Thursday Thoughts

Bet you thought I was still stuck in the DMV waiting to renew my driver's license.  Well when we walked in there Tuesday morning, saw that every seat in the place, and there were a lot of seats, were filled and that people were lining up along the wall I figured we were there for the long haul.
Imagine my surprise that we were out of there in about 30 minutes.  They had a great system.  You start at a bank of computers and fill in all your information, get in a short line, I was second, give your name and go sit down.  In a few minutes you're called, asked what you're there for and given a number.  You sit back down and less than 5 minutes later you're called to a window, turn in your old license, get your picture taken, take the vision test and pay your money ($32.00---ouch).  You are then handed a temporary license, your new one comes in the mail and is good for 8 years.  About the vision test, I've told you about my weird eyes before, well you had to read a line of numbers.  My always strange eyes could only read them backwards, right to left.  The clerk said that was ok, weird, but ok.
So we're set for 8 years.  I figure I'll be through with driving by then.
After that it was grocery shopping and home.
Yesterday was spent mowing the lawn and cleaning the pool.
Today we had to run into town and then go to breakfast.
Going to be 90º today, a last hurrah for summer I hope.  Yesterday the pool was freezing, I guess all the rain we've had cooled it off.

Monday Grumble

Seems like I'm doing a bit of that lately.  Very windy, you'd think that would cool things off a bit---HA!  HUMID!  And if there was a word to describe beyond humid I'd use is. The Thesaurus says it's soggy, dank, mucky, sticky and clammy.  That would pretty much describe our morning.
Careful walk this morning, lots of branches down, another tree down, fell from the neighbor's yard into ours, not a very big one thank goodness.  The ground is just so saturated, it has rained every day this last week.  I really feel for the folks in Texas, we're not getting a lot of rain, just frequent rain, can't even imagine the amounts they're getting.
Tomorrow we're going to renew our driver's licenses, have to go in person because we have to have a vision test.  Also have to bring proof of name (passport, birth certificate etc), proof of your social security number (the ss. card, W-2 etc) and 2 bills showing your current address.  This is getting ridiculous.  Our county doesn't have a DMV so it's either go out to Hinesville, about 35 miles from here or Savannah, about 20 miles from here.  Savannah is closer, but far more people.  That's where we're going though so we're hoping it won't be too bad.
Afterwards we'll be near Hunter Army Airfield and we can go to the commissary.
Cleaned and shined the bedroom floor, it always looks so much better and it's easy to do, I shouldn't be so lazy about doing it.
Hope your week has started well.

Got Up On the Wrong Side Of The Bed

Indeed I did yesterday, got up earlier than I wanted to because I had to go and have my B-12 shot in addition to going to try on my new contact lens for the Optometrist.  So I was grumpy, didn't want to do either of those things.  I was going to the Minute Clinic for the shot because the waiting at my doctors office to get it done had become an additional pain.  So we made an appointment online and headed into town.  One person already in with the nurse, but it wasn't long before I went in and got it done.  I've seen this nurse a number of times and she has a soft touch.
Then it was off to the Optometrist about a half hour early, but I got right in, put the contact in, the assistant commented that I'd done that quickly---HELLO--I've only done this about 20l000 times.  Waited to see the Optometrist, she was satisfied so I ordered the contacts and they agreed to mail them out to me, for a nominal charge (I didn't even ask what it was) and I was through!
Mac picked me up, having bought me the world's biggest dark chocolate bar to cheer me up.
I'd finally quit snarling and we went out to breakfast which is always a nice treat.
Then this morning, I stripped the bed, threw in a bunch of towels, washrags and socks and started the washer.  Should have known better, too big a load.  It took forever because the machine keep trying to spin dry the huge load.  It finally gave up and we had to wring the load out by hand.  Mac got the washer to reset, I hung out the really wet clothes and I'm hoping they'll dry.
So hot after that I had to jump back in the pool.
By the way, I looked up the origin of getting out of the bed on the wrong side and found out it dates back to Roman times.  They didn't want to get out on the left side or step first with the left foot, felt they'd have bad luck.

Thor Spoke

Yes, Thor spoke and instead of an eclipse we had a thunder storm.  We were up in town and poor kids were standing around with their special glasses looking in vain for an eclipse.  What they got was thick cloud cover.  I hadn't planned on watching it except on tv, but if I'd been a child with all the hype about it I'd have been bitterly disappointed.  Oh well,  they only have to wait till 2045 for the next total eclipse here in the States.  If you can't wait that long I read that there's a total eclipse every 18 months somewhere in the world and the next one will be on July 2, 2019 and will be visible across Chile and Argentina.  Here's a map I "borrowed" from somewhere on the Net (Vox.com).  That's pretty interesting.
I've seen some partials that were pretty cool, but I was too lazy to even look into getting glasses for this one.  I guess the thrill is gone and considering how the weather turned out here it's just as well.

GreatAmericanEclipse.com

On Sunday

It was 87º at 9 when we headed out for our morning walk.  It was not our usual long walk, too hot, just enough to get some of the stiffness out.  It was only supposed to be 90º today, but we passed that a while back so the air conditioner has been on since about 10:30.
Just came in from the pool, it was lukewarm.  I did something I almost never do, I swam underwater. I hate getting my head wet, but it was just too hot to do otherwise. So now I'll have to drip-dry.
Cleaned the outside of kitchen cupboards today, two have glass fronts and they were definitely looking grubby.
During the week I wear my contact lens which is for distance (have to wear readers with it to see up close) so I often don't see as much as I should (or shouldn't depending on your point of view).  But on Sundays I wear my regular glasses and I see everything, so I've been cleaning things that don't get it on a regular basis.
Fixing fried chicken  today, though not so much fried as simmered.  I brown it and then cook it with fat-free chicken stock which keeps it moist and doesn't add fat.  I don't cook much with fat, a tablespoon of olive oil occasionally, but that's about it.  And yet judging by the cupboards I cleaned today you'd swear I'm using a deep fryer on a daily basis.
Lots of baseball and golf this afternoon while I work on my cross-stitch.
Hope you have a great Sunday.

It's Rolled Around to Saturday Again

Where does the time go!  So hot here, 97º yesterday and Lord only knows what it is today.  My thermometer reads Too D••n Hot.º
Cleaned bathrooms and made potato salad this morning, whoops, reverse that, I made potato salad and then cleaned the 3 downstairs bathrooms, the upstairs bathrooms are on their own until it cools down.  We don't use them and they're probably just dusty.
Visit with a good friend yesterday, our favorite Redneck, he's in a bit of dilemma .  He's selling a big piece of property for a LOT of money, but the deal will take months to go through because of needing county and state permission for what the buyer's want to do with the land.  In the meantime 2 of his renters have moved out of some other pieces of property, it took all his ready cash to restore one of the houses and he's in a cash bind.  Not asking for money, he's not that kind of person, just advice.  So we gave advice and as always he did something for us,  he cut up the tree that fell down last week and left us his power washer so Mac can clean the house, providing the temperature drops below "the sun is going to kill you line".
Meals have been rather light around here, tuna and deviled egg sandwiches yesterday.  So today it's barbecued pork ribs.  Too hot to turn the stove on, that's why the potato salad was made first thing this morning.

Have to show you something Mac gave me.  A while back I bought a lot of Silverplate serving forks on Ebay.  Had no idea what I was going to do with them, but they were so pretty and so reasonable that I had to have them.  Since then they have languished in a kitchen drawer getting tarnished.  Well we celebrate the 17th of each month (because we met on the 17th of March when we were just teenagers) and give each other gifts we wouldn't buy for ourselves.  He cleaned my forks, painted a cabinet and gave me such a pretty gift.  There are 2 other forks, but there was only room for 4 in the cabinet.  He sprayed them so they won't tarnish again.  Just love it.  Please excuse my reflection, it was the only way to take the picture without taking the cabinet off the wall.

Started a rather interesting book The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life  .  His plan is to read at least 10 "great" books that he's never read, though he has frequently claimed he had.  He starts with Middlemarch and almost gave us on the whole project until his wife advised him to try just reading 50 pages a day.  That worked and he eventually became totally engrossed in the story, ended up loving it.  Middlemarch has been sitting on my Kindle for more than a year, maybe I'll try this method too.






 I also finished one I'm glad I only paid $1.95 for.  It was:  When I'm Gone  by Emily Bleeker.  I finished it last night, couldn't sleep and I was hoping it would put me to sleep, it wasn't even good enough for that.


Time to go and sweat my way through the Classics (on the piano) and then work my body through music on my Mp3.

Hope you're having a cooler weekend than I am.

Just Some Random Thoughts On Thursday

I didn't post anything yesterday, my only excuse is that it was 98º here yesterday with a heat index, what it actually felt like, of 110º.  The brain melts at those kinds of temperatures.
More about why my optometrist annoyed me.  I see my retina specialist 4 times a year and that's 50 miles round trip each time, and it's 16 miles round trip to my optometrist.  When the "trial" contact comes in I have to go in, try it on and then if we're all pleased, and I have been pleased with these contacts for 14 years, then they'll order me 2 boxes and I can then make another 16 mile round trip to pick them up when they come in.  They aren't charging me for the extra visit, but I'd pay them not to have to go because between the Retina Specialist and the optometrist that's nearly 250 miles in visits for my eyes.  I have to see the Specialist, this other just feels like harassment, I wouldn't even go for the initial visit if state law didn't requirement it.  But enough of me complaining.
People often ask how I can read 3 or more books at a time, they say they would get confused.  Generally I read books that are so different that it would be impossible to confuse them. Right now I'm very slowly working my way through Skippy Dies (reading only a few pages a day) , it's about boys in an Irish boys school.  The main book I'm reading is Chasing Shadows an Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery.  He's a Scotland Yard detective who is haunted by the man he had executed during WWI.  I'm also reading Brideshead Revisited.   No way to confuse those 3 stories. I'm also slowly working my way through the 3rd volume of the Winston Churchill biography--this volume isn't as good as the first 2 and it's taking much longer.
We've been rewatching a bunch of Midsomer Murders and we got to an old favorite, The Black Book.  It's about the forgery of some paintings.  When we first watched it Mac was inspired to paint a picture that sort of went with it.  Barnaby was able to detect it was a forgery because the line cast was wrong.

Today it's fish and coleslaw for lunch.  Salmon for Mac and some kind of fish baked in the oven for me.  My main requirement for fish is that it doesn't particularly taste much like fish.

Wherever you are stay cool or dry or warm.

My Big Blue Eyes

Ok, I understand that I have strange eyes.  One eye is so much stronger than the other one that my brain only processes the information from the strong eye.  I'm not blind in that eye, the brain just doesn't use it for vision, unless the strong eye is covered up, and even then it's not as strong.
My eyes have always been this way, it's an inherited condition.  My Father had it, my older sister has it, my daughter has it.  It just is.
I've worn a contact lens on my good eye for about 20 years.  It beats wearing my REALLY thick glasses out in public.
Georgia has a law that says you have to have an eye exam each year in order to get a prescription for contact lens.  I see a Retina Specialist four times a year for other problems, but this doesn't count.  So today I went in for an eye exam at the same place I've been going to since we moved here 14 years ago.
Saw a different doctor, don't know if she's new or not, but she insists that when the contacts come in, instead of me just taking them home with me I have to try it on for her to see.
These are the same contacts I've been wearing for years.  She says I have such a strong prescription and such "interesting" eyes it would be better for her to see me wearing them.
I hope she gets a good look, cause next time I'll get them from someone else.

Just Another Monday

As opposed to a Manic one.  Mondays are rather peaceful around here.  Most of our neighbors have gone back to work, those still here are holed up in their houses with the air conditioner running full blast.
We walked a shortened walk this morning and jumped in the pool.   It was time to Skype with our daughter.  Eight-thirty am in the morning here , nine-thirty pm for her, so weird.  She'd spent the last 4 days in Tokyo, hanging out with friends and going to concerts.
Last time I blogged I said we'd had 2 days with no rain, I spoke too soon.  By late Saturday afternoon the thunder boomers fired up and we got nearly a half inch of rain.  Just a sprinkling yesterday and nothing yet, notice I said yet.
Sportswise this is my favorite time of year.  Baseball and football and throw in a really good golf tournament.
We watched a really nice movie this weekend and I appreciate nice.  It was Sing Street, an Irish movie directed by John Carney.  He also directed Once, one of our all time favorite movies.  Sing Street is about a young (15) boy whose family is deteriorating and he has to move to another school, a much rougher school.  Across the street from the school he meets a girl and to impress her he says he's in a band and could use her in their video shoot.  So he has to form a band.  Very funny, a bit sad and so good.
A bit of cross-stitching today, I'm really not liking the printed design or the heavy canvas like material, but I shall persevere.
Some good music on my MP3 player today, particularly Mambo Number 5 by Lou Bega.  If that doesn't get you up on your feet nothing will.

Saturday's Child Must Work For a Living

Not quite this bad, but almost

Well this poor Saturday child began her day with cleaning the oven.  Mac helped, he took the racks outside and worked on them.  I'm not going to say the over is clean, but it is cleaner.

Two days of sunshine, no rain, how nice is that!    I didn't have to jump in the pool until after I cleaned the oven.

Today is Middle Child Day and I'm a middle child, never the first, nor the baby, looking for my own place in the sun.  I was the family comedian.  Gotta stand out some way.  Mac is a middle child too.
I always told our daughter that she got to be what I always wanted to be, an only child.
Ninety-two today and tomorrow, so it was beer and shrimp yesterday and steak sandwiches today.  Cannot deal with heavy meals this time of year.

What day of the week were you born on?

Monday's child is fair of face,

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go,

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child who is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonnie and blithe and good and gay.

When It Rains It Pours

And we're not talking salt here.  It has rained nearly every day this summer, sometimes a little, sometimes a LOT.  Yesterday was "a LOT" day.  It rained more than 2 1/4 inches in under an hour.  Our swamp is turning into a bog.  A small tree that was damaged by Matthew last fall finally gave up the ghost and fell into the lagoon.  The ground was just too soaked to support it any more.
It was a loud booming storm, at one point had the strangest sounding thunder I've ever heard.  Our tv went out, naturally, it's on satellite and any kind of bad weather knocks it out.  Then the phone and internet went out.  The internet was intermittent until evening, the phone, when it came back on, was so full of static it would have been impossible to use.  It's much better today.
I have a cell phone, but reception here is poor because of all the trees so we more or less rely on the landline.
Yesterday was a heavy lunch, I fixed Sweet and Sour Pork with Fried Rice.  Today it's BLT sandwiches.
The air was drier this morning so I did a load of laundry and hung it outside.  With no warning it started raining a little while ago and Mac rushed out to bring the clothes in (that's the deal, I hang the clothes out, he brings them in).  They hadn't dried at all and they'd been out there for hours.  So another load in the dryer.

Read a horrible headline today, something to really give you nightmares.  A majority of Republicans would back Pres. Trump if he postponed the 2020 elections.  How scary is that?

Another Day, Another Dollar

 Up late, Mac let me sleep in, he got up at 7:30.  Have I mentioned how HUMID it is here?  About a 1,000 times probably.  Morning walk was a struggle so we turned the air conditioning on at 9:30, that's almost unheard of for us.  Turned it off for awhile now that the house is bearable.  Got the electric bill, bad, but bearable, Miss Kitty agreed to pay her share of it.
Today's jobs were laundry and mopping.  I don't understand why we have so much laundry, we wear the bare minimum of clothing, yet the hamper over flows.  In the past I've accused the cat of cross-dressing and adding to the load---she swears it's not true.  Well someone's wearing them.  The clothes are going in the dryer, something I hate to do, I actually enjoy hanging out clothes, but the air is so full of moisture that they'd never dry.  So dryer it is.
Then after breakfast it was floor mopping time.  I have an electric mop that steam cleans the floor and boy they needed it.  So for a brief moment the tile floors are clean.
Following on with my today is posts, today is National Book Lover's Day and I'm definitely a book lover.  Always read at least 3 books at a time.  Right now I'm reading:
The Jakarta Pandemic by Stephen Konkoly.   It's a bit of a train wreck and I won't be recommending it to anyone, just want to get through it.  I have The Chilbury Ladies' Choir by Jennifer Ryan  waiting for me, it's a library e-book and I need to get started on it.
I'm also reading Blue Monday by Nicci French.  I usually like her/their books (they're a husband/wife writing team), but I'm having trouble with this one.  I'm tired of "damaged" psychologists/psychiatrists.  This is the first of their Frieda Klein books and unless it picks up I won't be going on with them.
I'm still working my way through Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, teenage boys are beyond my ken, but I'm enjoying the story anyway.  Can't say I'm finding some of the male teachers in the book much more grown up than the boys.
Well, wherever you are find a good book to lose yourself in today.

Doing Very Little

The air conditioner came on early today, 95º yesterday and only around 90º today, but as always, HUMID.  Little gets done in this kind of weather.  My only projects are Swiffering the floors (done) and balancing the checkbooks- that's next.
I prefer the checkbooks to the floors, so dollars are better than dust.
Had an email from my sister-in-law, only have one left, she keeps us up-to-date on Mac's family in California.  She says our nephew is looking at land and considering building a house.  Would you believe that construction costs where they live (the San Francisco Bay Area ) are around $450 a sq.ft. and about 300,000 to 400,000 for a lot.  A bit rich for my money.  One of the reasons we decided not to retire in California, though that's where we're from, too expensive and too many people.  We like living in the boonies.  Our house, if we moved it to California,  would probably sell for way over a million, maybe close to two million.  Obviously that's not what we paid.
Miss Kitty wanted me to tell you that today is World Cat Day and in honor of that she's doing even less today than she did yesterday.  She coughed once today and we gave her the new cough syrup, she didn't say much, but she hasn't coughed since.
Mac has sold 3 paintings this week.  Nice living with an artist.

A Little of This, A Little of That

Miss Kitty after her travails, nothing more
soothing than a good Amazon box.

It's Monday, to all my teacher friends who've returned to work I wish you the best and though I loved teaching, I'm such a ham, I'm so glad I'm retired. I asked one of my cousins (3x removed) who is a teacher, if she'd had the class from h••l dream yet.  I usually had one just before the school year started.  It would involve a class I couldn't get control of, one that kept disappearing or one that I was teaching about smoking and drinking, so I'd pass out cigarettes and beer.
Thank you for the complements on the new header, it is of course one of Macs.
Last night Mac went to bed with a rummy tummy and this morning I woke up with it, guess it migrated.  Both of us are feeling fine now.
Got to Skype with our daughter who was just back from running around Japan, has to work 3 days and then she's off again.  She always dreamed of living in Japan and the reality is even better, except for occasionally wanting to defenster someone at work, usually someone in their China office.
Miss Kitty has had a difficult hairball season and it's left her with a dry cough so it was time to have her checked out by the Vet.  She had this a couple of years ago, but you always want to be sure it's nothing more serious.  The Vet looked her over, listened to her heart and lungs, suggested a bit of cough syrup and for us to continue to give her PetroMalt to pick up any spare hair in her tummy.  She also said she has a bit of psychogenic alopecia, over grooming on her tummy.  Says this is common for indoor cats, they get bored, and that we might give her more to watch out the window (set up a bird feeder) so she'll quit licking.  Then it was rabies shot time and toenail clipping.  There was a minimum of yelling and no one was bit, so a successful trip.
Back home Miss Kitty demanded food, we'd fed her lightly before the car trip and she was insisting on the rest of her breakfast.
Exercise time for me, hope your Monday is a good one.

Sunday in the Swamp

Another muggy day in the swamp, Pogo would feel right at home.  We walked and swam before breakfast and Mac has been back in again.
Nothing too heavy for lunch today, tuna sandwiches I think.  And I baked a small cake so we can have strawberry short cake later.  Doesn't get much summery than that.  I just discovered that today is  Root Beer Float Day---we had one on Friday and Strawberry Short Cake Day was on June 14th, I always think of that as Flag Day.
I started a new cross-stitch.  It has the pattern printed onto the fabric.  Thought I'd like that, but I don't, it appears that I prefer the counted cross-stitch instead.  We'll see how this one goes, it's a gift too.
Saw a headline on the Net today asking if your air conditioner is making you sick, well no, it's keeping me alive.  We clean our filters regularly.  We lived here in Georgia many years ago without air conditioning and for awhile without even a fan.  We were a lot younger then.  I could do it now, but I'd sure hate to, I have a lot of sympathy for folks without air-conditioning.
My Grandmother who lived in Oklahoma didn't have any air conditioning and my Mom bought her one, but she wouldn't use it, said she thought it was an instrument of the devil.  That's what I thought heat was.
Well, wherever you are, have a good Sunday.

Blogging

I haven't blogged all week, not for lack of things to say, I always have things to say, just too bored and lazy. But our daughter got worried, thought maybe something was wrong.  We live far apart, Georgia for us, Japan for her, and our mutual postings are how we know all is well.  So I figure it's time to get off my duff and put fingers to keys.
There were no appointments this week, I started no new projects, did no major household tasks and yet the week was filled.
I read a couple of books:

Old Man's War by John Scalzi.  Science fiction as opposed to the science fantasy I usually read.  I quite enjoyed it.  Imagine that at 75 instead of sliding on down into terminal old age you join the Galactic army and become young again and fight the alien forces of the universe.  How many seniors would go for that.

Winterkill by C.J. Box.  The third in the Joe Pickett series set in Wyoming.  Joe is a game warden and lives with his wife and 3 daughters in a small town.  He is an honest, hardworking man who often has to deal with others who are not.  Well written.

Black Pearl by Cynthia Harrod Eagles.  The continuation of the Morland family saga.  We're now up to the restoration period in English history and much of the story takes place at Charles II's court.

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray.  I wasn't sure about this one at first, but I stuck with it and I'm really enjoying it now.  When reading books set in schools I always have to decide if I relate more to the teachers or the students having been each at one time.  I often think teachers are poorly done in books, but then I remember how many bad teachers I've known, both as a student and as a teacher

Not much television watching except for baseball, oh Braves, you stink mightily.  I have seen so much poor baseball this year.  Not just from the Braves but across the leagues.  Too many strike-outs, poor fielding, little discipline.

My MP3 player music list continues to entertain me as I work out.  Boy is Enter Sandman by Metallic a creepy song.

Still not very hot here, just sweat dripping humid.  So meals have been on the light side, it's just too hot in the kitchen.  Today it's barbecued ribs, rice and a kidney bean salad.

That's my week, as I said, pretty boring.