My son’s dog will get his freak on any time, any where. I love him to bits, but he’s a little pervert. He even tries to give “face massages” to our big dogs.
I made biscuits for breakfast. I’m really happy with the new range. They turned out really well.
On today’s list: cat boxes, moving futon into hubby’s office. Kids do the litter boxes. I just need to supervise. Same deal with the futon. Once it’s been moved, I shall be one step closer to having a sewing/video games/office space.
Hi, everybody. I have nothing new to report. Today I’m doing laundry, a little housework, and my weekly manicure. Unlike shoe, my nails are nothing fancy. I seldom use polish, and when I do, it’s clear. I’m either low-maintenance or low-rent, take your pick.
Mooooom, the driving thing must really worry you, not only for their safety but for others’. When will the next drivers license renewal be? Is there a vision test involved?
Bumba, I wish I still had someone who referred to me as one of “the children.” I bet your kids love it. 
Starting tomorrow I will call you ‘kid’. ‘the kid’ even. Compared to me, it will be true.
I’m either low-maintenance or low-rent, take your pick. ————- I prefer to think of you as ‘high yield’
It’s a Bichon Frise – good fit for my lap.
Drivers over 80 have to renew their licenses every 6 years and it includes a vision test. I don’t know when my FIL last did this, but he’s going to be 91 in March. There is a means to report a possibly unsafe driver confidentially (that is, the driver doesn’t know who reported them) - I don’t know if FCD would be willing to do this. I’ll talk to him when he gets home.
Speaking of which, he plans to leave around 4 in the morning. Looks like he should have decent driving weather, so there’s that. So one more night sleeping alone and one more day unsupervised. I didn’t get the upholstering done like I’d hoped. Oh well…
Howdy Y’all! We have ingested soup 'n cornbread. 'Tis rather chilly and sorta windy here. Glad to be inside and warm.
MetalMouse you would not have that trouble here. All the doors in da cave are plenty wide enough.
[quote=“FairyChatMom, post:225, topic:929626”]
There is a means to report a possibly unsafe driver confidentially (that is, the driver doesn’t know who reported them) - I don’t know if FCD would be willing to do this. I’ll talk to him when he gets home.
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FWIW, here is the how to do that and the form. As a home health care nurse I needed to do it several times in my state and my confidentiality was always protected.
The scary part is that just not renewing the license or taking it away really doesn’t prevent anyone from driving, they can and do climb right back behind the wheel and drive without it. The only thing that really works is is remove not only the car keys but also sell the car so there isn’t anything to drive. Much harder to pull off.
It would help if our society made it easier for us elderly to still be independent without needing to drive, to get to appts, to get groceries, to have some freedom to socialize and ‘blow this crackerbox’ once in awhile. We don’t. I don’t hold out much hope that too-elderly drivers will hand over their keys until we do. I don’t much blame them.
Easy for me to say-so far none of my kids are suggesting I hand over my keys.
Afternoon all. Soccer has been refereed (8U), coached (10U) and refereed again (12U). Somewhat tired after, but had to catch up on the News of the World via SDMB and some of the folks really like writing stuff a lot… Going to watch some tackleball now and fix some Fettuchini Alfredo for dinner.
FCM, I know when he was in his declining years, driving with my dad could often be an adventure…he did at least have the good sense to drive slowly and only to places he knew before my brother finally convinced him to move closer to us (when we both living in the St. Louis area). I’d worry too about them…hope once vaccinated they are able to make the change.
swampy, never worried about doors, it’s caves…never a spelunker, but I enjoy touring caves and some of them have some rather small passages for a rather large man.
Bumba, good luck with the vaccine…someday.
Red, hope the shopping was good. Wonder if Nashville is still on edge from the bombing…or too busy thinking about the Titan’s football game.
OK, time to eat and watch. All y’all take care.
Hey Mumpers. Quick check-in since I don’t have Internet at home and don’t wanna blow through all my data.
Wanted a cheapie $5 sushi on my way home from irk but there was a line (!) out the door. I’m happy for them, it’s a local business - so yay in a general sense - and they make good pad Thai and such - so yay specifically for me personally, since I like them being available so close to home. Anyway, skipped the wait during their dinner rush, and told myself if I was productive I could reward myself with a trip back outta the house (no streaming TV right now, because no internet, so I’m a bit bored) and get my snack once they weren’t so busy.
I wasn’t in a big hurry, and it was nice to just go home and take my boots off.
I also: scooped the litter box and split a can of gooshy-food among the largest of my furry beggars. All ratties have been fed, and I moved one group into fresh bedding - just in time, since they were starting to chew through their enclosure. (Occupational hazard of soft-furs. 
)
Buncha trash has been taken out, too, plus I shook clean a couple of floor mats. Finally, I folded one (1) clean shirt, in a nod to laundry duties.
That is sufficient for one evening. I deem myself worthy of a five-dollar salmon-and-avocado snack.
Now, let’s go see what their line is like now!
“Nellie the Kid.” Sounds like Billy the Kid. Remember, I’m the kinder, gentler kid. The high-yield kid. I love it. And if you’re going to compare yourself to anyone, it should be FCM’s in-laws, to whom you are undoubtedly and deservedly a kid.
FCM, it’s a pickle, all rightie. Is FCD convinced they’re safe enough drivers, or is the reason he’s reluctant the ol’ guilt thing, which I understand completely? It makes it that much harder that there don’t seem to be great alternatives. Does their city have a senior center? They often have shuttles that take people shopping and such. My city has a disability shuttle, too. Not that those things make up for not driving.
My situation is different since I didn’t age out of driving, but that’s exactly the situation I’m in. I mean, nobody forced me to give up my keys. I realized on my own after a fender-bender that I wasn’t a safe driver, and the eye docs were like, “No sh-t.” Still, except for the fact I get sick of walking everywhere, I can do all the things you listed. The issue for me is that I can’t go to a big box store and get what I want because I’d have to take a bus home, and you can’t take that much on the bus. I can’t drive to a mountain I can hike or a national park.
swampy, I’ve always meant to ask: what’s a swampbear doing in a cave anyway? 
shoe, this may be a silly question, but do you get to cuddle the rats, or are does the pleasure come strictly from watching them, as it does with fish? Hope you got the sushi you were craving!
Not a silly question at all!
With these guys … no cuddles. “Regular” or fancy rats are very domesticated, and are often cuddle bugs who beg for treats. Soft-furs aren’t domesticated, and the best lines I have are gently curious if you stick your hand in … nibbles turn into bites the further down into the “bad” lines you go.
They are fascinating to watch, though. Put a wheel in, and they either obsess with running … or turn it into a multi-stack bunk bed, so they sleep like Lincoln logs.
Give them deep enough bedding, and they dig burrows and sleep chambers like a furry ant farm.
Watch closely enough, and you can see really fun interactions. I’ve seen nursing mothers “tag” in & out of Milk Bar Duty with each other, and watched as first-time moms made nests right under water bottle nozzles. Moved the water bottle … mom moved the nest … finally I realized thirsty nursing mom was enjoying a drink of water without having to get up.
Sushi place still isn’t answering their phone, which means they’re still swamped. It’s okay, I’m in no hurry tonight.
I’ll call again in a bit, and if still no answer, I’ll just head back over. There’s always N.P.R. Radio in the parking lot to pass the time.
Meanwhile, I vacuumed (e.g. supervised the Roomba) and put away clean undies. 
If you just threw the clean panties out in front of the roomba and it sucked them up, that doesn’t count as ‘putting them away’, just in case you’re trying to put something over on us oldsters…
My Roomba’s nickname is “Minion,” not Tom Jones.
Got mah sushi. Place was packed - line was about 80% “yay they’re doing well” and 20% griping about the line, including one guy who was incredulous that he had to wait (WAIT!) when he had ordered ahead.
Assuring him that all of us in line had, too, ordered ahead did not seem to penetrate. There aren’t enough roll_eyes.
Laundered. Made Aldi 3 cheese tortellini with homemade sauce and meatballs for dinner. Watching some cooking shows. Drinking some beer since it’s my Firday.
“Hi, I’d like to buy some bitey rodents”? 
I named mine after Rod Brind’Amour.
My 3 yo granddaughter calls hers “sucka”. Fairly sure her father taught her that when no grown-ups were in the room. Now when it leaves the dock she gets all worried that it is going to ‘suck up’ all her toys or books.
Or she’s a movie fan.
We went out!
Paso del Norte has ‘outside’ dining – it’s on the sidewalk, but there’s a corrugated metal roof with corrugated clear plastic siding. We had chile verde de puerco and margaritas. I also had some hot wings.
I’m tiiiiiired, but I can’t sleep. Oh, it’s not insomnia. It’s my new downstairs neighbors. When they moved in, I don’t know, as I haven’t been gone today. Anyway, they apparently are the kind of people who believe “Don’t talk when you can yell.” And I mean loudly. My old downstairs neighbors were my friend and her teen-age son. She frequently apologized for the yelling, though I almost never heard any. So…sigh. Quiet hours start at 10:00 PM here. It’s in the lease, but maybe they didn’t bother to read it.
Crikey. They have to go to sleep sometime, right?
Reading the contributions here gives a fascinating peek at a small sample of (mostly older) people. What gets me is how busy you all are.
The biggest excitement we get is deliveries from Amazon - we have been cooped up in our house for nine months and it doesn’t look like ending any time soon.
On Monday, Mo has a hospital appointment with the ophthalmologist. Although we have a hospital three miles away, this appointment is in a different one about an hour’s drive away so that will be a bit of an adventure by current normality. It means an early start too, so fingers crossed that it doesn’t snow. One inch of snow here means total chaos on the roads.
The news here is dominated by COVID as hospital admissions and deaths rise. Second, though is the events in Washington and what will happen when the new administration takes over. A huge job for them to repair America’s relationships with democracies around the world.
This from the BBC:
"The forces of attraction that made the [USA] a model for aspiring democrats everywhere are tarnished, its fissures are there for all to see.
Today, as analyst Ian Bremmer notes: “The US is by far the most politically dysfunctional and divided of all the world’s advanced industrial democracies.”
Morning, mumpers! It’s grey and overcast on this side of The Great Divide. The weather app says “There is no need to go outside today. You’re going to have to fucking trust me on this” and promises me 2C/36F to 3C/37F which sounds like an excellent reason to stay inside. That and the fact that de Pfeffel the Chocolate Fireguard says we should.
Moooom I’ve often said to 'im indoors that he’d be in trouble if for any reason I was incapacitated. I’m the only driver, he’s 52 and has never learned so he is at a disadvantage even living where we do. We do have pretty good public transport where we live so he could manage grocery shopping by himself if he had to but he’d have to do it in more than one trip simply for the sake of getting it all home. Unless he was prepared to pay for a taxi every time.
Two of our friends moved to rural Hungary about 12 years ago and we’ve been to visit them fairly often, he usually comes home again saying that we could retire and move to the same area. He has to be reminded several times that the shop in the village is only open from 5am to midday so there’s no chance of nipping down to the corner shop when he runs out of milk or something…and the village pub is only open until 7pm in the summer and 6pm in the winter. Living where they do is incredibly peaceful as they really are in the middle of nowhere, but without transport you are very isolated.
In all our visits to the US, I don’t think it’s really hit him exactly how far some people have to travel for basic necessities. We live a mile from our town centre, we have five or six small convenience stores within a five-minute walk of our front door. He forgets very quickly about the places we’ve stayed where I’ve had to drive us half an hour down the main road just to get to a shop…
Da Jungle delivered a package yesterday that was scheduled for delivery between 16th Jan and 3rd Feb so I’m feeling quite privileged! Two books and a bag of protein powder, that’ll sort me out for a while. It’s also a diversion from the daily news, I get the same stuff bob_2 gets and it’s not very inspiring.
So…off into the day, books and Vikings feature on my plan, and I’m making Philly Cheesesteak Meatloaf for dinner tonight. Yum!