63 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 2-17-18”

  2. Good morning all. At first I couldn’t figure out why there was a Rants and Raves on the sidebar—then it dawned on me: it’s Saturday. This week went by so fast several days ran together. I’ll have to run to catch up! :–)

    PS. Beautiful texture in the header. Is that growing on a rock?!

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  4. Good Morning. I now understand why so many people want to live in Southern California. It is beautiful.
    DJ picked me up at the airport and drove me all around. I got to se the “House Project”. We have a new plan.
    We had a wonderful dinner then she drove me to Anaheim. We talked the whole time…..or maybe I talked the whole time 🤔

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  8. I agree that So Cal is beautiful, but if I had to live there I’d choose San Diego. Much more beautiful than LA, and cooler in the summer. Also, I don’t think the Socialists are as strong in SD since it is a traditional GOP area.That said, the housing is expensive anywhere in urban California. I don’t know about rural areas. But rural in So Cal means hot deserts If I wanted to live in a desert I’d move back to Tucson.

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  10. Well, as you know, the psych ward did not pan out. They told me to expect it to get worse. But, of course, no definitive diagnoses. Daughter was disappointed to not go on her little mini vacation but I was not looking forward to all of the new behaviors she would be bringing home. And so we continue.

    Husband is off truck driving, paying the bills and maintaining his sanity so he can maintain mine.

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  11. We love you, Mumsee.

    Southern California was a wonderful place to grow up. My husband refuses to ever live there again, which is fine with me.

    Besides, I like the weather better in northern California.

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  12. I went to school yesterday, then came to visit my parents, as it is the beginning of reading week. It is also a long weekend, as Monday is called Family Day. The train and bus transit system I used to get most of the way home was announcing that in honour of the holiday, all children under twelve could travel the system for free all weekend.

    Chas, in reply to your comment about how Amazon’s knowledge of your activities made you feel uneasy yesterday, I commented a few weeks ago that we allowed corporations far more surveillance power over us than the government is given. The corporations embed their technology with ‘cookies’, which allow them to track how many times an ebook is read, or how many times an MP3 song is listened to, or how many times a film is watched. It is about targeting their marketing to each customer to increase their sales. I don’t have Amazon’s Alexa, but the Windows programs come with Cortana, which does much the same thing. I have disabled Cortana as much as possible and do not ask ‘her’ anything. My landlords use the new Google voice activated technology, which sits in their common living area and is on all the time. It is somewhat amusing to hear them command Google to play or stop playing their favorite TV programs, but I would not want to have the internet always listening to what I was saying.

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  14. Kevin (and others who tried) – Are you aware of another Jeopardy! online test? It’s March 6, 7 or 8. I tried the practice test. I only got 13 out of 30. Bummer.

    I also found a youtubve channel that plays all the episodes, usually the next day: https://www.youtube.com/user/eapiauhy

    That’s great considering I often forget to record the show, or our reception is bad on some days.

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  15. Hey, is this complain about Southern California day?

    So fun to meet up with Kim and it truly is some gorgeous weather we’re having. No ice or clouds anywhere to be seen.

    And yes, there’s a new plan for “the house.” I’ll be busy re-envisioning the new room & floor plan this weekend ..

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  17. I have been lots of places in my life. The area around Charleston, SC is the prettiest. I also like the mountains of NC. But they can be troublesome. But they are nice.

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  18. I have been lots of places in my life. My backyard is the prettiest. It has a view of the mountains in the national forest and the wilderness area but does not have grizzly bears.

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  21. So, theoretically they could wander through. I’m glad they don’t though. We lived in a place where they would come around occasionally and our bear proof garbage container often had lick marks and paw prints all over it. I’m glad it was bear proof but it was also located right outside our front door next to a window!!

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  23. I believe there are too many shoot, shovel, and shut up types to let them get here. I do hear the bear dogs out at times but they are usually hunting black bears or mountain lions.

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  24. Husband got the chains on and got over the first pass but when he tried to get them off, his hands weren’t able to cooperate and he ended up with chains wrapped around the axle. The company is sending somebody with bolt cutters. He does not like dealing with chains and suggested to them it would be wise to send him five hundred miles around. It probably would have been cheaper.

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  32. Unexpectedly, we got an inch or more of snow overnight. (What we had last week has melted.) Since it’s supposed to be in the 60s (!) tomorrow, I don’t expect it to last long.

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  34. Why thank you Peter. I probably wouldn’t make it as President.
    This is the first chance I have had to get to my computer; typing everything out on my phone isn’t as easy.
    Donna was a gracious hostess. She drove me all along the coast after picking me up at the airport. We saw some gorgeous homes. I laughed about pulling up the prices and the lowest was 1 million. What kind of dump was it? All the others were 6 million and above.
    After that we went to the house. We looked at the paint colors she had for the exterior. Somehow I still have those with me.
    DJ’s house opens into the living room, and I love the way she has it set up as you walk in. (Sometime later when I send in a photo of Cowboy and me you will be able to see a little). There is an antique table set at an angle to the left as you enter. It backs up to the sofa which is at at angle towards the fireplace. There is an ottoman between the sofa and a club chair that faces the sofa. Beyond that she has turned the love seat to face the back wall and has the TV on the back wall. Beyond that wall is the kitchen and a room to the right off of the kitchen that she has used as an office.
    DJ sent pictures to me a while back and I was trying to make the room off the kitchen into a dining area but now that I have seen the house, we are going to move everything out of that room and make it into an old fashioned “den” with the large sofa along the wall that faces back into the kitchen. Put the TV in there and turn the area in the “living room” back into the dining area. This is going to allow DG to use some of the antique pieces she really loves.

    DJ, I just had a thought that perhaps if you had another table hidden somewhere we could cut the legs down and make a coffee table for the den

    Michelle, what do you think of painting the fireplace either white or the same color as the wainscoting? I also make the comment that you and I should plan a trip back so that we could help DJ get it all pulled together once some of the paining happens. She said you had made some great suggestions and wanted to jump in and start doing things. I explained that now that I had seen “Navy Wives” in action we would need your skills.

    Oh, and the Blog Bathroom is soooo cute. I had worried about the blue we picked for the walls and it is lighter than I thought but DJ assures me she loves it.

    …..and after all that we went to dinner at Pappy’s.
    http://pappysseafood.com/

    I love the way that area of town had light strung across the streets. I tried to take photos but they didn’t turn out as pretty as seeing them.

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  35. We got our unexpected snow yesterday. But it only amounted to an inch or two, and it will probably melt today. Thursday evening I got a phone call that the Boy Scout ski trip planned for tomorrow was cancelled due to too much warm weather. When it started snowing yesterday I wondered if they would reconsider, but I doubt it made enough difference. So my son will just be home all day tomorrow (school closed for Presidents Day).

    I get the day off too, since the college is closed. (My older son does not get it off, because the school where he teaches has it as a possible snow make-up day, and the day they were supposed to have as their snow make-up day turned out to be a snow day itself, so tomorrow they have school – it’s a Catholic school, so not subject to the same schedule as public schools.)

    It will be nice to just sit around today and tomorrow. We were planning on visiting another church (since my husband took this week off), but I have a cold and he is in pain from his bad knee, so we’re just staying home. (Older son, who visited for the weekend, just left for church because he is helping lead the singing, in my husband’s absence. One of our regular organists had a mini-stroke recently and isn’t playing for a few months, so we’re trying a cappella singing once a month.)

    Eye is doing great. If I didn’t have to keep using eye drops every day I’d forget I just had the cataract surgery a week and a half ago. At least now I’m allowed to wash my hair in the shower.

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  36. I don’t know about getting legislation through, but the White House would certainly get a new floor plan and, I’m sure, would look marvelous with Kim as president.

    Kim, I have an old cedar chest in the living room I now use as a coffee ‘table’ near the tv that could just be moved into the back room.

    I’ve been working — The large computer desk w/hutch in the back room has now been cleaned out, all the drawers are empty. On to the other giant desk w/hutch bookcase in there so I can get the guys to move those two huge pieces out and then I can give them away (Habitat for Humanity apparently accepts and will pick up “large” furniture pieces) or sell for a pittance, I’m sure.

    I’m still thinking about painting the fireplace, will have to ponder that some more before I decide.

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  38. and the first story we did:

    San Pedro’s iconic Papadakis Taverna ready for its sequel

    They’ve been working on opening it up for a couple years, they must have poured hundreds (?) of thousands of dollars into restoring that building and stripping it down to its original state (much of it had been covered up through the years). Underneath they found the beautiful transom windows, original brick — and the original red doors from back in the day when it was quite the notorious spot to go on our rough-and-tumble waterfront.

    Fun to see it now, finally, looking so original and beautiful — and packed the night Kim and I were there.

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  41. Pauline – My first cataract surgery went very well, but the next one, on my right eye, had me worried. When I took off the patch that night, my vision was very blurry, with a yellowish-orangish tint. It did clear up over the course of several days, but the first couple days had me really worried.

    The left eye, though, was the worst one before surgery. Without my glasses, I could not make out my daughter’s face three feet in front of me. It was like a miracle afterward to see clearly across the room! (The doctor said it was the largest cataract she’s ever removed.)

    I still need glasses, but that’s okay with me. I’d rather just have them already on my face than have to deal with reading glasses. Until about a month after the second surgery, when I could finally go back to my regular eye doctor for a new prescription, I had to use reading glasses, and developed a great talent for leaving them in one room when I needed them in another. 🙂

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  42. Kizzie,

    I plan to keep wearing glasses. I’ll need them for reading in any case, and like you I find it difficult to have them when I need them if I don’t have them on all the time. And when I tried going without glasses two years ago after having the right eye done, I found that I did not like the feel of air blowing against my eyes, after so many years of glasses protecting them.

    I’m not sure how soon I am supposed to get new ones, though. I have a checkup with the eye surgeon this Thursday, then with the regular eye doctor in August. Most of the time the current ones seem fine, but when I’m tired I have more trouble seeing clearly.

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  43. Donna @ 12:01. I like modern houses with indoor baths, including hot water at the turn of a handle. And a furnace that holds the temperature. And air conditioning too.]
    And I ditto Karen’ 12:03.

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  44. I like glasses for that reason especially, Pauline. I need my eyes protected from allergens blowing through the wind.

    Church refreshes me now after a long week at the tax office. I did manage to see a play on Friday night by the elementary age children. The Trial of Goldilocks presented the story from three different angles. The first angle was that Goldie was a good and innocent child. The second angle was that Goldie was a mean and up to no good vile child. The third viewpoint was showing the bears and other bad-hearted creatures in a conspiracy to capture Goldie and turn her into dinner. It was quite elaborate for younger children to perform.

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  45. It is difficult working in a small space at the office with my brother. He can be teasing and testy, and I get riled up just like when we were kids. Art is amused to watch or listen to our bickering. Art had no siblings to “enjoy.” I am going to try to calm down my brother’s silliness. We get along well on some levels such as politically, and are in alignment spiritually for the most part. We just disagree on little things like whether to put the mail in the outside box or go inside at the post office, to use the microwave for food or not to, how much time to spend in conversation with clients, and whether he should take instruction from me when he has his own ideas about how to do things. I had to walk away over how to dispense the package mailing tape. I guess it is funny when a person is observing from a distance.

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  48. I got stuck in the driveway again. I tried to turn around and back in like I normally did and that did not work so I tried to turn it back around and go forward and that did not work. I just kept sliding farther and farther so I decided it was an excellent place to park. Did I mention it is icy?

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  49. I had been given the impression that only people in the South parked their cars in awkward spaces during icy weather. People come down South and brag about their winter conditions driving skills. Thank you, Mumsee, for making me realize that there still exist some humble honest drivers from other parts of our nation. I think I also recall Peter and a few others saying schools were closed or church unattended because of icy roads. We have bosses down here from the North who insist employees show up for minimum wage jobs when roads are icy. It is a sad place to be at such times. The bosses probably take public transportation in to work.

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  50. Oh, Papdakis! Of course.

    Would be happy to come down. I don’t remember the colors, etc. in the living room, so I’m not a good consultant at the moment. I think I was better in the yard!

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  51. Kim had mercy on me and she didn’t gasp once. 🙂 Michelle, I think you may have seen things at their worst. As I recall it was mid-back fence project + I was just coming out of the bedroom ceiling replacement that dumped nearly everything into the living room in gigantic trash bags. I shudder when I think about it now, but somehow I lived with it while I had to.

    My entire house on the inside is off-white everywhere. I can see that there was a vintage green used on the window and door moldings and trim from before in places where the off-white paint has worn thin or chipped.

    Chas, fortunately my house was built just after indoor plumbing became the norm. But I love the charm and architectural character of old homes.

    Re the papadakis building — it was built also in the 1920s but had been so layered over that none of it’s cool architecture showed anymore. The new owner, who loves history and historic buildings, got to work peeling it all back, exposing its original look and he uncovered a treasure in the process in my mind. It’s now a very cool space — I love the Spanish-mission roofline (similar to what was done on my house) and I smile now every time I drive by the restaurant thinking what a great job they did to restore it.

    Unfortunately, I missed showing Kim the Warner Grand, our historic 1930s downtown movie theater that’s just up the street from the restaurant; there was a film shoot of some kind going on and that part of the street was blocked off. And I forgot to drive her by Michelle’s home church.

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  52. Good (continuing) sermon on the 10 commandments this morning. My elder also caught up with me afterward and it was good to talk to him about all the chaos & home-work angst going on in my life right now before he prayed for me.

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  54. We have a new interim pastor. He has spoken a few times now and I have learned and understood more of what He is telling us and that is a good thing. His wife is called to ministry also so that is good. Today was on Hebrews 12: 15.

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  55. Last week I mentioned that I, at Nightingale’s suggestion, informed Mr X that I no longer wanted to be the third party, and not to contact my number anymore. Unfortunately, we are in a sort of in-between situation in that it still has to be me who takes The Boy up the lane to meet his dad’s car. When he could still call or text me, Mr X would tell me when he was about to be here, and we’d walk up the lane.

    Now that he can’t contact me, we just have a time when he expects to be there. On Saturday (the first time I’ve had to do this since the change) the time he said was “noonish”. So The Boy and I stood up at the top of lane for half an hour before he showed up at 12:30. Nightingale believes he did that on purpose. He could have called his mom, who could have told us he would be late.

    God bless my sweet little grandson, who doesn’t realize that his dad is playing power games with us. To him, Daddy was just delayed.

    Nightingale has said that she still doesn’t like me having to take The Boy up the lane, that she worries that someday he might do something to hurt me. I don’t worry about that myself, though.

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  56. Mr X’s mom has tried to persuade Nightingale to end the order of protection, but Nightingale refuses to do so. What he did was bad – really bad (choking her and threatening to shoot her in the head, in front of The Boy, who was five at the time) – and he got a slap on the wrist for it.

    Nightingale told me that he has had a few other charges against him at different times, but they all end up being counted as a first offense, so he gets off lightly, he’s never really had to pay for his behavior. His two DUIs were in different states, so each one only earned him the lightest punishment (taking a class on drinking and driving), and one or two of his other offenses were when he was a juvenile, so they are not counted, I guess. There was something else he was arrested for as an adult, but I forgot what that was.

    In acting out of anger, he did damage to all three of the apartments they lived in when they were together, meaning they never were able to get their security deposits back.

    So Nightingale is not going to ask for the protective order to be lifted, and I support her in this, even if it at times causes some inconvenience.

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  57. Restraining orders should cause inconvenience but the preponderance should be on the person restrained. He should be given a certain amount of time, by the court, saying how long he has to show up and the courier should meet him at the end of that time. Or take the child home again. But the courier should not be you. A court appointed somebody or an officer of the law should accompany you if it must be you.

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  58. You’re certainly right, Mumsee, that he should be the one inconvenienced. I don’t know if it is different in different states, but at least here, the third party person doesn’t have to be a court-appointed person. His mom has been the main third party for making plans. So far, it has worked out fairly well, with a few occasional bumps. But if he gets abusive or harassing in any way, then Nightingale would inform the court, and I think, depending on how abusive or harassing he might be, he would have to go to jail. Then again, maybe his probation is over by now.

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  59. I could only imagine what Kim would say about this place. Some of our furniture is antique, some is early American Goodwill. The dining table is one my mother bought when she worked at Montgomery-Wards in the early 60s. The chairs are a mixture of wooden dining chairs and metal folding chairs. I’ve always wanted to get an oak table and chairs but other things were more important. Maybe with a kitchen redo I can convince Mrs L that it’s worth the expense for an oak table. Or at least a matching set.

    Maybe we should consult Kim before our planned kitchen redo.

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  60. Husband bought us a nice oak table and caned chairs when we were in New York. He liked to go to auctions and estate sales, you can get really nice things that way. But the cane chairs got broken and we gave them to a guy who said he could fix them and never saw them again. We still have the table and about twelve orange metal framed chairs our church was getting rid of. They worked for us, though I was surprised at how quickly children could destroy the chairs.

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  61. Kim says ‘matchy-matchy’ is out, but I don’t know if that applies to dining chairs. None of mine match, they’re a combination of a caned chair from my grandmother’s house, an old western-type chair from my mom’s, a straight-backed straw-seat chair I bought in Mexico and an old wood chair I picked up at an antique shop that supposedly was an office chair that came from the old city hall in town.

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