Woman in the Middle

On Monday I went to get the mail and panicked when I saw the mailbox was empty. My first thought – Our mail had been stolen! But, I then remembered it was President’s Day and so no mail service. Whew! It is amazing how quickly all that can go through your mind and how quickly your heart can start beating fast!

In the “We can’t ever have anything nice” category, I was at our local Target yesterday. I found something that was 70% off, but I didn’t know what the original price was. I sent Eldest Daughter off to use one of the scanners they have, but it said it was out of order and to find an employee. Sigh. We found an employee, but she didn’t have a scanner. Thank goodness one was within eyesight that did have a scanner and he came over to tell me what the price was. The first employee mentioned that all the price scanners in the store had been out for several days. Really? Sigh.

On Saturday night, as we got closer to home from our visit to Downtown Disney, we all decided we wanted a milkshake. It was about 9:15. First we hit the Del Taco near our house. The shake machine was down, we were told. Hum…by then we all had our heart set on a shake, so we headed for our local McDonald’s. They could produce soft serve ice cream, but no shakes there either. i settled for a smoothy and Hubby and Eldest Daughter each got a McFlurry. We were getting the impression that 9 p.m. on Saturday night was “shake machine cleaning time” in our fair city. Weird, as I would think people, lie us, might want a shake on Saturday night, about that time. I think a good time to clean the shake machine would be around 8 a.m. I am thinking they get a lot less requests for shakes at 8 a.m. than at 9 p.m. Just sayin’

I got a hankering for a little Disney in my life so Hubby, Eldest Daughter, and i went off to Downtown Disney on Saturday evening. Downtown Disney is the shopping area outside the parks and is free to enter. Well, free except for the $12 an hour parking. More on that in a minute.

The California freeways were kind to us on the way down, and only a bit of slowing was encountered. That made for a good start to our evening. Unfortunately, Disney has some weird parking nonsense going on nowadays. Every visit is different. On Saturday we followed the (permanent) signs to Downtown Disney parking, only to find out, after it was too late to make a different choice, that they closed off the entrance all the signs are pointing us to. A temporary sign directed us to go passed the posted entrance to the next stop sign to make a u turn and go back to  the street we had come from. If they had posted the temporary sign on THAT street, we could have just gone straight, and missed the turn, u-turn, and turn again. Grrrr….

Anyway, we eventually parked and walked over towards Downtown Disney. On the way, we passed the Disneyland Hotel. I realized I had never ever been inside the original hotel at Disneyland, so we wandered around there for a bit before going over to Downtown.

If you spend $20 or more on a meal or purchase, you can gt a minimum of three hours of free parking. So we ate at the Earl of Sandwich (guess what we had? LOL!) and got our three hours of free parking. That was just enough for us. Downtown Disney isn’t that big, and I have feet that tire quickly. Besides, it was really crowded, and it was reminding  Hubby and I of some of the less pleasant moments of our Disney World vacation. Strollers and more strollers, crying kids, and a whole lot of tourists stopped and staring.

In spite of it all, we did enjoy ourselves. But three hours was plenty, and then we were happy to head home, our Disney needs met once again.

Recently, Lumos took up a new hobby. Toilet paper shredding. I had heard of this annoying issue with the tissue, but had never experienced it before. Now, if the roll is on the holder int he front bathroom (and sometimes even if it isn’t) this is what we get:

We say it is Lumos, but we have never actually caught him in the act of shredding,  But the little weirdo had a deep obsession with the front bathroom. If you are in there, he wants in. If you close the door on him, he sits outside and makes noise until you let him in. He even sleeps sometimes on the rug in front of the sink, which is always a surprise in the middle of the night, for him and for you.

Dax seems to be feeling better and he spends more time out and about with us. His ears appear to be almost problem free as he doesn’t shake his head very much anymore and ear scratching has stopped. However, all is not well as his nose is now bright pink for unknown reasons. I wish he could tell me what is wrong with him!!! But he now is out and about enough for us to play with him with a dangle thing on a stick and he even gets into it with the other cats at times, boxing, chasing, etc…..

Dax is a hard one to photograph. He runs from the camera. The first day or two he was with us I used the flash and he has never gotten over it. Now he seems the camera and leaves the room. Darn cat is too smart. I did manage to get a few new photos of our newest boy by sneaking up on him and not using the flash. Here they are.

Look at that face and that fluffy fur!

Two orange cats on the couch. One has short fur and the other has long.

Even though it is not winter weather around here, it isn’t 100 degrees. so I am in my “Nox on my lap” season. Nox is my boy and he prefers my lap at least 3/4 of the time. I love having my little boy snuggle with me. Little being relative. 14 1/2 pounds seems little when his two housemates are over 17 pounds each! I have heard rumors of adult cats who weigh less than 10 pounds. That has never happened in our house. Even when we get them as kittens, and have no idea how they will turn out, they end up being big boys.

Yesterday Eldest Daughter and I went to help with the deep cleaning at Room 8. It was nice to be there with lots of other people. All women. All who own cats. Hum, wonder why that is? In any case, I got to be around some of the new cats. Two in particular were memorable because they are very vocal. Both Rocky and Rosie were not pleased with the invasion of the premises and all the bustle and people that included.  Rosie was especially unhappy with the sound of the vacuum cleaner. Sorry I don’t have photos. I was busy cleaning!

Hope you are having a great weekend!

I always plan to post on this blog  more often, but sometimes a week gets away from me. First, I note it has only been three days since the last post, and that isn’t so long ago. I usually start another post, but don’t quite finish it. Then, like today, I look and see it has been a week since I posted. Oops!

I hope you had a good weekend. We had a pretty productive one. By “we” I mean Hubby, with me hovering in the background and pitching in where I could.

Unfortunately, we figured out Thursday night that the garbage disposal was having problems. Hubby decided just to go ahead and replace it. So our big Friday night was going to Home Depot and buying a new garbage disposal. Whoo hoo!

Saturday was spent with me cleaning out under the sink and cleaning up the mess that the disposal had deposited there. Then Hubby started the replacement process. It required two trips to the hardware store. You know how that goes. But before 9 pm that night, we had a new disposal in place. Hubby is so talented! The new one is much quieter and we hope lasts a good long time so he doesn’t have to do that again anytime soon.

On Sunday we did some garage cleaning. That is always fraught with pain and heartache in our house. LOL! If a box has not been gone through in the almost eight years since we moved, it isn’t due to us forgetting it is there, it is due to not having the gumption to want to deal with it. Well, we went though some things that were previously ignored, and that is a good thing.  We identified a bunch of electronics that can be recycled. We also found a few bags of stuff that can be donated. All in all, a good several hours of cleaning. Even better, Hubby put some little slivers of wood under one corner of a big cabinet we have out there that was just a wee bit out of kilter, just enough so one door never closed. Well, guess what? Now it closes! Seriously, the best thing he did all weekend! That open door was always in the way whenever we took out the trash.

I now have four hubcaps again. One of my hubcaps had had an unfortunate brush against a red curb. Another just disappeared one day. But the trusty Camry once again looks like it should and I don’t have to be embarrassed about my sad hubcap situation.  Thanks to Hubby for that  fix as well.

Hope you have a good rest of the week and I hope to see you here again a little sooner than last time!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to help a friend. A minor procedure was scheduled and a ride was needed because a little anesthesia was involved. It required me to get up at 5:30 am which, other than the IDEA of getting up that early, was no big deal. One of my super powers is the ability to wake up fast and get on with my day. I might crash and burn later, but I can go go go for several hours on less than an ideal amount of sleep.

We got to the medical center in a neighboring city with a minimum of fuss. A parking space was waiting for us right by the door. At that point, the day was a good one, no matter what else happened. Things went smoothly from there as my friend was taken in quickly, then the procedure was done in a quick and efficient manner. She came out of anesthesia quickly as well. Yay!

Meanwhile, I was able to procure a delightful yogurt parfait with fresh strawberries and blueberries from a near by carfeteria, which I ate while I waited. I had nothing better to do than to play my favorite game on my phone and do a little reading. That, right there, is a joy. Afterwards, my friend wanted an In and Out burger, and she treated me to one as well. We sat in the car and ate our lunch, enjoying our ridiculously warm but beautiful weather. I got her home and got to see and speak to her son, who I have known since he was in kindergarten with Youngest Daughter. My, he is a good looking, strapping young man now!

Then I went home and took a nice long nap, ran some errands, and finished off my day in the normal way with Hubby and a little TV. Oh, and some cat petting.

You know, a day is what you make of it. Sitting around in a medical center may not sound like a great day, but in this case it was. I can officially mark February 5, 2018 as a good day. Hope yours was good as well!

The $1.45 Mocha Freeze is off the menu at the Costco snack bar and I am in mourning. I loved those things. I can not drink very much coffee due to its acidity but I do love it. The Mocha Freeze had just enough coffee to give me the flavor but not too much to give me problems. RIP Mocha Freeze. You will be missed.

People down the street are removing a huge old olive tree. The sound of tree removal has been all over the neighborhood for several days. The tree was planted decades ago way too close to the house. Now that they are selling,  they probably had a home inspection that identified the tree as a problem.  Looking forward to the buzz of chain saws and the sound of the wood chipper being over.

Ever since our closet rod fell in the middle of the night, sounding like a bomb going off, Hubby and I have been a wee bit more sensitive to middle of the night noises. Last night we both heard what sounded like a golf ball bouncing near by. We had both forgotten it by morning until I found a golf ball on the floor. We have a lot of golf balls in our lives because we live next door to a golf course. Hubby remembered finding that particular golf ball and bringing it inside and placing it on the counter between the kitchen and the den. We have one cat, Nox, who likes to stroll the kitchen counters in the middle of the night to see what he can find. Apparently last night he found a golf ball which he knocked to the floor. Mystery solved. Now if I can figure out how to convince Nox to stay off the counters. 

My little trouble maker Nox. Here he is catching a few rays in the den.  

That annual tradition, for reasons lost on me, the Super Bowl is here. We will spend it in our annual tradition of watching the commercials, not so much the game, and eating lots of food.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!