The Spousal Unit wanted TJ’s kebabs for dinner. We have some tzatziki and feta, but we were almost out of kalamata olives. I got the olives at the supermarket, plus some blue cheese-stuffed green olives. She asked me to pick up pork chops, so I’ll make those sometime this week. I bought like $38 of USDA Choice chuck stew meat (sadly, there was none in the BIBIR bin). I’m taking Friday off, so I’ll make chili then. The supermarket had the 4505 Jalapeño and Cheddar chicharrones that I like, but never buy because they’re like seven bucks a bag, on sale for $2.94. So I bought four bags.
Completely agree - I know far too many women that felt pressured into going along with it, and only one managed to break it off before the wedding. Just about all of the others have since divorced.
I also generally hate it when a proposal piggy-backs off someone else’s celebration or party, but he asked my opinion about it and I knew my mom would love being there to see it and that my sister would love having a small group of close family and friends to celebrate with.
So needless to say it went great! Our mom cried when she realized what was happening and my sister loved finally getting a ring on it 
I wonder if the orange cat is diabetic - for some reason, orange cats are more predisposed to it.
Pilot that sounds like a fantastic trip (and I’m quite jealous of all the things you got to do, sounds like my kind of trip!). And I’ve never heard a single person that liked the food at any Dominican resort.
I used to donate to Heifer International and ended up on many very interesting mailing lists. I got mad at them when they changed their marketing strategies and started sending tons of junk mail out and wouldn’t stop when asked.
They have a program where you can pay to give a poor family in a third world country a flock of chickens as well as the support and education about raising the birds for eggs and food. Part of the program is giving some of your first new chicks to another family and teaching them how to be successful as well.
I also enjoyed causally telling folks that Mom doesn’t like it when I send her things anymore, so I bought a bee colony in her name.
I should probably start sending them money again, I’ll bet they’ve stopped with the junk mail, I’m sure I’m not the only one who got upset.
(can you tell that I am comfortably numb?)
Does he have to have it on the floor, or have you explored ice bergs in a bowl in the bath tub yet?
That’s one of GG’s favorite summer games!
That sounds very serious, I hope you recover without the need of hospitalization and last rites.
When Hubs and I met, he was a clean shaven Marine. Nobody corrupts like I do, he started growing his beard as soon as he was discharged less than a month later. Ten years passed, we had a dawg and he thought he would like to see what his face looked like.
The dog barked at him and the cats all ran off and hid.
That night all was good, but I woke up in the morning with a stranger in my bed! I shoved him out of the bed screaming “I don’t know who you are or what you are doing here but you better get out before my husband gets home!!!” It was not one of my finer moments.
We have a kitchen stepladder. Every so often Hubs thinks he should get on it to put something in the overhead cabinets. I give a him a bowl of ice cream so he will sit down and think it over again. We don’t need anything up there, I have been very careful to be sure that I can reach everything in our home without standing on anything.
There are wild turkeys out here! I’ve heard about them in AZ, but saw them for the first time a couple of months ago. I just love it here 
Can you pull the key cover off and blow it out with air? Is it a corded keyboard? If so, you can be a lot rougher with the corded ones. Like, you can wrap the cord up and put the keyboard on the top shelf of your dishwasher (turn off the heated dry cycle) and then let it air dry for a day or so. Often that will bring one back…and if it doesn’t, so what? It was already broken.
I’m actually feeling very badly about not being able to walk the streets for the next couple of weeks, but at least I have the comfort of knowing that at least a few people saw me standing out there all alone and got inspired to write on a piece of cardboard and stand with me for a while.
Of course, that means someone else will have claimed my street corner and bench by the time I get released, but I’m happy to share.
That’s just sensible, you can’t properly compare them days apart.
Thank you for your concern, I will indeed tell the ortho guy all about all of my aches and pains. Well, the new ones that is. My mobility is OK, it is just very colorful and I’m a big weenie. My real worry is my stoopid ankle. It bent wrong when I fell and I felt/heard a crack that sounded very wrong.
I’m fat, convincing feet to heal when they are carrying so much extra baggage isn’t that easy and I’ve got too much to do nowadays. I don’t have time to sit around for weeks while bones knit.
Well, dang. I don’t know what Hubs would do without one either. Well, yes I do, he would panic and go straight to Lowes and buy another one. I hope yours can be repaired and that he doesn’t starve to death while you are at work.
Cutting things short because my wrist is starting to ache, so I’m sorry for anyone I’ve missed. I’m still cranky and every time I try to move and my cast clomps on the floor I get mad at myself again. I’ve got nobody to blame for this but me and I don’t need anyone else to beat up on me when I’ve done something this stoopid. I will do it myself and much better than anyone else can do.
Tomorrow Hubs wants to go to Charleston for lunch and then to a little distillery that makes and sells Mothman Moonshine. I’m hoping to buy some small bottles to put in xmas stockings, I do try to get all of my xmas shopping done by June. It helps that I’m not buying for littles cause they grow and change so fast.
If we’d had the funds to do so, I’m sure he’d have been at Home Depot as soon as they opened, or trying to arrange delivery ASAP (it’s a counter-top model, being that we’re renters). He’s muttering about hitting up a thrift store for something cheap to hold us over if the repairs take any significant length of time (my question is where to store the backup once our main one is back in service), we do have plenty of sandwich stuff on hand (and he can cope with grilled cheese), and he does have fast food access, so he’ll survive.
Howdy Y’all! We deheathenated and I verged without incident, so win-win. We got stoner food, brought it to da cave, et, and accomplished nappage. Thus has it been in swampland today.
I’ve had my beard for forty years now. I can’t imagine shavin’ it off as it’s been on my face most of my life now.
BooFae ICK! Hope you are feelin’ better now.
Taters glad you have had a good time with your son.
Nettie I am so glad my mom decided my sibs and me would know the basics of fendin’ for ourselves. I like my nukulator, but much prefer to cook on the stove, in the oven, on the grill and with a slow cooker.
BBBoo I know from experience that a big bag of treats works wonders. I have even been known to leave ‘em at nurses stations.
JtC I hope the various bumps and bangs heal up soonest.
I haven’t had a microwave at home since 2003 or so. I now have a hard time at the office 'wave. I gotta look at all the buttons, and they don’t mean what they used to mean. For example, one button says “7+2:00” and some braille markings. Press that button and it runs for 7 seconds, I wanna do 1 minute at full power…why is that so hard to do? I just want to enter power and time, why is that so not easy?
I didn’t have a microwave or a dishwasher until I left home. I grew up hand washing dishes and cooking food from scratch. Well, except for the old-timey TV dinners that came in the foil dishes.
The same goes for cable TV. I didn’t have cable until I was living on my own, and even that was some years after I left home. I moved out in 1983 or early 1984.
Edited: I have never lived completely on my own. I moved out with my then boyfriend, now husband.
We’ve replaced 2 over-the-stove microwaves because it made more sense than repairs. Each was like 8 years old. If this one dies, we’ll put a shelf over the stove and buy a regular microwave. Lots cheaper and easier to install/replace.
Biking is done. Chillage is on.
He plays with in on the carpet.
At least you didn’t have the cane back then.
We saw some when we had the hockey convention is Pittsburgh. Nothing like driving past a yard full of them multiple times so the Florida girls could shriek and point like they were the Beatles. 
As do I.
I still hand wash dishes. Most one bedroom apartments in my price range don’t have dishwashers and, quite frankly, most days, it takes less than 5 minutes.
I never quite got the ones over the stove. The last thing I would want would be to pull a steaming bowl of soup from eye level.
It was very windy when I took Nelson out this afternoon. Just now, we had about 10 minutes of hard hail and another 10 of hard rain. I hope that the rain stops in a few minutes when I take him out again
And a good early evening all. Dinner was at the Metro Diner, it was crowded so when offered an immediate seat at the counter I took it so dined in style… Then spent time at the gym and came home to sammiches. Almost dropped my plate when there was a knock at my door (a very seldom occurrence), it was the neighbor, his visiting nephew had tossed a ball into my yard so of course i let them go back there and get it. And that was about as exciting as things got here. Need to write my Safety Coordinator message to all the soccer coaches and referees for the new season,since practices are due to start tomorrow. That should be my last constructive action of the week. Rain is expected late tonight, but probably not until after midnight so I’ll check for evidence tomorrow.
Hmmm, busy Sunday posting…let’s review…
52, hope the proposal went according to plan (would have been a riot if she had said no…).
FCM, glad to see the wisteria didn’t go Triffid on you…except for the one wound, which hopefully will not change you into a plant zombie…
Oopsie, hope the visit with the Wife BFF went well, can’t imagine going through a shoulder replacement.
Nettie. life without a microwave is hard for me to imagine in this day and age, so I would probably be in DH state.
Pilot, bet most of those pasty white kids were from colleges in the Northern latitudes. And good luck on Monday.
Don’t you believe it. About 60% of my mail these days are from either places i donated to (I do it once a year) or places they gave my name too, all of it (except for a few I keep in a folder for donation time) going into the trash. Once you are on the list it never goes away…
JtC, it’s a wireless keyboard and the key is stuck in the down position and won’t respond. It’s a Wal-Mart cheapo, so no problem in replacing it.
Your not fat, just comfortably distributed…
red, no rain here yet, looks like it’s due to arrive in about an hour and stick around until 2-3 in the morning. Good luck to you and Nelson
And need to give my brother a call and then work on the Soccer messages. Have a good evening and if it don’t get back, I’ll catch y’all on the next MMP.
Well, in that case, turn it upside down and wang the edge closest to the key a couple of times and see what happens. It’s already broken, right?
I try to wang electronics against wood to kinda protect the plastic, but use what you think will work the best!
Good thinking.
Paging @purplehorseshoe …
They also had an albino Burmese python. Thing had to be 10, maaybe 12 feet long. Bright ivory color with subdued and subtle white to light gray but still intricate markings. Very pretty. Most of the body was the diameter of my (slender adult male) mid thigh. The head alone was a good handful. They are rumored to be rather ill-tempered. Close to my home, they are slowly conquering the Everglades as an introduced invasive species. Nothing can eat them and they kill alligators for entertainment. And eat the alligator eggs en masse for nourishment. Fierce critters.
Sadly, we did not get to feed the monkeys to the python. Nor that one annoying person you meet on every tour with the screechy cackling laugh Who. Will. Not. Shut. Up. Would’ve been great to watch if we could’ve. Sigh. Another missed adventure. So close …
I know of several of those. As the saying goes: “They spent more time and effort planning the wedding than they did planning the marriage.” Sux to be them. As you said, but I did not snip, sux even more to be their kids if that happens.
In a weird sort of way I got similarly railroaded into marrying wife #2. By the time it was time to do the deed, she had moved in and burned her logistical bridges behind her (with my support / urging, so no attempt now to shift blame; from my POV that was all a self-inflicted wound by me, not an ambush by her. Really.) By then backing out seemed to me a lot harder than pressing ahead despite my many misgivings. Which all turned out to be well-founded; hence the divorce.
So it’s not just young people who make these kinds of dumb-ass mistakes. D’oh!!
Mine has come and gone several times. Presently it’s neat and trim, but it resembled ZZ Top in an earlier incarnation. But yeah, the longer it’s there, the less plausible getting rid of it becomes.
Once after a few years of it I had to shave it for a job change. Late wife’s comment: “I liked you better the other way; it hid so much more of your face.” She was kidding. I think.
Currently the ladies in and around my life seem to prefer with to without. And whatever the ladies want, the ladies get. Men, or at least this man, is simple that way.
Mucho laughter.
I’ve told this story before …
Once decades ago I came home from work after ~30 hours awake and a hellish commute home from halfway across the USA during the overnight hours. Drove home in a mental fog arriving just a bit pre-dawn. Stripped in the living room, groggily crawled into bed in the blackout-curtain dark, stuck out my hand towards her sleeping head and encountered a giant mass of Afro-like curls. My wife has voluminous long utterly straight Italian hair; never a curl in sight.
I was sure I’d gotten into the wrong house in my sleep-deprived dazed state and was as good as dead. Then she made those familiar umph mumph noises we all know and love and my heart rate began to recover.
There was a brief fad you might recall from ~1990 for white chix to wear semi-afros. She’d gotten a perm to surprise me. First time in the ~8 years I’d known her and the ~3 years we’d been married she’d ever gotten her hair “done” as opposed to just “cut”.
I was in fact surprised. :eek: 
Just not in a good way. She did not renew the perm once it had grown / washed out. She damn near got to collect on my life insurance; good thing as a mere stripling of 33-ish I had a strong heart that could survive going from 60 to 300 BPM and back no-notice.
Crap!! Ouch!, you poor thing!!! Major sympathy!!
But at least you got to see a forest. So totally worth it!!1! 
My late mother fell at age ~70; looking the other way, spun an ankle on the raised edge of a sidewalk and down she went, having spiral-fractured her femur. Definitely a case of “fell then broke”, not “broke then fell”. The joints at each end of the femur were fine, it was the shaft in the middle that had failed in gross overload. She recovered, but it took a lot out of her.
Please use due care. The difference between the people who are dead at 75 or walking around hale and sorta hearty at 85 is usually how careful they were, not how healthful they were.
I would not go that far, at least as to this place. This is all above OK. Just not as high end as the rest of the advertising and facilities seem to promise. Like a mid-range Vegas hotel (or cruise) when you’re expecting a high-end Vegas hotel or cruise. Not bad, not great.
I have had fantastic meals at local or famous restaurants around the DR, just not at resorts. The capital, Santo Domingo, has plenty of nice budget dining and also pretty affordable wretched excess for the ruling class. The countryside can fix you up with yummies at most any roadside eatery. Though you’ll probably be the first gringo they fed that year. Very nice people overall. I could readily live in the DR if future life circumstances drove me out of the USA.
But yeah, resorts are all about catering to the budget crowd. Like Carnival cruise lines (AKA K-Mart of the Caribbean), quantity beats quality every time.
As to me, I now am finishing a 3-hour Italian gourmet dinner that totally makes up for the other two OK-not-noteworthy dinners here. One steak house meh and one fish / seafood B+ experience. But this makes me take back everything negative I’ve said. Pumpkin gorgonzola cream soup, a fine antipasti, a vegetable lasagna with housemade pasta topped with béchamel & Pomodoro sauces, and finally filet mignon medallions marsala with a wild mushroom risotto. Superb flavors and great presentation. The bottle of vintage Nebbiolo isn’t hurting either. The dessert & digestif course yet remains. All cooked with skill from good ingredients.
Thus winds down the trip here.
As to tomorrow, it should (famous last words) be a simple ride to the airport & flight home.
I’ve confirmed a date w proto-GF #1 for tomorrow night at a time and location on my way home from the airport that’s sorta equi-inconvenient for both of our residences. We’ve had a few dates in that eatin’ / drinkin’ / touristin’ fun zone already What happens after dinner is TBD, but it’s usually crazy.
Probably time to introduce her to the MMP as she’ll probably be a feature for a few months at least. Still thinking about an MMP-name for her. Any ideas?
She’s a few months older than I, so retired. Has darn good looks / in good shape for her age. Overall small and trim. Not unlike wife 1 & 2. But clearly an older woman; nobody would mistake her for well-preserved 50. Well-preserved 60, sure. She’s got a very pleasant personality overall. And is a lusty wench to boot.
After 30+ years as a country club SAHM, she’s separated a few months from a hubby who, in her version of events, has ignored her and their joint children for the whole 30 years while monomaniacally building his business into a darn tidy earner. They share a 25 & almost 30yo kid; one married, the other going steady. Both successes in their fields and seemingly very stable characters.
Her divorce is just getting underway and she’s in massive need of male affection & honest caring-for. While dealing with the logistical mess of her moving into one of their other residences that was completing a renovation before hostilities commenced. Assuming hubby doesn’t throw all his their money away on lawyers trying to prevent the inevitable 50/50 split of assets, she will be my SES or better once the dust settles. Right now she’s on an informal short leash financially that he loves to yank. Within a month or so the formal divorce process should stop the yanking. Contempt of court findings have a way of concentrating minds.
As a young woman she had been a staffer for an airline and has the travel bug bad; her husband hasn’t traveled except for work in decades. Like me, she has a need to her very core to make of up for decades of lost time spent not traveling and not having a normal affectionate marriage. Our problems stemmed from very different causes, but ended up leaving us in very similar spots of long-term deprivation and now late in life with little and uncertain time to make up that gross deficit. I’m just a couple years ahead of her on her journey to freedom and happiness. Which sets me up to lead the way. :evil leer:
If this works out, we’re both looking at a joint life of truly wretched excess without a care, monster affection w limitless in-private recreation, and worldwide first class travel until we’re too weak to walk. Then we hire matching wheelchair pushers and keep going.
In other words, we’re utterly screwed. Something has to rear its ugly head to destroy this rosy scenario before it gets much off the ground. I think most of us here can guess who /what that demon of doom is.
Here’s hoping!
As mentioned before, I get a lot of random stuff in my email. Found this and thought of you:
https://www.motor1.com/news/707215/lego-volvo-v70-life-size/
Life sized EV made out of legos, but has regular wheels, steering and electric motor.
Yanno all those lil bowls I like to collect? Some of them got flang that morning. I’ll bet that if I had been wearing my glasses, I woulda left a bruise or two with them.
I did that the first time I saw a roadrunner, I do understand!
I don’t know why people keep telling me I need to get into shape…round is a shape.
I probably shouldn’t have laughed as much as I did over that, but yeah. I did.
Which is why I’m so very angry at myself. I know better. There was absolutely no reason for me to be walking around staring up into the forest, that’s what we have porch chairs for.
Why did you ever consider posting about it? You know you doomed yourself just by sounding so happy.
You were supposed to. If I’ve brightened your sorta-crippled day, I’ve earned my karma crust for another day.
swampie, today, 3/23, was Easter in 2008. That was the year your congregation had to have the saint’s day celebration early.
Nah. Burms (if that’s what that was) are basically the puppies of the snake world.
There’s a coupla-three music videos (I wanna say Brit Spears is in one of them?) of singing chicks parading around with a huge-ass snake on their shoulders.
That’s a Burm, they are docile as hell. Chunky, come in an impressive array of colors, mostly just hang out on people’s shoulders looking all snake-y. Perfect for $$$ videos.
Reticulated pythons (a.k.a. “retics”) now those have a nasty reputation.
They also reach over 20 ft long, so I wouldn’t argue with one, either.
I’ve seen them in a few interesting colors (reptile shows are … well, interesting) but universally, they have a snappy disposition.
Unfortunately, yes. Coupla assholes years ago “noped” out of their pets, and, well, here we are.
I’m tired and hungry. And grumpy. Time to locate easy food, snuggle Monks, and kill some zombies.
Okay, some booze and smoke is about to be involved.
Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to heave.
Franciscans?
Actually Christian Brothers are better dressers.