Yet Another Journal

Nostalgia, DVDs, old movies, television, OTR, fandom, good news and bad, picks, pans,
cute budgie stories, cute terrier stories, and anything else I can think of.

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» Saturday, August 21, 2021

First One Thing, and Then Another

Did some good cleaning during the week, so hoped to have a bit of fun during our three-day weekend. It didn't work out totally, but some nice things did happen. Unfortunately, some bad news came with it.

Thursday we went shopping as always. When we went to Lidl we found a nifty prize. I've mentioned they have this meat bin called "too good to waste" that has meat about to hit its expiration date, which they sell for $1.50. Well, they also have a table up front with these cardboard boxes, 8 1/4 square by 3 3/4 that they put loose fruit and veg into and sell for 30 cents a pound. We bought one about a month ago with baking potatoes and some mandarin oranges in it. Well, we lucked out yesterday: we found one crammed full. It had one ripe lemon, a single Roma tomato, eleven red potatoes, three huge and then five or six smaller carrots, and the rest of the box comprised of Dutch gold potatoes. We had the tomato with a cucumber salad on Thursday night, have put the lemon in the fruit bin, the potatoes in the potato bin, and used the three big carrots in James' "bachelor chow" base mix and the rest are in the veg dish. Whole thing cost us $1.59.

Lidl. We also made the usual trip to Publix and to Kroger (where I found yogurt and two nice steaks in the Manager's Special bin), and because we had Hair Day scheduled on Saturday, James used the afternoon to make the base mix for his breakfasts. We really couldn't have gone anywhere after lunch anyway as it started storming.

Friday we bit the bullet and went to Walmart. I like to open the window in the library on cooler summer mornings and was tired of the fan downstairs rattling because the bearings are wearing out. Online it noted the Powder Springs stores did have some left. We also needed a new tarp to cover up the power chair; the old one was leaking. We also bought James some sugar-free candy, got him some new slippers because in working at home he wears through them very rapidly, and I found the second season of His Dark Materials on DVD. We also dropped by Lidl to see if they had mandarin oranges (nope) but did get two focaccia breads that are good for a light lunch. Then we had a nice lunch at The BBQ Place with Alice and Ken. To finish the day we gassed up the truck at Costco.

Friday night we found out Hair Day was canceled because Sheri had badly sprained her ankle, so Saturday morning we took the three UPS units out of their box in the garage and put them in the truck. Boy, did I get pissed. Last month I specifically texted Microcenter to see if we could recycle the old UPS units at their store and was told yes, provided we could show proof of purchase. So we took them there—and those little suckers are heavy—only to be told they can no longer accept recycling because the State of Georgia requires them to pay to ship it all to Ohio, and they have to pay freight charges across Tennessee and Kentucky on the route there. If I hadn't called it would have been different! So we had to haul them home and cross fingers there is a Free Recycling Day this year. Our recycling boxes are chock full with old junk, including the microwave.

We did stop at Publix. James went next door to get a Mexican dinner at Willy's and I finally found the mandarins (but still no juice boxes) and got myself an Annie Chun dinner.

What marred the week was finding out that two friends of ours, who'd finally felt safe enough to take a little weekend trip to Tennessee, had both come down with COVID-19, despite being fully vaccinated. He was at home having taken monoclonal antibodies, but she was in ICU and had been intubated. This was very disheartening news, although he did update Facebook a day later and said they had spoken, so I guess she is no longer receiving breathing assistance. Latest news is that she is receiving oxygen and has a feeding tube to help improve her nutrition.

This is not only horrible news, since they were super careful last year and didn't even come to Friday lunches, but is making it more difficult to make a final decision about DragonCon. People on Facebook have pointed out Disney World and other things are open, and people have been flying without severe problems, but it's still frightening. We have been teetering back and forth about this for weeks and this news has made it worse, as we have seen that other vaccinated older people have gotten sick, and one already vaccinated man has died days after he urged other people on the news to get vaccinated.