Random Stuff

I got my replacement glasses  Friday.  The store said the lens on the previous pair had been ground just a bit too small, so that is why the lens popped out.  Well, that explains whyI couldn't seem to tighten the frame screws.  They were already as tight as possible.  

And I was fussier than usual about how the new glasses fit.  It took them 4 tries to get the ear-piece to keep them snug but not too tight.  I ended up with the best fit I've ever had.  Two days later and I haven't had to push them back up on my nose a single time.

Renewed my small trailer registration online.  It wasn't completing correctly and sent me back a page several times.  I finally noticed a small print saying I hadn't checked a box about agreeing to "terms and conditions".  So I did and they sent me a temporary registration by email.

Speaking of the trailer, some jerk pushed the front off the support block last Winter.  The ground was muddy from heavy rain so the metal pipe that raises and lowers the front snk into the ground.  And then the soil froze!  I couldn't pull it out.

Now that the soil is thawed, I still can't.  But I have a scissor-jack.  I'll have to put a cinder block under the jack to lift the front of the trailer to pull the support post out of the soil.  And another to rest the freed support on.  Just a real pain.  I already have too many things I need to do.

I'm so far behind everything.  I haven't planted a single veggie or flower seed yet.  My basement gardening bench area is a complete mess!  I actually bought some heirloom tomato plants from Amazon.  And I think I will go to the local DIY stores to buy 6-packs of flowers in a few days.  This is not going to be my DIY growing season.

I had planned to build a new planting box around the mailbox (the old one finally rotted after 25 years) and fill it with better soil.  But my Stella D' Oro lilies have already emerged. So I can't cover them in deeper soil.  I can still build a box around them, but I'll have to wait til Winter to fill it with new rich soil.

The Washington Nationals baseball team bragged all Winter about the improvements they had made on the team.  But they are currently 1-6.  It doesn't seem like it will be even an average season.

My Ryobi self-propelled electric mower got recalled.  Something about a potential fire hazard in the battery connection.  They will send me a replacement.  But I have to cut out 6" of a wire cluster, take pictures of that and the serial number and model plate, email the pictures to them, and wait 6 weeks for delivery of the new one.

At least I just use it for trim work.  My main mower is a John Deere riding mower.  I love it, but there are places it can't get to.  I've gotten it stuck in a couple of places where I needed the car to pull it out.  And one place where I needed my 6' metal bar to wedge it backwards a foot at a time.  

The Mews are doing well.  Lori is calmer about Taz and Binq (shelter cats I adopted late 2023).  She still isn't perfect around them and resents their presence in her house, but "Bad" has become "OK".  I appreciate that.

Spring Has Sprung

I love Spring!  The 2 Saucer Magnoloias are in complete full bloom.  Sometimes a late freeze catches them and damaged to budding flowers, but not this year! 

The front yard tree...

The backyard tree...

I planted them about 30 years ago.  Because in a small park across the street from where I worked, I saw them for the first time (a dozen around a reflecting pool) and thought they were the most beautiful trees I had ever seen.  

I had to research to figure out what they were.  And they require some maintenance.  They grow rather twiggy on their own, and I didn't realize at the time how much effort the Park Service put into keeping the branches "open".  I do some work on them every couple of years, but even with an 8' stepladder, it is hard to get at the crowded top sprouts.

I do what I can.  But I may have an arborist visit and do better work.

The other Spring thrill for me are the daffodils.  Daffodils are wonderful!  The deer and rodents can't eat them (the bulbs are slightly toxic) and they seem to have no disease or insect problems.  They seem to live darn near forever and multiple on their own.  

The only thing I could ask for is more colors.  White/yellow/orange seems to be about all they can  do.  But that is still pretty impressive.

The early daffodils in the front box are blooming.  And there is a later-bloomer variety emerging.  So I get 2 shows in one place for longer.

The old backyard circle is blooming...  Five varieties of slightly different blooming time.  If I had it to do over again, I would have just mixed them all up so the the entire bed was blooming somewhat for months.  To make up for that, I am going to put some thin-bricks in empty spots ( I bought 60 last Fall to hold down landscaping fabric) and add random daffodils there next Fall.  Eventually, it might all look "fuller, longer".  And there are some tulips and hyacinths growing among them.

And I planted more daffodils in front last Fall.  Really late, so I wasn't sure they would grow.  But they are emerging!  

One early bloomer type is planted right around the tree.  A later bloomer was planted around the inside of the border edging.  There is a gap between them which I will mark with nylon rope around tent stakes as a reminder where to plant a 3rd kind next Fall.

And I planted more in the back yard.  I have a 10' circle where I've tried to establish insect pollinator plants for several years, but it has never worked.  So I planted a 4' circle of hyacinths in the middle and daffodils all around them.  The daffodils are up; the hyacinths will emerge later (I hope).

They don't show up really well yet.  They were the last ones I planted.  So, "last in, last up".  And while voles love hyacinth bulbs, I hoping all the inedible daffodils surrounding them will discourage foraging.

Lastly, the old established daffodils keep blooming in the "woods".  A typical patch...

There are others scaterred around...

And some old hyacinths are still surviving in one corner of the yard.  The voles haven't found them!

I do need to clean up that area, though.  Too many brambles and weedy vines.

Now I have to get some tomatoes started.  I'm running out of time.  On the other hand, I've learned that tomatoes planted outside before May just sort of "sit and sulk".  So 6 weeks of growth might work just fine.

Happy Spring flowers and a happy successful Summer gardening season to all!

 

Sports, 2

I've mentioned sports too much.  But I have to tell you about a big event before high school.

I played in little league.  I was a terrible batter.  The bat seldom left my shoulder.  But I was a good fielder (at 2nd base).  

But I did have one great moment.  I made a triple play all by myself.  There were runners on all bases.  The batter struck a line drive but I jumped high enough to catch it.  None of the runners realized that.  

So the batter was out.  The kid on 1st ran straight into me tagging him.  I stepped on 2nd base so that guy was out too.  3 outs in about 5 feet!

And actually it was a 4-out play.  I threw the ball to the 3rd base kid, who stepped on the base and made a 4th out before that runner could return.  It didn't count of course.  But it was wonderful.

Everyone needs some amazing event to keep in memory.  That is sort of mine...

Sports, 1

I've mentioned University of Maryland basketball success the last couple of posts.   I'm a homie.  I went to college there.  When the Univ teams are good I watch.  Watching sports in general is not something I do.

I'd rather play than watch.  I was never good enough at any college-level sport.

But I was good enough in high school (oh so many decades ago).  😁

So I understand competing.  I was on the golf team.  I was the worst golfer on the team (6 of 6), but we went undefeated for 2 years and I helped sometimes.  We won one match because I sank a 30 foot putt on the last hole.  No one was more surprised than I was!  The thrill of success is lasting.

My junior year, we had a male foreign exchange student from Brazil.  We didn't play soccer in my county back then.  But to welcome him and give him something familiar, the school formed a soccer team (and neighboring schools did the same).

It was a hilarious start.  The entire Junior Varsity football team joined as well as some of us who weren't.  Soccer is a strange game.  You don't wear much padding even though there can be a lot of contact.  And you just keep playing constantly.  No football huddles or time-outs.  

The Junior Varsity guys quit after 2 weeks.  They were all beaten up and exhausted.  Big guys don't really play soccer well.  It's all agility and never-stopping.  But I was a small wiry 135 lb kid who had run with the cross-country team (not good enough to be on the team, but I ran with them).

I made the soccer team as a starter in the backfield.  I could run around all day.  Brian ( the Brazilian student) was amazingly skilled.  But he couldn't carry the whole team.  I think we went about 50-50 the 2 seasons I was there.

And that's where I learned that you don't always win.  Yeah, it hurts to lose.  But some team has to.  You congratulate the winners and try harder the next game.  And sometimes a team gets better and sometimes it doesn't.  You lose sometimes.  But you never give up.

So it is wonderful to see Univ of Maryland winning.

BTW, Cal Ripkin came from my high school a few years later...

University of Maryland's Women's Basketball Team

I thought the Maryland Men's basketball survived a tight game NCAA game 72-71 with a buzzer-beater.  But DAMN the 4th-seeded Maryland Women's team went into double overtime against 5-seeded Alabama!  They finally won 111-108.

It was an amazing game.  The after-game announcers said it was THE game of the tournament.  Maryland had been down by 17 but came back in the 4th quarter as the lead changed at least a dozen times.  

Alabama lost, but should not be ashamed.  It was a fierce game right to the last seconds.  And their star player scored 45 points.  Something nearly unheard of in NCAA tournament play!  They all played their hearts out.

But as a post-game announcer said, 64 teams enter the tournament and 63 lose.  Sports can be very cruel, but it is also very definite.  Some team has to win and some team has to lose.  

Maryland's next opponent is Florida.  They are the #1 rated team.  I don't expect Maryland will win.  But you never know.

One unusual thing is that both the Men's and Women's teams are now in the Sweet 16.  Most Universities don't have both teams reaching that far in the same year.  

So cheers to both Maryland teams,  And respect to their opponents who pushed their games right down to the last seconds.  

University of Maryland Men's Basketball Team

It was a real NCAA Tournament thriller.   MD started out so badly, I stopped watching for a while.  But just before the halftime, I returned and they were only a few points behind.  The second half went back and forth, a few points up a few points down.  It came down to single points changes right at the end.  

I should mention that Maryland has had wretchedly bad luck with close games this season.  They lost 7 games, and 6 were in the last 10 seconds.  Normally, a team would win about half of super-close games.  Not Maryland.  It was like the Grim Reaper was stalking them.

So their opponent was 2 points behind and sank a 3-point shot with 3.5 seconds left to play.  So Maryland in-bounded to ball and the player who got it had to shoot immediately.  He sank the shoot beautifully.  Maryland won!

Sometimes there is justice and mercy in sports.  😂

I feel sorry for the other team, but Maryland suffered that kind of loss too many times this season.  It was time for some luck!

 

Grocery-Shopping

After I went to the eyeglass place Wensday, I had some food-shopping to do.  One place is Nick's, which is a small combination liquor/butcher/deli store with a small amount of fresh produce and some canned/jarred goods.  It has a mainly Italian food orientation.   

They always have some meats on sale, trimmed and custom-cut.  Among this week's sale was Delmonico at $10.99/lb.  I bought half on one cut 1" thick.  I'll divide those in half and freeze them individually.  4 oz of steak is all I need at dinner (surrounded by several veggies and a salad).  Bought 2 lbs of large frozen shrimp for $10.99.  

Their small produce row is nice.  Only place I can find truly ripe Golden Delicious apples.  And I know they sell certain produce (celery hearts, bell peppers, summer squash) at much better prices than my Safeway store, so I buy those there.  And they are the only place I can find good eggroll wrappers.  And Claussen pickles.

They also accept special orders of wine by the case (and at a discount).  In order 4 cases at a time of Mondavi Private Selection 750 ml Merlot.  They call me when the order arrives and even load it for me when I pick it up.  The store manager even knows me by name.  Well, I buy mostly filet mignon, ribeye, and delmonico.  So he ought to remember me!  😁. But really, he is friendly to his customers (and a good businessman).

One odd thing about the wine orders...  Most of the liquor staff just write down my choice/name/phone number in a small receipt pad.  But there is this one guy who insists I write it down for him.  Well, my printing is not great these days, and trying to do it on a shopping cart handle is worse.  

So I sat down and typed the info into Word.  Copied it 5 times in a page, printed it, sliced the copies up, and put them in my wallet.  Tried one out Wensday.  The guy looked at it and said "that works".

I stopped buying from their deli counter though.  When Boar's Head deli meats were recalled last year, they wouldn't stop using that as their main meat source.  And I don't trust Boar's Head deli meats anymore.

My other store is Safeway.  There are 2 in town, so I just go to whichever is more on my errand path.  The have the best produce section I've found.  And I can download digital coupons to my store loyalty card.  They have really good discounts on those.

Their meat is ridiculously expensive, yet sometimes kind of tough (which I why I get mine at Nick's).    Their deli meats are more expensive, but they don't sell Boar's Head, so I trust it better.  And since my lunch is a half sandwich (surrounded by celery/carrot/cucumber/pickle sticks), the higher cost doesn't mean much.

Safeway also gives "points" for purchases.  You can use them on your grocery bill, but I have never figured out how the calculate that.  But they have their own gas station and sometimes I accumulate enough points to get 50 cents off per gallon.  That's nice!  

So I got home and put all the groceries away.  Took an hour.  Today will be cooking day for sausage, mixing day for meatloaf, and storing day for uncooked steak.  I should explain that.  I pre-cook sausage, chicken and pork and freeze them.  I never pre-cook steak!  Steak needs that "fresh from the grill or air-fryer taste" taste...

It was a good shopping day!  

Eyeglasses - Good News

 I brought the frame and newly-popped lenses to the For Eyes store yesterday and explained why to them.  I said the situation had gotten ridiculous and they probably owed me a replacement.  To my astonishment, both people at the order/repair desk immediately agreed.  No fuss, no debate, no fight...  😌

I asked if I needed to consider plastic frames, but they said no.  And one said they (the lens-makers) probably ground the lenses slightly too small, so they didn't entirely fill up the space.  I asked what made them think that.

Well, apparently it does happen often enough that they notice it.  And 2nd, the screws in the frame were still tight.  The lens shouldn't have been able to just pop out.  The replacement will be free.  The bad news is that it will take up to 2 weeks.  I'm glad I keep my old glasses!

But it means this problem may go away.  😄

Eyeglasses

The new glasses keep dropping a lens out.  I had to visit the store again Friday.  The other lens fell out the next day.  I'll visit again tomorrow.  But this is 5 times in 4 months.  I think it is time they simply replace them.  

I would accept plastic frames.  They aren't as adjustable over the ears, but the lenses stay in better as there is no screw to come loose.

I would use a toothpick to put a small dab of superglue in a couple of spots in the frame and on the frame screws.  But my fingers are too uncertain these days.  The store refuses to do that.

The store tried to suggest it is because my lenses are thick.  C'mon, my uncorrected vision is 20/40.  That's not exactly "coke bottle" lenses.  I can read the computer monitor even without them.  The newspaper is harder though.

One of the maddening parts about this is that I kept my glasses from 2014.  And it was nearly the same prescription.  I only got new ones because 2014 lenses had become abraded/cloudy due to a decade of going in and out of shirt pockets!  And I wanted some recommended features like U/V protections, anti-blue reduction, and scratch-resistance.  

ARGGGHHH!

Best Gadgets

I don't mean jets, cars, and medical equipment.  I mean those simple minor things in life...

1.  Wine foil-cutters.  And the electric cork remover.  LOVE that thing!

2.  My drill auger.  Fits into any electric drill.  Couldn't plant many bulbs without it!

3.  LED bulbs.  My electric co-op sends them for free to reduce energy usage.  And I haven't had to replace a bulb for years using them.  And they don't care if you turn them on and off.  

4.  Spray bottles.  Large one for misting my plants.  Small food-grade ones for olive oil.

5.  Square-drive screws.  Not slot-heads, not even phillip's heads.  These have a square in the top.  The square-drive screwdriver doesn't slip loose.  Second best is hex-head screws.

6.  Teflon pans.  I have cast iron, stainless steel, and glass ones, and I use them.  But Teflon is so great for gentle cooking.

7.  The Jar Opener.  Mine is a triangle with serrated edges and a handle.  It opens anything.

8.  The mechanical can opener.

I can't find the exact image, but this is close enough.  You turn a bar at the top, and then a clip pulls the top off.  The electric types need to be hand-cleaned each use.  This one just goes on the top shelf of the dishwasher.

9.  "Very fine" felt-tipped pens.  These write in my small check register spaces.  A ball-point can't.

10.  Knitted Cotton Underwear.  Not to be too personal, but when I went rom "tighty-whities" to those, I got a whole new world of comfort!

11.  Small Calculators.  The first desktop types were a wonder, but pocket-sized is great!  I have a small plastic container "shopping kit". In it is a hand sanitizer, a small tissue pack, some twist-ties, and a calculator.  Because the stores sometimes label similar products in ounces or pounds and I don't divide by 16 in my mind easily.

12.  My Kitchen Scale.  I buy some meat in bulk and then cook it.  Then slice and divide it.  If I want portions in only 4 ounces, the scale helps greatly.  Putting a plastic container on it and hitting "On Zero". eliminates the container weight.  And I use it for other things.  

13.  Potato-Slicing Device.  

OK, this is for something called a Hasselback Potato you slice mostly through and then bake.  But it is great for slicing anything thinly.  I cut a small bit of plastic to fit the bottom and I can slice all the way through a tomato.

14.  The Bread Slicer.  Like the item above it allows me to cut my loaf into perfect slices.  

15.  The Back-Hanging Aquarium Pump.  I used to use those inside cotton-filled filters that had to have the filler replaced every few days.  And it tended to trp my fancy guppies babies.  The outside-hanging one has washable filters easily removed and rinsed clean.

And a tight intake filter that saves the small new-born guppies.

16.  Headband Magnifying Glasses.  I sometimes need more resolution than my reading glasses will provide.  I have a 10X jeweler loupe that is better, but I have to hold it it one hand when needing 2 hands free.  So my headband frees both hands.

   

17.  Bar Clamps.  

I don't know who invented these things, but I couldn't live without them.  They are designed for clamping wood-working projects, but they are useful in all kinds of ways.  I had a walking shoe where the tip of the sole was separating.  I had some "shoe glue" but that can be tricky to hold the sole in place.  

So a put a shoe tree into the shoe, applying the "shoe glue" to the separated sole, and then clamped several small bar clamps to the shoe using the shoe tree are "firmness".  Worked like a charm!

And some can be reversed to use as "spreaders".  Weirdly helpful sometimes.

18.  The Orange Peeler.  

Such a simple thing.  But it really works.  The top edge cuts just through the peel (I do it in 8 cuts), and the bottom curve fits under the peel to separate the cut peel off!  

I think that is enough for today, LOL!

Changing The Clocks And Watches

As I said yesterday way more briefly than I intended to (I meant to go back and add a lot more Saturday evening) I love Daylight Saving Time.  It was nice yesterday to still have it being daylight a 7 PM.  The Mews can't tell anything happened; they like on suntime, not clocktime.

But the first day is always annoying with all the clock adjustments.  I'm kind of clock-obsessed.  I wear a wristwatch.  Every room has at least one wall clock.  The kitchen has 2 wall clocks, an oven clock, a M/W clock, and the basement has 2 wall clocks.  And the car has a clock.  In fact, I discovered that even my thermostat has a clock!

Fortunately, a few years ago, I bought a bunch of radio-signal controlled wall clocks.  Those automatically adjust daily as well as for DST.  A couple others have buttons to change for DST/EST.  The clocks on the oven, M/W, and car are easy enough to change (just press an "hour" button).

The hard part is the wristwatch.  It does too many things to make the DST change easy.  Time of course, but alarms, hourly chimes, stopwatch (upcount), timer (downcount), time-zone change adjustment, and something called "split-time", etc!

And it has 4 buttons to control various features in different sequences.  Utterly maddening.  And the pamphlet print is tiny, so I have to wear my headband magnifier to read it.  

I actually had less trouble this year.  I'm good with instructions, but these instructions are foreign-written, so of course some of the sentences aren't very well-written.  There is no automatic DST sequence, so I have to change the time as a "correction".  

It took several tries to manage that (even though it seemed to me I ta the exact same thing the first couple of times.  But I got it moved 1 hour ahead.  😀

And with that success, I decided to try a few other corrections.  It beeps at me for a full minute at midnight as some kind of alarm setting.  I think the watch came with that setting.  I learned a few weeks ago that pressing the D button shuts it off for that day, but it does it again the next.  So, I tried the instructions for shutting the feature off entirely.  I'll find out if that worked later tonight.

But now it goes "beep-beep" on each hour.  Not horribly annoying, but I would like to shut that off too.  I'll have to pull out the instruction pamphlet again later today.

When my previous replacement watch died after about 10 years, I tried to replace it with another that was equally simple.  No matter how cheap a watch I looked at, they all come filled with features and buttons I din't want to deal with.  I only want 2 things from a watch.  First that it keep accurate time.  Second that I can read it in sunlight.  OK, one additional simple DST/non-DST button would be nice too.

I bought my current watch because it didn't mention all those timer/alarm features, but it had them anyway.  😖

I sure miss the digital Phasar wristwatch my Dad bought me when I was about 16.  It kept perfect time, only told me the time/day/date, and had a great clear display.  It lasted 40 years!  OK, it needed a new battery every 3 or 4 years and a jeweler had to replace a chip twice.  But sadly there came a day when he couldn't find the chip anymore.  😢

So I've been suffering with these stupid over-complicated watches ever since!

Well, at least it will be 8 months before I have to go through this AGAIN...