Goosies and Goofies

This is a goose:

This is also a goose:

She is the goosiest, goofiest beagle ever!

This morning, Maggie was acting strange.  Well, she's always strange!  But today she was odd, even for her.  She kept attempting to hide behind Bill or me, she found a spot and curled up behind me and when Bill left for work, she almost went out the door with him.

The reason?

A big, bad fly!

 

She kept following me around, finally when I went into the kitchen I saw two flies and they were both on the ground.  She wasn't afraid of them then, we think that she hears them but when they fly high and she can't see them is when she gets scared.  I got the bug zapper fly swatter and made several attempts, I'm sure the flies were laughing at me the entire time.  I finally got one of them, and I put it in one of the Venus fly-trap leaves.  The plant apparently wasn't hungry, which is when I discovered that the fly was only stunned and not dead.  I know this because it flew off.  By this time, the dog's fine but I love a challenge so I kept at it.  I eventually got the fly again, or maybe his buddy, anyway this time it was dead.  And the flytrap was apparently ready for a meal by this time, because the (same) leaf closed on the fly.  If they are freshly dead, the plant can eat them.

 

What did Maggie do to thank me for vanquishing the big, scary, mean fly?

 

She curled up and took a nap.

On The Shelf!

We spent most of yesterday working in the garage.  Bill's (finally!) getting his pachinko collection organized, and that means we spent several hours taking the old shelves apart, cutting new wood to size, assembling the new shelves, moving many many many boxes to the shed and back to the garage, and a whole bunch of other stuff that involved heavy lifting.  As a result, we are both sore and stiff.  Last night was an adventure in pain - I hurt in places I didn't even know I had!  We did a lot more than I mentioned, but the bulk of the day's activities involved the pachinko shelving.  We aren't through, but we did get a whole lot done.  I think we'll be back out there next Sunday, it's supposed to be warm (by TEXAS standards) but not hot (by TEXAS standards.)

 

Bill's figured out a way to store 20 machines, which might (maybe, hopefully) give us the room to walk around in the garage and not have to play leapfrog over the machines.

 

Otter was lucky, she had to work yesterday.  Otherwise, I'm sure she'd have been conscript labor along with me!

 

Otter saw the new Monsters 2 movie today.  She spent the afternoon at one of the malls with her boyfriend, they saw the movie then.  She said it was cute in places, but not anywhere near as good as the original movie.  About what I expected, actually.  We might see the new Superman movie next week.  But I'm thinking that Bill and I probably won't see Monsters 2 until it comes out on video.  Possibly the same thing for Iron Man 3.

 

We took the dogsters for a walk on Saturday.  While we were out, we went inside the house behind us.  It's small, but we do like the layout.  What we don't like is the fact that we could see very clearly into our own house.  Froggy, you mentioned people having curtains.  Yes, but the placement of the windows means that the occupants will be able to see in our windows with or without curtains.  We have mini-blinds in the dining room and curtains in the bedroom as well as the living room.  But we usually leave them open during the day, which is pretty standard.  We'll wait and see what happens.  There is another house starting beside it, but it will be behind our neighbor (the nice one) but that one won't be a problem for us.  There is room on the opposite side (between us and Lovely Neighbor) for another house which will be even more of a problem for us.  We'll have to wait and see.

I'm Rambling Today

It's Wednesday, but I can't think of much to whine about.

 

Well, there is the fact that the house behind us is being built and it's a safe bet that they will be able to see in our windows.  But I'm not going to worry about that until/if I have to.

 

Froggy, you asked about the crocheted pot holder.  I'm not telling!

 

I hate these:

They are so unsafe.  Why not just write your ss#, bank info and address on your car?  Since anybody who sees the stickers can already tell how many children, their gender and approximate age and it's not difficult to look up addresses with car license plate numbers.  I'm just wondering what numbskull thought that these things were a good idea.

 

But, I do like this one.

 

Probably no surprise to anyone who knows us!

 

We (mostly Bill) got finished with the tree limb yesterday, after we got home from Bil's birthday dinner - we actually got him to go out this year.  We met one of our neighbors in the process.  When the electric company let Maggie out a few years back, the lady that found her lived across the street and down just a bit.  She sold her house to her daughter (or granddaughter, I'm not really sure).  The daughter's husband was out in their yard, he was playing with their kiddos and he saw Bill with his saw so he came over to help.  We had a nice visit, but Bill probably feels old since the younger guy thought the older guy (Bill) needed help!  Turns out that his wife is a TEXAN and also flies her flag.  Their neighbor on the other side will turn it upside down (as a joke, he's not being malicious) and hubby said she gets really riled.  I think he was surprised at just how testy she gets!  That makes 3 other TEXANS (that we know of) in the immediate neighborhood.  Since he is a fan of "that" Oklahoma school, I would imagine that it is not a fun place around his house in early October!

 

Otter is off with a friend today.  They didn't have any particular plans, but you can bet that shopping is involved.  She'll eventually be home, hopefully she'll still have some money left! :)

 

I had a cactus casualty.  My prickly pear.  It was never the healthiest plant, it was nearly dead when I bought it and I was surprised it lasted as long as it did.  I put the cactus outside days ago and then forgot all about them.  Then we had rain.  Lots and lots of rain.  It might have survived, but it wasn't a big plant and it had a run-in with a hailstone.  I had another cactus, it was tall and has pink thorns.  It's really pretty.  It was in a cast-iron pot that I found at a thrift store a few years back.  I drained the water out of the pot but then I realized that the pear was too damaged to make it so I transplanted the pink one into the pot the pear was in - it's a large cooking pot with pink enamel paint.  It took a little care, I used a plastic serving fork and dug a circle around the pink cactus, then I gently held it with a kitchen tong and stuck the serving fork underneath the cactus.  Once the pear was out of the pink pot, I stirred the dirt up a bit and then planted the pink cactus in it the same way I took it out of the cast iron pot - with the tongs.  I think it survived being swamped by so much water, it looks like it so far anyway.  I'm going to leave it outside, we are not supposed to get rain to speak of for a while now.  The cast iron pot is going to be refurbished, which means that I'm going to take a brillo or SOS pad to it and a lot of water (and elbow grease!), then I'm going to dry it thoroughly.  At that point, it's probably going to be painted with a specific pain for cast-iron and I think it's going to be part of my fireplace décor.

 

I also found another venus fly trap plant, it's still small but it will grow.  It's in the kitchen window at the moment, happily sitting in a small container filled with distilled water.

Tree-mendous

It's rainy again.  Yesterday, I took Otter to work since she wasn't feeling to spiffy (Bill's word) due to her allergies.  Shortly before I was to leave to go get her, it suddenly got windy.  Very windy.  Then it started raining and it was hard rain.  The wind was even worse.  We had a little thunder, but the wind was the real issue.  It calmed down quite a bit by the time I had to leave, but it was still storming.  I got Otter from work, and in the 1/2 hour-ish I was gone the wind got worse at home.  We came home to discover the top half of the tree by the garage laying in the grass.  It was 3 or 4 good sized limbs, although they might be too big to actually be called limbs.  Bill and I got all but one of them hauled to the other side of the house (couldn't be the tree by the side of the house we needed to put them!) with plans to get the remaining branch taken care of today.  It's going to need to be cut up before we can move it, but we did manage to get it moved all the way back into our yard since it was partially in Lovely Neighbor's as well.  Front yard, so it didn't hit her fence, house or anything else.  But the humidity level today is astronomical, so it's going to be at least tomorrow before we attempt it.  The ones we did move are big, but not as heavy.  We'll probably get a few fires out of it, at least.

 

I'm just glad it fell the direction it did, which is away from our house.  It would have damaged the roof over the kitchen and/or garage.  Bill's going to check the roof anyway, since there was enough hail in the storm that it could have caused problems.  I hope not, the roof is only 4 or 5 years old.  We replaced it after we sold the rent house, I just don't remember exactly when that was.

 

Our rain gauge had 8" after the rain last week, then it had 4" this morning.  It rained again this afternoon, but nobody's been out to check it.  But the rain barrel is full.  In fact, it's over full.

 

Froggy, I'm working on a crochet project.  It's a pot holder.  It's for your collection.  It's very appropriate that I'm making this particular one.

2nd Post of the Day, Just Sunday

(I wanted the Father's Day message to be separate, so two posts in one day.)

 

It's warm and humid.  It's not hot, just warm (by S. TEXAN standards, so it's probably "hot" but we just don't realize it.)  But we had just a little bit of rain yesterday, so the humidity level has increased exponentially.  It wasn't good to start with.  Now, it's worse.  I've been on the verge of an asthma spell for days.  Otter's not having problem with the humidity, but she's having allergy issues in general.  She worked yesterday and a couple of hours after she got home, she started to get a fairly bad headache.  She went to bed about 9:30, after Tylenol and a shower.  She woke up this morning at 7:00 a.m. and still had a headache, so I sent her back to bed.  Bill and I went to church and then she was just waking up when we got home.  She got up, had a light breakfast (a roll and tea) and then took an allergy pill.  I took her to work, she was not really in a mood to be driving with the headache she had.  She got kind of nauseated at one point, which sometimes happens because of the allergies but once her allergy pill kicked in she was much better.  I dropped her off and will pick her up when she gets off.

 

Then we'll come home and have Bill's Father's Day meal:  BLT's!  There are three times a year when we have bacon:  Otter's Birthday, Bill's Birthday and Christmas.  Since Billyboy's birthday is Tuesday, he rescheduled his bacon to today.  We didn't get up early enough to have a big breakfast before church, but since Otter wasn't feeling too good it worked out better anyway to have it for dinner.  Yes, Bill has to make his own meal!  But that's his choice, actually.  I made him a pineapple upside-down cake, we'll get into it after the BLT's.

 

Yesterday was 9 years since we lost Dad.  We had Blues & Greens (peanut m & m's) in his memory.  He would be on my mind anyway, since it's Father's Day.  But with the fact that he died so close to Father's Day, it's a little harder at times.  Pastor Dave was talking about his father who he lost in 1990, and how the last Father's Day he had his father with him was 1989.  He said that he still finds himself about to call his dad, and I have to say that I know how he feels.  Froggy, I bet you do too.

 

We're watching a Warehouse 13 marathon on SyFy.  It's a funny show, I wish it was not being cancelled.  It will finish out this season then have a short season in 2014, then it's done.  It's a good show and it is funny.

 

The house behind us is one story.  But it's going to be big enough that it will probably block our view of the 4th of July fireworks shows that we can see from the back deck.  We could do without that!

Happy Father's Day!

Very Tired Friday Rambling Thoughts

In general, I don't mind being 51 years old.  But I've been above-average temperature for days now and it's beginning to get on my nerves!

 

OK, whining aside, it's been somewhat chaotic the last few days.  But at least the water is safe!

 

Tomorrow is the 9th anniversary of when we lost Dad.  I bought Blues & Greens today, in his memory.  (Peanut M & M's.)

 

Frasier might just be over his irrational fear of the vacuum.  The last couple of times I've run it, he's actually stayed inside and even in the living room with me.  This morning, I was vacuuming between/under the couch cushions and he actually came up and stood beside the vacuum!  And it was on!  He was happy, he had that smiley face he gets when he's extremely happy and he stayed in the room and beside me/the vacuum the entire time I had it on.  Maggie Moo, on the other hand, never stirred from their blankets - where she was napping.

 

It's been hot the last few days.  Mid-90's, which is not really "hot" (at least not to a South TEXAN), but the humidity levels have been astronomical.  Which means that breathing is on the difficult side, to say the least.  I'm sure that the asthma issues I've been dealing with this week have contributed to the fact that I'm very tired, as I said in the title.

 

I think I'll go get into my chocolate stash in the freezer and then I am going to have a glass of wine and read for the next couple of hours.

The Water's Flowing Again!

Well, it never actually quit flowing.  But we can drink it now.  The testing came back as clean with no contamination.  Since it never actually quit flowing and there have been no signs of impurities, we didn't have to deal with letting it run to flush the lines or anything.  The ice maker has been turned back on now and I don't have to worry about boiling water to brush teeth with.  Also, since the reserves have been built back up to good levels in the city's towers there are no usage restrictions.  I did a lot of laundry this morning and also ran the dishwasher, that was before the clean tests but the dishwasher gets the water pretty hot and it was already safe for laundry.  Since the tests hadn't come back yet, I took the few hand wash items to work and washed them in the sink there.  We still had a little water in the fridge in the main dispenser container we use, it was about 1/3 full.  I also had a pitcher that was full of water, I added it to the dispenser.  Back to so-called normal now!

 

Otter was home today, she wanted to spend some time working on getting her craft stuff back in order and she managed to get a lot done.  She wanted to go to two junk/craft/antique stores that we hadn't been to in a while, so I told her to wait until I got home and I'd go with her.  She found several things, I found Bill's birthday present (not telling!) and we had a good time.  We don't get to these two stores very often.  Since she just went to bed with a probable migraine, I'm really glad we went shopping when we did.

 

They are working on the roof of the house behind us right now.  They are putting the plywood down to cover the rafters, and they are noisy!  But they are getting it done, so it won't be too long until they are finished.  We hope!

Water Woes

The broken water main was fixed overnight.  We are still having to boil it for consumption, but we can at least shower now.  We are still supposed to conserve to a point.  No car washing, watering the lawn, etc.  I'm going to do a load of laundry in the morning, but we trying to be somewhat careful.  But it was nice to be able to shower again!  I've still got a decent amount of water in the fridge so that we haven't had to boil any to drink, but that might change tomorrow.  The problem now is that the water quality might not be good yet, which is a normal thing after a break like this apparently.  I did boil some water, I'd like to be able to brush my teeth without having to get into the water we have reserved for drinking!  I'm thinking that we might tap into one of our large jugs of water.

 

Because the boil order is still in effect, all restaurants in the city and surrounding areas that are on our city water are closed.  So is the local hospital, all the patients were transferred to Tulsa hospitals but there weren't many, it's a small hospital.  There is another hospital in town, but I think it might be on Tulsa's water system.  The water may well be safe, but until the testing is completed and the all-clear has been given, the boil order and conservation request is still in effect.

 

Otter went to work with me today, she got to visit her surrogate grandfather and then we went thrifting at lunch.  She found a few of the things she was looking for.  She spent the afternoon at the library and then we went to the grocery store after that.  Wally was a little crowded for the middle of the week, but not bad.  The clerk forgot to ring up the dog food, which we realized when we were nearly to the car, so we went back in and took care of that.  But even then, it took us a little less than an hour which isn't bad.

 

The house behind us is definitely one story, the roof rafters are up.  But it does look like there is a window that will allow anyone inside to look directly into my house.  The blinds and curtains are staying closed while the house is under construction.  It looks like it's a "for sale" as opposed to custom built for an owner.  It might be a while before we actually have neighbors back there.

 

Hope so, anyway!

Hot Tuesday Stuff

Hot as in, it's warm!  It's mid 90's, which isn't really all that hot.  But we went from 70's to Summer with no in-between.  Also, the humidity levels are bad and getting worse - which will mean lung issues for me at some point.

 

And there's also the fact that I'm a 51 year old woman and I've been above average temperature for days now!

 

Today's activities include coming home after work and filling every available container with water.  Seems that my not-so-big town has a water issue.  The main line that water comes in to the treatment plant developed several leaks overnight.  Apparently, there was a power outage and they had to close some of the valves.  When the power was restored and the valves opened back up, they developed lots of leaks.  Since late morning the city has been on reserve water and the reserve level has dropped a lot.  We have several big water jugs on hand, the kind you see in water coolers.  But we prefer not to have to tap one of those if we don't need to - we've had them for a while and they are part of our emergency supplies.  We had to use one once, several years back when there was a pipe failure in our area (it wasn't city-wide) and the water was off for several hours.  So, when I got home, Otter and I got busy and we filled up several containers.  I also got the coffee pot fixed up for tomorrow morning!  Got my priorities, huh!?  We filled up the dog's water dish, and about 30 seconds later Frasier came in and did what we call "camel dog" which means that the level in the water dish went down about an inch.  He was a thirsty boy!  The city issued a boil order while ago, water has to be boiled for at least one minute before being consumed or used for medical needs.  The reason for that is that the water pressure is so low that any potential contaminants won't be flushed out and might well be in the water that comes out of the tap.  The crews are still working and will probably get it fixed in the next several hours, but it will take several more hours after that to get the reserve tanks filled.

 

Otter is off the next 3 days, I'd already been ordered (there is no other word for it!) by a certain 96-year-old teenager to bring her to see him and his wife and she wanted to go in with me tomorrow for that.  After lunch, which may well be a thrift shop, I'm going to take her to the library or she may decide to go to the mall or somewhere else instead.  But with the water issues, I would probably have suggested she go in with me anyway.  For one thing, flushing is not recommended right now!

 

The house behind us has the sides up now, it looks like it's going to be a one story but we won't know for sure until the roof timbers are up.  Which will probably be soon, the way that those houses are built.

 

One of the trees in the back had a dead limb that has been in it for a few weeks, since one of the bad storms we had.  It finally fell out today.  It's not a huge limb, but it's big enough.  It's now in the grass below the tree and will stay there until one of us gets out in the back for longer than it takes to call the dogs in.  That might be a few days, it's getting humid enough that it's not pleasant or easy to breathe so I'm staying in as much as I can.

 

I've also had to cope with a slight migraine.  I took 3 motrin as soon as I felt the beginning of it, it seems to have done the trick.  I do have a headache, but it's tolerable.  For a migraine, anyway.

 

I just realized that I don't have to come up with an excuse.  I don't have to do laundry tonight!  Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Monday Stuff

It's Monday.  I'm going to follow Bill's philosophy:  Monday is just one day closer to Friday.  This is going to be one of those weeks where I'm living for Friday!

 

Today started out with a drive around the streets behind us.  The foundation was poured several days ago for the house that will be directly behind us.  We drove back there to check on it, and there were a bunch of workers and one very large truck which was loaded down with assorted lumber.  When we got home, the truck was gone and the lumber is all assembled and attached to the foundation.  It's still skeletal, but the houses back there go up in an unbelievable short amount of time.  The surveyor told me that it would be one story, but we can't tell for sure yet.  It's set farther up towards the street and not as close to the back fence (ours) as we feared  We'd just prefer that a house never be built there is all.

 

Anyway.  The next thing that happened is that we were on the road heading out of the neighborhood and saw one of these it in the street:

There was a car that came down the street but it saw her and avoided her.  (Yes, it was a female tortoise.)  I backed up a bit, stopped the car and got out to rescue her from the street.  How did she show her appreciation of being saved from being squished by a car?  She peed!

 

After leaving the neighborhood, we saw one of these:

 

It ran across the road, right in front of me but it managed to zigzag and get across the street.

 

I was beginning to wonder what was next!

 

(Bugs were next, by the way.)

 

I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow brings!  (I think).  

 

 

I'm sure these two clowns will make sure that we're entertained.

 

Otter and I went thrifting this afternoon after work.  She is looking for a couple of specific clothing items for a costume for something she's going to in August.  She's found some pieces but she's still looking for a couple of things.  She didn't find anything today, but we both found a couple of misc. items.  It was still fun.

 

That just means that we now have another excuse to go thrifting!  Like we need one. :)



Birds

We usually see a lot of birds.  Most of them have feather.

Like this one from a few years back.

Sometimes we see these:

Of course, we all love mockingbirds.  It's in the TEXAN dna code, we have to.

These guys are pretty common here, too.

Today, we saw this one:

And she is gorgeous!  And loud, no mistaking those engines for anything else.

National Donut Day

It's National Donut Day, but before I get to that I wanted to mention something.

 

Froggy's sweet dog died last night.  Her name was Cookie, she was one of the sweetest dogs.  I think she was a beagle/dachshund mix.  She was about 18 years old.  She's going to be missed.  Froggy, I am thinking about you and your family.  Mom always taught us that animals are God's creatures, and everything he made has an afterlife.  That includes His animals.  It might not be the same place we (can) go, but they go somewhere and it's good.

Today is Donut Day, and it's about the one time all year long that I actually eat one.  I went to Krispy Kreme on my lunch hour today.  They are not my favorite, but there are not a lot of other choices in Tulsa and it was also the only one really close to work.  I was going to get a half dozen, but I did the math and it was better to just get 12.  They were passing out free ones to everybody, I hadn't planned on eating one but it was fresh and hot and I caved.  It was very good!  I might have one or two more in the morning for breakfast, but that's going to be it for a very loooooooooooooong time.

 

My dogs are being silly, they just came in and Maggie wants to play.  But Frasier's not interested, he wants to lay at my feet and beg for affection.  He's been talking a bit at night lately, I heard him a couple of nights ago but in all honesty he might have just been answering Bill's snores.  At 1:30 this morning, I heard him and he wasn't quite barking but he was close.  I shut the bedroom door because it was too late to give him a tranquilizer.  I am going to give him the pills for the next few nights, which is what I have to do every so often.  I had 5 left so I called the vet and got a few more.

 

We've had so much rain lately that I've had to dump empty flower pots out every day or so.  We don't want skeeters!  Bill put a mosquito dunk in the rain barrel this week.  But they will find any available water and lay their eggs in it, including dog water dishes and anywhere else they can find.  I was dumping the flower pots out yesterday evening and there were a few mosquitos trying to land on them so I'm glad I got it done then.  Anyway, while I was pouring water out I heard a loud buzz and felt a breeze very close to my ear.  I got buzzed by a hummer!  She was not pleased with me, I was too close to her feeder for her tastes.  I got the message, and she's been all over all three feeders nearly every time I look out.

 

I posted a new recipe on the cooking blog, pan fried or broiled pork chops.  We had them tonight with rice, brown gray (yes, Pioneer brand!) and corn.  Can you say stuffed!  I'm probably going to have a glass of wine and put my feet up, that's going to be the extent of my exciting evening.  And I'll probably read the paper and maybe the book I'm currently working on.  Real exciting, huh!?

69 Years

THANK YOU.

Just Wednesday

It's just Wednesday.  Middle of the week.  Nothing spectacular.  But we did have a nice thunderstorm this morning.  Nice as in noisy and lots of rain, but no bad stuff.  Which would explain why my weathertoes were so painful last night.

 

Possible signs of the apocalypse:  We don't want to see the new ST movie.  But we do want to see the new Superman movie!  (What's wrong with this picture?)

 

Otter's off at her friend's house today, she left the house about 11:00.  About 5 minutes after that, the Fed-Ex guy called Bill to let him know that the delivery we expected was on the way - about 6 or 7 hours early!  I ran home at lunch and got there just before the Fed-Ex guy did.  It had to be signed for.  Maggie was funny, she sat where she could see the front door when I had it opened but she couldn't see around me.  She didn't move, but she leaned over as far as she could without falling over, just to see who was at the door.  She was nearly flat!  Frasier was his typical self - he was in Overprotective Mode, which is what usually happens when Bill is not where the dog can see him  especially if Bill's not home at all.  Frasier was very aware of the fact that there was someone here he didn't know, and he pretty much stayed between me and the Fed Ex guy and he (the dog) never took his eyes off the Fed Ex guy.  After the delivery guy left, Frasier very visibly relaxed and then he was his normal lazy self.

 

Strange things today:  I have more bluebonnet buds!  The plant in the whiskey barrel is budding again and they are beginning to bloom.  This never happens, they do NOT re-bloom and they never, ever are still blooming in June.  Ever.  Also, there is a mole in the whiskey barrel.  I was looking at the buds and noticed movement.  I looked closer and saw it emerging, it was still for a minute and then I guess I moved because my shadow crossed it and it zipped back down the hole it came out of.  I squished the hole opening down a bit, and it popped back up a couple of inches away.  I considered catching it, but I had my hands full with my purse, cell phone (I'd just texted a picture to Froggy of the new buds/blooms), and a couple of other things.  Then I realized that I didn't know what I'd do with it if I caught it, seeing as how I was in the front yard and both dogsters were in their yard.  Also, I didn't want to get bitten.  If I freed it, it would have just continued to burrow.  It didn't come back up again, so I squashed the 2nd hole sides in and pushed down what I could see of the raised trail.  Obviously, the whiskey barrel bottom has finally rotted away.  It's been there since I think the first spring after we moved in, so since 2005.  I can't remember if moles are the ones that eat the roots or if that's gophers and moles are the ones that eat the bugs around the roots of plants.  Either way, they kill the plants in the process.

 

I've been watching the new cooking show that has Jeff Foxworthy as one of the judges.  It's so funny.  He's really gifted, he's a Southerner so we have a lot of the same humor.  Bill Engvall is a TEXAN, so we like him better, but Foxworthy is really good.  The cooking is a lot more down to earth and less "frou-frou" as Billyboy would say!  Only problem with tonight's show is that we had a very light dinner and now I'm hungry!

 

Maybe I'll find something to eat after Mythbusters.  We haven't seen too much of the last couple of seasons, we were thinking that maybe they'd done everything possible.  We'll see, I guess.

Foundations

Well, it was nice while it lasted.  Not having neighbors behind us, I mean.  The foundation was poured for the house directly behind us today.  The houses back there come up fast, so it will probably just be a few days until it's built.  Depending on weather.

 

Last Friday's tornado was the biggest one ever recorded.  2.6 miles across.  I can't even begin to imagine that.  It was also an EF5, which is probably no surprise.  We were never in any danger from it, it was so far west of us and a little too far north to have come through here.  But it was devastating for the people in the area. 

 

Three storm chasers were killed.  These were professionals and they got caught in it.  There was a weather channel employee who (in my opinion) thought he was smarter than he was and that he could do what he told people not to do.  His car was damaged and he was hurt.  It was probably just a matter of time until a chaser got caught.  I'm surprised that it hasn't happened before this, and that it hasn't been one of the many, many unsmart people who seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere just to chase tornados - most of which are not professional.  The last couple of years, there has been a lot of stuff on the news where the meteorologists have actually told the non-professionals not to be out on the roads, searching.  For one thing, they just add to the traffic congestion and they endanger many people.

 

The tornado that went through our area last week wasn't as close as we thought.  The weather guy on the tv station apparently didn't know this area.  It was in our town, but not close enough to our house to have been a problem for us.  He didn't know the street names and was just calling out the name of any landmark he could think of.  He was just trying to warn people about the unexpected tornado that just suddenly popped up, but it kind of backfired.  It was also downgraded to an EF2 from an EF3.

 

We had thunderstorms early this morning, which is probably why my weathertoes were hurting last night.  To the point that they kept me awake.  We didn't have anything bad, just noisy.  It was a little rainy until mid-morning and a bit windy.  Then, the rain stopped and the sun came out.  Which means humid!  It was hard to even breathe outside.  We could get more rain tonight as well as off and on the next couple of days.  Probably not anything bad, just rain.  It's been a wet spring.

 

I have another bluebonnet blossom!  It's on the plant that I left in the whiskey barrel.  Amazing.  Fun!

Getting Lost

OK, so the title isn't quite appropriate.  But Google Maps leaves a lot to be desired!

 

There was a pachinko machine in Talequah, which is about an hour away.  I saw it on Craigslist on Friday, Bill made arrangements to meet the seller this afternoon.  He looked up the address and directions on Google Maps.  We followed the directions.  And went about 40 miles out of our way because Google Maps is wrong.  I don't know why we thought it would be correct, this is the 3rd or 4th time we've used it and it's never right.  Next time, we're taking the GPS.

 

But the pachinko was worth it, it's in need of some cleaning and repair but it's unusual and Bill didn't have one like it.  The background is different, it has a pattern of trains and train related pictures and the features on the playing field are also trains.

 

I did manage to get a lot of crochet done in the car.  I am making 3 pairs of house shoes and I made most of the pieces for one shoe yesterday.  I made the rest of the pieces for the 2nd shoe in the car today.  Now I just have to assemble them.  They are fast, actually.

 

Otter's working today, or she would have probably been with us on our adventure in NE Oklahoma.  She has 3 days off in a row this week, she's happy about that.

 

The weather has been cooperative.  Friday night was not nearly as bad as it could have been, we had pretty loud thunderstorms most of the night and there was some wind but it wasn't at all like it was possibly going to be.  The western part of the state, into Oklahoma City and the areas northwest and north of Tulsa got the bad stuff.  But this is springtime and it is Oklahoma after all.

 

Back to the real world for Bill tomorrow, he took last week as vacation/comp time.  In 4 weeks, he'll be off again and so will I.  Otter's not requesting time off that week, but she will probably (hopefully anyway) have some days off when Bill and I are off.  It's going to be a home vacation this summer, we don't really like to go anywhere when it's hot.  Of course, the way the weather has been this year there is no telling!