Where's The New MMP!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

Hospice grief counseling: There may be both individual counseling and group counseling or support available. Good idea.

Overly, so sorry about your mother. I hope the new chemo crushes it.

What do you use for brine? I’m lazy, so I save the brine from Clausen sandwich stackers or refrigerated Kosher dills, brighten it up with more dill, peppercorns, garlic, and salt (if needed), then dump in cucumber, radish, daikon, carrot, or other vegetable slices, give it a good shake, and put it back in the fridge for a light pickle a few days later. Ozempic (diabetes medication) nauseates me a bit and brine/pickles help, plus my naturopathic doc has me eating vegetables first when I have a meal, so this works out well.

102

{{{wordy}}} so sorry that’s happenin’ to your mom. Here’s hopin’ the round of chemo will help.

103

I did not know that. It seems kinda mean to me, poor people like soft drinks and candy too. But that would also explain it because we get what the food banks don’t want. Next stop after us is the county landfill, so I will happily take them and give them away cause our landfills are overflowing as it is.

Because of where the food is during it’s journey, sometimes we get things that are off. Today we got a couple of bags of shredded mozzarella that had little black spots. My first impulse was to throw them away, but then I looked it up and birds can eat mild cheese so there is some in the feed tray now. If the birds like it, great, it will get used. If not, it was headed to the trash can anyhow.

N.O.T are smooshed and in the freezer. Tomorrow we will pull them out, pop them out of the square plastic containers and vac-seal the frozen lumps of spuds so we can use the containers for other things. (I like to use square containers because they stack better.)

Chicky salad is made, bones and skin are back in the pot to make stock and peppers are pickling. The kitchen is clean and the only reason the dishwasher isn’t going is cause there is a enough room for a few more things. Tomorrow is a cheese day and I don’t like starting my day with dirty dishes in the sink.

Honestly, it depends on what I’m pickling, but I do make my own brine. Today I used vinegar, water, sugar, salt, garlic and crushed red peppers.

I think that eating vegetables first at any meal is a good thing. We both got used to eating fast pickled veggies when were stationed in Asia, a small dish was served with every meal.

104

Just got home. Today’s eye clinic visit was zero fun. They needed photos of my retina. Like most testing machines, this one requires techs saying, “Blink, blink, blink! Open wide and don’t blink, don’t blink [blinding flash of light] don’t blink!” They couldn’t get it to work and kept smooshing my nose into the machine and holding my lids open so I COULDN’T blink for, like, 20 seconds, by which time I was ready to confess to crimes I hadn’t committed, including some that happened before I was born.

The retinal guy said everything looked fine. Then he said, “When do you see [corneal specialist] again?” and I stupidly said, “After I see [other retinal doc in the clinic] about a vitrectomy.” He looked shocked, checked the computer, scowled, muttered, and stalked out. Oops. I guess he assumed he’d be doing any retinal surgeries. I felt like I’d told a kid his girlfriend was going to prom with someone else.

Thank you for the rays of hope for my daughter! I’ll let you know how it goes.

wordy, that is sucky news indeed. I hope the new chemo wipes it out. I’m so sorry you and your battle-weary mom have to face yet another enemy encounter. I’ll be hoping and praying for her. She sounds like such a sweet lady.

FCM, gosh that’s too bad about FCD’s nightmares. My gosh, you couldn’t ask for a better, more devoted son than he is. Poor boy. Would he be willing to do grief therapy? I hope so.

What is a nixie clock? All I can imagine is a clock that has Richard Nixon’s hands in the “V for victory” and his voice saying, “Sock it to me?” on the hour.

@Bob_Blaylock. Thanks so much. That sounds great! I’ll see if my siblings would be interested. I can’t drive these days, so I’d have to have someone who can stay there, too, if I’m to get to and from the wedding.

Maybe he was merely hoping to see a cool explosion.

105

Peace. The kids are gone home. The chain-sawing ended before 4 - boy, do we have firewood!! And FCD got them to cut the trunk into 16" sections, so we need to find a splitter to rent. We gonna have a metric buttload of firewood!

But that’s a chore for another day.

Poor Higgs has been puking all day. FCD will try to get a vet appointment tomorrow - we’ll try to call at 9 when they open. He’ll close on his mom’s house at 10 tomorrow, and the money should be in her account in a couple of days - so yay!! One less thing.

I’m going to collapse in the recliner - I’m fried. It’s been a day, it has.

106

[Marvin The Martian]Where’s the Kaboom? There’s supposed to be an Earth shattering Kaboom![/Marvin The Martian]
:smiley:

107

I nixie tube clock is a clock that uses nixie tubes to display the time. Very retro way of displaying numbers. My first calculator had an 8-digit nixie tube in it, and went through batteries like anything. (The clock will have a 12 v AC power supply.)

108

Sorry. Don Gato has been sneezing a lot for several days and therefore gets to see the vet tomorrow. My lovely wife: “Poor guy! Too bad you don’t have fingers so you can’t clean out your nose!”

109

Nixie tubes were a kind of display that was in use a very, very long time ago. I’m thinking 1940s through 1960s, maybe into the early 1970s. I can remember, from some time in my early childhood, my father worked for a company that made electronic calculators, and sometimes, he brought them home to work on. At this time, simple four-function calculators cost thousands of dollars, and consisted of a main unit, comparable in size to a larger modern PC, with a separate keyboard/display unit meant to sit on a desk, while the main unit was meant to be on the floor next to a desk. The displays were based on Nixie tubes.

basically, it’s a neon lamp, with multiple cathodes, usually ten cathodes, each in the shape of a different numeral. You apply power to the one cathode that you want to light up at any given time, to display that numeral.

In recent years, digital clocks using Nixie tubes for display have become popular.

Are you sure about that? You’re talking about a portable calculator, plausibly pocket-sized, that runs on batteries, right?

I know that some early versions of that sort of calculator had a display that looked vaguely Nixie-tube-like, but had all the digits in one tube, rather than one tube for each digit. That’s not a Nixie tube. A Nixie tube needs about 170 volts or so to work. Your calculator probably had some variation of a vacuum-fluorescent display (VFD). All the digits were in one tube, right? And each digit formed from a seven-segment-type structure, right?

110

I remember seeing them. Actually, I remember sitting mesmerized in front of a nixie clock at the parts store while Dad did his thing. Of course, I’m old enough to remember tube testing machines at those same parts stores.

I would like one of my own to put on a shelf next to a lava lamp.

111

They were introduced in 1955, and were made (at least in the U.S., I think) until the '90s. They might still be made in Russia. My kit came from Poland, and I think the tubes came from Russia.

My four-function (only - no memory or anything) calculator, c. 1972, had a single tube with 8 digits. I recall that the numerals were ‘meshes’ like a nixie tube. I think it used eight AA batteries (though I could be wrong). It tended to get warm. I remember my parents paid $99 for it.

https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=nixie+tube+clock&crid=1HZE6ENEFTL57&sprefix=nixie+%2Caps%2C176&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_6

112

After I’d been dating Hubs for about 2 months, I made a dinner for him in the dorm. I was in a dorm that didn’t have food service so we had a kitchenette on our floor. My babcia had a pear tree and I brought a lot of them up to school. So I made pork chops, not sure about any accompaniments but dessert was pear pie. The pork chops were wellll done and I still get teased about them on occasion 45+ years later. The pear pie turned out great, tasted somewhat like apple pie. So, you may want to try making a pie.

{{Wordy & Mom}}

I’m wondering what a nixie clock is also. I like your imagination.

Me too. Dad would test the tubes from the tv and I had to help.

It got up to 48* today, very comfortable.
Had a blast at dinner with my former co-workers. It’s a good thing they put us in a corner booth; if they’d put us at a table in the middle, we would have annoyed everyone with all the laughing we did.

Almost over the Hump. Night Night all.

113

The electronics hobbyist sent me a couple of photos of the resistors (?) on the boards. He said, ‘Coming along nicely.’

He’s charging me $50 for the build, which I think is very fair.

114

I thought that you didn’t need to cook the noodles when you made tuna noodle casserole because the soup would cook the noodles in the oven.

Due to my very own mother refusing to have pears in the house and telling me that pears were horrible and that she hated them*, I have only learned that they are food in the last couple of years. I’m not convinced that they are food that I like, I’m still thinking about it. I’m guess I’m eating them because eating the fruit we have in the house is better than going to the junction for a pint of ice cream. I don’t think I would buy them to eat if I didn’t have them.

I really do wish everyone had a surplus food program like we do. St. Mary’s goes to the different grocery stores and farmers markets and picks up food that is close to their end day and takes it to the food banks.

Once the food banks have everything they need or want, the rest of the food is brought to local community centers and handed out to anyone who shows up at the appointed time, no income limits or registration involved.

After all of the humans get what they want, the Future Farmers of America parents take what their kids can use to feed their livestock.

Very little usable food ends up in the landfill.

had to? I loved going to the parts store with him. He would let me pick things up and tell me what they were and how he used them. I was the only one who could help him with the tubes because I was the oldest and he could trust me to not drop them.

I was in my late 30’s when my sisters told me how much they loved that I would go to the parts store with Dad because they hated it but knew that Dad didn’t like to go anywhere alone. (He was a very good Dad)

*she picked pears a couple of seasons before she got married and it was the worse job in her life because pears are so fussy and the job was so demanding and paid shit AND everything smelled like pears.

115

Up, caffeinated, and sheveled. Off to …heave? explode? have a front row seat to a raid on Package Car 342? Tune in later this morning!

116

I can’t wait!

117

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 57 Amurrkin out and clear with a predicted high of 76 and mostly cloudy for the day and rain to start around five p.m. and continuin’ through Firday and Sattidy. This mornin’ we shall go get shorn, then go over to the church house so I can deal with candle duty, and then we shall be bears who brunch at Eggs Up Grill. This will take care of the main need to feed for the day. Since tomorrow is supposed to be ick, I just want to take care of all that stuff today.

doggio we shall be on pins and needles to find out whether or not you heave, explode, or end up in an episode of Cops

JtC I will eat pears but not go out of my way for 'em. I do like that weird sallit thing of half a canned pear, a glop of mayo, and sharp cheddar cheese that’s served on a lettuce leaf. I suppose the lettuce leaf makes it sallit.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, since I am to be amongst the great unwashed yet again, I suppose I must bother to purtify and don appropriate attire. This will be three days in a row! Why must my life be such agony!

Happy Thursday Y’all!

118

The rain that was threatened for today thru Sat has now moved to Sunday, but it is supposed to be windy today. Temps hitting 60 - I’ll be taking the kidlets to the playground after I pick up Roxy. Then I can run to Food Lion since Coke products are 4/$11 for the 6-packs of bottles. I’ll add to our stash. Maybe pick up a few for MIL, too, because I’m nice, dammit!

FCD will take Higgs to the vet today assuming we can get an appointment for this afternoon. Tomorrow and/or Sat, I’ll have to get the carpet cleaner out - there’s a fun weekend planned. Poor pup still isn’t feeling right - she drank a lot of water this morning, but wouldn’t eat. Weird that it hit so suddenly…

Once it’s light out, I’ll get some pics of the former tree because I know you’re all dying to know how much wood we’ll have to split. :wink: And I should probably do some laundry - we’ve got a lot of dirties! So I’ve got a few fun days ahead.

Happy Thursday!

119

Good morning everyone.

It’s currently 40 degrees and dark outside. The expected high is 56. We might see a rain shower in a couple of hours, then cloudy skies. The late afternoon promises sunny skies and, finally, rain moves back in around 9:00 pm tonight.

nellie, I’m sorry about the horrible eye doc visit.

wordy, I’m sorry about your mother. I hope the course of treatment works.

FCM, sorry about poor Higgs not feeling well. I hope it’s just an upset tummy.

Today is my Friday and I’m grateful for that. Yesterday was very long. I left the house at 4:20 a.m. and didn’t get home until after 5:00 p.m. I worked, we had our ELT meeting, I participated in the dashboard training, although I didn’t need it, went back for more meeting stuff, and finally left the office just after 4:00 p.m. Traffic often makes the commute longer than it needs to be, but it could have been worse. There have been times when I left the office that and didn’t get home until closer to 6:00 o’clock.

I have nothing important or exciting to report. I haven’t made weekend plans, but am sure it will include the usual cleaning, tidying, and laundry.

I hope you all have a good day!

120

I’m hoping for a tale involving a commandeered yard dog, coolers strapped to the sides, wild driving throughout the hub (including chucking beers up to the sort aisle) and the planting of weird surprises in the boxline. But that’s just me.

But no walking around on your knees, claiming to be small-sort. That is so last century.

Good morning everyone. Weather, cold, blah blah (I haven’t looked yet).

Definitely {{wordy and mom}}, and anyone and everyone. I’m trying to catch up at this point, sorry.

Re: Insurance settlement. I started working through the layers and got the phone number of the supervisor of the folks who I’ve been waiting on at the insurance company. Miraculously, I began getting texts about progress and various folk analyzing and estimating and getting pictures (presumably twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one – right?). Anyway, by some strange coincidence, progress has resumed on that front. I’m sure it has nothing to do with now having direct access to the boss.

PT today (it’s really working well, btw), and later to get running boards installed on the new truck. The new toolbox arrives this weekend, and that completes my re-assembly and “moving in” to my new vehicle. Now we can re-start journeying to fun places. I’m still working on some security issues regarding the newfangled push-to-start system, but I’ll get that sorted out if I have to disassemble the whole dashboard and re-wire stuff to my satisfaction (not an idle promise, I’ve already drawn out my wiring diagram for the changes).

I’m starting to pack up the big hitch I mentioned up thread. IIRC, I claimed it was 190 lbs. I was wrong – it’s 219 lbs. The UPS driver is gonna be thrilled with this, I’m sure. (It’s disassembled into 3 parts, but they’re still really heavy).

Gotta run, hope everyone has a good or at least better week.