(Old) It is getting cold in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Winter has kinda showed up here, the water in the shallow bird bath has started freezing at night and we are bringing the hummingbird feeder in at night (it goes out just after dawn).

We lost the tomatoes two nights and all of the leaves have fallen off my baby mulberry trees in the back yard. The front yard is a different climate, so that tree still has leaves.

We are still opening our windows in the evening to cool the house down, but that’s because we both like to sleep cold.

There are still a couple of weeks left before Christmas, who’s willing to brave the malls this year and report back?

2

First! 'Tis always good to be juvenile … and to get off work right when you slackers retired drains on society lovely people are in bed drooling into your collective pillows.

… ope, my friend is having a minor crisis choosing new glasses. She waaayyyy overthinks these things.

BRB.

3

Of course I’m still up, the across the street neighbors put up blinking Christmas lights and GG is chasing the moving shadows while pretending to be a herd of stampeding elephants.

VBC is annoyed and hubs took his hearing aids out before going to bed so he probably won’t understand why I’m cranky in the morning.

4

Hey, it’s only 10:30 here on the west coast. I’m still drooling on my shirt, thank you very much.

You crack me up. My daughter will love this one. Her cat and GG are 22nd cousins, once removed.

I’m about to head to bed. It’s going to be weird to fall asleep without hearing rain.

5

It is the processs of arriving as we speak. Heck, if the cold gets here before the rain moves off this moring, we might see snow. < nervously packs bread, milk, and eggs into Carmen >

My elephant leaves impact crates in the upholstery as he bounds across the couch.

Laters!

Harumph! I’ll have you know I’m drooling in my coffee as I prepare to go to work as we speak!

6

Lessee … Saturday was mind-boggling, but in a way, just the usual, well, Saturday night.

Last night Winning Customer O’the Night:

She’s on the phone as I walk up to the window, which I pulled open juuuuust in time to hear, "I KNOW who my baby-daddy is!! … I just don’t like him."

Y’all, the sheer indignation in her voice! It was … {chef’s kiss} priceless.

She went on to repeatedly assure whoever was on the other end of the line that she knew her babydaddy, throughout the entire transaction, until finally even I was thinking, “Slut, you have no idea, do you? Why does your friend keep asking?”

Lessee … oh, for a while last night we were so dead quiet that my manager, of all people, started a game of Hot Potato with a dough ball.

I eventually felt a bit left out and wanted to join in the reindeer games … but my reflexes are almost as bad as my memory, and y’all, my own boss promptly got me right in the face. She’d made eye contact, gently pitched me a softball, but … yeah, I still suck at catching things.

I thought it was funny as hell, though, and enjoyed re-telling it. (“Did Sweet Manager tell you she hit one of her employees smack in the face with a dough ball?!?” with mock outrage.)

Plus I got sent on a work errand mid-shift to fetch supplies from one of the other franchise locations, and was laughing like a lunatic in my car at the fact that the directions from my manager mostly involved dispensary locations (“Go past X then turn right up at the next block. Once you pass Y dispo, it’ll be on your right, after the weird gas station.”) which turned out to be both precise and easy for me to follow.
Which also meant I got to sit my tired ass down for a while in my car and get a break from friggin’ “Jingle Bell Rock” crank up Led Zep.

Tonight we were absolutely dead for the last half of the night, but there was an order earlier for eleven large (!!) all with extra sauce and extra cheese that kinda redeemed revenue. (The whole crew was like, “Damn, where the party at?”)

7

I got myself a bit burned out on cross-stitch and took up a new hobby: quilling. (You roll little strips of colorful paper into, well, rolls - and other shapes - and glue 'em onto greeting cards and shit like that.)

Anyway, as my very first attempt, I made one for one of my crew - she’s, I dunno the details, but slightly mentally challenged, although she has a terrific memory and definitely brings her strengths - but she’s going through some personal stuff and I made her a card with an “eye” shape, then a heart, then a rainbow smile, so it says “I love you” and I think it really made her happy.

She’s 22 but still lives with her dad and uncle, and for sure does not get to enjoy a lot of adult privileges (I think there’s some drama about her having a “boyfriend”) so I emphasized that this was for HER so that she’d have a tiny little something that was all to herself.

Ah, and speaking of my crew, a giant shout-out to JtheC and her cookies. Of course I brought them in to share - over the weekend when the hungry teenagers were on the clock - and the general consensus was … look, they got demolished. The butter cookies went fastest, probably because they’re eye-catching pretty, but the cinnamon? molasses? got a few “my favorite” votes, and I love chocolate so the crinkles were my faves.

The whole thing did confuse the young’uns a bit. (“Mmm, you made these?” “Nope.” “Who made 'em, your grandma or something?” “Nah, some lady I’ve never actually met in person.” “Wha…?”)

8

HahahaNO. I’m not that crazy. There’s been at least one case of random assault at a mall in my area, along with unusually high volume of aggressive theft, and at least one known case of political demonstrators blocking access to a mall. NOT going there, TYVM.

9

ya’ll know that I have a love/mostly hate relationship with the oct-jan holiday season and most holidays in general due to well family i live with going nuts over them and honestly the only thing I want for Xmas anymore is a day of quiet and solitude of which ill never get for another decade or so

Well since having to move to a seriously more expensive house and more expensive utilities … not to mention shipping snafus and other annoyances I’d like to get a tent and go out further yonder in the Mojave with a tent until the 10th of jan …

How are yall coping wiht this mess ?

10

First! It’s good to be juvenile!

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN 'Tis 38 Amurrkin out and clear with a predicted high of 58 and N.O.S. for the day. I foresee high sloth on the agenda today. Really don’t have a need or desire to be amongst the great unwashed. Sup shall be beast roast in the slow cooker with little carrots and N.O.T., green beans, and cornbread. A warm your innards sup for a cool day.

shades sorry this is such a tough time of year for you. We’re pretty low key here, as in we don’t even bother with buyin’ each other presents and such. Just too old for all that fuss and bother. We took four names from the givin’ tree at church and have ordered those presents. They should be here in a couple of days.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day!

Happy Moanday Y’all!

11

:stuck_out_tongue: ha ha ha

12

Morning, mumpers! It’s 8c/47f with a predicted high of 9c/48f, and partly cloudy. Weather app says “Today’s fucking forecast: sunrise, sunset and some other fucking bullshit in the middle of the day.” Obviously got a case of the Mondays!

Winter made a brief appearance a week or so ago when we had a little covering of snow that lasted barely half a day. We’re now back into milder temperatures and storms. Storm Elin has just departed and there are rumours that Storm Fergus is approaching, both of which bring heavy rain and strong winds but not cold and snow.

I have not exactly braved the mall - our local shopping centre is not that great in the first place so I only usually go in there to visit a small handful of shops. I went in on Saturday and visited the card shop (needed a box of hexmas cards), the toiletries shop (a friend can only use very specific products and I wanted to make a little gift bag for her), and the bookstore (because, books).

We had carol singers for entertainment, which meant the main part of the concourse was swamped with gawpers, so I skirted round the edge to get in and out as quickly as possible. Shopping for gifts is not fun, I do as much as possible online these days to avoid having to deal with people. On the plus side, part of my online shopping involves cheese, and should arrive tomorrow!

13

Um, this is the second MMP

14

Yesterday, it was in the 60s. Here’s what I woke to this morning:
Imgur
There’s maybe an inch on the ground, maybe, and it’s pretty much done, with sun and 40s promised today, so it won’t last. But there ya go - our first snow of the season.

FCD just left for his dentist appt. Then he’s off to his mom’s to get a list of her meds in order before she leaves - she’ll surely need refills while in Indy and CVS will have her records, but he’s not taking any chances.

Meanwhile, I’ll probably finally get my butt down to the basement and tidy things down there. That’s as far ahead as I’ve thought. We’ll see how it all goes.

Happy Moanday!!

15

And there’s a 2-hur delay for schools today. Barely an inch of snow on the grass, virtually none on the roads.

Buncha wusses!!!

16

Morning all, it’s 36F here in NorTex, and we’re facing a week of what “Nawthun-ers” would call springtime. Sunny with highs in the 60s.

One measure of success in my year is avoidance of malls. With Amazon and the like, I’ve acheived zero mall visits for several years now. Given the incidence of theft, car-breakins, and general miscreants around them, I hope never to enter one again.

Yesterday brought one of the most dreaded events of my world, a Social Event (party at neighbor’s). It was a potluck and I offered to just smoke some ribs outside and handle the whole thing myself. But that was vetoed in favor of adding stress and complexity to our lives by the missus preparing some sort of (Greek?) dish that I can’t pronounce, which involved a lot of micro-management and multiple grocery store trips. As usual, the build-up and worry over preparing for the “social event” overrode any pleasure from same – and I wished it hadn’t happened in the first place. Getting grumpy in my old age I guess.

Lucy (new dog) is learning pretty fast, but still a handful. Next door neighbor picked this week to tear down and rebuild the fence between us, so I can’t let her run free in the backyard until this is finished. Not a biggie, but it means I have to have her on leash instead of letting her stretch out and run herself ragged every day. She’s growing scarily fast, and I fear my goal of a small-to-midsized dog is another thing that the gods are ROTFL-ing at.

The eye surgery saga is pretty much over. All the docs/techs/surgeons are finished and have declared me fixed and free of all restrictions. As such, I went through the process of trying to wrangle my actual (printed) eyeglass prescription from various Optometrists. Eventually, one of them reluctantly let me have it, and I got some help here (SDMB) decoding it. Instead of waiting 2 months and spending $400 at the eye doctor’s, I ordered glasses online for $80 bucks and they were on my porch in less than 24 hours.

And they’re perfect! I also ordered the readers to place in front of them for computer/tablet-ing, and they’re perfect too!

For the first time in 7 months, I can see almost perfectly and in focus, both indoors with screens and while driving. It’s amazing how much improvement this is. Told family I don’t need any Xmas presents, cuz I got my eyes back!

On to the week I guess. Last I heard, our on-again/off-again trip to South Texas to visit kinfolk is “on”. So I have a few more preps for the RV and off we go. This will be Lucy’s first long trip so it’ll be fun to see how she handles journeys. Or not.

Hope everyone has a great week!

17

Winter comes in late Sept and early Oct, so we are already hunkered down until May when the snow melt happens. Also know as mud season.

March is statistically the snowiest month.

We do get nice sunny days (when it’s not snowing) all winter long, so we are not in the clutches of deep gloom.

18

I honestly can’t recall the last time I went to a mall. It’s kinda sad - when we were first married, our main source of entertainment was mall-walking. We window-shop, talk about things we’d like to do to the house, then end up at the food court for a giant cookie. It was especially fun when they’d have craft shows and such - more to look at. But no more…

Just finished a bunch of bill paying, and I sent an inquiry to the hospital about a bill that MIL got last month for FIL - if you recall, he died last January. I did go to the site and it showed a balance due of $0, so we’ll see what response I get back from them.

I need to clean my desk and see if there are any more bill lost in the pile o’paper… later. Basement mess is calling now.

19

Kitchen tidied, basement tidied, cat box tended to. I think I can read for a while!!

20

That’s wonderful about the results of your surgery, pullin. It made my morning.

I have mixed up a batch of buttermilk biscuit dough and it is chilling and relaxing in the fridge. In about twenty minutes, I’ll get up and cut out biscuits and bake them. They’ll be served with bacon and eggs and apricot preserves for breakfast.

I avoid malls, too, but our local one has upped their game, foodie-wise. They now have an Eataly, good ramen and udon joints, an Uncle Tetsu Japanese cheesecake shop, an upscale seafood place, and multiple other places. Clothing and shoe stores don’t interest me anymore, but I like the restaurants.