though it will get up to 50 at the end of next week, but not for long, I suspect.
I swear people will NOT slow down on our street: it’s 30 for a reason: and we have had about 3 wrecks at our corner, one up the street, one up the other street, and today—yep, after the slick spots had all melted, some pickup truck apparently managed to shove an SUV off the road and onto the side of someone’s lawn. Make that 6 for the count. I confess to edging the speed up a bit myself, but traffic has gotten heavier with all the construction in town and I’m knocking it right back down to legal for all the string of cars behind me: they may cuss about ‘slow’ Priuses, but, guys, I know the house across the street has repaired that stone wall three times so far, guy up the street has lost a fence, we’ve had a FedEx truck, big one, in the bushes, and a sedan upside down. The weather’s getting worse now. So swear at me all you like, but we’ll all get to my driveway in one piece. After that, you’re on your own.
We’ve got a freeze warning in our upcoming weather as well down here in the flatlands. Your drivers sound like ours — just let the weather deviate two drops from perfectly dry pavement and it’s Demolition Derby Day on the city streets. I just think of it as evolutionary pressure selecting for common sense and try to stay out of the way. It’s called “defensive driving” for a reason.
“Freezing fog” is a new one. I think I’d have to see that done — do you get hoar with that? Reminds me of one of my favorite how’s-that-again’s — “whore frost.” (us that when a streetwalker gives you the cold shoulder?)
Freezing fog often gives you black ice.
And, ah, the problems of poor spellers…
Weather.com came up with two things: One, Now they predict three to four days flirting with freezing, highs in the 50’s, one day at 47°, some rain possible. I might get to wear winter clothing instead of mild cool-weather / warm-weather clothing.
It got cool enough to turn on the heater! I hardly had it on last winter, just let Mother Nature heat the place during the day and ambient heat at night, most of the time. No trouble from the heater, and the A/C leak has abated, so I plan to wait until after the cleaning and fumigating to ask the maintainability. staff to check it again.
Two, not so good, Weather.com had a Chinese banner ad. Why they think they have to run ads at all is aggravating and wastes screen/page space.
Hoping to make headway on housework. Also, I plan to set aside time to read and rest. — Also, I get to install the new printer and try it out. (Yay!)
Your road sounds as if it really needs a road diet!*
For people to keep to the set speed limits, the road has to be built in such a way that people would naturally be inclined not to drive much faster because it feels dangerous, or because there are obstacles to driving faster.
This can be done by narrowing driving lanes, putting in bulbouts at crossings to make them safer, adding an alternating parking lane as a form of chicane, widening sidewalks, putting in speed bumps or raised crossings, adding a dedicated and (camera)enforced bus lane, or putting in a bike lane (it sounds like your road is an arterial, those should have separated bike lanes according to Dutch principles 😉).
* From the wiki article on road diets:
Researchers have found that road diets can be expected to reduce overall crash frequency by 19% to 43%, with the higher crash reductions occurring in small urban areas than in metropolitan areas.
In the town where I attended college, they started with separated bike lanes on one side of the main road. Cyclists used them, but after a while, they started to accumulate rubbish: broken bottles, paper, cans and general trash that was difficult for cyclists to avoid. The separated lane (with a short concrete divider) couldn’t be cleaned by city sweeping trucks, so kept on collecting trash. When the cyclists stopped using the lane because it was full of garbage, they ripped out the divider and painted in the bike lane; at least they kept the bike lane, but I don’t know that it helped any.
@Chondrite, my comment got sent to moderation for too many links, but it came down to this.
Separate cycle lanes need a minimum width of 2 yards, and that is wide enough for one of these little sweeper trucks (working width 150 cm, about 60 inches).
It’s rather stupid to build stuff and then not budget for upkeep, and these can also remove snow (with an attached roller brush on the front), not just on cycle paths but in pedestrian areas as well. And being small they’re a lot less costly than the large snowplows and sweeper trucks, and don’t damage the pavements nearly as much.
I’ll tell you what frosts me! (Stretching to maintain a connection to the topic at hand.) It’s the road grates for drainage sumps next to the curb that run the bars parallel to the road so a bike wheel will fall down between, tossing the rider into a header, and destroying the wheel, if not the whole front fork! They could just as easily run them perpendicular to the road, causing no trouble at all for bikes hugging the edge–but few American cities spend a dime on an unamerican activeity like bike-riding!
Didn’t hitting one of those misaligned grates happen to Our Gracious Hostess at one point (see, it is relevant, and I vaguely recall CJ saying she took a tumble because of a drainage grate at one time).
Hanneke, our sad little bike lanes were only about 4 feet wide at most, so they were only a nod to cyclists and not particularly good.
I remember reading here about CJ’s bad fall due to a misaligned grate.
Safe drainage grates: these are used everywhere, in Holland. The one on the right is always used whenever there is pavement beside the road, or at least an edging kerb/curb; it also exists in a 45 degree angle version, for use in angled kerbs/curbs(I forget which is the USA spelling). The one on the left is slightly rectangular or hinged (2 dents in the casing, 2 short jutting rods on the lid, so the lid can be lifted out easily), so the grate can’t be put back at the wrong angle. It also exists in a slightly hollow version for use in drainage channels.
The closed lids of the kerbside types are textured so they don’t get slippery when wet, and can be lifted off for cleaning.
The general use of those kerbside types means there’s no noise ( kedeng-kedeng all night long outside my hotel window, once 🤨) from cars driving over them, and that also means there is a lot less wear and tear on them, so they last a very long time, more than a century from the 19th century type one kerbs-and-pavements enthousiast on the Internet spotted.
Safety really should be incorporated into basic designs like these, so mistakes won’t be lethal.
Edited to add:
If the kerbside ones are located on a toad trek route, like they are on my street, municipalities put fine grates (like a piece of stiff chicken wire) in front of the openings, so the toads won’t hop down there and be unable to get out.
As opposed to this grate in Portland, priding itself as a “bike friendly town”:
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=576584
All they need to do is turn it 90 degrees!
Oh, yes.
I had that happen to me when I was about 25, on a downhill at max speed, thanks to a car that swerved at me as a ‘joke’ and then drove off. I didn’t break my neck because of two things: a crossbody purse and a karate-chop of the pavement with both arms as I landed, skinned my throat and dislocated my jaw. All my current dental woes are due to that jackass, pardonez-moi, but I did get the OKC street department to put in 6 blocks of sidewalk with the rather angry letter I wrote them: some idiot had set that particular drain with the bars parallel to the street instead of end-on to the street, which is HOW bikes fall into them.
I’d think they’d also design a sweeping machine for bike lanes. (Oh, I see Hanneke’s already got it covered! Good!) — Separated bike lanes sound much safer, if they’re clean.
There are drainage grates in the parking lot at my apt. complex. They do a great job (oh, very bad unintended pun, sorry) but hmm, if you don’t watch where you step or bike or drive, I could see that being a problem. And if not set in just right, ouch.
In my city, sidewalks and bike paths / lanes are a problem: For no good reasons, my city is very bad about not having sidewalks. How is a pedestrian or bike rider supposed to be safe or get around then? Walking along any major street or highway is not a good idea, not smart or safe, but people do it. (I still avoid this. Whether it means I miss out, I’m not sure.) A guy some years younger than I, and now gone due to other causes, had some condition which kept him limited. (I was never quite sure what this was; it was never fully explained, but mental / cognitive issues and something else.) So he lived with his mother, even though he was an adult — and he walked everywhere. Within the neighborhood near the church, this was somewhat doable, but beyond that were major streets and highways. He didn’t bike either; I don’t know why, it would have helped him if he could. The heat of summer or the cold of winter or wet out, John might pass by. — I had not come out yet, and I didn’t know how that would be received. It’s possible we missed a chance to help each other some. (And in my thinking at the time, I was more worried about it damaging the acquaintance, and not able to see that if he’d been fine with it, it might have been fine. Also, I always assumed he was straight. I don’t think I’ve made much progress in this part of my life, and wish I could.) Anyway, during my grandmother’s illness, his mom and then he had health problems and passed away. We knew each other from church, but had never really developed a friendship beyond that. Why neither of us did, I don’t know. It’s around the holidays, and occasionally, something like the discussion here of walking and biking will remind me of the few times I’d see him walking somewhere. Rarely, if people from church were in the neighborhood and saw him, they’d offer to give him a lift. — But this shows how even in what we’d like to think are enlightened times with plenty of options, people still have needs that go unmet.
At times, I have wondered why we don’t have something more communal around apartment complexes and subdivisions. We, especially Americans, but Europeans also, live in independent houses per family unit, or apartments. We went from small villages and towns where extended families and friendly neighbors all cooperated to some degree to raise kids, and the elders and sick or handicapped folks had some way to contribute to the community and to get care back. This wasn’t perfect, of course, but it worked better than what we became in the 20th century with urbanization and mass transit and travel, and the breakup of those ties of family and community. The hippies and flower children and environmentalists, and maybe the nudist/naturists and (East) Indian culture fans, as well as kibbutzim Jews, had various ideas for communal living and self-sufficiency, back to nature, and so on. — I have seen that a few modern places besides assisted living centers have tried some form of group center where people can come to fix meals together, share taking care of kids or elders or others who need it, and so on, while still having their own apartments or homes. I keep wondering why something like this isn’t adopted as the norm. Are we so cussedly independent and individualistic (or selfish) that we, as a culture or as neighbor groups, won’t try this, and try variations, until something works as a substitute for that social safety net, that support network of community? It would help everyone, not just folks like me.
Or as a couple of simple things, as a for instance: My apartment complex is probably above average; it’s at least OK. Another I had looked at was much bigger with other facilities. I’ve said there are kids around here much of the time, who play in whatever ways they can, to get out of the apartment and take advantage of good weather and making friends. That’s great, except — When this place, and others, are planned and built, why on Earth do the designers not build in an activity center for the kids and adults, besides a pool? They could put in space somewhere for an indoor gym or an exercise room, a basketball court (which could be used for other sports), or even.space enough for, say, a soccer field, maybe playground equipment for the younger kids. Or build a dedicated park area with these things nearby, that is easily, safely accessible for kids and adult residents. What would be so hard about that? Make it a big selling point to attract people. Make it cheap enough people could afford it and would be happy to pay it, to have this for themselves, their kids, their neighbors, the retirees, and so on. Or a community building (isn’t that sort of what subdivision clubhouses were supposed to be for?) for fixing meals, gathering for fun and fellowship, things like that? A place people could look after each other, become friends, create those missing bonds of family and community and neighborhood that our cities just usually do not have at all.
I hae seen a few documentaries or news articles on planned living communities, like apartment complexes or subdivisions, which attempt to provide something like this, but from what I can tell, they are few and far between, more expensive, and looked at as unusual, or for retirees or well-off people or others, perhaps with what some would claim are eccentric ideas, whether that’s so or only other peoples’ nose-in-the-air silly notions. (I suppose I am, at least on paper, more tolerant of some ideas, these days.)
Or why don’t they build in garden areas and a system whereby people who want to raise fruits and vegetables, even trees, some flowers, can do so and share the responsibility and work, and hmm, maybe a small charge for residents to purchase the food or flowers, to be used for upkeep?
Things like that, or simple things like sidewalks and bike lanes, would make a huge difference to make things more livable in basic human terms and would be more environmentally friendly too. — Why do we not do these things as a culture, by default? Why do we act like it’s too much trouble, or people would never go for it? Sure, you’d have some who didn’t want to do the work or keep it maintained. But some would, and besides, if you have groundskeepers and maintenance people anyway, why not have this too? Make it a thing of pride in your neighborhood and what the Brits call being “house proud,” taking care of your home and yard?
I get the impression that some countries do more of this by their nature, their national character, than Americans or English/British folks do. — So why don’t we do it too?
Hmm, maybe it’s the holiday spirit making me want to be more communal. — I still don’t really know my neighbors, and they don’t know me, much if at all. I get the impression my neighbors only know each other a little, even if, say, their kids play together outside. — But it seems to me like there must be better answers for a better way of living for everyone. (I know I’m a loner by nature and because of both how I was raised and how others acted when I was growing up, and yes, mistakes I think my parents made with good intentions, in raising me. But even so, I’d like to do better. I seem to miss or fumble opportunities, but I swear also, when I try to meet people, nothing much really happens, and that frustrates me, because I’d like to know people better and make friends. Never mind that I could also use the support and might get to help others.)
Still have mild but ongoing symptoms from the earlier stomach / g-i bug, but this week, I have to get things done before next Monday, scheduled for cleaning service and (for me and the cats) a stay that day at a hotel. So possibly before Thanksgiving, the place will be neat and clean again, and then in December fumigation, a follow-up cleaning, and then back to living more like real people. (It does look better here, due to my efforts, but it still is not what I’d call neat, organized, or clean enough. It will get there, though, and oh, will I be motivated not to let it get out of hand, also to be sure the pest control guy makes regular visits, probably quarterly once it’s back to normal.) Meh. Crazy situation, and I will be so glad when it’s done! (And I want that danged dryer duct vent cleaned out. Way tired of running the stupid dryer four times or a single load. Wasteful, takes forever.) Grumble, grumble.
Got to get by the post office to pick up something. I missed a note or two from what is now last week. One item might be appreciated from a friend here. The other, I hope is a regular item for pickup, and not some difficult news that I’ve missed somehow.
The street that CJ’s driveway accesses is a two-lane, one way street. So, if they are backing out of their driveway onto the street, traffic would be coming from their left in both lanes. There’s a significant distance, almost 5 city blocks, between their driveway and the closest traffic control device (stop sign, traffic light, etc.) and the vehicles have time to speed up. It’s a difficult street if traffic is heavy.
Joe, it’s good to see you post. Missed seeing you around online. 🙂
Five blocks means there are five crossroads?
If the cars are slowed down at each crossroads that would significantly decrease their ability to build up unsafe (and illegal) speed, and that would increase safety for everyone, both motorists and anyone needing to cross the road or exit their driveway.
Sneckdowns (i.e. bulbouts) could accomplish that without adding stop signs or lights, and probably better than stop signs alone unless they were frequently monitored by police.
If Spokane is starting to see snow that stays on the road, one might take pictures of the remaining car lane width that is really necessary and used, and how much could be taken away, especially at the corners, to make car drivers naturally keep to safer speeds.
I had some more links on this topic, but that comment got sent to moderation. I hope this one gets through, and then I’ll really shut up. Sorry for going on and on!
I had to look up a ‘sneckdown’ (at first, I thought it had something to do with ‘snek’ 🙂 ) It’s a combo of ‘snow’ and ‘neckdown’; an artificial narrowing of the street, usually after a snowfall, that shows where the cars actually do most of their driving. The snow that doesn’t get slushified by cars shows where traffic isn’t really using their allocated asphalt, and a road can be narrowed for parking or pedestrians or traffic calming. We don’t get enough snow here to impact traffic.
For those interested in traffic calming “neckdowns” who don’t live in snowy areas, I just ran across this article where people used fallen leaves and chalk lines instead: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/leafy-neckdown-cornstarch-water-leaves-reshape-unsafe-intersection/
Badly designed roads and traffic flows are the bane of almost everyone’s day; it probably contributes to bad driver syndrome and road rage. Timing traffic lights to help cars move along more smoothly? What a quaint notion. We have one roundabout on our island, and the wailing and moaning when it was put in was something to hear. People are getting accustomed now, but it still gets tied up in the mornings because it connects a large subdivision with a nearly elementary school, and crosses another large artery. We do have one place where another roundabout might make sense; poor planning put the main entrances for two big box stores across from each other, sandwiched between two lights less than a quarter mile apart. I have waited for a break in traffic to leave one or the other parking lot for several minutes. Another light there would gum things up worse, but a roundabout would let people enter the traffic flow constantly, and make their way either right or left.
We sit. And wait. The traffic light some blocks up does give us a break eventurally. 😉
I swear a neighbouring city has another take on the ‘road diet’ –don’t fix the roads. Once the potholes get bad enough, people slow down. Or else. More immediate feedback than speed cameras.
I am pleased to report that another hedgehog has joined the household and the universe is back in balance. She is Thistle and is not yet 8 weeks old,although she runs in an exercise wheel quite competently. I resist the temptation to burble like a proud parent and I will continue to be Teasel in tribute to Ms Thistle’s predecessor.
Delighted to make the aquaintance of Thistle!
Hedgehogs are so cute. I would succumb—except for the cats.
Welcome to Thistle!
I found myself considering my first impression was that a hedgehog should sound British, or perhaps Scottish. Why, I don’t know. But then I thought, well, why wouldn’t they sound American, say very Southern or Cajun? (I should look up whether hedgehogs are also native to the Americas.)
But then wondering about the nature of hedgehog accents led my mind to wander off into recalling opossums, perhaps Pogo, and Emmett Otter (I don’t know when I saw that old movie last), and then the song about Muskrat Love involving Suzy and whoever her beau was, and the accents thus involved, and…well, you can see it was getting both critter-crowded and complicated and perhaps noisy in there! Hahaha.
I have, however, determined that I need to find the Emmett Otter movie and rewatch, as it’s a holiday season sort of thing.
Note: Pogo was before my time. I’ve only heard about it because my mom was a big fan, and regretted not having a book of the collected cartoons. I just sort of assume that Pogo is one of the inspirations behind, say, Bloom County and Calvin & Hobbes. — Also note, an earlier avatar for me in Farscape fandom was a gif of Hobbes. 🙂 During my first run through college, Calvin & Hobbes strips would sometimes be pinned to the bulletin board behind my dorm room desk. Because it was that good.
So Thistle brings up all sorts of fine associations. Yes, my mind likes to free-associate like it’s goin’ out of style, sometimes.
I wonder if anyone has done a science fiction & fantasy book series (or video series / TV show) with a menagerie like that. That would be fun. (I feel sure there would be plenty of fans, and not just the Furry and Anthro communities, who are, be it noted, welcome and probably bigger than I’m aware of. (Anyone brave enough to wear a fur-suit or mascot costume in Houston weather has got to have some serious willpower. And perhaps an in-suit air-cooling system.) (There used to be some poor underpaid college student or other employee outside one local business here, who, poor soul, stood for hours in the summer heat outside that business for advertising, in a full fur-suit costume. Should gotten a raise…and a ton of cold drinks!)
There are no native new world hedgehogs. The domestic hedgehogs kept as pets are a hybrid of 2 African species: the Algerian and the Whitebellied (Atelerix albiventris). I find them fascinating but petwise they aren’t everybody’s cup of tea. They don’t do grateful and they don’t do cuddly. They are solitary, seriously stubborn and nocturnal. Yes, you do have to watch cats and prey-drive dogs like terriers around them although they get along well with other small cage pets. But also remember that they are illegal in Arizona, California (for logical reasons), Alaska, and New York City (for no logical reasons). Other places (eg. Maine) you have to have a wildlife permit. If you are thinking of getting a hedgehog, do your reseach.
Re SF book with a bunch of clever pets (who really are pets, neither aliens nor intelligent independent animals), I once read an SF book about a doctor travelling around in a spaceship with a bunch of animals that helped to develop diagnoses and cures. She got blamed for some epidemic that wasn’t her fault. I can’t remember the author (something like Taylor, or something that starts with an S?) or title now, but I remember occasionally looking for more by that author and not finding it (it was before the Internet).
André Norton has some clever pets too, in several of her stories.
I feel as if Julie Czerneda should be on this list, but I can’t quite remember a specific book of hers that has real pets in it that are important to the story.
Anvil or Laumer? IIRC either of them has been writing along that theme.
I remember a story, something P. (orcine) I. (ntergalactic) G. (?) something, about a guy who travelled around with several pigs with different abilities solving/fixing mysteries.
I remember those, from way back, but not the author or anything else. (IIRC I read at least one in Analog.)
“The Man from P.I.G.” [The Porcine Interstellar Guard], by Harry Harrison.
But I remember the one about the snakes, how they could make critically necessary drugs in their venom–which isn’t Science Fiction any more. “Exenatide [marketed as Byetta], a drug that is a synthetic form of a substance found in Gila monster saliva, led to healthy sustained glucose levels and progressive weight loss among people with type 2 diabetes who took part in a three-year study.” https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070709175815.htm
Vonda McIntyre: “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”; a post-holocaust novella later turned into a full novel, “Dreamsnake”. The healer, Snake, uses venomous snakes who process specific things they are fed to create cures for various diseases. One of the snakes is very rare because no one has been able to figure out how to make it reproduce outside of cloning. When Snake’s rare snake gets killed accidentally, she tries to find out how to replace it.
Mercedes Lackey of course has her Heralds and their horselike Companions, Anne McCaffrey her dragons, and many witches and wizards have familiars. Dare I list Cloud and the other nighthorses?
Dreamsnake and several of Vonda McIntyre’s great books are available at http://www.bookviewcafe.com — It has been too long since I last read Dreamsnake and others. I like her writing a lot. Not sure if I have read, “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand,” though. I’ll look for it.
I have mixed feelings about Mercedes Lackey’s Herald / Valdemar books, based on one series (3 or 4 books) in that universe that I had read. There’s both a tragic ending, foreshadowed, and one of the minor / supporting characters (as well as a major character) are killed, affecting the main characters and the storyline / plot strongly. That is true to life, something we all have to deal with, and it is true of the medieval romantic fiction and cycles of the historical period she’s using (late Middle Ages, more or less). So it does fit. I liked the books and would read them again. I just got caught in a “Gulp! Eek!” time there. However, I have also liked several of her other books, and I’d read her stuff anyway.
Andre Norton was one of my first real introductions to science fiction books as a kid. I still love her books, a favorite writer. My favorites of hers would be The Iron Cage, Starman’s Son / Daybreak 2250 A.D., and her Solar Queen trade starship series, several books therein. But others of hers, such as the two books with Eet (The Zero Stone, and another I don’t recall the title at the moment, maybe Uncharted Stars) were also favorites. Hard to pick. — My mom didn’t care for the Witch World novels. I haven’t read most of those, and I’m not sure what my mom’s dislike was for them.
—–
Hah, I recently got a Chinese shirt (white) and shirt-jacket / coat (beige/khaki) in cotton-linen, and like these a lot. — Why mention it? The loose fit of the white shirt had me thinking of Tully’s stash shirt that the crew of the Pride get him early on. I now think it would be something between a mid-thigh to longer Indian kurta, a Chinese Tang style shirt, and a Jacobite (pirate or Scottish or Renn Faire) style shirt. Something loose-fitting, stash proportions instead of human, so a slightly unusual fit for a human, white with whatever decorative borders (I think one of his shirts had some colored piping) and exotic, not quite going with the hani common spacer’s breeches, and tailored to fit his frame. I’m fairly sure Tully has a more medium to large frame, but is around my height, and of course, the shoulder-length blond hair and full beard and mustache shown on the book covers. If I were to let my hair grow long enough and grow my beard, yes, I could cosplay as Tully or Bren fairly well. 😀
Crusader Kings II (CK2) is a quite complex computer game about forming arranged marriages and maintaining a dynasty in the middle ages. You can operate with the sexism of the times, equality, or matriarchs–it’s a slider. Usually it is very serious, dry, and historical. But it can be played in a role-playing fashion, and one can absorb a little history along the way, or geography, at least.
In one of many DLC expansions a couple years ago, Horse Lords, CK2 added an “Easter egg” Glitterhoof, their version of Caligula’s proposed consul, Incitatus, meaning, according to Wikipedia, “At full gallop.” Glitterhoof is a horse, but also a counselor you can hire, and with arranged marriages you convert your dynasty to horses.
In CK2’s latest DLC to freshen the game, instead of playing with all the provinces of 769-1453 CE or so, you can randomize the map. The map of Eurasia is essentially the same, but the Rus might be in Scotland next to Mongols–or whatever.
This new DLC is called Holy Fury (Holy Furry?) and has a hidden Easter egg that allows in addition or instead of the tribes, races, and cultures of history, horses (of course, of course), dogs, cats, dragons, and, indeed, hedgehogs. And many others, with art, though CK2 is not an art-rich game.
Names are adjusted. For example, a common cat name is Chairman, as in Chairman of the house of Meow. Hedgehogs get names like Spike, and so forth.
Base, original CK2 is often offered free, in order induce purchase of the DLC, of which Holy Fury (US$20) is the 15th! (Older DLC is less expensive.) If anyone wants to attempt CK2, I suggest taking such an opportunity and adding DLC slowly since each DLC makes the game more complex. I do not think you have to install DLC in sequence.
Here’s a quick video on the Easter egg, but note that the demo includes all the expansions, so it’s more complex than basic CK2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imvNjavSb_4
CK2 is published by Paradox Interactive, the folks who had the Cherryh version of Stellaris around the beginning of the year.
Cool, Walt, I will remember to look for that Thanksgiving week, after cleaning’s done. Thanks! LOL, sounds like it could be fun.
Another buying opportunity is before Christmas and maybe New Year’s. You can Google “Steam sale” and find theirs. (Steam is pretty convenient, taking care of installation, copy protection (but you can play offline), updates, DLC, and moving your collection to another computer.)
I just played the CK2 tutorial, and it’s not very good. Here’s a video tutorial that seems better to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAvJJuv1hvM
CK2 isn’t for everyone. I’m not sure it’s for me. 😉
PS: Differently from current common usage, a levy is troops, not taxes. (This is correct historically, I think.)
Can you petition the city to put in speed humps? That will slow people down, or give the car repair shops a boost.
POGO: We have met the enemy and he is us.
“It is not ours to venture forth with tinny toots on tiny trumpets, for we have met the enemy, and he is us.” I memorized it in my late teens/early twenties.
That quote especially must have made an impression on so many people. My mom favored that one too. — I’ve never seen much more than a few panels or a strip or two of Pogo, and as far as I know, there wasn’t / isn’t currently a collection available. For a comic strip that made such a big impression, it seems a shame not to have it available in perpetuity.
I cautiously think I might be over the bug/stress/fatigue GI-tract symptoms I’ve had, and now just fatigue. So I didn’t get much done for a few days and I’m off schedule. And that’s going to have to be OK. I swept just now, and am more tired than I should be. So I’m resting a while before doing anything more today. Going to take it easy today after all, and tell myself not to feel guilty/upset at myself about it.
The junior cat, he who (almost) never met a food bowl he didn’t like, the one who got himself in serious Trouble with a capital T, now some weeks back, is still clingy/needy, wanting attention, and during / after my GI-tract stuff, he’s become obsessive about the litterbox. (This is why I swept, though it needed it anyway.) I don’t know if he has an actual problem or if he’s just got some kitty fastidiousness out of whack that needs to sort itself out. He’s a month and a half away from turning 8 officially (I count from when I got them, since I don’t know actual birth dates) so it’s possible there could be something. Or he might have picked up the stomach / GI bug from me, if it was indeed a bug. (It’s odd: we use the same word, “bug,” for a viral/bacterial illness and for insects and spiders and other arthropods, and a couple of other uses, instead of separate words.)
I hope he’ll get over all the “farming” (digging/scratching in the letterbox, thereby getting litter on the bathroom floor, thereby everywhere else.) — And hmm, I am ready to try an alternate litter. The cheap clumping kind I’ve been getting is maybe tooo good at clumping, so that it gets stuck to the cats’ paws or anything else if it gets damp. I should look up another kind of litter and try it versus a supply of the current kind. Any recommendations, folks?
Still expecting a hotel stay Monday and the cleaning service. Hope it all goes fine. — Got to put in a grocery order this week to be ready for Thanksgiving and not run out of some things. I want to be ahead of the curve for a change.
This housecleaning thing might get to be a habit if I’m not careful. — It used to not be a problem. Hoping to stay on top of it again. Hoping to avoid needing to have anyone for a monthly service; I’d rather avoid the expense and it feels like relying on someone else and being lazy. But we’ll see how I do.
My sleep/wake schedule is out of whack again and won’t be back on track for a while. — Going to read later. Laundry can be going meanwhile. Taking it easy some. Just tired enough I can’t be bothered, and don’t feel too bad about letting it slack another day. But dang, I wanted more done by now.
Noon started with a Yowl, y’all. — I stepped on the senior cat’s foot. Not lucky or either of us. At least I moved quickly and I don’t think it was more than a scare and momentary pain for him. Hope that’s all it was. He was OK enough to hang around to get an apology. The junior cat is busily rooting around in my clean laundry. (Now rather less clean.) A grocery delivery is due this afternoon. And the store promptly issued a recall for a food item I think was on my list. Drat. So I presume I won’t get that in the delivery but will get a refund.
My wake/sleep cycle is still shot and I’m tired too easily over stuff that shouldn’t tire me. So I’ve gotten very little else done of what I’d wanted to do before the cleaning ladies get here Monday. That’s just going to have to be how it is. Still taking it somewhat easy but will get a little more done before then. Definitely taking time out tonight to read and rest.
I have a bag mostly packed in case I have to stay the night at the hotel, and discovered I don’t knoww where my tweezers were from the move. (Should’ve been in the bathroom supplies.) Discovered a couple of things, hmm, I’d need for future trips, or I’m almost out of. Still have to pack basics for the cats to stay with me at the hotel, but think I know the essentials.
I’m taking a couple of books (by CJ and another) and my Spanish textbook. Undecided if I’ll even bother taking my laptop. leaning towards not, just resting.
Didn’t do laundry fora couple of days, so still catching up with backlog, and may not get it all done before cleaning.
The junior cat may have gotten over his obsessive thing with the letterbox. Or maybe not. Dunno yet. Not sure what’s causing that, some kitty nervousness and emotional thing or an actual physical need. But dang, I had it all cleaned up in there and now it looks like I didn’t do a thing. Gonna completely change the litter again before Monday morning. One box, enclosed space, two cats equals, it smells way more than it should. Yes, I sifted and tossed last night but didn’t empty the litter entirely. May have to start doing that again. Sigh. Cats.
May have to cook something tomorrow but would rather not. But I’d like to not have to when I get back from having the place cleaned. We’ll see how motivated I get tonight or tomorrow.
So, no big deal, no serious problems, just, meh. And I feel wiped for no reason.
Haha, success! Groceries arrived, a very good thing. — Delivery was very late due to road construction, but nearly everything still arrived frozen. I’m still getting used to ordering online for an extended period, and think I’ll try for half a month, rather than a month, next time.
So I did fine, was on hat I expected it to cost, but later realized I forgot items, which will go on the next order. But hmm, I guessed wrong on sizes on a couple of things, with humorous results.
Say, I hadn’t had quiche in forever, so I ordered a large / regular quiche and a small quiche. Well…no, turns out, that’s not a small quiche, it’s a tray of bite-sized quiches petits pour hors d’Å“uvres. These therefore went into the oven for an appetizer or supper.
I’d forgotten ordering two, so I thought I’d somehow ordered another pie. Whew, no, fine, there.
I didn’t remember to order milk. I think my milk may hold out through Thanksgiving. If not, it will wait.
The other? That’s not the usual size package of chicken I get. Instead, that’s the family size, double the amount I intended to order. Limited freezer space. The drumsticks went into the oven post haste.
I forgot to order yams or sweet potatoes. (Yams, technically, I think.) So none for Thanksgiving. I’ll have drumsticks and possibly stuffing and definitely cranberry sauce. Plus whichever veggies I fix, plus pumpkin pie. Ahem, I ran across pumpkin pie ice cream while searching to order, and, I am but human and I ordered! I see there are also pumpkin and white chocolate chip cookies, ready-made dough slices. Yes, I got those. I’m OK, diet-wise, so I can get by with being naughty for the holidays.
Ordering from their online store is not perfect. I can’t always guess accurately how big an item is, so I may get over or under occasionally. I’m getting better as I go. — Searching sometimes turns up odd things. This can be good, to let you try new things if your budget allows wiggle room. (I allow a little for this. I like trying new food items.) But at other times, it turns up ver odd choices. (Why that? Wow!) And I would like a better, clearer way to have a saved list of repeat items. If I ordered something before, chances are, I will want that item again, unless I specifically don’t want it. — The biggest thing I would like is the ability to save a cart, an order, for later, aside from the repeat list, in case I need a different order in a hurry.
On the whole, this is sure convenient for me, though.
Ah, it also means I may miss other items I might have seen in the store in actuality And I wish I could see a cart summery in a grid to identify more quickly what things I’ve listed and what I’ve missed that I’d need to add. That, and, hmm, it doesn’t sort things by category, such as fresh produce or dry/canned goods or bakery or meat and dairy, etc. So that, to me, makes it less easy to see what my order is like, and probably less easy for the in-store shopper to load the cart.
Very slight progress today, and it’s already 4:30pm.
If you accidentally find yourself with a surplus of frozen stuff and not enough freezer space, see if you can reduce the bulk by cooking half of it and processing so it can be used later, then refreezing. I often buy 20# boxes of chicken quarters when they go on sale, but 2 10# bags take up a lot of room. I will frequently set one to defrost, peel off half when possible, then cook them up and strip the cooked chicken off the bone and refreeze. Cooked chicken freezes fine, and having it available for a fast meal is very helpful.
Most of the veggies sold as “yams” in the US are actually white-fleshed sweet potatoes – real yams are tropical and rarely seen here.
You ain’t lived until you’ve seen the Okinawan sweet potatoes that are purple fleshed!
My kitchen remodel is almost over! Due to a miscalculation, six more tiles need to be ordered for the backsplash. They should be in on Tuesday. Since it is for the backsplash above my sink, I can now replace everything into the cabinets without a great deal of work left after the tile crew leaves. I have three boxes of Tupperware and two boxes of cookware left to arrange onto shelves. While I had everything out of the cabinets I washed it all and sorted through it to get rid of extras. (How did I end up with three bundt pans?) Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I’ll be sorting through all my clothes to donate, and getting rid of a few small pieces of furniture that have been cluttering the library. It is amazing how much junk one accumulates having lived in the same house for 28 years (and when grown children leave furniture and STUFF with you when they move across country).
Our bathroom repair-turned-into-remodel has started up again (after a 7 month hiatus) and tile is going up on the wall! It was tile falling off the wall and into the tub that prompted the gutting of the bathroom. Cement-board walls and the new tub have been in since mid-last winter but the tile is the first feel of the new color and design — quite exciting! Unfortunately, our contractor needs to set up his wet-saw outside to cut the time and — contrary to name — said saw can’t get wet. It’s supposed to rain again for the next couple days so we likely won’t see him until Wednesday… and then there’s the Thanksgiving holiday for another delay and…. Still, the tiles are very exciting and the soaker tub a delight after our old, tiny and rusting steel tub.
I cooked the big pack of drumsticks immediately, and thereby solved the freezer space problem. Half went in the freezer, though I didn’t remove it from the bone. The other half, I’m using now.
However, yeah, I think when possible, I’ll get more into the habit of cooking ahead and freezing some, to save work later.
Those remodels sound so good. — My apartment bathroom is long and narrow. So is the kitchen plan. In the bathroom, if anyone had to use a wheelchair or walker, they’d have trouble turning and might have to back out in reverse. Which is not a good idea, goes against the principle of the mobility aids and would be really inconvenient, aggravating for the person. This also means there’s only one good place for one letterbox, for two cats, unless I want it right by the bathroom sink in view from the door. :-/ This also means the letterbox is too near the toilet and shower / tub for my liking. Bleh. — But I’ve stepped up efforts to stay ahead of the cats.
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The planned cleaning day today didn’t happen. Crossed signals. She says she tried to call me yesterday. Er, I have no record on my phone of that. But to be fair, my phone has decided it’s too full and needs to be cleared of whatever’s filling it. But it won’t easily tell me what’s been added that suddenly filled it. Unwanted downloads of music, audio, video to my phone, where they don’t need to be? I dunno.
Anyway, we rescheduled for next week, Monday, after Thanksgiving. — And I’ll consider this was a trial run on things, such as getting the cats into their carriers. Oh, they didn’t like that, but behaved better than usual. By now, they should be old pros, but haven’t been transported in a while. And a hotel stay with pets is something I’ve never done before. I got together the essentials, though which can wait a week now, ready-made.
The cats have been extra solicitous after being let out. So I’ve paid them extra attention and all is well again.
I’m tired, I’m behind schedule of where I wanted to be before the cleaning ladies come out, so I guesss the extra time will help.
I’m telling myself it was a practice run, and helpful. I’m telling myself I can relax a little and get back to it later. Plan to rest some tonight.