(Old) Waiting for an Update in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

:slightly_frowning_face: I hope today is better for you.

You were licking his head??

Hmmm… At any rate, glad you are ok.

I went to the dentist yesterday and now my two front teeth are not even. I have terrible, horrible no good very bad teeth (as I mentioned since my gallbladder came out). I got four fillings yesterday and apparently crooked front teeth was the best they could do. I am overjoyed.

Speaking of actual joy, today is a double celebration. It’s Annie’s Gotcha Day and mine and MusicMan’s anniversary! We’ve had Annie 6 years now and have been married for 8.

102

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 72 Amurrkin out and mostly clear, with a predicted high of 89 and partly N.O.S. for the day. We shall procure provisions this mornin’. Then we shall do N.O.L. from Jack’s hamburgers. Most likely we will get their fried chikin cause it ain’t too shabby. I should mow the front yahd, but don’t make any bets on me gettin’ that done. I also need to read over what we will discuss at book study this evenin’ over to the church house. It’s goin’ to be tough to get in sloth, nappage, and day drinkin’ today!

JtC sorry things are not goin’ well on the trip. May today be better.

MOOOOOOM I agree. The Eyetalian bread from Aldi’s is da bomb!

Nettie the rolls I ''make" are the frozen thaw, rise, and bake ones.

sari good for Echo and her instinct to be protective. When my folks had Buddy the border collie, he liked to hang around outside and protect the house. I would not, especially at night, get out of my vehicle until I called his name and he saw me. He had this crazy low growl he would do until he recognized it was me, and then it was all, “It’s my big brother! Yay! Hey big brother!”

Flyboy YIKES!

Sticky_Buns Happy Anniversary to MusicMan and you and Happy Gotcha Day to Annie!

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alas and alack, I suppose I must needs purtify and don attire acceptable for bein’ amongst the great unwashed. Oh woe!

Happy Hump Day Y’all!

103

I should mention, assuming all Aldi stores are similar, that the take-and-bake is in the same general shelving as the pastries, english muffins, and other artisan-like breads and rolls. I can’t recall the name, but the label is black and the baking instructions are in a small box that you need to search for. No matter - it’s good. 375° on the rack (not on a pan) for 15 minutes - yum!

One thing I’ll say for the first meds I got from the first neurologist - they do help me sleep. Once again, I got close to 8 hours. I need to remember to write down both names and doses for when I see my GP this morning, tho I’m sure she can access the record, since it’s all MedStar. I suspect she’ll want me to see a cardiologist - pretty sure that’s what she told me last week, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t make an appointment. I searched my call log and there’s no unaccounted-for numbers.

Anyway, the plan is a run to Food Lion since Diet Coke is BOGO this week and our stock is getting low. Then to the GP for my 11:10 appointment, followed by lunch. Then FCD will drop me off at Daughter’s house where I’ll wait till Roxy gets off the bus. And when Daughter gets home from work, we’ll fetch Tobias, then come back here and I’ll feed them all.

Originally, I was supposed to meet Roxy at her bus for the rest of the week, but she’s got play dates Thurs and Fir - huzzah! Did I mention this is the last week of school? Roxy and I will have 3 days next week, and she has her STEM camp starting on the 17th. She’s going to love that!

sari - I can imagine your son freaking out when he couldn’t reach you. I do the same - you always think the worst when someone doesn’t answer the phone. Well, I do, anyway. On our way back from the neurologist, MIL didn’t answer the phone the first time we called, thereby ending our plans to go get lunch. Turns out, she was talking to her sister - I guess she didn’t hear or ignored the call-waiting signal.

Speaking of which, I disabled call-waiting on my phone. I consider that to be a rude feature and I hates it, I do!!! :stuck_out_tongue:

Glad I accomplished mowage yesterday - we’ve got a chance of rain the next 2 days. It’s that time of year when the grass grows way too fast if you don’t pay attention.

Happy Wednesday!!

104

Good morning.

It’s 46 degrees Fahrenheit and mostly cloudy. By afternoon, the clouds are supposed to give way to mostly sunny skies and a high temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

JtC, I’m sorry you had a rough day of travel with GG. I hope today is a much better day.

Swampy, although my commute can be pretty sucktastic, at least it’s not the commute my SD must endure when she comes to the office. She has to drive from her home to the ferry, approximately 25 miles or so. She then takes the ferry to the mainland and continues her commute of roughly another 90 miles or so. Worse, she has to commute through Seattle to get to the office and then fight the Tacoma and JBLM traffic. I, at least, don’t have to deal with all that.

Metal Mouse, congrats on continued shrinkage.

Sticky Buns, Happy Anniversary to you both, and congrats on Annie’s Gotcha Day.

Maisie has decided that crate pad destruction is now her thing. She’s shredded up two of them, damn it. For now, I might have to give up and just put a blanket in her crate.

I have another busy work day ahead of me. It’s all a “full” work week, meaning I work five days instead of four. I need to burn a couple of hours of admin leave, so I might do that on Friday. It all depends on what’s in my inbox.

I suppose I should get that dishwasher running. Hubby made something stinky after I went to bed, and I want to get the dishes cleaned up and open windows to eliminate the smell.

Wishing everyone a smooth day.

105

Morning all. It’s a calm morning here in N. Ali-bama, but rain may show up later in the AM, so we’ll see what develops. Getting to 86F today so another hot one (suspect it will continue to be hot until October now). Have taken the morning medication and eaten an apple, so things are progressing as scheduled.

Big activity today will be writing and mailing my donation checks, I make my charitable donations once a year in a large chunk and then am done with it until next year. Of course, this does keep the Post Office busy for a year with those organizations sending me literature almost weekly trying to get more money out of me. At least I’ll get some check-writing experience, between the new debit card and direct deposits, I hardly write one anymore.

Sari, Maybe, maybe this incident will get Sah-son off his duff and back to getting his driver’s license work in. And good for Echo on being the protective sort. And congrats on being a great-great aunt.

Thanks FCM and Nettie on the art of making bread. I may try that (or not).

JtC, you may be on the road by now, but safe travels nonetheless. And appaently cats can be emotional support animals, just not service animals as we commonly define them.

Flyboy, glad you at least are a safe/cautious driver. And yeah, if there had been an accident chances are it would have been your fault somehow, right-of-way or not…

Sticky Buns, Happy anniversaries to you.

FCM, sounds like a busy day for you. Take care now.

Sticky Buns, I had to commute once for about 45 minutes one-way on a daily basis (until I moved closer to the job) and hated it. Can’t imagine doing what your co-worker does, even if it’s not very often. Work has sure changed in the past few years…

And that’s all for now from Casa Rat. Have a good one.

106

Daughter has determined that it’s time to put her dog down. He’s 14, stone deaf, and displaying signs of doggy dementia. He’s been a good dog, but it’s time, alas. :cry:

We’ve been to Food Lion - I didn’t get as much as I’d thought, but dang, have prices shot up in the last couple of weeks! A pie that I got on sale for MIL 2 weeks ago at $6 is on sale this week at $8!! Quite a jump, I’d say!

I’m thinking of letting Roxy stay over here for 2 nights - must discuss with Daughter and Roxy. Less running back and forth for them, company for me. We shall see.

And in 90 minutes, I’ll head out to see my Dr. for the post-hospital follow-up. Such a fun day. Oh, and it’s been raining.

107

Mornin’ all. It’s almost 9am, sunny, and hot out as I start to drivel. Up since 5, got a few useful things done, and looking at a calm day. Have a lunch planned w somebody I’ve not seen in a couple years. Lotta catching up to do. Otherwise just fight with admin crap; all the moving / rearranging / putting away is as done as it needs to be. Yaay!! Time now to begin just living in normal domesticity. Assuming I can remember how. :wink:

Still sorting out the upcoming weekend plan w BB. I probably have time for one night, maybe two. Her availability may be more limited. A pilot pal and I are going to Panamá on Sun through Thu, so 4 nights 5 days. Then he goes into work on Fri and with luck I go into BB.

I gave up on reading Tuesday except for the evening.


As to y’all …

JtC: Ouch about GG. Ultimately he’ll survive the ordeal of a car ride. Since you can’t actually address his concerns / fears (unless you can sneak the drugs into him), your job becomes simply to ignore 100% of his whining so you arrive safely and unfrazzled. I drive with earplugs. Greatly reduces road noise and the fatigue that goes with it. Just sayin’.


Flyboy: Close one. I almost did the opposite 25-ish years ago. Pulling out of a parking lot onto a ~30mph semi-residential street. In a bit of a hurry I quickly looked both ways, simply did not see the marked cop car approaching at normal speed, and pulled right out in front of him. This was long before ABS and he skidded to a stop about a car length away. He was pissed, but more rattled than pissed. Blustered at me for a couple minutes then drove off in a huff. Whew.


Metalmouse: Here’s another vote that bread machines are zero-skill-required. I had one years ago and HL used hers every week we were together. You do end up with some fol-de-rol and lots of tuppers of ingredients. So some barrier to entry. And the bread is frankly kinda weird between the shape and the often frou frou recipes.

Take-and-bake is also zero skill, and probably a better entry point for somebody who ought not be gorging on simple carbs. It’s darn hard to eat just a bite or two of freshly-baked warm bread. At least for me that’s true. :wink:

This. The kid won’t learn to walk until you take him out of the stroller and make him walk.


As to commutes, my pre-retirement one was about my worst: 40 miles straight down one freeway and ~5 blocks on a major boulevard at each end. The freeway had tolled express lanes about 2/3rds of the length that were usually the better play. As long as I was going at off-peak times it was easy. But on-peak, or with a crash or two it could get s-l-o-o-o-w. I did that for 10 years, but only about one round trip per week on average. Sometimes it was 4 round trips per week and that got real old. I cannot fathom putting up with both long and frequent such as Tater’s SD puts up with. That’s not evidence of patience; that’s mental illness.

When I lived in Las Vegas and worked at JFK ('89-'91) that commute was real long. But only 3x/month, so not that awful. At least my residences at both ends were near the airport, so not much insult at either end added to the severe injury in the middle.


Time to think about shevelment here. Cheers all and happy humping day!!

108

Morning everyone… Sorry about the long absence after promising to Mump better this time. [exasperated sigh] :slight_smile:

As usual, lost and way behind on the happenin’s round here, but glad to see @FairyChatMom up and about. (I tried to read last week’s and catch up – honest!).

And best travel wishes for @JaneDoe42 . Apparently it’s a long strange trip you’re on, and I’m still puzzling over details. I hope it’s for something good.

After reporting to ya’ll about last week’s BCI (Backyard Coyote Incident), we seem to be a disorganized version of Wild Kingdom. Next I found the dogs playing pickleball with a large turtle, then had to order Lucy (my dog) away from a fairly large bat. Said bat was on the ground slowly flapping its wings. In the bright sunshine at 2 in the afternoon. Not an expert, but those facts don’t add up to “healthy bat”, so I ordered her back inside (thankfully she complied). By the time I locked her inside, the bat had left.

Last week I declared that all the stressful stuff was over, which caused exactly what you’d expect. Again, all are first-world problems, but here’s a summary:

Youngest was trying to organize her final year in University and came up against that most dreaded modern beast - the power tripping bureaucrat. Who upended the final schedule and delayed completion of her doctorate, just because they could. This caused a lot of stress and back and forth, as she’s 8 time zones away finishing her research. We had to help more than usual from here due to distance and time-zone issues. But it’s finally resolved.

My sibling called from the hospital, having been admitted due to previously unknown heart problems. Definitely solvable, but still scary. Out now and home, working with cardiologists to manage.

As I mentioned a few mumps ago, we’ve been idly shopping for a new RV (Hey! I said it was first world problems :smiley: ). I made an offer 6 months ago that wasn’t accepted, and assumed it was over. But another dealer in a distant county agreed to it (same make/model) with the caveat that we had to get the deal complete by end of month. So we had two days to empty our old RV (this is almost like moving) and do all the paperwork, insurance, running about that such things require. We arrived home with the new camper at 8:00 PM on the 31st. And found that our storage lot had made a mistake and we had no where to park it. We briefly considered leaving it in front of the house, but the HOA’s black helicopters were already circling. The storage lot arranged for a spot out on the concrete but only for two days. So, I ended up searching all the storage lots around here and found one on the second day. It’s a long ways away, but under a roof and safe from this season’s storms (Texas’ seasons are Mud, Hail, Furnace, and Football – we’re in “Hail” right now).

So everything seems to finally have settled down again, and maybe I can return to being a retired drain on society.

Wishing everyone a good week, and safe travels to JtC.

109

Forgot that they were turning off the water this morning from 0700-0900. Luckily, both the tea pot and the coffee maker reservoir were full or things could have gotten ugly. Had no energy for exercise, so we skipped it.

Croissants and scrambled for breakfast. I think tomorrow will be World’s Best Frog Bread.

Looks to be a boring day, which isn’t necessarily bad.

110

Small heaving went alright, apart from the usual SSLAW breakdowns. There was chaos everywhere else in the joint though. No supervisor on the 400, and nobody set up the 300 Slide. But not my circus, not my monkeys.
On the home front, Spot has discovered he can jump up on the dryer, and the bathroom counter.

He licks mine.

:champagne: :cake:Happy Anniversary! and Happy Gotcha day! :cake: :champagne:

I read that as a bong day. < waves at shoe and JtC >

111

Dear JaneTCand GG, the above is (I hope, a 28 second recording) of my emotional support kitty Moxie contentedly purring laying on my arm while I’m trying to drink my coffee and type to y’all. I am hoping that you can play it to soothe yourself a wee bit after a long bout of trying to drive while GG is howling and complaining about the traveling torture he is undergoing.

Think of it as a sound meditation. Maybe it will intrigue GG and he’’ll Quiet down enough to try to figure who and where that other kitty is in his space. Here’s hoping any way.

I have nooooooo idea what I’m doing when it comes to any of this tech . I managed to make the voice recording (and trust me, with a entitled Siamese, it’s a voice) and then just kept pushing buttons until I finally managed to get it copied over to the SD MMP. I think I’m just going to consider it my brain injured achievement of the day.

Hope the travels get easier as you get closer to WV, hubs and home. I’m enjoying thinking about how relieved and happy hubs and GG are going to be to see each other!

You, after listening to aggrieved caterwauling for days, will no doubt be relieved too~you deserve to go off in the quiet woods and :smoking: some dried green stuff until the memory of the drive fades.

ETA: it tells me I can’t embed a media item, so I’m gonna send it by other means to a mutual friend of ours and see if they can post it to you.
So never mind about it being an achievement.

112

Been to the doc - she wants me to send her my BP log every week or so. It was funny - she walked into the exam room and said “What the hell?” She’s as perplexed as we are about my episode. But she still recommends I get a cardiac baseline because of my age. So I need to make that appointment.

At Daughter’s, waiting for Roxy’s bus (in about 3 hours) with a cat on my lap. Her poor pup is definitely not doing well. He’s been a good boy, but it’s probably his time.

Anyway, I’ll read till the bus comes. Tortellini for supper.

113

Daughter and SIL just left with Cozmo. They found a vet who can see them this afternoon, and they’ll bury him in our yard. Daughter is a mess - he was her first dog - he was barely a handful when she brought him home. She got him a few months after throwing her ex out.

Tobias will forget pretty quickly, but it may be hard on Roxy. Dammit - why can’t they live forever?

:cry:

114

Well, here it is Wednesday and I’m just now wading into the MMP. Some weeks are like that.

Tsk, tsk. I usually like the way you think, Swampy, but seeing’ a doc at least once a year is a good thing. They don’t find anything wrong - great! They do find something wrong, well, at least you’ve probably caught it in time to do something about it. Hope you get that appointment rescheduled soon.

One of my pet peeves about doctor visits is having to fill out pages and pages of crap (that really should have been shared by the referring doctor). No, I’ve never had tuberculosis or lupus, I have no idea of my grandparents’ medical history, and who cares about the knee surgery I had when I was 14??

You’re supposed to measure from the belly button, right?

I recently exited an interstate in Milwaukee and had to subsequently continue straight onto the frontage road. Cross-traffic was very heavy, and, due to another light downstream, all it took was one idiot going halfway through the intersection while the light was green to get stuck there after it turned red, thus blocking my only path forward. I sat there through three cycles. Grrr.

I’m flashing in Woody Allen. Was that in one of his films?

IL, yay on your impending Grandma-hood!

JtC, hope the trip gets smoother for you and GG, but hey, at least you’re heading in the right direction.

There’ve been rattlesnake sightings in the neighborhood, so we bought some snake repellant balls from da jungle. I thought they’d just smell bad to the snakes, but holy god, do those things stink. The active ingredients are garlic and sulfur. Imagine what that might smell like, then imagine it’s about 40 times stronger than what you just imagined. Fortunately, the stench has abated some after a few days, but it’s still noticeable. Probably the last time we’ll use those.

Our clubhouse offers water aerobics classes, and Mrs W has been going twice a week for the past couple months. I decided to finally start using the gym while she’s doing that. I chose the elliptical, since it’s easy on my creaky knees, and have been going about 30-40 minutes at a time. Not a huge workout, but it works up a good sweat and gets my heart going, so I feel like it’s doing some good. I plan to slowly ramp up the time. We’ve also been trying to eat smaller portions and cut out sugary snacks. Nobody has told the scale yet though.

I’ve had a few weeks of respite from the inventory job (there was a gig in Asheville that I was hoping to go to, but it didn’t happen). It’s kind of nice to be home for a stretch, though. And I’ve been working on that AI website while I’ve been home, so I’m bringing a little money in too.

My annual baseball trip is coming up in two weeks. Chicago to St. Louis and points in between. Should be fun!

Enjoy the rest of your humpday!

115

Well, it’s 1130. I guess I’d better put some sweats and shoes on and go for a walk.

116

Well let’s see if I can have greater success than BBBoo. Trust me it’s adorable. It’s not real loud at first so you might have to turn your volume up.

LSLGuy’s Google Drive - BBBoo’s Moxie’s Purring to Keep Jane Sane

My lunch meeting was good. A lot of catching up and the usual mixture of happy and sad news that occurs in and around the lives of folks our age.

117

I consulted an Ideal Weight Chart and it showed:
Male
Height Ideal Body Weight
6’0" 160 - 196 lbs
6’1" 166 - 202 lbs
6’2" 171 - 209 lbs
6’3" 176 - 216 lbs
So, looks like you’re getting close to upper range.

Getting really freaking dark here and extremely windy. Just saw the wind flip the trash can lid from the yard waste can over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. Yikes.
Batten down the hatches; here’s the rain beating down like nobody’s business.
Good to see that my moon roof and all the windows are closed.

118

my office is recovering from 2 office events. one on monday, one on tuesday.

the one on monday was outside the office. i got to see the wonders of the wine and spirits shoppe thing in philly.

not knowing anything about what beverages are best, i was going by how the labels or cans looked and what their names are. my coworker and i had a bit of a laugh as that is how many people pick sport teams.

i wanted to buy a product because there was a free glass. my co worker was horrified by the idea of drinking porter at a tailgate before a baseball game.

i was drinking diet pepsi, i didn’t care, i wanted the glass. my co worker when we cashed out asked the cashier if there were spare glasses. he got me a glass! happiness.

the left over beverages came back to the office for event 2. we have a person who has been here for 50 years! so we tried to surprize him. we used his favourite restaurant as the caterer and that was our downfall.

they let it slip.

we had set up for a companywide meeting on the retirement plan (first one since 2019) as our cover for the jersey office to be in philly. as it is the way, the man of honour was hanging out in the manager’s office closer to the cafe area. we were trying to move furniture around quietly for the surprize lunch when we found out he knew.

this morning i moved things back after the cleaners last night. there were a few things to put away. so other than around an hour, today was a usual work day. yest. we had 49 in the office, today we have 9.

119

I know, silly. :smile:

FCM, sorry to hear about the pup.

I just popped by to say that since I’ve posted anniversary wishes to MusicMan on the book of faces this morning, I’ve seen no less than THREE matching making ads on their site. Ridiculous.

That’ all. Ok, back to work with me.

120

Just as fast as the rain came, away it went. It rained for about 12 minutes then stopped cold. Hopefully it cooled things off a bit.