most disgusting thing I’ve heard all week–and I had a pt covered in boils yesterday (I felt bad for her-how awful).
I am STILL not done with my stoopit policy assignment that is due today. I need to get the oil changed and then come back here and finish it. Bleh.