 Nostalgia, DVDs, old movies, television, OTR, fandom, good news and bad, picks, pans, cute budgie stories, cute terrier stories, and anything else I can think of. Contact me at theyoungfamily (at) earthlink (dot) net . . . . . . . . . .
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» Sunday, September 26, 2021
Hurrah! It's Fall! and Other Delights
 The autumn equinox arrived this week to great cheering by the folks here at Autumn Hollow. Now only if it would feel like autumn—although we did have to wear flannel shirts Thursday morning to drive with the windows down on the way to Costco. But by the time we got to Costco (ten minutes) it was too warm for them. (We were also windows down a couple of other times, one early morning, one nighttime return trip. But it's not enough!) Went out to walk the dog Wednesday night and discovered abruptly that sometime today they changed out all the streetlights. I think they are those new lights that only aim at the street and don't glow upward, and so don't interfere with migrating birds. It's a weird effect; they make what they're shining on brighter, but the light doesn't extend as much, so our front yard is now darker. There's also a rather large dark area near the upper cul-de-sac because all the lights appear to have two light fixtures except the one on the cul-de-sac itself. We hit Costco Thursday morning because Procter & Gamble was doing their "buy $100 worth of stuff, get a $25 gift card" thing again. Since we can easily spend that much buying Swiffer pads, Oral B toothbrushes, Metamucil, and Downy, we went for it, plus we needed "plastic cheese" (Kraft cheese slices) as James calls it, and both BreatheRights and generic Flonase were on sale...needed almonds for my oatmeal and mandarin orange cups as well. It is so nice when it's not broiling outside and we don't have to rush into one store, dump perishable items in a insulated bag with an icepack, rush to the next store, etc. We were able to drive to Publix in a leisurely fashion and finish most of the rest of the shopping (although I still had to go to Kroger on Saturday morning for milk, yogurt, and no-salt-added mushrooms). Friday we did a little of everything: paid our property tax, picked up a gift, had lunch at Okinawa with all the Spiveys and John Bouler, drove down to Kaiser so James could have blood drawn for what the doctor says is a minor problem, and then went to Barnes & Noble. James bought a book and I didn't, which seems ironic, but I'd already gotten three in the mail this week: a used copy of Madeleine L'Engle short stories (The Moment of Tenderness), a used copy of Hal Borland's Book of Twelve Moons (nature essays), and the new Vanderbeekers novel. We also bought a new gadget that is three plugs that are operated by one remote. Since I was depressingly unsuccessful in trying to set up a "smart home" system to turn on the lights through Amazon wifi plugs and Amazon Echo devices—two of the wifi plugs worked flawlessly for a month and then quit working; I contacted Amazon and they walked me through all sorts of remedies that didn't work for one and they finally told me to send the plug back for repair, but when I tried to set up a third plug I had bought, brand new out of the box, it wouldn't work either. They supposedly work on the 2.4GHz portion of the router, and I tried resetting the 2.4GHz, which reset perfectly and everything else that worked on them, like the Roku box and James' Kindle, worked perfectly. Then we ended up resetting the router anyway, and the plug still didn't work. We have to press a remote button instead of doing a voice command, but it works! So Saturday I did the Kroger thing and James had to cook meat and breakfasts for the rest of the week, and we broke up the time with original Law & Order episodes on WE. I've become so besotted with Law & Order: Criminal Intent that I am reading fanfiction, most of it of the "shipping" sort, but I appreciate that the stories that I really have enjoyed have chosen to actually have a mystery plot among the romance. One story has Mike Logan down so pat I can hear Chris Noth doing the dialog. Unfortunately I think that was the one that got to part eighteen and then never was finished—and, darn, I wanted to know the solution to the mystery! This week I also worked out a way to get all the videos I've saved on YouTube to show up in the YouTube app on Roku. I have so much saved that the idea of re-bookmarking them gave me the horrors. It's a great big dog's breakfast worth of stuff: old British black and white films, 1930s black and white films, the Old Indiana Jones segments they cut out of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles DVD sets, an uncut version of the 1960s animated The Night Before Christmas with Olan Soulé as the voice of Professor Clement Moore, Lucy Worsley specials, Lassie episodes, and more. Today I got all my weekly chores done and there was still time to go to Alice and Ken's house after James finished work to celebrate Aubrey's 28th birthday. September 22 was the Autumnal Equinox! All hail Queen Autumn and her colorful court! (Now for cryin' out loud, do something about that big bully the Sun!)  Labels: birds, events, exercise, food, friends, plants, reading, seasons, shopping, television  » Saturday, May 16, 2009
A Cloudy Saturday Morning in May
James got up at some ridiculous hour to go to work today. The only positive to this is that he has Thursday off, then is taking Friday off for Timegate, and actually does have Monday off for Memorial Day. Wow. Five whole days off in a row. He doesn't know if he can stand it. LOL.
I slept better than last night, but still was a bit punch-drunk when I got up at 8:30 to go to the Farmer's Market. I had a meal bar and dragged myself rather reluctantly there. At least the weather was cooperating: there was a low, grey cloud cover and a nice breeze, although it was rather sticky for temps in the high 60s. The parking lot was crowded, but I managed to find a recently-vacated space, get my reusable Publix bag, and trudge across the railroad tracks to the part of the street that was blocked off. Well, that explained the crowd: there was a 5K run for Tuberous Sclerosis going on. I thought for a moment that it was a small event for Cystic Fibrosis, since Great Strides is today, then saw the logo. Some of the runners actually just walked, and had little kids with them, and later there was a short race for the kids...the littlest ones were too cute. Strolled about the Farmer's Market, had some samples (someday I am going to have to buy some of the energy bars from that one lady; she has a peanut butter chocolate bar that tastes almost like a Squirrel Nut, and probably a lot better for you, too!) and felt a little better, and bought a loaf of French bread, four ears of white corn, two cucumbers, and four of the nicest-smelling vine-ripe tomatoes you ever saw. When they're like this you can almost just eat them straight, like the fruit they are. Brings back all those September weekends when I had to help Mom preserve tomatoes for gravy...no, that's a really warm memory that I can do without. LOL. There was a veritable dog show going on at the market as people trotted companion animals beside them: beside the Greyhound Rescue and a sprinkling of mutts, there was a blue-merle collie puppy (still pudgy, but just ready to get to the leggy phase, with one blue eye and one brown), an Airedale, a boxer, a black-and-white Springer spaniel, a cocoa-colored standard poodle in natural coat (so he looked like a dog, not goofy), an elderly pug, a border collie, of course a couple of Labradors, and a darling little Skipperke. We ought to bring Willow one morning, but it will take both of us, as she will probably be hiding behind us due to being surrounded by "wolves." Also bought a little treat for dessert before I left. We get something called "Georgia Magazine" in the mail because we are a member of Cobb EMC for our electric power. This usually has things going on around the state. This month's issue had an article about farmer's markets across the state, another article about a working dairy farm that accepts visitors, and another one about a local bakery. I had never heard of the latter, which is on Whitlock Avenue near the Kroger and also has sandwiches along with pastries. So I came home by there to scope it out. Mmmm...smelled delightfully of sandwiches. I bought a couple of creme de menthe brownies for dessert (the treat I bought from the Farmer's Market will keep until tomorrow)—they are very small, which is perfect. I came home through Cheatham Hill Road through the park and discovered another surprise: it's going to be closed at the same time the road near us will be, for the same thing, bridge repairs. What a pain—that's such a nice drive. So I enjoyed it: windows open, the radio playing 40s music—Artie Shaw with "Star Dust," Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin,'" Fred Astaire doing "They Can't Take That Away from Me," "Scatter-Brain," Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington—perfect for a cool cloudy day in May. The privet is still in full bloom, overwhelming even the honeysuckle bushes that are also clotting the roadsides. What a sweet, sweet, dreamy scent. But damn, I am still sleepy...so this time I am going to take a nap... » Saturday, August 09, 2008
Plants and Purchases
Something absolutely astonishing happened this morning. We went to the Farmers Market with the A/C off and the truck windows down. We haven't been able to do that in months. It not only wasn't in the 90s already, but there was a breeze.
There was a sign on one of the booths that there were only three weeks of the market left. :-( I guess we're going to have to go directly to the bakery so I can get my baguette fix. I'm really going to miss this. On the way back we stopped at Big Lots. I picked up a small pot and a small bag of some potting soil. You see, a few weeks ago I rescued a plant outside Kroger. Actually, it was a coleus branch. Kroger was selling coleus and it looked like a perfectly good stem had fallen off a plant and was left in the middle of the sidewalk. So I brought it home and put it in water with a little MiracleGro in it to try and root it. Unfortunately I noticed late last Sunday that it had roots, and I usually don't shop anywhere during the week since I'm usually too bushed after work. I did stop at Dollar General on the way home Monday, but all they had were huge pots and huge bags of potting soil. Unfortunately as I repotted it I noticed the stem has started to rot from being in water so long. Don't know if it will survive. After having lunch we detoured to Goodwill to turn in all those DVD cases I emptied this week before going to the hobby shop. Everyone was talking about opening ceremonies last night. We stayed there quite a while. By the time we went to Hobby Lobby it was going on suppertime. I'm afraid I was a bit bad at HL. I walked in and was struck by the fall decorations everywhere and nearly broke into "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"! (LOL...yeah, I know that's a Christmas song, but it's the way I feel about autumn.) I was lucky, however, that most of the things I bought were half price or 40 percent off. I got some small foil leaves to add to the "acorn" bowl I described yesterday, two resin Indian corn, a pumpkin with autumn leaves sketched on its surface, another pumpkin with a peculiar brushed gold/crackled surface, some blue C7 light bulbs for the candoliers, and a Christmas ornament as a gift. We were going through one of the autumn decor aisles, and I was oohing-and-aahing, when I found a beautiful decoration consisting of "Welcome" worked in thick copper wire and hanging below and wrapped with wire, a turkey whose body was made of weathered copper shaped as a turkey body and tail feathers that were autumn-colored glass shaped as feathers. Wow, I said, I can get that with the 40 percent off coupon. Then James directed me to what was behind the turkey: the same copper wire "Welcome," but with a big maple leaf made of wire wrapped around orangy-red glass pieces suspended below! It is gorgeous. I put the turkey back and got that instead. A few minutes later I was passing by some of the sale signs. One said "50 percent off all glass with wire decoration." Wait. Glass maple leaf. Wire decoration. OMG! I saw James and called, "Go get me a turkey! They're on sale!" :-) We had supper at Oriental Cafe, then went to BJ's for milk and the other necessities of life. While checking out I noticed that my Costco card seems to be missing. Bother. Tonight we watched last week's Monk episode, the one about Natalie losing her head about being the lottery girl. I see we got stupid Randy again, and a rather simple whodunit. Following I put on the final episode of the first series of The Last Detective. As James commented, "A very melancholy show." Yes. Tis. Some familiar faces though: when the social worker spoke up, I thought she sounded familiar. She certainly was. It was Josette Simon, who played Dayna Mellanby on Blake's 7. In addition, the guest star was the famous British comedian Norman Wisdom, and two supporting characters were Flambards veterans: Sebastian Abineri (Dick Wright) as a disgruntled neighbor and Frank Mills (Fowler) as a World War II veteran. Labels: autumn, DVDs, plants, shopping, television |
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