Masking up (again) in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Morning, mumpers! I have read but not retained much as I’d got a fair bit of catching up to do.

Trip is going well, we arrived in good time and the traffic coming down here wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, given the fact we were using three of the country’s busiest and worst motorways. Tuesday evening we went for a wander round the town (doesn’t take long, it’s not a big place). Yesterday we walked up to the cemetery so I could tidy the grave and bury a bit of mum’s ashes. I was very disappointed to see the state of the grave and also to see that my brother has removed everything mum and I planted there on our last visit (which was not long before she died). I know he has grudges, and doesn’t like the idea of anyone else visiting what he regards as “his” family plot but this is just petty and spiteful.

Once he realised I was here, he sent a text asking if I planned to go to the cemetery, presumably now seething quietly because I’ve already been. Now he chooses to tell me that he’s coming down next month and would, no doubt, undo anything I’d done with the grave. Well, good luck with removing mum’s ashes!

After the cemetery visit, we came back to our airbnb house to drop off stuff, then went out for a late lunch. Managed to visit a couple of pubs that we’d missed out previously and noted two more for a later date. Today we are off to the coast and will be meeting up with an old school friend of mine. There is posh ice cream in my future!

Hugs, tickles, scritches and noogies to be distributed as required.

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Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 75 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 96 and mostly N.O.S. for the day. The big item on today’s agenda is to get shorn. Both of us are lookin’ shaggy. The idea is to go late mornin’ and then have N.O,L. at Riverfront BBQ a very nummy place to eat! Other than that who knows what the day may hold. Any other need to feed will be via forage.

ace I am also angry/upset about the uptick in covid cases around here especially since over ninety percent of cases are among the unvaccinated. Hope your friends are better soon.

BooFae posh ice cream? Does it come in fancy dishes and look down upon the more common ice cream?

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then at some point I suppose I shall purtify and don appropriate bein’ about the public attire. Such bother but social convention dictates I must, so I must.

Happy Thursday Y’all!

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You’d think I’d quit ordering caffeination in the afternoon… yeah, my lunch beverage kept me up till after 2 of the AM. Dammit. Somebody yell at me so I quit that silliness!!

I made the classroom “curtain” for my daughter last night. She wanted a panel to hide the clutter on a bookshelf and I happened to have some perfect fabric for the job. SIL will take it to her after he drops off Roxy this morning. I still need to clean up all the sewing stuff - it’s all over the dining room table and since I invited Daughter and her spawn to stay for supper tonight, I need to make the table usable.

I’d like to take Roxy to the playground, but it’s supposed to be really muggy today - with heat indices in the low 100s! Maybe we’ll just stay here and I’ll let her frolic in the sprinkler if she wants. Whatever we do, it’ll be a long day, what with my lack of sleep. We need a project. Maybe we’ll make cookies?

I was looking at Merrylande’s COVID statistics, specifically for this county. Apparently this rather red area still hasn’t hit 50% vaccination rate yet - what a surprise. :roll_eyes: Of the 9686 COVID deaths in MD, 71 have been among the fully vaccinated - that’s .73%. On the plus side, hospitalizations aren’t out of hand, so FCD’s surgery shouldn’t be put off. At this point, that’s my biggest fear: that he’ll have to wait even longer, poor guy. Two weeks from tomorrow, fingers crossed… :crossed_fingers: :crossed_fingers: :crossed_fingers:

nona - so sorry to hear about your friends. I knew 3 people personally who died from this disease, none were vaccinated, tho one died very early on before there was a vaccination. Regardless, it’s horrific!

OK, breakfast has been ingested and I’m going to try to finish reading before Hurricane Roxy arrives. Happy Thursday, all!

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Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. I’m taking a break from moving my furniture to help a friend mve furnituree. This is a vacation? :thinking:

[Yakov Smirnoff]In Soviet Russia, Mooommm! gets yelled at by YOU![/Yakov Smirnoff]

Nona, I know what you mean. One of my frriends just came down with it. The one that works in a hospital. The one that has been dragging her feet on getting vaccinated. :roll_eyes:

125

Morning all. Got the garbage and recyclables out last night late, which turned out to be a good idea as the trash folks came around about 7am while I was still abed. So I brought that can in between raindrops (it just restarted raining as I typed this) and have been pilled and paid bills.

Nona, that’s not good (your vaccinated friends taking ill). Might be just the odds, or there might be a variant out there that is resistant to the vaccine (that’s what scares me the most about people not getting the shot). My condolences.

boofae, glad you were able to visit your Dad in peace. And posh ice creams dounds delicious (now I want my Butter Pecan at 8:45am in the morning…).

Seanette, glad to hear the fires are still distant–take care.

shoe, I usually have Mac-n-Cheese once a week, it is easy to fix, fills my belly, and for a non-cook like me, it’s a no-brainer. And if flyboy can post those incredible dinners of his, we can hold down the other end of the scale…

OK, the rain is now serious outside, so probably no soccer today. So need to get busy about the house and do something constructive.

All y’all have a good Thorsday.

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Oh, my goodness. That’s just low, man, low.

Nah, I think we’ve ALL had it up to here with it, however the frustration gets expressed. I hope your friends all recuperate.

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I am heartily tired of doctors’ offices. Last week I took my mom to the doc for her follow up cancer appointment, and also my husband for a small procedure. Yesterday, overlyboy had to go to the orthopedist. Today overlygirl and overlyboy both need to go the orthodontist. I’d really, really like to find a new GP; however, mom has more cancer follow ups next week and the week after and both kids will inevitably need braces, so I don’t feel I have the time. Oh, and visiting my dad while he still remembers he has children. Thank goodness my work is pretty forgiving.

At night there are soccer practices, swim practices, cross country and overlyboy’s physical therapy and eventually scouts.

I was telling my husband earlier that I used to fantasize about romantic relationships, but I seriously now fantasize about someone whispering, “Oh, dinner is made - I planned and cooked everything so you didn’t have to. I’ll get the dishes afterwards and take overlygirl to soccer. You go to sleep,” and tucking me into bed. Yep, excitement is me.

ETA: This turned way more rant-y than I expected. Sorry, guys - I’m having a moment.

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On first read, I had misread the “t” in “tucking” as an entirely different letter, and was like, “Whoa, talky!”

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I’m really tempted to start a ‘How has Microsoft pissed you off today?’ thread.

Today’s issue: Cookies. I can’t get to Yahoo on Microsoft Edge. (I’m in the orifice today.) I can clear all of my cookies, and I’m sure that would fix it. Only if I do that, it will log me out of sites I need to log into – like The Straight Dope Message Board; and I don’t remember my password. On my Mac, I can just go to Keychain Access and find my password. But I don’t even need to do that because I can just delete all of the Yahoo cookies and leave the others alone.

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Go for it, dude. Betcha get tons of replies.

Oatmeal raisin is the devil’s work, ammirite?

This morning wasn’t a great mental health day, but I finally shook it off enough to think, “Well, I own a robotic vacuum. I could AT LEAST unleash the Roomba. Sit on my ass supervising the vacuum.”

But that requires some significant tidying up (how’s my British these days?) to be worthwhile.
So that turned into getting trash out, laundry started, and a general picking-up-of-things (mostly cat toys, to be honest) in order to allow my minion (that’s my name for my Roomba) the best chance at slurping up the kitty litter and dust bunnies.

Google used to allow a custom name for side features being controlled through Google Home. Basically, I used to be able to command Google to “start my minion!” and my robot vacuum would get going on cleaning.

So satisfying.

Sadly, TPTB at Teh Googlez decided they just had to have unified names, and did away with custom names like that.

Now, I order Google to “start the vacuum” … and it does … but the fun little evil sparkle is gone.

Floors still get clean, though.

Took so long composing this post, that it’s time to empty my robot minion!

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Happy Thorsday!

Busy morning for me.
I Stupidly put the leash on Ripple instead of Echo. I only realized it when I got to the truck and saw Echo standing at the back of it. I opened the door and told her to get in. She, realizing she was FREE, said screw you, and took off.
By the time I caught her, a half hour later, I was dripping with sweat.
Little bitch.
I was late picking up my son.
I debated if I should go to the park or go back home and take a shower before going to the vet. Then I thought, they deal with stinky dogs and cats all day, they can deal.
The vet let me go into the exam room with Ripple, but she still made me put a muzzle on him.

It was hot, overcast, and muggy when I was chasing Echo. At the park the sun came out and there was a nice breeze. But the time I got home it was just a hot and humid, 84 degrees.
The days are getting shorter though, which is so depressing for me. It used to be daylight when I got up at 530. Now it’s dark until 615 - 630.

Refinance is officially approved. About damn time. Waiting on some extra stuff they have to do that Maryland requires. Once that is done. we’ll get a closing date.

Talky - you make me tired just reading all that.

Boo Fae - sorry your brother is so… contrary.

I’m sorry about your friends Nona

I supposed I should finish the laundry I left soaking overnight.
And of course, I am irking.

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But … but … the days of “NOT hot & humid” come with the shorter daylight!

I shut off Coolio for a while this morning (combo anxiety: electricity bills + what if motor burns out?!?) and regretted it thoroughly about an hour later.
Mah gawd, the hyoomidity.

Looking forward to autumn.

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Right!

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At my grandkidlet’s house the Roomba’s name is ‘Sucka’. Because it sucks up her small, misplaced treasures. When she hears Sucka leave the dock she runs over to the couch and climbs up and tucks in her toes for the duration. She’s a titch scared by it. Sucka comes out every weekday at 3pm. We try to be in the basement then.

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That made me giggle snort.

I’m glad your refinance was approved, sari. And thanks for the sympathy. I’m just super cranky.

We just got back from the orthodontist. Both kids need braces. At the same stinkin’ time. And tooth extractions to make room for their shifted teeth. Thank goodness I chose insurance with more coverage this year. Now to figure our the FSA contributions for next year. I swear, I coulda bought a somewhat decent used car for this amount.

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That’s why our rule was one extra activity at a time. Over the years, she did ballet, tap, softball, gymnastics, swim team,and piano lessons, but only one at a time. Once she was old enough to get herself where she wanted to go, she could do whatever she wanted as long as her grades didn’t suffer. Otherwise, FCD and I (mostly I) would never get to relax.

I’ve got a batch of oatmeal craisin cookies almost done baking. YUM!!! I hoped Roxy would want to help, and she did, for about 2 minutes. Oh well, cookies!!!

It’s been a bad potty day. Dammit. How do you reason with a toddler? Bribes don’t work. “Big girls go to potty” doesn’t work. She’s a stubborn little cuss. And as tired as I am, I’m running short on patience…

I think I need to sit and breathe…

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Craisun oatmeal cookies are right!

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My windows are clean! That is, the ones in the front of my apartment. The ones facing the forest are not. It’s bark and plants back there, and they can’t get the machine in. But I’ll take what I can get. The window washer (It’s like a cherry picker he drives from the basket.) is very nice. I waved happily at him and he waved happily back.

Eh, SHE is my actual friend and will do her best, but she’s still a financial advisor in training. HE has friendship status only because of her. He actually screwed up majorly a few years ago, and my family urged me to take my money and run, but I stayed out of loyalty to her. I really think he needs to retire, as his crankiness has become chronic. She’s not fully certified yet, though, so that won’t happen.

Jane, those peppers look like an illustration in Bon Appetit.

nona, I don’t blame you for being furious. The unvaxxed are endangering us all, and you and your vaccinated-but-ill friends are bearing the brunt of it. I dearly want to get tee shirts that say “GET VAXXED, PERIOD.” Go ahead and rant at me, muthahs. You don’t scare me. I’ve taught freshmen!

BooFae, I’m appalled by your brother’s behavior.

wordy, you are way overbooked. I’m not clear on why all the driving and cooking falls on you. And I hear ya about doctor’s offices.

shoe, I like that you call your Roomba “minion” and may steal it for all my small appliances (because yes, I talk to my toaster).

boo, true confession: when my daughter was too little to understand physics, I’d get her to pick up all her toys by hauling out the vacuum. She thought it could suck up even big toys, and I wasn’t about to set her straight.

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Tell her not to be afraid of Sucka. The Toilet Monster is who she should really be afraid of!

(It’s a shame I don’t have kids.)

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Yeah, but then they turn all too quickly into the days of ‘shit I forgot to charge my hand warmer and are three layers enough?’ and choosing between falling through the crunchy stuff or slipping on the packed stuff.
Reminds me, I need a better snow scraper. The handle is too short on the one I have.

Irk goes a whole lot faster when you fall asleep at your desk.