18th May 2020, 04:54 AM
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sorry about your MIL.
 (I am suprised family can be with her even if it isn't Covid) isn't it great when you get good customer service? I hope you got one of those survey calls afterwards so you can praise him. 
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18th May 2020, 07:04 AM
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18th May 2020, 07:10 AM
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Sorry to hear about your MiL, Rigs. I hope her passing is gentle.
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18th May 2020, 10:01 AM
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Thx! I think I have just the lump in the freezer for it too. BTW have you ever tried this kinky salt thing? I like salt, but that just seems over the top to me. But people rave about it.
Rigs, last time I moved I drafted my friends. Next time I will hire movers. If you've things packed they can blitz it in a couple hours and you're done. While your friends - and your back - are still speaking to you. Hope it goes smoothly. A couple days ago I got about half of last year's compost heap spread out on the lawn. This afternoon looks like a good time to do the rest of it. The front lawn has been lumpy since we bought the place, but between the last few years of frost heave and the tree roots it was getting to be a bit much. I started out by going after the dandilions with a triangle hoe. The sharp edges slice right through the roots and pops it right out, and then the divot lays back down. I'll never get all of them but it would be kind of neat if the lawn was mostly grass anyway. I left the wildflowers though. I mow around them too until the flowers are gone. Then they get mowed along with everything else. That's probably not how you're supposed to do it but they keep coming back. Then it was time to peel open the compost heap and see what all that cooking last summer did to it. I took off one side of the bin and peeled back the top foot or so of the heap. In the middle it was light crumbly black loam just like the lore said. I've paid retail for stuff that wasn't that good. Around that was a more dense mostly decomposed layer with a lot of leaf and twig particles still mixed in. Then the outer layer of barely decomposted stuff that didn't get hot. There were a few chunks with the white fuzz stuff still on it, which I saved to kick off the next pile. When that fuzz gets lofted into the air I stay upwind. Its probably harmless, but the way it chewed the end off a 2x4 last summer just makes me nervous. I haven't checked the pH of the loam yet but I bet its still pretty acidic. Theoretically you're supposed to windrow it for another year. I have a bag of lime instead. I scattered about a yard of loam out front and then tried to rake the grass up through the fresh dirt like it said on those gardening shows. That worked around the edges, but I had to add too much in several spots. I'll scatter grass seed there. Then after the grass grows in I'll go after the weeds once in awhile and hopefully it will be a real lawn someday. That and a couple planters are my gardening ambitions for now. Meanwhile I've got two poly tarps piled up with lawn and tree clippings, so there's enough material to get Audrey II started right away. In fact it looks like she's already started a little bit.
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18th May 2020, 10:07 AM
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Baking meat in salt has a long history--it's especially good for baking whole large fish without getting them all dried out. I'd do up that recipe without hesitation. Heck, I even have a big roast in the freezer...hmmm.
The area where ASIL packed all the chopped up blackberry cane needs to be a working compost heap, I've been coaching them on green/brown and how to get it started cooking but it's gonna be a slog. The shit really ought to be put through a chipper to make it smaller but who wants to touch that mess? Not I! Ouch!
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18th May 2020, 10:19 AM
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Once she got cooking, Audrey chomped down blackberry vines for a snack. I cut them into 1 ft lengths with long handle loppers. She didn't do much until I mixed in the fresh lawn clippings though. Apparently that's like candy to a compost heap.
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18th May 2020, 11:38 AM
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Yeah, right now it's about 2 yards or so of big thorn blackberry canes, some of them as thick as your thumb and most several feet long interspersed with a ton of ivy vines. It's a little too loose to really get going, needs to be a bit more compact with smaller stuff in it, like lawn clippings. Maybe once the garden is all in and finished he can go after it with loppers, chop it down some.
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18th May 2020, 01:49 PM
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I've met people who live near here (Hood River) who have been amending their gardens for years with this stuff and you can sure tell when you taste the food they grow there.  
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18th May 2020, 04:14 PM
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Today was no fun. No network connection for work this morning, but IS took care of me, so all was good. Then I noticed that I had no power in the study, but did have power in the hall. Hmmm. Circuit breaker would not trip. I called my neighbor, a retired former ComEd crew supervisor who came over, but before he could, TH called to tell me that his mother had died. Angel neighbor decreed that it was a bad circuit, so off I went to Home Depot to observe the staff NOT wearing masks over their mouths and noses, but under their chins.
 Got the 20 amp whatever, Angel Neighbor came back over, installed it and blessed miracle, restored my access to work and civilized life. In return,I'm scanning the skies for locust swarms. Went to the new house last night to get a book (I stupidly moved all my books and the library is closed). House was fine and basement, despite rain all day, was dry as a bone. Went to the new house an hour ago. Water in the basement, just enough to ruin a few things. I had 95% of my stuff in plastic storage bins, but one had a crack in it. Water must have come from the drain; the walls and windows and ceiling etc are bone dry. I'm sick. And tired. And feeling defeated. I jerry-rigged some stuff to get it all off the floor and set the fans to high and will go back in the morning. Clearly, I need a stand; I also need to go get some what I call mini-pallets, those wood squares that people lay down in patterns to make a deck. They're tall enough to prevent the carnage I just dealt until I can get the stand done. I set 2 fans on high and will check back in the morning. Rain is predicted again tonight and perhaps tomorrow, but Mr Weatherman assures me it will be "light". I am weary. I'm going to eat a lot of ice cream tonight and lay on the couch.
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18th May 2020, 05:14 PM
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I'm sorry for the loss of your MIL, Rigs
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keep in mind if you really need something to read there is a ton on openlibrary.org. because PG Wodehouse goes with ice cream IMO.
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19th May 2020, 04:19 AM
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It's not that. It's that they don't stop coming. I haven't had many days of peace or stability since my father died. He was not the magic-maker of all things good; I mean that since his death, the closing of his estate, the decline of my mother, the demise of my marriage, the emptying nesting, health issues, the changes at work, and now the moving, and of course, Trump and Covid-19. In the past 6 years, I've had more sudden, major life events than in the previous 20 or so. I don't like this timeline anymore... I know I am more fortunate than many. I have a job, a house, stable chronic health issues. This really isn't a Poor Baby exercise (well, perhaps there's a tinge of that); it's more an outcry at the relentlessness of life. It just doesn't stop and I swear I'm not causing it. I'm trying to move toward stability, peace and quiet. I look at people who are riding bikes or heading somewhere in their car, or on Zoom with pleasant rooms full of evidence of full lives, and can only marvel at them. I'm not saying they don't have problems; they may well have problems that make mine look like a vacation. What I marvel at is that they have time to take that break, to ride those bikes. I'd like a bookcase full of books at this point.* I'm maundering and probably raving at this point, so I'll STFU. It just seems that no matter how hard I work, I am getting nowhere. I'm having trouble gauging progress, even when I chunk it down to small increments. I'm heading over to the new house before work. I pray the floor is dry. It's misting outside, but not actively raining. Fingers crossed. *I literally do not have any bookcases. I used the 2 shelves in the master bedroom closet for all my paperbacks (a walk-in closet, so lots of real estate, and my books were double-shelved), and the living room here had built ins. I am drowning in boxes of books—NOT a problem, except for finding appropriate shelving. Apparently wooden bookcases are rare (surely not?) now? I mean, I want ones that aren't particle board crap and don't cost $2000. These requirements appear to be incompatible. I've looked at Wayfair (I had never heard of Wayfair until last fall when my kids mentioned it for their new abodes. It seems to be a version of the Spiegel catalog for the modern era). I ordered a desk from them (it has bookshelves, but not enough); it arrives June 19. I'm now looking at Home Depot for bookcases, of all things. I kinda miss furniture stores or at least furniture departments within department stores. I miss department stores, actually. Anyway, enough of all this. How is everyone? Tell me tales of your woes and triumphs; they're bound to be more interesting.
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19th May 2020, 04:28 AM
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I am sorry about your MiL, rigs. I'm sorry too, about all the other stuff. I fully understand you being weary.
Today, I have two ultrasounds; one on my neck and one on my abdomen. I am not allowed to eat or drink anything for six hours before my appointment, which begins at 8:30. I could care less about not being able to eat, but damn, I want some coffee. I plan to work for an hour and a half, drive to downtown Tacoma for my appointment, and then get back in time for an MS Teams meeting. That's assuming I'm done at the doctor in time. Traffic is beginning to ramp back up. I had to go down to the office yesterday to take care of some stuff, and while I5 wasn't too awful, the highway I take East was definitely backing up with traffic, as was Highway 161. Sigh, I will miss the lack of traffic.
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19th May 2020, 06:40 AM
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meanwhile, vent all you like here!!! 
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19th May 2020, 08:26 AM
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Sorry to hear that things are being tough, Rigs.
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19th May 2020, 11:51 AM
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Thanks.
Taters: Sorry to hear about the ultrasounds, and even more sorry about the traffic. Last month, to pick up #2 son, I got to go 70mph on the Kennedy here. That has never happened to me in my life (it's usually at best a crawl). I also will miss the sparse traffic. Jackie: exactly. It's not a competition in misery (although many folks consider it as such). If the worst thing to happen to you is you didn't get into the college of your choice, that means you've had a good life so far, but it STILL SUCKS that you didn't get into the college of your choice (to use one example).... Wolf: you can cook dinner for me anytime... Water was almost dried up this morning (and would have been, except my fans don't rotate), but I washed the floor anyway with soapy, bleach water. I'm not messing around. I'll probably wait until tomorrow to get the mini-pallets; I have to go into work so will stop on my way home. I swear I'm becoming agoraphobic. The last thing I want is to be around lots of other people, especially in a retail setting.
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19th May 2020, 12:00 PM
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I'm with you on the agoraphobia, for sure, and yet I had to go to TWO Costcos today--for whatever reason they're having a helluva time keeping dried fruit stocked in and my local was out of both the dried tangerines and the strawberries--one or the other I could abide but not BOTH. Turns out they still had tangerines all the way over in Tigard so I dropped Load #1 at the house, had a wee then headed right back out. Scored six bags of the tangerines so that should last me a couple months easy. Dried fruit is what keeps me off the sugar train so it's Not Optional.
At least everyone in Costco had their masks and were being polite so that's a mercy. Oh, and a little Faceplant birdie tells me that today is taters' birfday so: Hippie Birfsday Tooo Yooou!    
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19th May 2020, 01:45 PM
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Thanks for the birthday wishes. Today has not been filled with sloth, but my husband is going to get Mexican food from our favorite place this evening and I am looking forward to it. I only have a little over an hour left to work, so I will get to indulge in sloth in just a little bit.
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19th May 2020, 02:10 PM
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HappyBirthday, taters! I hope this year is a good one in spite of it all.
Well, the near impossible has happened. Due to my severe Dim Sum deficiency I decided to try a different Trader Joe's gyoza package. This was the Thai Shrimp ones. Normally, frozen Dim Sum range from really nasty on down to completely inedible. I didn't have high expectations, but these things are damn good. So we're two for two on their frozen gyoza being very tasty. Now if they'd just make a pork bao product.
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19th May 2020, 02:36 PM
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Underwear!
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19th May 2020, 05:29 PM
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Not sure why you wanted ultrasounds for your birthday, taters....
 But Happy Birthday anyway!     : toot:
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19th May 2020, 07:47 PM
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So, I'm actually drinking alcohol, of a sort. I picked up a bottle of mango moscato at Costco--not so much for the stuff itself (although it's quite tasty!) but for the bottle. I made little pint size Mason jar solar lights and also got the light strings that have a fitting for a narrow neck bottle and this particular bottle is a very nice frosted white bottle that's gonna look really purty out on the porch with multicolor fairy lights in it. Guess I'm gonna be forced to drink a bit of wine and cider in order to use them all up--only 7 more bottles to go!
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20th May 2020, 03:51 AM
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Thanks again for the birthday wishes.
I don't want ultrasounds, but I have a series of things that are bothering me and I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. Thyroid was ultrasound was not overly concerning, but the recommendation is I come back in six months for another ultrasound to monitor a couple of things noted. I don't have the results of the abdomen ultrasound yet, so I don't know what to think of that. I opted to get them done yesterday because these were recommended a while ago, but radiology had been closed for this kind of thing until this week. I also had to get more blood drawn at the lab to rule out hepatitis and had been meaning to get back down there to do it, so I knocked that out while there. Those all came back negative, of course. The ultrasound on the liver was requested because of some elevated liver function results. Friday is my appointment at PT for some kind of vertigo manipulations to see if that's what I truly have. My husband has to drive me because I've been told I'll probably feel pretty ill when they're done. This does not sound like fun, and not the way to start my four day weekend. But, again, I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. My husband went to our favorite little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant and picked up dinner and then he went picked up a birthday cake for me. So, a quiet and stay at home celebration, but it was pleasant enough. We'll see the kids and the granddaughter to celebrate my birthday this coming weekend. ALL day yesterday, I kept thinking it was Wednesday, so imagine my disappointment today. But, the good news is we are halfway to the weekend.
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20th May 2020, 03:56 AM
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Time is essentially meaningless to me now, so it's hard to recall that it's Memorial Day weekend coming up. The weather remains cool and wet here, but today might bring sun.
Hope the test results come back soonest. And that tilt vertigo thing does NOT sound like a good time. Irony of ironies: I always hated getting up at 0515 for dashing off to work 5 days a week. During Covid time, I've been "sleeping in" until 0630-0700 until last week. I now arise like clockwork (no alarm) at 0530. 
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21st May 2020, 04:46 PM
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So, yesterday sucked with paralyzing depression but today was better--went to go shoot the shit with the kids next door for a while then went out to Tony's nursery to shop for the replacement plants for the ones Kosh kilt ded. They didn't have a replacement clematis of the same variety and I decided that I don't want a damned vine if it means the pot it grows out of is close enough to the fence for that little butthead to reach it. Got a nice monarda instead and a few thises and thatses including an absolutely stellar foxglove with superb variegated foliage in deep green and purple. Flowers will probably be pink but I don't care, I fell in love with the leaves. I have to find a good spot to put that one so idiot doggo can't get at it no matter what because that stuff is pretty poisonous and I'd rather not have the vet bill. Or the dead dog--he doesn't piss me off THAT much!
Then I made a kickass Thai red curry with long beans and rotisserie chicken and onions and coconut milk and I'm so glad I decided to wait to add spices to the can of curry mix because whee-ew, that stuff has a kick to it. My sinuses really love me right now, they're so clean and empty. Too bad my Thai basil plants are still smol because that would have been a very nice addition. Oh well, next time.
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21st May 2020, 06:40 PM
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I became useless this week at work. I completely ran out of GAFs, and miraculously had no meetings today. We’re supposed to be burning vacation, so I succumbed to peer pressure (three of my colleagues were also off) and took the day off.
I lazed about all morning, cleaned my room and the hall closet doing the spring clothing rotation. Had a painful class meeting with our (useless) presentation coach Cleaned out the coal room in the basement. Put a bunch of stuff up on Craigslist and dragged all the big girls’ too small clothes upstairs to sort. Tomorrow I sort. Just getting these upstairs was a job. Spoilered so the photo won’t auto load.
I did this eight years ago. It’s always a relief to simply get rid of Swimmy’s stuff.
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22nd May 2020, 04:24 AM
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Ah, the sorting of children's clothing... I just did this as well. I had inexplicably saved 12 Sterilite containers of kids' clothing ranging from birth to about age 12... I went from 12 containers to 4, which includes the Halloween costumes I thought would save best/had the best memories attached. I consider this success.
I'd say you did a bang up job, Solfy! As with all sorting/discarding/organizing, I can only do so much at one time. I would make a lousy refugee. My problem is no charity shops or charity will take this crap off my hands at present; they're all closed. I have a mountain of no-longer-our-stuff to give away with nowhere to give it to. I am so excited to be OFF for 3 days. I've been busy driving into all 3 of my sites and tidying, restocking etc. To think I did that every day. Gah, it doesn't bear thinking about, but soon I will have to. Painting the new family room this weekend, after I sand the spackle of course. Yesterday I had to do a search on gunshot wounds. Talk about depressing. Just the article titles alone... so many ways to commit suicide/murder/injury by gun. Awful. Just awful. #1 son is driving in for his grandma's funeral. Daughter will Zoom in, due to >$500 flights which feature 13 hour layovers in Philly or Baltimore. They say "no one" is flying these days, but that might be due to the insane prices and routes more than Covid19. I am so glad she is NOT flying, due to the airlines NOT adhering to best practices and selling the middle seats etc. Plus, given the nut jobs we see featured in public these days, I'm glad she's not exposing herself to that. What is with random white (so far I've only seen WW) coughing on people? It's RUDE at any time; now it's potentially deadly. WTF is wrong with these people?
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22nd May 2020, 05:03 AM
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Rigs, if it's any consolation, my grandkids are wearing the costumes my mother made for me and my brothers.
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22nd May 2020, 05:03 AM
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22nd May 2020, 07:00 AM
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We have a costume bin my mother started. It has costume bits going back at least 30 years. Any time someone needs a costume, we can dig in the bin and come up with something. Any new costume that survives Halloween/history reports/school plays winds up in the bin. It’s handy and fun!
I know why I have so many leftover cloths stashed. It’s always easier to toss a bag of “too smalls” in the basement than to figure out what to do with them.
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22nd May 2020, 07:59 AM
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22nd May 2020, 09:16 AM
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22nd May 2020, 09:47 AM
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22nd May 2020, 10:30 AM
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That is true. But if the cheapass motherfuckers would at least circulate some fresh air that would help. When the plane landed on my last flight, we were rebreathing the same humid stanky tropical air we took off with six hours ago.
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22nd May 2020, 03:37 PM
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Hmm, Unboxed at Last
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The mantle clock on the other side of the room (yes, this room has two fireplaces) winds and has real chimes. They’re beautiful but really loud. I finished the sort! Final tally: 3 contractor bags to trash. 2 standard trash bags to donate. One load of summer clothes for this season, a large bin of size 8 winter stuff. One large and one regular bin of 10s. A bin each of 12s and 14s. Unreal.
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22nd May 2020, 04:03 PM
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I was hoping the clock was older and was a mechanical movement. (I like clocks a lot and have made cases for at least a dozen over the years.)
One of the projects on the back burner is making a tall clock with a Hermle mechanical movement. The movements are pretty speedy, so the design needs to be exactly right.
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22nd May 2020, 04:32 PM
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@Wolf Larsen, my Mom gave me this a couple years ago for my birthday, she's handing out family heirlooms, my Grandmother got this for my Dad when he graduated from Law School in 1962, the year I was born, it's one of my prized possessions...not a great picture, but I wind it (bell and clock) up about once a week, it's at least 58 years old and just keeps ticking...
 EDT: Can't spell...
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22nd May 2020, 05:17 PM
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That looks like one of the Boston Clock Company ship's clocks. From their website it looks like they got taken over by Chelsea Clock Company, but kept the Boston name on some of the products. That might have been certified to Marine Chronometer standards when it was made. (There is a very cool book about the design of the early Marine Chronometers and it inspired me to get a watch that kept extremely accurate time.). One of my favorite books ever https://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Gen...0196565&sr=8-1
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22nd May 2020, 06:24 PM
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Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!!
So something I've been waiting for for almost twenty years has finally happened.
Over on Abyss St, the corner house had this tree that died. And the then owner had the bottom 8 feet of it carved into two dolphins leaping into the air. It looked butt-ugly. And stupid. They varnished it, but the wood was untreated, so I've been waiting for it to rot this entire time. Last fall I noticed the the area below the carving was rotting quite nicely so it was only a matter of time. Tonight Mrs. Larsen and I went out for an after dinner walk. And guess what was gone? That goddam sculpture. There is just a little bit of the stump left. And eventually it will be gone too.
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22nd May 2020, 06:29 PM
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Family members are trying to censor me on facebook again. And, my posts on there aren't near as ridiculous as my posts elsewhere.
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22nd May 2020, 06:38 PM
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Censor you? Its your wall, right? Sounds like its time to draw some lines, or perhaps freshen up some old ones.
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I've had an apple and a can of apricots since Wednesday. Am finally desperate enough to go shopping. On the plus side I'm losing some of that winter insulation.
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22nd May 2020, 06:41 PM
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