I took my vegan nephew out to lunch last week, and I was pleasantly surprised when he ordered the spiced chocolate milkshake and the restaurant sent one of the cooks out to meet with him and figure out a vegan version. Almond milk, coconut milk ice cream, chocolate syrup, spices and a little peanut butter since they didn’t have a vegan alternative to marshmallows.
And it was actually good. I would’ve just said, “Kid, you gave up milkshakes when you went vegan. Get over it.” They have way more patience than I do. But the restaurant does specialize in being vegan friendly. I don’t.
My father… When I was a year or two old and he just got out of the army me mom dad and brother to be were at grandma and grandpas for a bit dad and grandpa and 30 percent of kokomo Indiana worked at the Delco/gm plant (the rest worked at a steel mill and the Chrysler plant)
Well since my family had been prominent/infamous in Howard county for 60 years or so they knew a lot of people … My mom was getting congratulations by a lot of people around town she thought it was because of my newly announced brother to be and she was right sort of… that weekend parents went house hunting and after looking at a dozen or so houses they found a pretty good one that Sunday
according to mom they walked around discussing how theyed set it up and the like mom thought she was getting talked into making an offer
Dad said “well do you really like the house ?” mom said yeah its pretty nice… he handed her the keys and said " well you can start the decorating tomorrow its ours "
He bought it with money he received from the army and waited for escrow to close before letting my mom know …
My stepmom also learned he tended to do the same thing with anything he wanted to buy which is why she handles the money and just gives him some when he wants/needs
My dad has a very nice 1960s/70s retirement package… in fact so much so social security takes 800 a month and gives it to me through my ssi check
But the day he retired he walked out with a 60-70 k bonus check … he put about 10 k or so in the bank drove home … walked to the Harley dealer bought the 60k bike they had in the showroom window (its a one of a kind custom build model) paid in cash and drove it back home pulling up as my stepmom came home and and handed her the helmet he bought for her and went to dinner …
stepmom was beyond pissed … my brother thought it was funny as hell but she couldn’t do anything about it
everyone in town knew he wanted that bike for years his cousin the sherrif let him drive it through town anyway he wanted to for a bit because " he finally bought the damn thing like hed been talking about doing for 20 years…
oh and what I came to bitch about … Do they not show people at the pizza places how to cut the pizza all the way through ?
at first I thought it was the slightly better than the local junior high cafeteria little caesars
But no its dominos and pizza hut too … I just had “scrambled pizza” because I forgot to check to see if ti was cut right before I told my 8 year old nephew to grab a slice and yeah…
at least warn me if you too busy to cut it ya know …
Seeing as how cats and chocolate are staples in our home, it sounds like the party of the year!!! (Please be kind when my BB is handing out his latest brew. He used a different method and his latest batch looks like hot chocolate. Very bitter and hopsy, but he’s happy with it.)
We own 2 houses and are currently living in a rental because our homes are not livable. As of last night, our rental became unlivable as well. The furnace went out and the landlord is just dicking around calling someone because its a weekend AND a holiday weekend, so the rates will be too high. Strong words are happening between my BB and the landlord because its flipping COLD in here.
Us humans and dogs could camp out in our new home as long as we kept the bathroom door closed because there is a big hole in the floor. At least there is heat there, but we can’t leave our cats to freeze in the Houston winter. They kept me in bed until almost 9 this morning because it was only 54F inside and we were too cold to get out of bed. Why am I hearing laughter from folks who live with snow? I feel as though people are mocking me.
Laugh even harder now, because my BB helped me use PVC pipe to make a blanket fort over our bed.
Don’t you live in the Houston area, flatlined? We’re in Austin and at this moment it is 28 degrees outside our house. I hope it’s not that cold in Houston but I bet it’s close, so your landlord is a maniac. And you will all freeze if you have no heat; it’s supposed to get down to 22 here tonight. Go to a hotel! With the cats!
Typing on my droid in my blanket fort. (Its actually pretty warm in here, 1 human, 2 dogs and 4 cats in a blanket fort create a lot of body heat. The oil filled radiator heater helps a lot as well.)
Its not supposed to be as cold as Austin, but its still flipping cold. We can’t move the cats into a motel, Lucky barely survived moving here and trapping Steve isn’t as easy as it used to be. His kitten used to whine and cry when I put her in a carrier, now she just goes to sleep.
My BB chose to pay for heat and then fight with our asshole landlord later, so there is someone here looking at it now.
Good choice. I hope you stay warm and get a fix on the furnace asap.
I have 2 of those oil filled radiators and they have saved my life more than once. I think they are about 40 years old now so I guess I got my money’s worth out of them.
We’ve definitely seen family members purchase cars for their family members and plan expensive vacations etc. etc. without consulting, and I guess if you have a bunch of money to burn it’s less of a thing, but it definitely wouldn’t fly in my marriage and is probably not a great idea for the majority of people who watch car commercials.
When it comes to joint money, there’s some discussion before either of us makes a major purchase. He got me a HUGE Christmas present this year, but instead of buying it he presented the idea to me as a Christmas gift, and then we sat down and made sure it would fit in the budget (he already was willing to pay out of his discretionary fund, but as the budget master, I was able to make it work without penalizing his discretionary.) We are inordinately practical people. Having one of us secretly enter into a contract where the other could be liable for the debt in the case of death? Not likely to happen.
No laughter from Michigan, just empathy. Being without heat sucks. Blanket fort is definitely making the best out of a bad situation!
So, who woulda thunk that a furnace in a short term rental would die due to lack of maintenance?* (40 outside my blanket fort right now)*
We are only going to be here for 2 more weeks, so when given the choice to pay X to replace the furnace or 3/4 of X to get heat for the next couple of weeks with no guarantee that it would last longer than a month…we took the second option. Asshole landlord.
Our feline overlords think that we should keep the blanket fort, and I’m kinda in agreement. If anyone says anything about how tacky my blanket fort looks, I’ll just sic Steve’s Kitten at them.
It is effing cold in south Arkansas tonight. I have plenty of heat, but the Siamese are complaining, I had to do laundry so I could run the dryer. (They have a bed on the dryer). Until I run out of wet laundry, we’re cool.
Conversely, we’ve been told not to do laundry up here in my little Minneapolis suburb - or do dishes, or shower, and try not to flush the toilet. It’s so cold, pipes are a bursting all around me. Neighbor a few houses south has a small lake in her basement, a road a few blocks down turned into an impromptu skating rink, and a buddy a block west has stagnant water in her sinks and tubs.
Luckily, we still have heat.
I’ve gone without heat in the winter before, simply due to having a 70 year old furnace. Never been told to back off water usage.
FWIW, it’s -11f right now.
I am not on city sewage or water systems. We own our own systems, good or bad. Mr.Wrekker has checked and rechecked all possible outcomes. He, in fact, would like to keep drains and faucets running (or dripping) alittle. I dont understand his logic, but we’ve never had frozen pipes, I guess he knows what he’s talking about.
Our furnace went out today, too… we could all make a club!
I sucked it up and called the guy that was on call from our local Heating & AC place. He warned me it’d be $200 + parts. I’m a cheapskate, but it was worth it. It was already getting chilly in the house (no surprise, it was 20 below outside). Plus, we’re dogsitting, and I really didn’t want to subject non-family members to a cold night.
