Up and about to go to the museum. I like opening it up, it’s kind of a zen thing.
Mornin’ everyone.
It’s 40°F, dark, and clear outside. The day will contain a mixture of sunshine and clouds, with a daytime high of around 60°F.
Shoe, yay for snow and for something that brought a spark of joy!
I have read about the penny shortage, but I rarely use cash. As for self-checkout, employees are always hovering around them.
Chinook and Cayuse passes closed last month for the winter. Our two main east-west passes (Snoqualmie and Stevens) remain open, but they only close for really foul weather or accidents. Those incidents occur frequently in the winter months due to drivers not adapting their driving to the conditions.
The bike pick-up went well. We stopped at REI first to purchase helmets and to kill time. They were stupidly expensive, but they’re MIP-rated, so that’s good, I guess. After that, we drove to downtown Tacoma to pick-up the bikes. The guy running the shop was helpful, and we purchased a couple of bike locks there. Unfortunately, one of the keys for my locking hitch rack arrived bent, and it broke when they tried to straighten it out. I will have to contact Aventon about obtaining new locking mechanisms, as they don’t provide keys. The keys are flimsy, but it seems each kind of hitch rack is propriatary, so I can’t just purchase a better quality lock for the hitch receiver and the other part of the rack that locks the bikes in.
Although the guy was helpful, I wasn’t impressed with his knowledge of our bikes. He and his other mechanic were trying to tell us our batteries were not removable. You have to use the control pad on the handlebars to unlock the batteries. They don’t just pull out without being unlocked.
We plan to take the bikes on an inaugural ride today. We drove them around the neighborhood for a tiny bit last night. The seats on the bikes are pretty hard, so we’ll probably end up getting new saddles.
Nellie, there are some upright fuschias. I have three of them, and they continue to bloom. They grow about two feet tall. I also have a hardy fuchsia with yellow blooms, and it still has some blooms too. I need to get that thing in the ground; it’s still in the nursery pot.
Swampy, I’m glad you made it home safely. Hopefully, after church, you’ll get some proper rest.
VanGo, it sounds like dog school went well!
Time for some more coffee. You all take care!
There’s no nondisclosure agreement. She asked me verbally not to discuss it with my coworers or members. There is a mutual mon-disparagement clause.
As if I’d go.
Morning all. Up about 6am, have procured my Sunday NY Times for perusal, and done some of my Sunday morning internettin’. It’s 57F outside and according to the weather wizards that is about as warm as it will get, due to go below freezing tonight. In a couple of hours I will head off to swampy’s favorite hog trough (Golden Corral) for Pot Roast, rice w/gravy, salad, soup and way to many desserts for around $22. Not fancy but still a pretty good deal. After that sloth will probably be the major activity of the day.
Thee and me have a slightly different perspective on ‘happy news’…
nellie, interesting perspective, as I have got earlier my inclination to poke around and go places unescorted just to be curious has declined, more likely to stay with the group, but will still do walk-abouts (and get lost occasionally) when travelling. Hopefully I will never join the cranky-pants brigade.
As for the gym, I do take a day off now and then, but it has become so ingrained as a habit that when I don’t go, it just seems wrong. And good point about over-training, I think I overdid it yesterday so if I go today it’ll be a lot kinder to this old body. And except for the gym trips, I take most of the rest of the hours every week away from vigorous (or any type) of activity…
Dicey, enjoy the show and the shopping.
Sensei, kinda nice to know other places have paperwork requirements that can be just and onerous and the good old US of A. Hope kids feel better/settle down respectively.
Happy Vergering, swampy
FCM, that’s interesting about the self-checkouts. About half of the Kroger and Wal-Mart ones are closed and both have a staff member watching the folks check out, so I agree that thievery is probably higher there.
VanGo, happy opening. And know what you mean about the Zen thing, it’s quiet and things are in their place and now crowds and screaming kids…kinda nice.
Taters, enjoy the bike ride down Electric Avenue…
And that’s the morning edition. Back later as time and tackleball games allow. Have a good Sunday all.
You could always go and pedal gently on the bikes or tread the mill slowly. I find on days when I’m particularly achy or tired, very gentle movement helps, so I’m not breaking my routine too much.
I just finished an unscheduled chore. I decided to swap a couple of end table/cabinets in the living room. The one I had was on the small side and the one tucked in the corner is larger - it was for MIL’s meds and stuff. So I did a bit of furniture moving and cabinet cleaning-out. I found THREE headsets, a dead tablet with its keyboard, a 16 disc set of James Earl Jones reading the King James version of the Bible (also MIL’s) as well as the CD player that she used. Plus a lot of miscellany. A lot got tossed, some got set aside for recycling or the thrift store, and the rest was reorganized, and of course I’ll remember where it all is… 
Since the swapped cabinet is a bit larger, I had to scoot my recliner about 3" to the left - I don’t think it’ll cause a problem. And now most of my yarn is behind closed doors, out of reach of the demon dog. Twice he’s stolen balls of yarn - idiot canine! Plus the larger cabinet top gives me more space for stuff like tissues and coasters and hand lotion. We’ll see how it goes. None of the cabinets match, but it’s not like Architectural Digest will be featuring our living room…
I set my new plants out on the step to get some rain. Maybe later today I can get them planted, or maybe tomorrow. Probably tomorrow - I’m whipped already! I did run to Food Lion this morning because FCD was out of 'nanners, and I got the food boxes donated. I think I’ve now earned some rest.
Started Typing: 9:43 AM ET
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Thanks to all for the crossed fingers and sympathy! I was pretty stressed Friday evening. Yesterday I woke up at 6am so I could shower and dress before starting to call tow companies, and after a little trial and error I found a responsive one and got to the dealership shortly after 9am. Luckily, I had not damaged the rim or wheel…whew! I already knew from my last service appointment that I was going to need to replace all four tires sometime in the next 4-6 months, and the dealership inspection confirmed that info – and indicated that both rear tires were kind of critical. They only had two tires in stock, though, so they replaced the shredded left front tire and one of the rear tires (I don’t know/didn’t ask/haven’t looked to see which one). I left with the plan to head home a day or two earlier than planned, and get the other two tires replaced – plus an alignment – this coming weekend. I can really tell that the car needs to be aligned. But everything took only 2.5 hours, and by 3pm yesterday I was checked into my NJ hotel, unpacked, and ready to go to my cousin’s.
Upon heading to my cousin’s, I discovered that there’s a BMW dealership just 1.5 miles from my hotel! I’ll go there tomorrow morning, and see if there’s any chance they might have both (a) the parts and (b) the time to replace the other two tires and do an alignment for me tomorrow. I’ll just be working from the hotel most of the day; if they can do it, hopefully they’ll have a shuttle or I’ll be able to get an Uber. I’d much rather have that work done before the 250-mile drive home, if possible. But I know it’s a long shot, and the car is perfectly safe in its current condition, so if they can’t do it I’ll call my home dealership and make an appointment for this weekend. (And yes, I’ll be contacting my insurance company!)
All in all, it’s been an expensive and stressful little side quest but many things could have been much worse.
I had a ticket for a wolf preserve tour this morning (22 miles south), then plans this afternoon to go 40 miles north to see other family, but after the adventures I wanted/needed to sleep in and have a slow day. Also, this might not be logical/necessary but I want to minimize my driving until I get the alignment done. I’m sorry to miss the wolves and those family members, but I’m mostly glad I cancelled both plans.
In other news, because I knew I’d be working from a hotel both tomorrow and Wednesday I thought I’d be slick and bring one of my big monitors from home; plus my keyboard and mouse. I went to set everything up this morning – I needed to approve timesheets and figured I’d also use the work laptop and big monitor for this post, etc. – but discovered that I (a) brought the wrong cable for the monitor and (b) forgot that my mouse and keyboard aren’t connected via Bluetooth, and didn’t bring the dongle. Heh. Happily there are tons of stores within a mile or two of this hotel, including a WalMart, so in a little while I’m gonna go buy a cable and a cheap keyboard/mouse. 
On the way back I’ll hit the ShopRite across the street for Gatorade Zero and more protein shakes. Finally, there’s an Applebee’s a few feet from the hotel and I’ll get takeout for lunch…and something to have for dinner, too, because it’s supposed to rain this evening and I won’t want to walk over. There’s both a fridge and a microwave in my room, so once I’m back from my whirlwind tour of Newton, NJ, stores and restaurants I should be all set for the next couple of days. 
When I started seeing the ex who I adoped Bailey with he already had a dog, and once or twice he slipped and called me the dog’s name (which didn’t start with the same letter as my name): I wasn’t ever really insulted, but after getting Bailey I had a much better understanding of how that happened!
I will aim to check it out once I’m back home. 
!
Ugh. All I can hope for you is that things go as smoothly as possible…whatever that winds up looking like. 
Just some info about why the Black Knight butterfly bushes are banned in some places:
The main negative of the butterfly bush is its invasiveness, as it aggressively spreads by seed, displacing native plants and harming local ecosystems. Additionally, while it attracts adult butterflies for nectar, it provides no food for their caterpillars, which are a crucial stage of the butterfly life cycle.
So it seems that if you don’t want it to spread too far be cautious where you plant it. Also, plant some plants that do provide food for the caterpillars. It’s a shame about the problems, since the plants are really beautiful.
I need to go to the county clerk’s office sometime this week to get Texas tags, so I’ll have to bring a piece of mail along with ID too. I don’t need to pick up a frame for the front tag, since I only need the rear in Tennessee. After that, it will be the DMV for my Texas driver’s license.
The Aldi in my neighborhood has no self checkout, plus a security gate AND a security guard.
Wait until you price good quality motorcycle helmets with blue tooth. 
I hope that you enjoy your ride!
You just gave me an earworm. I used to work close to Electric Avenue in Nashville.
Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and fixing to do KP. On today’s agenda is a load of towels, otherwise, RDOS.
Stay safe and healthy y’all!
Afternoon, mumpers! It’s currently 12c/54f with no predicted change, and with isolated showers. Weather app says “It’s fucking moist outside. Like soggy fucking biscuits. Picnic, anyone?”
Taters hopefully the bike shop have someone on hand who can help with that, usually they’re happy to help you get your new bikes home safely. Hope you have fun with them!
You’ve been posting some pics on FB of some gorgeous foliage colours, I hope they continue to bring you a bit of cheer. {{{{{shoe}}}}}
I am glad that she was angry, she obviously knows how much dedication and talent they would be throwing away. I also hope that she does not act in anger, nor in haste, and she takes time to consider how she might be able to help you instead of going in like a bull in a china shop. It’s still good to know that she knows your true value.
Good to hear Ms Peach is getting the hang of dog school, and making friends!
Sounds like the LittleSens are giving you enough to worry about already. Your wife can take care of herself while you’re taking care of home.
We have self-checkouts here in most of our supermarkets, personally I prefer to avoid them. One of the supermarkets also has self-scan where you take a hand-held scanner with you and scan items as you’re shopping, they go directly into your bags and you pay at a dedicated self-scan checkout via the scanner you’ve carried around. One of my friends who works in that supermarket said that’s the worst one because it’s obviously very easy to slip things in that you’ve not scanned and have no intention of paying for. There is some amount that triggers the system to request a re-scan of stuff, so some people have to unpack everything again and the store staffer has to check they’ve scanned everything properly.
Regular training can affect you in ways akin to addiction, making you feel wrong or guilty if you don’t go. At the same time, overtraining can be bad for you and can lead to muscle damage simply because you aren’t allowing yourself those rest days. That’s why most structured training plans (for people who aren’t training for competitions) will focus on specific muscle groups for each session, allowing those muscles to be rested during the next session when you’re training something else.
I’m glad you managed to get half the tyres changed and your car’s been declared safe to drive too. It would worry me if I thought there might be some other problem on the long drive home too.
We are home after a fabulous night out helping a dear friend celebrate her big birthday. We left home yesterday after a quick lunch and I drove us to Yorkshire to the hotel where she was having her party. We got checked in and then went to meet some of our friends for a catch up. Long story short, we are all fans of the same band and it’s through the band’s fan group that we’ve all met and become friends. We talk a lot, some of us see others at gigs, some people we haven’t seen for years so it was good to physically catch up with some of them. The birthday girl had booked the singer from the band (along with another band’s singer) to do a private show for us and she had picked the set list so that she got her favourite songs.
All in all, it was a perfect evening and everyone has gone home happy. We saw everyone at breakfast this morning, hugged everyone and planned some little surprises as well. As a group, we will be sending the birthday girl some flowers later as a thank you from all of us, and we were also circulating a card for another friend who was unable to be at her party due to illness. A small group of us are planning to get him a custom-designed hoodie to remind him that he’s still a valued part of our little family.
Got home at lunchtime to find the cats had neither starved, nor missed us that much. Both of the automated feeders have been used so that was a success for us, and the litter trays were not an absolute poo-mageddon as we’d thought they might be!
I am off to be a sloth for the rest of the evening as all this partying and jollification has worn me out.
I missed it in the severance letter, but La Jefa says she’s making the announcement Wednesday. My wife (once upon a time, a paralegal) is reading the letter. She caught it.
I’m sorry, and angry on your behalf. My employer took the opportunity presented by COVID to downsize and functionally canned a bunch of us by freezing our positions and offering insultingly small renewal contracts, with FTE too low to live on or to qualify for our health insurance. I hope la jefa is brought to her senses.
I did a little reading - if you are diligent about deadheading the Black Knight, you can control and/or eliminate spread. The place where I’ll be planting them will be easy to manage. If I see unwanted seedlings sprouting, they can be pulled up right away.
We have a couple of white butterfly bushes - about 3 or 4 years old, I’m guessing. Neither of them have seeded more plants. I dunno - I’ll just keep an eye on them.
swampy, I meant to tell you (and I hate to be the bearer of sad news) - we used the last of our Sonny’s BBQ sauce. And the nearest one to us is in NC near Charlotte - much too far for a BBQ run. 'Tis a sad sad day at FairyChatEstate. 
Looks like we’ll have to be satisfied with Sweet Baby Ray’s - close, but not quite.
Angry at my neighbor. It was rainy so she drove me to church. Wearing a cloth mask. Afterwards I asked why the mask..I’m getting better.
What was wrong?
Had the flu.
And you came to church not completely better?
Thankfully, I’d gotten my flu shot last month.
I’ve had gardens with 6-7 butterfly bushes, including Black Knight. I had two from seed. In my experience, they’re not invasive, but I have seen a rail yard outside London with quite a few that planted themselves. I love them.
Thanks, everyone, for your well-wishes. My lovely wife is healing well from a nose broken in two places, and I’m about 70% optimistic that tamoxifen hasn’t given me endometrial cancer, though it will take a couple of months to determine if I’m experiencing side effects (known, but not described much of anywhere or told to me) of discontinuing tamoxifen.
Plus Black Knight?
Oooooh, you might get some interesting hybrids!
Oops. Apparently deleted my morning post and resurrected it here, so you are not experiencing Deja Vu. On my cellphone at the gym so I will declare myself a victim of coicomstance (i.e., the Curly defense). Have read all but given my non-existent skills with this contraption I will wait to reply until I get home.
Morning all. Up about 6am, have procured my Sunday NY Times for perusal, and done some of my Sunday morning internettin’. It’s 57F outside and according to the weather wizards that is about as warm as it will get, due to go below freezing tonight. In a couple of hours I will head off to swampy’s favorite hog trough (Golden Corral) for Pot Roast, rice w/gravy, salad, soup and way to many desserts for around $22. Not fancy but still a pretty good deal. After that sloth will probably be the major activity of the day.
Thee and me have a slightly different perspective on ‘happy news’…
nellie, interesting perspective, as I have gotten away from my inclination to poke around and go places unescorted just to be curious has declined, more likely to stay with the group, but will still do walk-abouts (and get lost occasionally) when travelling. Hopefully I will never join the cranky-pants brigade.
As for the gym, I do take a day off now and then, but it has become so ingrained as a habit that when I don’t go, it just seems wrong. And good point about over-training, I think I overdid it yesterday so if I go today it’ll be a lot kinder to this old body. And except for the gym trips, I take most of the rest of the hours every week away from vigorous (or any type) of activity…
Dicey, enjoy the show and the shopping.
Sensei, kinda nice to know other places have paperwork requirements that can be just and onerous and the good old US of A. Hope kids feel better/settle down respectively.
Happy Vergering, swampy
FCM, that’s interesting about the self-checkouts. About half of the Kroger and Wal-Mart ones are closed and both have a staff member watching the folks check out, so I agree that thievery is probably higher there.
VanGo, happy opening. And know what you mean about the Zen thing, it’s quiet and things are in their place and now crowds and screaming kids…kinda nice.
Taters, enjoy the bike ride down Electric Avenue…
And that’s the morning edition. Back later as time and tackleball games allow. Have a good Sunday all.
All in all, it’s been a successful day of staying in/close to the hotel. I don’t remember the last time I did something like this while traveling, but I think taking a full day “off” was the right call. I wound up not having to go to ShopRite, because Walmart had everything on my list and then some. I got protein shakes, Gatorade Zero, some snacks, a baseball cap (I forgot to pack one for bad hair days), tissues, napkins, an HDMI cable*, and a Logitech keyboard/mouse combo – all for less than I expected, which was nice. Then I got takeout from Applebee’s: I wasn’t up for anything “fancy” so I just had chicken tenders and onion rings for lunch, but after this post I’ll heat up the three-cheese chicken penne I got for dinner.
*I’m typing this using my work laptop and big monitor! Yay!
The TV in my room has a cool feature I’ve never seen in a hotel before: it allows casting from streaming apps! I’ve been able to watch Paramount+, Peacock, Amazon, etc. on the “big screen” by casting from my iPad. I’ll miss this ability when I change hotels (the next one is where I stayed for my uncle’s funeral in August; I doubt the TVs have been updated since then).
Tomorrow I’ll be working from here most of the day, except for when I go to the BMW dealership to see if they can provide two tires and and an alignment before they close. I have slides to deliver to my customer by 10am, so I’ll get online at my usual time and head out right after I send that email. Whatever happens with the car, I’m planning to go back to my cousin S’s place tomorrow evening. Last night her younger brother, his wife, and their oldest also came over: it was really good to see them, but tomorrow will be just S and her husband/kids and I’m looking forward to that. Of all of my first cousins, she’s the one I’m closest to.
I live near Electric Avenue in Vienna (VA).
Sounds wonderful!
I keep telling her to quit Fight Club, but she keeps saying she can’t talk about it.
(seriously, though: 
)
I’m feeling pretty well rested/recovered today, but I’ll admit for a moment there I wondered if maybe I was actually still really tired. 
Ms Peach has a new purple sweater. She’ll need it, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, and she doesn’t have much fur.
At church today, the pastor talked about Mark 5:1-18. Previously, Jesus said to his disciples, Let us go over to the other side.’ In this context, ‘the other side’ is like ‘the bad part of town’ or ‘the wrong side of the tracks. Across the Sea of Galiliee was Decapolis, which was full of gentiles and pigs. Not a place where a boatload of Nice Jewish Boys would want to go. Upon braving a storm (which Jesus told to be quiet), they landed in Decopolis. A man possessed by demons ran up to them and acted crazy. Jesus allowed the demons (named Legion) to inhabit a heard of about 2,000 pigs. The pigs ran down to the sea and drowned. So long, demons!
Anyway, at the end, the pastor asked the congregation who in this story they might identify with. The disciples, who thought the trip was a Bad Idea? The man at the beginning of the story, who was possessed by demons? The people of Decapolis who lost their heard of pigs? The grateful man after the demons had been cast out? The pastor described the man at the beginning as ‘The Unwanted One’. I could relate to that. I have in evidence my separation letter. 
Anyway…
It’s about 60º Ferret Height here. Thin overcast, so what sun there is, is filtered. I wound up the front-yard hose and put it into the green house. It was 70 in there. (The back-yard hose is in the catio.) Salmon pinwheels and yellow squash will be dinner tonight. Mrs. L.A. is off having a couple of propane tanks refilled for her catio heater. I bought a Mega Millions ticket for Tuesday’s and Friday’s drawings.
ETA: When I went to get the squash, there was a VFW or American Legion table outside of the store. I got us a couple of poppies.
Will no one think of the poor demon? Or the pigs?