So this morning I woke up with James, who was off to work so he can have next Friday for DragonCon. The delivery person would be at the house between eight and ten, so I had to be up and dressed by eight. I took Tucker down the street rather than up so that we could see if a truck showed up from the lower cul-de-sac, but we got through the walk unscathed except for being chased by mosquitoes down by the retaining pond.

I had time for breakfast and to put Tucker out on the deck and was actually working on a writing project when the guy arrived at 9:15. He came in a pickup, not a delivery truck, and I heard him before he rang the doorbell because it was cool enough to have the front window open, at least this morning. (It stayed mostly cloudy all day, but it was dreadfully humid.) I had everything out of the way for him, and he got right to taking that nasty old Frigidaire out of its spot and carrying it down the stairs like a big package. I was really a bit wary of what he was going to find back there, especially after having the invasion of the roaches in 2007 after the wild bird seed purchase from Fred's discount store. Scott from Northwest Exterminating put down so much dust I thought there would be masses of it back there, and even little dead bodies, but there was mostly sawdust from the build, along with onion skins, a few shreds of plastic wrapper, and one salad fork. I cleaned that up and he had the new Bosch installed by 9:45.

I'm glad we picked the black. It looks like it belongs with the black counters. Maybe when I get done paying for it we can consider a new stove for James. He ought to have something decent to cook on, and we want a convection oven.

We want to go to BJs' tomorrow, but James wanted some stuff from Trader Joe's, so when the dishwasher was in I fetched Tucker from the deck, blocked him in the dining room, and headed out. I stopped at the Farmer's Market first; didn't even bother looking for a close parking space, but just parked in the municipal lot behind Johnnie McCracken's pub and walked the two blocks. Bought cucumber, some apple brown sugar pound cake, boiled peanuts for James, a loaf of fresh-baked French bread, and more "Big Daddy" cookies for Tucker. There were a ton of dogs out today; he would have loved it—even a huge St. Bernard so mellow he looked like a huge stuffed toy.

The Corner Shop was open, so I bought myself a treat (a Fry's bar) and also something to tuck in a gift and the first book in a series about two children who travel back in time to Blitz-era London. The older proprietor and I were discussing some ladies' propensity for shoes, and also talking about going to DragonCon.

It was cool enough when I got back to the car that I cranked the windows down and opened the sunroof (James would have preferred the air conditioning, but I like the wind in my face, and hate being hermetically sealed up under A/C all summer, even though it's the only way to survive, not to speak of breathe normally), and then headed out to East Cobb blaring "The Rupert Holmes Songbook" as loud as I could stand it. Had it on shuffle, and got one of my favorites, "Blackjack" (which I think of as Scott Sherwood's song), and also "Tell Me Where It Says I Can't Keep Dreaming."

Stopped at the new East Cobb Michael's before hitting the groceries. As much as I love this store—it has more stock than most Michael's stores and lots of room—I can't forget it's in the location of the old Borders store, and I always shed a little tear before getting it under control. There are several stores I'm never going to get over, like Woolworth's and the Paperback Bookstore in downtown Providence, and Borders is one of them. I picked up a new visor and some decorations for it for DragonCon, since I lost my owl visor last year, and a little autumn garland on discount.

It was only 12:30 by the time I reached Trader Joe's, so it wasn't too busy. I picked up fruit bars and edamame crackers for James, and stocking up on a bunch of things on account of DragonCon, and we have salad greens for tomorrow's dinner and a few desserts.

On the way back from Trader Joe's someone beeped at me. They were looking at one of my bumper stickers, which says "Where am I going? And why am I in this handbasket?" and asked what a handbasket was! I was so flabbergasted by the question that I could barely answer, "Well, it's a basket you hold in your hands!" before the light changed. (I call that one my "unofficial Ask the Manager bumper sticker" because every time the show used to get out of hand—which in ATM's case was frequently!—Dan Berkery used to complain it was "going to hell in a handbasket." Yes, and we loved it best that way!)

And I got gasoline: 2.38⁹ at the RaceTrak!

I made a short stop at Walmart on the way back and was well ignored by the male employees, who were too busy watching two of the bunch trying to get a big television on a wall mount. Thank you to the female employee who helped me!

Once home I had lunch from Trader Joe's (pork dumplings) along with some of the French bread with butter, and started rewatching Strange Report for the combined masculine goodness of Anthony Quayle and Kaz Garas. (Plus you get Anneke Wills, fresh from her role as Polly on Doctor Who. Now that I've seen her as Polly, I think Evie is a much better character.) Later I trotted Tucker outside and fetched the mail, taking up the newest historical "American Girl" books and reading about Maryellen Larkin in 1954. (I found the stories so-so. I don't like the new format, with no color illustrations, and no six-page historical "A Peek into the Past" after each of the six stories. Now the stories are bundled three "books" to a volume and there is only a two-page historical view at the end of each of the two volumes, with no accompanying historical illustrations. Disappointing. Maryellen herself is okay, maybe a bit dull.)

We had supper at Uncle Maddio's Pizza Joint with full intentions of stopping at Publix afterwards, but I was so tired we just skipped it. We can stop on the way home from BJs tomorrow.

And then it was back to watching Strange Report and another perambulation of the puppy.

Labels: appliances, books, dogs, errands, food, pets, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:32:00 PM

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Another nice Sunday morning sleep-in interrupted around eight. I noticed when I went into the bathroom that it was raining quite hard outside. As I crawled back into bed, thunder went off like tympani overhead, but we slept on.

James was still getting dressed, but I was heading out to walk Tucker when the smoke alarm went off. It sounded two long shrills and was silent, but it galvanized me into action. I uncovered Snowy, but left Tucker in his crate. I yelled to James to check upstairs and in the attic, and I ran downstairs and opened all the closets and checked the rooms and even the garage. As I was checking and James was on the ladder to the attic, there were two long shrills again, and then, when I ran outside to check the roof, because of the thunder and presumed accompanying lightning earlier, I heard it shrill again, but as with the first time, it was only two quick shrills; it wasn't prolonged and it certainly wasn't the "chirp" of a dead battery. James found nothing and smelled nothing, not even in the attic.

With no idea what to do, I called 911 and the nice dispatcher asked me a couple of questions, which I could barely answer because I could hardly breathe, and then said she would send someone over to check it out. A few minutes later we had four nice firemen walking through the house—and you could tell they'd been through fires; they smelled of fire, especially the one in the coveralls. They went in the attic, walked through the house, checked the garage and downstairs, and the breaker box. They found no sign of smoke or carbon monoxide. They told us that smoke detectors have a shelf life of ten years, and ours are over nine, and that when they start going bad they do start going off intermittently, so it looks like we are in the market for some new smoke detectors.

The question: why this morning? And why just at that time? Odd.

So I went back to taking Tucker for a walk, and we had breakfast and then went to the big Publix near Kaiser, because they are across the street from a Rite Aid. (Hold on, this makes sense in a minute.) The "big Publix" usually has items we can't find in the one near us, things like the rice linguine. We were there to replenish James' -salads (ham salad, etc. that he has for a snack instead of sweets), get bananas for my lunch, and buy salad to have with the teriyaki chicken I got yesterday. Then we stopped by the deli and found out they had chicken and wild rice soup; I love theirs, so we got that for supper instead. We also are trying a Publix pork roast bits (like the Hormel dinners) dinner. We also bought some magazines, and, yeah, we never bought the salad. Did have to get those damn bananas for work, though. :-)

On the way back we stopped at Rite Aid drugs. I've been looking for a powder puff for months and can't find one, for use with cornstarch on hot days. A search yesterday online reminded me that Jean Nate powder came with a powder puff—and Rite Aid carries Jean Nate. So now I have a powder puff, but had to buy the Jean Nate alone with it. Ah, well, as the Duke of Rudling says at the end of Lassie Come-Home, perhaps that's not the worst part of the bargain.

We took the groceries home, had a little lunch, then went out to Lowes to look for new smoke detectors. We wandered about a little first, looking at light bulbs (still trying to find ceiling fan size LEDs) and dishwashers. Their $500 Bosch was on sale for $450.

We did find the smoke detectors, and then realized, although we thought ours were hardwired in, we weren't really certain. We also thought they were carbon monoxide detectors, and they aren't. We ended up buying one which has a lithium ion battery which will last ten years.

And then we went back and bought the dishwasher. There are a lot fancier ones, with extra trays, but this one just washes dishes, and that's what we need. It has a filter you can remove and clean, unlike the old one and its clog of black ick. And we loved our last Bosch with the stainless steel interior. They'll call us Tuesday to make an appointment to install it.

(I really don't want to see what's under the old one, but I must. I remember Scott having to put all that powder to get rid of the roaches we got from the bags of bird seed at Fred's discount store. There may be little bodies back there. Ugh.)

Had the chicken and wild rice soup for supper, watched America's Funniest Home Videos, then found a marathon of To Tell the Truth on Buzzr.

Labels: appliances, food, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:46:00 PM

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As expected, we had to clean up after Willow this morning. Most of it was confined to the pad, and the floor was easily mopped up. She tries so hard to be good, even if we exasperate her, and she exasperates us. James made me an eggnog for breakfast, and we had to take Willow out several times. I have been reading online that white rice will help, so I gave her some of that for breakfast, and she gobbled it up.

We arrived at the Farmer's Market in time to get the last container of chicken salad. Also bought some lasagna for Sunday supper. Then we went up to Town Center so I could use a Michael's coupon to pick up some ingredients for a gift, and then stopped at Barnes & Noble to see if the January "Best of British" was out. Still December, but the big bins of clearance items were now 75 percent off. Saw a bunch of beautiful, different coffee-table books about the Beatles I knew Emma would love! I rummaged through them and found a nice cookbook for James, a Manhattan-set YA that looked like fun, Simon Winchester's book about the San Francisco earthquake, and two books for gifts. Plus some pretty gift bags, and, with a coupon, a book of Doctor Who short stories.

Headed home to check on Willow; had to clean up a minor accident. She didn't seem to want to go into her crate and relax. Nevertheless, we ran to Kroger and got the grocery shopping done; confirmed why we avoid supermarkets on a Saturday—not the long lines, but just too many people wandering around the store (and stopping in the middle of the aisles to talk) to navigate properly. Got the usual staples, more brown rice for Willow, and also some ground turkey for her.

And then when we were in for the night she led us in and out the front door, her tail held up. While James took her out the last time, I fixed her several things: some canned pumpkin, which several animal care websites advised for bowel problems in dogs, the Hills' gastrointestinal dog food moistened with unsalted beef broth, and more white rice. The rice was all she tasted. The pumpkin she didn't even bother tasting. I also warmed up the rest of my chicken wings for supper.

Poor James. He hit the microwave to warm up his dinner, it ran for ten seconds, then stopped. He thought the breaker had snapped.

Nope. It's dead. Now, granted, this convection microwave is at least nine years old. We had it in the old house. We warm things up, and we grill lamb, chicken, steaks, pork chops, make baked potatoes and sweet corn. It's been used.

But...why now? Really?

Willow was still restless, which means one of us had to keep an eye on her all the time to watch for the telltale raising of the tail. The last couple of times she asked to go out she didn't do anything but walk restlessly around.

I finally solved what was wrong after rinsing out the grass of the pee pad. I checked her crate and the blanket and fleece were soiled. Willow is a clean dog, so it follows she would not want to go back in there. I put her bedding in the washer and James put fresh in and she immediately went into the crate and fell asleep. Poor girl has had a hard day. I hope we can give her something to help.

[We're cooking her more white rice. When she's asleep she's fine, but she can't go more than a half hour being awake without that tail going up, and then we have to urge her to the front door.]

Labels: appliances, books, dogs, food, magazines, pets, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:27:00 PM

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