Just need to talk to my friends (207)

Good morning all.

Lorita— Thank you for sharing the sad news. May she rest in peace.

It does sound like you may be getting a replacement TV. We had something similar happen on a Samsung TV from Costco— entire areas of the screen died. They had us return it to the store which refunded the cost of the TV and the extended warranty. We were able to but a larger version and walk away with about $80 of the refund because of the prices dropping. Win, win.

I've made the boxed Cheddar Bay Biscuits before. The secret is to add more cheddar cheese than the box calls for to get the authentic flavor. I double the amount at a minimum.

Beth— I think you're right about the bare-root roses. My former MIL used to propagate from cutting and would often plant them in late summer. She sometimes wrapped her plants in burlap because of extreme weather, but they did seem to thrive for her.

Eagle— Happy Anniversary to you, too. We were the opposite. DH was 38 (I was 28) when we married.

Gothic G— I hope your visit was successful in terms of helping you friend navigate the changes he's going to have to make going forward.

Ron— I am glad the treatment is working as intended. That's good news.

I suspect you are right about the esophagus being part of your other issues. Mom's had a swallow study and upper endoscopy to sort out her two bouts of aspiration pneumonia. One finding was that the action of the esophagus is considerably slower than it would be in a much younger person. The GI doc explained this as completely expected of someone her age (87). He "prescribed" earlier meals (plan for at least 4 hours between dinner and bedtime), smaller bites, slower pace of eating and to avoid spicy foods if they seem to make things worse. He also has her sleeping on a wedge pillow which seems to help the breathing (COPD and asthma) and her moderate CHF. In her case, Fosamax was causing the reflux that was being silently aspirated.

Jerilynn— I'm glad VBS was a success. It sounds like much thought and work was put into making it a memorable thing for the littles.

Lady Z— I'm glad you're still trying new yoga approaches. Aromatic sounds really interesting.

Iris— I love the pictures. I met Bob Hope once years ago. He was doing an event in Philadelphia in the early 1980s when I was working as a manager in a large chain supermarket. I ran into a lot of local and national celebrities for some reason. He came in around 10pm and bought a 1/2 gallon of orange juice and could not have been more accommodating and gracious— signing autographs and posing for pictures. It made our night. Charles Barkley was another celeb who was unfailingly kind to his fans out in the wild at that time. And tall. So very tall.

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DH and I rolled in last night around 7:30pm. The traffic was miserable through most of CT, NY and NJ— that was the part I got stuck with. DH got the ugly part driving up. The pair of us are thinking Amtrak and Uber next time. Seriously.

Mom's visit with her 89-year-old sister went swimmingly. There was very little of auntie's simplistic political nonsense (she's the pretty but dumb one in the family) and less of the frenemy vibe between them which was lovely. Most critically, mom has been sucking on a sore tooth that last couple of years about how her dad paid for auntie to go to a 2-year secretarial college but refused to pay for mom to go to art school. Auntie wasn't a good student and graduated with no real skills relevant to the workplace. Mom had assumed this to be true— it turns out their brother had paid for auntie's classes but swore her to secrecy as he had 6 other sisters and limited funds. Mom did manage to put herself through college, but this really pained her. If nothing else, I am glad we took her for that informational alone.

She saw almost all of my surviving cousins at lunch and auntie's boyfriend who was unfortunate enough to end up in hospital that evening with an infected foot. Poor man— it was even his birthday, and he spent it with the nuttier side of the family and a painful boil. Yuck.

DH and I chilled and mostly took it easy. We managed to have fried clams and chowder 3 nights in a row. On the last evening, we splashed out for a couple of delightful lobster rolls as well. We didn't do any fine dining; the first 2 places were sort of rustic, and the 3rd was "in the rough" (outdoors, picnic tables and a lovely view. That meal was over $100 with soft drinks but just amazing.

This is the view from our table in the dirt.

The weather was rainy and foggy the first day, but we had a lovely time driving around looking at scenery and ducking into an art association gallery. We'd hoped to buy a piece but most of the works were pretty mediocre. That night, we shared a couple local IPAs and watched the waves and some racoons scavenging along the rocks in front of our room. They were quite entertaining.

The weather was better the second day, so we wandered around touristy Bear Skin Neck and got the blueberry muffin craving DH had taken care of. He got tired after a while, so he went back to the inn, and I toured the individual galleries and the art association show. I saw a lot of amazing stuff, but didn't want to pull the trigger on a $6K piece so I came home mostly emptyhanded. I did enjoy poking around and found a glass print of a mermaid for my nephew-in-law at Christmas. Here's hoping I remember that I bought it. LOL, I cleaned out my "prize closet" early in the COVID lookdowns and found 2 books I'd bought for DS's Christmas at the KSC when he was 10. He was about 25 when they resurfaced.

DH has offered to paint me an iconic Motif #1 piece as a gift for our anniversary. I got a decent angle from which he could work if he really wants to do this. I don't have a lot of wall space available, but I could move things around I suppose if he really gets around to it.

Enough from me already, there are several mountains of laundry awaiting my attention. DS did a load of towels, so it's just clothing. Oh, and I seem to have "fixed" the ice maker in my new fridge. I need to buy some food for it. I've got a busy day housekeeping I guess.

Be well.
HB