Sort of an interesting Holy Week in making some old progress. Back in 2022, I stopped listening to the Colonial Williamsburg podcasts (I was busy writing, and I can't write and pay attention at the same time). I had caught up on all the Gretchen Rubin podcasts, and need to catch up on "A Way With Words," but wanted to get to the Williamsburg ones, too. This week I started listening to them again and hope to keep up with Rubin and catch up with both the others.

Most of the opening of the week was chores. James did have an MRI on his toe on Wednesday. His right baby toe, the one that showed up with a sore in January, is still not healed. It doesn't look infected, but skin isn't growing on top of it and healing it up, so the doctor wants to make sure the bone isn't infected. (Got the report later in the week; it's not.)

Thursday James' Procrit shot was scheduled early, although we tried to change it. So we went by Lidl on the way home, and I got both chicken drumsticks on sale and some boneless pork ribs, so I made cacciatore for supper and also made gravy for later. And we had a nap, too!

It was a quiet Good Friday: we had to run out to pick up meds, but I did listen to the BBC Lent Talks.

On Saturday while our low-sodium ham was marinating in pineapple, we went to Barnes & Noble and to Hobby Lobby. In the evening I watched the spooky movie Stir of Echoes. Kathryn Erbe is in it, just before she did Criminal Intent. It was pretty creepy, but turned out to be a little of a murder mystery, too.

And Easter was quiet. Unfortunately I had to wash towels since we were out of facecloths. I watched my two Easter favorites, Here Comes Peter Cottontail and The Easter Promise, and we had ham and potatoes for dinner, and then...dark chocolate Lindt bunnies! Yay!

Labels: Easter, food, Good Friday, health, holidays, movies, podcasts, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:59:00 PM

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Now that James has been cut down to thirty hours a week, our weekend now starts on Wednesday. As I so irritatedly indicated in the previous entry, James was required to go to a podiatrist appointment Wednesday, but it was a good thing, because it turned out he had two ingrown toenails that he couldn't feel at all due to diminished feeling in his feet because of diabetes. So I am now playing nurse again for a week, anointing one toe with generic betadyne (I didn't realize that was just an iodine solution) and bandaging it after he has his shower.

Thursday I couldn't stand not having any bread in the house anymore and went to Lidl. They don't allow you to buy "by the each" at the bakery right now so I had to buy four dinner rolls (they haven't had them for two weeks, so I'm happy about that) instead of two, so will have to eat them promptly. (Oh, twist my arm. Make me eat bread. I'm Italian. It's a main food group.) Also got a baguette because we were having the rest of the chicken cacciatore for dinner and what use is cacciatore without bread to "zoop" in the sauce? Picked up cheese rolls, shredded cheese, and ground turkey for James, grabbed another gallon of purified water for the C-PAP machine, and also bought another gallon of milk, onions, and potatoes.

On the way home I stopped at the City Farmer's Market in a fruitless search for wipes or alcohol. They didn't have any of the former, and they don't carry drugstore products; like Nam Dae Mun, it's simply a grocery store. It's also the only place I know in town where you can get unfrosted brown-sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts. (My opinion of icing/frosting ranks almost up with child molesters.) Couldn't find sesame oil, did find "stellini" pasta to go into chicken soup.

(During the afternoon I finished the taxes and paid them off with my credit card. It cost me an extra fee, but then I'll get points on my Amazon credit card for next month. Also paid the exterminator, TruGreen, the water bill, and this month's car insurance bill. And James finally got the unemployment payment his boss put in for. This meant we had grocery money for Thursday. And of course I played "The Tech Guy" for Snowy.)

Today we did one of my favorite things: getting in and out of grocery stores in a minimum amount of time. We did three stores in two hours and ten minutes, but to get out that quickly and that early, we had to forego breakfast for a single Belvita oats and chocolate chip breakfast bar. (Needless to say, we were starving when we got home.) We started at Costco, which was remarkably un-crowded for a Friday morning. Unlike our last visit, they just had pallets keeping the outgoing crowd and the incoming crowd apart, no Disneyland-like winding line to get inside. Alas, still no wipes or alcohol, but we were surprised to see pallets and pallets of two different kinds of toilet paper and big 12-packs of Bounty paper towels in the middle of the main aisle. We needed neither; we were there for "plastic cheese," what James calls single slice American cheese. And while we were there, we finally found mandarin orange cups, which James uses in his morning juice slushie. For the last two weeks he's had to make due with pineapple (which he loves) and mixed fruit (which he said was "okay"). We also picked up cranberry juice, cashews, another bag of Skinny Pop, the cheese of course, and Erik Larson's new book. (I may have to go back for the Native American book—a state-to-state and province-to-province guide of each of the tribes; I was quite taken with it.)

Then we turned back toward home and the stop at Publix. James went to the deli for more low-sodium ham and no-sodium-added turkey while I picked up yogurt, and I finally found, after a month, the Publix-brand 100-percent whole wheat bread which is the lowest sodium and carb bread there. I was afraid they had stopped making it! Also picked up eggs (they had none at Lidl), low-sodium Pringles, some herbal tea.

Finally we hit Nam Dae Mun for sugar-free cookies, the TVP James uses to stretch out his ground meat (it's called "soya" there), and sesame oil.

After that we could finally get home and get some lunch! I had a nice drippy leftover turkey sandwich, did some computer junk, and took Tucker out for his delayed long walk. We met one of the folks that live around the corner from the development entry, a house surrounded by a little bit of land that has been here for a while; they have a big gear wheel or some kind of tractor wheel on either side of their driveway, and about a half-dozen cars, including what looks like an old 1930s job. It was an older gentleman wearing a farmer's cap, long-sleeved shirt, and overalls, just like he came out of "Country" magazine, walking their dog, a black-and-tan "Chiweenie" (chihuahua/dachshund). The dogs got to sniff each other while we social distanced at the ends of both extendable leashes. He said she (the dog) sees us go by every day taking a walk and sits on the back of the sofa barking at us!

Also listened to a "Travel With Rick Steves" podcast and two episodes of "A Way With Words."

Labels: books, food, health, money, podcasts, shopping, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:33:00 PM

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The most difficult part of DragonCon is Friday.

Not only do we have to get downtown early to pick up our membership badges, so we can then eat, and go thence to a 10 a.m. panel, but we have to drive in rush hour traffic. So the first day is always the worst. However, after we'd remembered to tuck our chicken sandwiches into the already otherwise packed backpack, loaded up the power chair, and head toward the freeway, we discovered the traffic wasn't as frenetic as we'd feared and we made it to the Courtland Garage unscathed.

As we arrived at the Sheraton, it was just eight o'clock and time for registration to open, with the regular line already around the hotel, so we got into the Disability Services line, expecting the door to open any minute, but instead it took twenty, and it turned out the DS people were wondering where everyone was—someone had neglected to unlock the doors! We had our stickers in about twenty minutes, and then went to a remodeled Peachtree Center for breakfast at our restaurant of choice, Café Momo, which is a buffet of goodies. I try for a mix: French toast, potatoes, fruit, oatmeal always, and, for a treat, bacon. This is like the once or twice a year I eat bacon unless it's at a party. Peachtree Center is...wow! white! now. They cleared a lot out, and some con favorite eating places, like Subway, were gone, but they put a wheelchair ramp up to the other level from the second concourse, which is a real help. As we left, waved at Ken Spivey from his seat behind us.

James was off to the Westin at quarter to ten, I was off to the Marriott to see how long the line was for the David Tennant panel at 11:30. The seats in the "seat in line" area weren't full, so I went to check out a portion of Rick Goldschmitt's Rankin-Bass panel. Rick is the author of several books about the Rankin-Bass "animagic" productions, including The Making of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and is the guru of all things RB. He was showing a partial video of a special called The Enchanted World of Danny Kaye, which has him narrating and appearing as a a voice in The Emperor's New Clothes. It only reminds me how much I miss Danny Kaye!

Alas, I tarried too long. Hurrying back to the Tennant site 50 minutes before the panel was to start, they'd already loaded the disability folks and weren't letting anymore DS folks in. I went to wait up against the wall where they'd told the other latecomer DS people to congregate. We might could get in after the crowd in the line finished loading, but there were so many people in line they had to turn them away as well. My bad. I would get there early tomorrow.

Good thing I usually have several panels picked for each hour: instead I walked (or rather limped after 20 minutes of standing) to the Hyatt to the Sci-Fi Lit track panel "Being a Fan." Aubrey Spivey was on this panel, and I sat next to Alice (her mom) on one side and Phyllis Boros on the other, with Ken in the back of us. I love the smaller panels just as much as the larger ones, and we had a nice discussion about what makes a fan and how fandom has changed with the internet (loss of fanzines, but much more communication with other fans). Even addressed negative aspects: how some fans think you aren't a "real fan" if you don't know every detail about the comic or book series or the television show or movie; toxic fans who write hate mail to show creators because they don't like where their favorite characters ended up, etc.).

I can't remember where I intended to go next, but Alice said she was going to see The Orville cast. Really, I don't keep track of who's attending the con, unless it's been announced as a big deal, as David Tennant was, so I had no idea anyone from The Orville series was coming to the con. So...hey, Orville, and attending with a friend—a no brainer, and a very fun panel: the guests were Peter Macon (Bortus), Chad Coleman (Klyden), Mark Jackson (Isaac), and J. Lee (John Lamarr). The latter, Alice observed and I had to agree, is pretty much playing himself in space! He has a very dry sense of humor and wry outlook. Macon looked tired (he said to excuse him; he has small children 😉 ) and Coleman was very "up." Jackson comes, of course, with a very pleasing British accent. Someone asked him if he can see out of the Isaac mask and he said in the pilot he couldn't, but now it is painted with a special paint which enables him to see out, but you really can't see in, unless the camera is very close and the light is shining in the right direction. His actual eyes are located under Isaac's "electric" eyes in the mask. They all agree that, no matter what director, this is Seth McFarlane's baby and he has the last word on everything. So if the director says it's good and Seth says it's not, they do it again. There were no hints about what's up for next season, but with their move from Fox to Hulu, they will be able to "push the edge of the envelope" even more.

Went back downstairs to Sci-Fi Lit with Alice for "Why We Read." Well, because it's like breathing, isn't it? How can you not? But there were many answers: one person I know, with a terrible job, said "escape" (which I expected), others read to learn, or for research, or to encounter an opinion different from their own. It was a lively discussion and a very short hour, after which I decamped from the Hyatt and strung my way outside toward the Westin. Of course it was crowded with thousands of congoers, so many in costume, plus downtown workers, and the sidewalks were "bumper to bumper." However, I arrived at the hotel in just a few minutes for the Babylon 5 anniversary panel, where James joined me. The main panelist was John Hudgens, known so long ago online as "Fenn Shysa," the guy who made a Babylon 5 video and sent it to creator Joe Straczynski and was then asked to make more (and get paid for them!) to use in promoting the series! He asked if anyone wanted to see any of them and I immediately popped up with "Holding Out for a Hero," the (mainly) Michael Garibaldi video. So that lead off the panel, to my delight.

But much other talk, including how TNT picked up the show for its fifth season and then was disappointed that it didn't garner the wrestling crowd, and the novelty of the "five-year-novel-for-television" format back then (and how incidental events in a first season plot suddenly made sense two seasons later). There was much chatter about Straczynski's new autobiography and how hard it was to get through the first quarter of the book due to his horrible childhood; have Amazon points and must think about ordering it. [Later: I did, and gave it to James to look at. He read it in two days, and was agog at the terrible facts it revealed.]

James went off elsewhere afterwards, while I traipsed to the Marriott for the Earth Station One podcast folks' panel celebrating the 20th anniversary (already?!) of Galaxy Quest. This was truly fun because what we mostly did was recall all the best lines and all the best scenes, from the convention scenes to the earnest but daffy Thermians to the running gags about Guy getting killed and how chill Fred Kwan was to the really sinister aspect of villain Sarris to the fannish kids who saved the day. There were two cosplayers in the audience as well, one guy dressed as a Thermian, and the other as Dr. Lazarus carrying "a miner/minor." And of course we mourned the fact that a sequel was never made while Alan Rickman was still with us, and ended the panel in unison with the Galaxy Quest motto, "Never give up! Never surrender!"

And suddenly the day was over and I was reuniting with James at the Hyatt Centennial I ballroom for tonight's Atlanta Radio Theatre Company performance. They were doing three humorous pieces tonight. The first was about the reaction of fans and authorities when a flying saucer lands in Centennial Olympic Park and everyone waits to see what the aliens want. Of course, they are here to attend DragonCon! This was very funny.

The second piece was a new installment of Ron Butler's spoof of 1950s kids' space dramas, Rory Rammer, Space Marshall. In this tale, Rory and his young sidekick "Skip" Sagan must rescue a young reporter named Kyrie Eleison, who is determined to prove there are space pirates, and who has been kidnapped by men posing as space pirates to get a ransom from her uncle. Skip's renegade uncle and some pirate robots figure in her rescue.

The third piece was funny but overlong; a spoof of The Maltese Falcon called The Maltese Omelet, with the supporting characters all nursery rhyme characters (Humpty Dumpty, of course, still takes the great fall). The first two acts elicited many chuckles, but the last needed picking up a bit.

Then we headed home to perambulate the puppy and get ready for Saturday.

Rick Goldschmidt, Rankin-Bass guru

"Being a Fan" panel (Aubrey Spivey at left)

Peter Macon (Bortus on The Orville)

Chad Coleman (Klyden on The Orville)

John Hudgens (Babylon 5 anniversary panel)

Babylon 5 cosplayers (Earth uniform, Delenn after transformation, Kosh the Vorlon)

Galaxy Quest cosplayers

David Benedict and Billy Barefoot as Rory Rammer and Skip Sagan in the newest "Rory Rammer" radio adventure

Labels: anniversaries, Atlanta Radio Theatre Company, books, conventions, fandom, food, podcasts, television, traffic

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:54:00 PM

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We decided to combine business with pleasure on Friday morning and, after breakfast and the necessary perambulation of the pooch, headed to the Barnes & Noble on Dallas Highway. Spied a light at the end of the endless hell that is summer: saw the autumn edition of "Country Sampler" out. I've seen a couple of other autumn magazines out, but haven't gotten them—they're the pretentious ones with the expensive homes, furniture and knicknacks (and at least half of one of the magazines is recipes...ugh; having to cook now that James is on four ten-hour days is bad enough, I don't want to look at recipes, too). Not much else out now.

We came home by Lidl and got milk, also ground turkey on sale, more chicken legs, and, of course, bread. I also bought an assortment of sewing threads and more needles since they were only $2/pack for about forty.

Spent the evening watching Airdogs on Amazon Prime (it's a Canadian series about two pilots, one with a lot of experience and one who's a beginner, who travel around doing interesting things like flying with the Snowbirds, receiving lessons from a stunt pilot who lands his small biplane on a moving camper, etc.). Well, James was mostly watching. I was alternately reading the 1880 bound volume of "St. Nicholas" and working on a polar bear cub cross-stitch.

This morning we went over to the "Comic Con" being held at the American Legion Hall on Concord Road. Our friend Phyllis was divesting herself of some of the items in her science fiction collection; she had Star Trek and Babylon 5 items mostly. We stopped and talked to Bobby Nash, who writes science fiction and alternative history, and just had a short story published in an anthology based on the old-time radio series Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar. We were talking about trying to explain things to younger people, based on a hilarious experience I had yesterday trying to explain an old cartoon to a group of people on Facebook. No one knew what it meant, and the young man who originally posted it was afraid to post it because he was afraid it had sexual connotations. One woman, trying to analyze it, made it all about the devaluation of women in society! What it was was a drawing of a nurse "goosing" a patient with a cold bedpan! Bobby said he has had to explain to a bunch of  young women who Alan Alda was, because they had never seen M*A*S*H!

James bought me one inexpensive little item: a sticker of a rather rumpled post-apocalypse Lassie holding a small boy's arm (clad in a red-and-white checked shirt!) in her mouth. I got a great kick out of it.

After that we had nothing to do, and really no money to do it with anyway. So we came home and James went down to the "man cave," and I repurposed an Amazon box to hold a Goodwill donation, and listened to a bunch more of the Colonial Williamsburg podcasts. (I'm so sorry they quit doing these! I really loved them.) For supper we went up to Fried Tomato Buffet for barbecue pork ribs and chicken and dumplings (well, that's why I go there, anyway), then came home by Baskin-Robbins for ice cream, riding between rainshowers.

Labels: books, crafts, events, food, friends, Lassie, podcasts, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:19:00 PM

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Ah, intestinal problems again. Hate it when I don't get to walk the dog until 11 a.m. in summer. Too hot. But I wouldn't have been able to get very far anyway.

So we didn't get to Publix until almost noon. Just a normal old grocery trip, thankfully, even if I had to make a strategic retreat at the store, and then again when I came home. Rested a bit after stashing the refrigerables. We still needed milk, so that meant a Lidl trip, but I wasn't feeling up to going out again. Instead we took down the old shower head in the hall bath and put up the new magnetic one. The old one will go out with the trash; it never was very good.

Well, since the shower head was up, might as well toss the dog in the bathtub...

Shower head does not leak, first time out! I can get it down without having to climb on the side of the bathtub, and put it back up, ditto. Alas, the hose is only five feet long. This means I can't put the shower head on the lowest output and then rest it on the bottom of the tub while scrubbing the dog and have to shut the water off instead, and I have to sit on the toilet to scrub him with my legs braced against the tub, which hurts. But I managed it. So Tucker is clean and I am wiped out. 😉

(We checked out other hoses online. Longer ones don't seem to match...and they cost more than the complete shower head did!)

Spent other parts of the afternoon playing computer games and listening to the Colonial Williamsburg podcast (I finally caught up to where I started listening to it back when I was teleworking, in a story about the oxen at Williamsburg), and rustled up pot-lucks for supper.

James also got a call back from Kaiser. The cardiologist had asked him to make an appointment as soon as possible. We could only find one in September. So James made it, then e-mailed back. They called today saying they had an opening for him next Wednesday. I am crossing fingers. The doctor said he might have to take another stress test. 😔

We spent the evening watching Perry Mason. A big storm roared up about 9:30 and sent Tucker hiding under either my feet or James.' Poor baby. First he gets "drowned" and now the sky is growling at him.

Labels: chores, dogs, health, illness, pets, podcasts, shopping

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

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We all travel in time, the saying goes. We just travel forward and can't go back.

I'd had the time after WHOlanta pegged as quiet time, but it's been anything but—nothing really bad for us personally, thank God, but one unexpected and tragic event has happened and some interesting events have occurred.

On May 6, we heard that we lost our friend Claudia Barbour. James and I last saw Claudia at the Apple Annie craft show at the beginning of December. She was with a friend and we learned she was being treated for cancer. She told us things were going well, and we invited her to the Twelfth Night party, but she didn't come and we assumed it was because she was not feeling well due to the treatments. Evidently things did not "go well" after that December day. We remember her friendship and the fun we had launching model rockets in her horse pasture, her smile and the twinkle in her eyes.

I am continuing to try to walk more, not just for exercise, but to help my vitamin D, which is in the tank. I'm at an age where I need to worry about bone density. Tramping the same mile and a half route out of the development and back in does become monotonous, but I have been listening to podcasts ("Happier" with Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft at present, until I catch up) while I do, and trying to observe what nature can be observed on a suburban street, which included having a good look and sniff at Chinese privet and honeysuckle blossoms. (I wish they made perfume that smelled like the privet! I would buy it!)

Most of the time I am amused by the birds. One morning Tucker and I were buzzed by a swallow at least four times. Since we just walked up and down the street a couple of times that day since I was keeping an eye out for the A/C guy and we were nowhere near someplace that could be a nesting site, I'm assuming this is a dashing young swallow enjoying his wings and his ability to turn on a dime. A avian Eddie Rickenbacker, as it were. One morning as we approached the daycare center down on the main road, which has a big lawn to the left of the structure, we saw a funny bird territorial dispute. There was a robin hunting worms there and apparently a male cardinal had the temerity to try and hunt a meal there, too. The robin kept chasing him off—they did that fluttering circling around each other and hissing birds do when they fight--and still the cardinal kept coming back! He only flew off a few yards when Tucker and I finally reached the driveway.

The following morning a male bluebird was perched on one of the mailboxes and I don't think I was more than two yards away from him. To my surprise instead of flying away, he flew to the sidewalk directly in front of me and pecked at something for a minute, so I could admire his lovely blue wings. I even had a close encounter with a silver spotted skipper (a type of small butterfly) who was perched on a mailbox post one morning. I stopped to admire the dark wings with the orange spots on the top and the broad white stripe under the wings, and, on a whim, held out my forefinger to it as you might to a pet bird. To my surprise it stepped up on my finger and actually let me carry it a few driveways before it fluttered off on its way. What a magical experience.

And once in a while something cute happens: one morning as we meandered toward the stop sign on Sandtown Road, walking toward us was a man with a tiny little girl. I think she was only about twice Tucker's height, and you could hear her chattering for quite a distance. As we grew closer, she saw Tucker and started repeating "Doggie! Doggie!" and the dad (I guess) asked if she could pet Tucker because "She has a cat, but wants a dog." I said "Sure, if he can quit sniffing at whatever he's sniffing at!" Would you believe Tucker was so absorbed in whatever he was trailing he had hardly noticed they were there and looked surprised when she tried to pet him? He loses track of everything when he's trailing a scent. 😊
 
More prosaically, the aforementioned HVAC guy did arrive to do his semiannual check. We didn't need a filter replacement at the time, so the filter I ordered is back in the garage until autumn.

I was happy to finally receive George Winston's a new album this month, as he has been undergoing cancer treatment and not done one for quite a while. I've had it on pre-order since I heard it was being released. I have to be honest; his new albums are not as good as his old—not his piano playing itself, that is as lovely as ever, but in what music he is playing. This may be due to his health, or just his own changing tastes. I'm not really into The Doors, and while I love his Vince Guaraldi tributes, I prefer his own compositions.

To temper the sad news about Claudia, we also were able to celebrate Lin Butler's retirement at Longhorn on the 10th. Good food, good friends, good chat, and a cake; you can't ask for anything better.

In routine news, I've done some spring cleaning of the master bedroom (oh, that ceiling fan! not to mention the one in the living room) and did the saddest spring task, washing and drying and putting away all the jackets, hats, gloves, and scarves. Once again we barely had a spring, but went almost directly from chill at night and nice days to 80s and, starting next week, 90s! Of course it was open window weather when the pine pollen was at its worst, so we lost over two weeks of fresh air for not wanting yellow dust all over the house.

The best television news so far: The Orville has been renewed by Fox. This has been the best season! It's still a weird show sometimes, but it gets more and more thought-provoking each week. And, in what could have been sad news, this month we also bid farewell to The Big Bang Theory after twelve seasons. James and I didn't watch this series at first; it sounded dumb. But at one of the conventions we were going back and forth to the con suite, and one time we had an hour or two between panels, and it was playing constantly on the television. After the convention we started watching the reruns on two different channels and the first run episodes on the network, and we eventually started collecting the DVDs. So this will be our final year of the tradition of buying the DVD set at Best Buy on Black Friday! It was a fun, fuzzy ending: Sheldon finally realized what he had, Leonard got to tell him off, we finally saw the Wolowitz kids, Amy got a new look and enjoyed it, and Sheldon and Amy did indeed get a Nobel Prize. They also tied it in with the end of the season finale of Young Sheldon, where ten-year-old Sheldon is listening to a shortwave broadcast of the Nobel Prize awards all alone, not knowing his future friends (shown as kids) are "somewhere out there." Later they did a wrap-up special. All very satisfactory. I will miss Big Bang, but I'm not absolutely heartbroken over its end. It's a good place to leave it. Better it goes now before someone does a Castle to it.

The big news in the last week has been James' new work schedule. Several people have left and there was not enough coverage on weekends. Alas, after so many years of being free of it, James is relegated to working one weekend day again. He chose Sunday since this will leave Saturday free for his club meeting and also for Hair Day. He also is working four 10-hour days, so his schedule is now Sunday through Wednesday. We have just begun the second week and hope to provide a little more routine to the new schedule, as last week was rather unsettled. The big event last week was James' second MOHS surgery on Thursday. He had another small basal cell cancer mole removed from near his left ear. The procedure took only two hours and then we were home with him having to ice the site every two hours. We followed all the instructions—although I almost went spare when we couldn't find the polysporin (we aren't allowed to use Neosporin), but finally remembered it was in the suitcase because we had to take it with us when we went to Atomicon—and it looks as if it is healing nicely, at least as far as "Nurse Linda" can see.

The only problem with the new schedule is that we are not eating until 7:30-8:00. This is going to play hob with both our weights. It's already bugging my digestion. One afternoon when he teleworked we did eat dinner rather than supper and that "went down" (literally) better, but that's not going to work when he's in the office. My best hope is to either have something cooked right when he gets home at about 7:40 p.m. or if it's something he needs to cook have everything prepped when he walks in the door.

I can always walk two miles, but he can't walk at all. Guess I'd better get that exercise bicycle I bought a couple of days ago assembled and see if he can ride it.

Then there was the phone saga. Last week while he was teleworking, James dropped his phone as he has dozens of times before. Unfortunately this time it hit one of the legs of the laptop desk rather than the carpet. When he picked it up it was "bruised" with tiny flecks of purple at the bottom of the screen. As the day proceeded, so did the "bruise." By next morning the screen was almost totally purple-black and unusable except for answering phone calls, since James could just swipe up in the usual place to answer it. So that evening we found ourselves at Best Buy. He was particularly interested in the new, less expensive Pixel 3a, which has the headphone jack restored to it, and he needs the headphone jack since his home headphones have Bluetooth, but they don't stay on between calls, so he uses the wire instead for reliability. But despite all the publicity about the damn things on the review sites and on television, Best Buy didn't have any in stock and James needed one for Wednesday at work. He ended up with a Motorola G7, which has twice the storage memory, and the ability to load a microSD card. The camera apparently isn't as good as the Pixel, but, you know, if we want good pictures we do have real cameras.

I was quite envious, as I've made no secret that I've never been happy with the original Pixel we got back on Black Friday of 2016. It was too small (they were out of the XL size), it didn't do a lot of the things my old Droid Turbo did (I'd wanted the Droid Turbo 2, but the ads made the Pixel sound like the greatest thing since HD-TV), and I missed the Moto Voice feature. (I eventually named the phone "U.P." for "Useless Phone.") Plus right before WHOlanta it started eating battery out of nowhere; one night I barely got to the car to plug it in before it died. I'd take it off the charger, read Facebook (no video watching) for ten minutes, and it would go down fifteen percent. So Saturday while we were out I went and picked up another G7. Alas, the one feature of Moto Voice that I loved most, the fact that you could give it a passphrase rather than using "Okay, Google" to ask it a question, Motorola (actually Lenovo) has gotten rid of. Otherwise, it's quite nice. I did have a bobble loading my old podcast app. It was a free app, but limited in how many feeds you could download and had ads. So for $3 I bought the full version (unlimited feeds and no ads), which was a separate unlock app. Usually when you buy a new Android phone, if you have been backing up religiously to Google, all your apps will re-download onto the new phone if you give it permission to do so. When they all downloaded, the unlock app was not there. When I checked the Google store, it wasn't there either, and as I checked the app itself, I realized it hadn't been updated since 2015. So, orphan app.

I looked around for the best substitute and found Podbean. I'd downloaded it, added some feeds, made some playlists, but it was dreadfully awkward; you had to add to a playlist and then download as a separate function; MyPOD did this in one action if you set it up that way. And if you used the shortcut widget, whatever podcast you were in last automatically started to play. Very provoking, and I couldn't find anything in the settings to stop it. So on a whim I loaded up MyPOD on the phone anyway to see what would happen and it mostly still works, with no ads, and I can add all the feeds I had before (I just stuck the backup feed file on the phone and told it to import and everything was there). You can't sort by title properly anymore, and every time you open it it asks that you load the unlock app, but the feeds still download and the podcasts still play. So I'll use it until it doesn't work anymore and then go back and wrestle with Podbean again.

(I should be able to go into the file folder on the old phone and actually find the .apk file for the unlock app, but I haven't been able to manage that. I did it previously on an older Android phone. Not sure if they've taken away that ability or they've just hidden the files too well.)

[Update, May 20:  I decided there must be a solution to this problem, and I found it: an app called APK Extractor (yeah, go figure). I extracted the .apk folder from my old phone and saved it to Google Drive, then went to Google Drive and extracted it to my new phone. Viola, as Snagglepuss used to say.

I can see my mother giving me that look, cupping her right hand with the thumb and first three fingers joined and bobbing it at me, and calling me "Calabrese!" Makes me laugh and cry at the same time.]


And, as Walter Cronkite used to say, "That's the way it is."

Labels: birds, chores, death, dogs, exercise, flowers, food, friends, health, music, pets, podcasts, retirement, smartphones, television, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:02:00 PM

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To my relief, I have managed to get many things done this week. I reported earlier than I was cleaning out the china cabinet and the top shelf of the hall closet and getting rid of some things that we do not use, or that I do not like. I did get to go to the Lidl grand opening on Wednesday, but there were already more than one hundred people in line, and the parking lot was standing room only, so I didn't stop and went to Walmart instead. (Apparently Yoplait has come up with some "Dunkin" yogurt flavors. I cringed at the thought of cinnamon roll and bought the French vanilla latte in the forlorn hope that it might have some coffee flavor. Well, it does, but so minute that it might as well be a molecule. Mostly what it tastes of is sugar. Ugh. I miss their café au lait flavor so much.) When I came by Lidl after finishing at Wally World, when there were parking spaces, it was still crowded and some radio station was blasting unpleasant and obnoxious rock music out front. I wasn't much impressed at what I saw, but my opinion was surely colored by the jostling, impossible crowd.

So many people have been talking about Marie Kondo [the organizing consultant] that on Thursday I watched three of her shows on Netflix. I hadn't read her book, and by the way people were talking I thought she was one of those dreadful minimalist people who favored icky modern metal and plastic furniture, white walls and sofas, and no memorabilia in the house. Well, except for the no-more-than-30-books philosophy she supposedly has, she seems very sensible. It's like watching Hoarders except these people aren't drowning in possessions, they just have too many. She helps them sort them out and see what they need, and what they don't, and organize what they keep in a better fashion. (One lady had her entire downstairs den filled with Christmas decorations she hadn't put away!) This is what I've been trying to do for the last year. In fact, spurred by Marie, I went and did what I originally intended to do on Thursday: reorganize the top shelf of the spare room closet. The party supplies are kept up there, and I tidied those up, put the wedgies that we used to have on our bed in the corner in case company wants to use them, and stored the slim-line CD cases on the CD carousel stored up there, instead of having a box of cases and the carousel. Then there was enough room for the hot- and cold-vaporizers, and even some space to spare.

Friday I started gravy [spaghetti sauce] and pork in the slow cooker, then indexed the gifts in the Christmas boxes in the spare room closet. Now I know everything I have and can apportion the items to the appropriate person, and then know who I need to buy for.

Finally I washed Tucker. I usually take him to the dog wash at Petco, but the price went up to $12 last time I went, and the weather was cold and damp. But he had to have a bath; he smelled like a boys' locker room that the janitor hadn't visited in three forevers. So I got out the knee pads I got from Amazon, cleared away things from the tub, got the shower head down, dumped a bewildered Tucker in the tub, and gave him the bath. He behaved very well; in fact he was a little more coöperative than usual, even though he acted as if he were suffering terrible torture to be under water. Our water was warmer than they usually have at the dog wash, so that may be part of it.

I discovered a couple of problems, however. The main one was that the drain needs to be cleared. To keep hair out of the drain, I have a screened dome, and the hair collects and blocks the drain, and since it already needs flushing, so Tucker was standing in at least an inch of water. Plus, when I used to wash Willow in the tub, I would always then hand her over to James to dry. I had to dry Tucker myself, with no raised platform to do it on as at the dog wash. I ended up sitting on the toilet lid and holding the little wiggle worm on my lap. I needed as many arms as an octopus.

But it worked out. I got him dry enough, I washed and dried all his bedding, and James came home to a clean dog. And an exhausted Linda, but, stuff got done. And the knee pads worked fine. Much better than the towel I used to kneel on.

Today the weather reports were dire: it was going to rain. We had Hair Day, and James' club meeting had been postponed to today because of a model show in Chattanooga last week. So we went to Ron and Lin's for about ninety minutes and James got his hair cut and beard trimmed, and we chatted with everyone, and then got back on the road. I discovered I'd only had six and a half hours of sleep and I was a bit drowsy, but when I'd downloaded e-mail this morning, I'd found a 60 percent off coupon from Michael's.

So James gathered up the model he was taking to the meeting, and I got in the car, heading...well, I headed north. I was down to a quarter tank of gas, so I decided to go to Costco for it, as it was cheapest there. And there is also a Michael's at Town Center down the hill from a Costco.

I stopped at Michael's first, checking out all the departments, including the spring decorations. Ugh. Only January, don't want to think of spring, temps in the 70s, flowers blooming and making me sneeze, aching joints from my allergies, and pine pollen. (Not to mention having to turn on the air conditioner again!) But I found something great to use my coupon on. I have only seen sets of Speedball calligraphy markers in the same everlasting strict colors: black, brown, red, green, and brown. Today I found a dozen in other colors: purple! teal! even yellow and orange! The coupon was just the trick to be able to afford the set. I also found some planning stickers on clearance for my journal.

When I finished at Michael's, I went to fill up the car, and had then thought to go on to And That! to see if they still had inexpensive pistachios, and then go to Hobby Lobby. As usual, my mind strayed to books, which is how I ended up at 2nd and Charles and disappeared into the rabbit hole of used books. I don't usually find much there, but today I did pick up a book about a couple who open a bookstore in a small West Virginia town and the third and final book in a young adult trilogy about a girl living in an alternate universe Boston. I considered and then skipped The Willows in Winter because it seems to be too much about Toad. Toad is my least favorite character in Wind in the Willows; I prefer the sweet stories about Ratty and Mole palling about. The chapter "Dulce Domum" is one of my favorite Christmas tales.

I just returned home after that and messed about on the computer until James got home. We had supper at Uncle Maddio's, not having had pizza in a good long time. I'd had only a small sandwich for lunch and ate every bit of my personal pizza with bacon and black olive upon it (and no awful mozzarella cheese—hate the stuff, tastes like mucus to me). Maddio's makes the best crust, all lovely and crisp.

Watched a couple of This Old House segments when we got home, then James disappeared downstairs to the depths of his man-cave to fiddle with plastic and glue and paint, and I've been here listening to the podcast "Happier With Gretchen Rubin."

Labels: books, cleaning, crafts, dogs, food, organizing, pets, podcasts, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:53:00 PM

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Today's checklist:
* Emptied dishwasher; started to refill
* Washed kitchen floor
* Washed kitchen counters
* Cleaned out kitchen sink
* Put away some things on coffee table
* Cleaned master bath and hall bath toilets
* Washed master bath and hall bath floors
* Put Mom's records in alphabetical order
* Started bag for Atomicon
* Took a speaker downstairs for use in the library
* Put reusable shopping bags back in my car
* Put the Rollator back where it belongs
* Put three things in the donation box and one in the recycling bin
* Emptied the last few things I had at work out of the Climb Cart and put them and it away
* Listened to three episodes of "The Tech Guy" and recorded things off the BBC

Beef stir fry and rice for supper and now time for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy before Olympics!

Labels: chores, podcasts, retirement, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:04:00 PM

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We'd been toying with going to Chattanooga today, and the subject had gone back and forth for a couple of days. James worried about it possibly being crowded on the road because of shoppers and travelers, but then we wouldn't have a chance again until right before Christmas. And we got skunked out of our vacation, so today would be kind of a mini-vacation for us. So we set an alarm for eight and ended up waking at 7:30. Still, we didn't actually get on the road until 9:30, after eating, Tucker's walk, and a stop at Sam's Club for gasoline and to use the facilities. (We got there at 9:01. The sign on the door said that until Christmas Eve they were open at 7 a.m. The doors were still locked. They let us go in the exit, and didn't look ready to open yet. How strange.)

Anyway, it was a nice ride up, with pretty trees that faded about the time we got to very north Georgia. I drove, and we listened to "A Way With Words." The time passed pretty quickly. I don't know why we complain so much about driving up there; it takes me longer to get home from work half the time, and the ride isn't half as pleasurable.

McKay's was crowded, but not terribly so. A man helped us carry in the books and we sent them forward for trade in, and then set to investigating the shelves. They had the Christmas CDs right out front and I was chatting with a lady about music we liked to listen to as I thumbed through the albums. I got a nice selection of books, including three Malcolm Gladwell volumes, a book where a family cycles the Lewis & Clark trail, another where the narrators travel Spain and stay only at monasteries, some linguistics books, a book about the Harvey Girls, another about Queen Victoria's daughters, a big beautiful anthropology book in full color for only $4, and a bunch of other goodies including some nice Christmas music (Robert Shaw, Narada, etc.).

By the time we were finished, we were both hungry as wolves, breakfast having been five hours ago. As usual, we went to City Cafe for lunch. They are attached to a Best Western motel, have a diner motif, cook yummy food, and I love their chicken soup: it is very light and flavorful, with carrots, celery, and parsley, pieces of chicken, and the noodles are the way my mom and aunts and godmothers did them in a hurry, just spaghetti broken up into small bits, so it's very nostalgic. We both had a cup and James had liver and onions with pilaf and green beans, and I had spaghetti with meat sauce. It came in a huge bowl and I took most of it home. We also bought two extra servings of soup to bring home.

Sadly, by then it was three o'clock,so we had no time to go by the Barnes & Noble at the Hamilton Mall (I like to see the regional books and magazines) and still get home before dark. So we topped up the truck, since it's around 25 cents a gallon cheaper up there, and headed south. Ran into a couple of small traffic jams, but nothing else, and spent the rest of the night relaxing and messing with the new phone again.

Labels: books, food, podcasts, travel

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:33:00 PM

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Oh, damn, it couldn't be 8:30 already.

It was. And despite getting up at that time, we still didn't make it out the door until 10:30. I can't imagine how dog-walking and breakfast takes so long.

We drove up to Chattanooga today to go to McKay's and trade in a couple of boxes of books. It was a very pretty day for a ride, and we listened to the Thanksgiving show on "The Splendid Table" and half of "A Way With Words" segment. We did pretty well; we came home with half a box of discards, which shall go to the library for the book sale, and got enough credit to buy the scant box we came home with and still have $10/credit left over. I bought a huge book (8 1/2x11 1/2) for only 75 cents called American Manners and Morals, The Scent Trail which I heard the author speak about on "Travels with Rick Steves," a Bennett Cerf compilation, Strange Red Cow (about odd classified ads from colonial times), a history of Paper, a "Dear America" about an African-American girl who must go to an integrated school for the first time, and a British book about the Christmas truce. I also got five Christmas CDs: one of carols from St. Martins-in-the-Fields, "Christmas Night" by the Cambridge Singers (medieval carols), Scott Miller playing carols on hammered dulcimer, "Guitar Winterlude," and Morton Gould conducting three symphony orchestras. (Yes, the Morton Gould.) They had all the Christmas CD's out front and made that very easy. Wasn't interested in any of the Christmas DVDs; most of the Christmas books were romances.

James got a book of paper planes, two John Ringo fantasies, two L. Neil Smith books, and Bill Engvall's biography. We also mutually bought Scott Carpenter's book because we didn't have it.

By the time we finished it was almost three o'clock and we hadn't eaten, so we went back to City Café for lunch. We had gone there last  year and really enjoyed our meal. To our delight they had the same chicken soup as last year. Instead of putting noodles in their chicken noodle soup, they use spaghetti. My mom and aunts and grandmothers used to do this, so eating it brings back a lot of nice memories. James had a shepherd's pie and I had an open-face turkey sandwich. I was as stuffed as the turkey would be when I finished. Brought most of the tater tot side home for James to make eggs with. We also ordered some of the soup to bring home for tomorrow night's supper, and took our dessert home as well.

We'd planned to stop at the Hamilton Mall's Barnes & Noble because, frankly, they have a better selection of books than any of the stores in Atlanta! However, there were clouds moving in and rain on the horizon, and we were afraid for the books riding out in the back of the truck. Plus I'd forgotten our coupons. So we headed south, listening to the rest of one "A Way With Words," plus another. There was another lovely sunset, though not as spectacularly red as last night, and this one was attractively layered between grey clouds. Traffic was great until we got close to home; they were turning people around on Delk Road, so we had to go home through Cobb Parkway and Windy Hill Road, both which were clotted with cars.

Didn't have our cake until much later. The pieces were so big we had to carve off only a portion, and I still couldn't finish mine. Sort of watched a Rosemary and Thyme episode (we've seen the whole series) and Keeping Up Appearances and As Time Goes By, and now are watching This Old House.

Tucker was going crazy a little while ago, barking at the back door and the side window. I went out on the deck with the big flashlight, but didn't see a thing. [Later: Aha. That was what the row was all about. The bunny is back.]

Labels: books, food, podcasts, television, travel

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

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...please shut off the lights?

Seriously! We went down to Warner Robins today and you might have thought it was a weekend before Christmas. It took us nearly three hours to make the 100 minute trip. Of course, it seemed like we were sharing the road with that half of the country (plus one car from Ontario) who was driving down to the House of Mouse! SUVs, campers, small cars, big cars, cars carrying bicycles... Maybe there were people returning things at the outlet mall and the shopping centers, or shopping with gift cards, too. What a fat pain in the neck! Thank God for downloaded podcasts! We listened to a Rick Steves Christmas program and an episode of "The Splendid Table."

Thankfully spent a nice afternoon relaxing with Mom and Candy. Did presents and had spaghetti and meatballs for lunch.

The ride home was much quicker, with a Rick Steves New Year program—you should wear red underwear for good luck, say the Sicilians—and another "Splendid Table." Came home exhausted and just wanted to sleep, but there was this poor dog who'd been locked up all day.

We'll pay you back, Tucker.

Labels: dogs, family, pets, podcasts, travel

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

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Today we were on our way to Warner Robins to "do" Christmas with James' mom and sister. James had called the vet and they said it was okay to leave Willow, so we set up a clean pee pad, put her blanket back on her bed (she had fallen asleep on the blanket last night, but I found her in her crate this morning), and James scrambled her an egg with some chicken in it. We left her that and some chicken broth, put the television on for Snowy, and headed south.

Aside from a mystery jam right before Southlake Mall, it was an uneventful ride. I drove down, and we listened to The Splendid Table and a Travel With Rick Steves, "International Christmas." I was very surprised when they talked about Christmas in Sicily and talked about having gifts on what in Mexico is the Day of the Dead. Other Italians do not do this, but then Sicily was its own kingdom up until the Unification in the late 19th century. We shared the road with seemingly dozens of vehicles from Michigan evidently heading south to The House of Mouse.

We had a nice afternoon with Mom and Candy. Unfortunately Sabra was sick, so she and Lee were not able to come over, and we wouldn't see her face when she opened her surprise. :-) We bought them a storage cube and then filled it with all sorts of breakfast foods: buckwheat pancake mix, steel-cut oats, wildflower honey from the Jonquil Festival, jellies from the Yellow Daisy Festival, jam from Panorama Orchards in Ellijay, coffee, tea, cocoa, plus a book of "Yankee thrift" projects, a cute serving platter that says "Eat at Mom's," a cheese knife, and a few other jims and jams. Got a big stocking with goodies that will last for months, and James got a military book and a DVD set about the Pacific Theater in World War II. For dinner we had spaghetti and meatballs, with James' fresh chocolate cobbler for dessert.

We headed home about 5:30. Was cold most of the way because I believed the Weather Channel forecast and wore short sleeves! Other than having to stop in McDonough for gasoline, another uneventful trip, except for the dorks riding with their brights in the rear-view mirror. We listened to Rick Steves talk to people about the upcoming Olympic Games and about New Year's customs in Europe, and another Splendid Table. The last caller said he had received bacon-flavored coffee syrup for Christmas! The mind boggles!

When we got in, Willow trotted downstairs to meet us, and James took her out. I came upstairs to find she had cleaned up both the scrambled eggs and the chicken broth. James made her another egg with more chicken in it, but what she wanted most was what he cooked for himself!

Missed the new Call the Midwife special, so have programmed a later showing on the DVR and are now watching Alaska: the Last Frontier.

Labels: dogs, food, friends, podcasts, travel

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:39:00 PM

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We were up at seven this morning to go to the Georgia Apple Festival. I felt sorry for James because this is the seventh day in a row he's been up early, but he wants to go somewhere else next weekend, so if we want to go, it's today. Picked up breakfast at Wendy's and drove up to Ellijay listening to "The Splendid Table," with a splendid sunrise to start us off.

Alas, we lucked out the last three years we went to the Festival; it was cool and cloudy or cool and windy, but today the sun was a big blazing ball in a clear sky. It was cool enough when we got there, and we didn't stay until the heat became oppressive, but the sun still bothers me since the radioactive iodine treatment and makes me feel like my skin is burning. I much prefer cloudy days!

So we had a nice tramp around the Lions' Club field. The usual vendors were there, and we did a lot of "window shopping." We did buy some finishing jellies from One Screw Loose, and James got a gift for his mom and sister, and we got the second and last of our yearly fudge from Ginny's Fudge. To our disappointment, the dark-chocolate-with-orange sold out yesterday! I was so looking forward to a couple of more pieces of that. I also bought a little horseshoe for the front of the house. Of course we will be careful to mount it open end downward, so "the good luck won't run out." Saw a lovely dry sink that we have no room for; the same folks, who make furniture out of old barn wood, had a great table that would have made a super kitchen island—if our kitchen wasn't so miniscule, that is.

Two hours was enough for us, and we headed back toward Panorama Orchards. The place was packed and we had to wait for a shopping cart. We bought a peck of Granny Smith apples and James got some sugar-free taffy and some honey mustard salad dressing. Couldn't resist having an apple each the moment we got into the car—oh, they crunch so nicely and are so tart! Stopped at a Krystal for a bit to eat, ran into a "mystery jam," made a brief detour to the QT for gasoline and a newspaper, and were home by two o'clock. I spent the afternoon reading Time Out for Happiness. A nice steak with some mushroom rice for supper, finally watched Monday's Castle that was pre-empted for football, and saw part 3 of The Paradise.

Labels: books, excursions, food, podcasts, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:42:00 PM

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Another annoying week at work. I do not know how a business does business without not knowing specific things about itself! And everything runs out on Monday. So it was better I enjoyed the weekend while I could—if I can get over being depressed about the whole situation.

Traffic was utterly mad Friday night, even if I leave an hour earlier on that day. I just went surface streets to avoid the whole red mess in either direction on the freeway. I got home so late James still ended up taking Willow out.

We went to SteviB's for dinner because it was cheap and we knew we would splurge on Saturday night at Juanita's birthday dinner. Afterward, despite having no coupons, we went to Barnes & Noble. Now, on the way to dinner, we had listened to a "Travel With Rick Steves" podcast I had saved because Jane and Michael Stern (Roadfood) were on; we love listening to them on "The Splendid Table." They were talking about their at-the-time (this was a 2010 show, I think) latest book, 500 Things You Must Eat Before They're Gone. Minutes after we entered the bookstore, I heard James looking for the book at the information desk. :-) I figured. The Town Center store didn't have it, so we drove down to Cumberland to fetch one there. I found a few good things in the remainder bins at 75 percent off: To End All Wars (first World War, about war dissenters), The Eighty-Dollar Champion (I had this already, as a free ARC, but this copy was only $1.25, with better photos and properly paginated), and the big, beautiful coffee-table size The Life of Charles Dickens. This was written after Dickens' death by John Forster, his best friend, and was republished for his bicentennial in a lavishly illustrated version containing novel illustrations, playbills, period engravings, etc. The dust cover on this was a bit damaged (nothing that couldn't be fixed with tape), and all for only $10.

We were in bed early Friday because James was off to work on Saturday. I didn't sleep well, but got up nevertheless to go to the Farmer's Market. It was a weekend for the Artists' Market, too, and I was lucky enough to find someone just pulling out; otherwise it was SRO. Still had cucumbers, so got cherry tomatoes and also chicken salad, dog biscuits, and goat cheese. Capra Gia not only had a sleepy little goat with them, but two chickens, a couple of fat and fluffy hens. I held out my hand like I had some grain and greatly perked their interest, until the reddish one realized my hand was empty—then I was soundly pecked!

Came home by Bernhard's Bakery to get a couple of desserts for the week, too.

I spent the afternoon doing some clean up in the dining room. The dog's area against the wall was starting to be a little funky, so I bundled all her towels and blankets in the washer and then the dryer, and while those were scrubbing, washed out her crate with Swiffer cloths as well as the plastic mat her dishes go on. I thoroughly cleaned both dishes, and then cleared the area and scattered baking soda on the carpet and left it for over an hour. Then I vacuumed thoroughly, and sprayed the area with Lysol.

I was watching Atta Girl, Kelly! in between all this. This was a three-part story that first aired on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color in the 1960s, the story of a German Shepherd destined for the Seeing Eye. I loved this as a kid, but watched it with a little sadness thinking that most kids wouldn't be interested in the slow-moving story today. Kelly, bred at the Morristown kennels, is first given to a farm boy named Danny (Billy Corcoran) to raise. His father expects him to be interested in cows and sheep instead and is a bit confounded by this being a 4H project. This is Danny's first puppy and he is very reluctant to part with her, and she with him. In the next part of the story, it is shown how Kelly finally bonds with her trainer Matt Howell (played by Beau Bridges; she and a Labrador named Robin are his first projects, and he is closely watched by his supervisor, played by J.D. Cannon) and learns to be a guide dog; not just to work and be obedient, but sometimes to be disobedient to protect her handler. The final part has Kelly learning to adjust to her new, blind master, Evan Clayton, an attorney who was very attached to his previous dog, Jennie—so attached, in fact, that he isn't giving the dog the support she needs. In a parallel plot, the attorney's roommate, a newly-blind football coach named Chuck Wilson, gets along famously with his dog Robin and learns to love her, only for her to prove undependable after they had bonded and him having to receive another dog.

(I was amused after buying this film after all these years that here, four years before they did one of my favorite movies of all time, The Andromeda Strain, together, the two men training with Kelly and Robin are Arthur Hill and James Olson.)

I managed to get Willow's corner cleaned up and Juanita's gift wrapped (as well as Ken's belated gift) by the time James arrived home and we had to leave for Longhorn. Dinner was great fun; we sat at a long table and ate and chatted and watched Juanita open her gifts. From there we just went home; it was almost eight o'clock anyway. Watched a new production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood on PBS after As Time Goes By. In this one, John Jasper turned out to be Edwin Drood's illegitimate older brother, who was ignored by their father in favor of golden boy Edwin. He didn't kill Edwin, but he did kill their father, in an opium fog and embittered by having been so long ignored.

We were so tired we went to bed early (read: at midnight, which is early for us on Saturday) and thus were up at nine today. After breakfast, did the grocery shopping, and then had a more fun errand: going to Books-a-Million with a 30 percent off coupon. We were mainly looking for gifts to put away, and came away with a bumper crop: two Christmas gifts and a birthday gift and a bunch of stocking stuffers. James bought himself a couple of books, and I finally bought electronic Scrabble Flash for myself since it was only $10 before the discount. We listened to "The Splendid Table" there and back, and came home to read the paper.

Some goodies on television tonight: Cosplay: Crafting a Secret Identity, about science-fiction costumers, a lot of it filmed at DragonCon (I had to give Alice a fast call when I saw it, since she's designing a costume for DC this year; she's going to be a Minion!), and featuring Grant Imehara from Mythbusters. Lots of shots at the Atlanta Marriott; I'd know those carpets anywhere! Later we had three parts of Pioneers in Aviation, with lots of wonderful old photographs and vintage film footage.

Labels: books, dogs, DragonCon, friends, podcasts, television, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:01:00 PM

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This is what usually happens when James works on Saturday: I get up and finish the grocery shopping for the weekend, so we have a free Sunday.

The problem is that I hate doing this because I hate grocery shopping. It's so monotonous. So by Thursday I was in firm "I won't!" mode. All I was going to do today was go to Aldi to get milk because it's cheap there! No Publix! No Kroger! Barnes & Noble! Maybe Michael's! No supermarkets!

So we slept late, and had breakfast, and James went off to work...and yeah, I went grocery shopping. I'm a sap, what can I say?

I went to Publix first to cop a couple of twofers, including one of our favorite desserts, Entemann's "Kandy Bar Kakes." (Yeah, it's cutesy. Yuck!) We like the York peppermint pattie ones and the Reese's peanut butter cup ones (tastes kinda like a Drake's "Funny Bones"). We didn't need Finish right now, but they were also BOGO and I had coupons, so I got $14 worth of dishwashing gelpacs for $6. And the Racheal Ray dog food coupon would run out on Monday and Publix has the lamb flavor, which Kroger doesn't carry. I also got salad greens and chicken breast strips (both BOGO) so we could have our Sunday Oriental salad supper this week. (Did I mention omeprazole was on twofer, too?) Oh, yeah, and I got Those Damn Bananas because the ones at Publix were actually yellow.

Then over to Kroger, which has the bread-for-lunch I like, cheaper milk, and the bargain meat shelf (found some turkey legs). Got the rest of the supplies for the week, and that was that. Out less than 90 minutes, thank God. It was already sticky by the time I got home and I spent a few minutes cooling off before I went to Barnes & Noble.

My original plan was to stop at the mall, but I didn't because that would have meant getting out of the car again in this horrible weather (I really should have stopped, as I have a Really Good Hallmark Coupon). Since I was a bit peckish, I inquired about the soup of the day at the cafe and found they had chicken noodle. Luckily, despite all the other patrons leeching off B&N's wifi, I did find a seat in the café, so could comforably eat soup and crackers while reading Clouds of Witness on my e-reader. Then wandered about a bit, but just picked up Shadows of Night, the sequel to "the toast book" (see previous entry), also a previous library book.

On the way home I stopped at CVS for a couple of things and—hurrah!—found more barrettes. CVS carries a specific kind by Scunci that grips my hair perfectly, but the plastic backing on it breaks easily. Earlier in the year they'd vanished from the local stores, but I found some in Macon in April. Even worse, I usually find them in the most undesirable color combinations. They have green, brown, and black, and I almost always find green and brown or green and black. This wouldn't matter if I wore green a lot,  but the greens I can only use in the summer with my green shirt, or maybe at Christmas, but the black and brown go with everything. Today I found a black and a brown, and got a green and a black along with a green and a brown, so I can finally get rid of the two broken brown ones I wear around the house and fill them in with a green.

Finally a stop at Kroger to feed the car and it was home, home, home in the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful air conditioning. I took Willow out, then settled down to get cool and listen to "The Tech Guy" and "This Week in Tech" from Memorial Day weekend. I really need to catch up because I know I'll fall behind as always during end of fiscal year. (I did fall victim to A Discovery of Witches for a while. I realize why this book makes me crave toast: the heroine has toast at least twice in the first six chapters.)

[Later: Willow waited at the top of the stairs for nearly three hours.]

Labels: books, food, podcasts, purchases, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:41:00 PM

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I was listening to podcasts while working today and happened to listen to Pottercast #227, "Pundits Play the Name Game," which I had just downloaded at random from what was available. This the podcast put on by the fan site "The Leaky Cauldron" and the broadcast was three of the regulars analyzing the names Rowling used in the series.

This was particularly interesting because one of the panelists was John Granger, who has written several books about meaning in the Potter series, but is most well known for Looking for God in Harry Potter. Granger is a practicing Christian who initially forbade his children to read the books, having been turned off by the witchcraft themes. However, he didn't feel he could forbid his children to read them without reading them first to be able to tell them why they were unsuitable. Upon reading the books, he was pleased and surprised by the good v. evil themes in the books and changed his mind about them. I saw Finding God several times in Borders, but never bought it.

This was a delightful show, as they examined the literary derivations of the names, which they noted came heavily from Dickens and Victor Hugo, and even Thackeray, not to mention Latin derivations and inside jokes. Of course Harry's sacrifice parallels that of Christ and Voldemort is a clear Satan-figure (he even parallels Lucifer as being rather a "fallen angel," rescued by Dumbledore from his sterile orphanage and shown kindness, being elevated to prefect and a promising future only to betray those who helped him)—these are all rather obvious. I was, however, surprised when they noted things like the names of the other players on the Quidditch team were all related to churches. When they explained it I was quite amused: [Katie] Bell, Angel[ina] Johnson, [Alicia] Spinnet (piano), and [Oliver Wood] olivewood! Plus the game has a "seeker" who must attain "the light," a.k.a. The Golden Snitch. There were dozens of fun or thoughtful analyses of this type, and it was great fun to listen to.

I also had on BBC 4X and was listening to their adaptation of Gaudy Night. I became aware that Ian Carmichael's voice sounded rather husky and older, so checked out the production. Carmichael had recorded almost all the Lord Peter Wimsey stories in seven- and eight-part radio productions back in the 1970s, about at the same time he was doing the television versions of five of the books. They had done at least three of the Harriet Vane stories, but not the Oxford story, Gaudy Night, about sinister goings-on at Harriet's university reunion. But Ian Carmichael had always wanted to do that one, to complete the set as it were, and in 2005 BBC audio books recorded this five-part adaptation. Ian Carmichael was 85 when he did the story; it's no wonder he sounds older!

It's a bit of a static production, as a lot of it is Harriet's narrative, but so good to hear! Hopefully they do the end properly!

[Later: they did! Oh, and Lord St. George is in the story, too, unlike the Petherbridge/Walter version.]

Labels: books, Harry Potter, mystery, podcasts

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:51:00 PM

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Today we went on a long-delayed visit to see James' mom and sister; after a nice sleep-in, we left about 10:30, stopping by Burger King for breakfast (my usual: Cinni-Minis without that noxious frosting, orange juice and milk). It was already so hazy that when we got on the freeway we could only see the blurry silhouettes of the buildings downtown, almost bluish smoky masses. It remained hot and stifling all day.

We listened to a "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and a "Splendid Table" on the way down to Warner Robins, almost the perfect length for the ride, concluding just as we got to the exit. It was an unremarkable ride except for passing mile marker 196, about the halfway point of the ride, where great swathes of trees were mown down or showing splintered, bent, or bowing trunks in clear signs of a tornado having passed through some days or weeks earlier.

We presented Mom with some gifts upon arrival, including the little souvenirs we brought back for her from the Yankee Candle flagship store last October which we'd forgotten at Christmas: belated birthday and Mother's Day gifts, including books, two three-DVD movie sets (one of Sam Elliot and the other of Tom Selleck), a pair of slippers into which a microwaveable or chilled pad can be inserted, some homemade cherry preserves, and a little trinket that said "My mother: my first friend." We then sat chatting and watching the idiot box until it was well past the noon hour and we could go out to eat without facing crowds.

We had lunch at Cheddars, which was quite good. James and I had a potato skin appetizer, and I had a cup of potato soup and an Asian chicken/shrimp salad. We passed on dessert, though, as we were quite stuffed.

Then back to the house until about six o'clock. We emerged to darkening skies, and, after a stop at Baskin-Robbins for dessert, went on to run into a booming and very bright thunderstorm just south of Macon where the I-475 bypass splits off. We usually take I-475 and were poured on the entire length of the road. After that the route was damp for a while, then dried rapidly. On the way back we listened to another "Splendid Table" and last week's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," which featured Bill Clinton playing "Not My Job." They asked him questions about the new My Little Pony revival, which had also been the real story in the "pick the actual news story" segment of the show. Apparently there are scores of young male fans of the new series who are called "bronies" (a portmanteau word of "brother" and "ponies"). Well, that's fandom for ya.

Came home to get cool, interact with Schuyler, and read UnSpun, which was a book I spotted on the "required summer reading" racks at Borders last year, but didn't buy. It's about critical thinking of "spin," whether political or advertising. Now watching The Revolution, but really ready to revolve into bed...

Labels: family, podcasts, travel, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:20:00 PM

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Okay, it wasn't that early, but it seemed like it when we walked into the bathroom with the sun flaring into our eyes..."the light! it burns!" I often feel like a refugee from a Twilight novel when morning comes 'round.

Okay, warm weather coming is a drag—however, spring is good for one thing:

Marietta Square Farmers' Market

"Yay!" and all that, even if we had to be up at 8:15 to get there as it opened. Naturally, we forgot our brand-new hats, but James popped on his boonie hat and I had on my foam visor, so we made out okay.

Poor James, here he is at the Farmer's Market, all the delectable samples—pot pie, lasagna, fruit spread, jalapeno spread, bits of candy, slices of tomato, etc,—and he can't have any. Several weeks ago he went to the doctor, who neglected to tell him he wanted bloodwork done before the appointment, so James had already eaten, so he needed to go by Kaiser to get blood taken. He can't go on the weekday without being 90 minutes late to work, so for the last few weeks we were supposed to go out to Glenlake on Saturday morning (since they are now the weekend facility) to get the labs done. With one thing and the other, we forgot.

So as we orbited the booths and did our shopping—cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet corn, and a bell pepper, a turkey pot pie, organic bacon, something for breakfast later from Bernhard's German bakery, garlic cookies for Willow, chicken salad and jalapeno cheese—I tucked a few non-messy samples enrobed in napkins in his shirt pocket (a slice of salami, some granola bar, some fudge).

Naturally, we finished our shopping and arrived at the railroad tracks a scant second before the gates came down and a freight came thundering through. It was a pretty morning to stand there, though, still a bit chilly (high 40s) and with a brisk breeze that kept up all day and made it nice rather than hot. We had brought a cold block with us, and the guy packed the cheese and chicken salad in ice, so we put all the perishables in an insulated bag with the ice block and put that inside the insulated Sam's Club bag. You betcha it stayed cold!

Glenlake is halfway across town, a little bit more than halfway to my work, and we had to skirt roadwork on I-75 south to get on I-285 east. When we reached the exit we got turned around because when James goes to Glenlake he usually approaches it from the opposite direction. Voilà—I grab the Droid (last week's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is already playing on MyPod) and ask Google Maps to find the Glenlake office. Damn, I love this thing; good thing, too, because not eating for twelve hours has left James feeling nauseated.

The place was nearly empty, and he was in and out of the lab in a trice. I was waiting for him with a cup of unsweetened applesauce that I had brought with us (I'd already eaten mine), and nibbling on the samples in his pocket made him feel better until we could get back to the truck and the ham and cheese croissant from Bernhard's Bakery.

Since we were already halfway across town anyway, we decided to go to the original Fry's in Gwinnett [County]. On the way there we stopped at the Aviarium and went into the bird room to chat up the babies: a big scarlet and gold macaw, several sun conures, various other conures and parrots, an African grey, four budgies, a cockatiel, and lots and lots of finches of various denominations. The macaw wouldn't talk to our face, but every time we turned our backs we heard him squawk "Hello!" We also perused the fish tanks at the other side of the store—Jen! they had lionfish!—and I bought Schuyler a new bell toy, a new millet clip, and some oats and groats.

We wandered around Fry's about two hours, which included lunch; the soup of the day was chicken noodle. I had it in a bread bowl and James had his with a roast beef sandwich, half of which we brought home. I found James an "Easter bunny gift" (the BluRay of Excalibur), a $4 disk of four Topper television episodes, and a gift to put away for a friend. James got a quartet of war films, and also the fourth season of Rocky and Bullwinkle (fifth season was a bit rich right now). I didn't realize they have gotten as far as third season with Barney Miller, but I am still debating it.

Also saw a cool-looking but rather expensive book called Cooking for Geeks, but passed it up.

Traffic was miserable on I-85 south on the way back, due to an accident, and was backing up as far north as Beaver Ruin Road. Up came the Droid again (by this time we'd finished with Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and were listening to a February installment of The Splendid Table) and we discovered we could just continue on Beaver Ruin until we got to Buford Highway and go south again.

We ended up at the hobby shop for an hour and then came home via Bernhard's to pick up a few night's worth of desserts: a couple of Florentines and a couple of German gingerbreads, and some spelt-flour chocolate chip cookies. Having washed and dried the bell toy, I have left it is hanging on the outside of Schuyler's cage, where she can give it the fish-eye to her heart's content and get used to it. Occasionally I come over and make it jingle, and I've caught her near it once, examining it ("Are you going to eat me?"), but mostly when I ring it, she retreats behind Swing for safety.

Labels: DVDs, food, podcasts, shopping, traffic, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 4:23:00 PM

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It continued to rain and drizzle during the night, and was cool and grey when we woke this morning, nicely cocooned in blankets. I love cocooning weather! After breakfast, we went to Walmart; alas, their yogurt has gone up in price, and they didn't have a full two weeks' supply either. So I got a cinnamon roll, which I suspect will be too sweet, since all of these are; a blueberry, because of all the fruit-flavored ones the blueberry is usually the least sickly sweet; and a plain vanilla which I plan to spike with coffee syrup.

But I did find a gift to put away for someone, so that was a plus for the WallyWorld trip.

It was barely noon when we came home, so I wondered if James wanted to go to the Container Store in Buckhead. I was looking for two things, what they call "spice shelves," little triple risers, to consolidate some things on the kitchen counter, and a magnetic cup to fasten to the file cabinet in my craft room. I have one, but my paint pens have overrunneth it. He wanted to get a couple of small things, too, so we trucked out there via West Paces Ferry Road. It was an odd day, had all the atmosphere of a late November day, several kinds of trees with dried-out leaves upon them (the American oaks do this, and another type of tree which I don't know—they have leaves as a child draws them, which turn a pale brown, almost a faded matte copper), and piles of leaves still upon the ground, but trees blooming everywhere and daffodils popping up here and there.

The Container Store is like a giant trap. :-) I found the spice shelves there, and a wire cup, and also got more wire clothespins, which are great for keeping bags shut, some vertical holders, and another long-handled dishpan and brush set for downstairs.

We went to Borders afterwards to have a cocoa trio and peruse the books. Evidently everyone else had the same idea; there was not a free table in the cafè. Half of them were covered with laptops. Some folks were even sitting in chairs in front of laptops, asleep. Anyway, I found something cool: The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons.

We listened to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on the way out and on the way home, followed by "The Splendid Table," which we continued listening to at home, followed by another episode.

James made some chicken thighs in what gravy was left over from yesterday's party in the crock pot and we had that for supper and later we watched Pie in the Sky.

(Oh, and I'm writing about Read an E-Book Week.)

Labels: books, podcasts, shopping, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:08:00 PM

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After a quick breakfast, it was off to Costco this morning; it was the cheapest we could get gasoline. The lines were as long as they had been when I went, but we lazed away the time listening to last week's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." It was quite warm already at 11:30 a.m., but at least it was partly cloudy and the sun wasn't so strong. We had a nice breeze as well.

Costco is kitted out for summer already: folding chairs, coolers, beach blankets, hose containers, and more. We milled around the books and DVDs and got a few samples, including dark-chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds. None of that delicious artisan bread today, though.

We brought the things home and then went to WalMart; unfortunately they were out of what I wanted, but we were able to get some other things we needed. Then we arrived home, and since there was nowhere else to go and nothing else needed to buy, we settled in for the afternoon. I did a small bit of cleaning in the bathroom and we listened to yesterday's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." Once that was over, I put on one of the reports Leo LaPorte did from the Consumer Electronics Show. Boy, the "swag" from that show must have been great. One of the things Victorinox gave away was an "airplane safe" Swiss Army Knife (with no knife) with a 32GB thumb drive!

About halfway through this, James decided he needed to start dinner. So I got the baby monitor we bought when Mom was sick so he could hear the show out on the deck while he was grilling. The sound is terrible, but he could hear it.

In any case, we are baaaaa-dly lambed out. :-) Yesterday when we stopped at Publix, we found some lamb shoulder blades for a halfway reasonable price. James marinated them in herb and garlic marinade and grilled them, even though we had lamb yesterday (thank you, Phyllis!). We ate them with ramen noodles, with chocolate angel food cake for dessert. Delicious; nice and juicy! We have to pick up lamb shanks or something like it more often.

We have been watching World War II in Color tonight. We first saw this when we were in Rhode Island cleaning out Mom's house, so between this and Mom's own history, it always reminds me of her, especially when there is film of young women wearing the same hair style as she did back then.

Labels: food, podcasts, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:40:00 PM

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