I enjoy LUSH stuff when I can afford it, which is almost never these days. However, I’m none too thrilled with their hennas. Maybe my hair has gotten too dark for henna to show up properly on it, but I’m no longer getting that amazing bright auburn-red color I used to get when I bought my henna from the local Indian grocery store in Tallahassee.
Hi y’all.
I’m back in Virginia. Learned a lot.
The most important thing I learned was to never leave my desk again for a week unless I can check my email and take care of business from wherever I am. Roundboy handled all the easy stuff and left a big pile of poop on my desk for me to clean up, and the new guy who was supposed to take up some of my work has instead added to my workload.
swampy, I now know all about those pieces of equipment on your beer line that have been made by the company with the initials E. H. I heard you have a bunch of their equipment down there at the Miller plant.
I’ll try to catch up with the MMP after I’ve caught up with the crap here.
Hmm, so how was my lunchtime adventure you ask?
Well, being in the mood for something greasy and fried, I drove to the Popeyes by us here. Ran in, got my little bag of food, get in the car, turn the key, and ‘click’ ‘click’
Swear profusely. Then remember that I have a small stable of mechanics at my beck and call. Ok, they’re BUS mechanics, but hey a battery is a battery and jumper cables are jumper cables, right?
So, I sit to eat my bag o’greasy chicken, and wait. Rick and the other guy show up, jump the thing, get it running, I say thanks, buy them their own bags o’grease and decide it’s Off to Sears for a new battery.
But wait.
At the last minute I remember that the Sears card is sitting on my dresser. No sweat, I’ll stop home, run in through the garage, grab the card and leave the car running.
Which it was most distinctly NOT doping when I got back downstairs.
Swear profusely.
Hear more 'click’s
Get on the phone and call the Local Friendly Garage, which lies about halfway between my house and here. They send a truck, this guy jumps it again, and we agree on him following me back to their shop, where a battery will be installed this afternoon. This place is literally in sight of my office here, so I just walked over from there, and when they call, I’ll stroll back for the car.
But dammit. I left my cold, icy Diet Coke in the car!!!
Okay. Putting up that restaurant website was NOT fair, taxi! I clicked on “see a plate,” and it looked so incredibly yummy I instantly leaped to my feet and ran in the kitchen to get myself some food!
I’m so glad to hear Libby is doing better! Continued prayers for her continuing improvement!
Good to see you again, nashii. That sucks about the difficulties of getting a library job, though. I hope things look up for you in that regard shortly.
Saildope photos were pretty! And I loved the Cyrillic photo captions, too.
And back-to-school photos were cute, Ellen! It seems like school starts earlier every year, though. I have no idea why, but it still seems just wrong to me to start school before Labor Day.
I have a whine today. I am 53 freakin’ years old. So why, when I looked in the mirror this morning, did I discover not one, not two, but three little zits on my nose??? Argh! I am too OLD to have freakin’ zits!!!
Tentacle porn. Hee!
That’s where **Papa Tigs **should have gone when he was in the Twin Cities a couple weeks ago, not the MoA! (It was Papa Tigs who was up here visiting relatives, right?)
Sorry to hear about your car troubles Bus Dude. And the lack of diet coke. That’s almost as bad as haze’s sugarless coffee this morning! One’s source of caffeine should not be messed with!
I need creative ideas! For reasons that are too long to go into, a group of friends who were at the wedding last weekend are now all teasing the newlyweds about the idea of them having 7 kids someday. So we want to give them something (cheap and easily procurable!) that will be easy to interpret as representing 7 kids. Like 7 little Fisher Price dolls, but I don’t know how easy that would be to get our hands on without having to buy all the play sets that they go with. 7 jars of baby food? Other thoughts?
So the kids are healthy and innoculated against various things again.
Bryan still has a touch of bronchitis but it is clearing up nicely.
Oy vay! Do not EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER go to Costco if you haven’t been in months. I renewed our membership and spent another $597.00 after renewing the membership. I can’t remember the last time I spent that much money at Costco. But, we have meat o’plenty and I broke down and bought one of those Food Saver thinga-ma-jobs. I’ll be using it very shortly for some groceries I bought.
I’m glad to hear that Libby is doing better.
Sorry to hear of your battery woes MBG.
Well, off to suck air out of plastic so I can stow some groceries.
SCL, yay! on Libby doing better.
Haze, glad you’re feeling better, but this is NOT allowed:
No way! You can’t just throw out a sentence like that and say we can’t ask about it. The questions are screaming out. More info. please.
scout, I haven’t seen you around (much) before. Welcome (back) to the MMP!
**
gotti,** I love that story about the noisy neighbors. My neighbors are pretty close to me calling the police on them. It’s nice to hear that the right thing happens sometimes.
**
taxi**, thanks for the link to the menu although I’m not sure that it answered my question. There was chicken curry and chicken baryanni which sounds kinda Indian to me. And then there was beef marinara which sounds kinda Italian to me. Was the African food the chick suqqar? That’s the only item that jumped out at me as really unfamiliar. It all sounds good, though.
About the 7 kids, do they have those bumper stickers there with the number of kids on it. I’m only seen them on cars, but I’ve seen different numbers of kids on them. I don’t know where to get them either. That’s all I got.
Sean, learning’s good. It’s good to see you back.
Special1, I didn’t tell you this when you first got here cause I’m the polite type and all. But since you’ve done the deed . . . wrote an MMP (was it good for you?), I thought I should share this with you. And especially since you have a proclivity for “playing” with words, I thought you’d appreciate it. Noone is not a word. So either you’re advertising that you’re the lunch of the day (with an e at the end for flair or bad spelling ) or you’re just announcing that you have bad grammar. I’m hereby dubbing you Lunch! Yum!
Glad ya finally posted the damned pics, welby! 
It’ll be a nice surprise for **FCD ** when he gets his butt home. And we figured out why the boat was still in reverse when we were trying to tie up. **FCD ** has been dealing with a variety of nerve issues (hence the 2 spinal surgeries) and he has occasional flares that result in tingling or numbness. He figures that caused him to miss feeling the detente when he tried to put the transmission in neutral. So he’s going to rig up a light that will come on when it’s in neutral, and future dockings should be much easier.
swampy, should it worry me that you, of all people, noticed my butt? 
Today is Bad Chinese dinner! Plus I need to do some laundry. My poor sweetie has to head to Richmond in the morning for a week of training, which means I’m left without adult supervision. hehehe The mind reels at the possibilities. Of course, the reality is that I’ll play with clay and post here and probably go to bed early. Oh yeah, I’m a wild woman.
And before I forget - nice OP, SpecialOne! Sounds like you had a fun, if exhausting, time. You know, if you were clever, you’d have arranged to accidentally run into a bunch of Dopers somewhere along the line. Subtly, you know. 
Yay for Libby! Here’s hoping this is just the start of good things!
And last but not least, I’ve got new shoes! We ordered some Rockports on line last week, and they arrived today. They were on sale and shipping was free, and they look soooooo comfy. I’ll find out tomorrow when I wear mine to work. **FCD ** ordered 2 pair in different colors but they’re the identical shoes he’s worn to pieces, which is why we shopped for them in the first place. Anyway, we’ll now be well-shod.
OMG! But, at least you’ll get about $12 back on that next year.
The Food Saver is a great gizmo. I just wish that the bags cost less or that we saw more of an acquaintance who works for Tilia - every now and then, we were able to get a few boogered-up rolls that they couldn’t sell.
**Heff ** - Adding to the saga is that the noisy ones at the end of the block are renters. My understanding is that some of the neighbors have been in contact with the property owner, so we might become, in the words of the deputy, an “eerily quiet” neighborhood again. 
We should post a sign at the neighborhood entrance: “Renters beware! Your neighbors are good friends with your landlord!”
Gosh, that makes us sound like some chi-chi gated community. In reality, we’re a well-camouflaged “lollipop” neighborhood - there’s only one road in or out from the south. To the west, north and east, we’re bordered by a military installation with no public access. This generally works to our advantage - we don’t have traffic zooming past and we’re invisible. If you don’t know the town exists, you’ll drive up the road, see the big sign for the naval base on one side of the road and a manned guard post on the other side and think you’re lost and turn around in the base parking lot. Regrettably, the Mormons were not so easily fooled.
Although, personally, I liked the interpretation of my name as referring to a “Nooner” 
I wish I had thought of that myself!
Taxi – you should get them a set of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs dolls (I know these exist, 'cos my kids had one) – perhaps either minus the S.W. doll, or better yet, with Prince Charming thrown in for good measure.
Happy Birthday, tigs!
MBG – Sorry about your coke… and about your car woes, although I still suspect that it was easier on you than it would be on Joe Average – sometimes one’s profession comes in handy in off-work life 
SNL – that’s great news about Libby. She should know she has a whole bunch of Dopers pulling for her!
taxi, how about one of these? On preview I see you have to scroll down to “family necklace.” I am pretty sure you can pick one up chez Target or Wally World.
scl, indeed that’s wonderful news about libby.
Checking in somewhat late on this Monday. Today I have been trying to put the house back together since my trips to Mexico/Europe. Two back-to-back international trips never bode well for the housecleaning. I have to apply to jobs, and start studying for the GRE, and all sorts of incredibly mundane stuff that isn’t nearly as interesting as living on a farm in Mexico or cruising the Amalfi coast of Italy.
But, whaddaya gonna do?
It makes me so happy to see you in the OP, Special! Sounds like I wasn’t the only one with an international odyssey this summer. I am happy we just received such fine, upstanding citizens as your children! Noone* else I’d rather share my country with.
*Take that, Roo!
It definitely wasn’t Papa Tigs’ idea to go to the MoA, taxi – he had to take his mom. It was her idea. He’d already been once. 
ETA But he got me a great soft fleece pullover on deep discount at the Made in Minnesota store, so I was quite pleased that he went.
Uhhh…it’s not my birthday, SpecialOne? Till November? Did three months pass and I didn’t notice?
Nearly $600 at Costco, taters? :eek: :eek: Even at my worst, I have never managed to spend that much at a warehouse store! And I tried, too. Of course, I also haven’t gotten that giant plasma HDTV yet, so I’m sure one of these days I’ll rectify the situation. Alas.
Is it a sign of my exciting life that the most thrilling thing to happen to me thus far today is that some socks I’d ordered online arrived today?
Believe you me, I was definitely gulping when I saw the total. The thing is, I don’t normally spend that much there. I usually get out for around $200.00. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.
But, I bought lots of meat, I bought the Food Saver, which by itself cost $124.00, and I bought lots of other food. Really, the only non-food items I purchased were toilet paper, the food saver, two bottles of shampoo for the Bissell, a shirt for me, and a cute little jacket for my daughter. Both the shirt and jacket were well under $20.00 a piece.
Much as I don’t want to right now, I need to do some housework. The house is driving me crazy right now.
Considering I often leave Target with $50-$100 of things (when I went in for say $20 of stuff) it’s a good thing I don’t have a Costco membership.
I don’t have the money OR the storage space for that kind of place.
I thought Special1 was a big fan of Peter Noone, of Herman’s Hermits.
What?
Oops… I thought this:
Was an actual reference to today. So much for reading for comprehension while (still somewhat) jet-lagged… :o
Welcome back, Olives!! I gather we (almost) switched places! (Well, except I didn’t go far enough West and you didn’t go quite far enough East)
Howdy y’all. I’ve been a busy beaver today. I cleaned the bathroom, mopped the kitchen, did laundry, vacuumed the carpet, and cleaned the hornk stains with the shampooer.
SCL, that’s great news about Libby!
Cute kids, Ellen. I’m glad summer is over.
Hiya scout!
welby, glad you had a good time. Maybe next time you can pillage a passing sloop.
Welconme back, tashii!! I hope you can get into a library job soon.
FCM, maybe swampy is just a connoisseur of fine butts?
Taters, glad the spuds are healthy.
olives! Welcome back! I have a sudden need for a martini now.
Forgot to mention my Costco tactic to not spend too much money - If I’m going there for something specific like a roast chicken and a spinach salad for dinner, I do not take a cart.
Without a cart, it’s impossible to pick up the chicken and salad, then wander by the cheeses and pick up two or three interesting looking ones, then wander past the bakery and grab a pie, then as long as we’re next to the liquor section, let’s see what new wines they’ve got…
Sometimes, divorce is reason for a happy dance. My kid’s best friend, who she’s known since kindergarten, has decided to rid herself of the useless baggage that calls itself her husband. And this after 10 months of wedded bliss. I only met the guy once, and I knew right off he was a loser and an ass. He really impressed me when he allowed me, a woman over 50, to run back and forth from the apartment to my van alone with boxes and bags of stuff that I was taking for my daughter. This was when my kid had her surgery and was NOT to be lifting anything. This jerk sat there playing computer games as I walked past him at least 8 times hauling all that stuff.
Anyway, girlfriend just finished Navy bootcamp and has started her “A” school, and she realized that she doesn’t need the aforementioned useless baggage. I’m surprised it happened so fast, but I’m not surprised that it happened. And much as I hate seeing marriages break up, theirs was no marriage. He’s a leech. And an ass - did I mention he’s an ass?? So I’m doing a little happy dance here. And I feel like girlfriend is going to be just fine.
In other news, we had bad Chinese and it was as mediocre as ever. But no dishes to do, so there’s that. I just finished some ironing for **FCD ** for his training travel, and I’ve got a load of clothes in the washer. After I post this, I’m going to shed my work clothes and don my comfy robe. Mebbe have some ice cream later. It don’t get much better, do it?