Hot day yesterday, so hot that I didn’t want to leave the house for a bike ride. Instead I puttered around the house all day and night taking care of minor chores, essentially rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
This morning I am going to do some WLF choring, mainly consisting of cleaning up plants that have passed their productive stage, and ridding the yard of some trash that has accumulated.
I solved today’s Wordle in three attempts; my starter today was IDEAL. I probably should have gotten it in two, but my brain wasn’t seeing the solution.
My Decluttering Week
Saturday: useless Dollar Store personal desk fan
Sunday: book (novel)
Monday: undershirt x4
Tuesday: old bicycle helmet (trashed because it was the helmet I wore when I wrecked)
Wednesday: home repair products, styrofoam (to be taken to CHaRM)
Thursday: old gym duffel bag
Friday: grass seed spreader
We needed to go to Total Wine last night (trying to find a 30 pack of Miller High Life, the grocery stores & our cloer package store doesn’t seem to have them). So – the choices are – up to Barrett Pkwy (Kennesaw) or Cumberland Mall area.
I wanted to get a walk in, so we decided to go to the store near Cumberland. We parked, walked our way over to the Bob Callen trail, around & about & over to The Battery. Got a $4 High Life beer at C Ellets, wandered around amazed at all the people in their Braves clothing when there isn’t a game, and finally decided on El Super Pan for some dinner. (Beers there were much more expensive).
Watched in amazement a Fat Tuesdays – so many people will learn about that sugar filled grain alcohol hangover today. 😉
Finally made it back to Total Wine – bought the beer & came back home.
A good start to birthday weekend.
Ugh, I can’t believe Fat Tuesdays is still a thing. I definitely killed off too many brain cells at the one at Underground back in the late 80s/early 90s when I was going to Georgia State at night.
Hmmm, I should have put some alcohol into my watermelon smoothie! 😀
Wordle in 3.
Back in the ER, Fayette this time. She rolled in her sleep and “something popped” and now is in more pain and can’t breathe.
Headed to get a CT shortly.
More later
well that stinks………
Ugh, sorry to read that.
Well dang, hope all is well
Ai-yi-yi! Here’s hoping things turn around fast!
Sweating up a storm in WLF this morning. It is hu-mid!
Suffered at least two ant bites this morning. Funny how angry they get when something millions of times their size comes in and fucks with their lives.
Done and showered. While I didn’t accomplish everything on my list I had a good morning out in WLF.
Now watching the TdF while eating watermelon and drinking a watermelon smoothie I made with a recent purchase of a Ninja blender.
Geez this Bruges to Amsterdam trip must be the thing to do next year, I just received an email from BikeTours and they are also offering it.
CT done. Still cooling our heels. We expect to get released unless the CT showed something. More meds seemed to knock it down a bit.
Glad I went to the grocery yesterday- I discovered my battery was dead. Jumped myself off with the truck, drove to O’Reily’s, swapped out the battery and was good (so far).
Was hoping to do a gravel ride with da club tomorrow, but with the current condition of the patient, may not be able to get away.
Dang, Steve, that was some clean living that the battery died in such a way that you could easily make a course correction. I don’t know that Debbie has shown that she can be left to her own devices just yet… 😉
Greetings from Colorado Springs. My presentation seemed to be well received, but time will tell. I definitely got a lot of clarity about how I need to tie up loose ends in my offerings. Last night my daughter and I used PikeRide e-bikes to ride to Garden of the Gods. Her bike was a little janky but we made it work. It was a great ride. The Air Force was flying cargo planes around Garden of the Gods, apparently someone wanted to get some golden hour photos in or something. The Mexican place we picked for dinner only had pedestrian beer offerings so I had a serviceable margarita. I will say that people in Colorado Springs are just NICE! As in drivers stopping to let bikes or walkers cross a street, friendly clerks, and so on. It’s a marked departure from the every man for himself approach on Atlanta’s streets. I am not missing dat Jawja humidity one bit! This afternoon we’re touring the Olympic museum. My daughter figured out the city bus on her own and rode to Manitou Springs and had a great day. We rode through the tail end of Manitou Springs on our way back from Garden of the Gods. I’m not clear what we’ll get into this evening after the museum. We head back to the humidity tomorrow afternoon, unless Delta does us a solid and screws up our flight. If that happens I’ll rent a car and we’ll head up Pike’s Peak. I have a couple of enduring memories of my prior visit to Pike’s Peak: 1) as I got out of the car and started sucking for air, I noticed some dude (a hasher, most likely 😉 ) who was just shaking off his run up the goddamn mountain, 2) having to pee 3 or 4 times while being up that high, and 3) going through the brake checkpoints where a copy checks everyone’s brakes with a heat gun and makes those with hot breaks pull over and cool things off. I did give away all but 3 of the Excel books that I trucked out here, so my load going back is going to be MUCH lighter.
Last week in Belize was an adventure day on more than one level. Six of us opted for a zip lining/river tubing/waterfall package from an outfit called Mayan Sky. We headed up the road as directed by Google Maps, and passed by a place called Mayan World. In my book there’s a difference between the two words. Google Maps had us go beyond Mayan World by a mile or two and then turn left on an unmarked dirt road. Hmm, okayyy, let’s give it a shot. Google Maps kept directing us further down this road, making it seem like our destination was close. The road got muddier and we went further and further into an orange grove. I was grateful to be driving a Ford Expedition, because its monolithic weight kept us from getting stuck, although the car was sliding around in the mud. Eventually we called it and turn around and got back to the main road, and then turned in at Mayan World, which was indeed the correct place.
Zip lining was excellent. It was just our group, and we did 7 different lines over the jungle. River tubing was even more excellent. Again, it was only our group and the guide, who lashed our tubes together. There were some smaller rapids (class 2?) at points and mostly just a leisurely float down through the jungle. I haven’t ever tubed before, but I will most definitely do so again. I was the flat out most relaxed I can ever remember after that tubing experience. We then drove to the waterfall, which was a 2 minute walk from the parking lot. It’s a multi-level waterfall. Most folks stop at the first level and hang out in the swimming hole, which was bitter cold. I noticed steps on the other side, and my ongoing rule when traveling is infrastructure doesn’t usually get built for no reason. A couple of us headed up the steps and saw the really epic part of the waterfall.
After that it was back to the villa for a late chef lunch, and then some of us headed to the end of the peninsula. Minty, Georgia, and I made it to the Big Titty Rum bar again, where I once again had two of the Peanut Envy shooters. After that we caught a sunset cruise as a group. We had the two level pontoon boat to ourselves. The kids jumped in the ocean a few time (a first for my shy, risk-averse son). It was a great evening that we capped off with a final chef meal.
Saturday was playing luggage Jenga again (the three divers were NOT traveling light) and then heading back to Belize City. There’s only two north and south roads, one is the newly opened Coastal Highway, the other is the Hummingbird Trail that is inland. There was discussion of some of us taking the scenic route inland back, but in the end not enough folks were willing to spend an extra hour in the car for that route. I will say that the rental cars we had were the absolute jankiest ones ever. The Check Engine light was perpetually lit on the Jeep Patriot. It wheezed its way south, we put the heavier luggage in the Expedition on the way back. The Expedition had an incessant TMPS warning that wouldn’t quit, and the lift mechanism for the back door was broken and it joined the party with constant beeping. There was a time where that beeping would have driven me batshit. It was remarkable to be able to just tune it out. Oh, the wonders of therapy.
Our flight left early and landed early, and customs was breezy. I’ve never brought anything back that needed to be declared, but I brought enough Big Titty Rum back that met the declaration requirements. When asked “Anything to declare?” I replied “just some liquor” and got waved through.
I do not recommend taking MARTA from the international terminal at Hartsfield. It took us a couple of hours to get home, between catching the bus that drove what felt like a ridiculous distance to the domestic terminal and that had a giant line and then MARTA being MARTA on the weekends with weird delays. We could have Ubered, but I want my kids to be comfortable with public transportation, and I do need to enter into a post-Belize austerity period. Hats off to my ADHD son, who did not complain even once during that marathon ground transportation slog. That alone made it all worth the hassle. Queuing is absolutely a life skill.
And that concludes my Belize update. Thanks for reading, it was fun to write all of this out a week later. I like how that approach has worked out, it felt too overwhelming to write about all of the days all at once.
Oh, and I’m stuck in Wordle hell. SIDLE gave me one match and two partials that I then rearranged to no avail on my second try. I have no fucking clue what the damn word is based upon the information that I presently have.
It took me awhile to suss it out today.
I considered using IDEAL, but thought I would be clever and choose something that had some similar letters. Best laid plans…
Keep eliminating letters.
It sounds like such a wonderful trip. Even to do the “tourist” parts and stay at a hotel still sounds like fun- the private villa was just gravy.
Thanks Steve. I finally figured out the Wordle. I said fuck it on my third try and used a word that had an eliminated letter but it got me 4 correct matches and so I wrapped it up in 4, which isn’t terrible.
I highly, highly recommend Belize. It isn’t overly commercialized yet. It will be in due time, likely in the same fashion that Cancun crept south to in Mexico. And yes, the private villa was some serious gravy.
Even though I often make it take longer by taking MARTA, I very much treasure living 15 minutes from direct flights to so many places in the world, and I’ll be working in the coming years to take better advantage of that.
It would’ve been faster to take the plane train to the domestic terminal to catch Marta. That bus is ridiculous.
Oh, Paulie, thank you for documenting your decluttering. I plan to revive my stalled campaign on Monday. Actually, I revived it just now by booking a CHARM appointment for Tuesday morning so that I can clear out the donation corner in my dining room.
Just keeping myself accountable.
Funny, I nearly booked a Tuesday appointment too, but don’t have enough to justify a trip yet.
Grass seed spreader still on curb. Had to tape “FREE” sign better because wind had blown it so you didn’t see it.
You can always put it in the donation trailer at CHARM if it doesn’t go away on its own.