What do you do with yours?

 Jars.  Do you recycle them?  My city gives us a hard plastic bin to use to place our recyclables in. But, do they make it into the bin?  I was using them to prop new plants but I got tired of that and now I just shove the prop into the dirt and say "Good luck".  (Prop is a quick way of saying a plant propagation - the growing of new plant from seeds or an off-shoot).

A few of them I use for doggy treats.  I hate trying to re-zip dog treat bags (they never line up for me after I open them).  If I can even get them open.  I place the dog treats into a jar with a lid.  Then, I can't get the lid off the jar.  Big sigh.

This made me laugh

 Reading the book on Vikings, I discovered that ancient notes (post-it notes) written in the old language from the times was a way the Vikings communicated with one another.  Bathroom humor was common even back then.  The one that made me laugh was one a wife would use and give to a clansman to give to her husband down at the local watering hole.  It said something like "Grog, you come home now."

Reminds me of the old Andy Capp comic strip.

And then there was one

 I know this image shows three of them, I have not taken any photos since this set.  But, I peeked this morning and there is only one baby bird left.  He is so big.  He looked at me and I just backed away and wished him luck.

I was lucky in the area of allergies growing up.  But, I think I'm having some issues now.  I was outside most of the evening at an event and my eyeballs hurt.  They feel scratchy, swelled and I have some blurred vision.  I've taken ibuprofen twice today for a headache so I'm just going to skip any meds, drink some water and go to bed.  We'll see when I wake up.

I believe the first Agatha Christie book I was introduced to was "Ten Little Indians" or "And Then There Were None".  I was hooked.

Pink Polka Dot

 I am having lots of luck with the pink polka dot plant.  I have quite a few started and I will be giving them away to friends and family if they are interested.  My daughter got me the cute little planter.  She gave me a set of 5 of them (different colors) and when I line them up they look like one of those trains for children to ride made out of big barrels.  I'll be moving the plant soon as it will outgrow this planter very fast.

And three of the second batch of baby birds are still in the nest.  I am keeping my distance because they are so big (I think the fourth one was pushed out to make room) I am worried they may try to fly to get away from me if I move any of the branches to get a picture.  I will just peek at them through the branches and wish them well.

The Viking book is going slow.  It is very detail oriented and my mind wanders.  I have to keep going back and re-reading.  I copied the map from the book so I can reference it and I also get on Google maps and look at the locations (well, how they look today anyway).  Denmark, Sweden, Norway. 

 Priya Parmar.  She wrote a book (novel, part fiction) about Kate Hepburn.  The story was okay.  I think she followed Kate's life from what she read in news articles, interviews and books.  The book was okay.  I read a few things that I did not know about other celebrities of that time.   After researching online I believe them to be true.

So, I watched a couple of her old movies from the late 30s.  Ugh.  No thanks. 

The book only went up to 1940 when she became a star again with the movie "The Philadelphia Story".  She went through a rough patch after the controversial Sylvia Scarlett where she portrayed a young girl passing herself off as a boy to help her father stay anonymous.  Silly movie, really.  I did like Julie Andrews though when she did it - Victor/Victoria.  Perhaps it was James Garner that I liked.  Ha!

In May I read the two that I have mentioned:

The Original by Priya Parmar

Esperance by Adam Oyebanji  (posted about this one yesterday)

and:

Going There by Katie Couric

Remarkably Bright Creatures  by Shelby Van Pelt  (movie on Netflix with Sally Field currently)

John and Paul by Ian Leslie

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (saw the movie years ago. It upset me so much I went outside and just went to town on my hedges with the clippers.)

and this one was interesting, had not heard of this person/story:

The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel.  This guy lived out in the woods by himself for over 25 years in the state of Maine (bitter cold winters and all).  He stole supplies and food from a nearby camp site that housed over 100 cabins.  The campers in the area who lived there for years all knew that somebody was stealing their food and stuff but he eluded capture for a long time.  They all claim he had to have had help somehow, there was no way he survived without ever having a fire (because of the smoke would give him away).  

I've cracked one open about Vikings.  Only in a few pages, but it seems enjoyable.  I have to keep re-reading as I get distracted since it is a history/fact-based book and my mind can wander on about every day stuff and I get mad at myself.

Most of my TV shows are finished for the season or have been canceled.  I finished the season of 'Animal Control' but I won't be watching any more.  I think it is going to be the same with 'Dark Winds'.  Have lost interest.  Bad Monkey was canceled as was 'The Last Frontier'.  That one got silly anyway.  Bad Monkey was different and the author had other books that I think the series could have continued - they weren't the same story line but who cares?  One book a season.  Dark Winds is just too dark for me.  I liked it at first but it just got weird.

I have nothing new in movies except for the 'Remarkably Bright Creatures' on Netflix (book above).  The movie was different in places than the book (of course).  As was The Lovely Bones - movie wrapped things up quicker as expected.

I am looking forward to Monday, June 1st.  My Mom's birthday.  She would have been 106.  All siblings and spouses are meeting at an Inn for lunch.  My siblings range from Brother 1942 to me 1960.  

 I was never a big fan of science fiction.  My sister 1949 and brother-in-law 1944 are.  (Not her husband). Husband of sister 1944.  He is a big Jack Reacher fan also.

This one pulled me in because it was a murder mystery.  My morbid brain loves anything about murder, unsolved mysteries and serial killers.  And biographies, autobiographies.

This author has written other books and I might have a go at them, hoping they hold my interest the same way.  I couldn't stop reading this one.  

I was resting the day after a huge family cook-out. Sister 1944 had 41 family members (six from her husband's side, three friends and the rest our family) at her house in the pouring rain.  The ground was so saturated the swampy mud was sucking our shoes in.  My "going visiting" tennis shoes now look worse than my outside only PUP (picking up "dog" poop) shoes.

My dog and cat are behind me being very vocal.  Funny, they have exactly a whole other hour before it's feeding time but they do know when time is on the "hour".  I guess time change will do that.  Make them wonder is it this hour or that hour we get fed?  

I had to break down and get my water squirt bottle back out because my cat is being SO annoying and vocal the past couple of weeks about his unhappiness.  We gate off certain rooms and he keeps pawing at (rattling) the gate to the kitchen.  I figure he wants a drink of water (even though there is water right next to him).  I open the gate, he walks into the kitchen and just wanders around meowing, like "How about a treat, lady?  This is the treat room, right?"  Grrrrr.

My (old) dog, Milton stands behind my chair and shifts his weight from leg to leg (on a wooden floor his nails click).  Bugs the hell out of me and he knows it!  I let him outside to do his business.  Back to standing behind my chair.  I see if he wants water.  Sure, always drinks water.  Back to standing behind my chair.  He wants a treat and he is not getting one.  They have me trained so well!   Grrrr.

Curler casualty

 Fall of 1970 I believe.  5th grade.  I slept in curlers.  The night before picture day.  Why would anybody think that sleeping (actually, not sleeping) in curlers would make you look fresh and rested on picture day?  I was 10.  I did not have much control over it.  I had straight, stringy, fine hair.  It tangled easily.  The curlers left weird mis-shaped dents in the front part of my hair.  I hated not having bangs.  I had them through fourth grade and had bangs again in 8th grade.  Fifth through seventh - no bangs.  I hated every school picture from that time.

Speaking of curlers, my nephew was an extra in the movie Super 8.  When I watched the movie I laughed at the part where a Mom was talking to a police officer about her missing daughter. She told him her daughter had curlers in her hair.  She asked the policeman "Do you know what curlers are?"  He said "Yes! I know what curlers are!"  The movie was written to take place in 1979 in Weirton WV.  I laughed. I loved that little piece of dialogue.

Update on Batch 2

 The four are coming along very nicely.  A bit crowded, but they keep one another warm I suppose.

2nd batch of eggs

 Mama Robin has been busy.  It is hard to say if this is the same robin or a different one.  Probably the same one as my daughter looked it up and they can have 3 - 4 clutches a season.  The first batch had 3 eggs.  Now, I am watching the 2nd batch develop.  They are not out in the open as this image makes them look.  I pull the branches away and stick my phone up as close as I can to get the picture.  I make sure mama is out and about before I take photos.  I leave the nest there at the end of summer so that a mama bird can use it the next season, but I think this one is newly created.  Maybe it's the same bird each year. Oh, I just looked it up. The average lifespan of a robin bird is 16 months but some can live up to 8 years if conditions are ideal.  

I think I've only seen robin's eggs in real life.  Other eggs I've seen have only been images. Hold up.  Looking on line the Northern cardinal eggs look familiar.  I believe I have seen them in real life.

Insubordination

Just shut up and do as you're told.

Well, okay.  Mostly I was a "just do as your told" keep your head down,

shut up and do the job worker.  No questions asked.  Until it doesn't 

make sense.  And no explanation is offered.

Back in the 80s I was working an afternoon shift in the tech department where we used

reels of tape to store data in a vault off to the side of the main computer room.

One day I come in (about 3 in the afternoon) and there is a small rack in the

computer room.  My manager instructed me that one of my evening chores was to

take several reels of tape out of the vault and hang them on the smaller rack

in the main computer room.  Any of the reels, it didn't matter, just pick some

and fill the rack up.  Didn't make much sense to me, but whatever.

What pissed me off was the very next night, he instructed me to put them all back.

What the actual fuck?  Shut up and do the job, right?  I took a big breath and

put them all back.  The next day the rack was gone.

No big deal, right?  Yes, a big deal.  I thought less and less of this manager.

This wasn't the only thing about him that irked me.  I had little respect for him.

Over the years, my lack of respect grew until I was ready to leave.

Before I left, I had seen somewhere along the line a picture had been taken of the 

computer room. And, there in all it's glory was the small rack with the data reels 

hanging from it.  It was aesthetics.  All he wanted was for reels of tape to be seen 

when somebody was coming to take pictures.  But, he never told me this. He probably

thought I would have told him to shove it if I knew the real reason he wanted

me to do this stupid, pointless task.

In the long run, I still think little of that (man)ager today.

Years before that, one of my jobs was to return defective toys to their manufacturer

for a refund.  It was a tedious and time consuming job.  The toys were tossed into a back room.  This

 was an Automotive/Hardware store and the owner would sell toys around Christmas time.  He told me

 once since his religion did not celebrate Christmas that he considered staying open on

 Christmas eve just to sell batteries.  As far as I know, he never did.

 One day I went through all the defective toys and organized them in an area that was not being used.  I

 may have even labeled some of the area, I can't recall.

The owner (my boss) came in one day and began kicking them all out of the way.  I don't

recall why.  He was pissed about something.  I had spent a lot of work on that task so

that I could be more efficient about returning them in a timely manner.

Well, that showed me he did not have respect for my time or work.  I neglected the toys

after that, much to his chagrin.  He even made a remark or two months later about my

"mental block" in sending the toys back.  I was young then and did not yet speak up 

for myself.  Mostly because I don't think I realized why I was upset with the task of

returning the toys until years later I recalled that he had done this and it clicked for

me - yes, I had a mental block about it and that was why.

For the most part, I did respect this owner/boss.  But, eventually I left and he was a bit

upset with me.  But hey,  I've come to realize that some people don't leave jobs, they 

leave people (managers and co-workers).

A Florida Jaunt

A couple siblings and I traveled to Florida in 2003 to assist our half-uncle back to his home in West Palm Beach after he suffered a heart attack on my front door step.  Yep.  We were having a family get together to welcome him and as he arrived at my house, brother 1953 and his wife did also.  My half-uncle told my brother his arm hurt, his chest hurt and he felt like he was going to throw up.  My brother and his wife (both EMTs) recognized he was having a heart attack.  We took him to the ER, they put a stent in and he stayed a week at my house to recover and a few of us took a weeks vacation and drove his car back to Florida.

Back to my regularly schedule program - one day at the beach I happened to look up and there in front of me was a lady with no top on.  Hmm...I didn't think I was on a beach that allowed that.  Sure enough, eventually a couple of gentlemen came and spoke to her.  I didn't watch, I figured she had enough problems. She did have a fellow with her but he was out in the water at the time.  She was sun bathing.  She did look a bit foreign but I really couldn't swear to that.

I think she put her top on, I don't believe they left. Like I said, I didn't want to stare at her so I don't recall what she did.  I just went on about my business.

I have no idea why this memory came to me today, but I was curious so I looked up topless beaches in the United States.   I couldn't find topless, only nude.  A handful in Florida, California and Hawaii.  Two in Texas and one each in Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, New Jersey and Wisconsin.

When I lived in Virginia in the mid-80s, the locals told us there was a nude beach in North Carolina. I believe they said in Nags Head. Or what they call the Outer Banks (OBX).  I found a site that said there were several nude beaches in both Carolinas but they were not mentioned in the other sites I read.

Well, it's not my cup of tea.  I don't even feel comfortable wearing low-cut tops.  

Memoirs

 Rarely do I read an autobiography or a memoir about a celebrity and discover that I disklike the person.  This happened once with Matthew Mc.  At the beginning of Christina's story I didn't really like her persona.  I loathed/loathe the TV sitcom "Married....with Children".  Not my humor.  

As Christina matured I liked her character more.  A little bit more.  I do not like "In your face" people.  I prefer my acquaintances to be more polite until we get to know each other better.  She seems to come off as bawdy and ostentatious.  However, that could be due to her tv character.  Perhaps time diluted her character in real life as she moved away from that sitcom.

I like her honesty with her disease and I hope she is not finished with her craft as I enjoyed the TV show "Dead to Me".  I wish for her pain to dissipate so she can return to dancing and acting.  It may be a stretch, but medicine is advancing by leaps and bounds.  I was thinking she could possibly provide voice work for characters but maybe that doesn't appeal to her at all.  I would enjoy hearing her narrate nature or animal documentaries.  I enjoy watching Laurence Fishburne narrate "History's Greatest Mysteries".  That doesn't require any physical activity on his part.  I think she would be fantastic as a talk show host but perhaps I am naive about the actual pain she endures on a day to day basis.  I need to remember that working is not just the actual job, but she has to get out of bed, get ready and travel to the job site.  That may be the part that is the obstacle.

As her disease progressed she talked of her pain and how she is mostly bed ridden but really lights up and looks forward to anything to do with her daughter.  I relate very well to this.  She does not mention her husband in the latter part of the book.  I looked her up on IMDB and it states that she is still presently married.  None of my business but just a circumstance I noticed.  And, I may have missed a part where she explained where he is and what he is doing.

As for myself, arthritis has started it's invasion of my body.  It is genetic and I've known quite a few of my  maternal ancestors who's life was devastated by the disease.  They were bedridden and one kept a bottle of whiskey under her bed.  She lay in bed seven years with the dreadful disease.  I talked to my doctor about it years ago and told her I didn't want pain killers. She said there is medication for arthritis.  But she retired.  Now to get my new PA to agree to medication.  Because, it's time.

Remember these?

 Growing up in the 60s and 70s my Mom had a drawer full of silky scarves.  When I was younger, my girlfriends and I would wear them and pretend we were older, sophisticated ladies about town.  I don't recall wearing them in my teens.  I've heard they are making a comeback.  

When I lost all my hair, I wore the gypsy-style ones.  I knew I was not going to wear a wig.  I despise wearing a wig.  

The head scarf protected your hair from the wind and the rain.  There were the thinner ones - maybe a nylon fabric?  

First laying of robins eggs

 We normally get two sets of eggs a year in a bush outside my kitchen back porch.  I didn't even know that robins lay eggs twice a season.  Last year we had a baby bird that was having difficulty flying and my daughter was able to put him back in the nest.  I'm not sure what happened to him after that but we didn't see or hear him any more after that.

My bank.  Sigh.  I called yesterday to ask them why the charges remained on my account after I called about this on Monday the 13th.  I told her on Monday the rep told me they could not do anything when the charges were in the pending stage. I knew that because this happened a year ago.  A year ago I never had to follow up.  PNC removed the three charges on my account and we all went on our merry way.  When I called yesterday the rep told me that no, it was not being contested, that it was up to me to call in and refute them.  I said I thought I did that on Monday!  No, I guess not.  Then she kept asking me all kinds of questions trying to trip me up I guess and admit that I made those charges.  Maybe they have to do that.  Well, maybe their policy changed since last year but this was too much for me.  I opened an account with a new bank online yesterday and am beginning the move over.  What a wonderful world we live in that it has come to this.

Then I checked the infamous store that sells hand soap.  I have been waiting to late April for the sale to begin.  I always make a large purchase when they are on sale.  I never pay more than $3 for a bottle of their hand soap.  Their max limit was 24 and I did not have a debit card!  Arrgghh!  The sale will be over by the time I get my card.  Oh wait.  I saw the Venmo was an option and Venmo uses my bank account number.  I chose Venmo and it brought up a bar code, I got my phone out, opened Venmo and scanned the bar code on the screen.  My phone accepted it and I got the sit and spin.  All night. The app just showed a spinning arrow going around in a circle for  hours.  I kept checking my cart and the sale was not completed but it said the payment method was Venmo.  It did not let me move forward and I was unable to try and re-choose Venmo option now.

I called their customer support this morning.  Germaine was wonderful.  He created a ticket and he told me when I got my card to call back and give them that ticket number and use my new card and if the sale is over they will honor the sale price for me.  He was just wonderful.  Now, it might be an entirely different story when I call them back in a few days but at least as of now it is promising.

But, I can rarely get anything done without connecting to a human being.  I always run into some sort of snag that cannot be handled by the automation process.  And it takes so damn long.  My head starts hurting and my blood pressure begins to rise.  

My great nephew was injured in a school sport activity Friday evening.  My sister (his grandmother) said she was hoping he would stop football due to all the head injuries that these young people receive during this contact sport.  This injury happened while he was playing La Crosse.  The hospital sent him on to another hospital and they monitored him overnight.  They said that two vertebrae were affected and he was released the next day.

Today was the day

 After a long day of taking my sister for her second cataract surgery yesterday, I researched various banks in my state to see which one might benefit me the most since I was about to end my relationship with the bank I'd used for 31 years. 

I was going to start the procedures today.  I would start with my pension check directly deposited to the new bank.  My Social Security could continue to come to the current bank and would cover most of my utilities that were dependent online to that routing and account number.

Once I established the new bank with my pension check, I would go online and begin setting up all utilities to be drawn from the new account.  Then I would order checks and begin changing all my vendors online that used my bank card to the new bank.

Well, lo and behold guess who gets their notifications of my balance via e-mail (and text I edited to add on Wednesday).  The notification came to both.  Hmmm...I may still open an account with the new bank.  Just because.  I've been wanting to anyway, long before this hassle began.

Now, since I discovered my card was compromised on Monday morning (3 cash advances were pulled from my account adding up to over $100) I checked to see that they had been removed.  On Monday they were still pending, the bank has to wait until they are out of pending to remove them.  They have not been removed.  The last time my card was compromised (about a year or so ago) the charges were immediately removed.

So, now I need to call the bank (after 9 a.m. or whenever they open) to make sure they are going to follow through and add those amounts back into my account.  If I get anything other than stellar customer service about this issue, I will be thrown right back into an irate mental attitude.  The notification debacle began March 25th.  I understand that I was not losing money due to this glitch, but I feel that I had been extremely patient as support created three separate tickets regarding this matter and I had to remain vigilant for this issue to be resolved. In other words, I had to keep calling them to check on the progress only to find that nothing was being done about it.  After calling them, they would create a new ticket.  That continued until I blew up on poor Alice after she said "I will create a ticket...."

 By getting notifications via email, I would check it with my running register every morning to make sure both balanced.  As it was, I was not checking this on a daily basis between March 25th and April 13th.  On the 13th I logged into my account to find the three cash withdraws not performed by me.  Had I been receiving my daily notifications, I would have caught this on Friday the 10th.  Again, no money lost but since they offer this feature (I told them I liked this feature and thanked them for offering it) I had become used to it and I had relied on it for  years, I suddenly had to change my habit of checking my balance.  I even went so far as to investigate my google email account to ensure there was no filter or block that had inadvertently been created that would block the notifications or move them to trash or another folder in my email account.  No such filter existed.  It was then I thought - well, turn on the text notifications and if you receive them you will know that it is an email issue.  As it was, I did not receive any notifications on my phone text (until this morning) so that confirmed it was probably an issue with the bank.

Being out of town with my sister yesterday, I needed to go into a branch of my bank to withdraw cash so that I could pay for things since I did not have my card.  I had my checkbook with me and my drivers license, I was ready for them because I was a stranger to them and was out of town.  They were absolutely wonderful and especially thought it was funny when after telling them I opted for the bank sending me a new card in the US Mail that might take 7 to 10 days and I panicked when I realized I was unable to order anything off of Amazon.  Oh, the humanity! Or, would that be inhumanity?  LOL!  Amazon Prime does not give me the option for paying with my bank account and routing information, you have to use a bank card.

 BTW Amazon - get with it.  You may be losing orders as several people get their bank cards compromised and we may have to wait a week or so without being able to order from you. After 7 to 10 days we may not feel like purchasing it, or forget, or we actually left the house and purchased it elsewhere.

Okay, I'm off to mentally prepare myself to deal with a tortuous phone call to my bank to get the criminal charges removed from my account.  Just a side note...when I was younger (and I think this happens to a lot of folks) I would not have had the resources to cover an issue such as this. Especially, since I had to pay the IRS on Tuesday when I had never had to before in all my 50 years of working.  Although, I do believe only 47 of those years actually had federal income tax taken.  2025 was the first full year I was retired for all 12 months.  I received a refund in 2024 since I worked 6 months and was retired 6 months.  And before I was 15,  I had a paper route, so I guess I worked from 1973 until 2024.

Then again, I have to remember a lot of Seniors do not have the resources for issues such as this.  I am cognizant of the fact I am in a position where I can  tolerate the surprise monetary hits.  By no means could I cover large hits, but I am very grateful that I was able to for the current hits.  

How many tickets do you have to create ?

I lost it on a poor helpdesk lady today.  We'd been playing phone tag back and forth.  I used to get my checking account bank balance sent to me in my e-mail every day and I would check it and look at my running register to make sure all was kosher.  This helped me out when my card was compromised a little over a year ago, I caught it right away and called the bank and got it taken care of.

For some reason my notifications stopped on March 25th.  I have been back and forth with my bank since then.  I have written down every day of correspondence between me and them.  I spoke to Ernest (I wonder if they get to pick their names) last week and I thought for sure when Alice called me today it was going to get fixed.  About the time Alice said she needed to create a ticket, I lost it.  This was the third time they were creating a ticket.  My other tickets never got picked up and I had to keep calling back and they would start all over and create a ticket, etc...  I went off on poor Alice.  It could have been because I had just completed my taxes. I retired last year and I have never (in my 50 years of working) owed anything to the IRS at the end of the year.  I did this year.  Yuck.  Sigh.  I'm sorry, Alice. You got the brunt of it.  She took it well.

Had my notifications been working properly I would have noticed on Friday the 10th that my balance was hinky.  As it is, on Monday I thought I better log into my bank and check things since I am no longer getting updates.  Sure enough.  My card had been compromised - AGAIN.  Now, I am going through the hassle of checking to see where I need to enter my new card number online.  I was able to pay the IRS using my bank account and did not need a card.  My daughter said I could user hers, but I did not need to.  I could have easily sent the money right back to her from my bank account using Venmo.  Kind of a pain when you don't have a bank card.  When I called them Monday morning, they offered to let me get a card immediately by going to a bank in town; but not thinking, I said nah - just mail it to me (7 to 10 days).  What was I thinking?!  I have things coming up. I'll have to get cash out.

And I am going through an Internet upgrade - and even though the provider said the job was complete, we were not seeing the faster speed.   Online chats, and more phone calls back and forth with their tech support.  And there was a medical issue that I was trying to straighten out to get them to change my insurance to Aetna Medicare.  More time spent dealing with an automated answering device until I could speak to a real person.  My tolerance was dissipating fast.

So.  By the time I got poor Alice this morning and when she said "create another ticket" that was the straw that broke the camel's back.  Sometimes I don't remember everything when I get angry.  It comes back in snatches.  I do recall saying  "I have been with this bank for 31 years..."  and "I want this fixed" and "I have been patient".   Sigh.  Well, Alice if it makes you feel any better I feel like a heel.  

I will not call them again.  If they call back and get it fixed, fine.  I'll move on.  If they do not call back, I will be going to my bank and withdrawing my money and moving it to another.  Wait...all that updating !!  I'll have to think hard on this.  Oh, I didn't relay this part.  I could not understand why I would see where the bank was trying to call me but I never heard my phone ring.  (I rarely get phone calls, my friends and family all text).  Come to find out my ringer was turned off.  This has happened before and I don't know how in the hell it is happening.  And I am much too tired and fried to figure it out.  And my daughter's bank card expires this month and she said she must have thrown the new card away as she doesn't have it and they said they sent it.  Fortunately her card is good until the end of the month and I can reach out to her if I need to.  

This is driving me crazy.  Perhaps it is driving us all crazy.  Things are not simple any longer.  With all this security - I won't even go there!  And I worked in technology so I understand why we need this security but I was saying it takes so long to log in anywhere anymore we spend more time on fixing and resubmitting and updating our security information than we do on the actual work or tasks we are trying to do.
 

Progress

A day spent fighting with the telephone system, receptionists, correspondents, banking issues, card getting compromised (AGAIN!), scheduling vet appointments, hair appointments, medical issues.  I told my daughter I think there would be a market for people who went around as assistants and did a family's phone business for them.  Vehicles, insurance, medical appointments, banking hassles.  To wait and wait until somebody is able to take your call and when they do get a live human, their foreign accent is so thick you have to ask them over and over again what they said or asked and finally I just say "spell it!"

I have a feeling it isn't going to get much better.

A friend told me I should start a business up for that.  Ha!  I have no patience for this crap any more.  I put this kind of thing off for so long (making phone calls and getting things straightened out).  It is such a pain and a headache!  It ruins my day.  Besides, I'm fairly sure there would be a privacy issue.

I have to laugh.  I have worked with computers since 1980.  I retired last year.  We upgraded our Internet speed and the two new routers came.  I opened both boxes, took them out, set everything on a table and told my daughter to deal with it when she got home.  I HATE technology so much now. I can barely keep my own computer running.  That is how sick and tired I am of technology.  I was setting up Microsoft DOS long before Windows.  Before that I was using dumb terminals with a main frame.  I was there when you couldn't have a hard drive over 32 MB.  I hated Windows when it came out.  I am a command line operator.  Or, was.

I really, really have to psyche myself up to deal with calling places and working with representatives, now.  Torture!

Does it happen to you, too?

 

You find that perfect product.  You get used to it.  They stop making it.  This has happened in make up so often for me.  It also happens at fast food places.  They will have a sandwich I love and before I know it, sorry, we don't make that any longer.  Grr...

Ugh. I just checked the weather map.  ventura.com  I chose the Air pressure. Yuck.  My state is solid red/orange.  My headache just came on the past hour.  30.4 inHg.  I'd read up on it but my head hurts too much to think.  Two ibuprofen down the hatch.  After years of suffering, it is so nice to have two tablets take my pain away.  I used to take up to four at a time and still the pain persisted.  I understand the rebound headaches and I'm not ruling that out; that condition may have been part of it.

Drink more water.  I drink two cups of coffee in the morning and water the rest of the day.  I do not recall the last time I had soda pop, iced tea, kool-aid, juice etc...  I drink water all day long.  Have for years.

A couple of years back I had a restaurant charge our table .50 cents for water.  It wasn't bottled water. Not that I am aware of.  It was during the time restaurants began charging those extra service fees.  Saying it was for administration fees,  help waitresses pay for health insurance,  cost of menu update fees, take your pick.  I make sure I always have cash with me as they charge 3 - 5% for using plastic.  Even using my bank card as a debit purchase, they charge.  I smile and pay cash.  

Re-reading an oldie but a goodie.  Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.  My Mom and I watched the 1981 version of the series.  Before we had cable TV and we only had 2 channels plus PBS.  We started watching it because the English scenery was so beautiful. I learned a lot during that time with my Mom.  She explained to me several things about the English customs.  I was 21.  She never left the house but she read a lot.  Well, she would leave about once a week when somebody took her grocery shopping and if it was summertime to any yard/garage sales.  She did go on a trip/vacation once in a while when somebody offered to take her.  I just fell in love with Jeremy Irons.

Oh, speaking of JI.  I watched The Lion King 1994 version.  I don't think I've watched that movie in 30 years.  JI provides the voice for Scar.  And that Nathan Lane.  Loved him in The Birdcage.  I am also reading The House of My Mother by Shari Franke.  A memoir about a girl raised in a strict LDS home where her Mother posted her children's lives as they were growing up on Youtube and how it affected her.

I was brought up in Ohio and went to Sunday School/Church in a Methodist church.  I went to school with a lot of Catholics.  I worked with some folks whose faith was Judaism.  When I moved to Virginia it was the Southern Baptist.  Women were not permitted to wear pants. (Some followed this religion.)  I never thought to ask if men could wear dresses.  I guess it never occurred to me that some men DID indeed wear dresses.  Sister 1944 and I joined a genealogy group run by a lady brought up as LDS (Latter Day Saints).  My sister became Treasurer and I stopped going (too far to drive after I hit a deer on the way to a meeting) and she had a lot of stories to tell me about that lady.  Hmmm...what other religions have I run across...I think that may be all.  I've known people who attend Church of the Nazarene, oh ...I had a good friend in school who was Russian Orthodox.  In my area it did not matter what religion you were.  I think up until fifth grade we said the Pledge of Allegiance before school began.  I don't recall saying it after that. I do not recall ever praying in school.  Well, maybe to myself before a test, but not as a group.  I stand when I sing the National Anthem.  

What an awful mess things are in the world.  Maybe it was a mess back then too, I was just too young to be aware of it.  My Mom didn't vote because she said "they were ALL crooks."  I do try hard not to say off-color jokes (we used to just let them fly back then, picking on all religions, races and hair color).  My jokes were in jest, I never meant any harm.  I like everybody until they give me a reason not to.

A bit of a bite

 When I make potato soup it more or less becomes cheese soup.  I will grab whatever cheese I have available and add to it.  This time I grabbed a jar of Velveeta's Queso blanco I had in the cupboard.  Along with a can of white cheddar soup from Campbell's. I also added a cube of Velveeta (I purchased a small box of three foil-packed cubes of the cheese just like the kind you get when you buy the big block).  It was nice, this way you don't have to worry about wrapping the rest of the block to ensure it doesn't dry out in the fridge.

This jar of queso blanco gave the soup a tiny little bit which I rather enjoyed.  Sometimes I follow my recipe, sometimes I stray from it.  I totally forgot to add any butter to this and I liked it just fine.  

And, I HAD to make cornbread.  A box of Krusteaz honey cornbread.  Delicious.  And then to top it all off, I was worried about a bag of left over apples, so I whipped up a new recipe of apple crisp.  This recipe had me create a gel-like syrup made of water, sugar, vanilla and cornstarch.  I must remember to stir the cornstarch in the water so that it dissolves.  As it was, I just dropped it in and it clumped up.  

I looked back on my recipe from  years ago.  Back then I added a jar of alfredo sauce, butter, half and half, cream of celery soup and thinly sliced onion.  I never add carrots.  Not yet, anyway.  I do keep the water I used to boil the potatoes so I can add it to the cans and jars of soup and cheese and add that to the soup. This uses the last bits left in the cans and jars.  Of course I chop up celery.  I try to always have a bunch of celery in the fridge.  I found that wrapping it in foil keeps it fresh the longest.  I have frozen celery before, it doesn't look the best but it can be added to soups and pot roast for the flavor. Usually if I add frozen celery to a recipe, I remove it before eating it because it is soft and mushy.

Before retirement I was quite fond of cooking on top of the stove.  Hated baking.  Since I retired I did a bit of baking but had to stop because I was the only one eating my results.  A lot was thrown out. Nobody else will eat the soup but they may try some of the crisp.  I added a handful of dried craisins to it.

With a heart in the room

 Sister 1954 was trying to perform an AI task (her daughter had used AI to show her pics of what her house could look like) and she ended up with a room with a big heart in the middle of it.

She had typed in "room with a hearth".   LOL!