(Old) Thwarted Plans in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 12c/54f with a predicted high of 21c/70f and sunny. Weather app says “No guts, no fucking glory, or whatever. It’s not my fault that you sit on the fucking couch eating chips while the fucking sun is shining.” Well, I won’t be doing that today, got too many other things going on!

She wants to make absolutely sure you know what’s empty!

There are a lot more one-day festivals than there used to be, a lot of music venues are finding it’s quite profitable to put several bands on in one day as tickets are not massively expensive and people will come for all the bands, or just the one they really want to see. I think there are three festivals I could have been at today, I picked the one with a Swedish band we like but rarely get the chance to see. Some of my friends are involved in organising festivals, one of them has been doing a one-day event in aid of a dementia charity for the last 12 years, and another is organising the 13th “Rock for Spon” event today which benefits a local hospice (Spon was his friend’s nickname, they were in bands together and sadly Spon died very young from cancer).

I’m getting my hair done-did this morning, in fact I have to leave as soon as I’ve finished typing this!

Someone may have decided you need to do both! I hope you both enjoyed it, whatever it was.

We were quite concerned about the cats when they were here for their first thunderstorm. They weren’t bothered by it at all, I like to think they’d been here long enough that they felt safe in the house (and around us) so they didn’t feel the need to hide. Or maybe their braincells weren’t connecting…cats, right?

Uneventful journey home last night, and a quiet evening on the sofa scoffing chilli and watching a film. I was up reasonably early today, cats are fed and watered, litter trays are clean and I have had a message from the catsitter. She and her wife are in London today for Chelsea women’s final match of the season so she wanted to let me know that she would be calling in on their way home tonight. Fine by me, we can give the cats something before we leave at lunchtime and they will survive on dry, flavourless bits until she gets here.

I have to leave for the hairdresser’s in a few minutes, should be back home in just over an hour. Then I have to sort the cats out, empty the bins, pack my stuff and head to the station as we’re off to sunny Wakefield by train today. Musical shenanigans for the day, overnight in a local hotel and home early tomorrow afternoon. Time to get going, hairdresser knows me well and will have a cup of tea ready for me :slight_smile:

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Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 67 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 77 with rain all day. Fine by me as we have nowhere we either want or need to be today. The rain started last night and is currently on a break but will crank up again soon. Definitely a day for high RDOS inactivities. We love sittin’ on the back porch to listen to and watch the rain. We have leftovers from last night, so they will be sup.

BooFae your mention of the hairdresser havin’ a cup of tea ready for you, brought back a memory of my mom. She had a standin’ appointment on Friday mornin’ at nine a.m. to get her do did. One of the highlights was cake and coffee. Sometimes mom would make and bring a cake just cause she liked to bake and made the nummiest cakes ever IMHO. That always brought much delight to the hair didders. Also the entirety of Ye Olde Home Towne knew to get out of the way if’n Miss Emma Jean was runnin’ late for her appointment.

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

Happy Sattidy Y’all!

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It’s actually going to end up being a vase! It’s a bit heavier than what I’d expect to use as a drinking glass but that’s ok, I love it just as it is.

Also, I’m glad that you’re willing to do what’s necessary regarding the CPAP stuff. And I’m glad that BBBoo gave you such thorough advice on masks. The right mask can make all the difference in the world.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. MusicMan was off due to having a doctor’s appointment. Afterwards he and I headed north and did some necessary shopping at Hobby Lobby, Best Buy, etc. It was nice to just have a day to spend together. He’s also off today and I figure that he’ll spend time working on his music room.

I’m pretty sure that I’m going to have to go back to the lower dose of my GLP-1 as eating has become an epic adventure which usually ends in extreme nausea, etc. The bright side is that the lower dose costs less.

BooFae, how does one sort cats??

Ok, I think it might be time for breakfast.

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I am so done with this coughing. It kept me up till close to 2 last night. OK, partly my fault that I didn’t take nyquil, but the cough was the only symptom and I didn’t want to take meds that I didn’t need. I should probably buy some cough meds. Anyway, I got maybe 4 hours of sleep, dammit.

Not sure what my plans for today will be since I’m dragging. I do need to go to WalMart. Less than 2 months till our cruise, so I need to start thinking about what we’ll need to take that we don’t have around the house. And not sure if I need to talk to the neurologist or the pharmacist about getting a 45 day refill in June rather than 30 days - can’t run out of my seizure meds halfway thru the cruise.

I may mess around with the back cushions - I need to figure out how to deal with the curves. I’ve been juggling 2 ideas - each have their pros and cons and until I get out pins and start messing with them, it’s all just a mental exercise. The question is - am I up to that today?

Never did call my mom. I was coughing so much, conversation was difficult. And even if I was just listening, I’d be coughing in her ear. Maybe today…

Temps got down to 47° this morning - glad we closed up the house last night. FCD was cold all evening and it seemed dumb to have windows open while he was wrapped in an afghan. I even set the furnace to come on if it dropped below 68° inside. So far, no heat. But it’s supposed to be sunny and low 70s today - maybe I’ll futz in the yard for a bit. And it’s clean-the-critter-fountain-and-ice-machine day.

But first, caffeination must continue. Happy Saturday!

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Morning all. In keeping with the topic of this week’s MMP, I plan to coach two games (at 8:00am and 9:45am) and referee one (at 12:30pm), but right now it is threatening rain so don’t know if they will be cancelled or not. Hope not, we haven’t played for the last two weekends and having a third cancellation in a row isn’t going to help things. Still, we’ll see what happens.

At least its cooler, 58F and only getting to the mid-60’s today.

flyboy, good for wife, nice thing is that either side can interpret it the way they want (either ‘I love Canada as it is’ or ‘I love the idea of Canada becoming the 51st state’). But I think I know what she means and most folks will too.

Cat Glove, sounds like a hectic day, hope Daughter is doing well and is eating her fill.

Van Go, thanks for the explanation, reading it I thought it was some exhibit that shows how dirty kids can get… :scream: :wink:

boo fae, thanks for the info and happy hairdo time!

swampy, your mom was a generous soul…and also know how to make sure she got primo treatment at the hairdressers…

{{FCM}}. I haven’t had a coughing bout in a long time, but I vividly remember what they felt like, happy cruise planning (make sure you have a power adapter for the ship or check if you need one).

And fields are still showing as open so need to gather my stuff and head out.

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Imgur

Fortunately you can turn the keyboard off for the comfort of resting poodles. :blush:

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As a longtime coach, pseudo-league official and occasional umpire, i fully approve. I think more coaches should referee / umpire, so they understand what it’s like.

We have a floor hockey league in the winter around here. All games are scheduled in pairs. If you coach the first game, you ref the second game; if you coach the second game, you ref the first. Cuts down on costs, and improves the mindset of the coaches.

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If it’s allergies, you may want to try taking a Benedryl (or its generic) before bed. Usually, an allergic cough is caused by irritation or itching of the throat and the Benedryl does wonders for that.

She’s a bit like Nelson. Last night, while reading in bed, he kept rolling the page back on my tablet by nudging it with his nose. Perhaps he reads more slowly than I do. :stuck_out_tongue:

Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and fixing to do KP and a load of clothes.

Not a whole lot shaking today. It will be late in the evening before Sis and BIL get here with the puppers.

Stay safe and healthy y’all!

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Good morning.

It’s 48°F and partly cloudy at the moment. It will turn to pure cloudiness within a couple of hours, and our high temperature will top out at 65°F. Of course, they could be completely wrong too, as it’s been very nice the last couple of days, even though clouds were expected.

Not much got done yesterday. I watered my posies, and roll-sucked the house. I need to dust and roll-suck the great room again, and I’ll probably do that in the next couple of hours. I did some other little chores, but really, I just kind of played with the pups and did whatever I felt like doing.

I have a bird nest in one of my box planters. It’s a planter I moved last year with the idea that I would empty it because it’s root-bound. I planned to put in fresh soil and move some of the other plants. When my son and I moved the planter, we dragged it up near the fence line and one of the ends fell off. I left it there all through the winter, but everything in there has roared back to life.

Anyway, I had noted that a couple of Juncos had been darting in and out of the planter, and one always stayed nearby. I’ve been trying to leave that area alone, because I didn’t want to scare off the birds and have them abandon the nest. However, the lupines and other plants there looked pretty thirsty yesterday. So, I carefully dragged the hose up the slope and very gently watered the plants from the opposite end of the planter. One of the Juncos was sitting on a maple tree branch right above my head, watching closely and chipping at me. The tiny nest is set between the stalks of the lupines and some trailing plant I can’t remember the name of and there were some babies in there.

I tended the plants the best I could and walked away. I was worried that even that was too much for the mama or papa, but they returned and acted like nothing was amiss. Anyway, it was nice to see that.

My son is coming up sometime today, and we’re going to try to go out to dinner tonight instead of tomorrow. My husband didn’t think about reservations until yesterday morning. Anyway, I’m not sure if he actually made reservations, but it wouldn’t bother me if we don’t go out. It’ll still be crowded because others probably have the same thoughts as us (rookie move going out on Mother’s Day), and it’s a Saturday night.

My mother will spend Mother’s Day with my middle sister, which is nice.

Okay, I need some more coffee, and then it’s time to finish tidying around the house. You all take care.

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Mornin’ y’all. Some sleepage occurred, now I’m chilling with y’all so I can be semi-vertical and let my sinuses drain/unclog.

Plan is to convince myself to eat something, and hopefully get more rest.

Tomorrow is historically a very busy night for us … yay.

Oh, they’re sweet little birds. Enjoy watching the little family grow up!

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Hey everyone. I’ve read all and will try to touch on some, but we do get busy for a bunch of RDOS.

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of one of Hub’s kin opening a coffee shop in Huntington. It was bitter-sweet for them. Last year they were planning on opening another store on the other side of town yesterday.

They had a new shop being built in a new, being built mall, had ordered new equipment and were planning on hiring at least 8 people to run it. They pay well and offer bennies like insurance and sick time.

Then trump started his stoopid trade war. Construction on the mall has stopped and they were able to get out of their contract with both mall and equipment installers. Tariffs on Madagascar and Brazil (as well as the other coffee growing countries) has made their coffee much more expensive to buy. One of their full time workers quit and they replaced her with a part time worker and Becky came out of retirement to fill in.

So, happy that they have survived thirty years, sad that it looks like they might not make 35 years and sad that they can’t expand and hire more people.

They did have as much of a sale as they could afford to put on and many folks were coming in to buy pre-tarrif coffee (they are selling the old stuff at the old prices and putting big orange TARIFF increase stickers on all of the post-tarrif stuff) to stock up on the good stuff.

I packed up my needlepoint and we went to spend the day buying and drinking good coffee and eating expensive coffee shop food. It was fun, one fellow needlepointer actually squealed when she saw what I was working on and she gave me some good info on local shops.

I doubt I’ll see her at our weekly stitching sessions, Huntington is almost two hours away on winding country roads, but I know I’ll be seeing her again in a few months. We are planning a stitching/shopping and gossiping day after my surgery so I will to be able to drive and see the colors myself.

We don’t accept “friends and family” discounts. We feel that friends and family should want to support the business and should pay a surcharge if allowed, so we also stocked up on sale prices without feeling badly about hurting their business. We’ve been buying our coffee from them since before we moved here so we didn’t have to have that discussion with them again, thank goodness.

How very precious. Watching baby birds grow up is a great way to start your retirement.

It sounds like that’s just one of the many perks of letting kids play in water. Ick!

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Holland America ships have both kinds of plugs, so no worries.

We’ve been to WalMart, the marina, Aldi, and Wawa in that order. All but the marina were crowded and crazy, but we got what we needed and got out without much hassle. In a little bit, FCD will help me put black plastic over my veggie patch since I’m not growing anything this year. We’ll be away too long and I can’t expect Daughter to tend my garden as well as her own. I’m hoping the plastic will help heat the soil enough to kill the weeds - we shall see.

Then I need to clean the critter fountain and the ice machine. I can actually do them simultaneously, since the ice machine is mostly self-cleaning. I dump in vinegar and push a button, then drain it, dump in water, and push the same button. Easy-peasy. The fountain, on the other hand, requires disassemblage and scrubbage. Not difficult, just necessary.

We’re definitely not going out for Mother’s Day. That way lies madness!! Plus it’s easier to stick with our meal plan with me cooking. I wish there was some place around here to get a good chef’s salad, but there ain’t, dammit. Cracker Barrel used to have a decent one, but no longer. Oh well.

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We’re leaving tomorrow for a little trip to Bodega Bay, and I’ve started a bit of packing. I like to pack in easy stages so I don’t get too worn out. In addition to packing my clothes, I pack some food and kitchen stuff because we like to cook our own breakfasts at the rental house. In addition, I bring my own pillow and a small fleece blanket in case the only bed covering they have is a comforter, which I hate.

Oh, yeah, I have to go give all the potted plants a good watering so they’ll stay hydrated for the few days we’re away.

When my mom was still alive and able to go out, I’d try to dissuade the family from doing the Mother’s Day brunch thing, because of the crowds and substandard food, but I was always voted down. I don’t think my mom ever had much fun at these outings because of the aforementioned reasons, but God forbid we go on a different day to a better restaurant.

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Soccer games coached (we won both) and getting ready to leave to ref my 12:30pm start but the rain may interrupt it. More later.

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Be careful, the birds there get mean if anyone is using a camera.

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The wife is still dizzying. I’ve told her that she must call the doctor on Monday, no excuses. This has been going on for a week now.

Made cornmeal pancakes for breakfast, then went on a grocery run. Funny how when we don’t go together, the bill is much less. I rarely impulse buy, unlike the Ms.

We’re looking at 80s all week, which is significantly above normal for this time of year. I actually have the AC running.

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Having Blueberries made a diffrence, things went smoother. I had things wrapped up early, and fished the shift loading. Laundry is sloshing as we soeack, and bacon & eggs are consumed.

Then you and Ms. Dog would have to defect

I hope that’s easier than herding 'em.

“I can hear Ms. Dog and Nelson barking!” - Annie

Must be awkward when the 1st game team is chanting “I’M BLIND! I’M DEAF! I WANNA BE A REF!” :wink:

Yes. Hope they find a fix.

My sinuses are also acting up today. It must be < gestures at everything >

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It’s raining, so Mrs. L.A. said, ‘Oh, well. We can use the sign the next time.’ (The cross-border handshakes seem to be every other weeks.)

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Started Typing: 12:37 PM ET
Clicked Reply: 1:36 PM ET

It was so nice to go to bed when I was tired last night (vs when it was “bedtime”) and not be awakened by an alarm this morning…yay, Saturday! It’s sunny and supposed to hit 74°F, but right now it’s 66 and breezy and still a little too chilly to have the windows open. Later today, though, for sure.

Now that I’m commuting 3 days a week I’ve taken to keeping my iPod in the car, and over the past few weeks I’ve noticed some minor issues with a particular playlist. I finally remembered to take it out of the car when I got home from work on Wednesday, and I spent a couple hours this morning cleaning everything up (including downloading a bunch of album art). When I put the iPod back in the car tomorrow and turn that playlist on, my OCD soul will be happier. :grin:

I also spent an hour this morning doing some editing for my father. He has traveled a lot and always writes up a travelog afterwards, and lately he’s taken to digging up old ones, asking me to edit them, then uploading them to Google Drive and posting the links on Facebook. He also sometimes creates Wikipedia entries, and he always asks me to edit those, too. I was a professional editor for much of my career and his requests used to irk me a little (I’d never ask him to code a database for me in his spare time!), but on the whole I don’t mind. He’s 76: if revisiting/publishing his old travelogs helps keep him off the streets, I’m alright with helping…and I appreciate that he recognizes the need for some proofreading! Heh. This morning’s was from July-August 1984, when his mother came to visit us in England and we went to Ireland and France with her. Two of the five people in that story are no longer with us (his mom and my mom), so it was a little bittersweet, but kind of fun to re-live.

I also had “balance Quicken” on my to-do list (my credit union notified me that my April statement is ready), but that can wait until tomorrow morning. :slight_smile: After this post I’ll relocate to the living room for lunch (leftover pizza) and last night’s Shark Tank. I also need to catch up on this week’s episodes of Chicago Fire and Hacks.

The show I’m currently binge-rewatching is Episodes (via Paramount+), but in addition to watching that I’m also looking forward to doing some reading today: last week someone started a thread in CS asking where to start with the Discworld series, and enough people recommended Guards! Guards! – I hadn’t read any of that storyline yet – that I decided to check it out. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy Pratchett. :slight_smile: Usually I do most of my reading in bed, but lately I’ve been so tired at night that I only get through a few pages at a time. I’ll hunker down with it this afternoon. I’m happy to have another day/night with no plans, and no need to leave the house.

It might be tacky to quote/reply to myself, but I thought I’d provide an update: turns out there’s a technical issue with the Straight Dope Light theme, which is the one I prefer. Not just the round avatars: there are issues with how the top of the page appears, notification icons, etc. I’ve temporarily switched to Sam’s Simple Theme: there’s too much light blue for my taste, but it’s the least offensive of the other available themes. :wink: When Straight Dope Light is fixed, I’ll revert.

Ugh. :people_hugging:

That is a CUTE picture!! :smiley:

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I forgot to add detergent to my load o’ wash so am doing it again with detergent…