I made waffles for Mrs. L.A Sunday – plus 18 more that she can heat’n’eat during the week. When I got home Tuesday she informed me that the toaster oven wouldn’t heat up. I’d unplugged it to plug in a battery charger, and it was still unplugged.
Man, the smoke is bad today. Even the cats are sneezing and have watery eyes. Now the fire is headed up the hill into the San Bernardino mountains and is currently threatening the community of Angeles Oaks. The wind last night took down what was left of the dead alder tree in the back yard. I think the only thing that kept it upright was habit. Now I’ll have to take the saber saw and turn the trunk into fuel for the fire pit this winter.
Home today due to unhappy sinuses, massive fatigue, and a bit of the whirlies.
We did settle on the bird’s name: Misty. DH really liked that one, and I didn’t have an overwhelming preference for any other possible, so we went with the one he felt strongly about.
Trust your gut. You are nicer than I’d be. I’d be researching the child abuse and sex offender registry. Makes one worry about the kids who live in his house, especially in the years to come. Keep trusting your instincts-if Ive learned one thing over the years its that they are rarely wrong.
I’ll consider it if you take the clothes out of the dryer as soon as it stops and always shut the toilet lid so the cats don’t drink the water. I hate it when that happens.
So far so good. The repair person arrived on time, wearing a mask (extra bonus points) and is pleasant. He’s been here a while. Sounds expensive, a leak in the coolant compressor. Today is visit 2. Visit 3 will be after the part is shipped in. I wonder if doggio will have to sort that package too. I’ll ask the guy to be sure it has the right address on it and is scanned, just in case. He just went out to his truck to get a hammer and is pounding on something. Not a good sign.
Been there, done that. Does this mean you have to sit in time out, one minute for each year of your age? Be sure to have a drink in your hand. Kids can’t tell if it is rum and coke. Just looks like a coke, especially if you put a straw in it.
Kind of like In my kitchen the other day-put the oven on preheat. Smoke and stench filled the room. Here’s a tip: don’t stash your Tupperware in the oven cause you ran out of room in the cupboard. Four days later the smell is almost gone. Almost.
BBBBoo (Big bad burn ‘em up Boo)
I stash a couple of cast iron frying pans in the oven. It doesn’t seem to hurt them when I leave them in. 
Just pretend you’re reseasoning them.
I do the same with my cast iron pizza pan.
We’ve got smokey skies again today. This is supposed to go on until Sunday, when the winds change to westerly, which is normal for this time of year. There is a level one evacuation notice for the northern part of Clackamas county, which is just south of where we live. Hopefully that won’t change for the worse.
In other kitchen news, the food processor exploded last night.
OK, not literally. I was grating some cheddar for burritos when the top of the handle, which covers the safety mechanism, popped off. That irked me because after years of use, I just replaced the bowl – I think less than a year ago. (I kept an extra under the cupboard, just in case.) I looked for a replacement, and the ones I found for sale were between $51 and $67 – for a 7-cup Kitchenaid food processor, and I don’t think they came with the top part. I can buy a new 7-cup Kitchenaid food processor for $90 on Amazon.
I discovered I can still use the food processor though, by the simple insertion of a couple of chopsticks down the top of the now-open handle. 
Yeah, pretty much. I wipe them out after use, then put them back onto the bottom rack in the oven. I reckon the oil/grease residue will eventually turn to carbon and I’ll have a non-stick surface. (And it’s working out very well, thankyouverymuch!)
Want to swap mothers for a bit? Mine always wanted long hair but it wouldn’t get long, so she grows mine instead- there’s no such thing as too long, and I was never allowed to cut it short. She doesn’t believe in dyeing it either- admittedly, I wanted to go funky colours, rather than cover grey, but…
Irk is being, well, interesting. I shall genuinely be surprised if everyone in the department makes it through 'til Christmas without going off due to stress. It was bad enough last year (not so much for me, as I was only peripherally involved), but this year’s dialled it up to 11. I thought working with plants was supposed to be a relaxing occupation, but it’s apparently not relaxing enough to counter the general college madness.
Someone just posted on Facebook a 4-5 week old kitten with no tail and a spinal deformity/rear leg issue. It’s this bitty little lynx-point who would pretty much definitely get adopted when he’s big enough… and also having a foster mom in a wheelchair would make a good story.
I don’t usually go for pointed (“Siamese”) cats or white ones because everyone wants them. So they don’t need me because someone else will take them and I can take the cats nobody else wants. So I’m giving it a little time. I do admit that I’m a sucker for short or absent tails.
Also, looking again, apparently he has a URI. One of my two would probably be able to be treated if he got it (oral meds, anyway. Maybe not eyedrops) since he already takes meds and has a routine and can be scruffed if need be. The other… if she got a cold, it could be bad. She doesn’t let anyone touch her but me and with me, it’s on her terms. Also, I have some suspicions that her genes might not be fully… conventional. I’m not going to get into that unless anyone is dying to know (or really wants to see pictures of my cats) because it gets long and fiddly, but… overall, day-to-day, I think trying to put her through a lot of testing, restraint, transport, handling, etc. on a hunch when she eats, drinks, plays, uses the litterbox, and cuddles (only with me, but it means she could learn to with someone else if something happened to me)… it’s not a clear decision.
On the other hand, a new/temporary kitten ought to be separated from the residents at first anyway and I do have a spare room…
Today’s song chorus:
Migraine
Eye pain
Smoky, gloomy
Gimme rain.
Startled awake at 5:30 a.m. by world’s noisiest truck. Why it arrived so early (It’s usually 7:15.), I don’t know. It emptied the cardboard recycling bin, which somehow sounds like someone repeatedly dumping 1,000 metal lawn chairs and then finishing off by dropping a minibus. Then it took two tours around the complex–no reason, and it’s never done it before. Maybe the driver was mad he had to work at stupid-thirty, or maybe he was still drunk from last night. Migraine started not long after that. On the downhill now–I’m here and all. I blame the smoky haze and the stupid recycling truck.
Prayers and crossed fingers for all in much more danger and worse smoke than I am. Susan and silenus (I love those Proverbs versus, BTW), try not to inhale, and keep us posted.
wordy, stay snoopy and resolute. In a former former life, I worked with dozens of kids who’d been sexually assaulted, and that gut feeling is seldom wrong. Also, inviting kids IN the house while his own are OUT is a huge red flag. It’s not “He doesn’t know better”; it’s “He knows what he’s doing.” Keep watching: you may save someone else’s kid a very bad experience. Have you checked to see if he’s on a sex offender’s list? And sorry you’ve been in pain. 
Doggio, sorry about the bad day. Sugarmamas are bad for you. Go for spicemamas or Nutrasweeties.
Mooooooooooooooooooom, 
your little freezer isn’t frost-free? And you’re a wonderful gramma. Call the extra time in time-out Self-Reflection Time or Meditative Centering Time, and you’ll start a new trend. Paging Gwyneth Paltrow…
swampy, definitely go with chef’s hat and pearls, but maybe save the matching earrings for making charlotte russe or some other fancy, high-falutin’ vittles.
My little freezer is a cheapie, so no, not frost free. Well, it is frost free at the moment, and I just finished reloading it. But it’s pretty empty - I think I’ll pull some stuff out of the other freezer. Or I could shop for more food. 
First carpet guy just left. Chatty local boy - he had friends who lived down the street from me. FCD and I need to go to his showroom to decide what carpet we want, if we decide to go with him. The other guy comes tomorrow morning - his company put in our current carpet. And his showroom is really close.
It appears that no matter who we go with, there could be a wait, since everybody and his brother is doing home improvement stuff while stuck home with COVID, and supplies can take time to come it. Not that we’re in a huge rush. This guy mentioned being done before the holidays, but that’s not an issue - we’ll probably be in FL anyway. At least for Thanksgiving. So we shall see.
Meanwhile, nappage continues, despite stoopit Higgs barking.
Now, I need to think about supper.
Ha. I guess the grass isn’t always greener. If my mom were in control I’d have helmet head and it would all be blonde. Much to my mom’s chagrin, I keep dying it burgundy or purple and it has grown from my chin to around my shoulderblades. I’ll probably dye it blue this time - I’m working from home anyway and we don’t use video much.
I’m sorry to hear about the stress at work. Any way you can hide behind a plant?
We’re in this creepy lull at work, which is making me squirmy.
[quote=“dogbutler, post:176, topic:919994”]
And the package going to
Test
test test test
test, 27604
(000)-000-000
you’re not getting your stuff any time soon.[/quote]
Okay, that made me laugh.
Ya meet my requirements. Do I hafta be rich or anything?
… yes? Oh, well, dang.
Dafuq I checked my code - no idea why one quote worked and one didn’t.
Oh, well. How y’all do that cute little shrugging guy made out of backslashes?
I slept IN this morning. Till eleven! 
Self, I consider you to be fully rested!
I have a couple biggish things I oughta get done, but I have been productive on the piddly littler things: nearly all the dishes are clean 
I cleared half my counter & started lunch prep (another fried green tomato, and yes, A tomato counts as lunch. I eat small portions.)
Most of the clean laundry is folded and put away, and I found the big, square ceramic dish I like using for Pretzel’s water among my half-unpacked shit. (She’s been slumming it with a glass mixing bowl, like some plebian!) She’s due for her next meal, and since I have two adult rats I’ve identified as “hard culls” I’m gonna see if she’ll pig out and double up. Winter. Is. Coming. and that’s when she fasts for months, so I gotta pack some meat on her bones.
The weather is my kind of perfect: cool-ish and partly cloudy. There’s a squirrel jabbering incessantly right outside my open window, and a blue jay is singing the song of his people nearby.
I haz a contented.
I understood every single word of it. Think of it this way – he’s channeling Kopek again!!
And this really made me laugh because Kopek said this exact thing to me more than once:
"I’m sure she does it repeatedly because she thinks “[Kopek] is hard working and nucking futs, and he’ll get the job done!”
And Doggie, I’m too lazy to go back and quote but I loved “anvil gnomes”!!! You can even buy your very own:
Each quote tag (beginning and ending) has to be on its own separate line.
Your second quote tag wasn’t. [/PSA]
The lazy person’s biscuit making recipe:
Retrieve package of whomp biskits from refrigerator.
Whomp package against edge of countertop
Do it again until package breaks open
Unroll the springy tube packaging and drag the dough out
Separate the blobs - yes there are creases in there, somewhere.
Put the blobs on cookie sheet - oh wait
Find the cookie sheet behind the unused pots and pans in the back room
Cook the blobs according to the package directions - oh wait
Fish the package out of the garbage so you can read the directions.
Go find your magnifying glass so you can read the directions
After 20 minutes looking for magnifying glass, make your best guess
Turn on the oven, which you forgot to do to begin with
Go back to what you were doing before you decided you wanted biskits until you smell something burning
Scrape the burned parts off and enjoy your biskits.
Hope you guys on the west side of the state get some relief from the fires soon. They say you might get some rain Monday. That’d be nice. Wifey’s over there right now dealing with a couple of real estate transactions and getting power restored to the ‘big house’, but she’s coming back here Friday. I stayed here to deal with the concrete contractor.
When they started excavating in the basement yesterday we discovered that the basement walls were poured without footings. After some discussion we decided not to excavate after all and just raise the floor a few inches instead. We’ll still have almost 8’ of headroom.
So anyway, the gravel is in and compacted and vapor barrier placed. Just need concrete.
Also I have to cut off the bottoms of my in-swinging basement doors. This required me to move three hinges, that have been peacefully rusting in place for almost 100 years, from the bottoms of the doors up to a third of the way up. Yesterday I removed said hinges and got one of them re-positioned. I tossed one, and need to go to the hardware store to get replacement bolts for the other 'cause I mangled the old bolts getting them out. Took me all day, with the help of a spring bar, a crowbar, a hammer, vise grips, a crescent wrench, and a big-assed screwdriver, used as a cold chisel. Twas fun (not).
I may need one of those anvil gnomes. 
Oh crap! Ebay. I don’t buy things from ebay anymore.
Time to eat my pho, which is pronounced ‘fuh’, so why isn’t it spelled ‘fuh’?
Later.
My late husband used to separate the blobs and instead of baking them, FRY them, Deep fat is best, but deep-ish fat works, too. Poke a hole in the middle before frying, if you’ve a mind to. Dust with powdered sugar when done and still hot. Thus supporting the culinary principle that everything is better when deep fried. 
Bumba - I love your recipe!! It’s similar to my crescent roll recipe!
Daughter came and got her child, plus a few other things from the basement. SIL never did show up - big surprise there. 
But to be fair, it was mostly raining today. In fact, right now, there are major thunder-boomers in the vicinity.
I deviled some eggs. And I asked FCD if he wants to go out for supper, but now I don’t think I want to go - the downpours are supposed to continue till after 9. So we’ll just forage. I wish one of the Chinese places around here delivered, but we’re too far from any of them. Oh well…