::moan:: Make the alarm clock go away...

Ah, but it was Hair Day. So I was up to walk the dog, and James was up to pack up the food we were bringing: Mexican corn (it had Rotel in it, and actually turned out to be succotash because James had put beans in it as well) and the Mexican brownies James baked last night (they had cinnamon in them as well as cinnamon chips). It was another nice cool morning; I wore my jacket on the walk, but just my pash for the ride, since I knew I wouldn't need it once we finished up.

A smallish crowd today, but busy going in and out. Oreta and Phyllis talking about school, everyone complaining about the political ads, and the Butlers joined the "I have been contacted by some idiot who says he's from Microsoft and needs to fix my computer" club. Microsoft doesn't care a running fig about your computer. Once you buy Windows they are done with you unless you call them for help. They do not call you. The ironic part is they have figured out the people making these calls are Microsoft employees on their own time, trying to earn extra bucks by convincing you your computer has a virus.

Anyway, as you can guess, the theme was Mexican: Ben and Terica brought taco meat (pork and chicken), and there was cheese and other fixings to go into hard taco shells or soft tortillas, refried beans, the corn, plus the usual fruit-and-cheese platter and some doughnuts. Excellent all round.

We didn't leave until almost two, and then went up to the Mobility place to arrange for the chair platform. We were utterly surprised to find out that we have to have the chair before we can get the platform; I figured we needed the lift on the truck to pick up the chair! The representative said that no, the chair is shipped there and they fit the lift to the chair. Makes sense, but...who knew? First time I've done something like this! And before we get anything like that done, we have to have a 500 pound weight capable trailer hitch put on the truck. Oy, veh.

Then we did something more fun and went to Barnes & Noble, and first thing I saw on the magazine stand was a big, beautiful Christmas issue of "Victorian Homes." Yes! Also got the "Bliss Victoria" Christmas issue, and the November/December issue of "Landscape." "Landlove" won't be out for a couple more weeks, and they didn't have "Christmas Cottage." Plus a "Cross Stitcher" with a beautiful oak leaf-acorn-maple leaf-deer motif, except it's a clock pattern. I'll have to think of something to do with the center, since there are enough damn clocks in the house. Next week I will have to change about fifteen of them back to real time. Oh, and a "Blue Ridge Country" with fall photographs. I also used my coupon to buy Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets, a collection of Sherlock Holmes alternative universe stories. James used his to get a paperback copy of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing, which we heard the author speak about last year on "The Splendid Table."

On the way home we stopped at Staples to get some self-laminating plastic so when I got home I could laminate James' permanent handicapped parking pass, which he picked up on Tuesday after his doctor's appointment. James had to call to get a new credit card, since I found the original half-chewed in Tucker's crate. The dog's a little buzz-saw. Later on I popped Snowy in the carry box and walked him around a bit. We looked out the door at the deck and the slowly increasing number of yellow leaves, watched James scrambling up a bit of supper, and then sat on the sofa to watch television together. He was much more relaxed today and even started singing to the mirror in the carry box. I had it cradled in my left arm and at one point Tucker jumped up on my right leg; I looked like I was at the zoo.

We had so much good food for lunch we just noshed at supper. Watched a couple of Antique Roadshows,  today's This Old House and yesterday's Hawaii Five-0 before settling in for Doctor Who, with a very strange story about protective forests, camping schoolchildren, and a little girl who hears voices. Next week's preview was jarring; apparently Clara is going to turn against the Doctor?

We are absolutely going to have to do something about our satellite dish. Ever since they changed to the Christmas music last year, we have been having trouble getting most of the music channels. We get a partial signal loss or a complete signal loss on about half of them even on cloudless days, including, naturally, the ones I like (Sirius' Forties on 4, Watercolors, the Pops Channel—the last which is now gone). Tonight it gave us the same signal loss message on BBC America, so the DVR only recorded part of Doctor Who; thank God we get the BBC feed directly from Jack! I think the lenses, or whatever they're called, that collect the signal from the antenna are going bad. Not to mention our DVR will now only program two days in advance.

James and I were also discussing today his dropping his SiriusXM service for the car. Sirius' playlists have gotten so small that I swear if we go out for the day and we have Classic Rewind on, that we hear "Me and Bobby McGee" every three hours. It makes me want to stamp into bits that cassette they're supposed to be playing. Anyway, the dash mount for his radio broke in two a couple of weeks ago—it is nine years old, after all, going on ten; we got it the year my mother died—and the radio itself is just lying on the floor; he can't play it down there. The traffic reports are horrible now; they only update once a half hour, which is utterly useless in anyone's rush hour traffic, let alone Atlanta's. You can get better advice from Waze and Google Maps.

It's always something...

Labels: books, computers, errands, friends, magazines, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:52:00 PM

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