(Old) Digging things up in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
,
121

Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 9c/47f with a predicted high of 16c/60f and sunny. Weather app says “Oh, so you want to know what the fucking weather is? Get off your fucking ass and look outside!”

Sorry to hear that, and glad it cleared up without giving you too much bother.

Sounds like you will be missed, even though they don’t all realise it yet just how much they’ll miss what you did for them. I’m glad you got some nice emails afterwards.

I work on a big campus so there are food outlets here but to be honest, campus food is pretty expensive and the choices are not always that great. It’s easier to bring my own food with me - that way I know what’s in it!

Fingers and toes crossed for you!

I’m glad to hear you survived the surgery and are safely out of the horsepistol’s clutches. Wishing you a speedy and painless recovery.

I get a notification of the annual mileage when I take Keith for his MoT, at the moment I drive an average of 3,000 miles a year. It was higher when mum was alive because I was driving to and from her place every weekend but now I mostly drive to the supermarket and the gym, and into town for the weekend errands. I have some events going on that will be a longer drive from home but that’s unlikely to bump the mileage up by much.

Never mind, you’ll do that when you’re ready for it. Maybe that was just not the right day for you.

Yesterday was the usual non-event on campus. Spent the day in the office and got very little done due to the constant interruptions. I did have a very enlightening conversation with a colleague about Troublesome Minion’s past which made a lot of sense. After irk, I went home and tended to the needs of cats, had a cup of tea and then went to the pub for a curry and some beer.

Today I have a meeting with TM, a union meeting at lunchtime to discuss the university’s pay offer for last year which still hasn’t been agreed, and then a manager’s meeting this afternoon that I may or may not have to attend. There are three of us who take turns to attend and I’m not sure if it’s me or my colleague this week. Gym tonight, since ‘im indoors will be providing dinner.

122

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 60 Amurrkin out and mostly clear with a predicted high of 82 and mostly sunny. We will be bears who brunch at Eggs Up this mornin’. Afterwards we plan on a ramble since the weather is just so nice. The rest of the day will be spent in RDOS inactivities as is our wont. Any other need to feed today will be via forage.

Maus you will know when you’re ready to use your real name. You have the support of a bunch of internet strangers that calls themselves Mumpers no matter what you decide.

doggio hope roomie’s surgery goes well and that she’s back home soonest.

BBBOO hope you had a restful night. Take youy pain meds.

MetalMouse good to know that you’re still mostly sane after coachin’ a bunch of seven year old boys.

Now I need more caffeine and to eat a little sump’n so’s I can take meds. Then I shall purtify and don acceptable attire for bein’ amongst the great unwashed.

Happy Thursday Y’all!

123

Up,(hotel)caffeinated, and shevled. I’m gonna hit the hotel breakfast, maybe a few laps around the hotel before heading to the hospital. It.s currently 54 degrees Ferret Height(12.22 Centipedes) in Bermuda Run.

At this point if the fae wanted my name so they could drag me off to their otherworldly kingdom, I’d do it. But you’ll start using your real name when you feel comfortable

124

We have 3 vehicles, my Sonata having by far the most miles, tho the pickup is 3 years older (with about 1/3 the miles.) If the Sonata dies, I don’t intend to replace it - we’ll still have the Santa Fe and the Silverado (dang - look at those S car go!!!) If the truck dies, we have a trailer that the Santa Fe can pull if we need to haul big stuff. But if both of them go tits up, we’ll have to do something. Problem for another day.

BWAHAHAHAHA! I’m sure I’ve mentioned this, but my grandmother used to buy bodice rippers at her local thrift store and pass them to me when she was done. She’d tell me “This one has a lot of good parts!” which was code for steamy sex scenes. She was a hoot!

Hope Nurse Harriet is attending to your every whim!

Only when accompanied by a lock of your hair… :wink: Even tho a number of Mumpers know my real identity, I prefer keeping that little bit of me out of threads. Yeah, it’s my FB account name. But FB is Friends Only, and I’ll pretend that protects me from stalkers and the like. BTW, I know I don’t respond to you much, but I’m cheering you on from Southern Merrylande!

It’s a foggy morning here. FCD just left for the boat stuff store across the bay - he’s going to buy about 400# of lead ingots. I’ve got Otis till he returns because making the dog sit in the car for 4-ish hours is mean, especially a dog who needs to run and frolic. I plan to finish cutting back branches along the path, and with luck, I’ll have enough energy and battery (for my little chain saw) to gather and cut up the bigger branches that have fallen along the fence line. Some look like they’ll make good firewood, and if not, at least I can get them out of my way ahead of mowing season.

At the moment, I’m making ice and thinking about taking a shower. Breakfast has been ingested, so there’s that. I have to keep reminding FCD that Otis just gets one scoop of kibbles in the morning and at night, and 2 scoops midday. He has a tendency to overfeed all of our dogs despite what the vet (and I) tell him. Otis is already starting to look like he’s carrying a couple extra pounds. I should probably put a big sign on the kibble bucket.

Anyway, that’s the start of my day. Once it warms a bit more (only 45 Ferrets at the moment, heading to upper 60s) I’ll head outside. Meanwhile, the kitchen and the carpets need attention. Good times ahead!!

Happy Thursday!!

125

Yeah, we have a ringside view of the morning and evening commute. Reminds me of how good it is to be retired.

Today is the 84th anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Navy Seabees in 1942. Admiral Ben Moreell had the idea of training civilian construction workers how to defend the airfields they were building for the military, and the Naval Construction Force was born. I gave them 23 years.

Still above freezing today and we’re looking at getting up to 63F by Sunday before it plunges again into the 40s. I’m not breaking out the shorts just yet.

126

I’m assuming she is out of surgery now, I hope the drive home is as painless as possible and that Spot doesn’t freak out because not only was he left without even one slave, now one of them smells funny and is covered with weird stuff.

I’m OK with our low slung cars, but Hubs is starting to struggle. We’ll probably be replacing his in the next couple of years just for that reason. We mostly use his car, but we still aren’t driving that far.

Rest well, we are keeping you in our thoughts.

Thank you for the super cute pic, susan!

If you knew how lazy I am, you would know that actually using power on anyone would be far too much work!

You’ve started out on a very “interesting” journey, just taking that first step must have been super hard. You are a very brave person.

Exactly! You get to look out over the madness and think “sucks to be you!”

So not much planned for today. I have some errands to run and I’ll probably go to the dispensary but nothing is really critical. Tomorrow James and I will be doing some shopping so I have that to look forward to. He knows all of the good used book stores that we can visit (no stairs, wheelchair wide aisles).

George and I watching the birds eat their breakfast, the little brown tweety birds don’t interest him as much as the bigger robins but they will do in a pinch.

127

this brightened my dreary day.

the storms that played havoc in the south are in the northeast now. just rain, no crazy lightening, winds, or hail. i was watching live weather on youtube last night (ryan hall y’all) and the storms had quite a bit of energy. a lot of flash flooding.

i can’t believe we are losing an hour this weekend. le sigh. it takes quite a while for me to recover from that. sigh.

i hope you are recovering well and had good sleep last night, bipppityboppityboo.

i hope roomie has an easy time today, dogbutler.

128

Great sneezing fleas, it’s Thursday!

A few days ago, we replaced the light bulbs in the 3-globe light fixture in the kitchen, thinking that would make them all put out the same shade of light. It didn’t work, because one of the bulbs didn’t match the others. Mrs. Nott is “somewhat” OCD, so she went out and bought a new box of bulbs. So, once again we’ll have a 76-year-old woman who’s scared of being on a ladder, being steadied by a 76-year-old who’s holding his wife for her balance, while holding onto the ladder for his own balance.

When it’s over, I’ll have one of those rare moments when I wish I was still drinking. Yike! I’m a little rattled just thinking about it.

Metal Mouse, I saw “CPAs” and I thought of Mrs. Nott’s Certified Public Accountant exam.

Well, breakfast is ready, so I’ll sign off.

129

One of my uncles was a SeaBee in WWII. That’s all I know. Dunno where he served - he never talked about it. Not that I’d have been interested as a kid, and we lived in different states, so apart from weddings and funerals, I hardly ever saw him. I do know he did his time and got out - not a career man.

I’m showered and dressed, but it’ll still be a couple of hours before the fog is supposed to lift. I’ll do some rollsuckage and some kitchen tidying till then.

My eye doc told me to use eye drops because I have dry eyes. I’ve figured out that if FCD can’t put them in for me, the best way is for me to lie down and position my left fingers as a guide as I squeeze with my right fingers. Stuff involving my eyes kinda oogies me out. That’s why I don’t wear contacts - the very notion is :grimacing: - Just one of my charming quirks. I don’t even want to think about cataract surgery. I don’t care how common and quick and easy it is. I will get it done when recommended, but I don’t have to like the idea.

Thought I’d share a video I made in my back yard yesterday.

130

Chloé has detected a pattern and I no longer have to coax her out of her crate in the morning. In fact, she’s positively champing at the bit to come out and get into her harness and light-up vest. We had a good walk this morning. Chloé got to visit with her friend Roxie for a couple of minutes. Mrs Magill bought me a new light-weight exercise jacket. Technically, it’s a women’s yoga jacket. Between that and yesterday’s session, my incessant smiling might be getting obnoxious. :smiley: “That feeling is called ‘Gender Euphoria,’ and it’s okay to feel it,” my counselor told me the other day.

If people want to call me Mollie in the MMP, I’m okay with it. I understand it might make some folks uncomfortable to do so, and I’m cool with that. Like I said up thread, just don’t be a jerk.

I sold my old commuter car to Fang last spring. We offered to help him buy something newer than a 2014 Prius V, but he pointed out that the entire hybrid drive system had been replaced (at Toyota’s expense[1]), and besides, he likes the car - it’s the one he learned to drive in. I get it - If I could magically get that '73 Karmann-Ghia back, I would. Except during summer - I’ve grown used to having A/C.

@FairyChatMom Thank you for your kind words. I live vicariously through your posts about the boat. I think I’d mentioned this before, but we were nearly neighbors. About twenty-some-odd years ago, Mrs Magill was offered a very nice position with a contractor at the Pax River base. You were very helpful in my researching the area. We had to turn it down, as my job prospects were pretty much limited to either getting a PhD, or working in Wal-Mart. But if we had moved out there, I’d probably weigh five-hundred pounds from the crab cakes alone… And now I want crab cakes.

@BippityBoppityBoo How are you feeling this morning? Are you going to have to do PT?

@AskNott I’m with Mrs. Nott. Having different color lamps in the same fixture is just Not Done, but please be careful. Is there a neighbor’s kid who could do the ladder work instead?

  1. It was under warranty - by a week. ↩︎

131

Most certainly in the Pacific theater. The Seabees primarily built airstrips on the Pacific Islands in WWII and had to defend against the Japanese. It was dirty, hot and bloody work.

132

I am with you about the eyes. I have a cataract consultation the Monday after next. I get all squiggy thinking about having to be awake for it. I can wear contacts, though. It wasn’t easy, but I made myself learn it put them in and take them out, so I would “look more like myself.” Huh, I think I have one more thing to talk about in two weeks. I should write that down, so I remember.

133

Happy Thorsday!

Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and fixing to do KP. After, I’ll get sheveled. Sis got an appointment with DPS an hour before mine, so she’ll be here around 1100. It’s her birthday, so I’ll take her to lunch. Yesterday, she spotted a Luby’s close to the license branch and said that she missed their fish. Wherever she wants to go, within limits, is where we’ll have lunch.

Stay safe and healthy y’all!

134

If you tell them that you are scared, they will give you lots of drugs! You aren’t really “awake” for it and you won’t feel or see anything scary.

The results are amazing, once you have it done, you won’t regret it.

I was REALLY scared of the first one but waiting for the second one was torture because I wanted it done so badly.

So…I just saw an opossum in our back yard, a big fat one who seems to have done quiet well for itself over the winter. I need to call Harry and ask what to feed it, I don’t want to put cat fud out for it, one of the across the street neighbors has inside/outside cats and I don’t want the cats to get in the habit of crossing the highway for a snack.

135

‘Possums are insectivores. Cat fud would just feed your neighbors’ cats and any racoons in the area.

136

Morning all. Slept till near 8am again this morning, it’s a habit I could become fond of. Had my big bowl of Cheerios and an apple, so the morning calories are in place. Really need to tidy up the house a bit, it’s not a total disaster, but does need some time spent on it. Otherwise the usual gym and sweat routine will be maintained and the evening given over to readin’ and internettin’. It’s cloudy out but 67F and we’re supposed to see it over 80F for the first day of 2026. Which means I’ll have to start mowage sooner rather than later…bah.

I can manage eye drops (barely), but never wore contacts and cataract surgery does not sound like fun. Suspect most people are the same about things in their eyes. I had a period where I was have a scratched Cornea every 8-10 months and it was a miserable thing, then about 10 years ago it stopped and it hasn’t happened since.

BBBoo, take it easy and let the kids be your minions for once.

lily, cute picture, how did you get them to both stare at you at the same time?

Maus, whatever name you are comfortable with, we are too. And we can always give you a ‘proper’ MMP name…how does M&M sound? :wink: :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: Enjoy your walks.

boo fae, makes sense, I sometimes ate at my desk, but since I usually worked in a large open office or with 5-6 others in a room, I often went to the cafeteria (the place I worked had literallly thousands of employees) or grabbed some fast food. Made me the man I was (near 300 lbs). Hope the TM meeting goes without drama and that your number is not up for the manager’s meeting.

Swampy, enjoy rambling. And tomorrow I do it again, this time with 6-year olds… :face_with_crossed_out_eyes:

FCM,

I had to sneak into my parents bedroom when they were out to read those stories. Quite educational… And thanks for the video, that was an impressive avian flyover.

Deepest respect for your service, but I thought the SeeBees were invented by John Wayne (you mean the movies lied!?!?). :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

A most valuable man. And old fat possum probably knows a soft touch when he sees it…but just read Maus comment so maybe not.

rocky, hadn’t even paid attention to that, seems like only a week or two I had to turn everything back an hour…

Knots, y’all be careful, I seldom if ever get above the second step these days.

red, used to go to Luby’s when I was in Body Of Christ, Texas (Corpus Christi) for an annual meeting, one of the ladies on our team loved it and we had to go there at least once. Kinda surprised they are still around, not many cafeteria-style places left.

And that’s it for the morning report. Need to get up and do some things around the house…after checking my webcomics, of course… Take care all.

137

Heat men here earlier than expected. Please fix it.

138

::cringe::

139

Good morning.

It’s 43F and cloudy outside. The day will remain mostly cloudy, with an expected daytime high of 52F. So, pretty meh weatherwise.

BBBoo, I’m glad the surgery went well. I hope you remain pain-free and that the recovery continues well.

Lily, those kitties look adorable.

Knots, you and the Mrs., be careful.

Doggio, I hope the drive home for roomie was uneventful and that she is resting comfortably.

BooFae, what you say regarding the campus choices makes sense. Besides, one would get sick of the same thing all the time. When I worked at a large military medical treatment facility, my go-to was the salad bar at the hospital cafeteria. I rarely went off-campus to eat. When I left that place and went to work for another government agency, I sometimes had food delivered or went out, but I mostly just stopped at a store in the wee hours of the morning and picked up salad fixings or a small cheese-and-fruit thing. I ate at my desk. I often skipped lunch, especially if I was leaving early.

No plans for today, I think. Mr. Taters was talking about going out for lunch today, but we’ll see.

Please take care of yourselves.

140

Procedure is noon today(this phone isn’t great for spelling) she’ll be kept overnight, tomorrow is the drive home.

So leave out a bowl of Tick(-Tacs)? :wink:
Mollie works for me. And if the haters have issues, I’ll tell 'em about the seahorse.