(Old) It's still dark MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

{{{VanGo}}} Should you feel the need, Mumpers are a good shoulder.

{{{JtC, Hubs, VBC and GG}}} You gave COC a good life.

Those are some cute puppers sari! Glad you got the check.

metal mouse, I actually wanted a Kona when I bought my Elantra, but the one I bought had significant discounts involved. I think the Kona would be much easier to get in and out of.

Happy anniversary flyboy and Mrs!

My boss attempted to assign me a job that I am physically incapable of doing today. Apparently, my little area are just about to be split off from hers and she won’t be the supe over it anymore. I asked about changing supes and staying where I am. She seemed open to the possibility, but I don’t know if it will happen. I do know the new supe and lead (I interfaced a lot with the new lead in my last position and it was positive for both of us) and talked to the lead when I trained a couple of people today. She sounded like she would like to have me, given that there’s only one job in the are that I don’t know. We’ll see, but I’m getting the CV back out there.

Stay safe and healthy y’all!

82

I’m sitting in the kitchen of the clubhouse waiting for cornbread to bake. So glad i thought of doing it here! Also, the music is pretty good: Neil Young’s “Sugar Mountain,” which I haven’t heard in ages, and Alison Krause.

I am no longer on speaking terms with the sun. I know it’s August, and the sun considers itself a hottie, but that’s enough showing off, mister. It’s currently 99º. Very uncomfortable. Would not recommend.

cookie, I hope the crud clears up soon. When he was 87, my friend the WWII veteran finally went to the doctor for, uh, recurring crotch rashes. The doc asked how long he’d had it. Bob said, “Off and on since Guadalcanal.” Doc: :astonished:

Childhood culture…the Miss Mack thing, but also others. From my day:

I hate Bosco.
It’s so bad for me.
Mommy puts it in my milk
to try to poison me.
But I fooled mommy.
I put it in her tea.
Now there’s no more mommy left
to be try to poison me.

This one was also banned by mom:

Tah-Rah-Rah-Boom-di-Ay,
the teacher passed away.
We killed her yesterday.
We threw her in the bay.
The sharks had lunch today…

So was

Glory, glory hallelujah!
Teacher hit me with a ruler!
I knocked her on the bean
with a rotten tangerine,
and her teeth came marching out!

Enough of this highbrow cultural enrichment!

Flyboy, Happy Anniversary! I hope the doc says the HDL isn’t a problem.

Tater, sending hugs just 'cause.

Red, so is the job you’re incapable of doing something you’d have to do even if you don’t change supes?

ANYBODY KNOW HOW TO FLY THIS OLD CRATE?

83

Evening all. Did do 500 calories of cycling and then worked out with 6 and 7 year old soccer players, fun but getting ideas on how to play into their heads is hard to do…could use FCM as an assistant coach. At least the rain last night really cooled things down, it only got to 84F today and it’s down to 74F now, so turn off the AC and open up some windows tonight. Doing a Braunschweiger run tomorrow morning, so will see what kind of mileage my rental gets.

Oopsie, interesting idea on the streaming. I seldom have the TV on for more than an hour or two on any given day (albeit once tackleball and Euro soccer seasons get going, it will increase dramatically) and for what I’m paying Direct TV, I wonder if I could do better. May have to look into it.

Pilot, early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, weathly, and a party-pooper…take care.

OK, onward to the evening internettin’ and readin’. Take care all.

84

Might I ask about your recipe? Google gave me too many possibles that didn’t have a lot in common.

Based on what I’ve heard of HOAs, I’m sure they’ll insist that you cannot proceed with your design without their approval, and if it’s too much nicer than everyone else’s, you’ll get in trouble for not being uniform enough.

Both DH and I seem to be doing OK job-wise. The last couple of days, DH has gone to bed around the time I got home (or before), but having been married to a construction worker so long, I’m used to it. The cats seem to be coping, and not a lot bothers Misty.

85

Well, it took some futzing, but I booked a new flight to Santiago (not Valparaiso, as I’d originally said) arriving the day before the ship departs, as well as a new return flight. Then I canceled the flights I’d booked thru the cruise line. I saved us around $1200 and each trek will be under 15 hours total, with just one stop each way. And we’re booked into the Holiday Inn at the Santiago airport - literally a walk across a pedestrian bridge from the airport. The only problems will be the wait times.

Our flight arrives at 8 in the morning and we can’t get our hotel room till 3 (tho I will ask about an early check in) Then for the trip home, the ship arrives at 5AM and we’ll have to get off by 10 or 11, and our flight home isn’t till 11:35 that night. So there will be more time to kill. I’m sure we can figure something out. I’ll check with the agent at the cruise line - I know there are a couple of excursions in Buenos Aires - I just need to figure out the whole luggage thing. Anyway, that’s done. And FWIW, we’re on American Airlines both ways, departing from BWI but returning to DCA.

I think I need my bed - it’s 9-freekin’-30!!!

:yawning_face:

86

Million Dollar Pasta Casserole as revised/(improved) by KittenMitten

2 cups of your choice of pasta (macaroni, rotini, penne, bowties, small shells)
1/2 pound ground beef
1/3 - 1/2 pound ground Italian sausage or ground pork
salt/substitute (I use Mrs. Dash) and pepper, to taste
Italian seasoning & oregano
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
~1¼ cups pasta sauce
1½ Tablespoons butter
4 - 6 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/8 - 1/4 cup sour cream
½ - ¾ cup cottage cheese or ricotta cheese
¾ - 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/3 – 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese or shredded
(note: I buy Italian style blend shredded cheese which has mozzarella, provolone, roman, parmesan, fontina & asiago cheeses and use that as a substitute)
Variation: sliced mushrooms; celery-leaves, fine stems, chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Make Meat Sauce: In a large skillet sauté onion (and mushrooms and/or celery) in 1 T olive oil over low heat until almost translucent then add garlic for one minute. Transfer to baking dish. Crumble the ground beef and Italian sausage/ground pork into skillet, season with salt/substitute and pepper and cook . Drain grease. While the meat is cooking, heat the pasta sauce in a saucepan along with the Italian seasoning and oregano. Add onions and garlic (and celery) and all but ½ cup of the pasta sauce (reserve ½ cup for later) to the mixture and stir to combine. Set aside.

Prepare noodles : Cook pasta according to package instructions, just until “al dente” (generally 8-9 min). Drain, and place hot pasta in a large mixing bowl with butter and stir until all pasta coated with butter. Then add ½ cup reserved pasta sauce and toss to combine.

Make Cheese layer: Combine cream cheese, sour cream and cottage cheese in a bowl and mix well.

Assemble : Pour HALF of the pasta into a casserole. Smooth cheese layer on top. (Top with mushrooms.) Top with remaining pasta. Add meat sauce on top and smooth into an even layer. Top with mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or until hot and bubbly. Check it around 20 minutes and if the cheese is browning too quickly, tent a piece of tinfoil over it. Wait at least 15 minutes before cutting and serving, to allow it to set up. Enjoy!

Notes

To Make Ahead: You can prepare this casserole 1 day ahead of time. Follow recipe instructions up to step 8 (just before baking). Allow it to cool, cover it well with plastic wrap and store it in the refrigerator until ready to bake. Or, prep the sauce, pasta and cheese layer 1-3 days ahead of time and assemble right before baking.

To Freeze: Prepare recipe right up until the baking step. Cover well with greased aluminum foil and freeze for up to 3 months. When ready to eat, thaw in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days, then bake for about 20 minutes, covered, and then 20-25 minutes uncovered. If baking from frozen, bake covered for about 40 minutes, then uncover and bake at least 30-40 minutes longer, or until bubbly and warm.

Vegetarian Million Dollar Pasta: leave out the meat entirely or substitute plant based meat.

Ground Beef vs. Sausage: You can use both ground beef and ground Italian sausage/ground pork in this recipe but you can also use one or the other, you don’t have to use both.

87

This sounds VERY good, but definitely a project for a weekend evening.

88

Agreed. Since I generally work M, W, Th, Sat, I normally make on one of my days off. Although I’m PT and sometimes only work 1-1/2 hrs so I have time on some of the other days.

Anyway, just wanted to say with 2 people, this makes enough for 3-4 meals.

89

What a co-INSIDE-ence! I just did 500 Calories of eating!

More than that, actually. Ground beef taco meat, hot sauce, sour cream, shredded cheddar, inna low-carb burrito, and a tin of smoked mussels.

90

Happy Toosday!

Happy Anniversary FlyBoy

Got stuff done this morning. We went to the bank to deposit the checks. The nice lady at the bank said we could use the ATM. My son’s check went through with no problem. Mine wouldn’t, so I had to go inside. The bank tells me the funds will be available tomorrow.
I don’t believe them.

Then we went to drop off the deposit at the realty. I got the address and all from the agent, she even sent me a picture of the building so I’d put it in the correct drop box.
What she neglected to tell me is that the block the office is in is the same block that the odd and even numbers switch sides.

I wanted to pick up my prescriptions, I was hoping they’d be ready since we were out that way.
As soon as we got home, took our shoes off and sat down, the text came that the scripts were ready.
I’ll get them tomorrow.

I got sad news tonight that one of my favorite dog park dogs has to be rehomed. We haven’t seen him since November anyway, and miss him. Their baby was born in November and at first the dog was fine with the baby. Everybody thought he would be. Now that the baby is becoming more mobile, the dog is starting to snap at the baby if the baby pulls or pokes at him.

I can’t take him, even if I didn’t have 3 dogs already. He’s an Airedale and way too big, strong, and energetic for me to handle.

He and Ripple were best buddies when he was a puppy. They were the same size and both liked to play rough. Like people who didn’t know them thought they were going to kill each other rough. One time the two of them got going and they looked like a tumbleweed rolling across the park.
He and Echo are good friends too.

i don’t know what is up with my truck. I thought I’d hear something today.

My son just texted, he is expecting to get out at 1 or 2.
I don’t know if I should stay up or got to bed.

91

Trader Joe’s has great flowers. They’re pretty, they’re fragrant, and they’re inexpensive. I got The Missus a dozen roses. She sniffed them and said, ‘They smell good!’ Call me cheap, but we really do like TJ’s flowers better than anyone’s. I also got her a card. The front has two rings, and the inside says ‘I still do.’ She liked the card too, and put it on the mantle.

[Next post, below]

I flipped my mattress yesterday, hoping I’d sleep better. Nope. Still tossed and turned. I’ve decided it’s just too warm to sleep comfortably. It should be 10ºF cooler on Friday.

92

Neither of us got any sleep last night, the house was just too quiet. Today we bought five trees which will be planted 9/15. We will put COC’s ashes in the hole before planting one outside his window.

We have no shade here and I need trees around to make me happy, so we bought another five mulberries. They grow a foot or two a year so we should start getting useful shade in about five years.

My TC instructor has already bought the baby gate, hubs took the litter box out to be dumped and stored and our housekeeper erased all of the other traces of him in our home. Except our memories.

Maybe I’m not ready to talk after all, sorry.

93

So between the actual storms, and the Severe Thunderstorm/Wind/Flooding Warnings on my phone, I never found out what happened in my dream where saving a couple of worms turned into my childhood house in Durham, N.C. being overrun with earthworms and assorted larvae, and me vacuuming them up to take them somewhere. I bet Dream Dad is gonna be pissed.(but not as pissed as the time I napalmed the backyard :smiley: )

Funny how many Mumper near misses there are in a given day…

: crosses appropriate and inappropriate appendages :

I have 2000 hours as Pilot in Command. Of a simulator. With the difficulty on “God Mode”. At least I can mix us some cocktails on the way down. :wink:

“Early to rise, and early to bed. Makes a man healthy, but socially dead” - Yakko Warner

:champagne: Happy Anniversary, Flyboy!!:champagne:

{{{{Jane}}}}
The packing up really hurts.

94

I was trying not to sweat into the tuna salad I’m making for lunch tomorrow when I realized I’d THOUGHT sympathy toward JtC but hadn’t SAID anything. Jane, I’m so sorry. I know there’s no way to smooth over the hole in your life or ease the pain, but I wish there were a way to skip over the hardest part of the grief and get to the wisdom and quasi-acceptance part.

{{{{Jane}}}}

95

Mrs. L.A. made some really good tuna salad a couple/few weeks ago. Albacore, mayo, hard-boiled eggs, celery seeds, and something else (might have been tarragon, might have been dill, might have been another thing). I’d make some, only she can’t eat any seeds for the next few days.

96

I have an aversion to needles as well.

97

I felt your thoughts and know how much you care. I’m sorry for not offering support for your surgery and for not giving wordy major hugs cause I know how hard that is for her. Sometimes our things push all of the other important things to the side.

COC was a pretty good kitty. He was a rescue and ended up with us because nobody wanted him because he was so shy and was kinda inbred with really bad hips that stopped him from being able to jump like most cats do. The baby gate didn’t defeat him because he was old, it defeated him because he was never able to climb and jump like most cats.

So, he was too shy to be adopted as a pet and too crippled to defend himself as a barn cat, so it was us or the Bridge. We let him live under the bed for years and then he finally started coming out when we were awake. He was never a cuddle cat, he didn’t like to be picked up. He enjoyed scritches and pettings on his terms and spent most of the last five years on his kitty tree in front of the bedroom window.

GG is still afraid to go in our bedroom because COC was so mean to him. It will be a long time before I want to eat salmon, GG is afraid of salmon and COC won’t be demanding his tribute.

98

I like it when the phlebotomist let’s me lick the needle when she’s done. :slight_smile:

99

I fessed up to my manager that I started crying when I woke up this morning. Of course she asked why, and I said, “This is gonna sound weird but … I’m happy. And I don’t know how to process that! I’ve been so anxious and stressed for so long … now, I’m not mad, I’m not bitchy, I’m … friggin’ happy and I don’t know what to DO with myself!”

She said she totally understood. (She’s been my rock as I navigate all the adulting crap I mentioned earlier, so she’s familiar with most of what I’m going through.) I still feel weird, and now I’m sniffling all over again just typing this out.

WTF, me? Why can’t you just enjoy being happy?!?

On a side note, the new eyeliner I wore today said “waterproof” and y’all, they were not kidding. This shit ain’t budging, not after multiple cries & a good face-washing.

“Early to bed, and early to rise
Makes a man or woman
MISS OUT ON THE NIGHT LIFE!” :musical_note:

  • Morphine

That’s a great mental image!

Oh, that is so sweet.

Boy, do I sympathize! (I bought a cooling blanket off Amazon - P.M. me if you want the details. It’s quite nice!)

May I ask why? (That seems like a somewhat odd restriction, and now I’m curious.) If that’s too nosy of a question, feel free to disregard.

You gave him the best life possible. I’m so sorry for the pain - it never gets easier, but it does prove (as if we needed more evidence) of what a good person you are.

I … wait, sorry, do what now?

100

I forgot! I wanted to share a couple of anecdotes from last weekend.

Saturday nights are often, ah, “interesting.”

People will roll up drunk; I’ve seen open bottles of friggin’ tequila in cupholders; it’s virtually guaranteed that somebody will be smoking a blunt at the drive-thru window & smog out the whole damn kitchen (just amazing, how consistently the fryers will start rocking with in-house crew snacks a few minutes later!) plus the usual assortment of idiots & assholes.

And then, sometimes, there are the nice moments.

One lady rolls up for her two pizzas. She told me that her son has autism, and that he’s never tried our pizza before. “I talked him into trying one tonight!” Knowing how important routine & familiarity is to folks with autism, her comment really touched me. I told her I very sincerely hoped he loved it.

The other one was courtesy of a lady picking up nothing but fried stuff: fried mushrooms & cauliflower, French fries, and IIRC onion rings.
Not unusual, especially late at night.

What cracked me up, though, was while she was paying she mentioned that she had really wanted a pizza, “but that would have been too greasy.”

I couldn’t help it; I blurted out, “So, you got a bunch of fried foods instead?” :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
Kinda rude of me, I’ll admit, but … I mean, c’mon, really?

Oh, and the last one: somebody called, said they’d just picked up such-and-such pizza.

I braced myself, expecting a complaint. Too burnt; not cooked enough; forgot a topping, etc. Happens more often than it should.

Instead, the caller simply said, “That pizza was cooked perfectly! It was delicious, and I just wanted you to know that.” And hung up.

I told my manager - she was the one who cooked it, I remembered the order - and she just beamed.
I love when people tell us the good stuff; the nature of customer service means we mostly just hear the crap.