Lost My New Reading Glasses

 I have to keep my reading glasses in a shirt pocket.  And they are forever falling out onto the floor.  I have never found a holder that worked well.  Of the 2 I've tried, one was too large too large to fit in most shirt pockets and the other fits but is too hard to get out the glasses out easily (the ear-ends catch on the inside seams).

I need to keep them with all the time.  If they were just for reading the newspaper or extended computer time, I could just keep them somewhere convenient (like I do with my camera, keys and wallet).  But I need them briefly for a few seconds so often, I need them "at hand" all the time.  

I remember "old folks" with their glasses on lanyards that hung around their necks.  I used to laugh.  I don't anymore.  As odd as it seems, I had the hardest time finding the kind long enough to both hang around my neck and reach my shirt pocket.  

Found them today at Amazon.  It was really just a matter of figuring out the right keywords.  Ordered a pair today.  And even that wasn't easy!  Most seem to be made of braided leather.  Some buyers complained that they got too stiff after only a month.  Others complained about the type that attaches to the middle of the ear side frame (they annoy your ears).  And some were too short.

I finally found some made of silicon and vinyl, 27" long, attach to the ends of the ear-holder, and have a length adjustment.  Most came in packs of 6 (who needs 6?) but a found a 2-pack.  Not much cheaper than a 6-pack, but I hate waste.

So, why did I need them?  Well, as I said, they keep falling out of my shirt pocket, usually onto a hard floor.  I usually notice that, at least, and pick them back up.  But I can't find them now.  Which probably means they fell out outside while I was doing yardwork.  

Well, I had done a lot of brush trimming about the time I lost them.  So I spent an hour today raking up the trimmings and looking around each time. No luck!  Maybe they are in some corner of the basement or under some furniture I haven't checked yet.  Or some future archeologist may find them...

The problem is they were only a month old and cost $300!  I am using my old ones, but there was a reason I replaced them.  The prescription is about the same but they are scuffed from years of shirt pockets.  It is slightly like reading through plastic wrap.  

But they have been lost for a month.  Time to give up and buy a replacement pair.  At least the eyeglass place has the prescription and frame type, so can hopefully make a new set cheaper than the lost ones.

Someday, I may find them by stepping on them, mowing over them, or just (happily finding them) the way I sometimes come across pulled-off cat collars.  If after buying new ones and I find the lost ones, having 2 pairs would be convenient sometimes.

Kim Possible

If you never saw this animated Kim Possible series, you may or may not want to read further.  But it is my favorite animated show of all time (and I've watched a lot of them).  Kim is not Lara Croft.  She has a real normal life (so to speak).  Classes, homework, problems...

I have the finale bookmarked.  So last night, I went looking for the origin episode just to watch it, only to find my memory of it seemed wrong.  I thought Kim started as a baby-sitter, but episode 1 showed her already a heroine.  I was very surprised and a bit confused.

But hurray for wikipedia!  I found this (footnotes removed):

"Kim becomes a crime-fighter unintentionally. In need of a job, she creates her own website to promote her babysitting and lawn mowing services, using the slogan "I can do anything".^] When a wealthy entrepreneur accidentally contacts Kim Possible instead of Team Impossible when he becomes trapped by his own laser security system, Kim rushes to his aid and uses her gymnastic abilities to disable the device. As news of Kim's heroism spreads and requests for her help increase, she finally decides to pursue it as a career".

Yay!  My memory isn't dead yet...  I knew she started out innocent of ideas of heroism.

Kim has a real family and daily high school problems.  Dad is literally a rocket scientist and Mom is literally a neurosurgeon.  And her younger twin brothers are mechanical geniuses.  Your typical family, LOL!

Kim has a male best friend from  kindergarden years.  No hint of a love relationship.  Just BFFs.

The guy is named Ron Stoppable.  Kim's last name is Possible; his is Stoppable.  Clue to his ineptness in life.  He basically becomes the sidekick who has to be saved all the time.  Well, his pants fall down on most episodes, so you get the relationship.  But he is brave even if inept.

Kim's main goal in the series is simply to help those in need regardless of money or rewards.  She does have friends who help her with various planes and information (You helped me with that ship problem, etc).

Kim's main oppenent is Shego (who is both acrobatic and can shoot energy from her hands how is a mystery).  But she is the sidekick of the blue-skinned Dr Draken who of course wants to take over the world.  There are a few other villians (like Senore Senior Senior and his utterly handsome clueless son Senore Senior Junior ("Senior" being their last name) and some guy who shoots golf ball bombs.  But Shego mostly appears.

And one episode explained her name.  Kim and Ron eat at taco places.  He eats tacos, she a salad.  In a different city (but same taco brand) a villian breaks in and Kim drives him a away.  Later, she discovers (because she solves things) the manager is a big strong hero named "Hego"

And darned if there wasn't a "Go-Team" once.  There was a Theygo (could create multiples of himself) and IGo (speedy kid).  Kim catches on about "Shego"...  Yeah, Shego was the (black and green outfit) outcast of the group when she followed Dr Draken into villanny.  But Kim goes away from their territory (Ron didn't like their tacos) and we don't see much of them.

There are some interesting suprises.  In one episode another of Dr Drakens' devices fail and Shego and Kin are zapped to become sisterly friends.  Which gets reversed back and forth, of course.  But the last moment of the episode was Shego looking at a photo them both together with a tear dripping down her cheek.  One of the slightly-suggested plot themes were that Kim and Shego were actually very much alike.

And then there was the "Graduation Day" episodes.  With a stupid build up.  Ron has "monkey-powers" which he has no understanding of except for a voice/image in his head.  Kim realizes that Ron has been her best friend forever.  Ron doesn't know how to express his love of Kim.  

They eventually kiss to the surprise of both.  And attend Senior Prom together.  Kim in "a liitle black dress and Ron in an over-the-top tuxedo (of course).  The high school crowd is stunned, then applauds wildly.  As in "well it's about damned time you two figured it out".  

Then the alien baddies attacked.  Just a husband/wife team, but they are very powerful (and have been seen a couple times in minor fights).  So a few things happen.  Dr Draken has created a beam that makes him all flowery (much to his dismay).  I mean, petals all around his head and a few tendrils.  Shego and Kim fight the aliens.  Ron has been given a rocket pack from Kim's twin brothers.

Kim is defeated and she and Draken are captured/taken to the enemy ship.  Ron and Shego go to rescue them (she steals a jet pack).  

Favorite paraphrases...

Shego to Ron:  "How do we get in"?

Ron". "There's always a trash dump".  

Shego:  That's ricul (and then the trash door opens).  They fly in.  They find Kim and Draken (Kim got them freed).  Ron embraces Kim.  

Now you have to understand something here.  Shego is Dracken's sidekick/enforcer.  She is insulting, snarky and belittles his mad scientist schemes.  She has never shown the least sign of affection towards him.  

But Shego embraces Draken like Kim and Ron do with a lot of embarassment and "well I was just happy to see you" explanations.  Woah!

So they escape the alien ship and return to Earth.  The alien couple (visualize 8" tall body-builder/hunters).

They defeat Kim yet again.  Draken complains about his petals and tendrils. "Its not like I can command them to surround you", but that actually happens when he says that.  OMG, he is sort of like Poison Ivy in Batman.  And as he stands there, he hatches a plan.  (paraphrasing again) "I see it Shego.  For once in my life I see how this could work.  It all makes sense now for the first time".

Kim and Shego are beaten.  The alien couple have landed destructo-machines all over Earth.  But Ron's "monkey-power" (lame, I know) is activated when he sees Kim being held up in defeat by the alien couple.

Two things happen at the same time.  Draken commands his tentacles to spread and "take down those machines".  And Ron glows red and levitates.  Kim is unconcious but Shego is still awake.  She sees Ron land vibrating body hits and then actually throws them into their ship (which immediately explodes), ending the threat.

Draken's tendrils crush all the destructo-machines. Ron returns to reality.  Kim wakes up and asks Shego "what happened"?  Shego:  "Ya had to see it.  I think your sidekick just stepped up".

Now another interesting part.  Draken is regarded as a hero and is awarded a medal.  Shego embraces him seriously (in public, though we sort of knew she loved him all the time and he her).  They will be together, as Draken realizes being "a good guy" isn't a "bad thing".   And the love of someone like Shego isn't bad either.  So the bad guys turned out good.  Hurrah, everyne is good and happy.

And Kim and Ron graduated and became permanent.  She to Universities asking her to accept them and Ron to work at "Smarty-Mart" as a clerk.  But it doesn't matter.  Because they had always loved each other and never realized it...  And would (as the series ended) as long as the stars shown in the sky.

Fini

UPS Store

I had something to return to Amazon and I usually bring the box to UPS.  They create a return label from a QR code and I'm in and out in 5 minutes.  But the UPS Store closed!   The nearest one now is 5 miles further away and actually, I couldn't find it.  So I drove home and looked it up for directions.  And no wonder!  You can't actually see it from the official address road.

It's one of those deals where an entire mall has an address and some business are "around the back" so you can't see them.  And business don't display addresses large enough to read from the street anymore.  And I didn't see any sign that said UPS.  So now I have to go back (with detailed directions this time).

The sad thing is that the closed UPS location was conveniently on the way to several places I shop.  This now-closest location is most definitely not!  It is in a direction I never go shopping and the traffic is always bad in that area (it's close to a large regional shopping mall that I never go to).

I'll miss the old place...

A Strange Week

 This week was weird 3 ways and it was all about the riding lawn mower.

First was the flat front tire.  OK, that's not all that unusual.  I re-inflated it.  But the next morning it was flat again.  I tried to take it off, but there was no nut to loosen.  So I had to look it up on the internet.  Found a nice youtube video.  

Turns out there is a " Jesus clip".  It is actually called a C-clip, but it can result in bad words trying to get it off.  The video showed 10 ways to do it, most of them a bit complicated with special tools.  Fortunately, the easiest way worked.  A small tack hammer placed across the open part of the C, a tap with another small hammer, and it popped right off!  👍

Then I had to find the leak (hoping I could repair it with a cheap $5 repair kit.  No such luck.  I re-inflated it fine, and put the wheel into a tub of water.  The leak was around the valve stem.  I can't fix that!  

I called a local tire company and they said they could fix it.  I expected them to just replace the valve stem, but they put a tube in the tire.  I did that once and it was a real pain.  😠  So 30 minutes and $30 later I had a good tire again.  Re-installing it was easy.

Second I knew the mower was low on gas.  Fortunately, I had just refilled the car and the portable gas can.  So I drove the mower around front where the can was.  Gas wouldn't come out of the can spout!  I had to hold the inflow hole open manually and tilt the whole can to fill a large glass bottle and fill the mower from that.  Took several bottlefuls...

I took the spout off the can and looked for a blockage.  Couldn't find one and you can't open the top of the can.  And I sure wasn't going to go poking around with some metal tool!  So I will just keep back-pouring the gas into the bottle (and examining the gas carefully) until the can is empty.  Then I will leave to gas can open a few days until all the gas is evaporate.  Then I'll poke around inside and try to find what was blocking the gas flow.

Third So I mowed the lawn.  There is a shallow drainage easement on one side of the front yard.  After 38 years, it looks more like a natural creek with some erosion and plants filling it and the sides.  I misjudged where the edge was!  No, the mower didn't fall into the easement, but one front tire got into a depression on the side.  I could not back the mower out or push it out.  I finally had to drive the car onto the lawn behind the mower, tie the mower to the trailer hitch, and drag it backwards until it was free.  

Certainly not unsolvable problems, but 3 different things regarding the mower in just a couple of days was really weird!    

Tomorrow's Potato Salad

The local deli/store makes a wonderful potato salad they call "Nanna's Potato Salad".  At $5/lb.  I think I figured it out.  I think they suatee' the potato cubes lightly in bacon fat and add a small bit of "ground to dust" bacon itself.  I've made some this year with that idea in mind and I get the same flavor.  For about $1/lb.

So here is tomorrow's potato salad.  Forgot to put the vinegar sprinkler in the pic, though...

Good Deed

Well, I did my Good Deed for the day.   Package arrived at my front door.  And I saw my address on it.  So I opened it.  Stuff I couldn't imagine ordering...

Checked address.  It was mine alright.  But wrong name.  I looked up the name and found one just far down my street.  One digit off, LOL.  But I found a phone number that matched the name.  I called many times yesterday, but it was always busy.  

So I decided to just deliver it.  I just walked out of the house this morning to rid of the package and walked down the street.  Damn, I should have driven.  It was further away than I realized.  

But I got there eventually.  Rang the doorbell.  Waited while a husky barked at me.  No response.  Banged on the door.  Waited.  Banged on the door again.  Eventually a woman came to the door and said yes her name was right.  Walked home.  My half mile start for the day.  LOL!

I'm a regular damned Boy Scout.

OK, that was 50 years ago, but I still am...  😀

Temperature And Rain

The hot weather and drought has finally broken here.  The last few days, the temperature has dropped and I have gotten almost 2" of rain.  The lawn, tomatoes, and flowers sure appreciate it!  Even the native wildflowers were struggling...

One good thing about the rain was that it fell in spurts over 3 days, so it all had a chance to soak in.  It can be depressing to get 2" of rain all at once and watching the storm drains carrying most of it away!

The temperature wasn't as bad as some places.  Ten days ago, it was this, though, and that was at 11:30 am.  It probably got worse in the afternoon.

 Temperature is a funny thing though.  I read a science article in the newspaper that said even accounting for the "heat index", a lower temperature in one region can be harsher than a higher temperature in another.  

I don't recall all the details, but it involved accumulated soil temperature, sunlight reflectivity, etc.  They gave specific examples, but basically sometimes 100 is worse than 105.  Old joke "It was so hot, I saw a starving coyote chasing a terrified rabbit.  And they were both walking!"

And as far as "plain old temperature" goes, I was in Ft Worth TX on Govt business once, and walking to lunch with a few local employees.  We passed a bank temperature/time display and I laughed, saying they should get their display fixed.  It said 110 and I was comfortable enough.  One of the local guys glanced at it and said it looked right.  Huh???

It was the low humidity (about 10-20% he said).  Wow, I am used to 60-80% humidity in July.  That sure makes a difference.

Three decades ago here, we would get several days each Summer over 100 and a lot of high 90s.  The lawn would get so hot and dry that the soil would crack open.  The grass was routinely brown July and August.  It hasn't been that bad for many years.  

It may be that my lawn soil and grass is much better than when I first moved here (to an undeveloped property).  The builder probably seeded it with really cheap grass and used cheap "fill dirt" to raise and level the lawn (and then drove heavy equipment all over it building the house).

One good organic lawn practice is to leave your grass clippings on the lawn.  Grass is the perfect fertilizer for grass.  By definition, grass clippings have exactly what grass needs.  And, no, it doesn't cause "thatch".  Thatch is a layer of dead and living surface grass roots, and from runners from grasses that spread outwards (bluegrass, bermuda, and bent).  I have been overseeing with fescue for 3 decades.

I don't want to get too far "into the weeds" here and bore you to death.  But causes of thatch include over-fertilization, frequent shallow watering (it brings roots to the surface), and poor and/or compacted soil.   

And let some clover grow in your lawn.  First, the bees will love you for it!  But maybe more importantly, clover roots grow deeper than grass roots.  They bring nutrients back up from deeper soil.  Those nutrients are stored in the clover leaves.  Then,  those nutrients are returned to the surface of the lawn, where the grass roots can get at them when you mow the lawn.    

Over the years, the cycle of nutrient replenishment and left-in-place organic matter improves even bad soil.  I can tell.  I planted a shrub and a tree sapling in the front yard last Fall.  When I looked at the holes, I could see that the top 3" were darker and richer than the soil below.  It used to be clay from the surface down...

Meanwhile, I am enjoying the cooler and rainier days this past week.  Usually, this week or two are the hottest and driest part of the year.  But the forecasts show a decent chance of rain most days for the next 2 weeks.  I sure hope they are accurate! 

Dinner

Dinner...

Pretty much my favorite.  Cubed pork, broccoli, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, asparagus, scallions, straw mushrooms...

And the placemats [edited to specify "plastic"].  I started collecting them to use them on the top of the TV tray.  I eat dinner watching TV.  I have these apples, a dinosaur one, a sunflower one, a wine one, and two that look like a piece of blue marble.

And now I use a marble-patterned one (of two) for preparing the cat food bowls 6 times a day.  Easier to clean than the countertop.  

Moon Landing Day

55 years ago today...

My paternal grampa told me he felt so lucky with his life.  He said he experienced the first airplane flight (by news, not personally of course) and lived long enough to see humans land on the moon and return safely.  He was very impressed by that.

And that was from someone who experienced WWI, The Great Depression, and WWII...  I was only 19, so I did not properly understand the event at the time.  In my life at the time, scientific advancement was routine and success was assumed.  

Medicine was much advanced.  I suffered appendicitis at 18.  At my grampa's age, I probably would have died.  And I was vaccinated agains several serious diseases.  In college, I was using a computer data center to write code (on punch cards) in Fortran and COBOL.  I could drive the family car, which was relatively solid and safe (station wagons were the SUVs of the time).  Food was refrigerated, safe, and abundant.  We had TV and A/C.

At my age then, grampa had none of those things.  And I suppose grampa was impressed by those things too when I was 19.  But the moon landing seemed to impress him very greatly.  In spite of the negative events of his (somewhat difficult) life, he remained a fairly cheerful and positive person.  He saw the advancements more than the failings of the world.

He was an organic gardener.  "Garden" doesn't quite describe it.  It wasn't a residential garden like we are familiar with today, but neither was it a farm.  It was about 1/2 acre, which he attended to happily when he wasn't building stuff in his large workshop.  I followed in his organic gardening habits and wood-working because of him (though on a much smaller scale.

And I don't want to leave gramma out.  She cooked wonderfully (Pennsylvania Deutch style).  When we visited, I would sit on the porch with her de-stringing beans and de-silking corn, helping in the kitchen too.  When I'm not strir-frying, I'm cooking basically like she did but with a a bit less frying.  "Like", not remotely as well (I still can't make a decent dumpling)...

But I mention her because she was fascinated by "outer space".  When we landed on the moon, she told me that if we could go "out there", then some other intelligent species could come "down here".  And she trusted the advancement of intelligent species.  She said that if a spaceship landed here, she would volunteer to go aboard.

So for both of them (and for general reasons), I wanted to honor this day...

Catching Up With Yard Pics

I hope I didn't post these before.  They were on my list of pictures that were not inked through.  But if they aren't new, enjoy them agin, LOL! 

Daylilies...

Maltese Cross perennials...  

Yucca in bloom...

Heirloom tomatoes.  They are indeterminant, so they need tall cages.  Putting cages on containers is awkward.

Pole beans and corn.  I was probably too late this year.  But maybe I'll get something by the end of the season.

This is a 5' kidney bean-shaped pond.  The sweet flag loves it.  There are a few lillies in there too.  I think the 3 goldfish died.  But it is hard to tell.  I think I meed to pull the plant pot up, drain the pond and  see if there are any fish left at the bottom.  I will have 3 trashcans of aged water to refill it if there are any.  Otherwise, I will just buy a few cheap ones next May and start over.

The Stella D' Oro lilies bloomed briefly, but it has been very dry for a month and they have not re-bloomed since.  They are hardy and will come back next year if not in a month.

And it has been hot here.  Not as bad as me places, but harsh for here.

101F.  Haven't seen that for a decade!  And that was in the morning.  I think it got hotter but I didn't think to take a picture a 2 PM.  I watered the tomatoes, corn, pole beans and 4 young trees.  It was like standing in an oven.  

I am reminded of an old joke:  "A starving coyote was chasing a terrified rabbit.  And they were both walking..."

Trading Freezers

I traded freezers last evening.  I been meaning to for weeks, but finally got around to it.  Well, I should say I traded the contents of my refrigerator freezers.  I don't have an individual freezer.  But I have refrigerators in the kitchen (with a bottom freezer) and the basement with top freezer.  

I find the kitchen one convenient because it has the crisper drawers in the middle and I am in there more often than anywhere else.  I spend a lot more time with getting at fresh fruits and veggies than frozen stuff.

The old previous basement fridge (and I mean "old") was more of a root cellar and storage for bulk items.  Bags of potatoes, onions, fruits etc.  And certainly horribly inefficient, energy-wise.  I replaced it months ago with another top freezer model, because I buy meat in moderate bulk on sale and I bought shoebox-size plastic containers to store the various kinds in.

But the kitchen freezer was the bottom type.  Stuff like frozen veggies, bread products (which freeze well), and leftovers stayed in containers on the (unmovable) top shelf.  Larger containers were in the bottom slide-out tray.  It became unmanageable.  Stuff on the top freezer shelf were impossible to sort through a small container at a time down on my hands and knees.  And the stacks just kept falling over, which destroyed any organizing I tried to maintain.

The slide-out shelf was not very helpful.  It was "necessary" to slide it out to get at anything, but basically, it was just a loose pile of variously-sized containers.  Even though I labeled them, it didn't help much trying to find anything

So I thought about that for a few weeks.  And I think I found the solution.  Reverse the contents of the freezers.  First, I emptied out everything from the slide-out kitchen tray.  Separated them into meat and veggies in a large plastic bin and put all my freezer gel packs on top to keep them frozen.  Then dumped all the small containers on top and closed the lid.

Then took my 6 shoebox-size meat containers to the empty Kitchen freezer.  They fill it up.  And since I have labels in front and on the top, they are easy to find and don't mix into each other.  The unmovable top shelf holds easy-to-manage stuff like breads, bags of frozen veggies, and smaller containers for various sausages/baked bacon. 

All those leftovers (and I do choose them sometimes just to use them up) are in the basement top freezer.  They are more stable there because I can see them better.  Most labels are on the top of the containers, but future ones will be on the front for easier identification 

A benefit of the freezer content exchange is that I used up some stuff I didn't remember I had.  I poached 4 chicken thighs in previously-saved frozen broth.  That had to start them out well.  I have a container of beef broth left over from a spicy chuck roast recipe, to make more beef stew tomorrow from a chunk of other slow-cooked chuck roast from last month I also found.  

So the transfer has worked out well.  I can see the contents of the small leftovers in the top freezer refrigerator more easily now without have to shuffle them all around on hands and knees.  And the bulk meat containers are easy to take out of the kitchen tray easily.

I say "bulk meat containers", but they are all cut up into in 3-4 oz portions and stored in zip lock bags.  All I have to do is lift a lid of the meat container I want and thaw it out.

This looking like a "winning" change.