 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. Contact me at theyoungfamily (at) earthlink (dot) net . . . . . . . . . .
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» Sunday, November 12, 2023
Doctor, Doctor, Doctor...Ouch, and Therapy (Plus Lots More)
 You've heard of 1001 Nights? This week was 1/3 dozen doctors. (And, to be honest, 1/4 dozen doctors, since physiotherapy doesn't really count.)
The tally: Last visit with vascular doctor. Podiatry. Pre-sleep study consultation (in Decatur, no less). Also, physiotherapy. So doing housework on Monday was actually sort of relaxing. 😉 So James' fistula appears to be healed properly. Not sure if it's ripe yet. The doctor keeps asking "When are you going on dialysis?" Well, not yet, I hope. It's not like anyone's told us. James has no symptoms: he's still urinating fine, the urine looks normal, he has no loss of appetite, edema, nausea or vomiting, or shortness of breath. (Dr. Kongara keeps asking.) On the steroids Dr. Salazar gave him, he lost five pounds. Since we were at Glenlake anyway, we went to Merchant's Walk and checked out the new Barnes & Noble in the shopping center where the Borders used to be (the B&N is in the old Bed, Bath & Beyond). The new store is...quite trendy. The bookshelves curve and "float" around the store so you are led in a certain path around it; James didn't like it, said they didn't have enough stock. I thought it was kinda cool (but, yeah, all the bookstores can use more books!) In fact, I found a cool book about Josephine Baker's spy work there, and bought James Travis Baldree's new book. I also had to get Victoria Finlay's new book, Fabric. "But, Linda, you hate to sew." Why yes, I do, and I can't tell one type of cotton fabric from another (except flannel). But I love Victoria Finlay's writing, and this book is no different. It starts out with barkcloth and tapa, both made out of the inner bark of palm trees, and she travels to New Guinea and other South Pacific islands to meet the few Polynesian craftswomen who still practice doing the fabric the old way. She also uses the book as a way of assuaging her grief after the deaths of her parents. We also went to Trader Joe's, where most of the Christmas stuff is out. Where are the Candy-Cane Joe-Joe's? All they had were the chocolate-covered ones. Wednesday was Thursday we took a box to Goodwill, dropped off our good duds at the cleaners after their appearance at Neil and Emilee's wedding, then James got his feet inspected and a good pedicure at Kaiser before we went on to Lidl and two different Publix stores, since the Scufflegrit store on Wednesday had none of my favorite yogurt flavor (chocolate hazelnut). (They had plenty of that nasty coconut almond, though!) Friday was our 33rd wedding anniversary. (Rodney pointed out that in March we would now be an LP!) We celebrated by having to get up at a hellacious seven a.m. to drive out to Decatur, as James has not had his C-PAP vetted in a long time. The only way to get this done is have a new sleep study, and when you're on Medicare you have to have a neurological exam before the sleep study. So this was the exam part, at 10:30. At the Emory sleep center. Off North Decatur Road. (What I call the "old neighborhood" since if you drive a few miles and a couple of turns and you're at Clifton Road and CDC headquarters.) It was cloudy and rained most of the afternoon, which made it a PITA with the power chair, but we managed to have a good time. We found the building in one shot (thanks, Waze) and the exam itself was anticlimactic (James' opinion was "I had to drive all the way out here for that?"). I'd seen there was a Whole Foods across the street, and the last time we ate at the Whole Foods in Kennesaw they had a killer salad bar, so I said, "Let's go there for lunch." Mistake. It is (or at least at that Whole Foods) no longer killer (no more of the delicious cucumber/tomato salad!) and there wasn't a darn thing on the hot bar I could eat without risk of (1) eating something spicy or (2) eating something that didn't give me massive indigestion even with a Protonix. They had clam chowder, but it was watery. I just had a salad while James found meatloaf, tikka masala, lasagna, and something else. He brought half of it home and the darn lunch cost $34! We could have gone to Tin Drum for less and gotten better food. We did get some nice chocolate tarts for an anniversary dessert and two chocolate bars for other desserts. There was a Half-Price Books across the street with a JoAnn next to it, so we took refuge out of the rain there. I got lucky in HPB and found another John Douglas book; also a hardback of Stephen King's On Writing and a "Bottom Line" book for $2 (we already had it, but I wanted to make sure!). James got some cool Lego Christmas sets (polar bears, a snowman, and a train) in JoAnn. I just bought a yard of good flannel...in case we get another bird. I cut off part of Snowy's cage cover for a shroud. Anyway, James has become addicted to his new air fryer. We went from a 2.5 quart to a 5.something quart, so he's been making everything in it: warming up burritos in it if he has frozen burritos, making egg/cheese/ham/etc. egg dishes, cooking drumsticks and thighs, etc. So instead of putting it back on the dog's crate after using it, he's just left it smack in the middle of the kitchen counter, pre-empting prep space. We have very little kitchen counter as it is. So Saturday I did a little cleaning in the kitchen pantry closet and cleared a space wide enough to put the two clear containers we have for English muffins and for Toufeyan wraps. If I then moved the tea machine next to the toaster, there was enough room to put the balsamic vinegars, the air fryer, the Magic Bullet, and the two-level lazy susan against the back wall next to the refrigerator. This means the entire counter got clean, and also the other counter. It was a long afternoon's work, but it worked out. Finally on Sunday we went to Costco, as we were running out of probiotics. We've been taking them for three months and it has really helped my lower GI problems, and I think they've made James more "regular." Bought toilet tissue, almond flour crackers, and a few other things, too, then dumped all the stuff at home and went to IKEA. I remember when you could get a decent lunch at IKEA; now all they have are the meatballs, veg meatballs, or chicken strips. I had a salad that there was no dressing for, and a kids' meatball dish (four with mashed potatoes). I was famished when I got home. Found a cool light to plug into my desktop that will throw light on anything I'm copying from, a clip-on light for my side of the bed, and a cheap squirt bottle to use when I iron creases in anything. Also got some ginger cookies. IKEA's new self-checkout screens are terrible. They're not sensitive to the touch at all and take you forever. I'll tell you, though, that I'm so glad we moved into the current house when we did. IKEA has gone back to their "roots," which means plastic bucket chairs, ugly square sofas, lots of blond and white woods, and other junky 60s-looking crap. I'm glad we got all the Leksvik furniture when we did, as there's very little I would buy there now, except for the Billy bookcases. It didn't help that they are remodeling the entire bed/bedding department. Labels: anniversary, books, cooking, crafts, errands, exercise, food, health, shopping, sickness, weather  » Sunday, November 13, 2022
Thank You, Doc...
It's been a week of mostly chores, and stupid grocery shopping, including Walmart for the yogurt and burritos we can't get at any of the other supermarkets, the usual housecleaning, and I gave Tucker a bath.Three good things: We went to Barnes & Noble twice, once to Buckhead and once to West Cobb. Yes, I committed book, and got the fall "Country Sampler." We saw Dr. Shash, James' cardiologist, today. He says he detects no damage to James' heart from the recent whatever that happened. And we had our anniversary dinner at Longhorn. Thirty two years, yay us!
Labels: anniversary, books, chores, errands, health » Saturday, November 13, 2021
An Unexpected Vacation, or Doctors' Appointments, Store-Hopping, and Crime Series Watch
If James was going to have a week's furlough, at least we could get a "sort of" vacation out of it. So I turned off all the alarms and we looked forward to a nice Monday morning of sleeping in.Thanks, Alex, for coming to cut the grass (last cut of the season). Absolutely no thank you for showing up at 6:50 a.m. Sigh. In the meantime, James devoted Monday to giving the stovetop a good scrub. Tuesday I did the laundry (because Wednesday was reserved for our "big exciting trip" down to Kaiser Southwood) and a couple of the chores I would have done on Sunday. Happened to catch a message that Vincent D'Onofrio was going to be on the gossip show Daily Blast Live, so we watched it this afternoon. Sure wish the hosts would shut up and let the guest talk instead of bantering amongst themselves, but this seems to be the fashion today. Miss Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas, and Merv Griffin, who actually let their guests talk—what a novel idea. For the rest of the day I had my D'Onofrio/Erbe fix—mostly watched Law & Order: Criminal Intent. (I've started—early, since it was a birthday gift to myself—watching the DVD set I bought and realized the initial shows were still done in the era of pan-and-scan.) So Wednesday we had to drive 35 miles to the Kaiser Southwood office—thankfully traffic only a problem until we got to the I-20 cutoff—to visit James' urologist. Didn't realize we hadn't seen him for over a year! Dr. Starr did a cytoscopy (sp?) on him to make sure his bladder was emptying properly (it is). Apparently his prostate is growing back slightly on one side, but has left a sizable enough gap for everything to come out properly, so it's not a problem right now. There was a bit of scar tissue from the surgery, which the doctor was able to clear. We also picked up some new "hats" so James could continue monitoring output. Dr. Starr will see us one more time in May, and then he is retiring, bless him. If anyone deserves it, he does. And then he will recommend a doctor at Glenlake, which will save us these marathons to Southlake. We had planned to eat our anniversary dinner—did I mention Wednesday was our wedding anniversary? it's our "Baskin-Robbins anniversary," 31derful years—at the Olive Garden nearby, but, forever spooked by Atlanta traffic as always, we drove back home and ate at the Cobb Parkway location instead. I did the make-your-own-pasta (rigatoni with marinara sauce and meatballs) with a salad and James had his favorite, chicken marsala, with a "zuppa toscana" chaser, and we shared a piece of black tie mousse cake as dessert (the waiter wrote "Happy Anniversary" on the plate in chocolate fondant, which was sweet). Of course if Olive Garden's marinara sauce gets any sweeter, we're going to have to start classifying it as a dessert... To get it out of the way, we stopped at Publix on the way home. Thursday we had to complete James' doctor trifecta for the week. We had an appointment at Glenlake with a podiatrist in the morning, so instead of taking the freeway, we did our usual back door route through Lower Roswell and Paper Mill roads and were rewarded with gorgeous autumn color (Paper Mill is a ritzy neighborhood, so the houses are set in groves of trees, and the road itself descends to a creek bottom where the mill used to be and then back up). Glenridge Drive behind Kaiser Glenridge was beautiful as well. We saw Dr. "Mosh" this time (he has a very long last name) and he agreed with me that Dr. Friedman's suggested method of treating the little ulcer on James left "ring toe" was not working and changed it. Now I am to put betadyne on it and he gave me some silver-infused Mepilex foam to put on top of it. He also gave us some silicone spacers to use to keep James' baby toe from rubbing the affected one. Since it was on the way home, we stopped at Trader Joe's to (1) get a quick lunch, as we like their wraps, and (2) pick up more stuff. They had the Christmas stuff out so we got fresh "candy cane Jo-Jos" (Oreo cookie-type filled with crushed peppermint), peppermint bark, and peppermint puffs covered in dark chocolate. There is a Lidl nearby now, so we stopped there for our Lidl stuff like mandarin oranges, bakery items, etc. and found a loaf of whole wheat bread for James since Publix didn't have any. We were even able to get the two stores' worth of groceries home and put away and sit for awhile until it was time to hit the last appointment, the nephrologist, who gave James a clean bill of health. On the way home this time we stopped at Kroger for milk and yogurt and ramen noodles. Friday we actually had a free day, so took some stuff to Goodwill—sadly James' old desk chair was too battered for them to take—and then went to Walmart to get James new compression socks, plus what stock of sugar free hard candies they had (not much). On the way home we stopped at Popshelf to get James some Tina burritoes (their beef and bean flavor has the lowest sodium count of all the pre-made burritoes in the stores). Saturday! Finally! The event we'd waited for for two years: Free Electronics Recycling Day! Now we could safely get rid of the damn microwave that James rapped the truck door on every time he got into the truck. And the three dead UPS units, a VCR that wouldn't even turn on anymore, a fan, various little electronic devices, my old alarm clock, RCA cables, old lamps, etc. However, they would not take the light bulbs, even the damn CFLs which are supposed to be toxic and are supposed to be disposed of properly. Made me angry. We hadn't been to the Farmer's Market in downtown Marietta in a dog's age, so we went there next. Didn't have much money, but we bought some sweet Argentinian chorizo sausage (which we had for supper; it was delicious, but the sample we'd tasted was not so salty, or we wouldn't have bought it) and of course homemade dog biscuits for Tucker. We also brought the six preserve jars we've been saving for months on the drainboard to the guy who makes his grandmother Lillian's Hawai'ian marinade, as he recycles them to put his product in. It was crisply cold this morning, which made loading the electronic junk in the truck and walking around downtown a positive delight. We walked around the square as well and stopped at The Corner Shop (a.k.a. the British store) and bought a Terry's dark chocolate orange, a couple of meat pies for James, some chocolate "Christmas pudding," and a Scotland sticker. Then we went into the candy store next door where they sell all sorts of hard candies and unusual candy bars and different brands and flavors of sodas, and they had four kinds of sugar free hard candies! James got sugar free Chik-O-Stiks, butterscotch candies, root beer barrels, and peanut butter bars. Finally we stopped at The Local Exchange, but they didn't have any Marietta Square stickers (ours have been burnt out by the sun), so we got back into the truck and headed for home. As a last treat for our unscheduled "vacation," we each had a doughnut at the new "Dunkin" on Powder Springs Road near where we used to live. And thus ended the furlough, because James got the call that he was all funded up again—well, for the next six months anyhow—and back to work on Sunday. Alas, back to my having to cook dinner. But a week was a nice vacation from it. In various other news, we are watching Star Trek: Prodigy—James likes it, I don't hate it, but I could skip it without pain—and, between out bouts with watching Murdoch Mysteries, we are dipping into the original CSI on Hulu (it's on Paramount+, too, but the commercials on Hulu are less obnoxious). William Petersen is almost as nice to look at as Vincent D'Onofrio. (Notice I said "almost" here...LOL.) Labels: anniversary, autumn, chores, dogs, electronics, food, health, shopping, television, vacation » Saturday, November 10, 2018
The Perfect November Day
Although it was Saturday, we were up to an alarm at 7:30, since we had to be out early. It went down to the 30s last night and it was hard to get out of a warm, toasty bed. Slept like a log in this chill. I don't think I sleep anywhere near as well in the summer, when I'm quite "sleep depraved."Dressed for the weather this morning, in my Vermont sweatshirt, jeans, and my boot socks, which keep my feet toasty warm. I'm quite chuffed at getting to wear all this—every year (even as busy as I've been this year) summer seems to take longer to go by. Emerged with Tucker to a bright blue sky and a brisk walk, then came in for breakfast. As James finished up, I started packing stuff in the back of the truck, but waited for him for the last, awkward box with the MopVac sticking out of it. Electronics recycling was much quicker this year, as they were sorting people right as you entered, rather than waiting for you to go through the gates where the employees were waiting, and electronics is always the shortest line, as odd as this sounds, as today they are also taking old clothing or offering mass paper shredding. Most of the people seem to be here to either have their papers shredded or to recycle clothes. A quick twist of the wrist, a return of the boxes, and like that, it was all done for the year. I am so happy to get that junk out of the garage. On the way home we stopped by Advance Auto Parts to get new bungee cords to hold down the trunk in the back of the truck (they literally rot away in the Georgia sun); we installed them once we arrived home. James packed up the truck with some models he was donating to the club auction, and he was off. I "mounted up" as well, to buy milk and mandarin orange cups at Sam's Club. As always, came out with a lot more: slippers for James, fresh mandarins, two Christmas magazines, and two wonderful meat bargains: chicken drumsticks at 85 cents a pound, and some discount stew beef at $2.36 a pound. They had pork chops for $1.25/pound, but I passed as we had a lot of pork. On the way out, I gave a contribution to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and got a poppy for my car. Since it was still chilly, I stowed the perishables in insulated bags and headed up to Town Center. I had a good coupon for JoAnn and wanted to make sure it was used. I stopped to take a photo of a gorgeous orange-leaved maple tree, and then was greeted with Christmas everywhere. JoAnn has a nice selection of plaques and other things this year, but very large pieces for larger homes than ours. I picked up a magnet sheet with my coupon and some golden candle bulbs. I'm running short on blue bulbs for the welcome candles in the front windows and think the golden ones look very pretty, like a real flame. Stopped at Michael's, but they didn't have what I was looking for, so I just went on to Costco for gasoline. They are at $2.259, which is mind-boggling. On the way home I drove home through the battlefield park, golden with autumn and perfect for walking, surprised that I did not see more people out exercising. If I wasn't toting a trunk full of groceries I'd be tempted to stop and walk myself. Once home, I had my lunch, then washed the kitchen floor, which badly needed it. Looked outside and thought I should fill the bird feeders since the weather is going to be cold and then chill and rainy on Monday. They were finally dried out from the last rainstorm and I was able to do so, and brought fresh seed up from where I'd stored it in the garage. Then I thought I would hang up some suet. The suet cage was on the floor of the deck, but most of its hanging chain was stuck between the boards. I had to retrieve what I could with a pair of pliers and fix the links. When I went to hang it up on the existing double-strand thick cord that suspends the thistle seed holder, it fell out of my hands. I had to take off my shoes (because the back yard is still awash in mud), put on my dog walking shoes, go all the way outside and into the back yard, pick up the suet cage, bang the mud out of it, walk back in, get out of my dog walking shoes, put my regular shoes back on, and then go back on the deck. The cord turned out to be rotted and broke in my hands. So I had to replace the existing cord and made up a second cord to hold the suet cage separately, take the stepladder outside to hang the cords, and finally rehang the thistle seed holder and hang the suet cage. All that just to feed the birds! When James came home we were off to the West Cobb Diner for supper. Really surprised at the crowd, because we were much earlier than we usually arrive. But the turkey was worth it. We finished up by completing the grocery shopping and returning home for Father Brown and the Britcoms. Incidentally, today is our 28th wedding anniversary! I thank God for seeing another one. Labels: anniversary, birds, events, food, shopping, television, weather » Saturday, November 22, 2014
51 Years Ago Today
» Sunday, November 10, 2013
Four-Day Frolic, Part 2
Happy anniversary to us! Twenty-three years today!Alas, no sleeping late snuggling with each other, as James had to work today. I went back to sleep in an effort to at least get eight hours sleep, but we had a power blip and my phone tweedled before that time. Anyway, busy day. Swept out the kitchen, loaded the dishwasher and finished a load, washed the towels, took the dog out a couple of times, finished the shopping and rearranged the storage food downstairs, Had some goat cheese and crackers for lunch, and finally gave in and put some Christmas CDs on. Did some book reviews on Amazon. When James came home, we went to Longhorn for an anniversary supper. We had a free appetizer coupon and had the shrimp and lobster dip, then had the osso buco pork as a treat. It was delicious and so tender, but I think I'll stick with a steak at Longhorn. We had a Chocolate Stampede for dessert, but, as always, just ate the ice cream and brought the chocolate cake home. Now watching The Ghost Army, the fascinating story about the US 23rd Special Troops, who used rubber tanks, vehicles, and even airplanes, along with broadcast sound, and other deceptive tactics, to distract the Germans during World War II. The Paradise is up next. Labels: anniversary, events, food, housework, television » Sunday, November 11, 2012
Nuptial Madness (A Weekend Saga)
It's been quite a weekend.The weekend frolics began a bit early...like on Monday. I noticed on Monday night that when Schuyler was relaxing, she looked as if she were falling asleep, with her eyes squinted. It was after nine and she had a right to be sleepy. Tuesday I got up at six a.m. to go vote. It was a miserable, chilly, rainy morning—given the choice between 44 degrees with rain and snow, I'll take the snow; it's drier!—and I huddled in line with about one hundred people in front of me and fifty behind after about twenty minutes in line. I had my umbrella propped up and was reading the first Falco novel on my Nook, but the umbrella of the guy in front of me kept dripping on it and finally I closed it. The poll opened promptly at seven and I was out of there by 7:30 to get home and start work. When I got in Schuyler was full of beans. She raced back and forth at the bottom of her cage, chirped, sang, and bounced around most of the morning. I, on the other had, was miserable: the chilly rain had seeped into my bones and I couldn't get my feet warm. I was cold and headachy, and at lunch took a nap. Before I got back to work, I walked past Schuyler's cage. That right eye...she looked like she was squinting. But the left eye was fine. Hmn. On Wednesday I was in the office at "SURGE" training (a team-building exercise that highly puzzled me, since it assumed—to my perception, anyway—that we as an office didn't get along; there were these long lessons about politeness and talking to each other and consideration...say what? do other branches have this problem? ours doesn't!), but James was home and I asked him to keep an eye on Skye between his errands. He said she was still squinting, but otherwise seemed healthy. That night, however, she just suddenly had a bout of uncontrolled scratching under and near that eye. It was like a fit; she didn't want to stop. I finally had to take her into the spare bedroom, half cover her cage, and keep the light low. I read to her from the "Looking Back" issue I was reading and was quite upset, even though she calmed down quickly and sat sleepily, squinting at me. Finally we just all went to bed. On Thursday she didn't do any relentless scratching, but she was still squinting—I started making jokes to her about being a pirate—so I called the vet, but couldn't get an appointment until Friday. Well, Friday already had plans around it. Our friend Juanita, who has been a widow for about fifteen years, had finally found herself a nice new "feller," David Gibson, and they became engaged at the beginning of the year. On Saturday, the 10th (our wedding anniversary!) they would be married! Our friend Shari, who is a superlative baker, was asked to make the wedding cake. Problem: Shari lives in Birmingham, Alabama. No problem: Shari could stay with us! Shari was coming in on Friday, with the baked segments of the cake with her. She wanted to go to the DeKalb Farmers Market before arriving at our house. I told her traffic was bad on Friday and she needed to leave there before rush hour and all Hell broke loose. So she was planning to arrive some time in the morning, drop the cakes off at the banquet hall, and then go on to DeKalb, then come back to our house. I wanted to get the car "vetted" to remove the vacation remains (crumbs, dog hair and the like), but was otherwise planning to be home. Instead, I had to take Schuyler to the vet at 10 a.m. Nothing was seriously wrong with her, thank God! They stained her eye to make sure she did not have a scratched cornea, and that was clear, but she had conjunctivitis in that eye. I will have to put drops in her eyes for the next ten days. Oy. The vet clipped her wings to facilitate this and she came home looking gloomy and depressed. While I was there, a gentleman came in, upset. He had an injured hawk in his trunk. It had run into him on the road and before he could get out of his car to look at it, another car had hit it. He wrapped it in a cloth and put it into his trunk and called the fish and wildlife people, and they told him to take it to our vet, who is an avian specialist. I left Schuyler at home half covered so she could sleep and watching television and went to take care of the car, which was done before I'd even finished filing my nails. Shari, by this time, was having her own problems. It turned out the banquet hall was suddenly rented out for Friday when they had told Juanita there would be room for Shari to assemble the cake onsite on Friday. After it took her four hours to drive here from Birmingham (it's normally a two and a half hour drive), she had to change gears and take the cake parts to David's house where they had refrigerator space. Later the cakes would be transported to the banquet hall and Shari could decorate them. So she had gone off to DeKalb. In the meantime work was slow and they sent James home early. He'd already eaten, but I hadn't, so we went to Panera. We were going to stop at Barnes & Noble, but Shari called; she was on her way to our house but had made a wrong turn. So we headed home while giving her the correct directions. We spent the rest of the afternoon settling her in and relaxing. It turned out she would not be able to go decorate the cake tonight after all because of the event that was planned, but would have to go there early tomorrow instead. We could at least have a good evening: we took her to Giovanni's for supper. She really enjoyed the food there; she had a lasagna. James had pork marsala and I just had pasta with sausage. We all had leftovers. Afterwards we went to Kroger to get a couple of ingredients Shari needed for the cake frosting. We also located the hall. Schuyler was a bear to treat. You wouldn't believe this tiny bird has such strong shoulders. I'm not even sure any antibiotic got into her eye! So, needless to say, worrying about doing this for another nine days, I didn't get a lot of sleep. James was really restless as well. On Saturday Shari hoped to have an early breakfast before she commenced to cake decorating. Accordingly, we were up at seven. Our old neighbor Susan Robinson had often urged us to go to the little French bakery off Atlanta Road, Douceur de France, located in a tiny house at the corner of a side street. In the time that we never took to go there, Douceur moved to Powder Springs Road, closer to downtown Marietta. We pass it on our way to the Farmer's Market on Saturday and it is always crowded, so that was the other reason for getting up early, getting there before the crowd. Well, it was fabulous. Shari and James both had eggs, which they said were wonderful (she had scrambled, he had an omelet), and Shari loved the coffee. James and I both had hot chocolate, which was very chocolaty and not overly sweet, a big plus! We both hate sugary cocoa. I had a fruit cup with a nice variety of fruit, bacon, and a baguette. Oh, this baguette! Angels smiled over this baguette! To my cousin Debbie: think of Garzilli's bread. Oh, my! With butter, just perfect! Then Shari was off to assemble and ice the cake. We went to the Farmer's Market and I finally got some goat cheese; we got a pot pie for Sunday supper and James picked up some boiled peanuts. We dropped off the food at home and snatched up the coupon for Books-a-Million we thought we might need, and headed up to Acworth for their 20 percent off sale (we were hoping to score some Christmas gifts). When we got there we walked down to the Petco first. Schuyler needed a new sand perch and the vet says she has too many bells and not enough enriching toys. We didn't find much in the latter category. While we were there we had to get someone to rescue a cockatiel who had one of his legs caught between the bars of the bottom of his enclosure. His leg was bleeding by the time they got him out. We scored mostly stuff for ourselves at BAM, sorry to say: a Big Bang trivia game and Uno game, a bunch of $5 DVDs. No books, actually! And we took a short enough time there to be able to go down to the hobby shop for about a half hour. AAA Hobbies is closing Thanksgiving weekend. They are just losing too much money. People come in there and look at models, then order them online. So today is probably the last time I will sit in the meeting room and read whilst James model neeps with the guys. Next week is the one-day Doctor Who event at the Elks Lodge and then James has to work after that. So...farewell...sometimes it was boring for me, but lots of time I had fun. The guys were always polite and funny, and apologized to me if they cursed. Shucks, you haven't seen the way I talk to my computer at work. Or traffic on I-285. :-) We made sure to be home by one so James could shower and we'd have plenty of time to dress. James was going to have a Wendyburger and I was planning on some Soup in Hand and cibatta bread when Shari called. She was doing a basket-weave pattern on the cake, still needed something to finish and was waiting on someone to get it to her and could we bring her her clothes and makeup so she could get dressed there? Oh, goodness, this threw us into high gear. We thought we had everything ready, but it turned out my high heels no longer fit, and neither did my dress Hush Puppies. Once James had a shower I knew his hair really needed trimming—he's missed Hair Day two months in a row due to work and didn't have a chance to hit the barber—so I did that. James then realized he'd never taken his shirt out of the pins, so I had to do that and iron it, so I also touched up my blouse and the shoulder scarf. Then I had to run downstairs and get my mom's jewelry that I wanted to wear. And James couldn't manage to tie his tie. I called Shari; she does plays and knows a lot about costuming. My frantic question: "Can you tie a man's tie?" "I think so." Zoom, we were off! Oh, what a comedy of errors! And then, when we were finally fleeing the house with Shari's clothes and makeup, at 2:30 (the wedding was at three!) I realized halfway there that I hadn't turned off the iron! So I had to drop James and the clothes off, hoping one of them would manage the tie, and he rode to the church with Shari while I doubled back to the house to turn off the iron. So I was five minutes late to the ceremony, but tried to arrive composed despite having to fight Saturday traffic and people dreaming at traffic lights. Bless Twilight, he's light on his wheels and quick to move. It was a wonderful ceremony. I cried through most of it. The church was beautiful, all white inside with splendid chandeliers. They did something unique: did a "braid" called the Ceremony of Three Cords. The gold cord was God, the purple David the groom, and the white Juanita as the bride, braided together as one. They also both lit a Unity Candle in unison. They exchanged vows and also words they had written themselves. Simply lovely. Juanita's daughter Jessie and niece Kim and David's daughter Jen all looked lovely in burgundy gowns. And then finally we could relax and head leisurely for the hall and have a good time with our friends and celebrate Juanita and David. But I had one more surprise today. Back when I started walking at CDC, Marty Hirsch was my branch chief and the assistant branch chief was Andrea Stokes. "Andy" always followed the rules and was strict, but sweet and gentle at the same time. I knew she kept in touch with Juanita and Betty, and I wondered earlier if she had come to the wedding. And when we walked into the banquet hall there she was! My gosh, I must have hugged her about ten times. It was so nice, especially with the reorganization plans going fast and furious and that perplexing SURGE class, to see a friendly face from the past when PGO was such a simple, straightforward organization!!! It turns out her husband Jack died three years ago, but she still lives in the old house in Buckhead. I told her we still have her wedding present, the Bullwinkle counter clock that we had top of our wish list, and that we were so surprised she bought. And she looks so good!!!! I told her she must have a picture in her closet! We ended up sitting with Juanita's nephew Michael's three youngest kids, Grace, Noah, and Anna. The girls were a little shy, but Noah was a little gentleman, asking me how we knew Juanita, and what my name was. It was obvious the kids were a little bored, but they were quiet and polite and well behaved. They were a joy to have at the table with us. Later John Bouler's sister Carol came to sit with us as well. It was a swell reception. Juanita did a series of dances with all the members of her family, and there was much snacking and schmoozing and chatting and hugging, and photographing! Shari's cake was lovely, for all that her hands were cramped with arthritis for the rest of the weekend, with a light crumb and a delicious frosting (I usually hate frosting; most of it is too sugary). And finally after the sun was just set we saw them off with bubbles and finally made our way home, getting into comfy clothes. Shari wanted to get some liquor for baking, so we went to Mink's, and then we stopped at Subway so that she and James could get some supper (the reception had just been "finger foods"). I opted for oatmeal and yogurt, and we sat and relaxed watching Too Cute. We were all so exhausted we were in bed by eleven. Still wrestling with Schuyler... This morning we slept in. James made biscuits, and cooked bacon from the Pine Street Market, and we had breakfast at table. Today we took Shari on the food-lover's tour of Atlanta. :-) We started at the Buford Highway Farmer's Market. As expected, she was intrigued. We had a leisurely two-hour walk around the store, checking out all the cool stuff: sugar loaves from South America, Russian chocolate, Polish canned goods, noodles from Japan (and Korea, China, Indonesia), sauces, fruits, international sodas, Turkish Delight to lamb steaks, sushi to Irish butter. We got some lamb steaks, goat pieces to crock pot, and potstickers to steam, plus odd groceries. Shari had expressed an interest in seeing a Trader Joe's, so we stopped at the one in Sandy Springs. As we drove in the parking lot, we saw a new store, Penzey's Spices. Yes, an entire store filled with just spices, like you read about in old books! Each spice had a sample container you could sniff, and oh, what a lovely scent the store had. They even had different kinds of spices, like three kinds of cinnamon (the Vietnamese was really strong) and smoked and sweet paprika. Both Shari and James bought some paprika! Finally Trader Joe's and I was able to get some chicken salad for lunch. Also replenished my chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds. We'd recommended the apple chicken sausage to Shari, but they didn't have any. Phooey. No Christmas goods out yet, and no pumpkin tarts! But finally we had to get Shari back to the house so she could leave for home. We thought we had all her stuff loaded in her car, but she forgot some of the butter she bought at DeKalb as well as some baked goods, and her leftover lasagna. :-( I know she was enjoying that butter! Meanwhile, we went to Kroger for milk and a newspaper. James had some soup and I had some of the baguette from Buford...good, but nowhere as good as the Douceur loaf yesterday. We bought salad greens at Buford and chicken strips at Trader Joe's and decided to have that for supper instead of the pot pie. James chopped up the rest of this morning's bacon, and we had that and chicken strips with the greens, mandarin oranges, almond slivers, and chow mein noodles while watching episodes five and six of the Cambridge project on This Old House. We also watched a goofy little Cooking Channel special called Back in Time for Thanksgiving, where two comedians, a man and a woman, learned how to cook and tasted the real foods the Pilgrims would have eaten at "the first Thanksgiving." They liked the turkey and the lobster, but the stewed pumpkin (no sugar nor flour to make pumpkin pie back then!) got a screwed-up face from both of them. They also ate venison, succotash, spinach, and eel pie. Oh, and the latest episodes of Doomsday Preppers and Alaska the Last Frontier. After all the excitement of the weekend, I'm feeling rather down. I even had Christmas music on while James was cooking. Schuyler has spent the day mostly asleep. I am rapidly using up her medicine because she squirms so! The vet called for a follow-up and says they will give me more if I need it. I want to make her well now! We did play "Olympics" a little with her bell and she has cuddled with Red Bell and pecked at her swing, and she has eaten and drunk, but she doesn't seem happy. I want her to be happy. Something astonishing happened this morning, though, after we had this morning's tussle over the medicine. A frowsy, fluffled Schuyler was cupped in my hand, and I gently transferred her to my finger. She stayed there. Stayed there long enough for James to come out of the kitchen to see her before she started to look restless and I walked her back to her cage. The vet said maybe she's "turned over a new wing." Maybe. You don't know my Wild Child. She's a stubborn girl. But damned if I'm not fool enough to hope so... Labels: anniversary, birds, celebrations, food, friends, pets, shopping, television, weather, work » Tuesday, November 10, 2009
And One Other Thing...
...happy anniversary to US. Nineteen years today.
Trains, Christmas, and an anniversary, all in one day. Cool. Labels: anniversary » Thursday, July 16, 2009
Moonstruck 2
Remembering Apollo 11 - The Big Picture
Link from Elaine's blog--thanks, these are wonderful! Labels: anniversary, history » Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Cabbages and Kings
By the time I was in my late teens I had a considerably large collection of Readers Digests. We were getting them by subscription from the late 60s and every time I went to yard sales or flea markets I bought old ones; you could get some for a dime apiece. Eventually I had a collection from the late 50s all the way through the 1970s.
(After I left home Mom had them up in the attic until the one day she called me and said she was trying to clean up there. Could she get rid of the Digests? Oh, how I didn't want her to! There were lovely articles on the space program, and Corey Ford's wonderful pieces, and marvelous book sections, like The Triumph of Janis Babson and On This Night and Time Out for Happiness (about the Gilbreths of Cheaper by the Dozen). But at that time I didn't have anywhere to keep them, so I told her to go ahead. Only to find out later she tossed my Readers Digests and kept stuff like six dozen drinking glasses and old sheets with holes in them. Sigh.) One of my favorite "Humor in Uniform" shorts from one of those issues was the story of a man who had been sent to a remote Pacific island. It was a dot in the ocean, with nothing to do there when you weren't on duty. One day he took a walk on the beach and wondered what time it was. He came upon another sailor who was wistfully staring out to sea and asked him the time. "July," the sailor said mournfully. Oh, how I relate! July. Mid-July, in the midst of the soul-searing sadness that is summer. From May through September all I want to do is hibernate, to escape from the sweltering sun that gives me headaches and rashes (Gawd, my right shoulder itches) and the claustrophobic stuffy cubicle that takes over my life from June through mid-September. End-of-fiscal-year and summer seem to go together in more ways than one. I am literally homesick for fall, breezes, cool air outside and cool blankets inside. I have brought home a nice box so I can dismember my fall magazines and toss the recipes and the cute kid stories and keep the fall scenes to dip into when I need them for refreshment. Maybe I'll burn the gingerbread candle tomorrow while I try to determine just how many advertisements I need to do (you have to advertise procurements over $25,000). I think there's ten. A long, long trail a'winding indeed. At least there are "hibernation breaks." We had one for Timegate, and the unfortunately wonky weekend in Sevierville, and the nice cookout/fireworks launch for the Fourth. And coming up are Jen and Meg's visit in three weeks and later Dragoncon followed by the Yellow Daisy Festival and a Blue Ribbon Affair, and then, maybe, please God, a little bit of cool? In the meantime—Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince tomorrow night with friends—but still, how much nicer it would be if it wasn't summer! In the meantime I came upon something called Moonwalk One on the NASA channel tonight, from 1970, narrated by Laurence Luckinbill. Really trippy special...not just moon footage, but film of the crowds watching the moon landing, commentary by ordinary people, footage of celebratory parades, and then a rather lyrical ending about the analysis of moonrocks and where we belong in the universe, accompanied by otherworldly music akin to The Andromeda Strain (the real one, not the remake!). Some neat film following, and there's supposed to be an Apollo 11 special on later on GPTV. Hope to see lots of cool moon specials in the next few days to celebrate the 40th anniversary, and I am reading Andrew Smith's Moondust as well. Labels: anniversary, events, history, magazines, movies, seasons, work » Monday, March 12, 2007
Today in History
The anniversary of:
The Blizzard of 1888. First movie with sound recorded on film. FDR's first "fireside chat." Germany's annexation of Austria. Today is also the birthday of actress Barbara Feldon. Would you believe she is 75 today? Here's a photo of her from last year, taken at a charity function. She looks ageless and still quite lovely, without those artificial-looking, waxy "facelift" features of some of the older actresses. Labels: anniversary, birthday » Sunday, February 25, 2007
Four Years Ago Today...
We miss you, Dana.
We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, Labels: anniversary |
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