It was a red-letter week: I finally delivered an overdue Hanukkah gift. It's been a comedy of errors for the last four months trying to get Mel and Phyllis their gift. Either they were where we were and the gift wasn't, or it was the other way around. ::sigh:: It's not even valid as a Passover gift now.

The bad news is that James' toe is still not well; we had it checked out at podiatry this week. The doctor said if we were still patient about this we could "stay the course." So we are, but she sent him down for an x-ray to make sure.

The good news of the week was Saturday in (1) going to Hair Day (where the Hanukkah gift finally was reunited with its owners) and talking to everyone, except for Charles, who is in Greece! and (2) going to the Jonquil Festival. We got there just in time for the Ready Go Dog Show. All the dogs are rescues, some from shelters, some from specific breed rescue. Five dogs performed: an Australian shepherd, a Pomeranian, and a chihuahua named Tito all chased frisbees. Then Phobia, a smooth Border Collie, jumped from a box over a hurdle six feet high. The final performer was a Belgian Malinois named "Beano," also a frisbee freak. The handler said the hardest thing to teach Beano was "stay"!

James got himself two sugar-free desserts (I tasted the lemon cake; it reminded me of the lemon squares from Solitro's Bakery!) and also picked up some jambalaya and red-beans-and-rice for lunches. They had a bumper crop of vendors, but didn't see much that we wanted. The honey guy was there, but he had no small bottles of blackberry honey.

On the way out we stopped at the library because they didn't have an outside book sale this year. Their "perpetual book sale" has shrunk from three large bookcases to two smaller ones. I still found three books: Reviving Ophelia, which I've wanted to read; Sisters in Crime, a collection of short mystery stories about women; and Strongheart, an award-winning children's book about the famous dog star. (We did go to Barnes & Noble, and I didn't buy anything. The library books only cost $2.75.)

In other news, dropped more stuff off at Goodwill, posted the first part of a seven-part fanfic and redesigned the graphic for the series, tried out a new grammar-checker called Quillbot, and listened to more Colonial Williamsburg podcasts.

Labels: books, dogs, events, festivals, friends, gifts, health, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:12:00 PM

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We had a fairly good Atomicon, despite being utterly exhausted from allergies and coughing. We arrived in Helen Thursday afternoon just about four, when several of our friends were checking in, offloaded our junk, and then lay down until I started texting to find out where we were going to dinner. Spice55, the Thai place, was the choice, and we had the usual yummy dinner. I wait for this every year, as they make the best pad thai.

Something sweet happened after dinner: Jessie and some of the others were enchanted by the black-and-white stray cats hanging outside the shopping center where the restaurant was. A lady was also interested in the cats and she and James started talking; she was ex-Navy and also had been a Marine. Now, we had had an appetizer, so I still a lunch-sized portion of leftovers, and it was supposed to rain on Friday. I suggested we stop at the Dollar General, which has frozen foods, to see if we could find him something for lunch there. We did find some taquitos. The same lady also was in the store, and she was quite disturbed by how cluttered the aisles were and that James could not get around in his power chair. She told us she was going to report the store for ADA violations. And on the way out she paid for his taquitos!

Thursday night I was feeling well enough to play some games, and we played Uno No Mercy, which is fiendish. I got kicked out of the first game almost immediately, and ended up winning the last one.

It did indeed rain almost all day Friday. It was probably good because James and I were both stuffy and miserable, and we stayed in with anyone else who didn't want to go out in the rain, talking, farkling around on the computer. I found Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent available and watched that, and last night's Law & Order as well.

For supper the weather cleared well enough to go to the Nachoochee Tavern and have some pretty good pizza. I had to share with James, so I had to eat cheese [bleah], but it was still okay.

One of the things James and I have begun doing since Atomicon has been held at the Country Inn and Suites is to have a daily walk downtown after breakfast. It's about a half a mile, and then we stroll around the little downtown area, maybe walk down to Hofer's Bakery, and then return to the crossroads of downtown and head toward the parking lots, strolling a road in the back down to the hotel. Total it's about a mile and a half, maybe more.

I was feeling so short of air from the congestion that on Saturday morning we took the truck instead; we haven't done that in years and I felt like I was regressing. But I did manage to totter around downtown. We visited the glassblower's shop, bought our annual candy from Hansel & Gretel, and visited the history museum that we missed last year due to food poisoning. This is in a building that used to be the City Hall. Helen was a tiny little logging town at one time, outside of what became Unicoi Park, and when the logging left, so did a lot of the population. Helen became basically a gas and food stop, so they turned the town into a "Little Bavaria" to attract tourists. We've been going to Helen with our friends for...well, Jessie and Aubrey both turned thirty last year, so...longer than that!

We also bought more white peach balsamic vinegar (love this stuff) and some blackberry ginger as well from the Alpine Olive Tree. I got James a neat gift: someone gave us a little turntable/light gadget: you plug it in and put a statue or something on it and it lights it up and revolves. They had laser-etched lucite items, and I got James a U.S. Navy one, with an aircraft carrier and destroyer and planes flying overhead. (I was going to get him a smaller one, but he said the planes weren't correct!) It looks really pretty on the turntable.

We then drove down to the Mount Yonah Bookstore—the owner always puts out a "Welcome, Atomicon!" poster and gives us a discount—and I found a brand-new copy of the annotated version of The Phantom Tollbooth, one of my favorite books in the whole world (seriously, what my life would have been without the Stadium School and Hugh B. Bain libraries I will never know). I also found a book about a woman FBI agent, a book by Robert Ressler (one of the first FBI profilers), and the book that inspired the series Homicide: Life on the Streets, which introduced Richard Beltzer's John Munch character.

And it was back to Spice55 for supper with Alice and Juanita. I had pad cashew this time, which was exquisite.

Sunday I was feeling strong enough to do the walk downtown, if a bit slowly, and we made it to the Christmas store before I started to be nagged by lower GI problems. It was a good walk, anyway. We spent the afternoon reminiscing about old television series, and had supper at Rib Country in Cleveland, GA. The ribs are so good and half the price of any ribs in the Atlanta metro area.

Alas, neither of us slept well, so we staggered up, ate the hotel breakfast, and packed up and left. Stopped at the outlet mall because I so much needed new socks. We also stopped at a knife shop where James went in; I sat and read. And finally, by the vet—$1300 for exams and boarding! Oliver apparently seems to be okay to them; it looks like they don't have an avian vet again. ::sigh:: Yes, they noticed he's shy.

Labels: Atomicon, books, events, food, friends, games, gifts, history, kindness, shopping, travel, walking

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:47:00 PM

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Christmas Day was quite pleasant; we had a leisurely breakfast. We had no gifts to open--James hadn't wrapped mine (the Law & Order monopoly game) and his hadn't arrived from Amazon yet (a new food processor), so we watched The Little Drummer Boy and The House Without a Christmas Tree until it was time to go to the Butlers for dinner, conversation, fuzzy Christmas feelings, and a gift exchange.

The food certainly beat Bay Breeze all hollow: perfectly cooked turkey, ham, and Clair's pot roast, over half a dozen veggie sides, desserts from pie to the little Favorina florentines, and of course Lin's cinnamon-and-sugar piecrust folds. She always makes them and I always hug her for it. I remember when I was a kid and would only eat the pie crusts; the filling didn't interest me at all. One of my aunts used to make the little pastries out of piecrust. too.

Later we had a mad gift opening—I opened everything so fast I'm not sure I know who gave me what—but everything was nice, from cross-stitch kits to dessert treats. We checked out Christmas lights on the way home, but weren't able to go on to check out the lights in Smyrna because we both needed to "hit the head" by the time we got to the house. Ah, the pleasures of being old!

Tuesday was a funny day: usually it's me who has post-holiday gastric distress, but today it was James. He remained close to home while I ran errands: went to Barnes & Noble, only to find this year their post-Christmas hardback sale is only 33 percent off, and there was nothing I wanted that bad for only 33 percent off. Instead I went to Hobby Lobby and got Oliver a new cage cover, as the one I bought at JoAnn was too small (I ordered a yard and they gave me only 30 inches—not cool, JoAnn). Then I got Butch gassed up at Costco and finished up by picking up something at Kaiser for James and then went to Publix. (I was actually heading for Big Lots, but traffic was stopped dead for a big accident; I ran past three accidents in the two hours I was out, and in two cases one car had hit the other car so hard that the wheel was bent. In fact, one of the cars had its left rear wheel broken off with the axle sticking out of it! After seeing the third accident, I just wanted to get home unscathed.)

James was better by Wednesday, so we went to physiotherapy; this is his last until Kaiser gets off their duff and re-ups his referral. On the way home we stopped at Lidl.

Thursday it was James' turn to get gasoline at Costco. This time we went inside to get the rest of the things for our Twelfth Night party. I also did a search-and-destroy through the garage and tossed away a garbage bag full of stuff, plus a bunch of old magazines. And to make it a medical trifecta, James had an iron infusion on Friday. Made the mistake of eating at Whattaburger afterwards. I am so not impressed by this place. The burger tastes of that fake "grillmark" shit and James clearly asked them for my burger as "a bun, the burger, and ketchup only," and they gave me the whole darn salad (thank goodness they remembered to omit the mustard). I burped the crappy thing up the rest of the afternoon.

Yesterday we went to a nice little gathering at the Spiveys home to celebrate Alice's birthday and watch the UGA vs. Florida State game. The company was great, but Florida State did a crash and burn. Later we learned the final score was 63 to 3!

Today I washed towels and cleaned the bathroom so I didn't have to do it on New Year's Day. Still have to sort meds for the week, but that's a twenty minute thing. For supper James made something he calls "egg roll in a bowl," ground pork cooked up and then blended with diced coleslaw, carrots, and celery. It was yummy. We watched a few Law & Order: Criminal Intent episodes, then Rudolph's Shiny New Year, the Ellery Queen episode "The Adventure of Auld Lang Syne," and finally the M*A*S*H episode "A War for All Seasons."

I put on the live feed from Times Square at 11:30, but the music was dreadful, so I found an old Guy Lombardo special from New Year's Eve 1976 to watch until it was almost time for the real Happy New Year. So we saw 1977 in about 11:55, then switched back to Times Square for the final countdown.

HAPPY 2024, EVERYONE!
Linda
James
Tucker
&
Oliver

Labels: birthday, Christmas, errands, food, gifts, health, illness, New Year, restaurants, videos

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:59:00 PM

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It was an unremarkable week leading up to Christmas. Tucker did finally get his bath. The gifts were wrapped and the spare room finally looks decent again. Wednesday was James' physiotherapy and "Doughnut Day," plus we made it to Hallmark to spend our coupons. Grocery shopping was done on Wednesday, and on Thursday I finally got my birthday dinner.

It was terrible. Some friends recommended Bay Breeze a few years ago, and we have enjoyed going there. They have baked stuffed shrimp that is actually affordable, and, even if it's not the "jumbo shrimp" they describe, it's usually good. Well, apparently it's gone way downhill according to other friends. We didn't get our appetizer until after our entree and it was overcooked, the shrimp were overcooked and tough and salty as the dickens, as was the appetizer (potato skins). After we finished eating, we went to downtown Marietta to walk around. We found gingerbread boys at the Australian bakery, went into The Corner Shop (the British store) and the candy store (found a dark chocolate Toblerone for dessert), and I checked out the new bookstore on the square, Elephant Books. (It's pretty much just starting out, so not a lot of books, and it strikes me as a "boutique type" place.)

We never did get to the antique store to see the vintage decorations among the vintage items because Mr. Lower GI was acting up again and we had to come home.

Friday I finished prepping my 2024 journal, and then Sunday it was back to the chores again, so Christmas Day would be free.

Labels: birthday, books, dogs, food, gifts, illness, pets, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:31:00 PM

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Summer's fading away...and good riddance. It's been a crap summer, from the temps to poor James' perpetual illness. I started the last full week of August by "drowning" the dog—Tucker always makes me laugh; he looks pitiful through the whole process but is happy and smiling once I'm done and enjoying his nice clean coat, and the inevitable cookie. The next day we had the first of James' post-hospital doctor's visits, to his GP. 3:20 p.m. appointment; didn't see the doctor till five. Sigh.

Started the weekend early as we had some friends come into town on Wednesday staying over until the next day. First I did laundry and cleaned off some of the kitchen, though; they didn't come over until this evening, where we finally exchanged Christmas gifts. I had a nifty little pocket knife and also a Barnes & Noble gift card, so maybe I will get Ali Hazlewood's new book after all. James got a knife sharpener, which I hope will improve the performance of our steak knives.

On Thursday we met Maggi and Clay at the Tin Drum at Perimeter Mall for lunch, and to our surprise ran into Lin Butler there as well (she was having a monthly lunch with her old Coca-Cola co-workers. They got both Clay's and my lunch wrong, so it took a while. Then we all went off to Penzey's (the spice store). James and I picked up some sweet curry and ground celery seed, and he wanted to try some Aleppo pepper. Penzey's is next door to Trader Joe's and we filled two Trader Joe's shopping bags with goodies like their orange chicken (which is a nice quick lunch) and the chicken apple sausage, and they finally had fruit bars. James has tried the fruit bars at Lidl, but says they are too much cookie and not enough fruit. We parted ways at Trader Joe's; Clay and Maggi went south back to Warner Robins and we headed home.

Friday was our only morning appointment at the infusion clinic, then we went to JoAnn, where I picked up a couple of gifts and a mug for me that says "I've been ready for fall since last fall." (That's not true; I've been ready for fall since winter was over, which in north Georgia is the end of February when it starts going up to 70...). James said he wanted to go to Hobbytown USA; he didn't buy anything for himself, but he bought me a gift to make up for the horrible hospital week, a miniature Squishable white-and-blue budgie I named "Robbie." He is the cutest thing (but nowhere near as cute as Snowy).



And then we got the truck inspected so James could renew his license plates for the year, and finally we had the podiatrist appointment and we could go home.

Because we didn't go grocery shopping on Thursday, we had to do this Saturday morning. It actually wasn't too bad, although after Lidl James was stuck in the truck with the A/C on since we got leg quarters on sale for $1.67/pound and three pounds of ground beef out of the "too good to waste" bin for $1.50! Had to play freezer Tetris when we got home. Saturday I also made "gravy" with the boneless pork ribs I got off the manager's special bin at Kroger. We'll have a pair of leg quarters tomorrow for dinner and then macaroni on Monday because it will be easy (cook the macaroni and warm up the sauce) after James has to go for his cytoscopy.

Labels: chores, dogs, food, friends, gifts, health, pets, seasons, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:52:00 PM

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Had Christmas gifts early Christmas morning—James bought me season two of A Discovery of Witches, Joe Straczynski's book about writing, a book of Bryant and May short stories, a book about geology of the Old West, and a nifty butter knife that will make it easier for me to have a treat occasionally. I bought him books, including three about the space program, a Larry Correia book, and a "Politically Incorrect" book for his collection. Tucker got a tug toy and some Paul Newman dog biscuits, and Snowy got a big sprig of millet.

Christmas afternoon was spent at the Lucyshyns home, having a killer dinner and lots of conversation. We were happy that one of our friends had been sprung from the hospital to be able to come to dinner; she had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks. We also had another friend who was looking rather sad at Thanksgiving but who was looking much improved at Christmas. He was using a cane instead of a walker and seemed much more alert and happy.

James had to work Sunday, of course, so we headed home in time to watch the Christmas episode of Remember WENN and prep for the next day.

Christmastide or no, Sunday is still my chore day since James is working all day. He had a bit of a bumpy day as he woke up with the runs—and James so rarely gets that; he usually has to take Metamucil—that it was a little concerning. We got some Pepto Bismol in him, he kept up drinking, and we had a bland lunch of rice and plain broth, and by the time suppertime came he was doing a lot better and he'd only lost about ninety minutes of work.

Monday it was my turn; no idea what caused it, but it least cleared up in time to go to Alice's birthday dinner at Okinawa. This was very small, only six people besides ourselves, but dinner and conversation were great.

Tuesday morning I did what I'd planned to do Monday, make a trip from dollar/discount store to dollar/discount store in search of after-Christmas deals. I went to Dollar Tree, Publix, CVS, Walgreens, and Big Lots before my bladder betrayed me. I didn't find tinsel, but I did get some cheap decor for out front of the development for next year, two rolls of wrapping paper, and a string of lights with 2.5 wattage bulbs to serve as spares (since the library tree has been almost completely dark for a week now; it was fully lit when I put it up the first week of December! first the middle went out, then the top). I didn't see any bows, either.

Wednesday was laundry day, and I also did another load of dishes, loaded up the old books to go to the library book sale, and reviewed books on my blog and prepped my dozen best books of 2021 blog entry.

All this is being done in miserable weather: it's been high 60s or 70s almost every single day this week. It's revolting. And then with rain coming in on Wednesday, it started smelling like a swamp outside, all moist and heavy like a terrarium.

2021 is counting down fast...next thing you know it will be the new year.

Labels: books, Christmas, food, friends, gifts, shopping, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:14:00 PM

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You've heard of "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," right? Well, we had presents, but it was a rather low-key holiday itself due to James' work schedule. Both Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty quiet. Christmas Eve morning I found the traditional King's College "Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols" live on the BBC and listened to the entire thing for the first time. I have a CD of the service, but it changes each year. This concert has been done for 100 years now, and the college itself was built upon the instructions of King Henry VI. A lovely service! I particularly like the carols that don't get a lot of play here in the States, like "In the Bleak Midwinter" and the wonderful "Candlelight Carol."

During the afternoon I made a short jaunt to Lidl to pick up milk and bread, including a loaf for Christmas dinner. Afternoon dinner was a bit of a disappointment. We usually have macaroni and "gravy" on Christmas Eve, and I made some sauce yesterday, but the boneless pork ribs I used were very lean and hard, and it seemed overcooked.

Something fun happened later in the day. A few days ago I was listening to a "Happier With Gretchen Rubin" podcast when she talked about something called a "chaffle," which is a waffle made with one egg and shredded cheese, the ultimate in low carb.  I told James about it, and he was intrigued enough to order a small, one-waffle waffle iron from Amazon. It arrived and for supper he made "chaffles" with Swiss cheese and some with cheddar. I tried one of the Swiss. I really hate the taste of cooked eggs, so I poured on the maple syrup alà Addie Mills and found it bearable. Maybe I'll have some eggs once in a while via chaffles.

I had Christmas specials on all day and we watched The Homecoming at night. James got so busy with the chaffles that we never did go out and see Christmas lights, and it had to be an early night due to his teleworking next day.

I remember all those Christmas mornings I was up in the "wee smalls" because I just couldn't wait for  Christmas morning! Since I couldn't get up my mom and dad early, I would gather up my stuffed animals instead and have Christmas with them (I would buy them new ribbons at Garr's Fabrics every year). But now I'm an adult, and the best gift is sleep! So James was at his post at seven, and I slept until after eight.

Spent the morning prepping and then the afternoon cooking up the green bean casserole and the baked maple butter carrots I was taking to the Butlers. We had lunch about one and then opened gifts. James gave me three books, a Babylon 5 guide I didn't have, the Rivers of London novella The Furthest Station, and Tip of the Iceberg, a man who travels around Alaska. He also found a new Uno game for me, Uno Flip. This has a second side of differently colored cards that you play when you get a "Flip" card in the regular deck.

I bought him a Jethro Tull performance DVD, a book on the sinking of the Bismarck, and one of the two new "1632" alternative history stories.

"The fids" also "bought" us seasons 4-6 of Perry Mason so now we have the entire series (which even CBS All Access doesn't!).

About three I gathered up the food and the gifts and drove to the Butlers' house for Christmas dinner. James would join us after he finished work.

It was a lovely dinner, but Ron and Lin always have a lovely Christmas for all of our "family by choice." Each of the dishes was made with love by someone. Charles cooked a 27-pound turkey. Alex made a roast and Clair a pot roast with delicious gravy. The Butlers bought a Honeybaked ham and Ron made his killer mashed potatoes and Lin made pies. Then there was a big relish tray, corn pudding, the French bread I brought, and biscuits, and challah bread, and our carrots and beans. The green beans came particularly well even though I never did anything like this before. James walked me through it: saute some onions, then I made a mix of cream of celery soup, chopped up fresh celery into it along with slivered almonds, and then layered the onions and the frozen beans, pouring the mixture on top of them, and sprinkling the top with French's french fried onion rings, baking until it was hot. Clair particularly liked it with with the cream of celery soup.

Then we talked awhile and had dessert, and talked more and did presents. I opened two and saved another two until James got there, which he did rather late. Almost everyone had left before he was able to arrive and eat some of the food I saved him, but mostly to talk with those who were left. Helped tidy up a bit and then left Ron and Lin to some post-Christmas peace and quiet. Luckily our usual Thursday-Saturday weekend was upon us and we could stay up a little while to digest our dinners.

Labels: Christmas, Christmas music, food, friends, gifts, radio, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:12:00 PM

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I still can never understand it.

Look at it. It's almost Christmas. Summer went by like a constipated sloth wearing a body cast. The weather finally turned cool (and not until October 3, for God's sake!) and since then it's moved like the Indy 500, days just tumbling over days in their haste to go by: leaves turning, Hallowe'en, Veteran's Day skidding into Thanksgiving, with Christmas decorations already up everywhere, and suddenly it's less than ten days until the 25th.

Which is why after popping into Publix on Thursday to do the weekly shopping we returned home, I obeyed the spinning clock, pulled the divider out of the oven, prepped the dining room table, and commenced to baking wine biscuits. This took all afternoon and filled the house with a pleasant odor. I managed to finish one bottle of hearty burgundy without having to start another. Then at suppertime James practiced his culinary alchemy and we had turkey wings done in the air fryer basted with maple teriyaki sauce. To say this was divine is wayyyyyyy underpraising it. Oh, goodness, that was delicious, and eating them did not make me ill the way eating baked ones usually do, probably because all the fat leached out into the air fryer, leaving just crispy skin and juicy meat behind.

Thursday evening we also watched the new version of A Christmas Carol with Scrooge played by Guy Pearce, who is only in his fifties. This helped bring to life Dickens' description that Scrooge was aged by his miserliness rather than years. The producer of this is the guy who does the often bloody and violent Peaky Blinders series, and he commented that most versions make A Christmas Carol so cozy that you don't see what genuinely hard times Dickens was railing about. He wanted to make a Carol that more reflected the type of dreadful life the poor had in Victorian London. Well, the cast was excellent, it all looked good, and it did really bring home the horrors of poverty in that era. But in this version Scrooge isn't just a guy who decided money was more important than people (something that must have come from his father sending him to such cheap boarding schools), he's a sociopath made that way by a brutal father who basically traded Scrooge's innocence for free tuition. Scrooge isn't just greedy, he's damaged psychologically, and that shows in his character; what he does in this version of the Carol isn't just unfeeling, it's downright cruel (especially what he inflicts on Mrs. Cratchit). So when he does see the error of his ways at the end, it's not the happy reclamation of a soul. The end is a real downer instead, where it's implied that instead of other Scrooges that can be reclaimed, that there's just more of them and the spirits have more work to do, basically that it's an endless job that will never be finished. We aren't welcoming the one Prodigal Son back to the fold, we're instead emphasizing all the lost souls that will never be reclaimed. It's not hopeful, it's just more pessimistic.

It's also been tarted up to give a couple of female characters more to do. Intriguing idea to make Scrooge's sister one of the ghosts, but she just pops up that she's always "been interested in science" in the dialog like that updates her somehow, but seems to be there for no reason for that choice but to note that women were actually intelligent back then but were not given a chance to show it. It's Mrs. Cratchit's role that's been expanded the most, but the fact that she is played by a woman of color and then has some special connection with the spirit world smacks of stereotypes of Caribbean women and voodoo. It's like the stereotypical convention that Native Americans all have some type of spirit guide who can save them in times of crisis, a clichè that even made it into Star Trek: Voyager. So: looked good, excellent cast, but very grim, no hope, very bloody at times (check out the decapitated pet mouse). Would love one that kept the reality of the time with the story of the book!

Very surprised that I woke up on Friday morning with no nightmares after that one. (The intrusive and badly timed commercial breaks for no movie I would ever want to see except for Rise of Skywalker probably helped.) I had a good Hallmark coupon and wanted to add to a gift that was woefully inadequate. So James and I packed up the truck and headed for Amy's Hallmark at Town Center, where I found something quite nice, and also, with a second coupon, a gift to put away. We then went into the Publix next door (mostly to use the rest room, but also to pick up something we'd forgotten), and then stopped at Barnes & Noble to spend all of James' huge Christmas bonus, a $5 Starbuck's gift card, on a peppermint hot chocolate and a brownie.

Saturday we had a busy but fun day. We went to Lidl for bread, milk, and juice in the morning, then once home did a few other chores. Cut it really close to the time we had to leave (didn't realize it was so late), but got on chat with Verizon and cancelled those stupid Hum devices for the car. They're costing us $30 month and James' has never worked with his truck. In fact, he ended up getting a new one, which they made him pay for, and it still didn't work, and I was incensed when I discovered they wanted to charge us a termination fee for the "new" account. We told them we didn't want a new account when we had to get a new unit; we wanted to put the new unit on the old number, but apparently they didn't do that. Anyway, I got the dude to waive the termination fee, and we got the 55+ Unlimited plan so James doesn't have to worry about using his Surface at work and eating up all the data. (Unfortunately this doesn't seem to make us eligible for the free Disney+. Ah, well, I already pay for three streaming services we almost never use.)

We had supper at Fried Tomato Buffet and tanked up the truck at Costco up the hill, then set out on the freeway for the city of Tucker and specifically the Tucker Recreation Center, where the Atlanta Radio Theatre was putting on this year's version of An Atlanta Christmas. The rec center is an old school, and the show was in the auditorium, and we enjoyed this year's version with all of our old favorites, including "Are You Lonely Tonight," "Davy Crockett Christmas," and "USO Christmas." Stopped to talk to Clair and Daniel and Ron and Lin afterwards.

On the way in I'd noticed there was a tiny little white building set in front of the rec center on brick pilings. As we came out, used the flashlight on my phone to see what it was. In front the rec center people had planted a butterfly garden, with signs letting you know what each thing was. Turned out the "little building," which James thought might be 15 feet by 20, was an old courthouse! The "Browning Courthouse," specifically, from Tucker, original structure built in 1860 (!) and used until 1977! Wow. They must have had to sit on each other's laps!

We managed to beat the rain home and Tucker had his walk that did not turn into "a bath."

And then "click!" and our weekend was over.

Labels: autumn, baking, chores, Christmas, events, food, friends, gifts, holidays, movies, seasons, shopping, summer

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:37:00 PM

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Well, isn't that just like fall (and winter)? The days are just flying by now that it's gotten cool and beautiful (and while I have the time off), while stinky sweaty stultifying summer staggers through with the speed of a constipated sloth. It doesn't help that I've been busy. On Tuesday I took time to do some work as well as have some fun. Since I was going that way anyway, I stopped at the Walmart next to Sam's club for a new lamp for my desk, and a new rubber mat for in front of the stove. I was looking for sweatpants, but all the ones for women have open bottoms like pants. I already have two pair of those and they drag on the ground and get caught under my heels. I wanted regular sweatpants that gather at the bottom. Damn stupid fashions! Instead I treated myself to highlighters.

It was raining when I left Walmart just like when I left the house. Miserable, wet, and grey. To cheer myself I went to the antique mall. They are moving all the way to Canton in January and as a result there were not as many decorations this year. But there are compensations: I did find the second "Happy Hollisters" book, a reproduction of a Kresge's catalog from 1913 (the year my dad was born), a collection of short stories and a novel from a magazine called "Treasure Trails" from the 1950s (based on The Children's Hour; was that a TV show? a radio show?), and a Bennett Cerf book I didn't have, Shake Well Before Using! This seems to have longer than usual anecdotes in it as well.

Incidentally, being used as a bookmark in the last book was a list of coal prices for 1951 (which was the year the house I grew up in was built; my parents could have opted for a coal furnace but chose an oil burner instead), complete with postal code instead of ZIP code and letter exchanges on the phone numbers.

At least James was home teleworking to offer a warm welcome!

James teleworked again Wednesday because he had an appointment with the doctor at eleven. I left at ten because I wanted to go to Richard's Variety Store before they pulled all the Christmas decorations to go pink. I stopped at Barnes & Noble on the way to check out the magazines and if there were any books I could get with my coupons. I did find a couple. James called me when I was on the way to Richard's. He'd gotten his eleven o'clock appointment tomorrow mixed up with his 2:30 appointment today, so he was heading home to get in an hour or so more work. I made it home in time to go to the appointment with him, which was with the nephrologist. This is the second time Kaiser's internet has been down when I'm there. Is it something I said? Anyway, the doctor was pleased with James' kidney recovery, but a little worried that his blood pressure is slightly high. It's probably trying to juggle three doctors' appointments in one week!

Thursday I didn't stir a foot from the house. James went out to Town Center and was there for hours getting his iron infusion because they had trouble getting a vein to work. They finally had to call someone from the emergency room and she did it in a trice. I spent most of the day wrapping gifts—and discovering I hadn't finished one (but it was quick finish)—and was absolutely knackered when he got home, and annoyed because it's bloody raining again.

But there are the good parts: having him home teleworking, Snowy singing, Christmas music, and Christmas specials!

Labels: books, Christmas, gifts, health, nostalgia, pets, shopping, weather, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:55:00 PM

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Well, that was a rotten night. The mattress was too hard and either the air conditioner was too loud or too cold. I'd wake up with my hip hurting, turn over on the other hip, and wake up a half hour later with the other hip hurting, and thus it continued all night into the morning. On a positive note, for once the pillows weren't bad. We eschewed the 200-pound duvet: James used the blanket that was on the shelf in the closet, and I unfolded my trusty shawl scarf all the way and it made a nice blanket. (Today I repurposed it into a scarf as we drove home from supper. I'd rather bundle up and have the truck window open.)

So we were a tad bleary-eyed when we staggered out for breakfast. Picked out cereal, oatmeal, milk, and toast and butter from the breakfast bar, and then the hotel also left eggs, sausages, potatoes, and French toast in the conference room, so we all noshed together there. They have expanded the breakfast area further back, so now there is room to get around to the various stations, but they have the syrup hiding near where people are making waffles. It needs to be where people aren't inconvenienced by its presence.

Now we'd talked about driving back to the outlet mall, but we were so woozy we just gave it up and sat talking and coloring until almost noon. Tony's wife brought all sorts of adult coloring books, gel pens, pencils, and even crayons. Then James was looking for new jeans, so we went to check out the Walmart a few miles away in Cleveland. Thankfully it was cloudy out and we didn't have to face the glare of the sun as well. He did find two pairs, and also a plain pair of black pants, and we picked up a bunch of little things: strawberries for the conference room, the flags I need for outside the house (since we were there so I won't have to go at home), and a few other things. I even found a pretty, light item called a "kimono wrap." I got wild and picked one in bright red.

By then it was way past lunchtime, and we decided to go to Wendell's, a place on the way back to Helen that Juanita recommended. It's just a little mom-and-pop place in an old sort of strip mall country shopping center, and there really is a Wendell, but we didn't meet him. We had just put our orders in—James had a chicken dish and I had open-face roast beef—when Shari and Phyllis arrived. So they sat with us and we all had a jolly lunch discussing early DragonCons and Shari's new play. Then they went on to the grocery store and we visited the antique store next door. Lots of glass vases and Hummel figures and old tchochkes. Juanita found a full set of her wedding china (Noritake), same pattern, in there last weekend. Well, James spied an electric pressure cooker for $30. He's been thinking about buying one, so he figures we will try this and if we like it, we will get a good one, and if we don't, or it breaks, we're not out much. Alice has one and loves it. She cooked a mean chicken and rice one night when we came for dinner.

We dropped off the things we bought at the room, and then went downtown for about an hour. We wanted to buy a pretty trinket to put with the gift we got for James' mom's birthday, and found one in the glassmaker's shop. I love this place; it's full of color and sparkle and glitter. We stopped and had ice cream at the stand near the glass shop; I wasn't really pleased with their coffee flavor.

Then stopped by The Olive Tree to get more White Peach Balsamic Vinegar. We ran out of our last bottle from The Leaning Ladder, and since it is salad season again, we'll be wanting it.soon. We hard a nice chat with the proprietor, could go to the Christmas store because it was closed, and then went on to stroll (or in James' case, roll) on the opposite side of the street. I bought my yearly almond bark at Hansel and Gretel, and we searched for a knife dealer who evidently isn't here anymore. One of the horse carriage drivers had two dogs with him, a medium-sized black shaggy type and a Jack Russell terrier. I wanted to pet them, but just let them sniff me instead. Took some photos of the flowers and the metal horse and ostrich sculptures down near where we were parked before we left.

Went back to the hotel to chat more and work on the coloring project I'd begun this morning as we were talking before the Walmart trip: a wolf in fall colors, using the big Crayola set like I have at home. I'd almost finished when it was dinner time. (I completed it when we came back by adding blue coloring to the feathers surrounding him; winter swirling in after the fall.)

It wasn't until after six that everyone got their wagons in a row (we're saving the ducks for the weekend when it's supposed to rain) and went off to respective restaurants. Ron and Lin, who'd arrived when we were heading downtown, wanted German and went to Bodensee. A few folks went back to Big Daddy's. We joined the contingent going to Glenda's, a tiny place in Cleveland that we passed on the way to Walmart. I was kind of worried because a lot of the country-style places have a lot of fried things and nothing else. Pleasantly, this wasn't like this, although we both blew it by having popcorn shrimp. We will have to be insanely good after this. The company was good and so was the food. The portion was so big I never ate my biscuit.

Once back at the hotel we changed into comfy things and then headed back into the conference room. Shari is a mad Phase 10 fan, so a bunch of folks started that up, but I found myself drawn into a game of Farkle. This is a game played with six dice. Ones and five keep you in the game and then various combinations get you different points—or kick you out of the game. I went out first, but everyone had one last roll and Juanita beat me on points. It was a lot of fun.

The Lawsons arrived just as we were finishing, so Sue joined the game and I went to see how the Phase 10 tournament was going back in the conference room. Instead they were playing Cards Against Humanity, which I threw myself into with a will (Shakespeare, not Robinson), and we were up until after midnight in helpless laughter. Jake won.

And now of course we're all going to hell...but not before we go to bed!

Labels: events, food, friends, games, gifts, hobbies, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:59:00 PM

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Oh, what a day...

We had a surprise yesterday when James' mom called about getting together for Christmas: now that they have a new car they suggested they come here. So we are having company on Christmas Eve. We were going to get some dark meat parts for us and a breast for Mom and Candy, but when I got up this morning and dashed to Kroger (I didn't even eat), all I could find were ginormous turkey breast and no parts. They did have small turkeys, so I got a little, 9-pound one. Also got extra dessert, more milk, and a few other things. Then I could come home, tuck away the groceries, take the dog out and have breakfast.

Next I went to cookie baking. This was not really fun. The wine didn't turn the first batch mix the proper color and it was very dry. I had to keep adding wine and since I was at the bottom of the bottle, I had to strain it through a coffee filter in case the mother came out. Then the temperatures in the oven varied wildly. This is okay for meat, but terrible for baking. The oven usually reads a little higher than the temp actually is, so I set the thermostat 25 degrees higher. When it said it was up to temp I put the cookies in, the oven thermometer read 200. Ten minutes later the oven was smoking because the bottoms of the cookies were smoking and the oven thermometer read over 400! I had to throw open the back door and put on the kitchen ceiling fan. The cookies came out burnt on the bottom and still raw at the center. The second batch came out better, but there was still smoke and the oven temp varied wildly on that set of cookies.

Once that was done, I took Tucker out for his walk, and for the next 2 1/2 hours I wrapped gifts. Some went into paper, others went into gift bags. I had to wrap at least four birthday gifts as well. I finished right before James arrived home, and resolved not to do anything more for the night except watch Christmas specials. Tonight was reserved for The Gathering, the magnificent television movie starring Ed Asner and Maureen Stapleton.

And then I tottered outside with Tucker and it was bedtime.

Labels: baking, Christmas, food, gifts, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:25:00 PM

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The traffic is getting worse every year for our Christmas trip down to Warner Robins. I'd expected problems on the inbound trip, since it is the end of a holiday weekend, but we had no trouble coming back up, it was heading down that was wretched. I don't think it would have been any better if we'd left earlier.

We didn't get out of the house until eleven although we got up at 8:30, then had to dodge downtown because of some football game or the other. Except for the heat (it was up in the high 70s before we knew it), it wasn't a bad ride until we passed Southlake Mall (which is a veritable ghost town these days; I recall the days when we drove up to Southlake because it had more and different stores from Macon Mall). Then for seventeen long miles it was zero to twenty miles an hour. The funny part is that there was no difference in the spots where the traffic was good and when it was bad; the road didn't get narrower where it slowed down and there weren't any accidents. There was car after car of Floridian folks presumably headed home and almost as many out-of-state cars presumably heading down to the House of Mouse or House of Harry Potter. After that it sped up a bit, then slowed down a bit; we didn't get to go the speed limit until we were nearly to the I-475 split south of Forsyth. It basically took us nearly three hours to do a hour and forty minute trip. I didn't sleep well and could barely see between sleepiness, a sore right eye, and sun glare.

We met the folks at Olive Garden and had a nice meal and chatter. Our appetizer came so late that we just took it home along with most of James' meal and a slice of black-tie mousse cake. Then we did a gift exchange back at the house with a football game running in the background. We gave Mom and Candy a soup basket this year; soups we accumulated from various craft shows and novelty soups we found in the supermarket, along with two big Mickey Mouse soup bowl mugs. The artwork is like an architectural drawing.

Then we went over to Maggi and Clay's for a while. The two dachshunds, Rupert and Jennifer, greeted us with a salvo of barks (Rupert kept barking at us through most of the visit; I thought Willow had protective issues!), and we were also greeted by a mostly-lab adolescent black puppy, Tessa, who belongs to Maggi's grandson Jayson, who's living with them. They weren't able to come to the Twelfth Night party last year and we missed taking them their gifts at Anachrocon, so they had two sets of gifts to open. We shot the breeze for a couple of hours and then set home in the dark. Traffic, as I mentioned earlier, was now fine, so at least we got home in good time, although we missed The Librarians (it's on the DVR) and were just too tired to watch Alaska: the Last Frontier (ditto).

Labels: Christmas, family, friends, gifts, traffic, travel

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:53:00 PM

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We slept as late as we could this morning; no leaping from bed at the crack of dawn like we used to as children to see what was under the tree. In my case, it was because I was up about every two hours to go to the bathroom and then swill more water. The vaporizer is supposed to last 8 to 10 hours, but is always stopped by the time I get up.

Since we're adults we had breakfast and then gifts. James gave me the new annotated Little Women and the newest John and Carole Barrowman "Bone Quill" book, a Blu-Ray of the film Mr. Holmes, a Special Dark bar, a chocolate orange, and a nifty bracelet that has a dog's head. I got James three books, a picture book of color photographs from World War II, Five Came Back (wartime movie directors), and Enduring Courage (about Eddie Rickenbacker) and two DVDs, one of George Carlin and another of a weekly series called The Aviators, plus the little item I bought him from White Rabbit Cottage, a block of wood that says "Love my hero" on it. We also opened our gifts from Emma (homemade cookies), Mike and Jen (a little autumn tree lamp), and Rodney (a facsimile copy of the original Murder on the Orient Express, two Christmas CDs I didn't have, and a lovely big book of Apollo photographs!

Watched The Homecoming about noon and then got ready to go to the Butlers while James finished our food contributions (gravy, green bean casserole, and roasted maple-glazed carrots). We headed over to arrive at four so I could rest as much as I could. The most strenuous thing I did was climb up the driveway, but I was still wiped out by the time we got home.

But we had a great time. Dinner was delicious, we had a fun gift exchange (got nifty emergency items from Keith, fannish art prints, homemade biscotti, homemade coasters (everyone got these and they were all different), a Christmas trivia book, and other neat goodies), and of course we talked and talked and talked. It had been lightly sprinkling when we got there and pouring rain while we were there, but it had thankfully stopped by the time we left, so we were able to enjoy the decorations between Country Walk and home. Unfortunately there was no clearing in the clouds, so we didn't see the first Christmas full moon in umpety umph years.

And then the last thing before bed was watching The House Without a Christmas Tree. A nice thing to see out the holiday.

Labels: books, Christmas, DVDs, food, friends, gifts, holidays

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

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Yeah, I overslept. Oh, the alarm went off at 8:10, but my eyes glazed over listening to "Weekend Edition" and the next thing I knew it was 8:50. So by the time Tucker had a good walk and I had some breakfast, I arrived at Sam's Club ten minutes after it opened instead of five minutes before. (It's not like I had to be that early; I just figured it would be less crowded if I was. Everyone else had the same idea, too.)

I was there for Skinny Pop, and I got in a supply since Costco doesn't carry it, and another bag of Chex Mix for work. Bought James some Jamaican meat patties, and some of the Tyson teriyaki chicken thighs so we can have Asian chicken salad for supper tomorrow. Plus I got milk.

I spent some time looking at a cute little gadget called a Flexx 10. Apparently this is a little netbook only available at Walmart, Target, and Sam's Club, and it's got really nice reviews, and it separates out into a tablet and a keyboard, rather like an underpowered Surface tablet. Unfortunately it doesn't do one critical thing I want it to do, or I might have considered it if I had the money.

I did get a neat thing: it looks like a small, softsided lunchbag with a solid plastic bottom. The bottom has three electrical plugs on either side, and two USB ports at one end, an on/off switch at the other—yes, it's a gadget charger, with the power cord tucked in the compartment underneath, and then in the "lunchbag" part it holds the power cords to the gadgets you're going to charge. Very nifty and will come in handy for Atomicon, etc.

Came home and spent the rest of the afternoon messing around with work things, or else I shall never catch up; sorting files and other things like getting printouts. A web site that I critically need for my work is suddenly not coming up on Internet Explorer at work. However, it comes up on my phone and on my web browser at home. I can only assume that the powers-that-be have done security updates on IE and somehow or other this website is being blocked. So I got the printouts I needed on my computer and saved them to PDF files, which I then e-mailed to myself at work. This is the type of dingbat hoops we have to jump through all the time.

By the time I got done, James was on his way home. I walked Tucker again, and then we went to Olive Garden for dinner. We received a gift card at Christmas and had not used it yet. And we did have fun with it. We ordered an appetizer (fried ravioli filled with pork and beef), which we usually don't do, had the salad, and James had a Northern Italian sampler and I had the beef and tortellini, which is molto bello and half of each dish came home with us. And, of course, we split a black tie mousse cake for dessert.

We were up at Town Center because I had a bunch of JoAnn coupons, and we spent an hour strolling (well, I strolled, James rolled—he can't walk that far anymore). I bought more Command hooks, and found three nice gifts, including a beautiful light scarf, with a combination of coupons and clearance. James got paint brushes and Gorilla glue.

Arrived home in time to take Tucker for a walk again, and this time I had time to play with him, and then James ran him through a game of "red dot" and tuckered him out. Spent the evening redesigning a web page background and then watching Dr. Pol and chatting with Emma.

Less than two weeks now to DragonCon! Wow!

Labels: dogs, electronics, food, gifts, pets, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:59:00 PM

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I was feeling a little under the weather this morning and wanted to make sure I was in good shape for our Boxing Day gift exchange tonight. So while I did a few chores, including washing the sheets and blankets, I pretty much swigged some ibuprofin and watched Christmas stories, starting with Rankin-Bass'  The Little Drummer Boy, which I love not only for its story, but the beautiful song "One Star in the Night" sung by the Vienna Boys Choir. I had just started the compilation of Tennessee Ernie Ford's Ford Show Family Christmas when Snowy burst out into song. Nor was the little guy wrong: James walked in the door too late to see Lee Aaker and Rin Tin Tin, but soon enough to see Jon Provost and Lassie (Jon tells Ernie he is running away from home because his parents didn't get him what he wanted for Christmas: a 12-gauge shotgun and a baby sister).

James rustled himself up some lunch while I went on to Christmas Around the World With Perry Como. Amused at the bickering on Amazon about the picture—1970s, guys, and probably not master tapes; did you think the network kept them?—and that the shows were shot in the autumn (what, you expected them to film at Christmas and interrupt the festivities?) and that Perry repeats too many songs (which is rubbish, because all he repeats is "Ave Maria," and that was always his Christmas signature tune).

Finally to a favorite, the Little House on the Prairie take on O. Henry, "Christmas at Plum Creek," and finally the unusual PBS special, Simple Gifts before getting dressed, packing up the gifts and our food contributions, and heading over to the Lawsons.

It was a great time. We got to see the new travel trailer, just a small one, but wonderfully compact and comfy, and had pizza for supper along with chips, cheese and crackers, brownie bites and other goodies. Alice, Juanita, Jessie and Aubrey did try playing an "Ender's Game" strategy game, but mostly we talked and exchanged presents. I think my personalized shepherd's hook bookmarks and Aubrey's Doctor Who-themed book thong were a hit. John liked the black plaid shirt.

By the time we arrived home, it was almost bedtime, which disappointed Tucker muchly!

Labels: Christmas, friends, gifts, health, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:26:00 PM

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Labels: Christmas, food, friends, gifts

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:16:00 PM

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This birthday weekend has gone by on the wings of swifts! After my Wednesday I really needed some time off, but it's not like I've gotten any rest. In fact, when we last met, we had a new Christmas tree in the garage, and decorations half up. On my telework day I was able to put up the airplane tree (which really needs a spotlight) and tidy up downstairs during lunch. The new library tree looks so nice!

I spent my birthday on Thursday wrapping and boxing up gifts to go in the mail. I had seven to mail, but unfortunately only four were ready, so I got to work on those. The spare room now looks like a department store gift-wrap corner threw up in it, and the copy-paper boxes with the gifts are opened all over the futon. Instead of using bows which would flatten in the mail, I used butcher's twine in red-and-white, green-and-white, and red-green-and-white, and tucked the Christmas cards in the parcels. Then I took the four finished parcels, and the Christmas cards to the post office. The line wasn't bad considering the time of year, and one man left because passports were appointment only.

I made a short side trip to Michaels so I could finish a gift (except what I bought was too small, so I did something else) and I finished three small craft gifts. Then I wrapped as many parts of the other two gifts as I could and worked on something to tuck into one of them.

For supper on Thursday night James brought me a nice brisket of beef sandwich from Firehouse Subs, and we watched Doctor Who (parts three and four of "Planet of the Spiders"—almost time for Jon Pertwee to make his final bow) and then I put on The Bishop's Wife. I just plain love this movie. I know Cary Grant hated doing it, but he makes the suavest angel ever and I'd believe anything Dudley said if he was in Grant's persona. I even love the long skating scene. Especially adore Dudley decorating the tree and typing the sermon, and the way the harp calls to him. But I watch, too, just to see the bishopric! All that woodwork! And the stained glass! The pocket panel doors! The fretwork! The library! It's so gorgeous! It's almost as luminous as Loretta Young and she always looked lighted from within.

I wish I could say I awoke rarin' to go on Friday, but I would have loved to have slept later. Now that the other two gifts were completed, and that I had the proper address for one of them, it all went together easily, and I popped them in the car and went back to the post awful. I got the same clerk as yesterday, who even recognized me.

This time I came directly home. It was time for the Christmas tree. But once I decanted it and pieced the parts together, a problem arose: there's no plug at the top of this pre-lit tree, so no place to plug in "Little Blaze," the star. So, back into my outside clothing, and I drove over to Vickery Hardware in search of an extension cord. There I was, the lone woman in the store with a bunch of working men, and I'm standing at the checkout with a 15-foot brown extension cord and three triple-taps set in front of me, and for three solid minutes not one person paid attention to me. I guess they thought I was with one of the guys. Thanks a lot, fellas.

So came home and strung the extension cord down the trunk and thus was the star plugged in; I started with all the large glass ornaments, then on to the large Hallmark and Carletons, and finally filled in with the smallest ones. Finally I hid the pickle. As always I watched Christmasy things: Christmas Is, The City That Forgot About Christmas, and three Lassie Christmas episodes as I worked.

James got home a bit early after working overtime yesterday, but I was just starting to tinsel the tree as he arrived. I could have left it and finished after we had supper...but dang, after the interruptions today I just wanted to get it complete. And it does look nice: it's perfectly formed and a good size to decorate; I always though the other was too tall. But for a tree with 400 lights on it, it's so dark. Almost all the lights are on the inside branches. The tree I got from Michaels isn't like that, and it's only four feet high but you can read under the lights from it

We had supper at Panera where the chicken soup and the bagel were a nice reward for a day's work, and then we went by Kroger to buy a baby gate to put in front of the Christmas tree. I'm sure Tucker won't be able to resist it, and if he doesn't eat the tinsel or knock over the tree, he'll try to chew the rubber camels in the manger set. Since we were there we did the weekly shopping, too.

Before bed I was able to put out the manger set, each piece in place just the way Mother would have done it every year. Now the tree is complete.

This morning we went to the Farmer's Market. It was a double test this morning: we not only took the power chair, we took Tucker as well. Luckily we found a parking space in the public lot on Powder Springs Road, although it was a trip navigating the railroad tracks and the brick sidewalk. I handled the dog and James coped with the chair. Tucker was on sensory overload: the people! the dogs! the scents! oh, and there's FOOD! He sniffed and romped from booth to booth and dog to dog, his tail wagging all the time. One bit of sad news: Cuisine on the Run, where James has been getting his chicken salad for so long, is ceasing operations. They couldn't find an USDA-rated kitchen to work in any longer and have decided to give it up. We always were so happy to talk to Stu at his tent at the market; he was always so nice, and the chicken salad was delicious.

Anyway, it turned out that The Corner Shop, the British store, was open, so we took turns going in and looking at the goodies. I bought us some ginger covered in dark chocolate and James bought some Christmas cake. It turns out that the lady who owns the shop has been sick; she has COPD and has only recently found a medicine that works for her. It must be miserable not being able to breathe like that. I'm glad she has something now.

Then we had to hustle home because I'd completely forgotten about James' club meeting. We both stopped at the house long enough to use the rest room; James then went off to Town Center and I was bound and determined to get Tucker a bath without having to kneel down at the bathtub. I found my answer at "Unleashed," a small version of Petco that has a dog wash in the back. For $10, you get a tub with adjustable platforms, a very nice high pressure water shower head, two towels, dog shampoo and conditioner, a curry brush, and a place to dry the dog. Tucker definitely knew what was going on and tried to retreat under the tub. He was put back in and restrained with a leash. I talked to him through the whole process and finally he got resigned to it, just looking at me pleadingly with big eyes, but making no struggle; he had another fit when I turned the dryer on, but I can't blame him; it was so noisy! I finally folded his ears down with one hand and used the dryer head with the other. If it was summer I wouldn't have even bothered, but it was chilly out.

Finally he was all fluffy and clean, and I picked up a little treat for him, and then went by the coats. I was hoping to find something "knit" and red, but most of them were too small and/or icky pink, but I found a cute one in blue that was his size, with "Trouble Maker" the legend on the back! As we were checking out, the clerk told me Santa Claus would be out in a few minutes to take pictures with pets for a donation. Now, we always wanted to do this with Willow, but always seemed to miss the weekend, and she was so fixated on James she probably wouldn't have sat with Santa. It seemed providential. Tucker just romped over and greeted him, let Santa pick him up—a quick squeak toy noise and the photographer snapped the picture, and in five minutes I had a print. Easy peasy.

Then I took him home via the gas station so I could feed Twilight. Now, when we got home what I should have done immediately was to finish with the decorations (the woodland tree and the foyer, because James wanted to put the space tree up with me), and maybe wrap some gifts. But after putting a few things up I realized I was developing a headache. I'd had a plain hamburger on the way to Unleashed, so I wasn't starving. I put the Army/Navy game on for Snowy and finally decided to take three ibuprofin and lie down for a half hour. Well, the futon is full of boxes, so I lay down on the bed with a fleece over me, and was out like a light until James got home at 4:45, waking only to hear some boys talking loudly outside (the bedroom window is open).

We had supper at the West Cobb Diner. Boy, was it warm in there, and crowded. You could barely hear yourself over the crowd. We had turkey as always, and took half of it home for lunches. Then we went to the used book store, 2nd and Charles, to get rid of the leftover box I had gotten back from McKays. They only took a few things, and I dumped the rest in the "free books" bin except for the DVDs. James got something with his gift card, and I found a "Reminisce" book about the Depression with what little credit I got. (There was a beautiful book about Mount Vernon, but I didn't know if I wanted it that much.)

We came home via the battlefield park and Kennesaw Avenue to admire the Christmas decorations. One house had white lights with red floodlights: stunning! Two others had those GE light balls in the trees over their homes. In that neighborhood, though, with the vintage homes, mostly white lights. It was only when we got back into our own neighborhood after James stopped for gasoline that we saw a lot of multicolor trimmings, which I prefer.

Spent the evening watching Christmasy things: "Lassie's Gift of Love," Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, The Small One, "Pluto's Christmas Tree," and finally Mickey's Christmas Carol.

Labels: books, chores, Christmas, dogs, errands, food, gifts, movies, pets, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:14:00 AM

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James headed off for work this morning, and I tried to sleep in, but ended up getting up at eight anyway. Took Willow outside, and then fed her a few more pieces of the chicken I cooked yesterday. It's almost gone.

This morning I was determined to do some organizing. I grabbed a gallon Ziploc bag and corralled all the manuals and the parts to the Brother scanner and put them with the scanner. Then I tackled the craft room, which has been neglected since third quarter at work. My worktable had junk all over it, and there were bags from Michaels and the A.C. Moore expedition in Knoxville on the floor in front of the phonograph. I put the small cross-stitch frames with the ones I bought last year in Virginia, put up the baker's twine I used on the gifts that I had to mail instead of bows that would get crushed, corralled all the winter branches into a winter basket, put away the cross-stitch fabric I'd bought, cleared off the chair of cross-stitch kits and my "paint pots," and framed the Prayer of St. Francis that I bought from "the Papyrus Lady" at last year's Apple Annie craft show and put it up next to the bathroom door, moving the Susan Branch print to another location.

In the process I found a few more small items that had been supposed to go in Juanita's gift, so I peeled one end of it open and tucked the items inside. I also turned up a gift that was meant for Jerry and Sue, so I wrapped that and put it under the tree.

By the time I got done I had some goat cheese and crackers for lunch, which Willow coveted. I wouldn't give her the crackers because they were highly spiced, and she turned her nose up at the goat cheese.

I toyed with the idea of going out, but instead took the Christmas mailbox cover out of the craft room where it's been sitting since we got back from Virginia last year, and put it on the mailbox. Yeah, I know it's after Christmas, but it's not January 6 yet! Before I put it on the mailbox I printed on the back in large black magic marker "If this mailbox cover is not on the mailbox at [our address], it has been stolen!" (my previous two mailbox covers were swiped, one on Christmas Eve, and the replacement three days before I would have taken it down), and then tied it down with plastic straps. Let some kid take this one and then try to present it to mom as a "gift"!

Also washed the kitchen floor, took Willow out several times, and cooked her another chicken thigh. It takes longer to cut the fat off them than it does to boil them!

We had a game night/gift exchange scheduled at the Lawsons tonight, so I put all the gifts into a couple of carry bags, got dressed, and then finally got to take some ibuprofin and sit down with my eyes closed for about 20 minutes. James wouldn't get out of work until six, so Alice and Ken were nice enough to pick me up and give me a ride. We picked up Ken's mom, too, and I showed them the back way to the Lawsons.

Great night! We were so busy talking we never did play any games, although the girls (Aubrey, Jessie, and Kayla) played cards for a while. Jerry showed off their beautiful new enclosed porch, which replaced a crumbling deck. Very, very nice. Pizza was ordered, and there was also fruit, cheeses, crackers, cookies, and nuts. Gifts were exchanged and neat gifts were received, but the best gift was seeing everyone (especially Sue's mother, who is leaving tomorrow, and who is getting more frail each year we see her).

James and I drove home in the same mucky driving rain he had arrived in (it was only sprinkling when the Spiveys and I got to the house). Some nice lights still on in the Lawsons' neighborhood.

When we got home, Willow had polished off the scrambled egg I made her earlier. Hurrah! Gave her more chicken pieces (had been feeding her a few every couple of hours). Got on chat for a little while, but was so tired that my eyelids started to droop after a half hour.

Labels: Christmas, crafts, dogs, food, friends, gifts, organizing, weather, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:56:00 PM

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Ohhhh...after a week of 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. wake up calls, I was so looking forward to this morning to sleep in. Unfortunately James had to go to work this morning, but at least he got to sleep until 6:45 rather than six.

The weather was predicted as being miserable, so I wasn't surprised when I got up for a "pit stop" that everything was grey and dark outside, perfect for sleeping. As I shambled back to the bed, drowsy-eyed, I noticed my phone was on. It does turn on in the mornings, so I shut it off and got back into bed, turned over...hm. Phone on again.

Now, I have Timeriffic turn the ringer of the phone off at night, so when I looked at the phone a second time I realized I'd gotten a phone call. From James. He'd locked himself out of his truck and the keys to his desk were on his keychain. As he signed off, thunder pealed and I checked the phone. Oh, wonderful. Tornado warning.

In a few minutes I was dressed, only to find Willow tucked up tight near the gate (presumably because of the thunder). But I had to leave her to take poor Twilight out in the pouring rain. The windshield wipers beat a boring accompaniment.

So I got to the building and James got his keys, and I was headed home and back to bed until I thought...Easter cards. Publix has cards on sale. So I turned back to the store. They had several other things on twofer as well, and a box of bargain books at the front of the store. I rooted inside and found The Great Upheaval for myself, a gift  book, and a board book copy of P.D. Eastman's Are You My Mother?, which I adored as a little girl, with the cute baby bird and I thought little Jack Wallace across the street might like it.

I also went to two more Publixes (Publi?) for cards and then came home. Hm. It was only 10:30; I could write out the cards and then mail them. So I did that, and realized I needed at least three more cards. So I printed out and then took the address list, plus the pens, the stamps and the return address labels with me, went to the Publix on Macland Road for the cards (and found dessert for next week to boot: Entemann loaf cakes were twofer this week—yum, chocolate pound cake) and wrote them out in the car, then drove down Powder Springs Road to the downtown Marietta post office to mail them.

Well, since I was downtown...there are two new books I am dying to read, but they are both in hardback (Age of Edison and On Looking), so I thought "I'll try the library." As always, I was disappointed; the library only seems to get new books when they are best-sellers and all that chick-lit nonsense. However, I was amazed to find a Richard Lederer book in the stacks that I had never read (how'd that happen?), and I also picked up what looks like a humorous book on pronunciation, so I did  not leave the library empty-handed. (I could have come home with more; they had a book about Edward VII and Queen Alexandra I'd never seen either.) In addition, I picked up a mystery book I'd enjoyed as a Christmas gift for a friend; the Marietta library, like the Smyrna library, now has a standing set of shelves with books for sale. This was brand new and perfect.

So since I was coming home that way anyway, I stopped at Aldi for a gallon of milk and also got some bread for toast (toast mania continues), and then, finally, stopped at Kroger for gasoline and then really did go home. By then it was almost two o'clock! I had some toast for lunch with a glass of milk, answered a bunch of surveys on the computer—I know I get points for these things, but dang, they aggravate me, asking stupid things like how I "feel" about my credit card; seriously, guys, I use it, I pay it off, I gotta "feel" something about it, too? How stupid!—and then was so sleepy as the clock ticked by three that I gave Schuyler a kiss and told her I was going to take a nap.

I remember waking once, about 4:15, thinking I ought to get up, but I hadn't slept on my left side yet...that futon is miiiiiighty comfortable, I tell ya. It calls your name. "Warm and woozy, soft and snoozy..." So the next thing I knew it was 5:30 and James was home.

As we were going out the door, I noticed Kristie and the family were outside, so I grabbed the little book and took it to Jack. He's so cute!

We had supper at Panera. James tried their new bruschetta pasta and said it was really good; they cooked the pasta properly and didn't turn it into mush. We also stopped by Publix on the way home because I had forgotten to pick up a Passover card, but after that there wasn't much else to do, so we came home. Watched an episode of Lassie ("The Brat"), an old episode of Flipping Boston, and last week's Elementary.

Labels: books, Easter, food, gifts, holidays, shopping, weather, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:55:00 PM

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Here's John Verney's inimitable February Callendar with "a stinker," from the book February's Road:

 
And, boy, do I know how she feels.

This started Sunday night, I suppose, when I walked out from Kroger to the fuel center. I got rather wet. I know they say that doesn't give you a cold, like our mothers used to believe, but I can still hear Mom saying "I told you so." :-)

Monday I coughed all day at work, despite guzzling copious amounts of water. Unfortunately I coughed all night, too, to the point that I had to go to the spare room to keep from waking James up. Tuesday I woke up short of sleep, still coughing (one of those hacking things you can't stop) with a killer sore throat. Now, this had to be the worst day ever to get a cold. We were having two meetings today to sum up the reorganization: a general one at ten to talk about contractor performance ratings, and a more specific on at 1:30 in which the small purchases team would meet their new Branch chief and team lead (both had flown down from Pittsburgh). Heck, I would have gone to the meeting with a mask on if I could, but I had gotten so little sleep I felt I would be a danger on the road. I sat in via conference call instead, and the little I could contribute was done in the voice of Tallulah Bankhead crossed with a bullfrog.

Tuesday night was again spent in the spare room. I pretty much slept all day Wednesday, except for getting up to uncover Schuyler and put the television on for her. I thought I'd try sitting up for a while, taking a dose of the cough medicine James had picked up for me Tuesday evening, drinking more water, and watching Leave It to Beaver and Dennis the Menace on Antenna-TV. After two hours I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and I went back to sleep. As I slept through the day, I did get a fever, which maxed out at 100.6°F before sinking down to normal, then going back up slightly to 99.6.

Last night, I thought we had a breakthrough: I slept all night in our own bed. My temperature was back to its usual normal (97.6) and my throat had quit hurting, but my nose was still stuffy and my head now felt like it was filled with cotton. I logged onto work, but it took me a half hour to think up the correct wording to answer an e-mail. So I called the advice nurse at Kaiser again. She chatted with me for a while, then said she was recommending me for some Flonase and the pharmacy would call me. Okay. So I struggled with doing some work. It was so hard to concentrate! At lunchtime I lay down, but my nose was getting so stuffy and now running so badly that I couldn't sleep. We had another staff meeting at 1:30; by this time my sinuses were so clogged I could barely hear what was going on. I was wondering if I had better call back and ask for a doctor's appointment when they saved me the trouble and called me saying they wanted me to come in. I could have gotten an appointment for today, but I still wouldn't have felt safe driving. Instead I made it tomorrow for nine, since James has an appointment at 8:40.

That was about three, and the situation's just deteriorated. By the time James got home, with a Valentine card and gifts, he decided we ought to write off tonight's planned dinner (shrimp scampi) and go with soup for me, since by now I can barely taste anything. My sinuses and throat hurt, and my right ear is ringing like I've got a little Quasimodo in there.

At least there was chocolate cake for dessert and there's a new Big Bang Theory tonight.

(Oh, James bought me the book Show Dog and Rick Steves' Europe: A Symphonic Journey. I got him a Wild Cards book he didn't have and nonfiction about aviation in World War I.)

Oh, February, you are so lucky having a doctor that still makes house calls...

Labels: books, gifts, health, sickness, television, Valentines Day, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:53:00 PM

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