78 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-7-19”

  1. First (on Friday night, is that cheating?).

    As I was walking the dogs tonight I could hear the announcer from the high school football field. The season has begun. It must be fall.

    Later, taking the trash out, I heard Taps, right on schedule, at 9 p.m.

    After 2 weeks of nonstop writing and churning out story after story, my head is spinning and I’m tired.

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  5. And a good Saturday morning to everyone but Jo.
    I thought Jo might be lurking around. Good evening anyhow.
    In Va., we lived about half a mile from the football field. We could hear the excitement when something good for the Atoms happened.
    It was there that I learned that sometimes a parent would move into an area where his child could go to a certain school if he had exceptional sports talent.
    It increased the probability of scholarship.

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  6. Morning all. I went to eat with a friend, so haven’t been lurking. Nice to see this site loading properly. It has been coming up in all sorts of wrong ways and is very hard to read.

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  8. Good morning. I could have slept in today, but my body is so used to waking up around the same early hour that it woke me up today without an alarm. I have done six 12 hour shifts in eight days, and it takes me about 45 minutes to drive to the workplace.

    I am able to do some of the advanced skills that I had to learn on the job independently now and am quickly learning others – we have a type of casting to heal diabetic ulcers that I am learning to do. I am tired and sore at the end of every day as if I had been doing hard labour, as the work requires one to be very active and the time constraints of the daily schedule means one must work at high speed. As a naturally slow talker and mover, that is a real challenge for me.

    I got my first pay cheque yesterday. It feels odd and a bit unreal to be a part of the workforce, after having been on the sidelines for so many years.

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  10. Chas, I spent ten years (the period of time it has been since I first graduated from nursing) wandering in the wilderness of unemployment and not being able to get a job in my field (yes, I worked in West Africa, but I had to depend on the donations of others to do that). It will take a while for this all to seem real to me.

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  11. Sounds like you are in my mode, Phos, only I have double the commute time. I am so proud of you for stepping forward and learning all the new skills. Those things just take practice and more practice to be quick and efficient at their application.

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  13. When we lived in the small city where our university was, you could hear the cannon that the ROTC shot off after every home team score. It didn’t matter where you were in town, you could hear it. It’s a small city of ~15,000, 3 miles by 2 miles in area with the university in the middle.

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  14. RKessler, they pay overtime, but it technically isn’t overtime yet for me. I was hired to a part time job, but I am doing full time hours for orientation. Life experience has taught me that I can work like this for only so long before my health gives out (which is what happened in West Africa), which is why I took a part time job. The clinic is chronically short staffed, however, so my work schedule after orientation looks like it is at the maximum one can do and still be considered part time.

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  16. Morning! A very enjoyable Keaggy concert. A very small venue which was very much my liking. And it had rained during the concert which made the air so fresh and sweet as we emerged from the art center. A sweet way to top off the evening!
    QOD….I usually split the package and freeze one half. I find if I cook the whole thing, the uneaten portion will get lost in the black hole of the fridge thus being found later only to be thrown away. We don’t go through the food like we did when the kids were at home. Loaves of bread get split in half, one half frozen because we don’t eat it fast enough before it gets moldy!

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  17. Kim, I cook half or all the bacon; if I cook just half, I cook the other half in a few days, but I find I might as well smell up the whole house one time. I rarely buy a pound tube of sausage, but got one from my mother-in-law recently. I cooked it all, and ended up freezing what didn’t get used in the meal. (I have a recipe that uses sausage along with chicken, but since it’s mostly chicken it only uses a third pound or so of the sausage. But now I have cooked sausage to thaw and use next time.)

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  18. We split up many different foods and freeze. My husband will grill the whole package of brats he likes and then freeze them for single use. He likes the taste better when they are frozen grilled. We do a lot of cooking and eating from the freezer, since there are only two of us. Sometimes we will do extra bacon and reheat in the microwave for BLT’s etc. That usually is just in the refrigerator for use later in the day or the next day.

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  19. Oh well when frying up bacon Paul does that outside because it makes such a mess and causes the house to smell something awful! We cook up the entire pkg and if any is left we put it in the fridge…bacon seems to get quickly eaten in this house!!

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  20. Stargazer told us his first paycheck came last week. He feels like Roscuro, flush with cash for the first time.

    He’s livings the laundry room of his friends’ apartment, but it’s large and he’s content.

    He bought a “real” bed, shoes, a shirt, pants and this morning CR will take him shopping for dress shoes for tonight’s wedding.

    He told my husband and his brothers all about his job last night, amazing R with his knowledge base and skills. Like Roscuro, Stargazer finally got his chance and he is dazzling everyone.

    Finally, my heart is at rest—for the most part— for that one.

    You all know what that’s like!

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  21. I slept for 9 hours and needed it!

    I have a list of things to do today so need to get to it, but they’re things I’ve wanted and needed to get done around here, including painting the bench (but I need to check out another color or two as now I’m having second thoughts on the brighter blue that I have on hand), so I’m looking forward to the day. Free at last from writing stories (though i owe little bio and memory graphs to the guy organizing our 2nd grade reunion, if I’m not too late by now).

    Highs are only supposed to be 82 today and then 74 tomorrow, amazing. And starting tonight it’ll be back down into the 60s overnight, thankfully, so it looks like our high pressure/heat wave is moving out at long last. A friend who’s in Arizona helping her mom right now texted yesterday that they were getting hit with lots of heat and humidity so I suppose that’s what we’ve had here that’s moving east. Good riddance.

    I like hearing the Pirates’ high school football games in the fall, it’s several blocks southeast of me, far enough away it’s not real loud (unless it’s homecoming when they have fireworks) and it always makes it feel like fall when the season starts up. I guess Michelle would have been marching in the band at the games, back in the day.

    So good to hear about roscuro and Stargazer & their jobs (and paychecks 🙂 ), congratulations. I do remember how my friend who was an RN used to talk about how physically demanding the job could be with all the walking up and down long corridors all day long and lifting patients, etc. But she liked the 12-hour shifts. She was full time and the schedule of a few long days in a row (she worked at a Catholic hospital in over the bridge) allowed her to have several days off in between, much nicer than our short weekends. She always seemed to be not working and have plenty of free time.

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  22. Wow, looks like the home team was pretty spectacular last night. (This also is the kind of town where lots of regular folks go to the games, whether they have kids or grandkids at the school or not — it’s always been a local gathering spot for neighbors, government officials, community leaders, very ‘small town’ for being a part of LA city.)

    ____________________________

    San Pedro’s football team had a record-setting night Friday with a 77-7 drubbing of Taft, scoring 11 touchdowns five different ways.

    The Pirates (3-0) were so dominant that they even set three different school records: the most points ever scored at Mike Walsh Pirate Stadium (77), the most interceptions in a game (5), and the most interceptions returned for a touchdown (4). Most of that damage was done in a first half that saw them score 63 points.
    __________________________________

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  23. Mumsee, Idaho Mike’s last-minute entry in Pigskin Picks includes a non-pick – he listed “Northern Arizona @ Arizona” without any indication of which one he was picking. If he could fix that before the game starts tonight at 10:45 Eastern, Peter might accept the correction even though it’s after the noon deadline.

    My entry, on the other hand, was after-the-last-minute so I expect no mercy.

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  24. I buy only small packages of bacon when I get the craving, but rarely buy it at all.

    I’ve always not trusted (or liked) sausage 🙂 so I pass on that in all cases.

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  26. I want a job naming paint colors

    Guy who advised me on house colors refused to pass on the *names* of the colors, only samples; apparently the names can unduly persuade and move people.

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  27. One thing about paint colors. Never pick a color from one paint company’s catalog and then ask for it by name from another company. It might be a completely different color. Maybe everyone else knows this, but we didn’t 22 years ago.

    When we were preparing to move into our first house, we had a Dutch Boy catalog. I don’t even know where we got it. We picked “First Star” for the entire interior. It was a beautiful warm creamy-beigy sort of color. We assumed that color names were standard.

    So we went to our nearest paint store, a Sherwin Williams, and asked for “First Star”. The guy behind the counter said, “Sure, we have that.” We took the paint cans over to the house and left it there for Mike, the painter we’d hired.

    While we were busy at our apartment packing for the move, while I was working days and Mrs B was taking care of our pre-schooler KJ (and pregnant with Flyboy), Mike was painting the house. When we went over to look at the result, we found the whole house painted a depressing blue/gray color.

    Of course we should have opened a can and looked at the paint. And shown a sample to the painter.

    The manager at Sherwin Williams was apologetic, saying his guy should have looked with us at a sample to make sure we were all agreed on what we were getting. He refunded us the cost of the paint.

    We didn’t end up repainting then – we were running out of time before moving day. So we lived with that depressing color for seven years, repainting only when we were getting ready to sell the house.

    We painted the whole house with a fairly neutral color. And the guy who bought it from us repainted every room, each in a different bold color. *Sigh*.

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  28. I seem to have lost my phone. I am on my tablet which has no space and is old so I can send but not receive emails. If anyone sends me something, please realize I may not have received it. I am trying not to be frantic over this loss of my brain. I attended the ladies’ craft event this a. m. and the lady picking me up was late. I had no way to find out if it was canceled or if she was late or what. It ended up that she was late. Another person I had invited had texted that she would be late and I did not respond back to her so that was awkward, too. I hate being so dependent on my devices. Now I have lost my camera since it is my phone. Saturday rant! I had planned to watch what I wanted to make at the craft gathering on a video. Couldn’t do that. But even so, we all had an enjoyable visit.

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  29. I kind of bought a bed with my first pay cheque. What I did was pay off my credit purchases from the previous month. One of those was for a new mattress. Growing up, my parents had antique metal bedframes (and one wooden one), all with the old fashioned springs. Over the years, the old mattresses (decades old when my parents first aquired the beds) were slowly replaced by newer, but very cheap ones. After three years of sleeping on beds in furnished rooms, my back began objecting to the old fashioned bedsprings (which had stretched, some more and some less) upon my return home. So, I tried to solve the problem by purchasing bed slats. That worked somewhat, but it became glaringly apparent that my mattress was also in very bad shape (feeling the contours of the wire mattress coils when lying down is not ideal). I was sore and stiff when I woke up in the morning, and, as I was just about to begin a new job, I needed to be able to feel rested. So, I found a new mattress for a reasonable price that was on sale.

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  30. I sleep on a very old foam mattress here. My hips are starting to ache at night. I was thinking of buy a mattress topper for my last year here. It is hard not to be able to sleep on one side. Anyone know what I should look for?

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  31. I need prayer that I don’t get sued. I have a buyer seeing an attorney Monday. I have agents on both sides —buy and sell. The buyer reminds me of someone with dementia who acts out with anger.

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  36. Oh, no lawsuits. Praying.

    Kevin, funny (well, not really) story about your paint color. 😦

    I decided to stick with the original color I had. The other two, when I actually saw them, were almost the same (but one was almost gray, which was completely different from what it looked like on my computer screen, another issue they warn you about).

    So the bench is almost fully painted (just have a couple other areas to do) with what I think will be color coat #1. I think it should probably get 2 coats, so am hoping to finish it up tomorrow. Yay. Finally. I wound up with a huge turquoise blob on the front of my T-shirt, though. And some turquoise in my hair. I think the pets escaped being painted so far.

    It’s almost chilly in my house tonight with all the windows open. What a nice feeling.

    Janice, I’m so sorry about your phone. I remember losing my first iPhone, what a disaster. I think I know where I dropped it (at the city sanitation yard when I stopped there for extra trash tickets); someone probably just found it and kept it as it never made its way back to me. 😦

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  37. I need a new mattress and box spring — mine is more than 20 years old and I’m feeling it. But my bed is old/antique and so I have to order a mattress to fit it. It’s on the list along with the hot water heater and fixing the peeling paint on the outside. Sigh.

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  38. Is anyone else having trouble with this site? It looks normal until I click to see the comments. Then it is an all green screen with red and black lettering. Very hard to read. All of the pictures and lists of posts are at the bottom, below the comments. I even rebooted my computer today hoping that might solve the problem.

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  39. Nope, just looks usual.

    Mattress: we have the topper and love it. The end of the day is a beautiful day. We put one on the guest room bed as well as one of the growns mentioned you could feel the springs through it.

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  40. Morning! It is a crisp 45 degrees this morning and all the creatures of the forest are loving it…including us! The doe was at the end of the road with her triplets…they are so tiny. Squirrels are bouncing about and the hummingbirds are darting from feeder to tree to tree. Coffee tasted especially wonderful this AM!
    Hoping your computer rights itself Jo…the site is working just fine for me.
    And like Goldilocks we found just the right mattress 9 years ago. If I sleep on any other my hips scream at me! Next week we will be sleeping in the guest bedroom while the floor renovations happen…I am hoping that mattress will be as comfortable as mine…we shall see!

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  43. Yes indeed a Phil Keaggy concert. It was a small venue at the Tri Lakes Art Center in Palmer Lake (not far from the restaurant where we met up Peter). His skill is amazing and I truly like his voice as well. Matthew Ward (Second Chapter of Acts) joined him for a couple of songs as Matthew lives here.

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  44. Not a single comment in over four hours.
    What makes a “good” guitarist?
    There must be a dozen experts at what they do.
    But they do different things. I like Merle Travis style finger picking.

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  46. A rushed morning for me but made it to church on time. I’m trying to cool off a bit (it’s about 80 outside, I think, but still feels a tad too warm for me and the house is definitely warm) before heading back out to the patio to finish painting the bench.

    One thing that held me up this morning (other than getting up to late, I confess) was that I’d forgotten to feed the neighbors’ fish. So I had to dash over there first thing to make sure they wouldn’t be floating on top of the pond when the neighbors came home from the desert later today!

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  47. I have a fluffy something that lies on top of the mattress but it’s not an official “topper.” I looked at those a while back but they were expensive enough that I decided it made more sense to wait and put the money toward a new mattress set.

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  49. Ah but Chas Keaggy does it with half of a finger missing on his right hand! (That would be his pickin’ hand!) 🎸 He truly is quite gifted with the composition and technique playing that instrument.
    Oh Dj that is sad about that big cat…but then on the other hand one of those critters did attack a young 8yr old boy in Bailey CO last month and did some damage. That little guy picked up a stick to fend off the attack and then he and the cat rolled down the hill, all the while the cat chewing on the little boy.
    Dad came a running with a pocket knife and the cat ran away. Little guy will need more surgery in the future but thankfully he is alive! The Wildlife Div caught the cat and killed it.

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  50. Nancy- Matthew Ward too? :jealous: 2nd Chapter is my favorite group. Phil K used to play guitar for them. I missed an opportunity to see them all in their “How the West was One” concert series in 1977. I was on a choir tour at the time.

    Earlier, in 1976, the Wards were traveling with a large group doing concerts for the Bicentennial. I was in a community choir that sang with the group and stood a few rows back from the Wards.

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  51. Supposed to be in the high seventies today but it is fifty six and raining. Children are off to town to help somebody move. I am glad they are willing to help in time of need.

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  52. My father always liked Chet Akins. He has quite a few LPs of Atkins’ work.
    I like the classical style. Christopher Parkening would be a good example, playing Back here, whom I would describe as the most difficult composer to master, no matter what the instrument, as Bach’s music was very complex:

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  55. Remember Glen Campbell? Not only did he have several hit songs (both country and soft rock or pop), but he was known as an excellent guitarist.

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  56. Chas – I don’t know if this has been mentioned before, but have you thought of giving (or do you give) Elvera Boost or Ensure, those drinks packed with nutrition? We gave my MIL one or two each day, the chocolate flavor.

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  57. Oh, Christopher Parkening! My dad was a huge fan of his mentor, Andres Segovia, a generation earlier. He got to attend a Segovia concert in Los Angeles back in the 50s. So it seemed fitting that Mrs. B. and I got to attend a Parkening concert in Ann Arbor 10-15 years ago. He seems like a very down-to-earth humble man, and so talented!

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  59. Peter, I still have the “How the West Was One” concert album. I didn’t listen to Phil Keaggy as much, but 2nd Chapter of Acts was one of my favorite groups of that era. I met Matthew Ward briefly when I visited the LA megachurch the Wards attended around 1979. He was sitting in front of me. When it was time for everyone to stand up and greet the people around them, he turned around and introduced himself as Matthew. I did kind of a double take of recognition, but I think I wasn’t too obvious about it. I told him I liked his music.

    I don’t think I ever got to a 2nd Chapter concert, but in the early 90s I did get to see Annie in a solo concert.

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  60. Two years ago from yesterday, Hubby came home from his first hospitalization. He was exhausted and weak, but happy to be home after a week in the hospital.

    Two years ago today (it was a Friday), Hubby had the stroke that ended him up in the second hospital, up in Massachusetts. (He hadn’t even been home 24 hours since leaving the first one.) I remember how very scared I was when I got the call from Nightingale. After her call, I went back to cleaning the bathroom floor on my hands and knees, weeping, and pleading with God to spare my husband’s life.

    He mostly recovered from the stroke fairly quickly, but there were other issues that cropped up, including the return of that bleeding from his bladder (due to the tumor in his prostate rubbing against it).

    Remember that great photo I shared that was taken by our pastor later that evening? Leon was lying in the hospital bed, but propped up a bit, giving a thumb’s up, and grinning his great big grin. How hopeful we felt at that point!

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  61. Kevin, I like Segovia, but Parkening has a rare depth added to his technical brilliance. Parkening has retired from performance, so it is unlikely I will ever hear him play live.

    It was hearing a recording of Parkening play a guitar and harpsichord arrangement of Gordon Young’s ‘Prelude in a Classical Style’ (also called Hymn of Christian Joy), which inspired me to learn to play it on the organ (I am somewhat pleased to hear that my choice of stops matches this organists, since organ stops are still a bit of an unknown to me – I miss not being able to play the organ since returning from the city):

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  62. Peter, I was somewhat immersed in the world of rock, or, more accurately, electric guitar (since the electric guitar is not just used in rock) by the very talented guitarists of the city church, who talked of slides, capos, and other jargon not used in the acoustic classical world. It was not totally unfamiliar territory to me, however, since I had watched this informative Phil Keaggy performance posted on YouTube some years ago:

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  64. I note that much of the layering of a Phil Keaggy performance is made possible by the use of a piece of technology now available as an entertainment app on many smartphones and tablets, the looper. I have wondered if it would be possible to use the looper to play Pachelbel’s famous Canon in D, which is meant for three violins to echo in sequence the theme and variations of the Canon, with only one violin. As I do not have a looper, I can only speculate at this time:

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  65. Still slogging my way through A Deeper Well. While I score high on the ACE scale I am thankful for the people who were in my life to help.
    It has brought up some information painful memories from 4th grade and 8th grade. It has explained some things in my life like why I am in constant alert for something to go wrong.
    Knowledge is power. If you know why you can accept what is. You can make better choices going forward.
    Back in the spring one of my agents told me that I had one foot out the door. They needed me to take off my coat and stay a while. What he said to me makes so much more sense now.

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  66. Peter, I couldn’t open the link. I’ll try again tomorrow.
    But in any case, unless I change tomorrow. We’ll go with the Carolina/BAma game.
    Which I pick Gamecocks by 3.

    Karen, @ 4:55. I have tried ensure. But nutrition isn’t really the problem. It’s getting enough liquid. I use Gatorade occasionally. But the problem is getting the liquid into her. She seems to have an aversion to simple liquids. Again, the problem isn’t nutrition, it’s hydration.

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  67. Lots of videos today. I am on a brand new phone with nothing set up on it. I may be Anon although I made an attempt to be admitted. Maybe committed wpuld be the better route as I am about crazy dealing with phone issues.
    Janice.

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  70. Kevin- I have the “Weat” album, too. I also have the one they did with Barry MacGuire, the one who discovered them.

    Roscuro- Keaggy could make any guitar sound wonderful. THe guy is amazing. I have an EP he did in 2006 called “Jammed”. It has a variety of his styles. One you might appreciate is his version of “Ode to Joy” on electric guitar.

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  71. My former roommate was studying classical guitar when we lived together and was thrilled to be able to go to a Parkening concert (this would have been in the late 1970s). She listened to him a lot.

    Kizzie, yes, I sure do remember that photo.

    I finished the bench, at last. It did need that second coat, but I also liked the way it looked with just the one “blue-wash” coat (with the white primer barely showing through in streaks in some places) as the idea was to keep the bench looking rustic.

    But I’m happy with the color, it’s now a very southwestern looking bench which was what I was aiming for.

    Of course, I have a lot of the paint on me, too. At one point, my whole right hand (open side) was covered with turquoise blue when I forgot there was still “wet paint” on one of the ornamental knobs on top of the frame (I didn’t paint that until last because it was so handy to grab as I was going around from front to back. Oops.)

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  72. Stargazer bought a mattress with his first paycheck. The bride came in to Pachebel’s Canon Yesterday. Roscuro would fit in well with my family.

    We’re home after a fabulous four days.

    I’m exhausted. I’ll tell some stories tomorrow.

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  73. Chas, when you last mentioned having problems getting liquids in you, some of us mentioned a product used to thicken liquids (my daughter used it with elderly people who couldn’t drink things that were too liquid). Have you looked into that? You’d add it to grape juice, for instance, to make it a thicker consistency. If she will eat but not drink, that might be an option.

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  74. Dogs are walked and the nights are much cooler.

    Is there a product to take paint out of clothing? I thought I saw something like that, maybe at Lowe’s, but couldn’t see anything that advertised that on Amazon or at our grocery store, just regular stain remover. But I suspect paint (if it comes out at all) will require something tougher.

    These are old clothes, so not urgent. If they keep the splotches, so be it. They’ll be good painting clothes forever.

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  77. Awww.

    My neighbors around the block had a cat who would steal things like socks and other items found in the neighborhood, so the owners would keep all of the items in a laundry basket on their front porch if anyone had something so valuable they wanted might want to check for it.

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