(Old) Trick-Mump Treat! - A Halloween MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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sipper - The pics didn’t show up in my thread, but clicking on the little boxes worked. I love to Coke outfit!!

If that happened around here, I’d be checking out the rich kids - eggs ain’t cheap these days… Hope it’s a relatively easy cleanup.
No kids at our door - no surprise there.

It was another bizarro dream night. Someone I’d met once more than 10 years ago asked me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. She gave me a long, rambling letter from a priest (especially weird because she’s Jewish) as well as a set of instructions of what to wear (black dress, no embellishments, etc, etc) but no mention of the wedding date. Which didn’t matter as I wasn’t going to accept the honor.

Which got me to thinking - except for my cousin’s wedding where I was a junior bridesmaid (is there really such a thing?) I’ve never been in a wedding. I did a reading for one sister and I sang for another, but I never had to buy a dress with a big butt bow and walk down the aisle with someone’s pimply cousin. I think mostly because only one of my close friends from high school got married, and I was on the other side of the country when it happened. I did attend the ceremony for one of my Navy friends, but maybe I was a jinx as both marriages ended in divorce - both husbands were abusive jerks. And neither of my friends ever remarried.

Anyway, that’s my weird dream report.

It’s laundry day. I also plan to run the carpet cleaner over the traffic area in this room - Higgs peed in a couple of spots, and I don’t think I did a very good job cleaning by hand. I just need to block the doorways so MIL doesn’t walk thru. She does that from time to time, even tho it’s the long way to the kitchen. Yep, another exciting day at FairyChatEstate.

Happy Firday and Happy 1th of November!!

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Simply shocking, I tell you!

Well, I wasn’t crying and I thought it was lovely.

:raises hand:

Ouch!

Just don’t use the tone of your weather app and you should be fine. :crazy_face:

Hmmm…

I’m up and about to get busy!*

*Yeah, it sounds good, anyways.

ETA: sipper those pictures were soooo cute!
Also, thanks everyone, I’m glad you liked my stuff.

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Love that bread recipe!

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Morning all. Was quite active (for me at least) this morning, got dressed immediately and went to the store since I need my Tide Pods to finish the laundry. Also picked up other stuff and was home by 8am, missing most of the school crowd. 1st load is in the rinse cycle and looks like 2 more are needed before I’m finished. Big bowl O’Cereal has been eaten along with the morning apple. Once laundry is done I’ll look for some swim and sauna time and then referee soccer tonight…maybe. The rain from last night is still hanging around, not heavy but still dripping and while it is clearing up now I don’t know if the Parks people will let us on the fields or not (they should, it’ll be our last games and then the fields have 4 months to recover but…). 64F and only getting to 71F for the day, so not bad fall weather.

Nettie, you are doing (along with other MMP’ers) a good thing and helping to keep this sometimes unwieldy nation running (and getting paid for it!). Sweet dreams tonight I hope.

Dicey, ouch that hurts just to read. Glad it was just bruises and nothing serious. And I thought egging a house was an American thing, didn’t know it was part of European culture too…

sipper, had to click on the pictures and that is one happy young man.

boo fae, hope the fans aren’t too rowdy tomorrow. And newbie needs to be able to discern between messages that can wait, messages that need to be prioritized, and messages to deal with NOW. Hope they are trainable.

FCM, sounds like your brain is doing house-cleaning and dusting off some old memories.

Sticky Buns, think you are in jest about the candy, but if not drop me a PM.

And 1st load is done, need to sort the stuff for 2nd load so have a good Firday all.

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¡Feliz Día de Muertos!

Up, caffeinating, breakfasted, a load of towels in the dryer, jeans in the wash and everything else on deck. Fixing to do KP and finish the houseirk before progressing to menu planning / list making / grocery shopping.

Stay safe and healthy y’all!

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Mornin’ all.

It’s 46F and raining lightly. It will rain all day in varying degrees, from light rain to downpour, and the expected high temperature is 52F. It’ll be a good day for ducks.

Nellie, I hope you and Ms. Dog Person feel better today. I hope you ate something, too. I understand the fear of stuff coming back up, but maybe some watered-down broth would help.

Lily, that is a beautiful mask.

** Dicey , that does sound painful. I sure hope that any residual pain has dissipated. Eggs on the house or window are a real pain. It happened to us many years ago. It took forever to get rinsed out of our screens.

I have to get my ballot filled out. Election Day is almost here, and I think I will probably drop mine and my husband’s ballots at the auditor’s office instead of using a drop box. It’s a sad day in the nation when people are attempting to destroy ballots by putting incendiary devices in ballot boxes.

BooFae, I’ve also had to discuss with my newbie some things that he did that required quite a bit of effort to fix because he didn’t follow my initial instruction, which was to go through all processes with the long-time MPA, while he was doing it; NOT AFTER. I talked to him on both Tuesday and again yesterday morning. He went rogue and processed some travel that had been returned. He also processed credit card transactions, which I’ve had to return TWICE, because he refuses to accept the help that is being offered. His actions are now delaying payment for the travelers and the vendors for the services and supplies we’ve purchased. He wants to be useful, but he’s becoming a little flippant, and even my boss (who is his boss, too, actually) had to discuss several issues with him. I hadn’t spoken to my boss about the new MPA, but the boss noticed some stuff. Even after the discussion with the boss, the guy went rogue. I dunno, I keep telling him to take a beat, slow down, REVIEW with an expert, and ask questions instead of just making assumptions, but it’s becoming problematic, and he’s only been here a month. I expect mistakes. However, I expect compliance when I’ve noted the errors and given directions on preventing them multiple times.

I have had to direct him to stop helping his former agency (there is bad blood between him and the management staff there) because it’s causing issues. He kept doing it, but on Wednesday and yesterday, both my boss and I were explicit in our direction that it had to stop, period.

I’ll have to talk to him again on Tuesday, damn it.

For now, it’s Friday, and it’s my RDO. I need to go buy dog food today, but that shouldn’t take long. I’ll probably knock out a load or two of laundry while I’m at it, so I don’t have to do it all on Sunday. I’ll probably push the rollsuck around, too.

I’m not sure what the rest of the weekend holds, so I’ll take it a day at a time.

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You can borrow my ‘don’t make me use my night nurse voice’ voice for a bit if you’d like. It always made interns tremble in their boots. They never made the same mistake twice.

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So I was on the 100 Slide, then Smalls, then the Mez.
Sup: “OK, you can go back.”
Me: “Where?” :crazy_face:
And we’re back to the no 6th punch nonsense. At least I won’t be getting up at 0dark30 for no reason.
Me: < attempts to take Vitamin D pill >
Spot: < attempts to eat pill >
Me: “NO YOU DON’T NEED THIS!”
Spot: “DO YOU WANT ME TO GET RICKETS?”
When I bought Spot food, they were out of every style of Nutro Chicken and brown rice except the Senior.
Spot: “I will not eat this swill.”
Me:

If he starts looking less lard butt-y, I will relent and buy him another bag of food.

Nifty costumes!

I see the Tube strike was averted.

What, you don’t enjoy fist fights, drinking too much Carlsbad and hornking on the side of a building?

A course of theraputic screaming might help.

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Laundry day (insert appropriate emoji).

I think the wife wants to go look at cats today. I know she is really enamored of a 14 year old whose previous owner was unable to care for her. I have no issue with taking on an older cat so it doesn’t have to die in a cage, but I’m trying to slow her roll on this just a bit. We aren’t set up to bring a cat home just yet, especially an older cat that will need time to adapt to our environment. She’ll need a cat bed and a new litter box, and we need to clear out part of the spare room so she’ll have her own space for awhile. I’m advocating telling the shelter that yes, we’ll take her, but we’ll need a day or two to set up. Then hustle over to Petco and pick up what’s needed.

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OMG, was the carpet filthy!! Then again, it’s the main path from the garage to the living room. I didn’t move furniture, but the filth wasn’t under the furniture. Anyway, it’s drying now.

Third load in the dryer, fourth and last in the washer. MIL has had her shower and she fell back to sleep. FCD is in his office and I finished lunch and I’m making good ice. So, yeah, exciting and stuff.

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3rd and last load of laundry is in the dryer and two hot dogs with cheese have been consumed for lunch, so once the dryer is done (my suits are in there now-no worries, they are coded dryer safe) I’ll pack up and head on out. Got a lot of soccer messages out in the meantime, will hopefully read the responses when I get back.

Taters, sound like newbie needs a couple of taps with the clue stick, since he doesn’t seem to be living in this world. Good luck.

Cookie, sounds like she really wants that cat, might want to have some contingency plans in place. Your plan sounds good.

And into the afternoon.

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Started Typing: 12:16 PM ET
Clicked Reply: 1:28 PM ET

Last night was nice and mostly quiet: I watched It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as planned, and then decided to go with Practical Magic. It was a coin flip between that and Hocus Pocus (I also briefly considered watching The Craft). I say “mostly” quiet because one person’s costume included loud wolf howling (I didn’t look), and also because my neighbors did something on their front porch that involved repeated loud audio. Nothing egregious, though, plus it was quite warm last night so I probably only heard anything because my windows were open. And the street activity seemed to be done by 8:30pm. All in all, another successful Halloween-In-Hiding. :grin: By 10pm I was exhausted from the week of late baseball games and work, so I went to bed early.

So far, work is alright today: my only meeting got cancelled, and I’m appreciating the quiet. I do have some writing to do, which I’ll get to this afternoon, and at some point I need to briefly meet with my new-ish hire about when/how often to follow up with our customer on approval requests. Happily, unlike boofae and Taters I’m not dealing with passivity/incompetence/insubordination: he’s not doing anything wrong, we’ve just been winging the followup timeframes for the past few months and I think it’s time to establish a “schedule.” It should be a pretty slow/good day (:crossed_fingers:), with no plans tonight so I’ll probably go to bed a little early again. And I’m already thinking about maybe having magikal intertubez pizza for dinner. Shoe, y’all deliver to the D.C. area, right? :grin:

Tomorrow I’ll go to the gym at lunchtime for a personal training session. We are now officially in my last month of sessions; yay! The last one should be right before Thanksgiving. On the way home, I’ll stop at the grocery store: of course I need bananas, but I’m also running low on things like paper towels and gushy dog food and Neosporin (ask me how I know about that one!). I have no other plans tomorrow, which is alright with me because it will be nine years since my mom died and I still get a little in my head about it on the anniversary. Before I go to bed, I’ll set my clocks back an hour (after some sniffling because there’s no reminder text from Mom).

On Sunday afternoon I’ll be going to D.C. to see Matthew Broderick in a production of Babbitt. It’ll be the last show of the run; I’d say “closing night” if it weren’t a matinee. :slight_smile: The show itself doesn’t interest me as much as the chance to see Matthew Broderick on stage outside of NYC – I definitely wouldn’t be going if he weren’t in it – but friends who have been say it’s good. The weather is supposed to be 61°F and sunny, which will be perfect for taking Metro.

Thanks: I’ve been low-key-interested in trying compression socks for a while, but there are sooooo many kinds/brands and I was happy to see you mention something specific!

Indeed. :cry:

Oh, he’s already exhausted all of the in-person options…and I think a few online options, as well. :grin: There’s a chance the variety packs from Amazon won’t contain anything new to him, but right now that’s my leading choice of Christmas gift for him.

:open_mouth:!

Color me impressed (and grateful): there is no way I’d be able to do 15 hours on election day on top of even one 12-hour day, let alone two back-to-back!!

The Smarties costume turned out great! :smiley:

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Whinage ahead:

Summary

It’s bad enough that I have to check all her pockets for tissues, but now I need to check her underwear for indontinence pads. They make a gawd-awful mess inthe washer when they come apart. I just hope they don’t gunk up they drain pump. If tjey do, she’s buying me a new washer, dammit.

Interesting… it hides instead of blurring.

Laundry is done. I need a break.

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Everyone keep your fingers crossed… Someone is on their way to my house to purchase Jane Dough, my 10 qt mixer that I bought in part due to mistaken identity. Since he’s driving almost 1 1/2 hours to get here, I certainly hope he’ll take the old girl with him and I’ll have cash in had when he goes.

Selling her doesn’t break my heart since it’s part of making room in the foyer for my new bed under the stairs. It also doesn’t break my heart because when I originally got her, I thought that I was bidding on a much larger mixer than what I got.

I’m also working on some exciting news that I’ll share when it’s officially in the works. Until then, I’ll be sitting here wishing I was napping while the poodle on my lap actually does.

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I have a windbreaker I bought at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, before it was renamed to Armstrong Flight Research Center. There’s a large pocket on the left-inside that has a small (about 1.5 inches) Velcro closure at the top. Over the years about ⅔ of the stitching came loose.

Mrs. L.A. got out her sewing machine to repair a strap on one of her bags, so I got the jacket out to see if she could fix it. I determined, however, that it could not be repaired on a sewing machine unless the jacket was taken apart. Mrs. L.A. asked to have a look at it, and agreed… so she ripped the Velcro off before I could stop her! :astonished:

She says she’ll hand-sew it back on. It would have been easier if she hadn’t been so impulsive.

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I’m somewhat better today. I had some broth last night, followed by a little container of applesauce, and when those stayed put, I had yogurt and then a banana. I also had ginger peach tea, since ginger is supposed to soothe the stomach. Today I’m only about 40% as miserable as yesterday, a big improvement. I walked to the lab place because otherwise it would’ve taken 2 buses and over 90 minutes each way to go a mile. I felt a little woozy on the way home, but that’s because it was a fasting test, I think. The headache is mostly better.

I’m going to cram for the final today–that is, vote. I have to read the voters guide before making my selections for some offices–not US president, of course, but some of the others. When Dad was alive, if I didn’t know much about an office or candidates for it, I wrote in his name just to honor him. Now I don’t need to because of that nifty voters guide.

For the second time in my adult life, I’m not reading/watching the news. (The first time was in October 2016, when certain remarks sent me down to the depths because they echoed part of the violent sexual assault by a stranger when I was a teen. You know how the news repeats a big story endlessly for a few days, so I couldn’t watch at all.) My dad raised us to understand staying informed was essential for citizens, but I’m way too anxious about this election, in which democracy hangs in the balance. Dad was a good guy. I think he’d understand.

Happy All Saints Day! The nuns tried to get us to dress like saints for Halloween because All Saints Day was the next day, but nobody ever did. It would’ve been cool to be St. Lucy, who was depicted carrying her eyeballs on a silver plate, or St. Sebastian, with all the arrows in his torso. My nephews’ school wanted kids to dress as healthy foods. “I’m a vampire!” “I’m a zombie!” “I’m a witch!” “I’m a carrot.” Nope.

Dicey, I’m sorry you got egged. If she were still around, my black lab would have happily cleaned it up for you, even if it required jumping. Of course, then you’d have slobber on your windows, but at least that’s clear.

sticky, I do love that Pasta Princess. And I LOVE that you named your old mixer–such a great name, too! Can’t wait to learn your big news!

doggio, I had a good laugh over the dialogue between you and Spot.

FCM, did the pads cause the washer any issues? I’ve had kleenexes that made it intact through the washer and dryer and even came out clean and wrinkle-free!

Cookie, sounds like you’ll have a cat very soon. Don’t forget the cat tax! At least an older cat might stay still for photos. And that recipe looks so easy AND delicious! I’ll save it.

This is why I stay on your good side. :slight_smile: My version is my Teacher of Freshmen voice, aka The Voice of Doom. There’s a face that goes with it. I called it my “I Am the God of Hellfire” expression. Kids probably called it something that would have to be spelled in symbols.

Taters, that guy sounds like a giant PITA, and he must really be slowing things down. Do you see potential, or is he probably going to get fired?

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Glad you’re feeling better.

I would dress as St. Agatha (perhaps NSFW).

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I had Domino’s delivered for lunch. I still don’t have much of an appetite and their chicken with cheese/bacon/tomato is the only food that appealed to me.

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So far, I don’t think so. I’ll find out tomorrow because Daughter is coming over to do her laundry while keeping an eye on MIL (who insists she’ll be fine alone. Right.) There is a filter I can clean out, so I’ll give that a shot this evening.

I got a text the other day from Hyundai Finance saying that after the insurance paid out on the totaled Santa Cruz, there was an overage and they were sending us a check. We figured maybe a coupla hunnert bucks. Nope. Try over $3K!!! So that was a nice surprise. Kinda made up for the gunky washer. :wink:

Not sure if I’ll be making supper or not. MIL woke up long enough to fold her laundry and put it away, then she lay down again and has been sleeping for over 2 hours. All day today she’s had half a bagel with cream cheese, a cup of coffee with half-and-half, and 2 Andes mints. And she said she really didn’t want the mints.

You don’t want to read this, but I had to get it out. Sorry.

I looked up what a 90+ y/o woman should be eating - Mayo’s site said around 1600 calories a day. I’m thinking she’s falling way short. Maybe that means the end is near, but we’ve been fooled before. She’s barely more than a walking skeleton these days.

Another weirdness - for months, she’s (correctly) been saying “Alexa, turn the bedroom lignts on/off” but all of a sudden it’s “Alexa, turn the bedroom wall lights on/off” which confuses Alexa, since we have nothing named Bedroom Wall in the network. I tried to explain it to her today - we shall see.

As to supper, I’ll feed myself if no one else wants to eat. I’m working my way thru leftovers since no one else seems to ever want them. Yesterday, I finished off the bean soup. A few days back, it was chickie nuggies. Lunch today was rice with spaghetti sauce (we used to call it slop when we were kids!) And if I’m eating alone, it’ll be pot roast and gravy over toast. Or PB&J. Who knows???

Looking forward to Texas Roadhouse tomorrow.

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Back from my swimming and now have to climb into my soccer uniform and go forth to chase 11-year old boys around and 100 x 50 yard field for an hour…and then do it a second time (5:30 and 7:00pm games). Should keep me busy.

Oopsie, enjoy the play; I’ve always liked Broderick in the movies I’ve seen him in, hope he is as good on the stage.

FCM, life (and s***) happens. Hang in there. And that check was a nice way to end the week!

Sticky Buns, hope the purchase goes without a hitch.

Flyboy, I’m sure it will be as good as new once wifey finishes.

nellie, glad stuff is staying down for you, take care. And I had to laugh at the Saint’s dress up.

Have to climb into my uniform now. Take care all.