That’s awesome.
Still no power at Casa Del Shoe. Local corner store is dark, too, but still doing a brisk cash-only business. My manager confirmed they have juice at work, so imma bring my phone charger, since I’ve been scrolling thru dumb FB videos instead of cross-stitching like the pre-industrial peasant I am.
Howdy Y’all! It has indeed been a very slothful and dang lazy day here at da cave. We didn’t even go up to the local bar as we just couldn’t be bothered to make ourselves presentable. Nappage, sammiches, day drinkin’, and some Netflixin’ have been the order of the day. Ah sloth! Ah bein’ retired drains on society!
My mom was a good cook. She taught all her brood the basics of cookin’ so we wouldn’t starve. She also taught us how to clean house, do laundry, sew on a button and so forth. If we had turned out to be total slobs it would not have been her fault. I am so glad she did this. I could not believe how totally helpless a lot of my friends were at simple, normal domesticated stuff.
Boo congrats to your son and you on his weddin’. Hope all goes well. We’ll be here to read your tale when you are ready.
shoe hope the power gets restored soonest. Glad you had a good time with gentleman caller. I hope he is sincerely contrite about his absence.
As my username may suggest I was a baker during the better part of my working life. While in grade school I was inspired by a woman who did some housework for my mother. My parents both worked, she lived a few doors away and was the grandmother of two boys in my class. She would get us up in the morning and see us off to school. Many times she would prep supper for Mom to finish. But it was her baking that got me. Her chocolate chip cookies were the stuff of legend. Cake, pie, cinnamon rolls, you name it.
It’s a very long story as to why my planned career didn’t work out, but then I thought about baking and I even went to a trade school for a course. I loved the work/ And my two last jobs let me use the kitchen to work on a local gingerbread house competition. That was fun. The Gothic cathedral was my favorite.
I liked how you told us about your cooking badge and how you still have it/
Well, I finally did it:
My first training session will be on Wednesday evening (not sooner only because I have a meeting on Monday evening and live music tix for Tuesday evening). I’ll meet with the fitness director, and it will be largely a getting-to-know-you session: body composition scan, fitness evaluation, discussion of my goals/issues, etc. Then he’ll match me up with one of their personal trainers, and the actual work will begin with that person at the next session. I’m hoping to set up a 2x/week schedule. I got a tour of the facility after I joined – they offered a tour up front, but gyms are gyms (for the most part) and the fine print was more important – and the place is huge! It seems like it’ll be good, though. 
In other news, today is Bailey’s 15th birthday! 
She’s a medium-sized dog, so in people years she’s ~83. She definitely doesn’t look her age…she gets that from me. 
Congrats to him, you, and the whole family! 
I’m in the process of binge-re-watching that show right now! I watched a few episodes this afternoon, and will watch more this evening. I just started S6 (of 9). It originally aired on USA from 2011-2019, but yes it’s currently available on Netflix.
One person’s garbage is another person’s great show. 
And Paintcharge is correct: the actress who played Rachel is married to Prince Harry.
Ugh! 
Breakfast was good. Brought home two half-bangers. We left the house at 09:00 and got to the restaurant at 10:00. We finished eating at 11:00, and got to the lighthouse at 12:15. We only went to the lighthouse, even though I thought we’d explore the batteries. I got the Spousal Unit a T-shirt, and I bought myself a patch and – finally – a ‘lighthouse passport’. I used their stamp to put in the first stamp.
Got pictures? 
After my trip up the lake, I went to the upper falls area and did a little wading/swimming. Gather your pearls and head for the couch, I went skinny dipping. Yes, all by myself, at least 3/4 of a mile away from anyone. It just feels good. Then, recline in the water and read a book.
Boo Congrats on the son marriage.
shoe Hope the power has returned when you get back from slinging pies. Like a boss.
flyboy Really cool lighthouse. I’m guessing tenders? used to live there. I think that would be a great job.
This week the scale says 217 pounds – down 32 from late April, and halfway to my goal of 185. Slowly but surely…
I fell at the barn today. Not off my horse, mind you. I tripped and hit the concrete. A big owie on my knee. I’ll take Tylenol tonight in hopes of staving off aches and pains.
My mother was an excellent cook. I don’t remember spending time in he kitchen with her but I must have because I’m a good cook. I must have sat at the kitchen table (we had a nook which was way cool) and colored or read while she was cooking. She didn’t like to bake. Her Thanksgiving dinners were so renowned that people talked about the dinners at her funeral.
Yes, lighthouse keepers. They had a ‘K’ on their uniforms and had.
ETA: I got an email that the new kayak is ready to be picked up at the local store. I’ll get it mañana.
I’m back in Maine for a quick visit, mostly for my kids’ birthday, but other many things abound. I flew in on Thursday and I fly back out on Monday. Poor Bobby is having a bit of a rough time. He stayed back in Oregon with my friend coming by to feed and walk him and make sure everything is okay, but the poor guy has been lonely at night and has been incessantly barking (got a call from the office), so my buddy is really doing a huge solid for me and he’s going physically babysit Bob overnight till I get back (just two more nights).
In the meantime I have managed to clear out my storage unit (there $100 / month savings) and either threw shit out, donated things or gave them to my kids. Matt wanted tools and Mariah wanted the airfryer, and that’s about it, so a ton of shit just got tossed right into the hopper at the dump. I love, love, love purging myself of stuff. Old DVD, doo-dads, kitchen implements a pile of dirty clothes in bag, shitty torn up books, you name it - I tossed it. I highly recommend everybody do this periodically, like every couple of years. It’s awesome.
Also … in about an hour I’m heading out to a 40th (yes 40th) High School Class Reunion. It should be a trip, especially since I didn’t RSVP to anything about the thing and nobody knows I’m going to be there. I fully expect to walk into a room full old feeble people who won’t recognize me at all since I haven’t seen most of these people in 30 years. Should be fun.
All I have is old photographs from almost thirty years ago. But the cathedral won first prize.
I love stained glass, which is why I made it. To get the glass, you cut out where the window will be and half bake the piece. Take it out of the oven, and into the holes you carefully place crushed hard candies of the color you want. Place back in oven and the candy will melt and seal to the edges. Cool and then carefully peel off the paper or foil backing. For the main rose window I had a design that was partly a joke, it was a version of Luther’s seal. A small red heart, in a white rose, with green leaves and blue for sky around it.
‘Hat’.
Dinner has been et. Had leftover million dollar pasta casserole (even better after a day in the frig), asparagus and salad. Brushed the asparagus with olive oil then sprinkled Mrs. Dash on and baked. Hubs picked some peas from the garden that went into the salad along with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, carrot, celery dressed with Garlic Expressions Vinaigrette. The peas were the first produce from our garden. Of course, we have green onions and parsley that kind of grow wild, that is, we don’t plant it each year, they just come up on their own in early spring. For dessert we had peach, strawberry, banana milk shakes.
Now to wash the dishes.
Good on your daughter taking on the board and even better, the board being ready for change Moooooooom.
That is so cool about the cooking badge hippy.
Birthday skritches to Bailey oopsie!
baker your stained glass windows on the cathedral sound like a fancier version of the stained glass cookies we used to make as kids. I’m another who would be interested in pics.
Nelson and I spent a few hours with fishy, metal mouse, St G (and her beautiful boy Scout) and good beer this afternoon. Thanks for organizing this fishy!
I’d love to provide pics but the photos I took were snapshots thirty years ago and I probably couldn’t get a crisp image. But this last year I did a gingerbread structure again, and plan to this coming November as well. In 2022 I did a house of worship, but not a church. It was a sept from Game of Thrones. Seven sided of course, and I had plaques for all seven gods,
And I have returned home from the meetup red mentioned above. Took a more leisurely route back instead of the Interstate, but didn’t take all that much longer. Good to meet folks, who are as nice in person as on the SDMB/MMP. Real Fish got Fudge and Beaver Nuggets from Buc-ee’s to take home for the men of the house, we tried but couldn;t finish them all.
I also had the job of holding the doggo’s leashes when their buddies had to use the ladies room (we were outside as dogs are no longer allowed indoors there). Nelson just sat and whined, but Scout (StG’s Doberman) gave my arm muscles a bit of a workout…but sweet puppers both of them.
Also managed to procure some Powerball Lottery tickets (over $800M jackpot tonight), so I can look forward to throwing them out tomorrow…
Pilot, sounds like you got pulled in to a FUBAR, glad you finally made it (I’ve been through BDL many times in the past on the way to Stratford, CT and it’s one of my favorite medium-sized airports). Hope Sunday’s flight gets you back on-time.
{{shoe}}, hope it’s cooling off some for you. Would send you one of my ceiling fans if teleportation was a thing.
wink, wink, nodge nudge…
hippie, great story, my mom never really taught either my brother or I how to cook, glad you got to learn.
Oopsie, welcome to the gym bunch. I hope it all works out for you. And a Happy Bailey Birthday!
VanGo, glad you were able to get away for a bit, and skinny dipping is good for ya; I remember as a young man the YMCA would have boys only swimming lessons and it was ‘clothing optional’, so a few times I did the skinny. I think my gym would probably object if I was to do it now… 
Herald, that’s great news, but 32 pounds dropped in 3 months…that’s a bit much, isn’t it? Be careful on that.
Bats, you owe that buddy some serious debits. Don’t have a storage unit, but one of these days I’m going to empty my garage and expect I’ll find a large amount of stuff that needs to be hauled away, but I can still get my car in there, so not a big rush. Enjyo the reunion (I skipped my 50th).
OK, need to catch up on my internettin’, all y’all take care.
How exciting, congratulations to the happy couple. May they love forever!
No do that! I managed to wang my knee against a corner of our kitchen island which caused many bad words, but that was wood, not super hard concrete.
Thank you for the advice, I probably need to do that as well. I kinda figure that if I’m going to play pin cushion, I might as well do it right.
I forgot to call the pharmacy during business hours, so I’ll call them tomorrow. NF wants to go to the dispensary before I go to Idaho and it has been ridiculously complicated to get things scheduled. Everyone involved is a retired drain on society, how come we are all so stinkin busy all the time?!?
Good on you for being able to try. My BFF was fed whatever she wanted to eat as a child and still eats like a kid at 50. It is SO hard to cook for her because I’m not a huge fan of salty, greasy food anymore.
I really need to water our flowers and clover, but it is still over a hundred and I’m too much of a wimp to go out there until the sun is fully down. It hasn’t been cooling down at night which is really stressing everything.
Baggy t-shirts over a swimsuit worked when I was a kid and they work for me now!
When we closed on our current home, we delayed closing on our last home for a month so we would have time to move and do all of the stuff we needed to do without rushing. My bladder figured out a few days into it that we now had TWO homes and would go into emergency mode at each driveway despite me going before we left for our oh so long 5 mile drive. Hubs was amused. I was not.
Fingers crossed that it works! I tend to fuss about the amount of mercury in tuna and have learned that ours think that canned chicken is pretty good as well.
I’ve been enjoying all of the learning to cook stories, but yours made me go Awwwww!
Apparently we were short handed today. I got sent to the mezz to help Hazardous Ken, then on to the 200 Slide. They didn’t have loaders for the 200 boxline cages, so they were getting people to come back to load the package cars. And someone on the 300 Slide was putting things that needed correction in the Not In Building bin, so I had to deal with that. I got off at noon, and home by 1. Spot was apparently having a meltdown due to me being late. We had to have an hour cuddle nap, before I could put the groceries away, and clean up. Having a gin saketini(with Japanese gin)
Nah. i’d say Daughter is the perfect person for her job.
Congrats!
and {{{{BBBoo}}}} for living under The Chinese Curse.
No different
Happy Birthday Bailey::
Glad the Dopefest went well for everybody. 
from “spam egg spam spam bacon and spam”. 
I intended to post yesterday evening but was frankly in too much pain. I had so much fun at the Giant Tortilla Press that I decided to get my Covid booster. Actually, I made the appointment yesterday morning at the expensive grocery store and pharmacy. No bus goes near there. (The customers don’t want to see the riff-raff, I guess.) But the alternative was farther away and would require two bus rides from the mammogram place, and I wouldn’t get there in time. So I walked a mile. The pharmacist said I was due for a tetanus shot, so I got that, too. I planned to Uber it home, but between surge pricing and the long wait in the heat, I decided against it. Besides, my knee felt OK, pain level 3. It was 88º and the way back was uphill. I iced the knee as soon as I got home, but it was a long, rough night. I won’t make that mistake again.
Happier news: as I was leaving the store, a guy ran up to me and said, “You dropped this,” and handed me a $20 bill. I don’t see how I could have, but he was very certain. There are so many kind people in this world.
Here’s one of mine. When I as 17, my mom asked me to make my older brother’s birthday cake. His favorite was German chocolate, so I decided to make it from scratch. It looked good, and the frosting was a breeze. Oddly, when he tried to cut into it, the knife bounced. He tried again. Boiiiing! I was nonplussed. Turns out the cake flour was way, way past the expiration date, and I probably also mis-measured the liquid or beat the batter too long. We got a good laugh and ate the frosting.
