{{{nellie}}} You’re not whining, you’re going through some scary stuff.
We went to the dog park for about a half an hour this afternoon. When we got back, one of my neighbors (he has two boxers) asked for a ride to take gas money to his mom at work. His wife had their car at work and wouldn’t be home for another two hours, so I took him down. He’s a decent guy who has helped me in with heavy stuff before, so just returning a neighborly favor.
After bring him back home, I went to Cook Out for a stoner supper. It rained cats and dogs coming home, so Nelson and I both got soaked.
Back in the land of real internet I have posted the mass of pix & short vids I took. When I first boarded the ship I was one of the first passengers. So I took a quick tour and shot pix of much of the facilities before they got busy and in many cases before they’d opened for business. Some came out fuzzy because I’m trying to be discreet and also because I’m still learning that you can’t push the button then immediately take down the camera; it isn’t instant like old fashioned mechanical cameras were. Slow down for better results.
Just got home. Doc said there’s some inflammation, but we caught it early. I was already doing the right thing with the right stuff, so really, I could have skipped it and would have been OK. He wants to see me in a week. Thinking about my post, I realized I made it sound worse than it really is by saying I’d been hospitalized. I mean, I was, but it was mostly because I had to get eyedrops instilled every 30 minutes around the clock for a few days, and the docs said there’s no way I could reliably do that. Both times when they sent me home, I had to use the drops every hour, and that was hard. Anyway, it wasn’t like my eyeballs were going to fall out.
And that reminds me of another story. Feel free to skip. At one point, I had to use these drops that gave me a mild chemical burn on my corneas. I had to use goop and wear an eye patch. The only kind that fit me was for children. Naturally, my students had to be told why the patch. One kid said, “Is your eyeball gonna fall out?” So I told them my dad’s joke: What did the teacher say when her glass eye fell out and rolled across her desk? A: Oh, there goes one of my pupils! Yuk, yuk.
Where I erred was in telling my first class they could choose an animal sticker (came with the patches) for me to put on the patch. Holy frick. They almost came to blows: “Giraffe!” “No zebra, you idiot!” “Lion! Lions EAT zebras!” We got it resolved (monkey), but after class they told all their friends, so my second class was upset THEY didn’t get to pick. Then my third class, etc. I wore the patch long enough so they all got a turn. Teens have one foot in childhood, sometimes both feet.
I had plenty of time today, so I decided to take buses to the appointment. I thought I’d take Uber home, but there were no drivers available, so I did buses again. Think of the money I saved ($27 each way)!
Taters, that’s awful about your son not having any water! After his furniture arrives, will he got to a hotel or come stay with you?
Very relieved to hear your eye problem is well-managed.
Speaking of glass eyes. When I was in about 4th grade one of our teachers had a glass eye. She was ancient, probably about age 35.
Anyhow the great sport was to startle her while she was head-down at her desk. Done right, she’d whip her head up to see what the commotion was. And due to inertia the glass eye wouldn’t quite follow and she’d be looking at us with one real eye aimed at the troublemakers, and the other one pointing in some weird direction, usually down at the floor. Yaay us!
A couple weeks ago I was dealing with a shop owner with an eye problem. While talking to you he’d aim his face at you but each eye was pointing off to the side way out past your ears, and one was pointing 10-15 degrees lower than the other which seemed to point about correctly up/down versus whatever he was paying attention to.
It was very disconcerting to talk with him. Somehow he seemed to see OK; he could read print and pick up and handle merchandise just fine. Presumably a problem he’d dealt with from birth.
Another short heave. No word on my building, but Portland(OR) Day Sort is getting the axe on 04/16. I had a Cuba Libré and some catfish tacos and rice for dinner.
Dead peasant insurance?
Therefore superior to half the roommates I’ve had.
Sounds like a good night, Pilot
And “The Loose Cannon” sounds like my kind of bar.
Marty Feldman’s son?
Just what Spot does(my windows face the natural area, so I don’t even have to survive the squirrel noms).
{{{{nellie}}}} That’s not whining, that real worry. and with eyes, better to be told “it’s not bad” than “you should have come in earlier, now we have to remove them.”
Oh, thank goodness. I am so happy it wasn’t anything worse.
Mom used to know a 4th grade teacher with a glass eye and that was his favorite joke.
Hubs shaved his beard once and I threw him out of bed the next morning. Who are you and where is my husband!!! I doubt he would recognize me if I started wearing contacts again.
NO! I am vertically challenged!!! I actually got into the habit back when we were hard-core bikers. Hubs would scan the crowd looking for me and I always tell that he was looking at his 6 ft. eye level instead of almost a foot lower. My red vest or jacket stood out in the sea of black and helped him locate me.
I noticed that the red helped Dad know who I was when he started forgetting names, so I just stayed in the habit.
Jeeze louise, that is horrible! Happily mom lives in a real housing development that has enough traffic that she was only on the cold pavement for a few minutes, two hours would have been horrible!
Last year hubs fell off the mobility ramp (don’t ask) face down. His shoulders are almost non-functioning because he refuses to have them replaced, so he couldn’t use his arms to roll himself over or to reach under himself to get his phone. He was on the ground for at least 15 minutes before I started wondering why it was taking him so long to get the mail. It sucked.
It really would not surprise me to hear that someone’s utility company billed in advance using some sort of algorithm that ensured the consumer pays extra every month with forms to fill out to use the credit when it grows over a certain amount.
First class is up in a sort of bubble so you have a panoramic view, comes with a glass of cheap Champaign and is adult only. Because the bubble is so small, the seats are small and tight and you have to go down stairs to the second class level to use the restroom.
Second class has larger seats with real tables between them, big windows and no stairs to the restrooms or cash bar.
Steerage is where the kids are usually found, the seats are comfortable enough and it looks most like an old fashioned train car like you see in movies. The restrooms are in the same car and you can open the windows to get the breeze because that level isn’t air conditioned.
Awwwww!!! Thanks for the link, it was very interesting.
That is exactly how I felt when I got contacts. My eyes felt naked so I got in the habit of wearing yellow tinted glasses for driving and just never took them off so I went back to glasses. Much easier!
I would be pissed as well. I hope the new system is worth all of the upset, that sounds like stress and expense you don’t need in your life.
Oh yes! So much so that Phx has no-burn days announced on the news. During the summer even!!!
Hubs wanted one but I knew I would end up being the one taking care of any sort of wood or pellet stove and I really wasn’t interested in another messy chore.
We are all electric but have heard horror stories about how much it costs to fill a propane tank these days.
Oh, no, of course not! She was 80 before I convinced her to get a handicapped tag so she could park close to where she was going instead of walking through a dark parking lot with crap eyes.
More grumbles.
It would be a pleasure!
ETA: This is a one pan recipe.
For the rub:
2 tablespoons each paprika, smoked if you have it, mild works as well and coarse salt
1 teaspoon each of brown sugar, garlic powder and onion powder.
1/2-1 teaspoon red chili powder, depending if you even want it.
1/2 teaspoon coarse black pepper.
Mix the dry ingredients and then mix in a tablespoon of olive oil.
Season pork.
Heat another couple of tablespoons of olive oil and sear the roast.
Sauce:
1/2 cup each honey (I like mesquite, but Mom always used clover) and unsalted butter
6 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar, whatever you have.
Large pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon course ground pepper
Melt the butter in the same pan you used to sear the meat and add the garlic to saute for a minute or so. Scrape the bottom of the pan so you can get all of the lovely bits from searing the pork. Stir in all of the rest of the ingredients and simmer for a minute or two. It won’t thicken, you just want to be sure all of the spices are starting to meld together.
Oven at 350F, put the roast in your pan and pour half a cup each of water and stock around - not on- the roast. Keep back half a cup of your sauce and pour the rest over the roast.
Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Baste with half the sauce and cook uncovered for another 15 minutes. Baste with the rest of the sauce and cook until your thermometer is 145.
Take pork out, put on a plate and baste with the pan juices, cover with a foil tent and let rest for 10-15 minutes.
Scrape the bottom of the pan to get all of the bits up and moving through the rest of the pan juices and then mix 3-4 teaspoons of cornstarch into a quarter cup of water and use that to thicken the sauce up to use like gravy.
Didn’t she eat, like, tiny amounts? In her defense, I’d be pretty territorial of my food if I was only gonna have a bite or two anyway.
That sucks. My unasked-for advice is to keep this job AND get another one. Then, when the other job works out better, tell this boss, “Sorry, I can’t pay my bills on these hours” OR keep both.
But one single part-time shift per week is unsustainable.
I’m lost. Carbs good? Carbs bad?
… and what’s a “sugar place?” (I’m assuming you don’t mean a strip club - not judging, tho.)
That’s good!
… but stay away from that ex. If you take this job, it’s gonna put him back into your life somehow, and he just seems like trouble.
So you’re buying us all a round, yes?
I did an actual double-take, blinked, almost got irritated … then LOL’d.
There was a scene in the 1st “Men In Black” movie with Tony Shalhoub (the guy from “Monk”) portraying pretty much exactly what you described.
Is that like Dead Poets Society?
This is an absolutely true statement.
Fun sized.
Would telling him that friggin’ turtles can do better shame him into some self-care?
Used to be companies could buy life insurance on their most important employees, and deduct the premiums from their taxes. Then they realized the tax break would work for any employee. So they started insuring the janitor to get the tax breaks. Hence, “Dead Peasant Insurance”
My maternal grandfather died in 1965. In 2002, one of my aunts got a letter from an insurance company about an old policy. My grandmother (the original beneficiary) & two of my mother’s siblings had died by that time but the remaining five children each got around $1,200.
I’m another wears glasses all the time guy. Had them since about 6 years old. I did the stupid not wear glasses during high school to look cooler, then when I went back to glasses in college I felt drunk for about 2 days, what with being able to see. Technically, I don’t need them to drive, since I’ve got one good eye. Tried out contacts for a bit, but wearing only one suuucked.
Dead peasant insurance! Was that even a thing before the “greed is good” era? But she did work for a savings and loan just before the entire industry collapsed under its own weight (and for a small construction firm right before that industry went into crisis in the early 90s…hmmm), so I suppose a stray policy might be floating around from that. We aren’t expecting much - I’m thinking maybe I can take us out for dinner on my share!
shoe and spicy, rats are adorable (and smart!), but it breaks my heart that they don’t live longer. Except, you know, if they’re fulfilling a higher purpose, so to speak.
As for eyes, nellie, I figure it’s always better safe than sorry. They can prevent so much more than they can fix! It sounds like you’re something of an expert, though.
Coppertone, it always drove me up a wall how managers yank you around when you’re an hourly employee. It’s like they completely lose sight of the fact that they’re scheduling people, not widgets.
I didn’t wear my glasses any more than I had to in order to see the chalkboard my first year in high school. At our tenth reunion, I found out that a bunch of people thought I was stuck up because I didn’t greet anyone in the halls. They didn’t know I just couldn’t see them.
Before something happens that makes me have to hit the post button again, I want to thank you all for your support regarding Mom and Hubs. Mom doesn’t have dementia, she is just old and her brain is full. Hubs, OTOH…sigh. Today he announced that Dr. Google says he’s shaky because he’s drinking too much coffee so he’s going to give that up.
All of my words about this are sad ones because I know I can’t do anything to make him change. Your support during this journey will be so important, thanks so much.
I still remember the moment I knew that Dad thought of me as a friendly stranger. I was his favorite, he carried my first grade picture in his wallet until the day he forgot what a wallet was. Tears happened over the realization but then I learned to stop expecting him to remember half an hour ago.
Mom told me that when she had someone come over to be with Dad while she was out, he would start to wonder where the “woman who lives here” is after a couple of hours. More tears will happen when it gets to that point with Hubs.
That is a great pic!
Oh good lawd. Has anyone died over the color choices yet? I like the Norway Spruce, but think it would be too much for a large area. Perhaps Natural choice with the Spruce for trim?
That is fantastic! I’ll bet it feels good to be able to quilt again, I’m sure you missed it. I wonder how your very talented wife’s color choices will be now that her cataracts are gone and she can see more colors again.
W00t! It doesn’t matter how much you love the other folks in your home, alone time is important. I hope you enjoyed every second.
That seriously sucks. I’m sure he has good reasons for staying there, but young people can be pretty silly at times.
Go you! I hope your work brings in more work!
I am seriously jealous, Randy is just fabulous in screen, I’ll bet his show is ever better.
Not to mention the need for the quinine in the tonic! That staves off the Malaria.
Dang! I ordered something from the Jungle in your name today.
It really does come out well. (Pour all of the sauce into a container before putting the pork back into the pan then adding stock and water.) I tried to make my instructions clear, I really only have a list of ingredients and cooking times.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN 'Tis 55 Amurrkin out and cloudy with a predicted high of 57 with “light rain” throughout the afternoon. Fine by me as we have nowhere we need or want to be. Thus, high sloth is on the agenda for the day. Sup shall be chili/cheese/onion/slaw dawgs and fries. Fart fest to follow.
Nellie glad you got your eyes checked out and glad there’s nothing serious. Better safe than sorry.
Coppertone gin and tonic is needed for both scurvy and malaria. We tend to have flareups of both at the same time, thus the need for gin and tonics. Also, hope the job situation is sorted soonest.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day! Rah.
Omg, proofreading is what I do for free! Any flier, my first thought is to check for misspellings. Words are my life.
Up and stuffy, as usual.
I ran out of my vitamin D and twice this week called my doctor to get a refill but…nothing.
Back to sleeptime, love you guys.
I literally have only a passing familiarity with the college, as Rt 5 goes right thru the campus and I drove that way for 6 months for one of my temp gigs… Anyway, it’s a small college so I’m assuming the venue won’t be a massive auditorium, which should make it even better! I’m so excited! (Just looked it up - it’s 700 seats!)
Last forecast I heard, we were to get 1-3" of snow. This morning, it’s wet, with evidence of a little snowfall on a couple of cushions on the deck. So much for that. I didn’t expect us to get much anyway - this county is essentially a peninsula between 2 rivers, with the bay at the southern end. That amount of water tends to moderate our temperatures. Plus the weather forecasts tend to center on DC which is a few miles inland. The good news is - no shoveling!!
Daughter is coming over with her spawn. She’s going to work with her dad on her resume and I’ll corral the kids in the basement. I’ve already got a fire laid and a stack of wood at hand. It’s a mess down there - clutter galore - so I plan to put things in some semblance of order while the kids play. Yeah, I’m a dreamer…
I’ll make them mac-n-cheese for lunch, which is quick and easy, not to mention well-received. They probably won’t be here till supper, so I’ll get my quiet fairly early, I hope.
Today I’m going to make chiles rellenos. I’m really going to throw myself into it, and have purchased the appropriate cheese, poblano chiles and plum tomatoes and I have Mexican rice pilaf pre-made and in the freezer.
But last night, to save prep time today, I blackened and peeled the poblano chiles and I’m afraid they’re not going to cut it. I usually blacken them right on top of the stove grates and that works well. This time I tried doing them under the broiler and they got too cooked and soft and they have many splits and holes. They’re not going to hold in the melted cheese during frying.
So right after breakfast I’ll have to go out and buy some replacement poblanos and then blacken them properly. Last night’s poblanos will be repurposed into chile verde or salsa or something. I hope they freeze well.
I watched Rick Bayliss on youtube make rellenos and I think I have all the important tips straight. We’ll see how my cooking turns out later today.
