If the cat is away, the mice will play. Or, in this case: If the Otter is away, the parents will go out to lunch! Otter is at J's house this afternoon, so Bill & I went to El Chico for lunch. We were going to Cici's Pizza, but it was close to 1:00 and they had a line out the door. So, we went to the El Chico in the same shopping center and had what we call a "sit-down" meal - the one where you sit down and people wait on you. It was good, we spent a little more than Cici's would have been but we ate less than we would have at the pizza buffet. But I wish that I'd remembered to ask for the cilantro to be left off! I'm somewhere between strongly sensitive to it and mildly allergic. And I just plain don't like it anyway. I think I got most of it off, but I'm sure I probably ate a little bit of it.
I feel like I may be in what Otter calls "pre sinus infection" mode. Several times lately, I've felt like I was on the verge of one. Then it would go away. I've had three nosebleeds in two days, due to the dry air and they were not bad but they sometimes presage infections. I woke up with a lot of sinus pressure but not actual pain this morning. It's better this afternoon, but I still feel it. I could go to the doctor now, but I know from experience that they'll just tell me that it's an allergy when I know what is actually is based on my history. I have learned over the years to wait until the symptoms get to a certain point, otherwise I get treated like I don't know what I'm talking about and sent out the door. Without any relief. So, I'll watch it for a couple of days and see what happens. Been there, done that enough times to know what to do and when to do it as far as medical treatment is concerned. But it might be improving this afternoon, so I'll just have to wait and see what happened.
Froggy, my I finished the prototype rice bag/warmer. I think it's a little bit big and I also think that the pattern called for too much rice. I took out about half of the rice it called for and it works better, but I think that I'll make them smaller than the first one. They would work great for hand warmers in pockets, Otter has already requested a matching pair.
Otter has to work on Black Friday. She's not surprised, but she was really hoping not to have to be in the first shift. She has to be in at 5:00 a.m., the store opens at 6:00. She will probably leave the house about 4:30, so she'll be getting up at 4:00. I'm very glad that I'm not in her shoes. She does have more hours scheduled this week, which she expected and she is glad about that.
Bill is off this week, he's taking vacation days Monday through Wednesday. We've been having problems with our home phone and the soonest someone could get out here is Wednesday morning anyway, so it works out well for him to be here. It used to be that the phone would go out completely, every time it rained. They came out a few times and replaced a few things and it got better. But sometime over the last couple of weeks, something apparently went wrong with the phone lines and now we can hardly hear anyone because of the horribly loud buzzing sound. We all have cell phones so we aren't out of reach, but it's still kind of frustrating. It's a smaller phone company and the only one that is available out here, unless we wanted to go with Cox Cable company and that is the last thing we want to do. So, if anybody needs us it's still best to use the cell phones until Wednesday at least.
Bill built a fire in the fireplace while ago, he's back in the office. He is working on his computer but I'm in the livingroom so he made me a fire. We have gotten a lot of use out of the fireplace already, Friday night and then just about all day yesterday. We haven't gotten the possible snow yet but it has been very cold. We might have gotten above freezing yesterday, but I'm not sure. I refilled my birdfeeders Friday and switched to bigger ones. I also put out a suet feeder. The seed feeders needed to be refilled this morning, the suet feeder is still there and intact but it's considerable smaller now. We've had mostly sparrows, two varieties in fact but we also saw a female cardinal. I think that there might have been a couple of starlings. No sign of woodpeckers yet, but they will probably show up sooner or later. I have three large popcorn tins full of birdseed, I've used about 2/3 of one. The dog's water dish was frozen over this morning, Otter went out to pour warm water over it and she said that there were a lot of birds. Birds need water in the winter but not everybody realizes that. So even when the (stinky!) dogs are inside, we keep their water dish as full and as non-frozen as we can.
The dogs don't seem to mind sharing their water with birds. Besides, they spend most of their time snoozing, either on their blankets or in front of the fireplace! Which actually sounds pretty smart to me.
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