Stupidity Never Ends.

I’m so remarkable stupid sometimes I amaze myself. I’ve already told ya’ll how I should be barred from doing mechanical and home repair stuff. Well yesterday bought that home to me.

The heating coil in our oven went out. I took the coil out of the oven, looked up what we needed and went to the store to get one. No problem getting a new one. I get back to the house, and I start installing the new one. There’s one important rule I know, but didn’t think to follow.

TURN THE ELECTRICITY OFF!

There was a big pop, a big shock and I’m on my butt on the floor. Needless to say that very important rule materialized in my mind right away. I’m beginning to believe there should be laws against people like me even picking up a screwdriver.

I don't know how many volts or amps or whatever the term is that goes through the oven, but I feel lucky nothing bad happened. I have to admit the FSM looks after us not too swift people sometimes.

Grass Catcher Bags.

I was ready yesterday afternoon to come in cussing and mad about the lawn, but things are better today. I don’t know why, but every time I get ready to mow the lawn, it seems the FSM puts little detours in the way. Usually it has something to do with the lawn mower, or something I did to the lawnmower that makes a small job turn into a daylong event. The new (old) mower my brother bought to us has grass catcher bags on the back. It looks simple enough to take them off when you want, but it isn’t that easy to get them back on I found out.

The reason I wanted to take them off is because we had so many pinecones in the yard. My brother told me it was all right to just mow them up, but when you hear that loud noise of the blades hitting the cones, you know it can’t be good for the blades. So I have an old lawn sweeper that another brother left here. That’s a story in itself of what I’ve gone through with it. So I take the bags and frame off the back of the mower and hook up the sweeper. Every thing is fine until I try to get the frame back on. It took me over an hour to get it back on. Of course in all the time of getting the bags and frame off, lawn sweeping and struggling to get it back on, I could have just gotten on the mower and mowed up all the pine cones and said to heck with it.

I don’t know if there are little gremlins following me around when I do stuff like that, or if I should just be barred from doing anything mechanical.

Hope everyone has a good w/e.

An NSN.

Usually I can nap whenever, but from time to time I get a No Sleep Night (NSN). I don’t know about everyone else, but I got to the point long ago that I don’t keep trying to get to sleep. I’ll try for awhile at first, but usually I’ll get up and do something. Before I retired, a NSN was the worst. I would try and try all night to get to sleep, and by 4:00 am I would start to worry about falling asleep. I would start to think that an hour or two of sleep would be better than nothing, but I would worry that I would oversleep, so I wouldn’t get any sleep. That was the worst because I knew I needed the sleep, but was too worried to get it.

However, now that I’m retired, I nap during the day anyway, so when an NSN comes up, it’s just a little bit annoying. I guess my biggest complaint now of days is what comes on TV at very late hours. Starting at 4:00 am there’s nothing but infomercials on most of the channels. Since I’m a serious channel surfer, this cuts down my surfing by 80%. I’ll get on the internet, but I just don’t surf the internet as much as I did when I first got on. So I’ll try to watch an old movie, or clean the house without waking up anyone.

So does everyone else have NSNs, and if you do, how do you handle them?

Announcement & Pictures.

Just a few pictures today and an announcement. First the announcement. Go over to Nancy’s blog Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life where a book launch party is being held for Kelly McCullough’s new novel, Cybermancy. I think everybody that drops by here knows Kelly, so go over and give him a congratulation on the new book.

Now to pictures…….

Yesterday at Beth’s blog, Beth’s Adventures, she was talking about becoming one with the couch, and wanting to stay at the beach all day. I found a great compromise for her.



Also George has gone from wanting to be a bartender to thinking he’s a modeling dog. See the look on his face.



Hope everyone has a good day today.

George and Frank Zappa.

George did it to me again. He decided at midnight that he wanted to go outside, so he starts whining and jumping on my head. Needless to say, that woke me up. So I took him out, and now he’s happily and soundly back to sleep, and I’m up typing. My own fault really. It rained here today, and when I usually take him out before bed, the grass was wet. As I said before, George is a wuss and won’t go out on wet grass. So when I tried to take him out and he wouldn’t go, I said OK, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Well when George has to go he has to go, and me sleeping won't stop him. He gets to the edge of the patio and sees the grass is still wet and stops. I have to pick him up and take him out into the middle of the yard. He finally decides since his feet are already wet to go ahead and get the job done. I guess I’m lucky though, because he’d rather burst than go in the house.

Now to something different.

Great Googly Moogly!

Fall has fallen and winter is just around the corner. For all of you looking forward to snow, there are some dangers. A little wisdom from Frank Zappa.



He took a dog doo snowcone and stuffed it in my right eye. And I can’t see……temporarily.

I hadn’t heard this song since my early 20’s. Don’t ya love YouTube!

Coffee Grounds.

Don’t you hate it when even the simple things go wrong? Making coffee is one thing. You put the coffee grounds in the paper filter, put the filter in the coffee maker and fill up the reservoir. You press a button and then you go and do other things. Ten minutes later you come back for fresh coffee. Well 99.99999% of the time you do. My s-I-l told me she made coffee today and I went to the kitchen later ready for my first cup of the day. I look at the counter and there’s coffee and coffee grounds all over the counter and the floor. Now this isn’t world shattering, but if I had already had my first cup of coffee and this was the second pot, I could have taken it better.

I think whatever hit the family is gone now. I still think it was something that my s-I-l cooked because it hit us all at the same time. It hit Fmom the hardest, but she’s up and around again and appears to be feeling much better. I let my s-I-l know that I appreciated her cooking, but she didn’t have to worry about cooking anymore. I guess now I have to include the making of coffee too. Over the time we all haven’t been feeling well, I’ve let the house and lawn go, so I can see a lot of work this weekend.

Back to the coffee maker. Olivia and Laura have been telling me how much better coffee is with a French coffee press. Another overflow like that, and I’m likely to go hunting to buy one. I keep wondering though, if that extra work you have to put into making it with a French press is worth the effort. Maybe one day if I win the lottery and I go visiting everyone, Olivia or Laura can make me a cup and I’ll see what the difference is.

Here’s hoping everyone is having a great weekend.

A Little Slackatude.

I’ve been hibernating here for the last couple of days. My sleep routine is so thrown off; I don’t know when I’ll get back to my regular wake/sleep pattern. The rels got back the other day and I was surprised when I got up. The house was clean and not messed up. Something must have come over them, because this is not like them. I’ve got to go grocery shopping today. I checked the fridge and pantry and both are completely empty. With the rels here, what would last Fmom and me a month will last about a week and a half.

To show you what kind of brothers I have. My youngest brother (Yb2) came by and got his riding lawnmower the other day. He has been using a push mower at his house. He said his lawn isn’t that big and it was not a problem. Of course he left his riding lawnmower here for me to use, and because he knew I wouldn’t be mowing this lawn unless I had a riding mower. Since my next youngest brother (Yb1) decided to let us have his riding lawnmower, Yb2 finally decided he would finally take his home. I have to admit the Yb1’s mower rides, drives and mows much better than Yb2s. I just have to figure out some way now to have them pay to have someone come over and do the mowing. In my dreams of perfect slackatude, I’m never on a lawnmower.

Well I hope everyone’s weekend has been going well, and I’m hoping everyone is enjoying themselves.