There is this:
(one of my favorite beers, tovarish!)
The home for giant-sized candy bars is Cracker Barrel’s store - if you get a hankerin’ for a one pound Snickers!! Or other things. I think I saw a giant gummy bear there once.
But no coconut, thanks. Taste and texture both turn me off.
My dad died at 72. His dad died at 72. His mother died in 1972. I’m going to be 70 in January - I intend to break the streak!
Home from the school (and subsequent stop at Salsa’s for lunch.) The folks that showed up to help got a lot of work done. I was less successful trying to rassle with the wifi hotspots. I suggested to FCD that we just call for and pay for professional help with that. He agreed. When it comes to networks, we know just enough to be dangerous, so we’ll call our local 'puter guys and see if puppy dog eyes will get a school discount.
It’s been raining and the cold front is coming thru - at 1PM, it’s 61°, tho the sun is just peeking out, so it may warm a bit. Or not. I don’t care. I’m inside for the day. Time to assume the recline position.
My Father died at age 46 in 1954. I am 70. Three of my four siblings died before reaching my age. My eldest Sister passed at 82, as did my Mother. At this point I have actually outlived my entire immediate family but have 13 years to go to outlive everyone by age
I disagree. To me, they’re giant extraterrestrial rats minus all cuteness normal Earth rats possess.
Well, life has its irritants right now. DH, the cats, and I are in a motel (Misty is staying with a friend of ours. She’d have been willing to take the cats as well, but DH and I decided we needed them with us for morale) while massive plumbing work is being done in our apartment. They’re also planning to replace our living room carpet with vinyl and replace the kitchen vinyl as well. The earliest we’ll even be allowed back in is Monday, but Tuesday’s more likely. Then we get to spend several days finding the bed, reconstructing the living room, etc.
The cats are spending much time under the covers, with occasional ventures out for food, litter, and such. Allie did sleep on our pillows last night (moved from DH to me at some point). Buddy went with “under the covers, plastered against Mom’s legs”. Oddly, Allie (pampered indoor kitty nearly her whole life) is a bit calmer than Buddy (ex-stray). You’d expect a cat with a rougher past to be better able to cope with a change in circumstances.
I feel like a nut, team almond joy and team milk chocolate here.
I check I was expecting on Mon or Tues finally arrived today - postmarked 9/29, coming from Phila…via turtle, I think.
I’ve been crocheting and watching BritBox. FCD doesn’t want supper, so I’ll feast on leftovers. Yep, it’s an exciting day here at FairyChatEstates!
And a good afternoon all, soccer went well, both the 12U boys and the 8U boys won their games and I was able to referee a game after that (well, 3/4 of the game). Then changed and made the Lottery run up Tennessee way, got $30 of forlorn hope in my wallet, but ya never know. Laundry load #1 is churning away and at least 1 more load will be done this afternoon, maybe even 2 if I’m real ambitious. So a fairly active day for the ol’ rat. Temperature is still under 70F outside, so a real nice day to have been out,
boo fae, six minute connections…never been a commuter, but that’s cutting it close, isn’t it? Glad you did make it to the music-fest.
{{shoe}}, glad things have settled down some, hopefully GC can make up his forgetfulness to you soon–and in person…
Mowage tomorrow for me, swampy. Next door has the worst lawn on the block so I don’t have to worry.
Same here. Haven’t been to Cracker Barrel in quite some time…may have to add it to the Sunday list one of these days.
And IIRC, your mom is still going strong at 80+, so you take after her.
Nettie, 
That’s quite an ‘irritant’; I’d call it a major-league headache. Is the apartment complex picking yp any of the hotel bill (or at least giving you a break on your rent?).
Whew, sounds like the underwear is on it’s final spin, so need to prep the next load and check the tackleball scores. All y’all take care.
Perhaps I’ll take after my mother’s side. Her mother died at 92, as did her grandfather.
She turns 90 a couple of weeks before I hit 70. Her parents died in their mid-80s, so if all goes well, I’ll inherit longevity from Mom’s side since I got the thinning hair from Dad’s side. 
It’s quite chilly here, and windy. I may actually close some windows before bedtime.
OK, this time I’m really leaving the computer. At least for a little while.
Hi all! It’s mid-afternoon as I finally get around to badgerin’ y’all fer the first time today.
My day started an hour pre-dawn and yes, the Wi-Fi on the balcony is much improved. Woot! Once the Sun emerged from the sea I came inside and a bit later launched for the beach, the carwash, slow breakfast, and a long phone yak w a pilot pal suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous employee fortune. I’m definitely feelin’ over it; that irk thing sounds pretty irksome. Ask me again though in about a month when no paycheck appears at the usual timeslot.
It being the weekend, the beach had a lot more people but was still uncrowded. The ocean was nearly flat, unlike the decent surf of 3-ish days ago when I last went. Bright bright sunshiny day still now and 89/32 on the way to 91/33 maybe.
Sounds like Swampy & FCM have days planned that suit their habits perfectly: near-total sloth vs. near-total activity.
Damn Boofae you can’t buy a break on commutes recently. Which god of scheduling did you offend this time, young lady?
OTOH, the night out w music sounds awesome.
For the record I think Mounds are utterly ersatz, right up there with Capn Crunch and Dolly Madison chocolate mini donettes as truly awful kid food. But like those other items, it’s a very satisfying nostalgia rush … once in awhile. FOr that they’re incredibly awesome.
I’d never heard of OCHO before, but those do look good. If I find them locally where I can buy 1, not a box, I sure will.
These are my non-kidfood actually-good coconut chocolate treats. They’re a local Florida product I’d never seen before getting here, but they’re in all the groc stores here. Apparently they now have at least some national distribution :
They come in a couple of different form factors and flavors, but these are the basic model. Tres yummy.
Glad to hear your unavailability for us was for a good cause :evil leer: ! Even if that good cause flaked on you. Again. But hooray for him doing the right thing even if for the wrong reason. 
Good luck with Longest Night tonight. Please, please bring us back a tale of drunks or homeless or moronic cow-orkers or Karens of either gender, but no tales of injuries, jerky GMs, or attempted robberies.
Taters seems like you/we should rename your MPA the Mostly Pointless Accessory. Just like fake pockets on lady’s pants: might look useful, but isn’t really.
There have been places on roads where somebody has carved transverse grooves that create melodious noise when ordinary car tires run over it. Musical rumble strips. Great fun.
Here’s one near your old stompin’ grounds in the CA high desert:
I don’t suppose the fact you look a lot like the guy on the label has anything to do with that, does it? 
I had one of those when we met at that brewpub. it was indeed a damned good beer.
That is, as far I know, the only place (except Amazon of course, but they’re cheating) in the USA to buy a genuine Chunky.
Ouch! But it sounds like the good news is they’ve jumped right in on solving the problem and fixing the consequential damage so you’ll be good as new soon. Which is more than several of our other renters can say about their situations with maintenance problems.
As to me again:
We will be going out here in a bit for medium-fancy steak & seafood. Waited until mid afternoon on Sat to make our restaurant selection and so seating would either be kinda-early or stupid-late. So kinda-early it is. Nice to not have a rainy late afternoon for a change. Should have a nice spot on their large covered patio. Best of all I won’t need to pack my parka to overcome the excessive air conditioning so common around here.
Cheers all! Happy Sat night to all!!
Right now I’m crocheting Christmas stockings. Can’t wait to the last minute.
This morning I went on a walking tour of my high school campus. It’s been fifty years, and I like meeting classmates and reliving old times. Only one thing made me kind of sad. Even ten years ago at the 40th I could still recognize at least some of us. This morning I couldn’t unless I was introduced, then came facial recognition. There’s a reception this evening and I’ll be leaving in a little while for that. I hope to see some other people.
The internetz suggest I may be able to find those near me at W*llymart. Worth a try~I’ll hoist one in your direction in your honor if I find them on the shelf.
They’re reimbursing part of the hotel (as a rent credit) and giving a per-day rent credit for the time the apartment is uninhabitable. We may wind up choosing to stay an extra day at the motel even after we’re officially allowed back in to give DH a little more time to mine out the bed, etc. (had to empty the living room into other rooms. Ugh).
Yep. That came about after I moved up here. I did think about that in the dream, but in the dream I wanted the car to make music wherever it went.
It’s the texture that does me in. All those little ptuis.
When I last had cats, one was a pet shop kitty I inherited from my sister who moved where she couldn’t take her and the other was orphaned as a barn kitten. The one that I had to keep an eye on whenever I opened a door was the always-indoor pet shop princess Figaro. My orphan Domino wanted nothing to do with the outdoors.
Prescription, a 6 pack of drawers and the missed bleach from yesterday were picked up. The car is clean inside and out and supper (pan fried poke chop, sweet potato hashbrowns and salad) et and am relaxing with a small, reddish dog in my arms. Life is good. 
Evening all Load #4 is on final spin and then will go to the dryer. Still have to fold/hang most of the items, that will be a job for a little later on. Dinner is being assimilated and the temperature is approaching 60F, so all is well with the world at Casa Rat. Don’t feel tired despite the hours of soccer and getting up at 5:30am, so bedtime will be whenever I feel like it.
Pilot, I have heard of those roads, but loved the video, will have to see if there are any around the Southland (my guess is no, this looks like a California thing).
Cupcakes, happy crotcheting, even if you mentioned that holiday well before Halloween… 
Nettie, glad the apartment folks are doing the right thing…and concur an extra day without the rush to move back in may make for a much easier transition.
OK, just heard the washer shutting down, so time to move the towels to the dryer. Have a good evening all.
Howdy Y’all! Pizza got ordered cause the urge was strong for both of us. Then it got et. Dawgs are up 14 - 0 on the Kaintuckee Kitties. Don’t know if I’ll make it through the whole game as sleepiness is upon me. I achieved nappage earlier, but I guess mowage wore me out. I’s feelin’ tahrd.
I’ve never attended a reunion of my HS or college.
My late first wife went to her IIRC 25th (30th?) HS reunion. I came along. We had a great time, but yeah, some folks then were unidentifiable to her although once she had a name she recognized / remembered them. I can’t imagine what another 25 years would have done. There was of course the semi-awkwardness of those who had stayed in town & sorta stayed in touch the whole time versus the ones who, like her, had moved away, lived & worked elsewhere for decades, and were just flying in for the event to fly back out in a couple days. Lots of cordial, but there were clearly two different teams: home and visitors.
My 50th HS will be in SoCal in another 3-ish years if anyone there is putting it on. I could imagine making the trek.
I predict you won’t be disappointed.
I expect that much is required by law. Darn shame they’re not going to go beyond that. You might want to check with whatever renters or liability insurance you may have. They might have a provision to pay you something for loss of use above and beyond what the landlord is providing. Best of luck in any case.
The magic search term on YouTube is [Musical rumble strip]. I saw several vids not in CA but selected that one just because I knew it was near Flyboy’s ancestral home.
The hardest part of all the day drinkin’ fer me is staying awake long enough to eat dinner. Much less watch a game after. Same fer y’all ah reckon? 
As to me:
Went to nice dinner. Arrived about 90 minutes before sunset so fully light but sun is getting low in the west. Warm, few clouds, & not quite calm. It’s in a fairly new corporate park area of 4-story mirror-glass office buildings, 3-story hotels, and a few nice restaurants. All poured around a couple of ~2 acre lakes. Lakes (retention ponds really) are a common feature around here to capture the insane runoff from all the pavement and our high rainfall rates. The nice part is they make great wildlife refuges.
So there we sat lakeside watching the two flocks of ~a dozen white ibis each busily probing the surrounding grass for yummy insects. And one white heron / egret patiently wade-fishing in the shallows. And one large Canada goose nearby that was strangely stationary (and quiet!) until we noticed it was plastic. Yup, a decoy, though not for hunting. Bucolic and restful. Ahh, Nature. Suburban-style, but Nature at least sorta.
Next thing we see, maybe 100 yards away, so hard to make out, is a cobra pop up out of the water. A cobra?!? Sure looks like it, but they’re not aquatic, nor endemic around here. Unlike African pythons who are (now) endemic. Looks like a miniature Nessie, just an S-shaped animated 1" diameter tube poking up 12-18". Shaking the bulging upper end vigorously. Pretty quickly we figure out it’s a cormorant who’s caught a silver fish and is worrying the thing trying to get it aligned head first to go down the hatch. The whole bird is under water and all we see is this long curving neck, slight swell of a head, and the silver fish gripped in the invisible beak and flopping madly. After a good 30 seconds where we figure the bird is sure to drop the fish, nope, it finally ends up headfirst and down the bird’s gullet. The circle of life goes on. The bird disappears underwater again; apparently one small fish does not a meal make.
A bit later the cormorant neck reappears maybe 20 feet astern of the goose decoy. It periscopes around then sets course for the stern of the goose. Suddenly the bird explodes out of the water and is mounting the goose from behind. We think we’re about to see some interspecies rape of a Canadensis Plasticus. Wrong.
The cormorant slithers awkwardly up onto the goose’s back, looking kind of like penguins leaping from water to ice floe, stands up, turns around, and spreads its wings to dry in that classic cormorant pose. It shakes wings, body, and tail in turn like a dog spraying water everywhere then just stands there with wings spread on the back of this goose facing sternward for the next 10 minutes. A very silly sight.
Later the same cormorant climbed a tree. Not flew into a tree. Climbed up the trunk from the ground and clambered out onto the branches. Then snagged a lizard on a twig. I’ve never seen that before. Then a bit later it flew across the lake and landed high in another tree. So nothing wrong with its wings; it wasn’t a cripple who’d learned to make do on the ground and in the water. That was one crazy-assed bird.
As late first wife and I used to say about many restaurant meals: it’s not the food; it’s the floor show. Which was usually wry commentary on our fellow diners or the drama amongst the staff. Not this time.
Dinner itself was nice. We started with a stuffed mushrooms app; 6 decent-sized caps stuffed with spinach & lump crab, each topped with a decent size butterflied and lightly panko-ed shrimp then briefly broiled to brown & crisp. Nice.
Her Ladyship had her usual filet, while I had a lamb loin which was fantastic. Distinctly lamb flavored, but not fatty, greasy, or gamey as lamb legs, lamb racks, or lamb chops can often be. Except for the flavor it could have been a beef sirloin. Perfectly cooked too. Both came with Yukon mashed and brocollini. I’m generally not wild about brocollini, but even this was good tonight. Put enough butter & garlic on last week’s road-killed skunk and it’d be yummy.
In honor of the lamb I had a New Zealand Pinot Noir that appeared promising in the description, but disappointing in the tasting. 15+(!) years ago when I regularly had business there in NZ the local foodies gave me some advice: NZ whites are almost all great; NZ reds are almost all trash. It appears that despite 15 more years of practice NZ has still not figured out reds. Oh well. Lesson learned. At least it was a skimpy serving.
Now back home in the dark I’m enjoying a Single Malt & badgerin’ y’all while Her Ladyship is watching yet more of The Outsider. The more I half pay attention to this show the less I understand.
Here’s hopin’ Nellie & Cookie sleep well and discomfort-free. And Shoe gets released early with no need to hose homeless poop off the building. And everybody else has a good night as well.
Bedtime in an hour+ and tomorrow’s another not-so-busy day. G’Night!
Today the tide, weather, and weekend cooperated, so I took the kayak down to the beach. I paddled down the beach and up Terrell Creek. Three point three miles round-trip, in just over an hour. Going up Terrell Creek was easy, but getting out the venturi that is the mouth of the creek had a 3 mph incoming current from the tide. It was all I could do to paddle out into the bay. I also discovered that it’s easier to paddle down the beach with the tide coming in than it is to paddle up the beach with the tide coming in. When I got to my home beach, I managed to dump myself getting out of the kayak. First time that’s happened in over 20 years of paddling.
Paso del Norte for dinner tonight. I had three à la carte fish tacos. They came with double tortillas, so I took the ‘extra’ tortillas off. I also had honey-habanero hot wings. We each had two grande margaritas. Now home, and chillin’ time.
Well, swampy, seems like your Dawgs acquitted themselves in fine fashion (vanquished Kentucky 44-13). It’s safe for you to tip back your last libation and retire for a peaceful slumber. Goodnight, sleep tight. I’m going to check YT for game highlights, I’m sure they’ll be fun.
I finished my new mystery novel from the library and now have moved on to a much older book by the same author. Don’t anybody worry just because I read a hundred murder mysteries a year~I don’t have enough ambition to put any ideas into action. Besides, I always have a sleeping cat on my lap and she gets mightily
pissed off if I jostle her slumbers. Pissed off Siameses are not to be trifled with.