I love the bags of dried onion rings. Better than chips. I made a dental appointment friday to maybe lose the tooth. The endodontist has no openings til May.
Felt springlike outside today, yet rainy.
Living in a 5th wheel in Arizona? I’d guess he’s more than a little trumpy.
Mental health care in Arizona is hard to come by even if you have insurance and are motivated to get help. If someone doesn’t think they have any issues, they will just keep spiraling into madness. If I had known what was happening to Hubs, I might have been able to stop it 10 years ago by insisting he get help lest I leave. Its too late now, he’s lost his mind and I’m not the sort to leave someone just because they are sick.
I have high hopes for your zombie pumpkin and plan to put my own behind the shed next year. I don’t really have anything to do with pumpkins except give them away…but the creepy crawlies would probably love a bunch of wild vines and gourds.
We get those once in a while too. I’m not sure where you live, but you might have a gleaning program* in your area. I would suggest you look into them, one person couldn’t possibly use all the food they give me, but you live in an apartment building so have many neighbors close to hand.
Last week, hubs noticed that we hadn’t gotten a bill from the garbage company. He called them and paid what was owed. Today the bill showed up. The garbage guys taped it to our garbage can lid so we could see that it had been returned to sender because the address was an empty lot with no forwarding address. I just love our contract mail carriers.
*Volunteers go to markets, restaurants and farms to pick up the surplus food that would otherwise be thrown away. Some of the food goes to soup kitchens, some of it goes to food banks and the leftover food is handed out to anyone who cares to show up, no income limits involved.
After the people get what they can use, the Future Farmers of America parents take what their kids can use to feed their livestock and then and only then does the remainder get taken to the landfill. Tons of food is saved from being wasted, people and animals are fed AND our overflowing landfills get a little break.
Correcting myself. My wife had oyster stew at a local restaurant last year. I recall it was good.
She saw that I’d written ‘clams’ on the white board. She asked if I’m making clam chowder tomorrow. (Read: Make clam chowder tomorrow.) So I’ll get some clams in the morning and make salmon chowder only with clams instead of salmon for dinner. Might even pick up a baguette.
Glad your boss has your back and got you some air cover.
I’m so addicted to home-roasted pumpkin seeds, one year, I collected over 50 full-size big ol’ pumpkins being given away for free by a local church that had to get rid of their Pumpkin Patch supplies in a hurry.
That was the day I learned the limitations of the rear suspension of a lil’ hatchback.
I’m also pretty sure my neighbors thought I’d gone off the deep end. Picture pumpkins lining all up and down the driveway, throughout November and into December, until I could get around to carving and roasting them all.
… such a good winter. I probably ate close to my body weight in pumpkin seeds. No regrets.
I like onions! What are these “dried rings” of which you speak?
… I am intrigued …
I think I whined a while ago about my mother, this time specifically her throwing a toddler-style tantrum because her frienemy posted a birthday video to F.B. on behalf of her daughter … ?
Well, we’ve had zero contact since then. Usually I call her up on Mondays (my “always” day off at this job; the 2nd floats around) but I haven’t called since that dumb fight she picked. Every time I picked up my phone, I’d see a transcript of what went on, and I just … didn’t wanna, in a “fuck that bitch, I don’t need toxic ppl in my life” kind of way.
But … my dad’s health is worse than hers, and I do kinda sort wanna be in some kind of touch with them, dammit, despite her … I dunno, being her.
Anyway, I sent her a careful, neutral text (“Hi, just wondering how you & Dad are doing” kind of thing … with smiley face … just trying to check in and cautiously approach a fraught situation) earlier this afternoon, and maybe she doesn’t know that I can see immediately that she read and did not respond - the proper parlance is “She left me on Read” - but I know.
I went to a health event at Lake Erie college in Oct. And was about to grab a large bag of Kachava protein powder. It was heavy so I thought I’d wait til I was ready to leave. Oops, all the bags were gone!
Skip the baguette. Get some Parker House whomp biscuits but substitute a baguette instead.
That way both halves of the meal will harmonize. 
Seriously though … that meal, and all your cooking, sounds totally delish. I hope Wifey RN appreciates your culinary bounty.
She seems to.
Seriously, if I had known how easy it is to make chowder, I would have been making it for decades.
As someone who’s gone no contact with both my parents, I think people underestimate how difficult it is, even logistically. I’m lucky in that nobody in my family speaks to my Mom anymore (which is tragic for her, it really makes me feel bad, but… she really made her own bed.) But that kind of decision affects everyone involved with that person, often in ways you can’t anticipate.
The reality for a lot of people is just having to carve out those boundaries and figure out the possibilities for that relationship that don’t involve being all in or all out. In many ways I think that’s more challenging. I certainly found it more difficult to do, especially because these toxic people tend to walk all over other people’s boundaries.
What has helped me in the past was not having to make everything into an ultimatum but recognizing when I needed distance and to avoid some toxic behavior. I framed it at the time as, “This doesn’t have to be what I’m doing forever. This is what I’m doing right now.” “Right now” could last two days or two months, but giving myself that out helped me avoid a lot of guilt stress.
Some people do get by that way. In my case I really felt I had no choice but to cut my mother out completely, forever, but that doesn’t mean everyone can or should.
In the case of my Father in Law, who is a less extreme example and much, much harder to extricate myself from, I’ve really just had to accept that I don’t like him anymore and there’s nothing he can offer me. And if I go with that narrative, I can see him around or have a pleasant conversation all while thinking, “You’re such a fucking tool” and it doesn’t really affect me as much as it would if I were trying to connect with him on a deeper level. That is still a work in progress but it’s an example where I have to strike a balance.
My hockey team is giving me angina, but the martini was good. And tonight is Cheesy chicken and Egg Noodles.
My mom worked a 3-11 shift, so I had to learn domestic skills. But it is a good way to woo women.
Sorry about the Uncle, Flyboy
How you doin’?
And you think I CDO over things, LOL!!!
After I stopped working, the next thing on my list was to stop smoking tobacco. It was fairly easy to do because I really wanted to quit, but I also lived on salted in-shell pumpkin seeds for a week. Things got very interesting in the bathroom, I do not recommend!
She is probably also trying to frame a careful, neutral text…because you are her only daughter and she might need you to take care of her some day.
One of my friends “picked up” his wife at a laundromat. He did know how to do laundry, but he saw her and thought she was really cute so pretended to not know how to deal with his laundry. They were together for almost 50 years before she passed away.
I just got a text that there will be another surplus truck tomorrow. This means I will have to get up early two days in a row, that’s just not what I retired to do! One of the ladies I pick up doesn’t want another box and TC friend doesn’t want a box. Imma start calling people, I know the boxes are a bit of a pain, but there is going to be a semi-truck full of perishable food at the community center, it would be horrible for it to all go to waste.
In 1979 jobs were hard to find. The place that I had been working closed their doors. I showed up for work and the doors were chained shut. My brother in law was working for a place while he waited (in vain) to get hired by the fire dept. He said that I should talk to Steve and maybe he would hire me. I went in and talked to him. We seemed to get along and he asked when I could start. I told him that I wasn’t doing anything at that moment. He said that 8.00 am the next day would be just fine.
I worked there 42 years. Steve hired me in the middle of a recession when there were no jobs available. He saved my family and our future. My debt to him can never be repaid.
I got a text last evening from the man who took over for Steve when he retired. Steve is in the last stages of cancer and has a couple of months to live. I am not sure how to react to this, but I am very sad.
I think you should write Steve a letter and tell him how you feel about what he did for you. You probably won’t hear back, but if Steve reads it, it will make him smile.
But wouldn’t you get bored with daily meals, alphabetized spices, clean litterboxes, and clean laundry hung up on color coded hangers? 
{{{{hippie and Steve}}}}
Oh, my, aren’t you an optimist.
Aww, JtheC is right on this one. If you can let him know even ^^ now - not later, when it’s too late - it would be a good thing.
ETA:
I’m absolutely solid on 3/5 of those.
(Which two are of utter unimportance has been left as an exercise for the reader.)
(Alphabetized spices and color coded hangers.)
Damn, I am predictable.
Same 2 as Jane~not alphabetized spices or color coded hangers. Girls like us don’t hang clothes up, how could the cats sleep in their rightful place if they aren’t kept in stacks or in the laundry basket?
Isn’t it lovely to be ‘known’?
When the dryer full of towels buzzes, I always wake VBC up so she can follow me to the bedroom and burrow into the warm, clean towels for a nice nap.