Sunday, September 11, 2022

short stories, part whatever


One of the yellow butterfly gingers is blooming.


----------

The county lifted the drought induced burn ban two weeks ago and so last Friday Marc emptied the piled high truck bed onto the already higher than me burn pile and torched it. Meanwhile, I was picking up all the branches still laying around because, face it, what was the point of picking them up before with no place to put them. I have a small pile ready to go in the truck now that it's empty again.

----------

Grandgirl Autumn left Thursday morning, heading back to Austin. We got all her mending done except for replacing the zipper which I'll try to get done or find someone to do it. I hate putting in zippers. She had taken a week off her part-time job as barback at a small Marriott Hotel and wondered if they missed her or if she was going to get fired. She called Friday afternoon to tell me that not only is she not getting fired, they called her into a meeting to tell her how much they appreciated her work, her friendliness, her helpfulness, her attitude towards the guests, that they thought she was being underutilized and so they were only giving her Wednesdays for the next two weeks in order to train her as a bartender (this is the job she wants for the interim while she waits to see if her application to the Peace Corps is accepted). They had already hired someone to train as the bar back to replace her and Autumn, knowing that the bartenders were too busy to do that, volunteered to train the new guy.

----------

We're still hitting low 90s though next week we're supposed to drop down to high 80s and low humidity. Until we get there, hot afternoons are spent in the house and so yesterday we watched Enola Holmes on Netflix. The actor who plays Enola is the same that played Eleven in Stranger Things and she's really good. Enola is a young child when her father dies and her two older brothers, Mycroft and Sherlock, leave the estate for London. Raised and educated by her mother to be a strong independent free thinker who makes her own choices in life, she wakes up on her 17th birthday to find her mother has left during the night. When her brothers return to handle affairs and claim the estate and turn her into a proper young lady, Enola runs away and her adventures begin. It's a really good movie.



----------

I finished the box a week ago and it's been sitting in the living room for us to enjoy before I start packing it up for the gallery. I think I'm going to add one little piece of coral, not the one I removed, in the back to fill a hole that probably only I notice and only from a certain angle, but that's me. I'll head over to the shop later to get that done and clean up and pull out all my boxes and packing materials.

----------

We get some strange donations to SHARE sometimes. Two weeks ago we got an 18” long by 4” diameter log of gouda cheese. That's just too much even for the biggest families we get so one of the guys cut it up and handed it out to the volunteers since we wouldn't be able to give it out once the wrapping was compromised. Last week, we got four 18” x 4” logs of colby cheese. What the fuck! Anyway, Jan handed them out to us volunteers and I took one, took it home and cut it up into six 2” thick chunks and handed it out to family and neighbors.


----------

And finally, from the Department of the Absurd, I saw this at the grocery store.


Dog water. Flavored dog water. Because plain ole' tap water or puddle water isn't tasty enough?



24 comments:

  1. We binge watched Enola some time ago. You're right... it's excellent! We have Spectrum and last night found a new series called Joe Pickett https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jnkZsgZYIE It's really quite good. We watched three episodes last night. Will pick up and watch more tonight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I read a Joe Pickett book so It's probably a good series. I wonder if any of the other streaming services carry it.

      Delete
  2. That dog water stuff is available here too, as are dog skin moisterises esp. for the area inside their ears (????).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the movie tip. I have added it to my watch list. Bottled water for dogs? I was just telling my sister the other day that our grandparents would be shocked at what we do these days - pick up dog poo, put gas in our cars ourselves, and now buy bottled water for dogs? Crazy times!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And they aren't cheap. I think they were $4.50 each.

      Delete
  4. And of course there is the refrigerated dog-food section in the grocery now where the true delicacies must reside to stay fresh for the pup-kids. AND there are frozen dog treats.
    I just spent about 45 minutes in the garden finishing up the weeding and that was enough for me today. It's relatively cool-ish, but I am still not capable of dealing with it for long.
    Autumn sounds like a blue-ribbon, five star young woman! I know you're proud of her.
    And by the way- I hate doing zippers too. I never put in one that I was truly happy with.
    Enjoy the cheese!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I spent about that same amount of time weeding the big flower bed this morning, mostly digging up the dewberry vines I ignored all summer, the dead zinnias, and some other weed that looks like daylily foliage and at the end I was dripping sweat. Enough of that for today.

      Wish I could have shared some of that cheese with you.

      Delete
  5. I wonder if the giant cheese packs are restaurant size. Not a practical donation to a food bank.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'Institutional size'. No doubt but who donated them? We got two institutional size cans of black beans once. I feel sorry for the families that got them.

      Delete
  6. I love that your grand-daughter wants to join the Peace Corp. I hope that it happens for her and that you'll keep us posted about where she will be doing her very good work.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh man, that cheese reminds me of Zambia where we got Gouda all the time - it was cheap & tasty. Then when I came back home & thought I'd try to find Gouda at the grocery store & yowza - too expensive for a poor seminary student. Anyway, now I feel nostalgic for cheese. Ha!

    And good for Autumn! That should be a good interim job for her.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Speaking as a dog owner, let me just say Olga would LOVE beef-flavored doggie water! LOL!

    I think Enola Holmes is from a series of kids' books, if I'm not mistaken.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think any dog would love it. People are starving in other countries but we have fancy dog water.

      Delete
  9. Ellen, that box will be snapped up before the ink on the price tag dries. I keep changing my mind about what I'd do with it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks for the explanation. I looked over the picture six ways to breakfast and couldn't divine its meaning. Well, I never did enlarge it.
    We need a picture of the box.

    ReplyDelete
  11. That ginger bloom is gorgeous; it's my favorite shade of yellow. I noticed some frozen doggie treats in the ice cream section recently, and thought that was crazy enough. But dog water? I might go for it if you could get it for the $1.29 a gallon that human water goes for, but someone clearly has too much money, and a skewed sense of what's dog and what's human. Granted, I clean the water bowl the birds and squirrels use, but otherwise? It's tap water for them!

    ReplyDelete
  12. 37paddington: you must be so proud of your grand girl. Sounds like the recognize her worth at the job. I hope the Peace Coro dream comes through for her. She sounds like one who’d make it count. Also I’d love to see the addition you make to that absolutely exquisite box.

    ReplyDelete
  13. My dogs love puddle water the best. The daft thing about the water is that some one will actually buy it. It's good when a good and dedicated worker gets rewarded. You can usually tell a company that reward the other sort of people. I hope the new job goes well for her.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Look like your granddaughter is doing well. Good for her. As for the cheese, it's too bad I don't live close by is all I can say!

    ReplyDelete
  15. We do whatever we can to make money. Some people are also so in love with their pets that they would buy this rubbish. That is a LOT of cheese. Can it be frozen?

    ReplyDelete

I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.