Saturday, April 04, 2015

4030 Les Nessman lives! And is working in Alaska.

Saturday, April 4, 2015

A town in Alaska, possibly Eagle River, hosted an Easter egg hunt for the children.  They roped off around a paved parking lot, covered the pavement with straw, and then dropped thousands of plastic eggs filled with candy from a helicopter.

What could go wrong?

The minute I realized what they intended to do, I knew it was going to be bad.

The wash or downdraft or whatever it's called from the helicopter blew the straw and chaff from the pavement onto the crowd of children and parents surrounding the lot.  Then the plastic eggs were dropped by the thousands onto bare pavement, where they shattered into tens of thousands of sharp shards.  Of course there was no way to hold the children back, not with all that loose candy out there.  But the candy had been mostly blown into the mounds of straw surrounding the egg carnage.

All that was lacking was a WKRP DJ on a loudspeaker, "Oh, the humanity!"

You can experience it for yourself by going to YouTube and searching for "egg drop gone wrong living in Alaska 137" (without the quotes).

I'd provide the link, but I'm using the notebook, and it insists on using the Youtube mobile app, which doesn't show URLs.
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Friday, April 03, 2015

4029 Alphabet soup

Friday, April 3, 2015

My daughter has passed her exams for physical therapist and has acquired another set of initials after her name.  Daughter  R.M.T., L.M.T., C.P.T. 

R.M.T. - Reiki Master Teacher
L.M.T. - Licensed Massage Therapist 
C.P.T. - Certified Personal Trainer

CONGRATULATIONS, Kid!

(Note that she also has a degree in civil eengineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering from Penn State, but she never mentions that.  Yeah, she doesn't use it, but it's still quite an accomplishment.)
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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

4028 I'm still here.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Not much to say. I'm doing next to nothing, except that somehow I still manage to mess up the house and create laundry --- and still can't keep up with it.

That robin I'd mentioned who was hunting in my front yard is still there every day, and he seems to have laid claim to the territory. 0ne day another robin landed on the lawn and was happily hunting, ignoring robin #1, and robin #1 had a fit. He attacked, and there was quite an aerial battle, until the stranger retreated to the lawn across the street. Later, the stranger hopped into the street, and "my" robin marched back and forth on the curb, as if to say "the line is drawn here!", until the interloper retreated.

The cyst in Jasper's throat doesn't seem to have gotten any larger since it refilled after draining, still slightly smaller than maybe a ping pong ball.  But he's still beating up on his water dish, splashing in it and emptying it all over the kitchen floor twice a day.   It's low enough that I'm sure it's not hurting his neck.  I think he's just playing.  But this is a serious problem, since it means I can't leave him alone for even a day (let alone the two or three days to go to the country house) unless I have Daughter come in twice a day to refill his dish.

No, the water dispensers won't work for two reasons - he's so timid the glug glug will scare him away from the water altogether, and if there's somehow no sound he'll just empty the entire reservoir in one play session.  'Tis a puzzlement.

I need a way to allow him to drink, but discourage him from splashing.

Daughter believes in using "correct" terms for everything with the Nugget.  The other day I was at their house and commented to Nugget that she's getting so very tall, she's already up to my chest (she'll be four next month).  She ran over to her daddy, stood close in front of him, put her hand on the top of her head, and said "Yes!  I'm already higher than Daddy's penis!"

The taste of Spring weather was short.  The past week has been very cold.  The township had an Easter Egg hunt on Saturday (Nugget's age group ran to gather eggs lying on the outfield of a baseball diamond --- the eggs were just lying there on the very short grass, plastic eggs with candy inside, it looked like the place had been scatter-bombed --- and of the hundreds of eggs, three contained gift certificates for a craft store.  Nugget got one of them.  But, it was so cold I was wearing a winter coat and a fur scarf over a heavy sweater, and after the egg gathering I went back to the car for shelter from the wind while everyone else visited the playground.

I have fallen in love with PeaPod grocery deliveries.  I'll still go to the store for anything I want to see and touch, like fresh vegetables, but I think I'm pretty well locked in for everything that comes in a package.  No more lugging dozens of bags to the car, lifting them from the trunk, and dragging them to the house.  By the time I finish a major trip on my own, I'm too tired to put the stuff away.  The products don't cost more - in fact they run a lot of sales.  There is a delivery fee and a driver tip, but they keep sending me email coupons for free delivery, and I'm more than happy to add a tip.  And the driver takes manufacturers' coupons that are deducted from the bill before it goes to the credit card.  I love it!

Which reminds me - time to put together something for dinner.  Bye!
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