Damn

I got up to check the water dripping in the tub, and what do I hear but the scrabble of a wild critter on the ceiling; I sure hope he settles down in a cold spot and succumbs to the sub-zero temperatures.  He is really active.  I won't be able to sleep until he is quiet.  I really hope he doesn't find a way to get into the inside of the room, then it will be me doing the scrambling.

He seems to have settled down for now.   It is 0 degrees outside and 63 degrees in the bathroom right now and I can't reach the thermostat to turn the baseboard heater up.  I want to shower in the morning. but it is only 69 in there now.  Brrrr.  I will remember this in the summertime when I am hot and sticky.

I bought and returned a hair comb that is electric, thinking that it would help me smooth the fuzzy part of my hair.  Unfortunately, my hair is too short for it to work, and I returned it.  Today I got another hair comb delivered, but my credit card has not (yet?) been used.  I am at a loss to know what is best for me to do, and I wrote to the seller detailing the previous schedule from purchase to refund. I really don't want the thing.

I bought 18 spice containers, the kind that is metal and magnetic, to live on the freezer door and free up some counter space in the kitchen.  Then I had to have a white marker to label them on the front black sticker, and of course, all new spices to fill them.  I think some of the Tupperware holders still have spices dating from 10 years ago when I first filled them, they have no smell at all now.  Somewhere I saw a service that sends you all new spices every 12 months, but the price!  I bought these from Penzeys and I will date them on the back so I will know when they need to be changed out.  And then I had to buy and glue on stronger magnets, without them they will stay up on the door only if they are empty, which sort of defeats the purpose.  And as it turns out, they need to be thoroughly cleaned with alcohol to remove the black powder which is invisible, but shows up when I wipe them with alcohol, cutting oil I think it is called.  All in all, a lot of effort for what was supposed to be a simple job.

and a one...

A blind man walks into a bar and orders a beer. He starts chatting with the bartender and asks if he would like to hear a blond joke.
The bartender gets real tense. You need to know, he tells the blind customer, that this is a blond bar.
I’m blond, and am a former NFL football player, the blond woman to your right is a kick boxer and the blond to your left is a pro wrestler. And more blonds are at the tables.
Are you sure you really want to tell the blond joke? The blind customer says, “That’s ok, I’ll tell it slow “

Almost

I nearly did a face plant yesterday.  My knee buckled and there was no place to fall safely.  So I snatched a crushing grip on the walker and forced my knee forward to where it belonged, under me.  I think that is the only time I have averted a bad fall.  Maybe I am doing better with my exercises.  Anyway, I count that in the positive list.

I tried to write/choose the bills that need to be done for next month, but my brain refused to work (I had already taken my sleepy-time med) and I had to put it away.  I will do this after breakfast when I can think a little more coherently.  And I can have a Coke at hand too.

I wonder if any of my pageviews are from people I know.  I haven't searched for blogs online for months or more, and most of them have a single subject to write about (like motors, Photoshop, and the foibles of writing code.  No more, or few, of the mommy blogs. ) So they have migrated to another social media and I am not interested in recipes, games, programs on TV.  I even get Blog-to-print, I have three volumes and they are handy, too.  Not for any grand scheme, but because I hate to have them disappear into where old stuff on the web goes.  I have 3 volumes, the first one is the largest, but altogether they are huge.  My therapist says they aren't a blog but a memoir.  I wouldn't go that far.  But three volumes and counting, wooo.

Happy Birthday

Today is my birthday, and the only good wishes come from the financial adviser and the photography forum.  This, even though I mentioned the day several times to R and C, and we are going out to dinner tomorrow (I chose the restaurant and made the reservation) because Friday R gets off early instead of 8 pm.  So, Happy happy happy birthday, to me!

I cleared out the computer room, two days ago, big improvement.  Now there is nothing on the floor, the chrome kitchen cart fits nicely in the spot I picked out, sorted into plastic boxes and labeled.  I also pitched a big kitchen bag of miscellaneous dreck, and now I can get in here to the computer without having to sidle in with my walker.  Tax time is soon to get going, so at least so far I have corralled the important papers, yeah me.  Of course after cleaning everything out/going through every stack and drawer, I could scarcely lift my arms (tall bookcase) and had to take a pain pill, leaving me just 5 more, and I won't see the ortho doctor until March.  I'm not an abuser of pain meds, but damn, sometimes there is more pain than Tylenol can fix. 

I was seen in the orthotic clinic yesterday and they took a cast of my right leg, and showed me the photo of what the brace will look like.  It will take 5 weeks or so to be custom made, and my insurance will pay thank the gods.  I had to stand on my left foot alone for about 20 minutes, and had to have the right leg manipulated and it all hurt, it was only with maximum effort could I get out of the car once we were home.  Then, next therapy session that afternoon.  Pain.

I have two DVDs, one for Photoshop Elements 2018 video training, and one is Cross stitch software, and neither have even been out of their boxes.  I had a video training for CS 2 and I never finished it, it was a workbook on a disc, and very well laid out, but there you go.  More money than sense.

We didn't manage to catch the BIG possum raiding our garage, I think the trap is too small for such a large critter.  It hasn't been seen since that first night, so maybe taking up the cat food will make it move on down the line.  Yesterday was trash day, and there were the home owners picking up garbage on their driveway where a cat (or coon) had torn into the bags.  Garbage cans, folks, garbage cans.  This is what they are made for.

                                           (not to mention using pitch to pitch it within and without with pitch, a little redundant don't you think?)

Who?

That day with the 1500 page views, I looked up the source, and all but a few are from a porn site.  Put on some clothes, it's cold out there!  Mistaken link...

Bye!

Possum number 5

Where are they coming from?!  We have never had more than one or maybe two possums caught in the garage.    The outdoor cats, 2 semi-feral of many years, are freaking out and I don't blame them.  We have had to pick up the dry food late at night and return it in the morning, which is less than ideal.  Maybe there is an entire colony all from the same family.  Well, they can have a happy reunion out in the deep woods, and leave our garage for the cats and their heater.

I lost my rain jacket from L.L.Bean about 2 years ago.  I searched the clothes closet and the coat closet, no joy.  I searched the underneath in both places, in case it had gotten pushed back and no sign showed from the front.  No joy.  So on Jan 3rd I ordered another from L.L.Bean at a pretty hefty price I might add,  and it was on  backorder until Jan 16.  C wanted to know what I was searching for, and he got this strange look, left, and returned with my long-lost jacket.  It had been shuffled to the very back of the hang-up rod in the laundry room, and I never checked there because the jacket is not washable.  But C had been clearing out all the miscellany found in all of them.  (A kite in the pantry?!).  Now I have to contact L.L.Beans and cancel.  Mine is a prettier color anyway.

sometimes

I don't know what happened to this post, which was a photo from "awkward family photos", I think.  Probably a copywrite problem.  I have never bothered about this, I leave the watermark on all the photos that I have not personally taken.  I am not trying to profit from them, just a cute little quip that I saw online, for no purpose except to make my blog post give the reader a little chuckle.  Anyway, I will look for something else to fill in the gaping hole.

This is a photo of me, Nana, and my sister, in front of our house in North Miami, around 1960.  Must have been Easter or some other dress-up occasion.  My Dad took this photo, and no copywrite pertains to it.

Possum Number 4

The only good thing I have to say about possums is that they are easy to catch.  We bait the have-a-heart trap with peanut butter in an empty cat food can, and usually catch one in a couple of hours.  How do we know there is a marauder?  Because when we go into the garage there it sits, eating dry cat food; it hisses but doesn't leave.  The trap is really getting a workout right now.  The funny part is when C releases it into the woods it will cling to the wire of the trap and he has to shake it vigorously to get it to fall out.  Dumb beasts.

I fell last night.  I was getting ready to light a candle, candle in one hand and lighter in the other, when my right knee buckled and down I went, candle, lighter, walker and me all together.  Fortunately I had not lit the candle yet.  I will have to think again about the brace, if I am ever to trust my footing again.  I am bruised up a bit, but no head injury, my main fear.  That, and falling in the bathroom where everything is hard and sharp-cornered, and I surely won't come away unscathed.

C rooted through the coat closet yesterday, and the things I am missing are NOT there.  He did find my raincoat, although I have ordered a new one before he did.  It is backordered so I have a week or so to decide if I need a new one or not.  Meaning, does it still fit?  I am thinking the sewing things are upstairs in N's former room, but I cannot do the stairs until my bruises and bangs heal.  There is a ton of stitchery stuff in a big dresser, but I can't remember what is and what is not there.

My page views here have been climbing by leaps and bounds, probably because it is funny,  part of the time.  For instance:

Which is, at least, a little bit funny.

This is by Scott Adams:

As a vegetarian, I can only handle seeing dead animals up to a certain size before I get a serious case of the heebie jeebies. I'm not too bothered looking at dead bugs and mice, under the theory that "they are little." But this possum was way above my heebie jeebie threshold. Worse yet, possums are notorious for pretending to be dead. I wasn't about to be fooled by the oldest trick in the animal kingdom.

I looked carefully to see if the possum was breathing through a thin reed of some sort. I saw nothing. Nor did I see any air tanks or diving apparatus. The only possibility was that he was holding his breath. I checked the Internet to see how long a possum can hold its breath. Apparently much research needs to be done in that area.

As luck would have it, today was the day the pool cleaning service was scheduled to clean the pool. If I pretended I didn't know there was a possum down there, the pool guy would have to fish it out. That way HE would be the one embarrassed by the possum's trickery. The only problem with that approach is that if the possum was really dead, the pool guy would have to leave it somewhere. He certainly wasn't going to take it with him in the truck. ("Here, little buddy, you ride shotgun.") If I were the pool guy, I'd be mad that I had to take a possum out of a pool. For revenge, I'd try to think up a funny place to put it, like in the hammock.

So I decided to take care of the job myself. I took the pool-cleaning apparatus that has a shallow net on the end of a long pole. That is the preferred tool for possum removal. Not only can it reach the bottom of the pool, but because it's long, it has the leverage you need to fling the possum over the fence and into the neighbor's pool.

This method worked well. The only problem is that every other day the possum is back in my pool. I expect some tension at the next neighborhood block party

A funny post

Sorry about the yellow background, this is from the photography forum that really hit my funny bone.  Enjoy!