What’s on your mind?

[kazmac]

@LizKat I like that Amish design, I bet you could make a beautiful rendition of it.

I really hope my former supervisor's April trip to the U.K. is cancelled. She sometimes gets sick en route home too, so I am nervous for her and her sister. I mentioned they should look into refunds or credit toward a future tour.

@Huntn perhaps you will find out very soon regarding your trip. I hope you can reschedule.

And here is a wish for a great day for everyone.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

The very best of luck to you, too, @kazmac, wth life, work, and your mother.

Just admired - and greeted - the daffodils - the very sight of daffodils in bloom lifts my heart and invariably brings a smile to my face - in our wonderfully wild garden.

 

[LizKat]

The very best of luck to you, too, @kazmac, wth life, work, and your mother.

Just admired - and greeted - the daffodils - the very sight of daffodils in bloom lifts my heat and invariably brings a smile to my face - in our wonderfully wild garden.

I too hold a good thought for @kazmac... a lot on the plate just now.... times like that it's so important to reserve one quiet moment more than just a few times every day, to let mind, body and soul regroup in the service of a life that retains sense of having choices. We're probably all more resilient than we may feel we are. Still we sometimes need to hold our own hand as if helping a child get on a schoolbus for the first time, to keep the sense of adventure and leave tears'n'fears at the bus stop...

On the approach of true spring: I haven't seen daffodils yet but a mini flock of robins flew into the meadow across the way on Tuesday, about seven or eight of them. They're not pairing off nor claiming turf quite yet, but they've stayed right around here and have been scuffing up dead leaves and mulch in the gardens to look for snacks. Next sign of the season's change will be the squill and crocuses popping up here and there. I haven't put a handful of new squill bulbs out there for decades yet they seem to persist and migrate around the lawns.

So strange we haven't had but one serious snowfall the whole winter. But then March can be full of surprises aside from whatever manages to arise from slumber in the gardens. I saw my snowplowing guy's truck pass by the other day and he's had the good sense not to remove his plow assembly quite yet, no matter the robins' arrival!

 

[Mefisto]

Corona-stuff on my mind. It turns out the government here has advised that all events bigger than 500 pax should be cancelled until the end of May, and many smaller ones are being cancelled as well. That throws a pretty huge wrench in my job situation at the moment, but better safe than sorry. I think I need to go grocery shopping before normal folks get off work, I have a feeling the shops will be crowded in a few hours...

On the bright side, the sun is shining and I finally have some time to dedicate to day drinking and catching up on movies I've been meaning to watch.

Stay safe everyone, and have a good (or cold) one!

 

[D.T.]

We were scheduled to drive to Orlando, fly to the Northeast, me to fly to DC, everyone to fly back to Orlando the same day, and then hit Universal for a few days ...

First, cancelled DC, even the client was like, "Maybe you should bail", it was a bummer as one day would've paid for the entire 8 days of travel, accommodations in DC, Universal, etc., but OK that's fine, I was worried about separating from my crew. Cancelled flight and hotel, got new fight with my people.

Then we started worrying in general, crowded, international airport, a plane, and potential to expose people up north to this virus (one being an extremely bad demographic, age/illness), so we bailed on that, full credit, no sweat.

Then we figured, Universal Studios is probably the worst part of the whole trip in terms of potential exposure, we go 3-4 times a year, so no biggie, cancelled that today, hahaha, platinum members, Hard Rock actually said when we rebook, a whole day would on them

So ...

It is Spring Break, well, starts tomorrow, but the little G was already scheduled to be out (her teachers love her, they're like, "No problem, take an extra day whenever you need it"), we're going into full "staycation" mode, picked up some new movies, got some new games (video and board), lots of eating and drinking supplies, going boating with friends one day, hitting the beach (i.e., walking two blocks )

Adapt and overcome - and we plan on completely rescheduling the exact same trip in a few months, er, if it doesn't become some kind of zombie apocalypse ...

 

[Septembersrain]

I'm thinking it's best for my health to avoid politics on MR for a while. To me, the atmosphere is so hostile that it has become like trying to walk over a tight rope with no safety harness and there are spikes below.

I've been really anxious lately and oddly it has nothing to do with COVID-19. I think it's just the accumulation of negativity.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Kid is having surgery at the moment (he destroyed his wrist).
I am waiting, sipping coffee while meditating how little it takes for normalcy to go away. Even coffee - something so simple yet so beautiful - could disappear. Let’s enjoy all moments and what life gives us.
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I'm thinking it's best for my health to avoid politics on MR for a while. To me, the atmosphere is so hostile that it has become like trying to walk over a tight rope with no safety harness and there are spikes below.

I've been really anxious lately and oddly it has nothing to do with COVID-19. I think it's just the accumulation of negativity.

yep, that’s why I am out of PRSI.

 

[Septembersrain]

Kid is having surgery at the moment (he destroyed his wrist).
I am waiting, sipping coffee while meditating how little it takes for normalcy to go away. Even coffee - something so simple yet so beautiful - could disappear. Let’s enjoy all moments and what life gives us.
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yep, that’s why I am out of PRSI.

Hope the surgery goes smoothly and quickly, that he heals up well.

It's the little things you take for granted that you'll miss the most if you lose them. The big stuff you think you can't live without means less.

Odd how that works but I guess in a consumer driven world, it's easy to overlook the little pleasures.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Hope the surgery goes smoothly and quickly, that he heals up well.

It's the little things you take for granted that you'll miss the most if you lose them. The big stuff you think you can't live without means less.

Odd how that works but I guess in a consumer driven world, it's easy to overlook the little pleasures.

thanks!

what you say is very true. I guess that’s why some lifestyles/philosophies that encourage some form of self deprivation are coming back in style (at least to a point). As an overly consumeristic society we are hopefully starting to recognize the Real value Of things.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Kid is having surgery at the moment (he destroyed his wrist).
I am waiting, sipping coffee while meditating how little it takes for normalcy to go away. Even coffee - something so simple yet so beautiful - could disappear. Let’s enjoy all moments and what life gives us.
[automerge]1584023907[/automerge]


yep, that’s why I am out of PRSI.

Hope the surgery goes well.

I've worked in countries that were, once upon a distant time (the 60s, and 70s, for example, or, in the case of Yugoslavia, as recently as the early 1990s), more or less functioning states, and, as a result of war, civil war, and other forms of destructive, sometimes ethnic, conflict, had suffered pretty much complete collapse by the time I served in such places.

And that very point - the one you make - has remained with me ever since.

How societies that once had schools, hospitals, trains, functioning public transport, tourism, law courts, cinemas, cafés, respected police, clean air, running water, public holidays, working sanitary and sewerage systems, stable food chains and supply networks, can revert to a state where armed thugs have replaced the rule of law, and where everything that represented a civilised and cultured world, one that defined an elegantly lived life, has vanished to be distantly recalled almost as something out of myth or memory.

 

[compwiz1202]

I think Charmin at Costco is something 32 rolls. It lasts roughly two months for us, but we also have company over often. I suppose if you had teenagers those rolls would disappear faster.

Which size rolls are they. We were able to get 8 mega Charmin for $11 at Weis, and once of those can last my wife and me weeks. Next time I put a new one on, I am taking note how long it exactly lasts.

 

[kazmac]

@yaxomoxay Hope your son's wrist surgery goes well and he heals quickly.

Great thoughts about enjoying the moment too.

Heading home early today and out tomorrow.

Hoping to tidy up the house just a bit more (and get that unused portable heater out of mom's bedroom.

 

[LizKat]

thanks!

what you say is very true. I guess that’s why some lifestyles/philosophies that encourage some form of self deprivation are coming back in style (at least to a point). As an overly consumeristic society we are hopefully starting to recognize the Real value Of things.

Funny, I was just re-reading with pleasure a wonderful book by Roberta Horton about "The Art of Making Do" -- discusses traditions of gathering fabrics for quiltmaking, and how scarcity of funds to buy things in hard times has often ended up being (as usual) another iteration of "necessity as mother of invention."

Having to make do always expands an artist's sense of "what goes" with what, too, in order to make a bedcover or some uplifting decoration for walls and doors etc., or just patch a pair of jeans or an apron to get it through one more season. Horton's book went out of print but then came back in 'print on demand' and ebook format, so it would seem we all at least once in awhile run into not having money to spend on luxuries like commercially produced quilting fabrics.

Back in the 30s as the Great Depression wore on, livestock feed producers starting using colorful prints on their feedsacks, so that women could repurpose them later for sewing projects. They were all done in cheerful prints to ward off that other depression, the one that comes with being short of the wherewithal for just about everything. Today the prints are still popular and are reproduced in modern quilting cottons -- but the feedsack variety are still around in people's attic trunks, so some of them can turn up now and then at garage sales and land in quilting guilds for those "show and tell" coffee breaks...

I certainly hope your son's surgery goes well. Frustrating for a kid to have any broken bones: we don't like being slowed down at any age but for sure not when we are young and full of energy. The best to you all.

 

[0388631]

Sorry to hear, Yaxo. Is it your youngest or oldest?

 

[Apple fanboy]

Hope everyone is staying well, is well stocked and is washing their hands!

It’s going to get worse before it gets better. I bet all the prepers are rubbing their hands!

 

[kazmac]

New job?

Belated Drum roll...

Spoiler

Yes. 🥳

Thank you all for pushing me to go on that interview earlier this month. 🤗

Gave notice to current job. Start new job two weeks from this Monday.

Current job said I obviously do not have to take laptop home if coronavirus forces office closures. That will also mean my last day of employment will be pushed up, but no worries. I have unused personal time I will be paid for.

How is the renovation going?🙂

 

[JayMysterio]

This made me laugh so much. From a new Transformers manga coming up.

Love that last panel. 🤣

 

[D.T.]

yep, that’s why I am out of PRSI.

... another day of PRSI, another new loudmouth. They always come in like a bull in a china shop, post hundreds of times, argue whatever their simplified point distills down to, no logic, just anti-the-other-side, there's one there now, just one dumb post after the other, no self-control, they'll wind up suspended, probably argue about it in the forum feedback area.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

(Takeaway ... good choice )

 

[LizKat]

... another day of PRSI, another new loudmouth. They always come in like a bull in a china shop, post hundreds of times, argue whatever their simplified point distills down to, no logic, just anti-the-other-side, there's one there now, just one dumb post after the other, no self-control, they'll wind up suspended, probably argue about it in the forum feedback area.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

(Takeaway ... good choice )

Yah I got notifications today on some old but suddenly resurrected PRSI threads and figured that's what was going on. I'm not biting down on any of those. Some of the people in those old threads were already banned or lost PRSI privileges but that doesn't teach some people anything I guess.

Anyway I'm taking a vacation from there as of right now while it's still my own idea. 🤪

 

[Apple fanboy]

Belated Drum roll...

Spoiler

Yes. 🥳

Thank you all for pushing me to go on that interview earlier this month. 🤗

Gave notice to current job. Start new job two weeks from this Monday.

Current job said I obviously do not have to take laptop home if coronavirus forces office closures. That will also mean my last day of employment will be pushed up, but no worries. I have unused personal time I will be paid for.

How is the renovation going?🙂

Slowly! Internal doors are helping it feel finished. The issues with the kitchen are really upsetting Mrs AFB.
im off next week and have a lot more painting to do.

 

[AngerDanger]

On my mind: the film The Revenant and the lunchtime view outside my window:

I'm thinking it's best for my health to avoid politics on MR for a while.

yep, that’s why I am out of PRSI.

There's a reason the PRSI icon is a biohazard symbol.

 

[LizKat]

On my mind: the film The Revenant and the lunchtime view outside my window:

View attachment 898863

Yeah, not what I want to see when I come around the corner from a trip to the roadside mailbox carrying nothing but the day's junkmail and a copy of the local newspaper.

There's lunchtime and then there's being the lunch at lunchtime. That's a cute bear, but...

 

[D.T.]

Yeah, not what I want to see when I come around the corner from a trip to the roadside mailbox carrying nothing but the day's junkmail and a copy of the local newspaper.

Well, yeah, because bears __hate__ junkmail !

 

[LizKat]

On my mind: commercial pitch robocall revival. Gee. I thought carriers were experimenting with new autodetection or something that would divert and destroy these annoying calls before they ever got to our phones.. I'm back to hearing several times a week lately that I can save a fortune bc my elec utility overcharges me. LOL I hardly use any electricity anyway... so I'm ready for a change of subject at least if not the dreamed-of robocall cessation.

 

[Huntn]

Please do! Put it in the unofficial recipe thread.
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Fly to Paris (1Apr) vs cancel trip...there’s still time to mull this over. I need to see if my trip insurance covers a pandemic.

1 April Paris Trip- Called the Travel Insurance Company I purchased insurance through, Travel Insured International, associated with USSA insurance that a lot of military people use, the perfect reason to have travel insurance, and was greated by a recording that literally said a world wide pandemic is not grounds for a claim! 🤯

We purchased the middle tier insurance which covers the travelers for illness, but one short of canceling for any reason. I decided before blowing my top, with an agent, I would first find out what arrangement Delta Airlines has made as far as canceling, or receiving credit for a flight at a future date before I do battle. It’s very possible our flight over will be cancelled, with the way it’s going. 😡