christopher575

I'm still not yet over the fact that I turn on my lamp in the morning and the light comes on immediately and does not flicker and stays on until I turn it off. Fucking miracle. I ordered more of those bulbs. One for the bathroom overhead fixture and two for my bed side lamps. All their bulbs work fine but the automation is flaky on each and they require 3 apps total. These bulbs will knock out two of the apps and delete the flaky.

Hazel dropped by last night. She says that the hospice workers are talking about letting John come back home (from the nursing unit). He has, apparently, after months of not eating, found his appetite. He was supposed to be dead way before now. But decided against it, I guess. She asked me to have Christmas dinner with the and their son. It was a lovely thought, but I think, no. I don't want to get chummy with the son and make it very easy for him to assume I'm ready to step in with their care/needs/etc. They both need a lot and I am just not up for it.

Also last night, I got an email telling me I'd been selected to serve on the Food and Beverage committee next year. I signed up for it the last two years but didn't make the cut til this one. Which turns out to be good. The new chair is sharp and nice and, hopefully, it will be interesting. It means two meetings a month and I already go to one of them so really just adding one.

Yesterday I changed the comforter on my bed to the winterwinterwinter one. It's about 14 inches thick. Of course, not really, but it is a very nice one with a lovely print and an even more lovely texture to it and burrowing under it, when it's cold, is the best sleep you can get. Ever. I finally have the temperature stable in here so that it's very cold at night and refreshingly pleasant during the day. The new thermostat they put in helps make controlling easier.

Also yesterday, I gave away my TV. I had a smallish TV in the bedroom that I never used. Last Summer I replaced it with a fan, which I never used and should probably get rid of, too. I put the TV under the bed. But the chaise cushion for the couch is also under there and it was getting crowded and bugging me. So I hauled out the TV (and was then able to push the cushion further in so you cannot see it from any angle) and bundled it up with its remote and legs and put it out in the elbow with a 'free' sign. It lasted an hour. It's such a lovely way to recycle shit. Easy peasy and someone is happy for sure.

I'm not sure what's on tap for today. I was toying with the idea of not swimming but it's so nice and gray and cloudy out, it's hard not to take advantage. So I probably will.

My brother has now been the coach of many a Let's Get Rid Of This Shit sessions. He's a great one for the job. Toss it is his favorite answer to every question. We have another session coming up in Janaury. I just retired some tech. It does not work well and I will never use it again but.... maybe and then I gave a very serious thought to putting it in a bag and putting it with the other stuff for bargaining power.

When he says 'Toss it' to something I want to keep, I could use it to offer up instead! But, the voice of good prevented me from finding an appropriate bag so I tossed it on my own today.

Years and years ago, my parents live in New York City. I was in college and my brother was in New England in boarding school. Mother and Daddy had moved to New York City after we all left home so coming home to the new 'home' was an extra special treat.

One time, I don't remember the occasion, but my brother and I ended up there at the same time. Mom asked us what we wanted for dinner and we both agreed fried okra would be the VERY BEST. Mother's reaction was 'oh you clowns! you can't get okra in New York City!!' 'So, if we can, will you please fry it up?' Knowing she was safe from that duty, she said 'sure'.

AND we set out. I don't remember our even having to go too far. I think it was maybe the third store we tried - a Grestedes - they had two boxes of frozen cut up okra and we GRABBED it! Not that there was competition. It was clear they had not stocked it the day/week maybe month before but we didn't care. As we stood in line there was a woman behind us eyeing our treasure and inquired with a little bit of accusation "what in the world are you going to do with that???" I wanted to say science project. I forget my brother's response but I'm sure it was even better.

Mom was kind of impressed, actually, and we had a delicious dinner.

Today, I ran into the woman in charge of special catering today and asked her about the possibility of my ordering up a giant load of fried okra sometime. "Sure, we can do that, just pop me an email when you are ready and we'll make it happen." WOOOOT!!! Mom would be jealous, I think.

Yesterday, I ventured from my apartment one time. I took some trash to the shoots - two doors down. And that was it. It was lovely. Martha came by for Amazon help. She wanted to join Prime for her free month so she could Christmas shop. It was not entirely straightforward but we got it done. And I had the conversation I've had with others around here about banking online.

"Aren't you worried about getting robbed?"
"Nope. I check all of my accounts first think in the morning. If they try to steal from me, they won't get much for long. How often do you check your accounts?"
"Oh, I check them every month when I get the statement."

So, bank account robbers... feel free to hit up all old people the day after the statement comes out. You have a month to enjoy the profits.

Plus, in texts last night, she said she could not find an 8x8 pyrex dish with lid on Amazon. I found about 20 of them. So she called around and will drive to downtown Bellevue today to pick one up from The Container Store. "I hope it's ready before 2, I hate that traffic."

Different strokes for different folks.

After she was here, she was on to drop off a photo for the newsletter this week. She and Richard have a wedding anniversary coming up and they wanted their wedding picture. She showed it to me and, frankly, it's about the most perfect wedding photo I've ever seen. And they look just the same but older. And Richard had a whole lotta hair back then. Next year will be their 60th. (I'll grab a copy Thursday when the newsletter comes out and post it.)

I was so very tempted to copy yesterday today and not leave this apartment. Some non-volleyball mornings, I wake up ready to swim but on the days when I'm not, I'm hesitant to force myself. I don't want to not like swimming. This morning was nice and foggy but it did not look like it was going to last so before I could spend any time in debate, I just slapped on my suit and hit the road. It was a very good swim so I'm glad I did.

I tried Movie Sunday yesterday. I have MADD. Movie Attention Deficit Disorder. I tried watching 4 different movies and did not last 30 mins into any of them. They all had potential but I didn't have the patience. I'm just not a movie person.

Biggie has, apparently, worked through his issues with the egg crate foam topper and has now taken to sleeping with me again. The lights go out, he hops up and snuggles into the bowl my spoon makes. We settle in. And here comes Julio who tries to settle in but cat words are exchanged and they both leap up and leave. I go to sleep. When I wake up to pee, Biggie is there and, usually, Julio and they stay the night although Julio usually gets up first. Then me. Then Biggie.

One side effect from watching TV news is exposure to commercials for every weight loss/diabetes product and there are a million of them. It occurred to me last night that the good news is all those fat dancers who couldn't get work because they were fat are now fully employed because they are fat. Sweet.

Ok, it's after 9 and I really do need to get dressed and make my bed.

It's 29 degrees and we have frost on the roof. First time I've seen it this year. Nice. But the sun is coming up so it won't be there long.

Sun is coming up so the pool will be blinding plus it's time for a day off from swimming. My skin needs it. Bromine is the stuff they use to keep hot tubs healthy. It's way better in many ways than chlorine. It doesn't smell, at all. It doesn't eat your swimsuit over time. It doesn't freak your eyes out when you open them under water. It disintegrates in sunlight so it can only be used indoors. It's wonderful to swim in but... it dries out your skin quickly and thoroughly. (The gym I used to go to also used bromine but they used way too much. And my mouth also dried out. I used to chew a piece of gum on the way home every day.)

My old age skin is really bitching. I itch everywhere most always. I can reach everywhere fairly easily to apply lotion which helps except my back. I've tried a million things and some work better than others but mostly, it's just a PIA to get lotion back there. I have a t-shirt for that purpose. It's a very old one that is very soft. I slap the lotion on thickly with a spatula and then put on the t-shirt and just live with gooey back until it dries. Last night I gooed myself up so today, I'm going to just let it marinate with no swim.

While I was letting it dry, however, I did do an AI search to see if there was some trick I hadn't thought of. The response was a rather long list of various ways to get lotion on my back. I had tried all of them but one...

Black Friday Sale Purchase ... Small (like for trim) paint roller!! hahaha Yep. Amazon is bringing it to me this week. It actually might work fine. OR be a total fail but for $12, I'm going to give it a try.

Today will be a good day for laundry. And maybe a movie. I never watch movies and think maybe I should once in a while so I'm going to designate Sunday as movie day. At least while baseball is not in season.

Yesterday I finished the middle one at elbow coffee and Martha wanted it so I said fine but first a photo. Bonny had on a nice, white top which was good for background. So those are her hands.

Also, she told me yesterday that once a year, she and her friend, Chris, who lives in another part of Timber Ridge, practice getting up from the floor in the middle of the room with nothing to hold on to. Smart! I think I'll do it on the first day of every month.

I think the reason I still go to elbow coffee on Saturday mornings is that it is a very easy way to just check in without having to engage or make a big to-do. I take my knitting and listen to the mostly boring and absurd conversation and keep my trap shut. It's easy. Martha and Bonny and Jan and I stay after to clean up and catch up and I think that's really the value of the whole thing.

My moving the hub yesterday did not fix the problem. Finally today, I checked the Amazon Skills review of the app that is failing and found the problem. The October AWS outage fucked up the handshake that runs between the app and Alexa. And since the hub has been replaced with a newer one, there will be no fix. This controls a group of switches that fit over my on/off toggles and enable me to have Alexa turn off the room lights or the under counter lights or the closet light. No one else makes anything close so having this work as designed is pretty critical to the operation. I blew the $25 and ordered the new hub. It arrives on Monday and, hopefully, fix the issue. Until then, I'll just have to get off my ass and go to the switch to turn the lights on or off - like a fucking cave man. Geesh

Fortunately, I will have time since I have no other plans today. My stuffing was so excellent, it's even good cold and I have about enough turkey, stuffing and cranberry jelly for one excellent sandwich. And enough cheesy mashed potatoes, ham and fried okra for one excellent dinner.

I am set.

There was no line - no waiting. The turkey was nice and juicy and the ham was cooked well. The salad was excellent. And the mashed potatoes were better than usual. I passed on the yams and the oven baked vegetables and green beans casserole. The dressing was very difficult to describe. But, I'm pretty sure that in all 50 states, it would be prosecutable. It had the consistency of wet oatmeal. The color of baby shit. And zero flavor.

I did get enough of everything for leftovers but I'll be damned if I'm eating left overs without decent stuffing. So after I finished eating the good bits, I got in the car and went to Safeway and bought already chopped up onions and celery and some stuffing mix (I already had the chicken broth and butter on hand). In under 15 mins I had better than just decent stuffing.

I have enough for the left overs and plenty more for the freezer. It's delicious.

Thanksgiving travesty righted. By Me.

We play volleyball with a beach ball. Under ordinary circumstances, we blow up a new one and can play with it for weeks or more before it starts losing air or gets a puncture. BUT we have one player who has long, pointed, hard fingernails. Sylvia used to routinely puncture balls. Then she didn't play for a year+ while she recovered from cancer. Now she's back and it's costing us a ball a game. We played with one ball for 6 weeks. She's been back now for 5 games and we've gone through 6 balls. The cost of the balls is not that big a deal but the stopping of the game to go get a new one is annoying and particularly for Steve who is the person in charge of the balls.

This will be a drama/dilemma for a while, I think. Stay tuned.

I have a perfectly good cart for hauling shit. Packages from the lockers, groceries to and from the car, puzzles down to the puzzle closet... It had double wheels which enable it to roll oh so easily. It folds up and lives in my closet. Sure it's old and battered but still works like a charm. I've had it for years and been perfectly happy with it until legalmoose rained on my parade this morning with talk of a Clax Cart. Which of course is now on sale. It does not have the double wheels but it does have the easily removable box. And 'dolly' like function. But, I think I can resist.

I do have a solid plan now for the storage room/closet rearrangement. I know what I want and I think it's doable with some Bro help. And it would mean that I would not need the Closet Reorganizer. I think Christian does not want to do it so is just 'being too busy'. Which is fine. If I'm wrong and I decide I want a professional, there are several closet places that have done work here at Timber Ridge and I'll just call one of them. BUT it would be lovely to skip that step.

I had a great idea/place to put one of those pull out shoe organizer cabinets. I had one all picked out and ready to order when I decided to burrow into the comments a little farther and discovered that probably my feet are too big. Most all of the ones I had my eyes on, said somewhere in the comments that it was great for kids shoes but anything bigger than an adult 7.5 was going to be too big to get the pull out to go back in. I wear a 9. Oh well. I couldn't even find one for big feet. Saved some money there!

Today they are doing a buffet for Thanksgiving dinner. It's from 11 to 1. Last year's power outage led them to a buffet scheme that works pretty well for the staff and for us. Easy to serve and really no waiting at all - even when they are serving everyone like today. As usual, I have extra meal money so I might just get two meals. One for eating and one for leftovers.

I remember once years and years ago when I was living on my own in Charlotte, NC, one of the nicer hotels had this marvelous scheme for Thanksgiving. It was buffet style and had all the usual Thanksgiving stuff plus a lot of nice, fancy extras but their main selling point was that the deal included a box of leftovers to take home! It was such a cool scheme. I had a group of friends and one year we all pitched in and got a room at the hotel overlooking the main street. We had cocktails in our room and then went down for dinner and then had dessert in our room while we watched the Christmas parade. And we all took home leftovers. It was a very grand Thanksgiving.

If there is a show you want to see on a network you don't have access to, now is the time to check their rates.

Hulu used to offer up a $2 a month for a year deal but this year they've tagged on Disney and raised the rates.

I found the best deals on Prime Video. I'm not a fan of going through their app but, I am a fan of their deals. I was going to get Apple+ for a couple of months but the app won't let me - I think Apple may have heard me talk shit about them and now they have blocked my account. NO problem. I just got their 6 months for $6 per month deal. I probably won't keep it 6 months but it's nice to have the option. I also picked up AMC+ because their are a couple of shows I want to see on it. $3 for 2 months. The best one, though, is HBO/Max at $3 a month for a year. Again, they all carry the baggage of the Prime app but I'll just suffer.

And in other spending of $$. I finally scored all the tickets we need for next June's weekend at the ballpark. I have us reserved seats for all three games. Whew. I got the best available seats which are mediocre by my high standards but at least we got 'em and I can quit worrying about it,