I know. I was exaggerating. 80 is fine though.
Having a nice spaghetti dinner with Mids italian sausage sauce.
Correction: I’m taking Wednesday off.
‘Inviting’ is a nice word. It gives us shade in Summer, and shelters us from rain in Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring. It adequately protects us from snow in Winter. (Since it’s open on all sides, we can’t stop the snow from drifting in.) It’s a nice, comfortable space. 
Old joke:
George W. Bush: “Condi! Nice to see you. What’s happening?”
National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice: “Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.”
Bush: “Great. Lay it on me.”
Rice: “Hu is the new leader of China.”
Bush: “That’s what I want to know.”
Rice: “That’s what I’m telling you.”
Bush: “That’s what I’m asking you. Who is the new leader of China?”
Rice: “Yes.”
Bush: “I mean the fellow’s name.”
Rice: “Hu.”
Bush: “The guy in China.”
Rice: “Hu.”
Bush: “The new leader of China.”
Rice: “Hu.”
Bush: “The Chinaman!”
Rice: “Hu is leading China.”
Bush: “Now whaddya asking me for?”
Rice: “I’m telling you Hu is leading China.”
Bush: “Well, I’m asking you. Who is leading China?”
Rice: “That’s the mans name.”
Bush: “That’s who’s name?”
Rice: “Yes.”
Bush: “Will you or will you not tell me the name of the new leader of China?”
Rice: “Yes, sir.”
Bush: “Yassir? Yassir Arafat is in China? I thought he was in the Middle East.”
Rice: “That’s correct.”
Bush: “Then who is in China?”
Rice: “Yes, sir.”
Bush: “Yassir is in China?”
Rice: “No, sir.”
Bush: “Then who is?”
Rice: “Yes, sir.”
Bush: “Yassir?”
Rice: “No, sir.”
Bush: “Look, Rice. I need to know the name of the new leader of China. Get me the Secretary General of the U.N. on the phone.”
Rice: “Kofi?”
Bush: “No, thanks.”
Rice: “You want Kofi?”
Bush: “No.”
Rice: “You don’t want Kofi.”
Bush: “No. But now that you mention it, I could use a glass of milk. And then get me the U.N.”
Rice: “Yes, sir.”
Bush: “Not Yassir! The guy at the U.N.”
Rice: “Kofi?”
Bush: “Milk! Will you please make the call?”
Rice: “And call who?”
Bush: “Who is the guy at the U.N?”
Rice: “Hu is the guy in China.”
Bush: “Will you stay out of China?”
Rice: “Yes, sir.”
Bush: “And stay out of the Middle East! Just get me the guy at the U.N.”
Rice: “Kofi.”
Bush: “All right! With cream and two sugars. Now get on the phone.”
Rice (picks up the phone): “Rice, here.”
Bush: “Rice? Good idea. And a couple of egg rolls, too. Maybe we should send some to the guy in China. And the Middle East. Can you send Chinese food in the Middle East?”
I’m thinking as they grow, their feet will get heavier, but I should look at the shoe as half-full. (Not our shoe. I see her as full of humor, wit, compassion, and intelligence.)
Agreed, and I couldn’t have said it as well.
And MetalMouse, sorry if I asked you this before, but do you read while you’re pedaling or listen to music, or just pretend you’re in the Tour de France?
flyboy, when I first heard that joke, I wondered how many other people had had the same experience I did. That poor kid was so upset (my student, not George).
OK, late night final. I have a lot of very old SF paperbacks (we’re talking 1960’s-70’s) with short stories so I haul them with me to the gym. If they get sweaty/torn up in the process, not a big deal and it keeps my mind off just how much I’m sweating. And most of the stationary bikes have a TV connection for the major channels and ESPN, so I can watch things when I don’t feel like reading.
Mrs W is at a ladies’ dinner, so naturally I decided to toddle down to the Pub for a couple of cold Smithwicks and a bacon cheddar burger. Yum!
The wife of the guy who takes care of the neighbour’s property came by and told me her husband is going to mow the lawns tomorrow. I told her I didn’t put the limbs there and that it was Puget Sound Energy, but she said ‘Your tree, your problem.’ Rather rude to come up on a Sunday evening (after a glass of wine)! I moved the limbs into our yard, and some out to the street. Got another wound on my arm.
Nice photo!
Oh my! Tomorrows a new mump!
Why does time go so fast!
You are so right! If you do it free for her, all of her friends will want you to do it for them as well.
Is puppy house trained? I really don’t know much about dogs so don’t know when house training starts for them.
Sorry about the heavy-footed kids. The children in our old neighborhood were also much more solid than one would expect at that age.
This is so important. Sometimes when I hear about other people’s childhoods it makes me cry inside.
…Hubs was the one with the bruise on his hip…
And I do feel badly about that, he will be driving back to AZ tomorrow so he can deal with the rest of the move. He’s going to pack up most of what I didn’t, then pay packers to do the rest and load the pods. He will also be dealing with the realtor and having the house cleaned for showing. Edited to add dealing with the yard guys.
I will be lolling around on our porch and eating bon-bons to avoid dinging my manicure.
Thirded!
Dup post because I don’t want to start the new mump with this.
Hailey is a lovely young woman, kind and gracious. She is also a backwoods hillbilly who didn’t get much book learning because she couldn’t hear the teachers and now that she is married with a child, she thinks her life is complete.
I took my needlepoint out on the porch while she was cleaning and she said she would love to learn how to do it.
Wanna guess who has already ordered some plastic canvas kits to get her started, LOL!
Yes. I won’t dog-sit for dogs who aren’t house trained. I’m not going to have my security deposit dinged because a strange dog decides what my apartment needs is more cowbell and more poop.
I cleaned, laundered, and napped. I watched the NASCAR race. Having a Wisconsin Old Fashioned, salad with home made lemon basil dressing, baked N.O.T., and poke loin. Since Spot likes drinking my ice water, I put his water in a glass bowl instead of a plastic one. Mr. Hates Change is currently on a water strike, and sulking in Roomie’s room. 
I like 'shrooms, onions and carrots. Brussel Sprouts can go back to the Hell from which they sprang.
At least you know where to borrow a propane tank if you need one.
Yeah. Feckin’ day walkers and their mechanical cicadas.
Glad you found a good helper, JtC, even if she needs to learn how to get paid.
{{{{FCM}}}}
Great choices!
a tad short notice.
That seems insanely low to me, so … I guess you’re good?
I love that scene - the song is so perfectly done.
A relatively smooth night to cap off the week. I didn’t run the ovens much - just a bit, mostly tonight - but I did run the front lines, which is my other weakest position, and S.M. made a point of saying how well I did both Sat and tonight.
I mean, I have botched that position in the past - it’s where pizzas come out of the oven to be sliced, identified bagged and tagged, and the bolded part is where I’ve sometimes gotten very confused or mixed up in the past.
Sometimes there’s a customer (or two!) talking AT you, while the Oven Master is asking if such-and-such pizza is crispy? or well done? while whoever is working the drive-thru window is coming for their order AND the damn phone is ringing and ack!
It can be hard to keep everything straight, or at least, it can be for me.
But I’ve done better lately, so yay!
Also the dispo had indica (sleepy) gummies on sale for eighty nine cents plus I got my tip money at work today - we never know when we’re gonna get the next one - so overall it’s been one helluva good day.
Oh, and I saw a skunk on the way home! I think they’re adorable - it was a lovely ending to my night.
Oh, the Heinz Malt Vinegar sign in the right corner makes me smile.
Years of battered cod in Boston made me a devotee. Swell on potatoes too. Then I moved back to my native upper Midwest after 13 years of fish and chips and vinegar bliss and neglected to bring a case with me. Tactical error. I had to have Boston friends ship it to me until several decades later it caught on here in the seas of prairie grass. I even started my kids with malt vinegar on their French fries before they got to school and were corrupted by, gasp, ketchup.
Thanks for the memory
Happy Sunday!
Lots of catching up to do.
I started taking gabapentin again, and now I am falling asleep all day long.
I’ve been trying to get Misiu to the emergency vet all weekend, but they have been at capacity with critical patients.
I could take him to Frederick or Winchester, but they are a long drive and this isn’t life or death. I also think those clinics are probably at capacity too.
When Ripple’s tumor burst, the clinic up here was full and when I called all the other ones, they were full too.
Sometimes Misui limps a little, usually after he did a lot of fence running at the park. It would not last long, maybe for a few hours and then he was okay. I was going to talk to the vet at his annual checkup. I think it’s because he is big boned heavy dog, he’s not fat, but he is big and still young. I thought he was straining a muscle or joint.
He started limping a few days ago, and this time it got worse. He holds up his right hind leg and won’t put weight on it. One toe is swollen to about 3x its size and is starting to ooze. He’s not acting like he is in pain, he’s eating, drinking, pooping, and peeing. He seems happy enough, other than he is not very active.
The vet opens at 7am, I hope they can fit us in.
I hope it’s just an infection, but when I looked at it tonight, I thought it looked like it could be a tumor.
We bought steps when Ripple was sick to help him get in and out of the truck. My son got them out for Misiu. Misiu took to them right away, no hesitation at all. Echo didn’t like them and kind of jumped over them to get in. Crazy Rayleigh was scared of them.
Congrats on your new house JtC. You know I am so jealous; I would love to live in WV. It’s so pretty and I love the mountains. The mountains here are baby mountains compared to WV.
There is talk around here sometimes of the three western counties becoming part of WV.
WV feels like home to me even though I never lived there, but we went there every summer for vacation.
When I was a kid, I hated it because all my friends got to go to Ocean City, or Myrtle Beach, or even Florida. It was kind of boring, the most exciting thing was bottle feeding lambs, feeding the baby chicks, or gathering eggs. Once I got to milk a cow, and I got milk everywhere but in the bucket.
But we stayed with family, and family is good.
Anyway, I hope you love it there.
Puppies can take anywhere from 8 weeks to 6 months to housebreak, depending on the breed and how vigilant you are. One of the reasons I like shar pei is that they are very clean dogs and are very easy to housebreak. Some breeds are a little more stubborn. I hear beagles are the worst. But puppies need to go out about every two hours when they are young. If there are stairs, you’ll have to carry them out or they might pee on the stairs because they can’t hold it.
Mackie, Ripple, Echo, and Misiu were pretty much housebroken when I got them at 8-9 weeks. Each of them had a few accidents as they settled in, which I expect with young puppies. Rayleigh took 14 weeks until we put a bell on the door for him to ring. I think there was a communication problem with him. Either he didn’t know how to ask to go out, or we were missing the signs.
Thank you for the link Boo.
I saw one I liked with a detachable seat, but the reviews weren’t good.
Around here the walkers are getting worse than the drivers.
The other night I saw
Huge intersection. Two divided highways, nne of the sections has a wide grass median, the three others have just a concrete sidewalk. Each section has two lanes that go straight, one right turn lane, and two have two left turn lanes. One of the other left turn lanes is separated from go straight lanes by a short concrete wall.
The speed limit on the bigger road is 40, but most people are blowing through there at 50 or more.
A man holding the hand of a toddler, and a woman with a baby stroller, decided to cross the intersection DIAGONALLY!
WTF?!
They got stuck on the median where the left turn lane is separated by the concrete wall,
I thought I was going crazy and just imagined it because I can’t believe anybody would be that stupid.
I was telling a friend about it and she said she saw them too and wondered wtf was wrong with them.
There are crosswalks, but almost nobody uses them. However, most people cross where the grass median is, so at least they have a wide place to stop before crossing the other lanes.
I almost hit a guy yesterday as he stepped out from between two parked cars. He was looking at his phone, not paying attention at all. Fortunately, I saw him coming and there was nothing next to me so I was able to swerve around him.
I’m sorry for what you are going through FCM
I used to babysit a client’s mother who had dementia. I was there for only 2-3 hours while she and her husband would go out to dinner. That was enough to make me want to escape. Living with that must be draining. Her mother really liked me though.
Now the client has dementia. I feel so sorry for her husband.
I never want to put anybody through that.
The picks with the goats were cute. I love goats.
One thing I learned though, is never kiss your goat on the lips after they have been eating poison ivy. A friend of my friend who raised miniature goats did that.
Not quite as bad an outcome as the friend’s mother who burned poison ivy.
Or the cousin who wore short shorts to the park and sat in poison ivy.
The farmer down the road has some goats, but I don’t know where he put them. Every now and then they are out back, then they disappear again. He put in two fenced areas back there and sometimes the cows are out there. When they are, the dogs sit at the back fence and stare at them.
It’s 2am and I am still up.
I’m going to feel like shit when I wake up.
I don’t think I sent you a link to one with seat, I certainly didn’t mean to, but anything is possible with this bonked brain of mine. You and I, who need a walker for balance and fall prevention, don’t need a seat. In fact for us, they are a detriment and add weight to boot. Walkers with a seat are more for people whose stamina or exertion tolerance is limited, like with heart disease or lung disease, who might need to stop every 50 or 100 feet to sit and rest. PTs usually prefer that those who don’t need the seat get a walker without one. The reason is that without a seat occupying that space, you can ‘step into’ the walker rather than do the hunched over pushing the walker far too far out in front of them like you see 95% of walker users doing. Drives PTs (and nurses) nuts. Bad for the back and balance, you’re looking down at the ground instead of standing up straight ‘with in’ the walker and looking ahead, where you are going (thereby avoiding falls, which is the point). And you want to have no more than 2 wheels because a 4 wheeled walker is far more likely to scoot away from you as you’re hunched over and pushing it from too far back. Different walkers for different purposes.
I don’t remember bad reviews from the one like the one I used for 2 years that I thought I linked-it has 4.5 stars out of 5. One guy groused about the skids on the rear wore out too soon, but it’s expected that they do that-you buy a replacement pair and pop them on after 6 months if you need to. If you’re going to have to pay for it out of pocket, I found one (open box) that is only $72. If you are on Medicare and your doctor writes an order for a walker it should be paid for but you’ll have to get it through a home health/medical supply place that can submit the insurance paperwork.
I’ll try the link again in case I boffed it the first time.
…Able Life Space Saver Walker, Lightweight and Foldable Rolling Walker for Adults, Seniors, and Elderly, Compact Travel Walker with 6-inch Wheels and Ski Glides for Mobility Support, Cobalt Blue https://a.co/d/3h6CafH
I got so I could fold it and load it into the car behind the drivers seat with one hand.
They seem to last forever. I used mine for 2 years until. I recovered enough from the brain injury that I wasn’t falling all the time. Then I loaned it to my hair stylist for a year so she could work without a conspicuous awkward walker in client’s view and once her knees healed she gave it back and another friend has been using it for 14 months-still going strong after more than 4 years of use and still on the original set of rear skids as far as I know. The magic traveling 8 lb walker going from woman to woman in Lincoln, Nebraska~kind of sounds like a country western song 
. [ no smirking doggio or pilot]
Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to heave.
I never see fart squirrels around here.
Hope you can get Misiu an appointment in the morning, sari.