(Old) Thwarted Plans in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
161

There are many versions of CPAP masks and you can ask for one that is minimal and less obtrusive than the full face ones with the elephant trunk hose coming off your face.

Work with your supplier to get the best mask for you, that is your right. You’re not stuck with the mask they get the highest profit markup on, etc.

Let me know if you’d like more details. I’ve worn a CPAP for 2 years. I didn’t find it all that hard to get used to but then I had the benefit of having had a respiratory tech who spent some time with me who figured out my sleep habits and tolerance levels. My mask is a soft pillow below my nose, nothing over my mouth, certainly no chin strap and the air hose comes off the top of my head so nothing gets in the way of reading in bed, watching Netflix on my iPad or turning over from side to side.

162

Howdy Y’all! We brunched and took a drive in the country. We saw a field of small tobacco plants. I didn’t know tobacco was grown in these parts. Live and learn I reckon. I had strawberries and cantaloupe along with bizkits’n gravy and scrambled aigs. Thus breakfast was healthy. We also went to the Food Kitty. A German chawklit cake insisted on comin’ back to da cave with us. We went there for collard greens which were purchased. They have been prepped and cooked and will get eaten tomorrow as part of sup. Nappage and day drinkin’ were also accomplished.

Taters we look around and wonder where all these old geezers come from and then remember we are them. Makes me want to go yell at some whippersnappers.

doggio one goes to the hog trough GC between the hours of one and three p.m. That’s when you get the geezer discount plus drink. If you want to dine later then it’s Olive Garden from four to six p.m.

163

Started Typing: 3:40 PM ET
Clicked Reply: 4:54 PM ET

I can finally post my “new pope” joke: Leo XIV is Robert Francis Prevost’s altar ego.

(:grin:)

Last night I assembled the custom “DC Mural” Lego set that some friends designed: it’s only ~200 pieces, and took less than 45 minutes to put together. I’m pretty happy with how it came out. For those who give a brick, a photo is in my Lego album. Next up will be the Sherlock Holmes book nook, which should arrive in less than 4 weeks.

Yesterday I mentioned filling the car’s gas tank on the way home from work in anticipation of driving to MD on Sunday, and said I wouldn’t be going anywhere today/tomorrow/Saturday…well, I forgot that I have a ticket for some live jazz in DC tonight. :musical_notes: The singer is my most recent voice teacher – she’s phenomenal – and her band includes some other amazing musicians I know, so I’m determined to overcome my inclination to stay home and actually go to the show. I like the venue, dinner and parking will be expensive but the food’s alright, and I won’t have to socialize much: there might be people I know in the audience, but I’ll be sitting alone at the bar (my favorite spot in that place). It’s an early show, so driving to DC during rush hour will be a pain in the ass, but once I’m there I know I’ll be glad. And I’ll be back home before 9pm, meaning there will be time to watch a little TV before I go to bed. :slight_smile:

What a great idea! I always bring protein shakes, Gatorade Zero, and snacks when I drive to a hotel or Airbnb, but it never occured to me to also bring an initial meal. Genius!

Sounds like it was the right thing to do, and I know it’s just until you can have your cataract surgery, but still: :people_hugging:

That’s pretty much what we do, just with portfolio/project management (across the program) vs inventory management. :slight_smile:

Office vending machines got super dicey during the pandemic and stayed dicey for a while, but parts of the company (including my program) started requiring people to go in 3 days/week almost a year ago…the vending machines shouldn’t still have candy that expired in January 2024! Meh!

I do have some Goldfish, protein bars, etc. at my desk; I really should just stick with those. Vending machines are enablers. :grin:

Woot! :smiley:

The entire day sounded like quite a triumph, but for some reason this part impresses me the most! :joy:

Oooooooooo! :smiley:

My first thought was that you’ll compete with automatic feeders. Nellie has a good suggestion about just calling yourself a catsitter and branching out. :slight_smile:

164

When we first moved hereabouts, we’d see lots of tobacco fields. Now I honestly can’t recall the last time I saw any - it was a few rows at an Amish farm, but not a big crop.

Supper was shrimp salad and tossed salad - a rather good meal, if I say so myself. Since we had early lunch, we had early supper. And starting tomorrow, I’m going to have a bigger breakfast since I know that gets me thru the day better.

For now, tho, chillage continues. I’m thinking what I have is a cold rather than allergies because I’m absolutely exhausted and I haven’t done much of anything today. Or maybe it’s a nyquil hangover. I dunno. We’ll see what the morrow brings. Meanwhile, my recliner beckons!

165

I no longer have a scabby knee! Big scab is off. No infection. Now onto the super moisturize phase. Lovely bending my knee with no pain or pulling feeling.

One of my coworkers has a toddler named Leo. His phone is going crazy with texts.

166

metal mouse hope the spot on your hand turns out to be normal and not a BCC; but definitely good to get it checked out. We’re not getting any younger and the things we did in our younger years are catching up with us. In my case I acted like I was a sun goddess in my college years.

was feeling like I needed some warm liquid so looked in the cupboard on the soup shelf and minestrone sounded good to me. The Best by date was Jan 17, 2025. Oh well, not quite 4 months later. It was tasty.

unless you’re George Forman
heck ninja’d by doggio; not a big surprise.

FCM I’m glad you were able to find the missing pieces. That would have been a PITA to have to go to the boat then make new patterns.

Sticky Buns hope your tummy issues are resolved soonest.
Oooooo, your glass is absolutely gorgeous. You done good.

Hubs favorite; what time are you serving dessert?

oopsie hope you’ve enjoyed the jazz! :musical_keyboard:

Leftovers for dinner: stuffed peppers that I made last night for Hubs, bucatini covered with sloppy joe for me. I’ll thoroughly clean the strawberries then we’ll both have strawberry shortcake for dessert. (unless swampy can teleport the German chawklit cake)

167

How pretty sticky!

The town that I lived in up on the Cumberland Plateau had a lot of tobacco farming around (I even pulled suckers for a week once between jobs. Hardest physical work I’ve done at any job.) and I lived with a mile and a half of five tobacco warehouses. Now when I go up there, there isn’t nearly as much tobacco in the fields and they’re down to one warehouse.

PT went well and had the added bonus of a massage at the end. The PT guy told me that I had a big knot in the muscles of my upper glutes on the left side, which is the side that caused the initial problems. I did find it easier to walk when I stopped at Aldi for a couple of items after, then filled up the car.

Once I got home, I took Nelson out to do his business and when we got in, we both took a nap; me for about 20 minutes and him for about an hour. The nap coincided with a thunder storm and there are still boomers out there.

168

Recital rehearsal was great. So proud of these kids (ok, they’re like 22, but anyone under 35 is a kid).

Relaxing on the porch with a beer. What should I have for dinner?

169

Spot and I napped. Well, after he had bed zoomies, defenstrated a pillow, and was in a life and death struggle with a blanket. Having a Royla Hawaiin and watching hockey.

:heart:
I love it, Sticky

I assure you, Ms. Dog slurped herself.

Spot kept trying to steal my mint sprig out of my julep on Saturday.

But if they make a movie off a novel he wrote, would they call it Pope Fiction?

Yay! I enjoy picking off healed scabs.

This.

170

I suspect he just wanted to make sure he had Minty Fresh Breath™ for when he licks your head.

171

That came out so well, you picked such wonderful colors. Would you please text me a copy of that pic, I want to look at it again next month.

Thanks to all for the kind words about my decision to not drive until after my eyes are fixed. It’s a very odd feeling to not be able to just get up and go to town if I want/need something.

Hubs took me to the gym this morning and wouldn’t come inside. Dang it. I was hoping that he might get bored enough to consider moving his body around, but he just sat in his car and played on his tablet.

He dropped me off at the sto’ for my stitching meeting and asked me to call him when I needed a ride home, but another lady volunteered because she was going my way.

I brought more cheese and crackers, someone else brought a nice veggie tray and we drank a concoction made by mixing Mountain Dew, moonshine and a jar of maraschino cherries, juice and all. Jarred (son of store owner and drop spinner) confessed that he and his friends had made a big batch for the prom and almost got away with it but a pesky chaperone wanted a glass, took one sniff and everyone involved got kicked out. We tittered and promised to not tell his mom.

Back when I worked for the Ophthalmologists, they did pilot license eye exams. One pilot had such a horrible case of white coat blood pressure that I would walk with him out of the parking lot to take his blood pressure because if we took it in the office, he was at stroke levels.

I feel that so strongly. Poor Ariel and poor you. I wouldn’t have been able to watch the procedure either, I had to smoke a nice calming bowl just to get over reading about it.

I’m sorry. Hip pain when you are trying to take a nice walk is the worse. I have to be careful to not get stuck, folks out this way tend to get concerned when I just stop and lean on my cane with my eyes closed.

I agree. Having something for dinner that doesn’t involve getting back into the car sounds amazing.

Do not buy the little bags of nuts. The last time I did that, they had been there so long that they were melded together.

Hurray!!!

Speaking of school and moms and busses, learn what times to avoid being on the road. Traffic in town is horrible for half an hour twice a day.

172

*woof* Paso del Norte tonight. Mi Esposa likes ‘date night’ on Thursdays now. I had beef fajitas. Mrs. L.A. ate most of my beans. Two mojitos for her, and two grande Cadillac margaritas for me. She also got some flan to bring home. I have a feeling it won’t last the night…

173

Another beer?

And here in the south, learning that you can get in and out of stores more quickly if you time your excursions for Sunday morning or Wednesday evening is a real time saver.

I played around with some new-to-me tools in the studio tonight and came up with this card. It is a bit different than my usual style, but I like it.

174

Evening all. Exercise was exercised this afternoon, followed by soccer practice and just finished my grilled Ham-n-Cheese sammiches, so both body and belly are doing well. The rain is now due about 8pm (or it was, the Weather wizards are now saying only a 15% chance of showers). The mail delivered something besides letters for donations or people wanting to insure my home, got my car validation sticker and my replacement credit card, so one is stuck in place on the license plate and the other has been authorized and ‘turned on’ so that all the adulting i plan to do this evening.

33 messages to read as I type this, hope the scroller holds up…

wet one, I can’t imagine sticking a needle in the eye of a 1400lb (my estimate) animal with hard hoofs and big teeth. Best wishes for Ariel and your budget.

So don’t be an ass…

No longer a teenager…

Cookie, given it’s history, wonder why you left the money with them so long. And hope the hips are doing better.

FCM, you’ve been cruising before, so you know when it comes to food it’s a Borg-situation…resistance is futile. Just watch the in-between snacking and drinking and hope the scale doesn’t shock you too badly.

boo fae, glad the travel gods were kind, I finally after several tries was able to Book my London Waterloo-Southampton Central train ticket for 21 June, so that much has been accomplished–direct train, not risking transfers in places I’ve never been.

Well played indeed…

So the Pope is an American…interesting times…

Sticky Buns, let me add to the praise, that is a gorgeous piece of work.

My brother’s Bassets used to do that; some dogs just want to eat naturally, I guess…

swampy, I make an effort to stay away from the cake section of my grocery, but between you and shoe with the ice cream, it’s getting very hard to resist…

Oopsie, that is quite a collection of pics. Seeing the DC Mural makes me wonder if the offer the “Las Vegas” sign: Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign - Wikipedia

And enjoy the show, you deserve the night out!

rocky, hooray for the healing knee.

Cat Glove, the Doctor wasn’t worried about it, just part of being old, but I’ll keep an eye on it and anything else on my body that appears…geezerhood makes one more conscious of things like that, IMHO.

red, thinking about getting a massage on my cruise in June, just so I can say I did. And a lovely card, keep playing around with those tools.

Pavo, yay! for the youth musicians.

JtC, sounds like a fun group you are associating with…and if Jarred keeps supplying the drinks, it may become a lot more fun.. :scream: :wink:

So it’s 8:40pm and I have a few more things to do, so take care and I’ll see you on Firday.

175

Not then, I take it? :sweat_smile:

176

As nice as that sounds, I think a little balance in my diet is probably better for me.

Ended up going to our fourth-grade nephew’s strings concert. Elementary school strings is one of those things that I’m very glad exists, because it keeps the arts alive, and also I want no part of it. One violin played by a nine-year-old is cacophony enough. 40 of them? But family…

There was about 20 minutes of music and about 45 minutes of moving kids around stage. The last piece was twenty seconds long. Took them five minutes to get everyone in position.

Then dinner with the wife. Now we’re crashed out on the couch, too lazy to go to bed.

177

We just had some grad students into the museum to work on prototyping exhibits for their stuff. I don’t entirely know what the exhibits are, but at least one of them is a ball machine. I’m sort of the wood shop elf at this point, supposed to help out with all things crafty. Ball machine, incredibly difficult? I used to share shop space with one of the main guys who built them for museums, and he’d have them running for weeks to find the flaws. Good lord those grad students looked like children to me.

Cinnamon used to do that.

We loaded an exhibition onto a truck today, if’n I’d had more say, there would have been some more examination of the various carts that the things rode on. Don’t make something that needs to be ratchet strapped to a wall that has no flat side. I mean, there are tables that are 4 inches from the edge of the dolly they ride on, once you start trying to fasten them to the inside wall of a truck, things go wrong, the dolly hits the wall, then the cabinet tries to tip sideways. This thing has apparently been going around the country for 15 years, and this issue has never been raised? 'Twas a CF.

The car is back to operational. So that’s good.

Umm, ouch. Back in the day, sure, but I couldn’t do that sort of nonsense now. Freshman year in college we made “strip and go naked” a half gallon of shitty vodka, a case of beer, a tub of lemonade mix, and, just to be sensible, 2 quarts of water, stir with lacrosse stick, enjoy.

JtC I truly hope the eyes get fixed properly. It is really amazing what we find we can’t do when we can’t drive. And frustrating.

178

Ms. Dog and I walked 10 miles on our big walk. She was very excited to be going somewhere different. She was definitely tired on the way home, though she rallied when three very small sisters clambered out of their wagon asking if they could pet her. The littlest one (age 2) shrieked with joy with every lick of her face. As soon as we got home, she collapsed, and at 7:30, staggered off to bed. I had to rouse her to get her out for her evening constitutional.

I’m tired, and my feet hurt.

Mine, too! Save a slice for me! Strawberry shortcake sounds delicious, too, though.

So Shirley Temple gets hit by white lightning? It actually doesn’t sound too awful. I love to think of all of you sitting around drinking illicit prom punch. :slight_smile:

I think you’re wise to forgo driving for now. I know it must feel very weird, though. Do you find yourself thinking, “I’ll just run to the store–oh, wait”?

VanGo, I have to say, beer, lemonade mix, and vodka sounds less than tempting. I guess the ends justified the means in those days.

cookie, sorry to hear about the hip pain.

But-but it’s a school night! Won’t your mom get mad if your algebra homework isn’t done?

:rofl: :rofl:

OK, I can’t keep my eyes open.

179

Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to heave. Spot is having Screaming Tuxedo Zoomies.

Apparently Mountain Dew was formulated for such things. And having had it sans cherries, it works well.

180

Morning, mumpers! It’s currently 10c/50f with a predicted high of 18c/65f and partly cloudy. Weather app says “It might be nice now, but at some point it’s going to fucking rain. Sad fucking trombone.” Well, partly cloudy also means partly sunny. There’s also 0% chance of precipitation in my forecast until Sunday, when that leaps to a whopping 17% chance of a drip here and there.

I was most disgusted to find that tea and biscuits was not part of the management training nonsense, so it’s clearly going to be a very important issue for the unions as it affects health and safety. Nobody’s safe if I miss out on my tea quota!

Stick Buns what a lovely piece of work, well done to you!

I use an established catsitting service rather than a cattery now, mainly because we wanted our elderly cats to be able to stay in the comfort of home whenever we went away. Cash only is good if you’re not planning on declaring it as income :slight_smile: however, you might fall down on the no meds policy. Many people want a catsitter because they have older cats needing meds so you may be able to expand it to “cats who have meds crumbled on their food” rather than “stuffing a pill in the cat”. And all catsitting jobs will involve poop-scooping!

It’s pretty accurate with the actual temperatures and forecasts, but the witticisms can be a bit hit and miss :slight_smile:

Sounds like it will be worth the hassle of the rush-hour drive, and the bonus of being home reasonably early too. Hope you enjoy it!

I like it too! Glad the new tools led you to do something a bit different too.

Very good plan too - I think on that route, most of the transfers are in fairly small stations. although none of ours have a massive number of platforms unless you’re in one of the London stations. My Big City Station has 12 platforms but the back end of the platform has a staircase that leads to a long concourse that serves all of them, so it’s easy enough to scoot up there and get from one end to the other in a couple of minutes.

After yesterday’s very busy work day, I had a relatively quiet evening. Went home and tended to the cats, had dinner and then went to get 'im indoors from the station. We had a cuppa, watched an episode of “You” and then it was bedtime for me. I was up stupidly early this morning so I had plenty of time to get my hair washed before coming to work.

Not too many skip fires to deal with so far today, and it’s the last day with the ADHD Squirrel as our manager so we are looking forward to meeting our new person on Monday. I’m hoping for a nice quiet day, and a relaxed evening. I need to be up early tomorrow for cat duty, then off to get my hair cut, then we’re off up north to Wakefield for a music festival. We are going by train this time so that will be nice for me as there’s no driving involved. Off in search of a tea now!