These days have become so rare. Thank you, God, for this day. We woke naturally without alarm and did morning ablutions. I walked the dog and then ate breakfast; James made a small English muffin breakfast sandwich to hold him through until lunch with the guys. Soon he was off to his club meeting and I got to my vacuuming. I can't do it when he teleworks; he's either on the phone or he's relaxing at lunch or break, and the roll-out desk and side table are smack in the middle of the floor. With him happily on his way to his club meeting, I could move chairs and the desk and get all all the crumbs and fruit bits and the dog hair everywhere. I emptied the stupid cup at least four times, one after the bedroom/hall, one after the dining room, one after one half of the living room, and another after the other. Shook out the dog's blanket, moved the recliner, even vacuumed the spare room and part of the craft room.

And when I got done with that, I vacuumed the stairs, too.

All this rubbish, and tossing out some other stuff, and dumping an old keyboard in the recycle box, and then cooling off by brushing my hair with cold water and sitting under the fan, took three hours. Finally I was able to take the car down to the Ray Library to pick up The Private Life of Tasha Tudor. I also saw something called The Strange Case of Dr. Doyle, about Arthur Conan Doyle on a Jack the Ripper tour. There is a character in it named Adelaide and it was so coincidental I had to see if this is where they got the inspiration for the character in Houdini & Doyle. I checked later and she's not, but it still looks intriguing.

From there I went by Krystal to get two plain pups (mini-hot dogs) so my stomach would quit growling at me, then stopped by America's Best to look at eyeglasses. To my disappointment, they have no rimless frames, but I really don't want to deal with Visionworks again, and they do have acceptable frames. I want to get one pair of glasses and one pair of sunglasses as my old prescription ones will no longer do. They distort my vision. They have a deal to buy two $59.99 frames with a free eye exam. These cheap frames are fine, as I sure as hell don't want some weirdo celebrity-named crap. I made an exam appointment, looked at frames, and got an idea of the price: for two pairs of glasses it would be only $400, but for two with one as sunglasses it will be $550.

James has some vision insurance, but I don't know who it's with.

Then I went across the parking lot to Kroger and bought milk and peaches and desserts before coming home (one of the peaches didn't survive the trip). I was just pulling the bags out of the car when James got home. He'd had a good time at the meeting. One of the guys made a big Nautilus model (from the Disney 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) with not only light but sound.

We had supper at Hibachi Grill and watched it get darker and darker outside as a storm crept up. Lightning was spiking in the north against the ominous grey-blue-black clouds as we came out, so we covered the power chair before going to Barnes & Noble. Thankfully it didn't rain, although we got spit on lowering the power chair. We wandered about for quite a while and I bought The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes with my coupon and he got an anthology of military science fiction with his. I looked at the summer issue of "Bella Grace," but it's too expensive, and besides, I spent all last summer doing the prompts in the 2017 issue complaining about how much I hate summer. Waste of money just to complain.

Watched something mindless for the evening, Howie Mandel's Animals Doing Things, which is basically funny animal videos. Cute. Really mindless, though. During the commercials I read the Tasha Tudor book, which was not a hard read; it's mostly photographs of Tudor's lovely garden and of her lifestyle. She lived very simply, wearing long dresses (she would say that when she died she would probably go back to 1830, where she always felt like she belonged) and other vintage clothes, used a wood stove to bake, and always had a Christmas tree with candles. For all the books she illustrated and wrote, she didn't even have an art studio, she painted on one end of her big farmhouse table.

I like mindless. I want to be bored.

Labels: books, chores, models, purchases, shopping, television

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

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We have not been in a good mood this week. Despite trying our hardest (except for the stupid hamburger on Saturday afternoon) with salt and severe dietary restrictions last weekend through Wednesday when he had more blood drawn, when James' test results came back Wednesday night his creatitine score had gone up to 4.6. It wasn't long afterward when a nurse called following up, and the doctor called up James the next day. He already has an appointment with a vascular surgeon at the end of the month about inserting a fistula. Once that heals, it's dialysis time unless a miracle occurs. Whether it's temporary or permanent is to be determined.

But it's fucking scary is what it is, and there have been some sorrowful evenings and sleepless nights and terrible dreams.

So we were determined to cheer up a little this weekend, and if no salt doesn't actually help the results, we can go back to low salt and be happy with it. So we had supper at Fried Tomato Buffet on Friday night and filled up on salad and shrimp. (Why everyone has to have their shrimp fried I'll never know; it's extra work. Why not just broil it in butter? But their fried shrimp—for fried shrimp—is quite good; it's not overly salty and very lightly breaded in panko rather than in some heavy, greasy batter.) Then we went to Barnes & Noble, where I found two nice cross-stitch magazines and something for a gift.

We were in bed fairly early Friday night because we were heading out early on Saturday. Since the model contest at Free Time Hobbies was on Saturday, we decided to combine it with the first week of the Georgia Apple Festival. We usually wait until the second weekend when it's cooler to go to the Apple Festival, but we figured if we got there early enough it wouldn't be too bad.

Unfortunately I didn't calculate arising time very well. We should have at least gotten up at 6:30; 6:45 and having to stop for gasoline and breakfast got us stuck in a very long line waiting for the parking lot at the Lions Club where the Apple Festival is held. We also usually go on Sundays, when it's less crowded. Even at 9:10 a.m. it was very crowded. Still, we made our way around the booths, tasting the dips and the jellies—one booth had some really delicious citrus marmalade jam, but we didn't buy it—and admiring the wreaths, alpaca cloaks, and other crafts. We did buy fudge and half a peck of Granny Smith apples and more sweet ginger pickles, and I found a cute little embroidered round scarf, a Hallowe'en motif with owls. (Which tells you it's very cute, as I usually don't buy Hallowe'en things.) Two booths were selling stainless steel rings and jewelry, and in front of one they had some men's rings in different sizes and styles for only five dollars. Well, James has never found his wedding ring; it fell off a second time after we found it the first time and we haven't located it yet, even though he's sure it's in the house. He found a very nice silver ring that alternated with textured black bands. Eventually we got all the way around, and, tired of the crowd, skedaddled up the road to Blue Ridge and the hobby store.

While James was inside enjoying the models I walked across the parking lot to the Amish store to stock up on pot pie noodles. I also wanted what they call "soup mix" and I call "veggie flakes" (their veggie flakes have potatoes), but they had only one package left after a big mail order; I bought tat, along with some cranberry honey mustard which I thought James might enjoy with his turkey sandwiches. It was their customer appreciation day, so I got a discount, munched on free popcorn, and they had a country band playing for the customers. I also walked next door to the country store/feed store. This was a real feed store: they even had horse tack and medicine.

Strolled back to the hobby shop and looked over the models; there were a lot of nice pieces, but nothing really funny or outstanding about any of them, like the Car 45 model in the past, or the Humphrey Bogart figure last year. I do admit there was a great Tusken Raider and a Rancor beast!

We rode home munching on an apple and the clouds parted and by the time we got to the traffic jam at downtown Marietta (it was Chalktoberfest—professional chalk artists drawing on the street along with beer—this weekend) we were both kind of tired. I ended up taking a nap for an hour, then we went to Hibachi Grill for supper, then stopped at Publix for the twofers. Even with the nap, I was so happy to get home and divest myself of outdoor clothing and get into something comfy.

I finished reading my big beautiful Colonial Williamburg book I found for a dollar at the book sale that evening. Really enjoyed the history as well as the gorgeous color photographs.

This morning we could have slept in, but were both awake a little after eight. We took advantage of it by getting to Kroger early (lots of handicapped parking spaces at nine o'clock on a Sunday!) to finish up grocery shopping, and even running by Publix to pick up the paper towels the Macland store didn't have last night. This afternoon we finally replaced the erratic LED bulb in the kitchen fixture (don't tell me that LEDs take "years" to burn out!), I sorted both our pills and made the bed, and then spent the afternoon getting more things off the DVR: "Fox Tales" and a Rick Sebak special, plus nine of my favorite episodes of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (since GetTV showed the episodes uncut, I really wanted to keep them). That afternoon task wandered right into dinnertime—James was looking for comfort food, so he made chicken and dumplings in the pressure cooker (well, the chicken, anyway; the pot pie noodles stood in for dumplings)—and early evening.

Sigh...and now it's time to get ready for work again.

Labels: books, events, food, health, hobbies, models, shopping, sickness, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:08:00 PM

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No sleeping late for us this Saturday! We were off—but you knew that—to Blue Ridge this morning for a model contest they were having at Free Time Hobbies. Blue Ridge is so close to the Tennessee state line you can probably still hear ol' Davy Crockett hunting a bear up in the hills, so it was a lengthy ride—we listened to a "Splendid Table" podcast and most of "A Way With Words" before getting up there. But it was nice because in the wake of Hurricane Matthew battering the coast, it had wiped the sky for miles inland and today's was a gorgeous fall blue, the kind you want to have ball gowns made from, and it was cool enough to have the windows down (but we didn't for most of the ride so we could hear the podcasts).

No more fall color up there, really, than down here, but the underbrush is changing nicely and some trees have golden tops (sometimes simply golden glows) and a few maples are showing red tips.

We were using the GPS today because Free Time recently moved from a big shopping center in downtown Blue Ridge. We needn't have because it's literally right off the southbound side of the road in a little complex that includes "mini-golf and gold panning" and a store called A Taste of Amish. The models were set up in the main aisle of the store and also in a rear area, and a bunch of the guys from the AAA Hobbies model club were there, as well as James' friend Bill Paul from Warner Robins. There were some keen displays, including a Star Wars prequel podracer, a figure of Humphrey Bogart with the Maltese Falcon, and a diorama of a Martian machine crashing into some buildings from the film War of the Worlds (the real one with Gene Barry). James wandered about in his chair while I sat out back in the shade, enjoying the breeze (at one point it got chilly and about three tiny raindrops fell on my tablet, and then the darned sun came out again) and reading an advance reading copy of Doctor Who: The American Adventures. After James looked around inside the marquee tent they had up in the back (someone was selling a collection), we had lunch at the stand someone had set up (hot dogs, burgers, and barbecue). I had a plain burger and James had the plate with cole slaw and baked beans. I had to go run get our hats while we ate, because the clouds finally parted and the sun was making my head ache and my skin itch, but it was a lovely morning.

We checked out A Taste of Amish before we left—I "drove" the power chair down the short road and James followed in the truck rather than go through all that tiresome lift routine. They had Bob's Red Mill grains and packaged noodles, candies and snacks, a few meats, that sort of thing. I got myself a small container of nonpariels, some garlic sesame snacks, and some "soup greens" which are vegetable flakes without the dang dried peas (the only problem with the ones we get from Amazon); James bought some square-shaped "pot pie noodles," garlic-parsley noodles, and some tea.

At this point it was only 1:30, still not all that hot because of the leftover wind from the hurricane, and I wondered if we should actually try to go to the Apple Festival today. It runs this weekend and next, and it could be warmer next weekend. But in fifteen minutes of driving south, when we ended up in Ellijay, the line to get in put a big negative to that notion. We did stop at Panorama Orchards to use the bathroom, and I bought a half-peck of apples and James picked up sugar-free taffy. To my dismay, they had none of the goat's milk moisturizer I've been buying there for the past five years. There were a couple of containers left in gift kits and some body soap, that's all. Pissed. I like that stuff, especially the hyacinth scent I usually get.

So, after inching out of the Panorama parking lot—the place was jammed! and I heard two ladies talking about trying to get to the really big orchard up here, Mercier, only to find it so crowded there was no parking at all—we headed south again, munching on one of the apples. I know this apple is the same "Granny Smith" that sells in the grocery stores, but it sure doesn't taste like it. These are crisp and wonderfully sour, just the way we like them. As we drove, James was mulling about supper: he wanted to use the pot pie noodles. How about, he suggested, that we stop at Publix and get boneless skinless chicken thighs, and he would cook them in low-sodium chicken broth reduction with onions and mushrooms. Yum.

Of course at that point we ran into the mystery traffic jam, which dogged us for miles south on the freeway, and it had gotten so warm we had to put the A/C back on in the truck. Nice way to take the bloom off the rose. We finally got disgusted and got off at Woodstock to run down Bells Ferry Road and directly to downtown Marietta—except traffic was backed up there because Marietta High School was having a Homecoming parade. We skirted that as well and finally got to Publix (I was able to grab the thighs as well as some low-carb low-sodium wraps so James could make breakfast burritos) and finally got home.

The chicken was great, and the noodles just toothy enough, and we had enough left over so that each of us has a lunch.

I took Tucker outside about eight and discovered our neighbors down the street trying to fly kites in the dark with their kids. Evidently they weren't familiar with kites because they were trying to launch against the wind, and when they did get the kites up they did not know to snub them up to keep them flying. But it makes me feel good to see kids outside playing in such nice weather!

Tucker, however, would have preferred it had they not started blasting off fireworks an hour later. He scrambled under my desk and didn't emerge until they'd "stopped shooting at him."

Of course the sun had done a number on us and the long drive on James, so we were both half drowsy for the rest of the night and ended up crawling to bed around eleven

Labels: autumn, excursions, food, hobbies, models, traffic, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:24:00 PM

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James came home quite chuffed...he won Model of the Month.

They had a funny thing at the IPMS meeting today. There's a member who usually disses rocket models, so two years ago they played a joke on him and everyone built a rocket kit for that meeting. Well, they decided to do it again this month. This year they not only built a rocket, but the same rocket, sort of a generic rocketship with a central body and four boosters.

James actually built two. One was his conception of the "Silver Star," the spaceship of Rory Rammer, Space Marshal, in Ron Butler's Atlanta Radio Theatre Company stories. The other was a "kit bash" (their term for modifying a model). He extended the body with some PVC piping and made a "Gunstar" from The Last Starfigher. This is the one that won Model of the Month.

While he was out I designed a blog page for our homeowners association.

We had dinner at the IHOP on Cobb Parkway (near Best Buy). What a difference in service here and at the IHOP on the East-West Connector. The latter aren't really rude, but they always seem to be in another world. When I dine there I always feel ignored. Tonight our waitress must have asked us if we were okay a dozen times.

Stopped at Costco, but all we bought was BreatheRight strips. For dessert we had ice cream at Brusters then, came home to watch backlogged Jeopardy eps.

Labels: food, models, shopping, television, web pages

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:12:00 PM

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