Just the usual

Oct. 23rd, 2025 08:53 am
susandennis: (Default)
[personal profile] susandennis
I have a couple of Dollar Store items I need but not critically. And I need to get gas, but not critically. So I might not do either today.

Last night's dinner with Bonny turned out to be dinner with Gail and Jim and Bonny. Jim lives across the hall next to the Jim who needs a lot of help. Gail lives on the other side of the complex. Neither are very interesting and I was not the one who invited them to join us. But, it worked out fine. The service was very slow. I like eating in the dining room once in a while but it is a production that eats up your evening. I have other, more interesting things to do. Plus there's the eating. Gail got a pork chop which she said was delicious and she really would have loved to have picked it up and gnawed all the good off the bone. But, she didn't and I wouldn't have either. HOWEVER, I will when I order it for take out tonight! Take out means you can spice your food to your heart's content and eat it any way you wish. Also some of their menu items do not 'take out' well. I had trout last night which was delicious.

Volleyball was short this morning. We usually play for 2 hours but a bunch of people were missing and the asshole was one of the few people who showed so we quit. The asshole says stupid, insulting things and has no player skills nor does he seem to be interested in acquiring any and he's dangerous to play next to. All of this annoys me but what annoys my friend, Steve, the most is that a few weeks ago, the asshole lost his swimming trunks and so now just wears his underwear. It's knitting boxers so not tightly whities but it really annoys the shit out of Steve. Which amuses me. So all is not lost. Anyway we quit after an hour. It was fine.

I've been on the hunt for a rain jacket for a while. It has to be the lightest of weights with a hood and pockets, of course, and room for a sweater under. I finally set Gemini to the task this morning and found a nice on on sale at Columbia. As much as I hate ordering from places other than Amazon, Columbia seems to have a fairly easy and straightforward return situation which, in my experience, means it won't need to be returned. hahah.

Ugh. I just saw an article about how successful TV drug ads are. Ugh.


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Yes, I Was Dizzy

Oct. 23rd, 2025 12:11 am
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[personal profile] days_unfolding

Got up and out on time. My presentation went well.

I wasn’t kidding about feeling dizzy though. We went through a tour of the U of I library, and we were standing around. I was thinking that I felt wobbly when down I went on the floor. Sigh. I skipped the last part of the tour. My colleagues were appalled. I told my boss that I was going to lie down when I got home, and she told me to take tomorrow off if necessary. Someone gave me some water, and I took my hoodie off. I ate some cake when I got home. Fed us all, so now I’m going to lie down.

By the way, my grand boss has a Honda Fit, and she said that it was the perfect car for a single person. Hers is purple!

The doggos are making me crazy. Major wrestling action on the bed. Settle down, please!

Slept until 11 PM. I might email in sick tomorrow, but I’ll see how I feel in the morning.

Oliver says, “Good, you’re up. Feed us!”

Frost Advisory tomorrow night. I’ve got my plants in though.

Gracie has my crackers. Sigh.

(no subject)

Oct. 22nd, 2025 12:13 pm
greghousesgf: (Horse)
[personal profile] greghousesgf
I should be able to at least get the skull cakes at Nabolom tomorrow if I'm going to be forced out all day because of the damn fire alarms. One of my neighbors seems to have no problem with having to put up with that. Is she deaf? At any rate I'm going to take my cell phone so I can watch MST3K and Archer and stuff and talk to my friends if they're not too busy and I'm also going to take some books and magazines.

the next avenue over

Oct. 21st, 2025 02:34 pm
somedayseattle: scared baby (Default)
[personal profile] somedayseattle
For her birfday, I bought Erica a Freddie Krueger sweater and a new red chef's knife.
IMG_3218.jpeg
The perfect combo.

things i cannot do

Oct. 20th, 2025 02:33 pm
somedayseattle: scared baby (Default)
[personal profile] somedayseattle
They gave it all they had, but my Mariners fell short. Took Toronto 7 games, though. One hell of an effort. Super proud to be an M's fan today. But for me, baseball season is over. Time to stash my M's gear away & pull out the Seahawks stuff.

Then, in a couple seeks when they are eliminated from the playoffs, stash all that shit away and go back to my trusted "Who Farted?" cap.

soak up the sun

Oct. 19th, 2025 02:19 pm

Fog season

Oct. 22nd, 2025 07:19 am
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[personal profile] susandennis
The part of the country I was raised in (Southeast) is so very different from where I have now lived twice as long (Northwest). But, I still kind of half expect early evening thunderstorms in hot weather and am always surprised and delighted by the early morning fog that greets most cooler days here. It's just so cozy and lovely. This morning it's rolling through so that even the part of the building just across the drive is shrouded.

I learned yesterday that they are trying to convince Hazel to move into assisted living. John is not dead yet but he's not ever going to move back to their apartment. She can't live there on her own - she has minor memory issues but mainly can't see shit. She can't work the telephone most of the time. She can turn on the TV but only to Netflix and if something screws with that, she's lost. She can't drive or figure out how to get a ride to anywhere and has had two major (stitches) falls since Labor Day. BUT denial is strong. She says the assisted living apartments are too small and she is claustrophobic. This is going to be a situation.

They are closing the pool down Monday-Thursday of next week to do work on the filters or something. Yesterday, I sent a note to the maintenance scheduler to ask if I could sneak in a swim Monday morning before they start and I just got the nicest note back saying they won't be closing the pool actually until about 9. So I can get easily get a Monday swim in before they do.

Bonny and I are having dinner in the dining room tonight. I rarely eat there so this will be a treat for me. She eats there a couple of times a week but rarely with me so this will be a treat for her. hahahah

Otherwise, the day looks normal. Puzzling, TV, knitting - the usual. My knee is 99% healed and I'm so grateful. It's such a relief.

Ok. Time to hit the pool while we still have this fog.


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white and gold

Oct. 22nd, 2025 03:32 am
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[personal profile] house_wren
Yesterday I saw a great gathering of white pelicans on the big river.

I saw a golden eagle sitting in a field. Golden eagles are BIG!

I went on a long drive to visit a small town with a yarn shop. Result! The staff were friendly AND helpful, it was well organized, and it had the kind of yarns I like.

Assuming my joints will allow it, I'm going to make 'banana' socks, which is a tube sock (no heel) that uses ribbing and welts for shaping.

On the way home I took the smaller roads. The sunlight was hitting the trees on the hills in just the right angle to emphasize the colors. I passed by two one-room schoolhouses. They were white clapboard buildings, each with two front doors. Evidently the doors went into the cloakrooms, one for boys and one for girls.

There were one-room schools out in the country when I grew up. There was still one operating when I was in college; I knew the teacher. When it closed, and the kids rode a bus to the school in town.

I'm watching The Queen of Office, a comedy k-drama. Sometimes it is predictable, and sometime it surprises me in a way that makes me laugh out loud.

In-Person Meeting Day 1

Oct. 21st, 2025 10:58 pm
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[personal profile] days_unfolding

Woke up with my alarm at 6 AM. I couldn’t remember why I was getting up so early for the longest time. Oh yeah, the in-person meeting. My stomach is upset, but I have to go, so that’s that.

The meeting went okay. My grand boss got a little teary because it’s her last annual meeting, and my glasses fogged up a little too. I did get a major dizzy spell during the morning and had to sit down and put my head down.

I loved the pants that I wore to the meeting, so I ordered a pair in navy.

Another dizzy spell. Sigh. I want to lie down.

Um. I got a like on Coffee Meets Bagel from a guy in Gainesboro, TN. I don’t think that will work geographically.

I stupidly left my Kizik shoes out, and one got chewed. Sigh. I ordered a new pair for my trip.

Napped and slept until 9 PM. Got the garbage out.

The BBC had an article about bacteria on your toothbrush. Ugh. They suggested soaking it in mouthwash.

It’s a zoo here. Gracie is barking at Oliver. Oliver is hissing. Lily has gotten out of the fray and went upstairs. Bella ate Gracie’s food. Fed us all.

Now I need to log on and modify a file for our training exercise tomorrow (done).

I was looking for a straw and found my spare set of Zenni glasses. (My housekeeping style is "There appears to have been a struggle".) Now I need to start laundry because I want to wear the jeans tomorrow that I have on. And go to bed.

Media Post

Oct. 21st, 2025 08:49 pm
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[personal profile] inchoatewords
Movies: None.

Television/Streaming: Taskmaster, of course. Continued with season 2 of Farscape:
- "The Way We Weren't," which shows us Aeryn's past as a Peacekeeper and how Pilot was installed on Moya (against Moya's will; and I really felt for Pilot being constantly in pain due to the grafting)
- "Picture If You Will," where Chiana gets the painting that shows hers (and others') fates in it and they gets sucked in, all Maldis' doing.

Also continued with season 2 of Buffy:
- "Inca Mummy Girl," where the museum exhibit of same comes to life in the form of an attractive girl that somehow likes Xander (ugh at Xander doing that "talk slow and loudly to someone who is not a native English speaker," glad he abandons that quickly. Ugh at Cordelia for being a total bitch).
- "Reptile Boy," where Cordelia convinces Buffy to go to a frat party, where they end up in a basement dungeon as potential sacrifices to a snake-like god. All of the college guys look 30+ in this episode. I made a lot of snarky comments during this one, hah.

Books: I finished The Painted Bird, which was . . . something. I'll just copy and paste my Goodreads/Storygraph review:
I read Being There by this author many years ago. I didn't particularly care for it, as I recall it was too implausible. I understood it to an allegory but it still bugged me.

Fast forward to now and this book, which i didn't even realize was the same author at first. I think this is on the Goodreads Most Disturbing Books list, which might explain how it ended up on my tbr.

The Painted Bird is, indeed, disturbing. Anything anyone could possibly think of for a trigger/ content warning is here: assault, physical and sexual, including children; violence to animals, including bestiality; suicide; and that's just the ones I can recall as I type this.

Now, obviously many atrocities were perpetuated on people, both Jewish and non, during WWII. This book takes place in Poland, as the protagonist (implied to be the author himself, or based on his experiences) travels from village to village trying to remain safe as the Germans begin to round folks up and send them to the camps. The main character is dark haired and dark eyed and is called what is now considered a slur. Romani people were also rounded up back then, so the villagers' hatred of him is historical.

But the torture and the violence are so unrelenting that i had to stop halfway through and look up the author. And it seems that this book is actually fiction. In addition, there is some speculation about whether Kozinski actually wrote it.

I actually hated the main character by the end of this book. I know that all the evil and misery and such obviously have an effect on him, but I was glad to be done and I can't recommend this to anyone.


I also read a short story called "Death Row" by Frieda McFadden. A lot of folks on Goodreads were apparently confused by the "twist" ending, whereas I thought it was pretty evident what happened. The plot reminded me of asinine Reddit posts, where a person suspects their partner of something, usually cheating, and instead of actually talking to them and confirming this, they go right to Reddit and draw up divorce papers. I've never read anything else by this author and I think that's fine.

Video Games: Stardew Valley! We've gotten to Ginger Island now and are working on the quests and such there. I also just got the movie theatre opened.

(no subject)

Oct. 21st, 2025 10:55 am
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[personal profile] greghousesgf
My kitchen light is busted, I called the front desk to ask for them to have the maintenance guys come up and fix it and they didn't hang up the phone right after the conversation was over and I overheard one of them complaining about me complaining too much! I go "what?" and she was all "we'll send somebody up". All I wanted was to get my kitchen light fixed!

No more This Is What It's All About

Oct. 21st, 2025 08:47 am
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[personal profile] susandennis
Finally, in the 9th inning last night, I had to mute every announcer. The TV guys had already pissed me off and now the radio guys were dragging out and repeating every minute, every single idiotic sports idiom ever uttered by anyone. The Mariners lost by one run but, honestly, by the last out, I was just relieved to get 5 months without having to hear another sports announcer. If you can't say something not stupid, shut the fuck up. And, also, I'm tired of baseball.

So all's well that ends well. hahahahaha

I played volleyball this morning and it was fun. My knee twinged a couple of times but not badly and it is fine now. In all the knee madness, I'd taken to no longer wearing the brace for my elbow tendinitis. I need to still wear it. So I'll put it back in my swim bag.

My across the hall neighbor, Jim, has been deteriorating mentally for a while now. Yesterday afternoon, I ran into him coming back from dinner and he had a carer!! Finally. And she's a good one. We have a solid program here of careers. You can hire them for an hour a day or 24/7. They will help with every day things or just be with you in case you need help and, in Jim's case, they will make sure he's ok inside his apartment and goes to get meals. There are a bunch that work here a lot. The one with him yesterday took care of Gail, who lived down the hall, when her husband died. Jim appeared to be very comfortable with him. So, whew. I don't have to worry about his burning down the place or turning up as a corpsicle.

Today is house cleaning day - yeah!!! And that's about it for action. Fine by me. The only thing on my list today is lunch x 4. Their lunch menu this week includes Chicken Teriyaki Bowl. And theirs is better than anyone else's in Issaquah. PLUS. it reheats from freezing beautifully. So I'm going to order up a bunch today for the freezer (and lunch). This will also help my monthly meal credit balance. I think I'll order that up now for pickup later and then... go get dressed.

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(no subject)

Oct. 20th, 2025 07:05 pm
greghousesgf: (Horse)
[personal profile] greghousesgf
Power cuts suck. My legs fucking hurt.
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