Just need to talk to my friends (207)

Good morning. Sunny and warm today.

Happy belated birthday Lorita. I hope your flowers turned out to be Queen Anne's Lace.

Carl— A lunch one doesn't have to cook is a good thing. Not sure about the ramen. When I was busy with scouts, I recall watching the boys consume multiple bricks as if they were toast on camp outs.

Iris— I'm glad you heard back from your stepson.

Do you have any trips in the planning stages?

Eaglemom— How did your head not explode listening to the brilliant idea of putting a PWD into a self-driving car alone?

Jerilynn— Pretty posy. There are a few on the side of my garage that the deer missed, but the ones out front are just forlorn looking spikes. They got all my daylilies this year as well.

Mint— I hope you have a successful tomato season. The last couple around here have been challenging— too, wet, too chilly, too dry, too hot— and there hasn't been as many available at the farm stands.

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I am emerging from the Stone Age this morning. We had a short but intense storm come through on Thursday evening. The lights flickered about 5 times, before the power went out entirely at around 6pm. DS was bored, so he planned to gas up his car. I reminded him that the pumps would be down and cautioned him that he'd need to drive to find a station with power— I suggested the town where my mom lives as my niece was visiting her and had been texting me. DS decided to drop in for a visit. This is very uncharacteristic of him. He hung out in the A/C watching true crime with niece. She used to live with us; they like one another but squabble. DS decided to spend the night, but first he came home to pick up his meds. LOL, I was talking to mom yesterday morning— she had no idea he's spent the night as he'd left in the morning before she got up.

We had electric back a little after midnight, but cable TV and internet were out until around 7:30 last night. When I drove to the store yesterday, I counted 4 Bradford pears split in the neighborhood and a dozen shade trees along the 2-mile walking path into town snapped mid-trunk. What a mess.

DH has requested beef stew for dinner which is arguably nuts this time of year. The extreme weather sets in tomorrow, so I think I'll do that today before it gets too oppressive. DS is on some steam excursion with friends over the Lehigh Gorge, so I don't need to feed him.

Mom sees her cardiologist on Monday which is forecasted to be about 100F. I am not looking forward to that at all.

Be safe out there today.

HB

Good morning all. Warm, no hot already & heat index well over 105 today. I feel for those whom have to work in this heat.

HB yes my head did about explode about the PWD & the Tesla. I couldn't leave it alone, I said so when this car gets her to her appointment, how will she know which building to walk into? Or which office in the building? Or which physician she has an appointment with? When she gets out of the car will she know what to even do? (I know that answer, and its no. I've watched them drive up to meeting many times. He gets out, shuts his door and starts walking away. Never looking back for her or waiting. She gets out of the car and looks for people then follows them. This is so awful & he still thinks its brilliant.

Ron, what type of cabin are you getting? If you've told us, I've forgotten. Please share again. I'm glad you've already had a showing on your house.

Want to quickly water the plants on the patio. Back later. Let's be safe everyone.

There are no self-driving cars that will reliably take you home on command. Musk keeps promising them, and does so convincingly, which is why Tesla stock sells for about 100 times earnings, but he's a long way from being able to deliver. Not that the woman you describe could cope with trips like that even if she had such a sci-fi car. She shouldn't be left home alone, much less sent out in a robotaxi. Besides, you could ride a taxi a long, long way for the price of a Tesla. That is just nuts on several levels.

I bought some home-grown tomatoes today, from a man who buys them from the Amish farmers 35 miles north of town and sells them in a strip mall parking lot. They grow them in tunnels, which is like a greenhouse but planted in the ground so they taste good. Summer is officially here! 😎

I bought ramen noodles by the case at Sam's Club when I was involved in scouting. They were perfect for a warming snack on a cold day when we were back from a hike and starting to cook supper. I did the same with instant oatmeal, something to eat while we got ready to cook breakfast on cold mornings. You just tore the top off the package, poured in a little hot water, and ate it with a spoon. To make soup at home, you boil chicken thighs, remove and bone them while you cook your veggies in the broth. Put the meat back in, add noodles, and you have dinner. One protein, one carb, two veggies.

Happy birthday, Lorita! JeriLynn, your flowers are stunning! Mint, glad you are starting to get tomatoes on your plants.

Hi Dixie, happy, happy birthday! I’ve tried to call you several times today but your phone is going straight to voicemail. Call me so I know you’re ok.

Happy Birthday Lorita!! I'm glad you had a good day.

I wasn't sure about poison hemlock v Queen Anne's Lace, so I looked it up. There's a website I like, and visit periodically, so I checked them. They have an article from last year that compares the two plants - with pictures. I can see why the two would get confused.

eaglemom - My head almost did explode (about buying a Tesla). Talk about worst plans ever!! As for me, I plan to never go for a ride in a self-driving car. I know people do (at least they do in SF), but I'm not going to be one of them.

Ron - I hope your house sells quickly and that you have an easy move.

JeriLynn - gorgeous flowers!

I saw in the news today that many of you will be in heat dome territory - which is miserable. I've only experienced that once, and it was not fun. One of the things we did that helped some was to dampen some wash cloths and then put them in the freezer. Once frozen, we'd take them out and put them on the backs of our necks and the top of our heads. It helped a lot. Here's a link to the article I read about the heat dome.

Last night we went to the Catwalk reunion. It was fantastic. We danced pretty solidly for about three hours, the other half hour was spent resting my feet. 🙂 The crowd was great, and it looked like everyone had a great time. The DJs only played music up about year 2004, the year that Catwalk closed, so no new goth music, but lots of Sisters of Mercy and Depeche Mode. The average age for people there was about 65-70. So fun seeing everyone dancing up a storm. Best line I heard while standing in line to get in: " Why do we have to show our IDs, we're all on Medicare here."

And for my show and tell — the Steps of Doom. Man, those are scary stairs. Imagine climbing those things after 3 to 4 hours of dancing.

I was happy with my outfit and my choice of comfortable boots. I was also happy that I remembered to put on black light reactive nail polish. My guy was able to find me from across the room. 😄

good morning

hope everyone today, supposed to be hot here too

Ron glad you got an offer. That seems to be how it is here too if your house is just not a disaster. I got two offers the first day. One offered what I asked for without inspection. The second one offered more but wanted an inspection. I chose the one that gave me what I asked and didn’t ask for an inspection.

Yay Ron! Glad you got a good offer and hope all progresses smoothly with your move. We also sold our last home quickly. We put it on the market on Friday and got an offer on Monday. Our buyer did not ask for an inspection. We had a pre-put on the market inspection and had corrected many items he remarked on. Then, we wrote up a narrative report telling what corrections we had made.

I think our baby swallows have left the nest. Not sure, as the nest is up high and it's hard to see. I will investigate further and if they are gone I'll remove the nest. The nest is on vent and there is poo all over. Also, that is a patio area with a table and we've been unable to use the table while the birds are there.

We had Mama and Papa goose with 3 little goslings eating under our bird feeder yesterday. I so enjoy watching them. We live on a pond so see waterfowl pretty much every day.

Lorita, hope your birthday was good.

It's been very hot the past few days, and super windy yesterday too. We had 2" of rain last week and have chances for rain again this week. We are still on watering restrictions (no lawn watering) so are glad for the rain.

Beth

Good morning, all. It'll be hazy and hot today; the dangerous heat arrives tomorrow. Yuck!

Eaglemom— I share your thoughts on the need for a PWD to have a responsible escort at medical appointments for a whole host of reasons.

Mom doesn't have dementia, but her appointments tend to go rogue if I'm not there. During the last round of hospitalizations and follow-ups, she denied a history of GERD at a swallow study for aspiration when niece drove her. Then flaked on the location of the infusions suite when DS drove her for a dressing change. I'd sent him Google Maps directions but it's in an office park which can be a little confusing. The building is a very different design than the others and I counted on mom to recognize it as she'd been there at least 4 times in past 2 months and before that for dad's urologist appointments. Nope. I got a call in the dentist's chair asking if the photograph DS sent me was the right building "because Nana doesn't know". The classic was the time 6 years ago when she took the train to the eye hospital for an appointment, went to the neuro-ophthalmologist's office where reception told her she didn't have an appointment. So, she left to go shopping only to get a call from her retinal specialist asking why she missed her appointment.

Ron— I was curious about the difference between a house and a cabin, so I googled it. Seems cabins tend to be smaller, more modest/rustic in terms of fittings and finishes and independent of a specific neighborhood or community. Is that what is appealing to you? You seem to be a person who values human connection. How far will a cabin be from where your son lives?

Carl— It's funny how differently troops manage their cooking. DS's scoutmaster was a big believer in not doing something for a boy that he can do for himself meaning that they boys cooked, and the food was abysmal. Pop-tarts, instant oatmeal, egg-in-a-bag, and canned chili poured into bags of tortilla chips seemed to be the staples. But sometimes, we'd cross paths with troops where there was some old guy who loved cooking who fed troop. There was one troop that opted out of the local scout reservation meal plan who ate really well. I walked over to deliver some misrouted paperwork and found them enjoying steaks. The cook had the Dan Beard scouts churning ice cream to go with his cobblers. I stayed for dessert. The most elaborate I saw was a troop that had a kitchen trailer fitted out with all manner of things including a generator and electric meat slicer. Next level scouting.

Lady Z— I'm glad you weren't injured by the cart. Not long after dad moved back here, we took him to get new hearing aids at Costco. He insisted on using the scooter and I spent the trip steering him out of trouble. He got me more than once with that thing. Ouch.

Lorita— That's a lot of money to watch a game in person. Yikes.

Gothic G— The quip about Medicare is hysterical. I guess people tend to favor the music of their youth. My parent's old neighbors used to blast Kate Smith in the evenings. Fortunately, they went to bed early.

Beth— Around here most buyers get an inspection, so it makes sense to correct issues ahead of time in order that the list doesn't become a major negotiation tactic. It's funny, when I sold my parents' place in MD they went over it with a fine-toothed comb and fussed about ridiculous things like poor drainage in what was basically a reclaimed marsh. That didn't happen in FL at all. The only thing buyers seemed to care about was a current termite inspection and flood map.

When we were in Rockport, there were ducks in the water outside our room. The ducklings kept getting washed over the rocks along the coast. They'd climb up to get out of the water and the next wave would lift them back into a tide pool. They seemed to make a game of it.

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A quiet day today. DS has a 10-hour shift today. I don't imagine they'll be many passengers given the heat. I'm thinking BLTs for dinner. The local grocer has some nice heirloom tomatoes, and I have some excellent bacon on hand. The stew last night was exceptionally good, despite its unsuitability for this weather, for some reason. I don't know if the meat was better quality than I get at Costco or if the enameled cast iron pot made the difference, but DH had 2 servings which never happens.

Mom sees the cardiologist tomorrow at 11am. It's going to be really hot; I hope she's up to it.

Here's proof I've been driving mom places for a very long time.

HB

Grandson arrived with a breakfast biscut thing from McDonald's. It was actually pretty good.

Off to the museum to be the "ask me" person in the Adams galleries.

Yesterday we all worked on clearing out the 2 car garage at the flip house. Not much got thrown away…lol

Sounds great, Judith. Wish I had been there.

I saw Roadhouse when it first came out, 30+ years ago. Good movie!

95 degrees here so I took my walk in the mall rather than around the block.