So Sunday was James' birthday. He decided to take the day off, as well as Labor Day. I still did a few chores, but we had dinner at Longhorn (he was very circumspect, only an 8-ounce Renegade and mushrooms and onions; they told him to be good after his hospital stay and he's been trying hard), and they gave him a free dessert (vanilla ice cream with whipped cream, but at least it was decent vanilla, with chocolate syrup on it), and we went to Barnes & Noble afterward.

(I also decided I wasn't satisfied with the fluid I was getting from three catherizations a day—James' legs looked a little swollen to me, but his numbers had been fine when he was tested at the infusion clinic on Friday—and I added another, and hoped it would do. This is important to mention.)

Labor Day was quiet; I cooked St. Louis ribs with a low-salt Splenda and maple syrup glaze in the lower oven; they came out swell and we both had leftovers for a small lunch.

Two quiet days, and then we had a Thursday out: went to the first day of the Yellow Daisy Festival. Some of it was back out under the trees, but a lot of it was still on the street; once again, in the sun I was feeling hot and dizzy, and James kept getting lost on me and not answering his phone (because the volume was turned down low--not sure why this keeps happening; maybe because he uses the headphones during the week and they turn the volume down).

Well, it's happened: our Yellow Daisy days won't be the same from now on; the Country Pick'ns people are retiring after this year. I will miss them terribly, but I can't deny them the same status I enjoy. I have made so many shadow-boxes from these folks' things, most of which I have showed off on this page: my "me" shelf with other little miniatures I've added, a year-round autumn shelf in our bedroom, the seashore shelf in the hall bath, the kitchen-themed shelf in the kitchen, and the seasonal shadow-boxes (fall, up all year; Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and winter), the "our house" heart-shaped shelf, plus the tiny shadow-box with the nativity figures on it, a couple of little miniature items like tiny Christmas arrangements, and the two little gifts I didn't give out last year, but will this year. Well, since it was their final year, I wanted to buy something, so I got a few little extra autumn things for here and there, and then I got a brainstorm. I've been impossibly enmeshed in these fanfic pieces I've been writing since last year, and it's given me such pleasure, and I got the idea to make a shadow-box of the fanfic elements. I'll add some decorative buttons and it will work.

We had lunch at Chow King, then moseyed to our appointment with Dr. Kongara (nephrologist) to finish out the day. He was pleased with James' post-hospital condition and sent us on our way (this is important for what happened next).

We got home to discover that Queen Elizabeth II had died. We had heard on the news earlier that she was not doing well. Two days ago she had met the new prime minister and now she was gone. Prince Charles is now Charles III.

Friday we did the shopping and there was another turn at the infusion clinic (this will keep going until he has the PICC line removed). Got lucky and there was a box of free books there, for anyone to take. I found a copy of The Personal Librarian, which I have wanted, about the woman who arranged J.P. Morgan's personal library for him; it was not known until just recently, but she was Black "passing" for white.

Saturday James was feeling "off" and decided to go to his club meeting online. I was worried about him and didn't leave the house except to gas up Butch, because I had a terrible feeling something was wrong from the way his legs looked. I was up half the night listening to him breathe in short, staccato breaths.

So you guessed it: Sunday morning we were going to be back at the emergency room...

...to be continued...

Labels: books, food, health, holidays, news, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:15:00 PM

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Labels: food, holidays, illness, shopping, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:15:00 PM

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Labels: Christmas, health, holidays, Independence Day, sickness, television

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

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Labels: chores, health, holidays, illness, Independence Day, shopping, technology, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:07:00 PM

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You know me, dentist phobia. So I figured I'd give the gums a good week's treatment before I called the dentist. This was really painful Monday and Tuesday. I had a low-grade fever both days and I had to quit using the water flosser because it hurt so much. Even my upper and lower palette swelled up and the salt rinses were painful; they made my sinuses hurt. My glands were swollen, too. Oddly, at no time did I have any type of toothache; I have had sore gums before, but it has always been associated with a toothache. Instead I flossed with regular floss, which was painful enough, and kept up with the salt rinses along with peroxide rinses (I looked at a $12 tooth rinse at the supermarket; the active ingredient was, guess what, peroxide! I figured to save $12 I could stand the bad taste.) Tuesday I was asleep most of the afternoon. Wednesday I felt better and the fever never came back.

Thursday morning, when I resolved I would call the dentist if things hadn't improved, the swelling was down almost everywhere, and brushing and rinsing didn't hurt much anymore, and by Friday everything was fine again. So...beats me. I didn't think peroxide and salt would take down real infection. I did remember my strange reaction to the Zostavax, though, and looked up reactions to tetanus vaccines online. And there were bleeding gums and swollen glands. Hmmmn.

The rest of the week went by smoothly for us, but not so for James' mother. On Monday she had a very mild heart attack, which I guess was linked to the slow heartbeat? We're getting the reports from James' sister, and she can only visit Mom on limited hours, so she doesn't know everything the doctors are doing.

Friday I did my usual quiet three hours between noon and three, reading the Mass readings for Good Friday, then listening to all six BBC Lent Talks for this year. This year's theme was "hope." I finished out the three hours with Madeleine L'Engle's And It Was Good, the first book in her Genesis trilogy in which she covers the creation through the almost-sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. Said prayers for Mom and hoped things will turn around.

And, finally, today, O finally!...I got my second vaccine! We made a day of it: I-285 was backed up at one in the afternoon, so after I was "shot" and waited the regulation thirty minutes reading Ben Aaronovitch's What Abigail Did That Summer, we drove home overland through (mostly) Holcomb Bridge Road. Had lunch at Zaxby's and stopped at Trader Joe's for chicken sausage and chocolate and other goodies.

Tonight I had a fever of 100.3. Why am I not surprised? They say it means you are building antibodies, so it's a good thing.

[The fever, incidentally, lasted through Sunday and Monday, and then vanished as if it had never arrived.]

Labels: COVID-19, family, holidays, illness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:34:00 PM

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We had to give up "Hair Day" in April due to the pandemic and lockdown, and had a socially distanced one with appointments only for May. In June, a few people gathered, pretty much just to talk, but our monthly lunches along with haircuts kind of went by the wayside.

Labels: errands, food, friends, Hallowe'en, holidays, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:48:00 PM

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Ah, well, the tide has turned. James is going back to 40 hours next week. We have been thankful for unemployment payments for filling in the gaps.

For now, however, we needed to stock the fridge while we have the funds, so part of the weekend was darting from grocery store to grocery store, Wednesday it was Lidl for French bread, cheese rolls, and eggs (and we found a nice steak to grill for Independence Day), Publix for the recent dearth of BOGO items and more whole wheat bread, Kroger for milk and low-salt mushrooms. Thursday we went to Patak's [the butcher] for cheap meats; the man behind us had a full cart and told me he was stocking up for a big cookout for his friends. We had lunch after shopping, and then went up to the Barnes & Noble on Dallas Highway. Damn, it looks like a toy store in there: rows and rows of games, stuffed animals, puzzles, and a bunch of other crap. If I wanted to go to Toys'r'Us, I would have shopped there previously. You are a bookstore: add more books!

On Friday we had to make a stop at Publix to pick up stuff we forgot (we always forget something). Then we could finally relax, pick up some lunch from Dragon 168, and come home and eat in the cool. Didn't do much more than shelve some books for the rest of the day, and we watched some Perry Mason.

Independence Day was a lazy day. James grilled the nice sirloin tip steak from Lidl (marinated in Island Soyaki from Trader Joe's), and we had it with tater tots, onion rings, and corn on the cob, with double chocolate gelato for dessert. We watched 1776 as always and mostly I read until it was time for the Boston Pops concert. They showed clips from previous shows, plus some new segments filmed with orchestra members playing from home and carefully edited together to sound as if they were playing together on stage. The fireworks were too short. 😁

We were trying to keep things low-key because Tucker has been becoming more and more nervous all week. When we first adopted him he was wary about fireworks, but after the first year he started to freak out more and more. He's now at the point where fireworks render him nearly powerless. He sits between James' feet or under my feet, trembling in every limb, to the point where his ears are vibrating, his jaws wet from drool. To take him out before bedtime, I have to lead him down the stairs and manipulate him into his harness, and coax him along, just to get him to pee.

Last weekend we bought him a Thundershirt, which we have avoided in the past because they were just so expensive and no one could promise it would work, and it has ended up working pretty well. At the beginning of the week, when there were just firecrackers and little poppers, it definitely improved his mood. He trotted up the sidewalk as if he owned it, just as always. Alas, on Friday and Saturday, things were still dicey. Friday night even with the shirt Tucker was still trembling, although I did get him outside for a little bit. They have relaxed the fireworks permits here in the last couple of years so that they can sell bigger and louder fireworks, including Roman candles. Well, the folks off the main street sure went for the big ones. There would have been a great sky show to enjoy if poor Tucker wasn't so miserable. Saturday I took him out before dark, so it went better, but during the evening he was wedged firmly between either James or I.

So I guess it has worked adequately, but no, it hasn't solved the entire problem. Poor Tucker will just have to go on believing he's being shot at.

Labels: books, dogs, food, holidays, Independence Day, pets, shopping, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:35:00 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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...celebrating the holiday at, where else?

Holiday Harbour!

Labels: holidays, Thanksgiving

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:28:00 PM

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Encouraged by a weather report that predicted a cloudy but dry day, we slept until nine and then went through the usual morning routine, although I had to cut the dog walk short for a call of nature. However, this gave me enough time to write out some Thanksgiving cards and address and stamp them. These came with us as we left for lunch a little early so that we could swing past the Austell Road Cobb County complex so I could renew the registration on my car and get this year's tag. Even with this detour, we arrived at this week's lunch venue in plenty of time and had a nice long meal and convo with Alice, Ken, Aubrey, Mel, and Phyllis. We were eating at Okinawa and discovered that Aubrey's good friend from her school years, Kayla, was working there and had just been promoted to head server. Alice was keeping warm by the window, as she had come home from Conjuration with a cold. Nothing worse than good ol' fashioned con crud. We talked about everything from the weather to the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

Lunch broke up after two, and I had James swing by the Mableton post office to drop off the Thanksgiving cards. Instead of coming back up Floyd Road/Hurt Road to return to the East-West Connector, we did a slight variation on the directions being given to us by the GPS and drove a street called Fontaine Road. We're so used to being surrounded by suburbs that we are surprised when we find the small places in Cobb that are still country-like. The road leading to Fontaine was filled with small, older homes, but Fontaine itself paralleled an old railroad line and looked almost like the road we take up to Helen, GA, with widely-spaced homes, some with stables and acreage behind them, and many stands of trees, all in various stages of autumn color. The railroad tracks were out of sight in a little valley at the right side of the road. It was like a little five-minute vacation in the middle of our day.

We were headed for Barnes & Noble to get the cocoa we got cheated out of last weekend when the Acworth Books-a-Million showed up missing in action. The doors were wide open and they had been doing some rearranging inside, with big upright shelves of the newest and recommended books right up front. Before we had our cocoa we wandered around both floors, checking out the magazines (but I'm not buying any this weekend, as they usually have the magazines on discount on Black Friday), and then the books. I did find a book that was discounted, so picked that up (a humorous memoir about a woman who is an introvert attempting to act as an extrovert) and a paperback involving a paranormal mystery. After surveying the reading material and getting ideas for the few gifts we have left to purchase, we sat and had peppermint cocoa and shared a chocolate chunk cookie. No dessert for us tonight!

James wrapped up the power chair before we left the bookstore and a good thing, because we ran through a rainshower on the way home—say, what happened to that dry day we were supposed to have?—but luckily it was barely spitting when we pulled into the driveway. So we got the chair put up safely.

Spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening watching some things on Netflix. First up was a British special narrated by Stephen Fry about the elaborate courting behavior of several types of tropical birds, including birds of paradise and bowerbirds. The narrative was very tongue-in-cheek and the birds beautiful to look at, but with the most extraordinary courtship rituals: dancing, decorating elaborate nests, even a type of bird where the male has a male "wing man" to help him court his lady friend.

While James was cooking up some burritos for his breakfasts, I watched the documentary Harry and Snowman, the story of which is told in Elizabeth Letts' The Eighty Dollar Champion. Snowman, a former plow horse, was on his way to become dog food when a riding instructor named Harry DeLeyer bought him for eighty dollars. The horse turned out to be a natural jumper who won prestigious jumping contests in the late 1950s against younger, fitter horses. It wasn't the first time I had met Snowman. He appeared in a childhood book I still have, More Than Courage by Patrick Lawson, stories of real-life dogs and horses, where I also first read about "Sergeant" Stubby of WWI, Chips the war dog (whose real story was much better than the Disney telefilm), Roman war dogs, the famous Lipizzaners, police dogs, race horses, rescue dogs—and even a chapter on performing dogs and horses that talked about Lassie, Fury, and Rin Tin Tin.

Later we watched a series of short Disney films, including little shorts based on Rapunzel and Frozen, the enchanting nearly black-and-white "Paperman," the Prep and Landing "Secret Santa" short, etc. Totally delightful! The Mickey Mouse cartoon made of half vintage animation and half CGI was very inventive.

Labels: animals, books, Disney, friends, holidays, seasons, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:57:00 PM

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Had a nice sleep-in this morning which must have relieved James, who probably hasn't gotten six hours of sleep a night for the last four nights. We had a leisurely breakfast and I walked the dog before we headed off for Publix. The sky was so blue it hurt, but the temperatures had risen quickly. We just had flannel shirts over short sleeves, but we needed brimmed hats!

Thanksgiving is still a week away—my goodness, that soon!—but Publix is bursting with Christmas, a whole island of baking goodies and red and green, and silver and gold trims. We did some stocking up for both holidays, BOGO flour for my baking, and veg for our Thanksgiving contributions at this year's "Friendsgiving." Bounced around the store from one end to the other to pick everything up.

We put up the perishables and then headed to Sam's Club. We were planning to wait till next week, but James was out of cheese and he's going to binge-make burritos on Saturday when it rains, so it was today instead. Probably for the best since next Saturday everyone will be in a shopping frenzy.

Even for a Thursday the place was crowded. We gaped over the newest televisions posed directly near the entrance. One Vizio was running a 3-D looking loop that showed off its picture to best advantage. It was quite lovely. Also checked out security systems and new Fitbit smartwatches before going on to what we needed (and could afford): coupon items (Reynolds Wrap, Mrs. Dash, Splenda packets) and not (bulk cheese slices, a bag of Halos). I was going to get milk, but it was more expensive than Lidl.

It was around two by then and we stopped at Krystal to get a cheap lunch: two little cheeseburgers for James, two plain "pups" for me, and a little bag of tater tots. Just right! But since it was so late, we didn't bother going anywhere else except to Lidl for the usual: bread, milk, chocolate, elbow macaroni for a steal, a big bag of small Granny Smith apples, almond windmill cookies for a treat.

The day had completely changed while we were out. From blue and sunny when we left this morning, white clouds then grey clouds crept in, until the sun was just a brighter grey sphere in the cloudy sky. I'd left my flannel shirt behind when we dropped the stuff from Sam's off, and it was almost a little too chilly by the time we got home. Found a surprise on the front porch: a new griddle that I'd ordered from Amazon Vine.  We had nothing thawed for dinner, so we trickled cold water on two of the lamb steaks I'd gotten the other day at Nam Dae Mun. In the meantime, we "killed a frog" and finally cleaned off the top shelf in the fridge, which has been a collecting ground for a mixture of jellies, jams, and sauces. We dumped a couple of things like the congealed mint jelly, and then James scrubbed off the shelf (it's too tall for me to reach the back of) and then we wiped off the good jars and put them back, sauces to the right, jellies and jams to the left, with the Romano cheese in front. I've been cleaning out the fridge one shelf at a time all week and now the inside looks quite smart.

James took a nearly empty jar of garlic jelly and another nearly empty jar of balsamic jelly with onion, and made a finishing sauce for the lamb, cooking it on the new griddle. So good! And the pieces were large enough to supply leftovers for a lunch. Mnnn. Lamb sandwich!

Spent the rest of the evening playing games and watching the Holiday Baking Championship on Food Network.

Labels: Christmas, cleaning, cooking, food, holidays, shopping, television, Thanksgiving, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:47:00 PM

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Another cold front came marching upon us, but we had to endure the warmth before it. Thankfully it was just 70s instead of the dreadful 90s we had until October 2. The rain that came with it, having crept northward from the Gulf of Mexico (again!), started late Tuesday afternoon, proceeded through Wednesday, when it drizzled, poured, rained, misted, poured, dribbled, poured, and dribbled again—but stayed warm. On Thursday morning we lucked out and got a break in the rain, so we dashed to Sam's Club for a couple of things. We frankly had to dash inside the store, too, because there was only one electric cart free up front and it was rapidly running out of battery. So we picked up what we needed—including, ironically, batteries—and left posthaste, only to have the cart run out of juice inside the front door. Thankfully we only had a few things and we could just carry them to the car.

On the way home we stopped for the twofers at Publix. Like Sam's, they were doing a booming business in giant bags of candy for trick or treating tonight, and many of the employees as well as the shoppers were in costume. (At Sam's we had seen someone in a keen 1950s outfit, complete with full poodle skirt!) Now, when we went into the store, the clouds were lowering and it was still quite warm, about 74℉. In fact, it seemed warmer than when we left Sam's minutes before. We emerged from Publix about 45 minutes later with the rain just starting, and as we turned to drive through downtown Smyrna, it started to pour. By the time we got to the house, it was down to 62. The temperature continued to fall throughout the day, so that it was in the 50s during the news, 40s as we were watching TV, and it went down to the 30s during the night.

After the groceries were put up and lunch eaten, we went to tackle the last big thing before free electronics recycling day on Saturday: the clear plastic computer box in the garage. Back in "the old days," when it was cheaper, James used to build our computers instead of us buying them. We'd pick out a case, a motherboard, RAM, and the parts, and he'd put them together and we'd have a frankenmachine. Well, when these computers broke down we'd toss the broken parts and keep the working parts. These parts were all in the big plastic box in the closet in our garage. Some of the stuff was over ten years old. I pulled it out, James regarded it, and the junk went in a garbage bag. We pretty much threw out almost everything, especially all those phone cables (we had more phone cables than any two human beings should have). We kept a spare keyboard, a spare wired mouse, two power supplies (one never opened), one of each kind of cable, about three network cables of different lengths, and that was about it. James also cleaned out next to his computer and got rid of floppy disks (which I thought we had sacked long ago), games he bought and played briefly, games he bought and discovered he needed something expensive to play them, etc. We had two garbage bags full of junk just from that and a small cardboard box besides the dead fans, lamps, etc. in the garage boxes, and the two little netbooks that we had reformatted. (I did a Marie Kondo with the latter, and gave them a hug and told them how much joy they'd given us before I dumped them in the box.)

I was wandering around YouTube later on, and found some shows I had marked to watch later. These were produced by the Rhode Island PBS station profiling various towns in the state. I watched one about Johnston and was happy to see that, besides the town landfill, which has always been kind of a joke, they had a lot of stories about historic areas (including a history museum that opened after I left the state) and organic farms. The final story was about something I saw flitting around Facebook for months: three wild turkeys who were wandering around Atwood Avenue (practically Johnston's Main Street) without a care in the world, stopping traffic. They caught two, but the third one was at large for months after this was filmed. Not sure if they caught it or not!

We didn't do Hallowe'en, and as far as I can tell, maybe two houses on our street did. Usually you can hear kids outside, but I didn't see any when I looked out the window.

We awoke to a cold but beautiful Friday, with bright blue skies overhead. From shirtsleeves on Thursday, we were in jackets with flannel shirts underneath and hats.

Today we had an early lunch because of James' (and I think Ken's) doctors' appointments at Kaiser Glenlake. We went to Shane's barbecue with just Alice and Ken and missed a larger crowd, but had a good time chatting.

It's a good thing we mellowed out because once we arrived at Kaiser, it seemed to take forever. We got there so early James took his time using the rest room and I refilled all our water bottles while he did, so we were hoping we might get in early and out before rush-hour traffic began. We didn't get to his appointment until a hour after our scheduled time, but there was good news: the bandages were taken off and everything was dry, so she didn't put more back on. But we were so late getting out that we just went directly home. That suited me, because I put away the autumn decorations and put up the Thanksgiving decorations on the porch (and also the mailbox cover).

After last week's Hallowe'en Hawaii Five-0, this week's seemed kind of a letdown with those two idiot bloggers or whatever they were covering the team.

Saturday we were up with the sun (literally, because it was the final day of daylight saving time—and good riddance!—and the sun isn't up until after seven) for breakfast and dog walking before we had to load up the truck and head for Jim Miller Park for recycling day. It was chilly but sunny when we loaded up the power chair, but we weren't even a couple of miles from home when we ran into a bank of fog that we wove in and out of all the way to the park. At times it formed a wall of grey in front of us, then shredded apart once we got in line to leave our junk behind. From there we were planning to go to Harbor Freight and, accordingly, went the shortest way, past downtown Marietta, but they were having, in addition to the usual Farmer's Market, a Heart Run, and some local performers. We could hear one of them singing as we came around Glover Park. James had to thread his way around that, leaving us to head to Kennesaw by way of US-41, where we continued in and out of the fog banks, slipping in and out of the grey curtains ahead of us.

By the time we reached Harbor Freight, it was sunny again. We had a nice browse inside; I love hardware stores! I found some new gardening gloves at a very reasonable price, a few other things, and bought James an anniversary gift: he needed a new mototool. The store was in the same shopping center with a Publix, and we nipped inside to see if they had what we couldn't find in the Smyrna store on Thursday, paper towels (yes) and yogurt (no). By the time this was done, the fog was gone for good and the sky was a brilliant blue.

Then it was time for a little fun, so we stopped at Barnes&Noble. I picked up the new "Just Cross Stitch," and also two Christmas magazines. James also picked up a couple of magazines, and we were in a mellow mood when we stopped for lunch at Panera. Our last chore for the day was stopping at Sam's Club to fill up the truck.

And with this nice day our weekend ended.

Labels: books, decluttering, decorations, food, Hallowe'en, health, holidays, magazines, shopping, weather

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

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And no boom after the Fourth at all, to which Tucker enjoyed. I still had to coax him out for the next two evenings.

We spent a relatively quiet remainder of the weekend aside from the Publix shopping trip and a brief stop at Kaiser to get James a blood test before next week's doctors' appointments. Got lunch from Tin Drum on Friday, and basically hung around the house on Saturday reading. We had our Independence Day steak on Saturday night. After marinating for two days it was succulent.

Sunday it was back to the routine: towel washing and sorting meds while James was working. I also took down the Independence Day decorations before the sun swung around and made the brick-lined front porch a bake oven, and updated the little used Surface 3 tablet he bought a month ago. It had never gotten all its Windows updates and I also went in there and shut down any communicating the little rascal was doing with Microsoft and everyone else so that we wouldn't almost go over our data minutes this month (we just squeaked by last month and I think it was because the Windows computers are set up to constantly report back to Mama).

Labels: chores, dogs, holidays, pets, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 6:00:00 PM

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We had a very nice Independence Day. I can't say it was the same for poor Tucker. People have been popping of fireworks all week and it has frightened him so much that he doesn't want to walk before bed.

We'd been up late the night before, so were correspondingly late in getting up. Once breakfast was over and Tucker was walked (at that point the popping was quieted), I put on our usual Independence Day entertainment, 1776. While the film was on, James made some sugar-free brownies, and I marinated a steak, and once it ended, we gathered up our contributions and drove out to the Butlers for a nice afternoon of food and friendship. There was so much food that we ended up not even using our steak. We had brought hot dogs that I'd bought earlier in the year in a fit of insanity (if it were a small pack, it would have been different, but it was a big pack and they were much too salty for James to eat), the brownies (which were quite good for box brownies, so we have a new snack that James can have), and some mixed chips to share. There were two lovely pies (and Lin made the piecrust twists I so love), potato salad, baked beans, hummus, pita chips, and other goodies, plus sausage, chicken, hot dogs, and hamburgers.

Best of all, Colin Butler was visiting for the weekend. He had to go out of state (Salem, MA) to find a job in his field (nutrition), and is finally adjusting—after getting snow his first week there in March. He's getting some great experience designing foods for well-known restaurants, and is also working part time as a personal trainer hoping to get experience at that. If he's up there still in October, he'll have a great time in the craziness that goes on in Salem at Hallowe'en.

Clair, alas, had to come without Daniel; he'd had a dental visit yesterday and the dentist recommended cool and rest, so she and his brother left him with Netflix and the cat in the cool. It has been so hot lately that just parking and walking a few feet up the hill and up the driveway was a chore.

A little after six folks started wandering off. Alice and Ken and James and I had the same excuse: going home to keep the dog placated.

My problem when we got home was trying to get Bloomberg.com on some type of large screen. After two years of broadcasting the Boston Pops concert on Bloomberg TV, they decided to just do it on TV in the Boston area and do everyone else on their website. My natural choice was to go through the browser on our "Smart" television. Unfortunately the browser is stupid. It won't do live feeds, and there's apparently no way to update the stupid thing. I thought the Blu-Ray player had a browser in it, but it doesn't. So the natural choice would be to pull it up on the computer in a Chrome browser and then "cast" it to the TV, since the Chromecast has worked flawlessly when we've used it previously. Well, guess what. It cast fine, but all it cast was a Bloomberg logo. Apparently they're trying to stop you projecting events for a paying audience or something.

However, I was skimming through Facebook posts and someone was watching it through the Bloomberg channel on Roku. Hey, we can do that! And that's how we watched.

The concert was pretty good. The young lady (I think from America's Got Talent or one of those reality things) who sang the National Anthem sang it straight and didn't warble or wail. The "1812 Overture" was great as always. The only problem came at the end. The bimbos from Bloomberg declared that the whole last portion of the show ("1812," "Stars and Stripes Forever," and the fireworks) would be shown without commercial interruption. Maybe on Bloomberg TV, but we suckers watching on Bloomberg.com got two nasty commercial breaks, including one that completely ate up the fireworks finale. Creeps.

When we got through with that, I put on "Capitol Fourth," which I'd recorded previously. Some nice musical selections, a nice tribute to the moon landing, but a little bit too much of the Sesame Street Muppets interacting with John Stamos, who was a terrible host. He kept mugging to the camera and kept dragging his toddler son on stage. Gawd, what a farce. Then because it was still overcast in DC after the rain today, the smoke from the fireworks pretty much obliterated most of the view of them. They seemed to use a lot of red and yellow, which came together in waves of orange that made it look like the British were burning the city again.

While we were enjoying all the pops and bangs, Tucker was miserable. I made sure to take him out immediately when we came home so he wouldn't have to go out after dark and he was still reluctant about it, even though there was not much popping. But as soon as darkness fell the fireworks began. The people down the street were the quietest: they just shot off some small things and had crackers and poppers. But someone, or two someones, rather, on the main street, in two different locations, had come armed for Iwo Jima. Heck, all we would have had to do was walk out to the main street to get a show almost as good as on TV, and if the trees were shorter could have seen it from the front porch.

Tucker was either tucked shivering between James' legs or lying a-tremble under my seat all night, and he would not even come sit in my lap (or James' lap for that matter) as he has done on previous years. I had put Snowy's birdcage next to me on the sofa so he could listen to the music with us, and he was singing happily throughout both shows. I finally said soothingly to Tucker, "See, brother isn't afraid. Listen to him singing." Darned if Tucker didn't move himself under the birdcage for a little while (until James came back to sit in his recliner, anyway). I remember Willow doing this when she was scared, curling up under Bandit's cage, the budgie guarding the dog!

Luckily the noise didn't go on as long as it has in previous years and by bedtime it was quiet, and he was okay with receiving his cookie and going to bed.

Labels: birds, concerts, dogs, food, friends, holidays, Independence Day, pets, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:04:00 PM

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