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Our Daily Thread 7-3-15

Good Morning!

It’s Friday!!!

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On this day in 1775 Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, MA.

In 1863 the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, PA, ended after three days. It was a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated.

In 1940 Bud Abbott and Lou Costello debuted on NBC radio.

And in 1962 Jackie Robinson became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

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Quote of the Day

“We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective.”

Dave Barry

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Today is Leos Janacek’s birthday. From a very talented bunch known as afarcrymusic

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Anyone have a QoD?

46 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 7-3-15”

  1. Good morning! I missed being here yesterday and need to go back and read that thread.

    I have been moving all of son’s books down to the office. When son was home we had so little time that I did not talk to him about his stuff. Since he is an English major, you can imagine the load of books I am dealing with. But God has provided good shelving at the office for them.

    Now, onwards to his next bookcase! This is great exercise and weightlifting. My body is overwhelmed with opportunity to shapeup.

    Miss Bosley loves empty shelves. She has laid claim to many new beds.

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  2. I had to read Dave Barry’s comment twice.

    I used to see all of the Bud Abbot and Lou Costello movies. Pure slapstick But as a kid, I thought it was funny.
    I was disappointed when I learned, when I was much older and they had gone, that they didn’t like each other. Didn’t get along off the set. I heard the same thing about the Beetles, but I never cared for them.
    It’s FRIDAY!!
    You know what that means?
    No Lions today, we met last night.
    I have nothing scheduled for today.

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  3. I mentioned yesterday that Jim Webb was active in Virginia politics when I was up there. I liked the man but not his politics. I separate out those differences. I think I could like Joe Biden as a person. Hillary and Barrack? NO. I dislike everything I know abut them.

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  4. Good Morning Everyone. It feels like a Saturday to me. Our office is closed today. The City is doing fireworks tomorrow night but the Grand Hotel is doing theirs tonight. We are going to a friend’s house on the Bay later this afternoon and will watch the fireworks from there. It is less crowded and just as nice. Our little town wasn’t built for as many people as flock in. They do a good job, but it is still too many cars and people for too little space.

    I noticed something last night that some of you may have experienced…I have always had great reading comprehension although I do better when give instructions or in learning if I hear it. I pronounce words correctly in my head. I have had a fear of not pronouncing words correctly ever since I read Trixie Beldon books and realized that gAze-bo was really ga ZEE bo. I have always read aloud to children because my first career choice was to be a Librarian, but that didn’t happen. It has been years since I needed to real anything out loud. Last night I was trying to read something to Mr P off of the internet and although I read, comprehended, and said the words–I stumbled through it. I got ahead of myself and I got behind. I mis-pronounced words, and pretty much just bumbled through it.
    So my point is that we should all take a book or passage, go in the bathroom, closed the door, look in the mirror, and start reading out loud. Either that or find a child that needs someone to read to them. Of course the words in children’s books are meant to be easier to read aloud.

    I found this, but I really do it better than this…or at least I used to.

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  6. I can mow grass with a push mower, a Sears riding lawn mower, and a Husqvarna lawn tractor. I can us electric or plain old human powered hedge trimmers. If properly motivated–like none of the men in my life would do it for me—I can cut down small trees with a hand saw, or if desperate enough even use a hacksaw to get rid of limbs I don’t want. I can spread fertilize and lay sod. I can use a tiller and and edger to create the flower beds I want.. But of all those things I am ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED of a weed whacker. I am scared I will whack my feet or legs or somehow injure myself. As I typed those words perhaps it is a leftover memory from childhood. I don’t want anything flexible and stinging to come near my legs. I got myself “switched” enough as a child and the worst was English Dogwood. The second worst was althea branches.

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  7. Peter, I don’t think the mixture is critical. I have a weed eater that is 50:1 and an edger that is 40:1. I use 50:1 for both. I don’t think the edger cares. It hasn’t given any fuss about it.

    Kim: a weed whacker is perfectly safe. If:
    You wear good safety glasses
    Gloves and a hat
    Jeans or something similar to protect your legs.
    I’m talking about the string type here.
    Do not, under any circumstances try it without glasses. I’m amazed after using mine, at the stuff on my glasses t6hat would be in my eyes without them..

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  8. Kim- Invest in a pair of chpas, like the cowboys wear. They wear those to keep their legs from getting cut up by cactus and other sharp plants along the way. I’m sure they would protect from a weed whacker.

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  10. I mention being dressed like that because weed whackers stir up debris. But the string type can’t impose a serious injury except to the eyes. Not that it won’t hurt. But ordinarily, it won’t cause a serious injury.
    The worst problem I’ve had is with hornets that build nests in the ground.
    Chainsaws are a different story.

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  14. The problem with an electric weed wacker is, some of us, have difficulty when we whack off the extension cord . . . you also could need an extremely long, or series of long, extension cords if you have a lot of property.

    Dave Barry’s comment pretty much sums up my brain . . .

    I’m one of the few people in America, apparently, going to work today. But then I haven’t been in two weeks and won’t be there the next two, so it’s probably a good thing! 🙂

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  15. Thirteen year old girl has learned to use one this year. Even seventeen year old girl, who is terrified to tears of the vacuum (yes, Kim, that seventeen year old) can use a weed whacker. Unfortunately, she can also swing it around and cut the bark on my young apple tree….

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  16. Anybody is welcome to come read to small people. Currently, we are reading a World War II book, The Little Princess, one of The Borrowers, and one of the Wrinkle in Time books. Along with a plethora of others. Good practice in the unlikely event I am ever called upon to read aloud in a different situation.

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  17. I like my electric weed trimmer but our driveway is 600 ft from the house to the street. I have two 100 ft extension cords and a 50 footer. We also bought a gas trimmer.

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  18. Weed wackers terrify me, too. I was only around one once, about 20+ years ago when a former boyfriend agreed to come to the house I was renting at the time and attack my backyard for me. I think he was scared of it, too.

    As a former wanna-be cowgirl, though, I have to say that if using one required me to finally justify getting some real western chaps, I might just go for it. 🙂

    Yee-ha! I could maybe then even lasso it like a rope overhead.

    Or maybe not.

    Dave Barry has a point, I have to say.

    I have to work 4 hours tomorrow, on the 4th, but can do it from home. They basically just needed someone to commit to work in case something happens (others took today and Sunday). So it’s just essentially (unless terrorism breaks loose) making a round of calls to our local cop stations (about 7 of them), checking the wires for anything urgent, and maybe not a lot else …

    I have today “off” but it’s jam packed — going to Norma’s house this morning to meet up with our former pastor and his wife (he’s the executor of Norma’s will). Plan is to help sort and do whatever else is needed to try to get ready for a planned estate sale.

    Then it’s up to Hollywood to get Carol, but that is going to have to be a short visit, I’ll be tired and want to get home as early as possible. And traffic will be horrendous.

    She thinks they can see the Hollywood Bowl fireworks show tomorrow night from one side of their building. They’ll have to provide their own music, though. 🙂

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  19. I sometimes stumble over words during our corporate readings at church if they’re very long. I think I do that more when I’m tired, but we’ll be going along through the 10 commandments, and suddenly my eyes skip to the next line or next word too fast and I get lost for a few seconds.

    Or sometimes I add a word, probably from another translation I’m more used to hearing, or I add words in one of the creeds or catechism answers because I’m used to hearing one of them as part of a longer phrase (God the Father rather than just God, for example).

    Annie is walking all over me this morning, head-butting my head and shoulders and computer as I try to type. Now she’s rubbing up against some books next to me, purring the whole time. She’s very affectionate when she’s hungry.

    As for stars who don’t get along, I suspect a good part of the reason is ego — has to be tough when they hit it really big like that, there are all kinds of pressures and temptations with regard to fame and fortune I would imagine.

    My guess (hope) is, that later in life, when it’s all died down and no one much cares about them anymore and all that stress has gone away, they look back together and like each other a little bit more again.

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  21. I’m so confused! It feels like Saturday. It really shouldn’t make any difference to me since I don’t go out to work, but for some reason my brain is convinced it’s Saturday.

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  25. Well, we’re back from my birthday lunch with my in-laws. That was the last specifically “birthday” event . . . but now I have a JoAnne’s gift card, a Barnes and Noble gift card, and a little bit of an amazon.com gift card to spend, so does that mean my birthday isn’t actually over yet?

    It was a very nice lunch. My father-in-law is doing so much better than he was two or three months ago. He’s understanding conversations around him (even the humor) and participating, and for a couple of months that wasn’t happening and we thought we wouldn’t see it again.

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  26. Two of my favorite bird types, if I had favorites. They all fly in so happily and sound so cheerful, though I suspect, if they are like other birds, they are nasty self centered beasts.

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  27. Mumsee, I think it’s cedar because it’s brown, and according to the photos in the bird book, the more rare Bohemian is gray. But I’ve never seen a Bohemian, and animals can vary a bit from the photos in field guides. But they truly are beautiful birds, and I wish I could see them more often.

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  28. That one was so brown that it looked red. I have acouple other shots too. One, a little blurred, of one grabbing bugs out of the air above the creek. I love the little flash of yellow on the tail too. 🙂

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  29. I just asked my husband what happened to the weed-whacking? 😀 It has been awhile by the look of the grass edging certain areas. I used to do the lawn before he retired and was working twelve hour days or more. Now I let him take care of it. He has a riding lawn mower, so it is not bad. We could use a gas weed eater. Ours is too short to get to the end of the driveway even with the extension cords. It does not bother me at all to use the one we have, however. I have never been hurt by it. I do dress properly for it and mowing.

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  30. Chaps? Oooh. …

    Feeling overwhelmed, Norma’s house is full of “stuff,” of course, and we’re trying to get a strategy going to clear it out. Some of it may be worth money, we need the guy doing the estate sale to look at it so we don’t sell some rare collectible for 50 cents.

    Post cards (neatly in a scrapbook) from the 1930s (george washington, many patriotic), maybe 1,000 collector spoons (most probably worth nothing, but there could be some rare items scattered among them), old porcelain tea sets, untouched vintage paper doll books (gene autry, etc.), an old box Kodak “reflex” camera in a leather case, weighs a ton …. On and on.

    We definitely need to plan some workdays and a strategy … And then the house will have to get ready to be sold, too. …

    Good to catch up with my former pastor an his wife today, though, they go to our sister church across the harbor so I don’t see them that often. He’s the executor of the will so is doing a lot of the banking work, he meets with an estate attorney from their church next week that he’s hired.

    We went out for lunch afterward to Norma’s favorite local diner. 🙂

    Off to Hollywood

    (Oh, cheryl, my retired pastor still preaches and told me he preached recently at a PCA church — didn’t realize until later that one of the members he met there was … Raquel Welch ! 🙂 ) He said she was very nice.

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  31. I thought it was a cedar waxwing but it sounds soooo much better to say “bohemian” rather than “cedary”, don’t you think?

    By the way, the chaps are actually chain saw chaps. Not exactly what you might ride the horse through the chaparral in.

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  33. You need help, Donna: http://michelleule.com/2015/04/10/how-to-close-down-the-home/

    Is Norma’s house near you? I have a friend up in Pacific Palisades who has done this type of work.

    Are you looking to get money, or just clear the house? You might consider a work party of people who knew her and try to get through stuff in a weekend, otherwise you could spend the rest of your life going through someone else’s things.

    Just promise them they can take three things each–or something like that.

    Good luck. I’ve cleaned out four houses and it is a challenge! I didn’t feel like stepping into a store except for food, for months!

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  35. Thanks michelle — yeah, we’ve bee offering things to people and there are tags on many of the nice furniture pieces … She has a lot of old stuff in pristine condition that may be collectable worthy, depending on how rare they are. We do have an estate sale guy (from Pedro, a couple of us know him, ties to Point Fermin lighthouse and they had an antique store in town for a while) who should be able to help spot things that should be maybe auctioned vs. things that can go for whatever people want to spend.

    I just don’t want to sell a Tiffany lamp for $3, if you get my drift — none of us knows enough about some of these items and, I may be wrong, but there are probably some items that could pull in more money than they look like they would. But, yeah, partly the idea is to sell things for a fair and good price when possible but also to clear the house to get it ready for sale …

    I agree, a work party is needed.

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  37. She once showed me a scrapbook with ration tickets (from WWII) — they saved everything (and nicely). Now ration tickets may be a dime a dozen these days, but who knows.

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  38. Good column, I sent it on to our former pastor who is the executor of the estate & to his wife, the pair I was with today. Definitely need a work party — and I remember getting a dumpster when my cousins and I were clearing my mom’s house (creepy though when we spotted people digging through it one day, just seemed unseemly somehow, but … )

    In Norma’s case, of course, all of us are dear friends of hers but not related to her, so that makes some of this less fraught with the emotional ties going back to childhood.

    We also realized before we left today, after going through a couple closets and feeling quite overwhelmed, that there’s also an attic.

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  39. Norma had no relatives other than some cousins she never really knew (but need to be found as she had some vacant land in Louisiana she was leaving to them — some of the paperwork our pastor came across for that included instructions to a company that needed her approval to cut back the trees; she said OK, but don’t disrupt any birds that might be nesting 🙂 )

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  42. Our kids will have a mess of things to plow through someday when my husband and I are gone. I should get back to my decluttering (after I can do it two-handed), it will probably take us 30 years to get through it all. 😛

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  43. Please go through your things when you are alive. If you no longer need or want it enjoy seeing someone else use it. Going through my dad’s things was overwhelming. I did use the throw away give away put away method.

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  44. Norma and I used to talk about how hard it is sometimes to clear things out, she told me it was just so hard for her because of family memories. She’d pick something up, turn it over, think about it, then put it on a stack of other things ….

    Her parents bought that house when Norma was maybe still in college or just out and the whole family (Norma had one sister who died young) lived there — slowly, as family members passed on, she just stayed put, never moved out, a single school teacher who lived very simply.

    The family must have never thrown anything away, but I’m impressed by how carefully everything was kept in boxes, scrapbooks, etc.

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  45. cheryl, the post cards are very cool (I think I found similar ones in my grandparents’ things). And they’re in pristine condition.

    We just did a quick look today, not much sorting yet.

    She also has a lot of books — our pastor’s wife found a really old (1930-era) Presbyterian hymnal today that she took home and her husband found a commentary he didn’t have which he kept. Another friend has taken some of the nice art books she had.

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  46. prayed and texted through the day today as my daughter and her family were driving out from Colorado. They were staying with her dad. In the evening I wondered if they were here yet and needed to try out driving the car here so I took a drive. As I started down the street, I saw them just turning onto the street coming up hill. So sweet. I opened my window and said hello and was first to see them.

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