(Old) Meticulously Monday the MMP!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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We’re a quick walk from the beach, but we do get snow. We get ‘snowed in’ as in Wifey, RN cancels patient visits when it snows, and I elect to work from home. We do have the Jeep (Cherokee), and Mrs. L.A. can get out in her RAV4 if she wants to (which she doesn’t).

I picked up a buncha SPAM® from Costco a while back, so we have plenty. I actually opened a can of ‘emergency SPAM®’ (not from the Costco purchase) so I could have spammeneggs a couple of days ago. I thought, ‘Well, I have all of that Costco SPAM®, so…’

As far as alcohol, I try to keep some around. There’s generally some cheap red plonk; and I like to have some gin, bourbon, and tequila on-hand. No tequila at the moment, but there is rum.

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Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to heave.

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Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 13c/56f with a predicted high of 19c/66f and mostly cloudy. Weather app says “It’s cloudy and still not a fucking good day to blast out unsolicited fucking dick pics to random people.” I agree, that kind of pic is never required :slight_smile:

I am sorry for your loss, and sorry that it means you’re about to go through more family crap.

It’s not just how much they paid for it, it’s how they think it’s really great and valuable and everyone else will just love it! Sometimes all you can do is nod and smile, and think about how great it will feel when you can lob it into the nearest skip and set fire to it.

I really can’t imagine anyone thinking a genuine fear is funny :frowning: I suppose there’s always the idea that as kids, we’re afraid of loud noises and thunderstorms so it’s something we should have grown out of. I’ve been around far too many ex-army people to know that there’s a lot more to it than that.

My friends were surprised at how little traffic there was on their way over to my house, and how few cars were parked on my street - could have something to do with the 6-2 stuffing they got from Chelsea last Sunday!

Dicey I hope your digestive issues sort themselves out so you can get back to more exciting food!

Half the time I think Shadow is an old boy with dodgy back legs and he has a bit of trouble getting around. He has various “stepping stones” around the house, there’s a footstool he uses to get on and off the sofa, there’s a carefully-constructed pile of things that he uses to get onto his favourite chair upstairs, and soft steps by the bed in case he wants to try that. But open a can of tuna, and he appears in a flash! Mobility issues, my arse!

Yay for the job! Also yay for applying for something that looks even better!

We rarely get snow here, but a light dusting is enough to send drivers into a flat-out panic and generally causes chaos with public transport. We have enough stuff in the house to survive a fair time, but there’s a corner shop less than 2 minutes’ walk from my front door.

Last night’s pub trip was fun, we went out to the Station which is (as the name suggests) right by the platform of a small village railway station. Beer was good, company was good, and it was pleasant enough to sit outside for the evening.

Today’s commute was also not particularly traumatic either, so that was a blessing. Unfortunately, I got to work and found that my colleague is unwell and working from home so that means I’m in the office with the ADHD Squirrel and her bestie (who’s just back from honeymoon) so I predict an unproductive day despite the fact I’ve got lots to do.

I’ve got a sore throat and a cough, and I feel a bit rough myself but I guess we just have to soldier on, right?

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Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 75 Amurrkin out and clear with a predicted high of 95 and N.O.S. I think it rained durin’ the night but am not sure. Guess I’ll know when it’s daylight out and I can see whether or not the privacy fence is wet. The big item on today’s agenda is to take care of candle and other duties over to the church house. OYKW informed me last night he has a gnawin’ and a cravin’ for fried chikin so we shall betake ourselves to the hog trough GC.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alas and bother I suppose I must needs make myself presentable to be amongst the great unwashed. Oh woe!

Happy Thursday Y’all!

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I have a couple of fear issues. I have a barely-controlled fear of flying, and I’ve had two unrelated horrible panic attacks. Mr. brown regards all of these with scorn and attributes them to the idea that women are just scaredy cats or worry warts. I’ve tried to tell him that a panic attack is an overwhelming, hideous biological event but he’s still skeptical and thinks it’s a made-up idea.

As far as phobias, he has a couple of his own, though they’re not quite full-blown. Deep water and toilets (yes, toilets) give him the willies, so you’d think he’d be more understanding.

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Our driveway has a slight low spot where rain gathers - we can tell how much rain by how big the puddle is. That’s one high-class rain gauge!

That’s like my mom (and probably others of her generation) who think of anti-depressants as “happy pills” and consider depression to be a moral failing or something. My mom’s youngest sister was mentally disabled, and towards the end of her life, she was very, very angry. I’m pretty sure it was a symptom of depression and my mother was reluctant to bring it up to the doctor. OK, I’m not a medical professional, but I still think the right meds would have made her last years less angry.

OMG, what a terrible night we had - just the Reader’s Digest condensed version here:

MIL was in a lot of pain - mentioned her chest a couple of times - and was trembling/shivering and complaining of being cold. We called Hospice and they sent a nurse. I let FCD deal with the nurse and his mom, so I don’t know everything that they did, but I know the nurse called the doctor and they gave MIL an extra dose of morphine and something else to calm her and get her to sleep. Things finally calmed down around 11, but when I woke around 1 for a potty break, FCD was still up, tho his mom was quiet.

Around 4, I woke again with an annoying tickle that caused me to cough, so I got up to find a cough drop, then lay down again with my tablet in the hopes of falling back to sleep. I heard MIL ask Alexa what time it was around 4:30, then she turned on her bedroom lights and I saw her walk past our bedroom door. FCD got up and found her in the living room getting her phone. She was saying something about calling BIL. I guess she’d dreamed he called her.

He got her back to bed and I went to help her get settled - she was still wearing socks and her sweatshirt from the night before, so I got her into a nightgown, then FCD sat with her till she was asleep. I finally dozed myself a bit after 5, them woke around 6:30, and that was that. As might be expected, I’m in zombie mode.

SIL will be dropping Trevor off in less than 2 hours. I’ve cleared the place for his crate and I’m hoping he’ll chill after the initial excitement. Daughter is supposed to leave instructions about the cats and the turtle for when I stop over their house on Saturday. They plan to drive all night to somewhere in Alabama sorta near Birmingham, and they’ll drive back Sunday night. This is for a memorial for one of SIL’s uncles, as well as a family reunion of sorts - no one from that side of the family has met Roxanna and Tobias. And I, naturally, will worry about them driving all night, even tho we used to do the same thing when we were young and foolish.

Long day ahead. On the plus side, it seems the low-dose aspirin that I’ve been giving Higgs is making her feel a bit better. But, honestly, I don’t expect her to live much longer either. She’s 12, so pretty close to a pug’s normal lifespan. Just one more thing to deal with.

Yeah. Happy Thursday.

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I can’t remember what you’ve said on the subject before, but do Trevor and Higgs get along OK?

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Higgs pretty much ignores Trevor, so he loses interest in her in short order. Ziva stays under our bed, but I suspect she wouldn’t much like him. He’s OK with my daughter’s cats, but Ziva is anti-social.

Bottom line, Trevor loves everyone and doesn’t seem to care if he’s loved back!

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well, i haven’t been directly involved with the planning as much as I thought I would and it’s all happening Friday so ill see what happens between now and then…

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Good morning all. Been a lazy morning so far, will get off my behind and do some things today but not in any rush. Already 85F at 9:15am and heading to near 100F again, so doing things in the AC will be planned (except for coaching soccer).

JtC, had never heard the ‘nope rope’ term for snakes before, I get along fine with them, but my brother is terrified by the smallest garter snake. And I always tip between 20-25% when I eat out.

Sticky Buns, best wishes for the jobs.

Coppertone, yeah for the meal and the company.

shoe, cuss away, batteries may be the most cussed-out thing on a car, IMHO.

If electricity holds out, I can probably go several weeks; without power I’m a dead duck in about 3 days…

Sensei, I don’t read Japanese but I can see bad weather, so hope Family is OK and SenGirl gets to feeling better.

Dicey, I know wht your mean when your brain’s on a spin; ease into things and remember that vacation is coming soon.

Sounds like Ali-bama.

FCM, sounds like a trying night; hope the day goes better.

And off into the day. Have a good one all.

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Well, FCD just paid our yard bill < choke gasp wheeze > :scream:

Yeah, it was a big bill, but on the other hand, it was a bit less than we’d planned for. And there are a couple more small things to be done, but with luck, we’ll be back in our slip this weekend. I hope. Unfortunately, he’ll probably have to move it himself because we absolutely can’t leave MIL alone - not after last night. So we’ll see.

Trevor is here
Imgur
chillin’ and acting like my shadow if I leave the room. Higgs isn’t happy, but she’s not belligerent. Ziva is hiding and will continue to do so till after both dogs are crated. Which reminds me - I want to hang a sheet over Trevor’s crate - when he’s at home, it’s a cave because of furniture placement, but here, one side is open. I want to give him his cave. Because I’m nice, dammit!

FCD is futzing in his shop. MIL is still asleep. I think Oliver Twist is calling me.

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what a good boy!

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So I’m rolling, both slides are clean, and the drivers are getting ready to leave…
Screaming O: “Do you think you can wrap up in 30min?”
Parade of damages: < slowly begins >
Me: “Maybe 30 minutes after the last thing gets here.”
I mean, the one damaged A/V cart spent the entire sort on the ground by Green 88, but nobody did anything about it. Although incompetence equal OT, so I’m not too unhappy.

Not a hockey goal?

Stay safe!

I prefer “danger noodle” myself.

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Accidentally ran into alex on the bus.

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Started on our batch of get-out-the-vote postcards this morning. Ordered up 300 stamps for them, and they will get mailed later in September. Or is it October? Have to check.

My 12-year-old grandson was accepted to the Minnesota Youth Symphony’s philharmonic orchestra. He’s quite a prodigy on the French horn, and also plays alto sax and will be in the 7th grade jazz band. Sax is about the only instrument he can play without screwing up his embouchure.

I was going to make carne adovada this weekend for relatives, but they’ve had to cancel. Chucked the pork shoulder into the freezer where it can hobnob with the bacon and the lumpia wrappers.

Another violent storm headed our way later today, but it will be moving faster than the last one. Hopefully less damage and distress for folks.

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Hello again. I’ve missed you folks and have thought about you all so often. I see a package of Braunschweiger and think of MetalMouse. I see frozen lasagna and think of swampy (without judging). A cat bed reminds me of Spot using doggio’s head for a pillow. You get the idea. Finding all of you was one of the best things to happen to me in recent years, and I thought maybe I owed you an explanation for why I disappeared.

Awhile back, there were a couple of posts here that really shook me. I understood that the people who wrote the posts were responding to posts that offended them, and one person apologized, but I found them both shocking and deeply upsetting because, it seemed to me, the language and tone were especially harsh. How could this be? It seemed so antithetical to the warm, accepting place I knew. I kept thinking it was like skipping into Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood only to find someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail into his sweater closet

I was too stunned to react at first, so I sort of looked around to see how others were taking it. Kitten Mitten left after explaining why she couldn’t stay, a real blow. Several others seem to have left as well? And some wise, long-time Mumpers ignored the whole tempest. I admired their equanimity, but I couldn’t seem to emulate it. I was too confused and upset. Maybe, I realized, that was because I didn’t belong here.

This whole experience made me realize that maybe there are practices and history I don’t know about. Or maybe I’m just not as stoical as most. And despite my efforts to reassure myself, I find that I’m still too uneasy to post here on the regular. I hope to be back someday, though. Thank you all for being so incredibly kind and supportive of me. It means more than you’ll ever know.

I’d better post this before I convince myself yet again not to send it.

Benedizioni su tutti voi. Ti amo.

Nellie

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What nellie said so much more graciously than I could have.

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Started Typing: 3:39 PM ET
Clicked Reply: 4:26 PM ET

Nellie and BBBoo: You have been – and will be – missed, but I definitely get it. :yellow_heart: I hope you’re both able to feel comfortable here again sometime soon.

Work has been quite manageable today (so far!), and I had a good virtual voice lesson at 2pm. It’s been hotter outside than I’d like – though today’s high was “only” 90°F; ten degrees cooler than yesterday – but it just started to rain (heavily, with distant thunder) and there could be intermittent storms all afternoon/evening. Saturday and Sunday will hit the upper 80s, with more rain, but otherwise our high temps should only reach the upper 70s/low 80s for the next couple of weeks.

I had a ticket for a jazz performance in DC this evening, but I’ve decided to skip it; I let the organizer know that they can release my seat (it’s sold out). The pros were compelling, but they were outnumbered/outweighed by the cons. I would have had to leave the house in less than 2 hours; now that the rain has started, I’m feeling pretty good about deciding to stay home.

In disappointing news, the PB&J crêpes I found at the grocery store on Tuesday aren’t very good. :frowning: The crêpes aren’t very crêpe-y, and there isn’t much jelly. They mostly just taste like thin peanut butter sandwiches. They’re not bad, and I’ll definitely eat the remaining ones, but I won’t buy them again. Ah, well…nothing ventured, etc.

Monday marked my 1-year anniversary of cutting the cord! :scissors: Life without cable has been awesome – except for not being able to watch as many Yankees games as I might like, but I’m adjusting (and I never watched that much baseball). I’m quite pleased, because I’m a pretty big TV person: it’s the main thing I do at home when I’m not working. Over the past year, everything about how I watch shows has changed. One significant thing was discovering that the major network streaming services include live broadcasts of things like political debates, the Olympics, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, etc. I don’t regret getting an OTA antenna (it was cheap, and I’m not sure I’m ready to have no internet-dependent TV), but these days I hardly ever use it. I even recently cancelled my TiVo service, after almost 20 years! Granted my TiVo’s hard drive had to die, but it made me realize that I usually wound up watching the few shows I recorded via streaming the next day (without commercials and/or weather interference). And the channel guide was worth the monthly fee when I had cable, but the free TV Guide app works just fine for OTA programming – especially since I watch so little of it now. Even after adding a couple of streaming services, I’m still spending ~$100/mo less than I did on cable.

It’s going well, thanks! Just slowly. :smiley: (ImgBB doesn’t seem to want to upload anything this afternoon; I’ll post a progress photo another time.)

My first appointment was in April 2022, and they told me then that it would take ~8-10 visits and a couple of years: yesterday’s session was #12. I’m now going every 3 months vs every 6-8 weeks, but I paid up front for a “complete removal” package so I’ll just keep going back until the guy says there’s nothing else he can do. Yesterday he said he’s still happy with the way the remaining ink is reacting to the laser, so hopefully it will eventually completely disappear (though I know there might be some slight yellowing where the blue-green ink is/was; it’s the hardest color to remove). BTW, I highly recommend a “complete removal” deal if your hubby winds up deciding to get his removed and finds a place that offers one: I would have paid less up front for a 10-session package, but I’d be paying for each visit now and I think I’ll wind up ahead in the long run.

Good luck!! :crossed_fingers:

That’s doggone nice of you!

Wow! That’s terrific!! :notes:

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that is fantastic, well done, him!

now that the great wall colour debate is done. the pale smoke is widely liked and the hallway is 80% painted. we have turned our sights on lobby chairs.

we have 2 chairs and 3 fabrics to choose from…this should go easier…right?

what is this creeping feeling?

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Howdy Y’all! Things got did and we pigged out. That pretty much sums up the day herebouts. This afternoon was devoted to nappage and day drinkin’. ‘Tis way hawt out so glad to be inside in the a/c. The privacy fence was really wet this mornin’ and my very unofficial rain gauge showed we got about an inch and three quarters rain from last night’s rain/storm. Wouldn’t mind another one of those tonight or anytime, really.

Nellie and BBBoo glad y’all posted even if just to stick your haids in to say hi. Come back when you are ready. Folks come and go in the MMP and are always welcome or welcomed back.