(Old) It's the heat AND the humidity in the MMP!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
181

It was pretty fun. When we got to the club, it would be full of people drinking sodas and cheap beers while chatting quietly. The three bartenders and 4 waitresses would pretty much be just hanging out because nobody was ordering anything. As soon as the doors closed, the place started hopping. Top shelf liquor was being poured and lobsters were being killed within minutes and the happy noise level started going up.

The waitstaff loved working those days because the government tipped at a higher rate than was customary and their happy, well fed and semi-sloshed customers also tipped well, so as Dad used to say “they made out like bandits”.

It always made me feel a little sorry for Nixon out there playing golf all by himself while we were all inside having a party on his dime. Not sorry enough to refuse a doggy bag for my untouched lobster tail, but you know…

The sopes were good. We fried them and treated them like tostado shells. Chances are good that we will have them again.

I have had several, it is not physically painful…unless you can’t lay flat on your back for half an hour, but it is loud and tight and you have to hold still for the entire time. I’m not claustrophobic and I don’t get triggered by loud noises but they are still pretty darn uncomfortable.

I just heard a ruckus happening in our catio and found GG squaring off with a praying mantis. I had NO idea what badasses they are, this time we rescued GG from the wildlife instead of the other way around.

That flipping sucks. But be thankful that you aren’t in Texas.

We had one of those for our first place with the sliding glass door and it worked pretty well. They wouldn’t work in french doors, though. Our current catio is placed where it is because the last owners put a small dog door in the laundry room door because cutting holes in the wall is a little extreme even for us.

182

I think the lack of sleep last night got to me, as I had a migraine today. I’ll be heading off to bed as soon as I’m done here. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

No painters today. Who knows when they’ll arrive?

When I joined the MMP six (?) years ago, nicknames were conferred upon us, and the tradition was that we didn’t get a say, which was fine by me. The nicknames were based on our usernames, so hobbies, interests, etc. didn’t necessarily factor in. I liked it, but I know times changed, so I’ll leave it to the more senior members to weigh in.

Did he pay for it, or did John and Jane Q. Public?

183

Oh, you did. Thank you for the fancy drinks! I really liked the lobster thermidor, I probably would have never tried it without you paying for it :slight_smile:

184

I will fully admit that I’ve been a bad Mumper and not keeping up with the thread. This summer has just been… good, bad, ugly and somewhere in between. A lot of this week has been trying to get Hubby ready for his trip to Jersey to help his folks. He left way too early this morning to catch his flight. Getting to his folks’ from the airport was… a trial. Two subways, the Patco line and then an Uber. And it was still cheaper than if he’d taken an Uber from the airport out.’

I’m trying to get the kids to help me with housecleaning stuff while Hubby is gone. CtE is, as usual, more helpful than BtY. Though the knowledge that he’ll get his own “room” (walk in closet) should help with some of it.

I’m lucky that for the most part, this week is clear of having anything I need to do. Next week is a different story, of course. Appointments for non-critical things, book clubs, the Mini-Fest on the 15th, picking up Hubby from the airport later that night. I was trying to get in to see my doctor - I’ve got a weird feeling in my fingers that’s not quite numbness but not right either, almost like my fingertips are covered in glue - but the only appointments she had available happened to be when I had other appointments scheduled. I am able to get in on the 25th, though. She’s not so concerned that she wants me in sooner.

I also need to call and make an appointment to get another tooth pulled. I wish to the gods that I had the money to just get them all pulled and get my dentures, but dental insurance completely sucks. So I’m trying to wait it out until I can actually afford to have it done, which will probably be in a few years. It’s just frustrating losing my teeth one by one. It’s all my own fault, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

For all that it sounds like I’m complaining a lot, things really are pretty good right now. BtY is actually listening more than not, though I do still need to make them read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian for their English class in the fall. But he has been doing what I ask without complaint. And CtE has been having me take them out for walks in the morning, and then helping me with house stuff during the day. Their depression has seemed to be held at bay more often than not. And they joked that since Hubby’s gone and they’re the eldest child, instead of being the man of the house, they’re the AMAB of the house. I was amused.

It’s getting late. I’m getting sleepy (yay waking up at 3:30 to get Hubby to the airport by 4:30) and who knows what kind of secrets I’ll spill out if I keep typing. :slight_smile:

Have a great night, all and, if I’m lucky, I’ll see you all tomorrow! Thanks for keeping my place warm.

185

You’re so welcome! I hope you kept the little cocktail umbrella from your drink!

186

I really hope you sleep better tonight and that tomorrow won’t be stressful.

187

Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to heave.

188

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 74 Amurrkin out and clear with a predicted high of 93 and mostly N.O.S. for the day. This mornin’ I shall take twuck in for an oil change etc. and then go to Wally*Jr. to pick up a few items. Afterward it shall be a day of high sloth and general overall uselessness to include quality cee-mint pond time, nappage, and day drinkin’. Sup shall be steak, baked N.O.T., sallit, and cheesey garlic bread. Easy to make and nummy.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, bother of bothers, I once again must purtify and don attire appropriate for bein’ amongst the great unwashed. Woe is me!

Happy Thursday Y’all!

189

Way too late to return - it sat boxed for a month before I even opened it. And no patch kit, but frankly, it was too cheap in the first place to waste much time trying to find the leak. A hose on the exhaust side of the little shop vac blows it up in seconds and it stays inflated for several hours - plenty of time for the kids to get bored. I appreciate the offer, but if it comes to it, I’ll buy another before I try to fix this one. I bet they’ll be on sale at WalMart in a couple of weeks anyway.

BTW, smoking salmon is pretty simple - I did it once for my mom and she said it was good. I can’t imagine gouda would be all that difficult.

Technically (since there’s no rule book) you’re not allowed to name your own nick, :wink: but what care we for rules?? We have changed some nicks because of personal objections but granting a nickname is as close as the MMP comes to an initiation. Like it matters. Forget I said anything. :rofl: Plus we’ve got taters who’s been here forever and never got a nick - what’s up with that??

Woke once during the night, but I refused to engage my brain, and was able to fall back to sleep till around 5:30. I swear, all those working years of waking at 5 caused my internal clock to demand that I never sleep in. It would be annoying if it didn’t give me an hour or 2 of quiet time to myself every morning. There’s a 50% chance of t-boomers around midday - that may affect whether the kids get pool time. I’ll figure it out when they get here.

Having both of them presents a challenge I didn’t expect - Tobias seems to be jealous of any attention I give Roxanna. He was throwing toys at her head yesterday, and not soft ones. I attempted time-out, tho I think he’s still too young to get it. Still, the instant he flings anything, I plant his butt in one particular chair - he’ll get the idea. But I’m thinking I need to move the chair where he can’t see TV or his sister, and I need a time-out chair upstairs and down. This is the fun I missed by having only one kid.

I need to call our money guy and make an appointment so we can talk about withdrawing funds from our annuities. At the moment, we don’t need to, and the age for mandatory withdrawal has been raised, so that’s not in play yet. And it’s tough to plan since we don’t know how long we’ll live… decisions decisions. My main concern is unplanned big expenses. Our roof is 13 years old and theoretically, it’s got 30-year shingles. Will we live 17 more years? Will we face replacing it again?

Similarly, we had to drill a new well in 2008 (?) - that was an $8K surprise and if we’d have to drill again, who knows what it would cost? There’s no way to predict if/when it’ll be an issue. And we have 3 vehicles, so if 1 dies, we can get along - unless it’s the truck? Then there are potential medical expenses - even tho we have great insurance, a large copay/deductible could bite us in the butt.

We need to know the assorted rules and procedures for withdrawing from the annuities, and it’ll be easier to get the answers from our money guy rather than try to read and understand all the associated paperwork. And then we need to sit down with Daughter and explain it all to her, since she’s our executor/heir and she needs to know what’s where. Dealing with FIL’s passing has kinda opened our eyes - we need to have our things in order, just in case.

Always something, right??

Happy Thursday!

190

Good morning.

It’s currently 62F and clear outside. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but it will happen very soon. It’ll be clear until the afternoon when clouds move in for a bit, and the expected high is 91F. The AQI has moved from hazardous to merely very poor. :roll_eyes: This is due to various factors, mainly wildfire smoke within the state and Canada.

sari, I hope your leg and feet issues start improving soonest and I’m glad the boot has helped a little.

yanker, sending best thoughts for the eye issue. I’m glad the kids landed on their feet.

Well, today is another day, and although the week should feel shorter since Tuesday was a day off, it somehow feels long. It feels like it should be Friday. That said, I have a ton of stuff to accomplish today and tomorrow, and then I hit the road for Spokane on Monday morning. I have a really bad case of the donwannas, though, and it will be rough today because of that. Oh well, guess I’ll need to suck it up and act like a grown-up. Who wants to do that, though?

Good luck with the money guy, FCM. I would probably do the same thing because trying to wade through all that alone is just…difficult. I keep playing with retirement scenarios. I’m sick of working but I need to grow that TSP a little more. I want to be comfortable and able to face any surprises life throws at us as we age.

Alrighty then! On with the day!

191

Heh. I lived inland, in Alhambra. It was hot and roasty and smoggy. My memories of summers there are mostly of baking asphalt, dusty palm trees, and rusty chain link fences. Bleh.

192

Alhambra is like that. But older & rustier & poorer now. Kinda depressing.

193

Same here. Just over loaded with things.

It’s 21°C (70 F) here in the afternoon, but 34°C (93 F) in Tokyo today. It’s the same as Taiwan.

I’m really happy to be up here instead of dying in the heat and humidity.

I had a funny experience yesterday. A cram school contacted me about teaching for them. Normally, they only hire Japanese teachers to teach English, because they are teaching student how to pass the English sections of extrance exams and other tests.

However, one of their students needs a conversation teacher, when they normally don’t provide, and they don’t have any native English teachers. So, they wanted me to teach the middle school girl. All fine and well, but then corporate got involved.

They needed to make me go through an interview process, and since they don’t normally hire foreign teachers, they treated me the same as they would Japanese natives who teach English.

This included a long, long interview where the corporate drone droned on and on about their company values and asked me a few minor questions.

Then, because corporate policy is corporate policy, they gave me the exact same English test they would give Japanese people who wanted to teach English there, including a few questions where I had to translate English sentences into Japanese.

Weird. Anyway, they’ll let me know in a while if I get the work, but in the meanwhile, the manager wants me to teach him privately, so it won’t be a waste of time.

I made chili tonight for the first time. It was good, and I cheated by using a mix of spices. The kids liked it and the baked potatoes, although the baked carrots didn’t turn out very good. Back to the drawing board for those.

194

the four day weekend has caught up to me and i am dragging today. so tired, so very tired. ah well, one more day to the next weekend.

there were odd storms last night. i was a block away from city hall waiting for the bus, got on the bus and within 2 blocks the rain started. just big drops, 5 blocks away it looked like buckets came down. it was barely drizzling as we were driving, so 5 ish blocks away a cloud burst happened. very localized and very baffling. the storms were very, very, scattered.

195

I made a quick run to Food Lion for 'nanners since the ones I had were waaaah overripe. I now have 2 loaves of 'nanner bread in the oven. Yum!

The kids are here and we’re watching Peppa Pig again. Pool time in a little bit. And I think lunch will be mac-n-cheese.

Exciting day, no?

196

That’s kinda why I haven’t made my own suggestions. But I do strongly object to autoball. Sorry pilot.

I think having a time out chair (for lack of a better name) should work pretty well. Good luck with the young tosser. Sounds like, with some work on his aim, he could be a pro.

It’s a chill 58F out here this morning and a second cool day in a row. This is almost unheard of in July. High should be in the upper 70s. Sure Happy It’s Thursday. My brain likes short work weeks. My pocketbook, not so much.

Real fish, what if you made reading the book into a contest of some sort? Would that help motivate the kippers?

Ah well, off to find brekkers, formulate the caffiene (tea), and head to irk.

197

Morning all. Slept till after 7am today, so all ready for another exciting (Not) day at Casa Rat. Gym is on the agenda sometime later but that’s all that I have planned…what may occur as unplanned is still to be seen. 50% chance of afternoon rains, so we’ll see.

rocker, I see those type of storms now and then, the ones that worry me is when I can see that I’ve driving right into the storm front and can watch it turn from a few drops to a deluge in a few seconds.

Sensei, bureaucracy and adherence to ‘the rules’ are the same the world over. Hope it works out and you can help the kid along.

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. But alas and alack, the people who pay us do demand a certain amount of work for the money. Hang in there.

FCM, hope the meeting goes well. I’m drawing on my annuities monthly, but still have some cash laid back for other things. So far, so good.

Well, when someone has the perfect MMP name right off the bat…

Real Fish, yeah, I’ve taken those 6:30am departures too, not a lot of fun. Hope it goes well for him and his parents.

Yeah, you don’t want to mess around with a praying mantis; they are the Honey Badgers of the insect world…

OK, need to be considering First Meal and do my usual morning internettin; , so have a good Thorsday all.

198

Major storms last night. Yesterday was hot and humid. Today is not. I have nothing I have to do today. I may not leave the house.

199

Hi, Kids. We had a beautiful cool 68-degree high yesterday, so I kept my windows open all day and it was just wonderful. Peaking at 75 today, so still not too bad. It’s badly needed relief from the heat, cuz… I’ve been having hot flashes. My insurance was refusing to cover my HRT meds (sorted out now) and I couldn’t afford the out-of-pocket cost, so I had to stretch a two-month supply over the last six months. I ran out entirely at the beginning of June and hadn’t had a dose since then. I don’t make any of my own sex hormones anymore, so I’m entirely dependent on the synthetic stuff for things like, ya know. Bone density, mood regulation, immune health, etc… Probably a nontrivial component in why I’ve been a total mess. The grievance I processed finally went through though, and I was able to get my scrip filled and do my injection on Monday. I really hope the overheating issue resolves quickly, it’s been driving me crazy.

Gonna pick up a burger from the little local stand on my way home, then D&D tonight. Very much looking forward to it, I miss my people.

Sensei, packaged spice mixes aren’t cheating at all! You’re just saving yourself the labor of measuring out all the different components separately. I use Lawry’s garlic and seasoned salts, a Cajun spice blend, and the ubiquitous “Italian seasoning” all the time. I know what’s in each of them, it just saves me time and cupboard space. And lookit you, big-shot language guy! Good luck!

200

Morning, all. Pollen is 8.2 (still quite bad, but lower thwt the last few weeks), AQI is a delightful 25 at the closest station, and temp is in the 50’s with an expected high in the 80’. I don’t know yet what the day holds for me.