For a person such as myself who enjoys consistency and routine this year has been tumultuous.
Change In The Weather
Friday afternoon I headed out for happy hour around 3pm. Why so early? Because my plan was to walk the five miles from the ITP Estate to The Vortex in Midtown. My plan fell through when only two miles into the walk, and at the Inman Park / Reynoldstown MARTA station, I was already sweating. I hopped the train and finished my journey by jumping off at North Avenue and walking the rest of the way.
Happy hour was fun. Since the colder weather had yet to arrive we sat outside to avoid the stench of cigarettes that lingers within The Vortex. I nearly pulled a Margret Mitchell by having to dash across Peachtree in order to hail my Lyft whose driver never saw me waving my hands in the air like I just didn’t care from the other side of the street. He was an “interesting” driver, telling me all about his previous drug-abusing life on the drive from Midtown to East Atlanta.
Suffice to say that I could’ve done that walk on either weekend day without sweating nearly as much.
Slow, Cold, Weekend
The only time I left the ITP Estate this weekend was on Saturday to do some regifting/recycling. On Saturday afternoon I drove two boxes of “things” to Goodwill on Piedmont and dropped them off. From there I drove up to Target and Home Depot on Sidney Marcus to attempt to recycle some batteries; apparently that’s not a “thing” any longer. After failing that task I drove up to the Pearle Vision near Lenox Mall where I dropped off two pair of old prescription eyeglasses that are no longer useful for my eyes. Pearle collects glasses and when they have a boxful they ship them off to One Sight who repurposes them.
ITP Flickr Pic
“Ministry Of Funny Walks” (Atlanta, Georgia, United States)
I purchased this mobile online a few years ago. While smaller in scale than I thought when purchasing it, it amuses me. I am posting this today to remind myself that in the face of adversity that I need to smile and laugh more.
Land Of Ancient Technology
Since I was hanging around the house on Saturday I dusted off two “ancient” technologies — a portable CD player, and a Blu-Ray player. While I was gathering the things to box up for Goodwill I played a few CDs on my living room stereo. It’s been a long time since I listened to music this way and it sounded great. Later in the evening I decided that I didn’t want to watch any more college football so I fired up the Blu-Ray player and watched a DVD’s worth of TV Funhouse, a show I used to watch on Comedy Central back in the early 2000s.
My only regret on Saturday night is that I fell asleep before remembering to use the oldest electronic media in the house — radio. It’s been far too long since I listened to H. Johnson’s “Jazz Classics” show on WABE.
Cook’em If You Got’em
Staying home on Saturday and Sunday also lent itself to doing some cooking. On my way home from doing aforementioned chores on Saturday I popped into the Kroger near Emory and picked up some groceries. On Saturday night I cooked some sausages and toast for dinner. Yesterday I microwaved some frozen pancakes for breakfast, made sausage/chicken jambalaya (from scratch) for lunch, and heated up a large can of potato soup and ate it with some frozen biscuits as my dinner.
Medical Update
My medical situation hasn’t changed. Unfortunately this means that I still have the lump on my eyelid and will forever unless I do something drastic. And it was a good thing that I didn’t watch the Florida v. LSU game on Saturday because I’m certain that my heart would’ve stopped toward the end of the game.
My mom is now in a physical rehabilitation facility. If all goes as planned I will be around Atlanta for Thanksgiving. Assuming the Thanksgiving plans don’t change I will be eating at Sanitary’s house as I’ve done for about the last handful of years.
Hope your Thanksgiving week starts off well.
Paulie [eatl/ga]
I’ve decided that today will be a day dedicated to software development, especially since I have no German class tomorrow night and can procrastinate a bit more with my homework.
Wouldn’t the biscuits have been better if you had heated them up? ayuk ayuk!
So glad to hear your Mom’s surgery went well and hopefully she will take it easy now!!!
I had fun out with a friend Friday night and then Saturday went completely off the grid the entire day. Part was unplanned: my phone went belly up and had to go through a 24 hour trial reset before Verizon could give me a new one (still under warranty, phew!). Fortunately, the 24 hours actually worked so I’m good again.
But it was REALLY nice being off the grid. I did have a tablet should I have really needed any contact with folks, but I found I really didn’t. Totally watched football, old movies, was a complete vegetable. It was very nice being a vegetable.
You know, it may not be apparent but I really thought a lot about the construction of that sentence. In the end I decided not to specify that I actually baked the biscuits, figuring that no one would call me out on this omission. 😀
Unfortunately for her taking it easy is the last thing she’s allowed to do. Apparently it’s especially important for older people to move a lot once they’ve had a surgery to repair their hip(s). She’ll be doing PT for a while, and may get a visit from a son who can be a real son-of-a-bitch and won’t let her be slack. You know, the son who was in a bicycle wreck nearly six years ago and damaged his hip…
Glad mom is doing better. And we’ve found the frozen biscuits really do have a “shelf life” as the last batch we tried to bake did little but heat the kitchen.
It was Brady Thanksgiving Saturday and I completed the lemon meringue pie I had started Friday. I attempted to beat the egg whites that had just the smallest amount of yolk, but eventually realized that chemistry had won and started over with 4 new egg whites and was successful.
Saturday evening we attended a 60th birthday for a foxhunt friend. The band was outside and after some coercion, we all went out for the cutting of the cake. As we’re standing there, I see in the distance what look like streetlights (not there) except they’re moving… we get a flyover by a line of 8 or 10 helicopters, most likely on their way back to Ft. Benning. I told the birthday boy we couldn’t afford the Blue Angels so we got you helicopters.
And there was grouting at the Basement mahal yesterday. Included were visits from Bob, Jackass, TJ and Mary, and Sally!! All bonuses. It’s starting to look good.
-FP
Unless the biscuits are bought at Costco they rarely stay in my freezer long enough to experience expiration of shelf life.
That’s funny about the helicopters.
Team Grout! I was too up my own ass this weekend to even consider leaving the house to head to Marietta. I’m starting to realize that the end of November is nigh and that I need to start thinking about being an employed person again. Pity. However I should think about volunteering some more so that I can call in a few favors next year…
I’m trying to knock the chill out of the ITP Estate’s air through the tactical placement of two small space heaters. I’m resisting the urge to fire up the furnace until we have a really long cold spell.
Steve Brady is the my favorite person in the whole world (along with Ken Lopez) for helping with that grout. Steve – you did such a better job than my attempt, I totally realized it when I was wiping it down again after you left.
It was an interesting group of drop ins – of course no one else wanted to help, but luckily everyone stopped by when we were bascially worn out & done with the section that needed to get done.
Paulie – we still have some more grout to be done (about 25% is left), plus staining the lower walls, and painting the upper walls. I’ll let you know when the next work day is.
Glad mom is doing ok –
Decided that I need to get out of the ITP Estate today. Thinking of making a run to IKEA (before the madness begins on Friday) and then going to a library to work. I may even check out a few DVDs from the library; did you know that libraries have those?
Now eating a couple of slices of pizza at Baby Tommy’s Taste of New York in midtown
Before I go to IKEA.
yummmmmmmmm – now I want Baby Tommys
I am in Target and was tempted to try and follow two young women around, and not for what you are thinking! They were speaking German to one another and I was trying to translate in my head.
Paulie, Paulie, Paulie………….
dang it you make me laugh.
you should have said something to them – just for the hell of it.
All the best to your Mom.
I had a similar hip related surgery, gosh…10 years or so ago. It took me a bit to bounce back, but I did. PT is the key. The harder one works, blah, blah blah.
Had the accident and surgery in November (just about…now, gulp!) and finished the Peachtree the following July (25 year streak unbroken). I owe that motivation to Dr. Jerry Royster (orthopedic surgeon, PT Orthopedic), who visited me on Thanksgiving day at Piedmont Hospital, upon completion of his Atlanta Marathon run. He told me I would do the PTRR and he as correct.
I’m still not 100% but, heck…no complaints. It could have been worse. At least I still got my looks. 🙂
All things being equal (and they rarely are), your central heating (natural gas?) may be cheaper (and far safer) than multiple space heaters. We source our electricity from Georgia Power. GP has an option by which you can receive a daily email informing you of electricity usage. We’re running around $3/day these days and that feels like a bargain. And at $0.49/therm, natural gas is cheap enough.
Pro tip: All hiring essentially stops between now and “January 17th” (when 2017 budgets and open positions are typically released). You should be getting a head start on 2017 by 1) making your “Three Lists” and 2) working “List 3″…hard. Resist the urge to wait until Jan 2 to begin.
If you get hot now, your name/resume will be top of mind come 2017. Plus it will keep you off the streets. 🙂
Regards to all for a great Thanksgiving es 73 de JG/HamWithCam
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hamwithcam/
I thought about speaking to them, but felt weird as if I were eavesdropping — which I was. However, I did utter to myself in German to see if I could elicit a response — I did not.
I thought about that Ham. I’m not concerned with the space heaters, they are small ceramic types, nothing big.
I’m working on getting ready to be hired, though I have to admit I hate Swift so far and am not sure that I want to work in it full time. LOL.