Here’s the poop: As I said, no nuts, seeds, small grains, corn, or fish oil supplements starting today. I asked about sardines, and the nurse had to think about it. She said ‘no oily foods three days before the procedure’ and that I’m probably OK with sardines until then. I also talked to Billing, and they said there is no co-pay.
Pretty sure the spinal injection will be in your back. [Boo d & rs]
Bad Boo. Do not tease the people in pain.
@Johnny_L.A: Do I recall correctly that you occasionally attend events at the American Legion there in Blaine? Or am I mixing different stories from different people?
I’ve never been to an event there, but I donated a bunch of stuff about eight years ago. Interestingly, there was a post in the Blaine & Birch Bay Farcebook page, saying that there’s a new breakfast place opening in the building.
Well, it was a sucky day.
I got frustrated at my limitations when a bottle of cleaning sh!t that Sis bought while she was here fell down behind the shelving unit in the laundry room. I had to clear out the whole !@#$ing thing to get at it (I brought a chair in to do this). Then, right before the towels were done, the dryer made a ker-thunk and stopped. It just makes a sound like it’s on, but not moving now. When Sis gets here, she’s going to pull it out and see if it’s the belt (something easily fixable) or whether it’s something beyond what a 9 year old dryer is worth fixing. Meanwhile, I’ve been pricing them online.
If it truly is borked, I’m going to check in with my complex maintenance man to see if anyone has left behind a functional dryer (people leave this stuff all the damn time) and if so, he would swap mine out for a benjamin. If not, there are some deals on marketplace or spending $500 at Lowe’s.
Now to chill out some in the studio.
That might be what I was remembering. I’m sure that seemed an odd question for me to ask. So here’s the backstory.
A few days ago I was contacted bolt from the blue by the woman who was my Dad’s GF in the mid-late 1980s. As in 40 years ago. I’d not seen nor heard from her since then and very seldom thought of her either. We had a great reunion first by text and then by phone.
She’s now 80 and Dad’s been dead coming up on 30 years. She lives in Ferndale south of you. I mentioned to her that I had a friend in Blaine. To which she replied that yesterday she’d been to the AL hall in Blaine to attend a dance.
Which got me to wondering about the possible amazing coincidence if you ate, drank, or attended functions there too. Her long-dead first hubby was a USMC helo pilot in Viet Nam. You of course are married to an Army helo pilot who served in Iraq / Afghanistan.
And now you know …
The rest of the story.
Good day.
[Boo, properly chastened, slinks away in shame]
I have no excuse, missred is always so kind to me. I think in a weak moment the ghost of my very beloved father-in-law whispered wickedly in my ear: “it’s a sin to waste a straight line”. He was the first married man to be ordained a deacon in his Archdiocese so he oughta know.
We decided to venture out this afternoon. I don’t think my wife has left the building in weeks, ever since her dizzies started. But today we headed out to Bachman’s, which is THE huge gardening store in MSP. The purpose was to pick up flowers for the various planters on the terraces, some herbs for general use, and our annual tomato plant. It’s not a short drive to get there, as it’s on the other end of the city, but it’s not particularly stressful, but both of us were fatigued when we got back, and my unoperated knee was bothering me. An hour or two on a concrete floor took a toll. Anyway, mission accomplished, and we’ll get reimbursed for most of it.
Nice to see something besides the inside of the building and the computer screen.
The silly thing about Phillips screws is they are designed to “cam out,” that is when the screwdriver slips out of the head, at a pre-designed torque level. The very thing we hate about them is intentional.
In the factory, I drove hundreds of thousands of them into car tail-lights, using high-tech repeating pneumatic screw guns with automatic screw feeders.
Some complications for my employedness. I’m not sure what to do. I had the meeting with the union to officially become a member of the said union, and I mentioned that my term employment had been extended to the end of the year. Now, I have not signed any paperwork yet for this, but the union reps, with all three (I am on very friendly work terms with them) had some things to say about that. In their CBA with the museum, there are supposed to be x number of people in each position, with me included, they reach that number. However, term employees are not supposed to be included in that number.
I don’t really want the union to make a stink about this and cost me my job, but I’d really like to be a permanent employee.
Which is why there are all the various later model cross-heads-that-aren’t-Phillips screw designs with matching drivers which don’t have that feature.
As you probably know, but which most MMP types don’t is the original motivation for that cam-out feature was to limit installation torque to a fixed value. The assembly line worker with a manual screwdriver or a powered driver with no torque limiting simply cranked the screw down until the driver cammed out, and that meant it was properly tightened to design torque; no more and no less. Quick and low tech.
All of which is negated for us consumers stuck with sloppy-toleranced cheap Chinese universal slot + cross head screws that fit every driver equally badly and none of them well. But at least the screw material is softer than spec and strips easily. Both the thread end and the head end. Often both.
And a good late afternoon all. Much swimming (2,000 yards) and other things was done, along with weight training concentrated on the legs (doing 50 squats while holding a 10lb barbell weight is not fun), so the body has been exercised sufficiently. No plans for the evening, may try to catch up on my reading, the pile of newspapers has reached alarming proportions. 77F outside and should be cool tonight, but a rainy weekend has been forecast. We shall see.
wet one, feel for you, but Ariel in the end is your responsibility so…and you’ve already figured this out, I know, but just being Cpt. Obvious here..
Sticky Buns, my best to Music Man, falls at our stage of life are not fun at all, Glad to hear he’s home and resting.
Taters, I’m trying to get down to one fill up a month, not quite there yet but close.
red, would have thought a major metro area like Houston would have higher prices, hope they are in nice places. They are building apartments like crazy down here, a 2-BR will run around $1,400-$1,700/month. And a grump 
for the malfunctioning dryer.
flyboy, glad the neck is doing better, happy fasting!
oopsie, enjoy the weekend, be it music- or sloth- oriented. And happy Lego Building.
Cookie, glad wife has improved to the point of venturing out, now both of you rest and take care of yourselves.
VanGo, hopefully the Union folks are reasonable souls and won’t jeopardize your work, but may ask the right questions to get you taken on full-time sooner (at least that’s how my fingers are crossed).
And now back to You Tubing, Take care all.
Nice dinner with the fambly. Tobias is a hoot - when he was told we were meeting them for supper, he insisted he’d sit next to Grandpa, and Roxy wanted to sit next to me. Wise chilluns! 
Now we’re home, doing nothing. Temps to drop into the 40s tonight!!! What happened to spring?? So weird. I’m not sure what we’ll do tomorrow, not that it matters, right? Highs will be low 70s at least thru Tuesday. I may futz in the yard a bit after it gets above 60°. We shall see.
And now, the recliner beckons!
Someone from a Vintage Toy page on Farcebook posted an ad for Cox control line models. I had the PT-19 when I was a kid. The ad has them for $7.88. I checked eBay, and NOS ones are hundreds of dollars.
‘Wow! That greenhouse really works!’ [NB: The picture is before I put guy wires on the corners, and before I made the potting bench.) Mrs. L.A. hasn’t been in the greenhouse for a year. She went out to get something, and came back with a plant with one stalk two feet tall. The others were pretty tall too. It hasn’t been watered. She thinks it might be a lily, but she doesn’t know. I told her to put some water on it and see what it does.
She’s out front, digging up the mole holes. I offered to help, but she told me I’m not supposed to be helping her with my neck still sore. She’ll mow the front lawn tomorrow, and she says I can mow the back lawn Monday.
ETA: She just came in with a little bright green frog, about an inch and a half long (body; the legs were tucked under). She’s taking it to the back yard which is more damp, and there’s a creek that might have water in it.
Howdy Y’all! Not only did ribs get smoked today, but the smoker got cleaned up afterwards as well. Go Me! I also made up the baked beans for tomorrow. We had some quality cee-mint pond time and accomplished nappage. All in all a nice day.
Sticky_Buns glad MusicMan was not hurt too bad. Also, ice cold watermelon is a marvelous dessert. We have one of the first local ones of the season. Mid-June through Labor Day will be the time for the sweetest and juiciest watermelons. YUM!
Actually, it provided a much needed chuckle.
You may have already mentioned it, but did you work for Fisher Body? My godfather retired from there.
Actually, your union rep is trying to make sure that they hire you on. The union shops that I’ve worked in have always had a strict time limit for temp / non-company badged workers. The company either has to hire you on or cut you loose. It’s also how I wound up in a couple of jobs that I got; they had to staff them at a certain level.
Did you get a good buzz? 
Lilies are very dangerous to have around cats. This place came with day lilies in the front flower beds and one of the first garden things I did was to rip them up.
I’m glad the greenhouse is working so well for her, I’ve always wanted one.
Go frogs, love them!
I spent some time checking weather patterns here today cause I didn’t expect it to be this cold this late in the year. The weather is changing all over, I’m so happy we aren’t in AZ anymore. It just keeps getting hotter and dryer there.
Preach it brother! I can remember a time when that sort of stuff was made to last, now you need new drivers almost as often as you have to replace the screws.
Ahhh, hell. Not the paperwork problems! I really do hope this gets figured out without anyone getting pissy at the other side, cause if that happens, you will be the loser.
With the exception of the concrete floors, that sounds like a lovely outing. We have a couple of very nice nurseries in town but happily they all have dirt and gravel floors. Except around the cash registers, then it’s concrete.
It had to be said, the only reason it was you was because were there first!
You need a grabber reacher thing. And a magnet on a stick. Having a mirror on a stick handy is always a good thing as well.
I have had all of those things since long before I became a gimp cause I’ve always been very lazy.
I do hope you won’t have to buy and move a new dryer. You will only be there for a few more months, can you get by with a drying rack? (I would whine and complain every time I had to use it so I understand if that isn’t an option!)
I do hope that the pilling of the horse won’t interfere with too much snoozing on either of your parts.
I’m so glad they had him checked out and also that he is OK. I do hope he will be able to sleep tonight, now might be a good time to break out the medicinal booze. Unless the hospital gave him something for the pain that is.
So my day was super boring, I hate sitting around waiting for something to happen and now I can’t even occupy my mind stitching.
I futzed around in the yard for a while, potatoes are already flowering. The interwebz said to cut the flowers off to encourage root growth so I did that. It took maybe five minutes. I watered my posies and was happy to see that two of the foster plants were already growing new flower buds.
Hubs and I went to the shelter so I could pet kitties while he walked a couple of old dogs. The fuzzbutts are never amused when we get home from those outings.
I grumbled because I was missing hanging out at the capital and we figured out that there are shelter dogs that need walked there as well. That will give him something to do for a few hours and he has never had a problem napping in the car.
I only have a week left before I can start driving myself around again, but I have never been this bored in my life and I’m getting super impatient and having to remind myself to not bitch at him over something that is not his fault in the least.
I ate half a pint of B&J’s Cherry Garcia at 1600 so just baked him a chicken breast and made a salad for both of us.
Our toaster oven didn’t make the move (it was old and we would have been replacing it soon anyhow) and I’m thinking I need a new one, does anyone have any recommendations?
6 x 6. It was under $400 with sales tax from Amazon. I paid a guy a couple-hundred for the foundation.
Yes, we make sure the cats can’t chew on dangerous plants.
I napped. Spot cleaned my head. Dinner tonight is a martini, spicy catfish with rice, and corn, peppers, and onions.
< taps BBBoo for being bad >
I also want you to be a permanent union employee.