Yesterday was one of the most difficult days that I’ve had in a long time due to some news that I received. I may go into that later or not. Nonetheless, I feel better this morning and committed to trying to find the good in this situation. Likewise, I am so glad that I do get to see a doctor for my knee today! I hope this is the perfect guy to fix it for me.
Anything good that you’ve found lately that you’d like to share? Anything you’d like to share at all? After all, this is the MMP, rant, laugh, share and hijack away!
After about 9:30 a.m. today I’ll find it good that my yearly squash-o-gram will be over with.
The lab is near a fancy grocer that sells the ciabatta that we love, so I’ll pick up two loaves and then I’ll treat myself to a rarely-enjoyed espresso.
Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 14c/57f with a predicted high of 15c/59f, and mostly cloudy. Weather app says “It’s mild and fucking cloudy outside. So yeah, not a complete fucking todger of a day.” It’s cloudy, but I can see blue sky too, and a bit of sun, so it’s not all bad.
There’s no precipitation in my forecast which is good, my street is still closed to through-traffic so that’s also good. I have a friend coming down on Saturday for a gig, we’re going out for Turkish food first, double good!
We have a semi-mandatory event this afternoon so I’m on campus on a day when I’m normally at home. I will have Tuesday/Weds at home, then back on campus for a mandatory event on Thursday, and a normal campus workday on Friday. That’s going to confuse me because things will happen on days they’re not supposed to!
{{{{{Sticky Buns}}}}} I hope the good outweighs the bad for you, and the knee doc can get you fixed up
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis < snerk > 69! < snerk > Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 80 and mostly cloudy. I need to take care of some errands this mornin’. ICK! However they shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours, so there’s that. I shall be able to partake of my two favorite RDOS activities nappage and day drinkin’, so it’s all good. Sup shall be beastloaf, steamed cabbage, mac & cheese, and cornbread.
We’ve had some rain lately and are due for some more this week. It’s been needed, so that’s good. Plus, I like a good rainy day.
Sticky_Buns hope this is the doc that can fix your knee.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alas and bother, I must purtify and don attire acceptable for bein’ amongst the great unwashed. 'Tis a pity, but errands must get done. Le sigh.
It was a glorious 49° when I let Higgs out - dare I hope we’ve got an early autumn? Dare I believe I’m not jinxing things and setting us up for a heat wave in October? Stay tuned…
When the Hospice nurse and aide are done, I’m planning to do some mowage. It’s going to be under 80° so I won’t roast doing yard work. FCD is going to the boat yard for what we hope will be the final inspection of the electrical work. So maybe some good news in the offing.
It just occurred to me that I haven’t heard back from Motor Vehicles about canceling the insurance on the Santa Cruz, so perhaps they accepted the email that I forwarded that said the vehicle was totaled - fingers crossed.
A few things on the agenda this week. I see my cardiologist tomorrow for a follow-up to the stress test I had last month. I assume if they’d found something disturbing, they’d have called, so this should be a routine “Everything’s fine. Keep on keepin’ on” sort of visit. Then on Thursday, the HVAC tech is supposed to come and do what was supposed to be done last week but wasn’t because they were short-handed.
Everybody is short-handed, but especially the skilled positions. I expect training someone to work retail or food service is much easier than teaching someone to troubleshoot and repair a furnace. Which leads me to a bit of a complaint of sorts.
For years, there’s been a huge push for kids to go to college, as if skilled trades were unworthy jobs. I never understood that mindset. Granted, I didn’t want to be a plumber or a carpenter or a mechanic, but I see no shame in those career paths. It’s honest and necessary work and skilled workers are a treasure. FCD is a bit of a job snob, which I find weird, since he’s really good with building, repairing, and troubleshooting, as well as the engineering part. I’m guessing he was brainwashed a bit, too. Anyway, schools need to bring back shop class!
Enjoying another cool morning. Lots of people bemoan the advent of fall/winter, but it has never bothered me much, especially now that we don’t have an RV to whisk us away in good weather, and don’t have to drive to work on slick roads every day.
I meant to comment to flyboy from his post in the last MMP where he was talking about the off-key singer in church. Waaaaay back when I was a teen, there was a priest in our parish who felt singing was a major part of the liturgy. So to encourage the congregation to sing, he’d often say “If God gave you a good voice, praise him with it. If not, get even with him!”
Funny that I remember that more than 50 years later…
OK, showered, dressed, and now waiting to hear from the Hospice nurse and aide. MIL is still abed, and I’m not going to wake her. If the nurse has to see her in her bed, that’s no biggie.
I decided we’d have poke and cabbage and maybe rice or whomp biscuits for supper, so the poke is on the counter to thaw. There’s one decision made. FCD and his mom were talking about cornmeal mush last night at supper - guess I’ll make up a batch for them. I find it boring, but they like it.
I did two semesters of college. To be perfectly honest I spent most of that time playing either pinochle or snooker in the student center. I was never really academically inclined and, again to be honest, I would have never managed college level math.
I left college to join the Carpenter’s Union. As a journeyman, I found that the union was totally corrupt and the jobs they promised were not there. I floated around a bit doing whatever I could and finally ended up as an electrician. I had a good steady job with pretty nice benefits and iI made a pretty good living.
Both grandfathers and at least one uncle were mechanics - two working in manufacturing plants, one worked for Pepsi doing line maintenance. One uncle was a longshoreman, one was a bus driver. They all supported themselves and their families and near as I could tell, they were contributing to society as we know it. In fact, before my generation, I don’t think anyone went to college, and among me and my 4 sibs, only 2 of us went to college yet we all owned homes and paid taxes.
I mostly hated college, but it was a means to an end and it all worked out eventually, but I sometimes wonder what my life might have been if I’d taken another path. And while I’ve set up a college fund for my grands, if either or both opt for trade school, good for them! I may have to fight their grandfather about it, but I’ll win - it was my 401k after all!
Nurse will be late today - one of her patients died. That’s got to be one of the worst parts of being a Hospice nurse.
As I said, I don’t like the songs anyway. They’re all the same. ‘Praise God! Oh, you are so mighty! We’re shite, but we’ll get better so that we’re worthy of worshipping you…’ Worse is that they’re long. Or maybe it just seems that way; but they’re four or five minutes anyway. And you have to stand. With my knees, that’s uncomfortable. The band plays/sings at least two songs, and usually three. A couple of weeks ago they played four, so I was standing for 20 minutes. After going up and down the ladder while working on the canopy garage Saturday, I could only stand for the first song. Then I sat down for the other two. Miraculously, they only played one set. They usually play two.
Morning all. Slept until 7:30am and have a Jersey Mike’s #3 in my near future, so that makes things good. Unlike Coppertone, it’s also good for me that we are due to get rain Thursday, it’s been pretty dry around here the past couple of weeks.
Hippie, let the countdown begin…10…9…8…
{{Sticky Buns}}
Trust but Verify…
And yeah FCM, when we were kids everyone was supposed to strive for a college education, it was the thing to do, and vocational ed. became a ‘second class’ choice. Need to change that thinking around but it won’t be easy.
{{VanGO}}, hope the mistake is correctable and soon.
flyboy, FCM, my Mom always said we weren’t good singers but we wee loud ones and at least God knew we were in church…
OK, need to finish the morning internettin’ and then dress enough to get my Moanday sammich. Have a good one all.
Another chaotic Monday. And there was a fender bender at the intersection on the way home. Involving an EMS Suburban. But Spot and I have had our dry, flavorless bits, and now it’s nap time.
Good things! I was completely absent last week, trying to spend a little less time staring at screens. I’ve found that the fewer murder shows I watch, the better I feel. That’s a little sad for me, because I love watching them, but I suppose a steady diet of televised violence isn’t great for someone who’s supposed to be working on quelling her anxiety. Luckily, the mystery books don’t seem to have the same effect.
Despite Mr. L’s less than encouraging test results (his PET scan showed a small area of active cancer cells at the base of one rib and his PSA has gone up slightly in both of the last two blood tests), his oncologist is not worried. After talking to him, we are managing not to worry too much either. So hurray for specialists who take the time to really listen and talk to their patients!
The weather here is still pretty hot and dry. If anyone would like to reject their rain clouds, send them our way! But although it’s getting into the 90’s during the day, it’s the low 90’s, and there’s finally some relief overnight, with temps in the 60’s. We did get some nice monsoon rains a week ago, so the globe mallows in the back yard are finally blooming and I get to commune with the bees and butterflies.
I’m with you on the vocational education, FCM and flyboy. I know that when I was bringing my kids up, there was a huge push to aim them all to college. While I still think that a good liberal arts university education serves you well even if you go into the trades, after knowing enough different kids, I finally learned that getting away from the classroom and into a trade school is a godsend for many people.
My SIL didn’t get into a PhD program and ended up getting a master’s degree in a pretty specialized area of biology. He now has a degree that makes him over-qualified for most lab jobs but under-qualified for doing research in the field, and he had a mountain of student loan debt. He’s said he should have become a plumber (I only mentioned one that it’s not too late).
I should get out the weed whacker and knock down the tall grass in the front yard. It’s starting to look less like I’m growing native plants and more like the house might be abandoned. Happy Moanday!
Found out today that the 96-year-old guy who lives above us fell out of bed and broke his femur. Cripes. He’s in rehab now and doing well, according to his wife, who is 95. I’m surprised they could even operate on bones that old and brittle.
Made it to exercise this morning, but it was a struggle. We’ll be doing more postcards in the coming days, and we need to do a Costco run at some point to replenish bacon, butter and toilet paper. These all seem oddly tied together somehow.
Can I do a mild rant that’s not about anything politically related?
I opened a credit card at a department store. I’ve only used it once and have had trouble. Got the bill, paid it by mail with a check. Got a no payment notice, couldn’t find the check carbon so I gritted my teeth and paid again. Now I have yet another notice adding a big late fee for non payment. I called the store this time and “we don’t deal with credit billings” and was told they’ve been changing banks. Finally was passed to a manager who repeated the garbage but at least took my name and information about the check and said she will send some emails and get back to me. Grrr. I liked this store but won’t be going back until this is resolved. And I can’t/won’t use a credit card from the store, I’ll just write a check or pay, gasp, cash.
I had a routine checkup this morning. Wifey, RN wanted me to have a complete blood count because of my bruising. (I’m always bumping my arms, resulting in red bruises.) The PA-C said it’s just that as you age, you lose fat under the skin and that makes it easier to break blood vessels. He said it’s unsightly, but nothing to worry about. Everything is within the normal range, but total Cholesterol is 200 – right at the upper limit. He said that’s OK because my HDL (‘good cholesterol’) is more than twice the middle of the normal range, and that skewed the total cholesterol higher. I asked him if there can be too much ‘good cholesterol’ and he said everything else is normal so there’s nothing to worry about.
I was in the kitchen re-heating the leftover hash and making a couple of eggs, when I overheard Wifey, RN on a phone call. One of her patients, that she was supposed to see next month, died at 0545 this morning. She was 92.
I checked my lottery tickets on the way back from the clinic. I won a free ticket on Hit 5! w00t!1 Also a hundred and fifty clams. They couldn’t pay out first thing in the morning, so I was told to come back after 1300.
Well, God is good.
Last eve I went to a church ( not mine, maganuts) because they had a football watching party.
There was dips, wings, and 9 boxes of pizza.
Only about 12 people were there. I had 4 slices.
I took a box home as there lots left over.
Then today, a woman I know makes a great chicken pot pie; I told her when she made it again I’d buy some.
She said she wouldn’t charge me.
This was wintertime.
Today she called and brought some over.
It filled 2 of those styrofoam to-go containers.
I need not cook today.
FCD and his mom were talking about cornmeal mush last night at supper - guess I’ll make up a batch for them. I find it boring, but they like it.
Also a hundred and fifty clams. They couldn’t pay out first thing in the morning, so I was told to come back after 1300.