USMB Coffee Shop IV

[Oddball]

Saturday morning!

Happy birthday Bugs Bunny!

Let the cartoon begin!

 

[blackhawk]

 

[Foxfyre]

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Those who weren't fans or are too young probably won't get that. But anybody who ever watched "Caddy Shack" are familiar with his work.

 

[Dragonlady]

Those who weren't fans or are too young probably won't get that. But anybody who ever watched "Caddy Shack" are familiar with his work.

Or Footloose - the original with Kevin Bacon is still getting air time on AMC or MovieTime

 

[beautress]

Today, I walked outside and it felt like it was 110F. It probably wasn't, and tomorrow it's going to rain, But as I was sizzling, It was really a hot blast of air out front, even in the shade. So I brought refreshments for everyone who's experiencing a heat wave... banana splits!

Oh, and if you're dieting, you get some sugar-free snow cones.

Keep cool on these hot days. And hopefully, if you have dogs outside, be sure they have plenty of water and shade. ​

 

[Hossfly]

Today, I walked outside and it felt like it was 110F. It probably wasn't, and tomorrow it's going to rain, But as I was sizzling, It was really a hot blast of air out front, even in the shade. So I brought refreshments for everyone who's experiencing a heat wave... banana splits!

View attachment 676834

Oh, and if you're dieting, you get some sugar-free snow cones.

View attachment 676835

Keep cool on these hot days. And hopefully, if you have dogs outside, be sure they have plenty of water and shade. ​

My dog gets beer and pretzels.

 

[Foxfyre]

Now I ask the gents of the Coffee Shop. Do you know any guy on the planet who would wear that in public? Or private for that matter?

 

[Dragonlady]

The heat wave was broken at 10:30 last night with a loud thunderstorm that played havoc with the electricity, and briefly knocked out satellite service.

I'm almost completely back to "normal", physically at least. I can't walk downstairs yet. I still have to go down one step at a time, but I can walk upstairs normally, and unsupported. I find I'm still tiring more easily. I was riding my bicycle to my physio appointments at the end. I stress that our town is very flat, and riding a bike here is easy. Oh yeah, and I've been dancing!!! Nothing too wild, but I can now dance once again.

I went to the Farmer's Market this morning, to get "just picked beans," corn and potatoes. Then I went to Sobey's one of our big chain supermarkets, to stock up the pantry. $171 for THREE BAGS of groceries, and the bags weren't even full.

And I bought a 6 qt. basket of Niagara Peaches - the best peaches in the world. Even people from Georgia have told us that good as they are, their peaches can't compare with ours. There are enough peaches to make a batch of peach jam, if I don't eat half of them first. The first basket of the year tends to get eaten while standing over the kitchen sink with juice running down my arms.

My friend and I are going to the race track one day a month. We each take $20 to bet with, entry to the clubhouse and trackside is free, and we buy a meal. Total cost, less than the price of the movie. I put my $20 in my pocket, and all bets and pay outs go into and out of the pocket. My friend bets on horses who's names she likes. Like Tomcat Black. Her last name is Black so of course she bet on Tomcat. He won. I bet on the horses by bloodline, prior results, and workout times. The first time we went, I came home with $40 in my pocket and I paid for my food out of the betting pocket. This time my friend went home with a pocket full of money and I went home with 40 cents.

I asked Siri to set up an appointment with my friend for August 16th from 2:30 to 9:00 at "Fort Erie Raceway". Siri dutifully set up a day out with my friend at "Fork eatery raceway". My friend says she's bringing a spoon.

 

[Foxfyre]

The heat wave was broken at 10:30 last night with a loud thunderstorm that played havoc with the electricity, and briefly knocked out satellite service.

I'm almost completely back to "normal", physically at least. I can't walk downstairs yet. I still have to go down one step at a time, but I can walk upstairs normally, and unsupported. I find I'm still tiring more easily. I was riding my bicycle to my physio appointments at the end. I stress that our town is very flat, and riding a bike here is easy. Oh yeah, and I've been dancing!!! Nothing too wild, but I can now dance once again.

I went to the Farmer's Market this morning, to get "just picked beans," corn and potatoes. Then I went to Sobey's one of our big chain supermarkets, to stock up the pantry. $171 for THREE BAGS of groceries, and the bags weren't even full.

And I bought a 6 qt. basket of Niagara Peaches - the best peaches in the world. Even people from Georgia have told us that good as they are, their peaches can't compare with ours. There are enough peaches to make a batch of peach jam, if I don't eat half of them first. The first basket of the year tends to get eaten while standing over the kitchen sink with juice running down my arms.

My friend and I are going to the race track one day a month. We each take $20 to bet with, entry to the clubhouse and trackside is free, and we buy a meal. Total cost, less than the price of the movie. I put my $20 in my pocket, and all bets and pay outs go into and out of the pocket. My friend bets on horses who's names she likes. Like Tomcat Black. Her last name is Black so of course she bet on Tomcat. He won. I bet on the horses by bloodline, prior results, and workout times. The first time we went, I came home with $40 in my pocket and I paid for my food out of the betting pocket. This time my friend went home with a pocket full of money and I went home with 40 cents.

I asked Siri to set up an appointment with my friend for August 16th from 2:30 to 9:00 at "Fort Erie Raceway". Siri dutifully set up a day out with my friend at "Fork eatery raceway". My friend says she's bringing a spoon.

I hear that about the groceries. We are easily paying $100 to $150 more a month for groceries than we paid this time last year. Maybe more. I haven't done an in depth analysis.

The weather in Albuquerque this past week has been glorious. Not much rain but temps in the low to mid 80's - one day we were back up to 90 but mostly fall like weather for the immediate future.

Glad to hear the knee healing is going well. Hombre is doing well with his hip replacement too. Three more weeks and all restrictions will be off. He finally agreed to try putting shoes with arch supports back on when he's working around the house. He was having all kinds of back pain but he was wearing house slippers all the time and that throws a person's posture all off, puts stress on joints etc. Once back in his good shoes he is feeling 100% better plus he can walk and balance a lot better.

We're having a COVID spike here like everybody else but the hospital census isn't seriously up and not even close to the levels it was with the original virus and then omnicron. So I'm assuming those getting it are having much lighter cases than what was happening before.

And always in early August we are treated to the aroma of roasting green chilis in front of most of the markets where they are sold. The delight is the same. The cost is about double what it was last year. Alas.

 

[Dragonlady]

There is a horrific line of severe thunder storms and tornados which starts in St. Louis, and runs in a straight line up through Detroit/Windsor and straight up the 401 to London, Brampton, Toronto but it's staying north of the 401, and misses me completely. A second line of storms originating between Louisville and Evansville is heading to the Lake Erie shoreline right around to Buffalo, and is set to hit here around 9:00 p.m. and last until close to midnight.

I called my friend to warn her and then went out to bring in my hanging baskets. She has baskets all across the front of her house and went to do the same. I called the cat and she came running, so both Miss Kitty and the plants are safely indoors. I got out my candles and put a lighter with them, and I'll charge my phone while I'm cooking supper.

I had a late lunch right before my 2:30 hair appointment, so I have pork chops in a lemon/herb marinade to have with those new potatoes, and fresh corn I got at the market yesterday. I had one of the peaches last night, eating it over a bowl, with juice running down my chin. There was 1/4 cup of fresh peach juice in that bowl when I finished eating it. Sweeter than candy.

I'll post as soon as the weather calms down.

 

[beautress]

Nothing new to report here except for my crochet hook has been flying trying to finish up potholders for family gifts in December. They take 30 hours apiece because I crochet two sides to guarantee the potholder will not ever allow its user to get burned. After they're joined, I try and make a nonflammable lace around them that matches the other threads in the little hexagonal shape of them. You can pick up an iron skillet of cornbread which cooks at 500F, and not get burned. Once in a while I make a crocheted dishrag, because I don't like the ones they sell now that are made of synthetics that show dirt, and you have to use two of them not to get burned. Hope everybody has a good evening! Found some others, but they all use fat thread. I use size 10, and instead of a few motifs, mine use about 17 rows, all the same popcorn stitch that is responsible for making mine burned-hand-proof.

 

[Dajjal]

 

[Dragonlady]

Your potholders are BEAUTIFUL, your tension is so even, and I love your colour combinations.

Well, I'm very happy to report that the storm was a complete bust, at least on the part of my family and friends. I know other communities west of here did not fare so well. All we saw was a little light rain, and some thunder rumbles but nothing like was being threatened, at least not where I live.

I'm going to try to make peach jam tomorrow. Over the past couple of years I got really spoiled by making my own home made jams and preserves. When I ran out of my homemade, and had to buy mass produced, my taste buds noticed.

 

[Foxfyre]

Nothing new to report here except for my crochet hook has been flying trying to finish up potholders for family gifts in December. They take 30 hours apiece because I crochet two sides to guarantee the potholder will not ever allow its user to get burned. After they're joined, I try and make a nonflammable lace around them that matches the other threads in the little hexagonal shape of them. You can pick up an iron skillet of cornbread which cooks at 500F, and not get burned. Once in a while I make a crocheted dishrag, because I don't like the ones they sell now that are made of synthetics that show dirt, and you have to use two of them not to get burned. Hope everybody has a good evening! Found some others, but they all use fat thread. I use size 10, and instead of a few motifs, mine use about 17 rows, all the same popcorn stitch that is responsible for making mine burned-hand-proof.

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Those are beautiful Beautress. My sister-in-law--Hombre's twin--crochets stuff like that but she makes little dish washing scrubbies out of I think tulle? yarn. She keeps us supplied . They're really pretty and they wear like iron but are flexible and really are great for washing dishes--wipes them clean and just abrasive enough to not damage anything but help take off anything stuck to the dishes or whatever. These aren't hers but she uses this pattern or one very similar. I think hers a bit bigger around than these but not a whole lot.

 

[beautress]

Your potholders are BEAUTIFUL, your tension is so even, and I love your colour combinations.

Well, I'm very happy to report that the storm was a complete bust, at least on the part of my family and friends. I know other communities west of here did not fare so well. All we saw was a little light rain, and some thunder rumbles but nothing like was being threatened, at least not where I live.

I'm going to try to make peach jam tomorrow. Over the past couple of years I got really spoiled by making my own home made jams and preserves. When I ran out of my homemade, and had to buy mass produced, my taste buds noticed.

Thanks, Dragonlady. Those potholders I took from the search engine were all done by someone else using extremely fat threads, but some of the outer simple laces were similar to the ones I do in minutia, so I showed them as best I could. . Size 10 threads that I use are like just regular string, and 5 put together lengthwise would be the equivalent of regular 4-ply acrylic. Acrylic is cheap, but it is not nearly as absorbent as cotton, plus it melts if the heat is over boiling point, or ~212F. Cotton can be boiled for sanitary purposes if desired with no harm, no foul unless the manufacturer was careless with bleeding threads which were common before the 1950s except for indigo. As man-made "improvements" on plants has been done, i'm not sure if indigo is as boil-proof as it was in Martha Washington's day. The reason I picked other people's artistry is because I don't know how to do anything but screw up a picture if I take one! So I gave up on photography as an art form long, long ago, and since my wonderful husband passed away 6 years ago, I lost a really good photographer who had an eye for perspective that was uncanny, considering that he was a professional electrical engineering whose vocabulary was hmmmm, I don't know how to say it, but unintelligible to most of us mere mortals whose grades in mathematics depended greatly on divination. <giggle>

The first potholder I ever made using a wannabe popcorn stitch was made exactly 50 years ago this fall. The lace edge has rotted 2 times, and today, I put on the third lace that is applied to the half-double crochet stitch I find is best for the joining of back and front as well as provides an edge for the lace d'jour that I either find in a book and looks sturdy, or one that I invent for the next one. The one I put on last night and this morning, plus a single crochet stitch on the outside lace edge usually in a darker color, and always takes between 10 and 20 hours, depending on the complexity of stitches. This wasn't one I found, I just figured out a way to put single, half-double, double, and treble crochets in a rise-and-fall edge in pale green as the one I crocheted in 1972 when I made the potholder. The lace was ratty and falling apart, needless to mention ugly, so taking it apart was a challenge, and I didn't know until the last minute if my kitchen shears had cut a thread on the 50-year-old hexagons in fall and earth colors and white on one side and what was a faded brown. However, when I separated them cautiously, I had a delightful surprise that the inner part of the two sides had over dozens of washing and exposure to the sunlit window when drying, well the colors weren't as faded as the outside was, so I simply put the prettier side, hidden for half a century, to the outside, joined them with two half double crochet stitches between popcorns, as usual, and used slightly more atmospheric colors for the gently curved outer lace plus the crocheted-over bone ring for hanging the potholder. I also added 4 more new rows, hoping that the cotton, when washed and heat-dried, would shrink down the 4 new, fatter rows, to looking like they were all done at the same time, which they weren't by 50 years. <laughter> Any way, it's done, and I kind of like the potholder as much as the new ones. My fixit time was over a week, because when I do something not done for years, I go slow, and set the repair aside for a few hours since my old fingers need a break from too much strain and stress. It's always there on top of the pile, and last week, I had crocheted bone rings for four new completed hexagonal potholders made in the last two or three months. When politics bring tears to the heart, I crochet potholders, frequently asking God to bring peace to the nation that I love that seems has suffered a lot since the turn of the 20th century into the 21st, with angry words flying faster than a Concord jet, and it's hard to say how soon it will take our leaders to stop saying mean things to each other and falsifying what is delivered to everyday people like us, until someone digs up a hard drive or two that reveals what was withheld, which results in no actions due to the unpopularity of reliving the past. Some foot-shoots you just can't fix. So my crochet prayers carry me to happier places.

Oh, yes, and those hexagonal potholders made with other types of yarns and stitches than mine, I picked those because they were as beautiful as could be, and even though I may have made 90 or 100 potholdres for self, friends, and church kitchens where one must not be burned due to cheap or poorly made potholders, not one of mine has those color choices, although I may have put the prettier colors with colors that seem pleasing when choosing. I may have put one of my potholders on my old quilt thread, so I'm going to check over there if my husband ever took a picture back in those years when he was alive, and I was making a bunch of potholders for my sister, who was dying of cancer when we moved back home to Texas, and she got at least 2 dozen or more of them in the 6 years she lived cancer-free after I got her. She died of other issues 6 years ago, right after my husband passed. I thank God for letting me have a few years with her since Wyoming was 1400 miles from here, and you just don't drive home when the streets and highways are icy. I'll go check to see if I can find ONE picture of my work. I just can't recall right now.

 

[Foxfyre]

And I bet his/her dad is his/her hypotenuse.

 

[Oddball]

Vin Scully was more than just the best baseball broadcaster ever - Sports Illustrated

He was a modern Socrates, only more revered, simultaneously a giant and our best friend.

www.si.com

 

[Oddball]

And I bet his/her dad is his/her hypotenuse.

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[Dragonlady]

Someone asked me upthread about the state of healthcare right now in Canada. Frightening, and it's not a word I use lightly.

Waiting lists only got longer during the pandemic and all "elective surgeries" were cancelled. The devil is in the list of surgeries which are deemed "elective". Anything that isn't required to save your life or repair a current injury, is deemed to be "elective". Knee and hip replacements, hernias, gall bladder, cataracts are all classed as "elective". None of us wake up and think "I'd like to get my knee replaced", so there's no way any of us elect to have these operations, but that's another debate.

I do want to stress the the care I personally received in getting my knee replaced was outstanding, from top to bottom from the moment I walked in the hospital door, to the moment I walked in my own front door. Little to no pain, quick healing. The surgeon was everything I had been told and more, and I'm glad I waited for him. And it wasn't just him. His entire team took excellent care of me. And the rehab hospital even had tasty food.

But everywhere there are staffing shortages, and wait times for everything are getting ridiculous. Our system thrives of "preventive maintenance", annual physicals and tests to catch things early, vaccines for for preventable problems like shingles and pneumonia. All of our routine stuff when out the window during the pandemic. I'm way past due for my mammogram, colon cancer test, and I haven't had a physical since 2019. But again, I point out that when I had my cancer scare, I had a biopsy the day after the specialist received my preliminary tests.

The system was really stressed before the pandemic hit, and between burn out, the stress of working through the pandemic and people leaving the profession, and years of incompetence and mismanagement by both the Liberals and the Conservatives, it's now in crisis. To make matters worse we have just re-elected Doug Ford's Conservative Party to a 5 year majority government.

Keeping partisanship out of the Lounge, suffice it to say that Ford's incompetence and mismanagement was the REASON why the health care system was so stressed BEFORE the pandemic, because he fired 5000 nurses and closed beds. Then he froze their wages. All of that ended when the pandemic hit. And the week Ford announced the first lockdown, he quietly settled the Teacher's strike that had been running for months. Both education and health care were in total chaos before the pandemic hit, and Ford wouldn't have been re-elected dog catcher before the pandemic hit. His approval rate was under 20%.

Since we are now just starting his second 5 year term, I fear what our health care will look like in 2027.

 

[Hossfly]

Big trouble in the Coffee Shop.