Mrs. L.A. had a blueberry & Ensure smoothie. I had ground beef, broccoli, freshly-ground black pepper and soy sauce, w/mayo.
My sister and I played in a local trivia game tonight, that’s held at a local microbrewery that also has really good food. We called our team “The Childless Cat Ladies” Another team with just two women ended up with being called “Even More Childless Cat Ladies” Our name had been submitted first so the next team had to have that slight alteration. They ended up in second place, my sis and I were ninth out of ten.
Beach Cat Brewing is a mile down the beach from us, and they have a trivia night. I haven’t been to any events there. They don’t have food, but they have rotating food trucks in their parking lot; and The Beach Bar, right next door, serves food that you can take to Beach Cat to enjoy with your beer.
Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to heave
Up, then back down again.
Back in a bit.
Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 18c/64f with a predicted high of 27c/80f, and cloudy. Weather app says “Serge King once said “Revelations are found in clouds”. Yeah? How about the fucking revelation that clouds fucking suck?” I’ve been outside, it’s not cloudy, it’s sunny and that means hot and humid. We have a weather warning for the heat and also one for thunderstorms/torrential rain/localised flooding. Our local forecast has t-storms on Thursday so hopefully that will bring the temperatures down a bit.
Yay for good therapists and for feeling better. Appendages crossed for interviews and a quick offer for something that’s good in both the location and pay depts!
We have international rubbish, does that count?
It does look like a nice property but not worth the cost of repairs if it’s been empty for so long. Such a shame that the family can’t get over the spite and get some financial benefit from it. But also, good for you if it’s providing some entertainment. I do like the idea of the forest reclaiming it, that would be good to photograph as you see it advancing.
Yesterday had a brief flurry of activity late in the afternoon, one of my irk colleagues messaged about a bunch of forms that I’d put together. There were a couple of things we needed to change, she wanted a bit of extra text added to one form as there had been a change in the modules provided for next year’s incoming freshers so I did that bit, and another one needed a bit of an overhaul because it’s a joint honours programme and the other School involved with it had changed a few things too.
After that, I logged off and went downstairs to make campus food for the rest of the week. Did that fairly quickly, and had a bit of sofa time with Shadow before I had to go grocery shopping. No drama there, and we were back home within an hour.
Today is the first of my 3 days on campus this week. Everyone’s in, apart from one of my minions who has requested to work at home today. She’s a rather large lady and the heat is not kind to her, her legs are swollen and she’s having difficulty moving around. She’s also diabetic and takes water tablets so she needs to get to a toilet quickly sometimes. We are having all the toilets on our floor refurbished so she would have to go down to the second floor to use theirs. I just told her to stay at home until she feels comfortable enough to come in, that shouldn’t even be an issue.
Right…time for a cuppa and then I ought to do something a little bit productive.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 75 Amurrkin out and partly cloudy with a predicted high of 92 with light rain showers predicted yet again for late afternoon. We are also under a heat advisory IOW ‘tis Summer in south Jawja. We shall procure provisions this mornin’. I have a small ham all thawed out in da fridge. It shall be baked this afternoon for tonight’s sup which shall include collard greens, rutabagas, squishes, and cornbread. I got a gnawin’ and a cravin’ for some down home cookin’ and there will be no objections from OYKW as his reaction when I told him this yestiddy was YUM! Of course I shall manage to squeeze in some RDOS inactivity.
Coppertone hope the job interview goes well.
Sticky_Buns glad you could get in to talke with your therapist. A good therapist is golden. Hope sump’n comes along soonest job wise.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alas and alack, I suppose I must purtify and don attire acceptable for bein’ amongst the great unwashed. Woe.
Happy Hump Day Y’all!
How did it get to be Wednesday already?
Still morning here for another 10 minutes. Went for a walk before it got too hot, but it was still warm. Laundry is washing - I want to take advantage of the free drying (sun), while it’s hot.
Heat advisory until 8pm today, with a thunderstorm warning starting at 2pm, going until midnight. As tomorrow is the national day, normally we would be hearing fireworks by now. Either it’s too hot or too expensive, or everyone’s at the lake.
Yesterday I got notified that my watch was ready to be picked up, so we did that, and then stopped at the liquor store at the train station to see if they had any Triple Sec. They had two, and chose the Bols. Part of the reason to get Triple Sec is curiosity, but I also thought it might be good to get something with lower alcohol, since Triple Sec can be only 20%. The one I bought is 38%, compared to Cointreau at 40%. Oh well.
Did a taste testing. The Bols is very orangey. The word “Tangy” is on the label, and it is quite accurate. Cointreau is a bit more syrupy and has a differnt orange taste.
I think I got too much citrus in my sugar syrup, so the resulting margarita was a bit sour. So I might want to make some more sugar syrup - but only after it cools down - I don’t want to cook inside.
And I need to work on my rim salting skills.
Today’s lunch is cheeseburgers on the grill. I’m also going to take the opportunity to grill pineapple slices and bell peppers for tomorrow’s pizza on the grill.
I suppose I should go mix the dough. But only after the laundry’s hung up. Just need a few more minutes before the washer goes ding.
I have Simon and Garfunkle’s Old Friends on repeat in my head, especially the line “how terribly strange to be 70…”
Then I got to thinking - swampy, when we dined at Whitey’s, we were in our 40s!!! Just wow.
Lessee - today I’ll help SIL move his car to our yard till he can get it towed to the body shop - not going into the long, weird story. And, with luck, my car won’t need more than an oil change and I’ll get it back this afternoon. Other than that, no real plans.
Except last night, I pulled the poke that had been in the crock pot all day. Today I need to divide it into freezer bags and, um, freeze it. Except for the part that will be supper tonight. And I may run to the local farm stand for some more 'maters since mine are slow to grow and ripen.
Mostly, tho, not a lot going on here. Stress test tomorrow.
Happy Wednesday!!
Mornin’ everyone.
It’s 64F and cloudy outside with 95% humidity. Cloudy skies will give way to partly cloudy skies later today and the expected high temperature is 82F.
It’s been really, really muggy here the last couple of days, like down South muggy. Ick.
Sticky Buns, I’m glad the therapist was able to help you. I’m sending all the “get the job” vibes for your interviews.
My Jeep is a 2014, and I bought it brand new. I’m at around 70,000 miles, and every once in a while, I think it would be nice to have a new rig. However, I love not having a car payment, and there is nothing wrong with the Jeep.
Tomorrow is my last work wake up until the 19th. Huzzah!
My workday was filled with the usual silliness. Today, I have meetings, and the one in-person meeting I was supposed to have has been canceled and pushed out to a date during my vacation. My bosses will attend that meeting, and I won’t worry about it. I started asking questions about certain aspects of a cooperative agreement and wasn’t receiving satisfactory answers. I finally said, “Self, this is not your circus, and these are not your monkeys. You’ve been warning them for months about the need to involve certain elements of the organization, and they chose to ignore them. Just quit it. They can deal with the fallout”. So, I stopped asking and won’t say another word about it.
Well, the pups are clamoring for some morning rub and wrestle sessions. So, off I go.
Its still slightly cloudy as I’m on the north side of the building.
Its not to rain today, yay!.
Off to dentist, then library.
Interview later.
Hope you all have a pleasant day.
Yesterday I put a 8-ish pound poke shoulder in the slow cooker. After it was done, the bone was removed, and much of the fat scraped away, as well as whatever liquid cooked out, I was left with just under 3 anna half pounds of pulled poke. That should be enough for 7 meals for the 3 of us, but dang, that’s a lot of loss!
I’ve finished helping SIL. FCD is running an errand before going to the boat. MIL is still sleeping. I’ve loaded the dishwasher and hand-washed the crock and another big pot. And I picked 2 'maters. I need to go out and pick the cherry and grape 'maters and see if there are any more cukes or melons. Then, I dunno. I need to get buns for tonight’s pulled poke supper. Not sure what else I need. I have cabbage - maybe I’ll make some cole slaw. Can’t go to Food Lion till MIL is up, so it could be a while.
Morning all. Wanted to sleep in but someone decided to do their yardwork at 7am (given that it is supposed to reach 96F this afternoon I can’t really blame them, but it does making sleeping late a bit harder… Watching trains in Elkhart, IN and Ashland, VA on Virtual Railfan, will have my big bowl of Cereal here in a little bit. Need to make a final decision about the hearing aid and order it, since my retirement check for August is in the bank. Outside of some swimming at the gym and soccer in the late afternoon, not much on the agenda. May run the vacuum around the house if I feel real ambitious.
JtC, I guess the car builders got to me early, I go about 7 years or so before I get the itch. In my defense, I have a nice little nest egg at Edward Jones that will be ready to use in May 2025 so that is my target date for now.
Reminds me of a quote from a Science Fiction series I read: “She held grudges until they died of old age, and then had them stuffed and mounted on the mantlepiece”. Only two I have are with Applebees and Alamo Rent-a-Car, and haven’t used to either of them in over 20 years…still, sad to see what probably was a nice place go like that.
Cupcakes, I suspect there were a lot of groups/teams adopting that name this past week.
boo fae, 80F in jolly old England; veritably scorching! And best wishes to your co-worker, I am not diabetic but I am at the age where I always know where the nearest toilets are when I’m out.
I know what you mean, time can be a weird thing.
FCM, happy car shuffling and poke-pulling.
Taters, you need to get a t-shirt like this: Funny Not My Circus Not My Monkeys But I Know All The Clowns PC - Buy t-shirt designs
Coppertone, may dentist be painless, may library be pleasant and may the interview be successful.
And enough time has passed for the pill I took (on an empty stomach per direction) to do it;s work, so Eatin’ Time! Have a good Hump Day all.
There is a house a couple of miles down the road that has been mostly reclaimed, I’ll try to get a pic next time I go downtown. At one point in the early 1900’s over 90% of WV was clear-cut by the big logging companies. The forest is still trying to reclaim all of the land it lost all those years ago.
Run a slice of lemon around the rim, it holds the salt better than water. Do remember, practice makes perfect 
That sure does sound familiar…Heinlein?
Mine is AT&T. They pissed us off when we first moved to AZ, never used them since. I also stopped supporting Goodwill because my BFF has a grudge against them. I don’t know if that counts.
Today I woke up to the sound of dual mowers going. Harry was working on the gully behind us and the guy that mows the big place across from us was out in that yard. Harry will probably get the yard next to ours as well so Hubs will compare our yard to the surrounding yards and find the mowing he did three days ago to no longer be acceptable. He’ll probably run our mower around once the sun drops behind the trees.
Currently we are waiting on the plumber. He is going to fix the mistake his co-worker made on the dishwasher and put in a new water heater. Hubs figured that it was going to need to be replaced sometime soon due to it’s age so we might as well get that taken care of now instead of after it breaks. We went without hot water for a couple of days at our last place and we didn’t like it much at all.
I ordered some black out drapes for the bedroom and at first look last night, I thought they were too pink. Now that it’s full day, I can see that they are the dusty rose color I wanted so I’m happy I didn’t bother doing the return last night.
Next I need to deal with the windows in my room and I’m still debating about what to do.
The sun pours through the french doors in the mornings and the internal mini-blinds don’t really do much to block the heat so I’m going to hang drapes over them.
I’m not sure what to do to the window next to them. It’s on the side wall and doesn’t get the heat so I can’t firgure out what I want there.
Plumbers are here.
Cole slaw is made and in the fridge. My car has a leaky o-ring in the a/c system and it needs a few other things in addition to the oil change, all to the tune of about $500. So there’s that. MIL is sleeping in front of the TV.
Excitement at FairyChatEstate.
Actually from David Weber’s “Honorverse” series, regarding Queen Elizabeth of Manticore.
Glad the plumbing is getting made right and concur that since you are in fix-it mode right now getting the water heater replaced is a good idea.
FCM, my car probably goes for it’s oil change next month…wondering what else they will find…
And since I put it on the Book of Faces, I’ll mention it here; have ordered myself some hearing aids, don’t know when they’ll be ready but hopefully I won’t have to keep asking folks to repeat themselves quite as often. Not cheap, but insurance is going to pick up a fairly nice chuck of it, so now it’s waiting time for it to be processed and ready to go.
Press on.
The smalls heaving went fine, but the 300 Slide? Hoo boy.
Background: the irregs used to get tagged by the Revenue Recovery people here(but headquartered in Greensboro). Then they moved Revenue Recovery to Mebane, and the top 3 people stayed here and still did the tagging, but now under the Raleigh Center. Everybody else got reassigned here in the building. “G” got sent to the Mez. Except she can’t do the address correction stuff. And she wasn’t letting anybody else do it. So it sat till I got there. Which was late, because I had to help Slothman and the other Revenue Recovery guy with the empty bag trailer. So the dude who used the address line on his label to type “RING DOORBELL! PACKAGES STOLEN! CAM ON DOOR!” will get his stuff tomorrow. I’m surprised the system pulled him up. This is gonna be some wild circus next week during my vacation.
Glad the therapist fit you in, and < crosses fingers on jobs >, Sticky.
Are you gonna put it up on blocks?
< Richard Nixon likes this post >
Good luck on the quests, Coppertone!
OWWW! THUMB CRAMP!
Well. That went well.
I’ve had an upper denture all my adult life.
When I’ve had to make an impression it was difficult to breathe.
This time was different.
Instead of telling me to bite down, she just held it in and my mouth was open so I could breathe clearly.
Wow.
I was hoping it would be done in a month, but she said it could take 3 or 4!
Some wax mold, then more measuring etc.
Next appointment isn’t for 3 weeks.
But the goal is in sight!.
Whew. My plate has holes in it. I should’ve done this sooner.
Way hot out today.
I like that, just hate sweating.
Showered once, now I had to take an “escort bath.”
Tonight will be fried chicken tenders with rice.
I promised to check in Sunday, and here it is Wednesday. How do the days pass so quickly?
Not a whole lot going on here. Got home from New York on Friday evening and had a very slothful Saturday and Sunday. Last couple days I’ve been working on the honey-do list that accumulated while I was gone. Little stuff like putting air in tires, hosing down the a/c compressor, adjusting the string lights on the patio, and so forth. But it’s keeping me relatively busy.
Monday night was trivia at the clubhouse. Five teams instead of the usual four. I hope more people keep coming out; even if it makes it harder to win, it’s more fun with a bigger crowd.
One question was “What kind of animal was the first mammal to orbit the Earth?” I was about 80% sure it was a dog, but everyone else on the team was adamant about answering “chimpanzee.” With a few more percentage points of certainty I might have fought harder, but I backed down and we lost that point.
We ended up in a tie for first, and they gave prizes (a punchcard for four free clubhouse events - a $20 value!) to both teams. So that miss allowed more people to win, which I don’t feel bad about. Now, if we’d lost by one point…
Last night was Mrs W’s water aerobics class, so I tagged along and did 35 minutes on the elliptical while she splashed around. It was a fairly light workout, but still took a lot out of me. I gotta get back in the groove!
Swampy, sorry I missed your milestone birthday. It sounds like you had a nice day, and I wish you many more!!!
Oh no! Sorry to hear that. Was that DataAnnotation? I’m still with them, but I guess it’s helpful to know it could be snatched away at any time. Damn.
Greed is amazing, isn’t it? If he had a good buyer lined up, everyone could have shared evenly in a nice windfall. Trying to undercut your siblings like that is unconscionable. Ass, indeed.
But some liqueurs contain other ingredients that can go bad. Be careful.
I did not know that, thank you.
I’d guess the best way to avoid that problem is to drink it all now, LOL!
I’d have to look it up, but I seem to remember that Laika died after blast off but on the way to orbit, not in orbit itself, so technically chimpanzee is probably correct.
Mom is a big trivia fan and I worked in the library reference department for many years. That’s just the sort of worthless bit of trivia that I’d have picked up somewhere along the line.
It was time. The water heater is on a raised platform in the attached storage room. It was so encrusted with rust and build up that the plumbers couldn’t get it to drain and had to wrestle the full tank out of the room and down a couple of stairs. 40 gallons x 8.3 lbs = one really heavy water heater.
To make matters worse, we hadn’t thought to turn the heater off this morning so the tank was full of 160F water.
I told them how happy I was with the R/O system and they both tasted the water and then ice water and started looking very interested. Interested enough to ask how much the unit cost and questions about the filters.
R/O systems waste a lot of water which is why we only have an under the sink unit. WV has so much water it comes out of the rocks. We pay more for trash pick up than for municipal water. Folks out here don’t drink tap water because it is so bad. They buy bottled water and then have to deal with all of the single use plastic bottles they generate.
The plumbers talked about it a bit and independently decided that our system will have paid for itself in less than a year. I think we might have given them something to think about.
The dishwasher works now. The plumber who made the mistake was spoken of in rather rude terms. GG and Bella got rudely tossed into the bedroom and locked up. After the plumbers left I made BLTs and the fuzzbutts got their tribute so they were happy again.