THE WEISS CHRONICLES

 

With a couple of warm days last week a few roses bloomed.

 

As I was picking them I sang 'Baby One More Time' to myself. This is the Brittany Spears 1999 mega hit. 

 

I remember at the time saying to somebody that if I ever sang this song to myself, it was a probably sign of incipient dementia.

I'll be trimming next week so this is the last of the roses for 2020.

The Red Cross called last week and said they really needed platelets so I scheduled myself for today.  They overbooked and I had to

wait almost an hour before I went to screening and there were 5 people after me, four of who were sent home because the place would close before their donation could be completed.

I did get a new 'hooray for giving blood' shirt (first image - that is the shirt worn by someone pretty and then worn by me) and a 26 gallon lapel button. I asked for a 25 gallon one a bit after passing that mark but by the time I got it I was at 26 gallons. 

 

Pulse 80, BP 140/80. H-globin 15.8

 

 

I watched all of Killer Fish (or Ambush on the bottom which is evidently the French title - the killer fish are pirana).  It was only a little bad. Best line was when the camera was panning over the hills around a lake while 1978 music was playing. One of the robots said, "The hills are alive with the sound of disco."  It starred Lee Majors and one of the robots said he was only the $ 600 man in this (as opposed to the 6 million dollar man  in the TV series).

Then I started to watch Ator another 'not as bad as I expected' movie of the sword and sorcery variety. 

 

The movie starts with a fire blazing in a cave. One of the robots says, "Gee I could yell 'fire' in a crowded theater if we had a few more robots in here." 

 

Another great quote was when some of villagers were dancing before a marriage. One of the robots then said, "This is nothing. You should see the dancing before funerals."

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 Overnight my car was entered by someone other than me.  When I got in the car this morning, the glove compartment was open and the contents on the passenger's seat and the fuse box was open and the cover was on the driver's seat. Evidently, the burglar thought I might have kept coinage or folding money in there.

The only things missing, as far as I can tell, were some change, about $1 to $2 dollars that I keep in the coffee holders.

 

 The burglar did not take the two blue blocker sun glasses (worth about $3 each) or any of the half dozen reusable grocery bags (worth about 50 cents each) or anything else that I could determine.

I told this story to someone who said about the same thing happened to him two months ago (except he lost some bills).

 

Every year I wonder about how many eggs to use in the stuffing, whether it is made with matzoh farfal or bread.

The cubed bread I bought this year had a recipe that said the answer is zero. 

Of course other recipes, e.g., tastesoflizzyt.com have a different view regarding this question, 

"Why add eggs to bread stuffing? Many of you have asked this question. The main reason is because my grandma did it, my mom continued making stuffing this way, and there is just no better stuffing. 🙂 Simple, right?

I’ve never not put eggs in stuffing, but also, the eggs act as a bit of a binder. They prevent the stuffing from being crumbly."

Lizzy recommends about the same volume of eggs as butter (margarine for us). I think I'll go with Lizzy on this.

Second image is from Lizzy's website.

She also likes to garnish it up by using the leafy parts of the celery (you can tell from the image).  I'll have to wash the leafy parts a bit but that does seem a good idea.She also likes to use the butter to brown the bread using soft bread cubes instead of the toasted ones. I'll be using the toasted ones since its less trouble.

 

I didn't pick new flowers Friday for the Sabbath table.

 

As you can see from the image, there were very few left to pick and as noted last week, the petals are more fragile and fall off easily.

We had some cold mornings last week. One of the mornings the temperature fell into the low or mid 20s for quite a few hours.

 

So I expect that other than the winter flowers (e.g., Hellebore, which don't have long stems so aren't that good for putting in a vase) or flowers that I buy at a store, we are done for the season.

 

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Last night I dreamed that I was just waking up (but I wasn't).

In the dream, the electricity must have gone off because the lights were dark.

However, for some reason, my cell phone was ringing.

When I got up to get the call there was an intruder in the house. Although he was dressed in casual clothes and didn't resemble Big Foot (as in the image) it was still distressing. 

Then I awakened for real and noticed that the electricity was working. I went to my cell phone and noticed there hadn't been any calls.

 

There were still lots and lots of both pink and red roses to pick for our sabbath table.

Of course there was the usual problem with thorns.

But in addition, the flowers are getting more delicate. A lot of petals fell off between the picking and the 'putting in vase' phase.

Montauk Daisies still have a few flowers but I decided not to get them.

 

First the funny story.

 

At the door to the Red Cross, they take your temperature with a forehead gun thermometer.  The staff person aimed it at me and said, "This can't be right, only 94 degrees".  She then waited a bit and took it again. "Now its down to 93 degrees." she said.

I answered, "Better not do it again or I'll be taken to the Emergency Room".

Anyway, at the medical consult part of the procedure, my temperature (oral thermometer) was 98.7 degrees. Other vitals were 84 pulse and 122/70 BP. Interestingly I had a only a 14.4 Hemoglobin count, which while over the 13.0 level (below that you are not allowed by Red Cross to donate), is still the lowest I've been in, at least several years. Of course I've cut down my red meat consumption by about 80% so that might be a factor.

I saw one complete movie from a Mystery Science Theater 3000 production. It was "Lords of the Deep", a truly awful picture about people who were (I think) preparing the ocean for human colonization because of excess ozone in the atmosphere (it was a 1989 movie). My favorite robot comment was in a scene where two of the explorers encountered an alien. The explorers shock their head a bit simultaneously and a robot sang, "Don't Hurt Me. Don't Hurt Me. No More. No More" (from "What is Love", the 1993 Song and movements as made famous by the SNL Roxbury Guys sketch. 

 

I also watched the first half of  "The Day Time Ended." It was a 1979 movie and, of course, awful, about a rural family that goes back in time via an alien contraption.  

 

My favorite comment was when a miniature alien was trying to communicate with a human and was making a number of gestures. The robot said, "Well somebody is offside and someone else is roughing the kicker." 

 

Another great comment was when the little girl in the family was in the washroom and didn't use soap. The robot said, "Hey when you touch aliens, you should always soap up before you eat anything."

 

Back in May 2016, we had a hailstorm that did some damage on our roof.  We got new roof shingles at that time.

Yesterday, a fellow showed up at the front door and said there had been some roof damage on nearby homes due to some wind storms. He offered to send someone today to take a look at it with no charge to me.  

Since I thought it was plausible, but unlikely, that roof damage occurred I agreed to it.

Today the inspector came. After a few minutes he said there was no damage and my roof shingles look as good as new (no charge).  The inspector theorizes that the first fellow thought the top shingles were 3 tab (which are lighter and we have these on the front and back vertical sides of the house) rather than Architectural shingles (which are on top).

Our top shingles are about the lightest color shingles they make.  

 

Also here are, from 2016 the before and after on the roof job that year.

 

The Chrysanthemums were scrawny but there were a lot of them. Thus they get prime space today.

There were still some Montauk Daisies so these filled in a bit. It's their 5th week in a row of being in the sabbath flower vase.

The rose bushes, both the pink and red are doing pretty well and I might use them next week.

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Two images about an hour apart.

My next door neighbor has been planning a fence for a while now. 

 

It took some interesting decisions because on the boundary between our houses are some mature trees and boulders. There was also a tree stump that he had removed a few days ago.

 

 He basically put his fence a few feet from the property line giving me 'more yard'.

Actually, that was something I'm not so happy about since those sq ft are now a maintenance issue for me.

 

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 My left rear tire had a low pressure according to my dashboard.  It was toggling between 27 and 28 psi (as I once noted before, the dashboard does not automatically adjust the time between standard and daylight savings time - you have to press some buttons and turn a knob for that).

I was thinking of having Goodyear apprise the situation but instead I decided to put some air in and see what happens.

The station had a machine that would have cost me $1.25 if I used quarters but $1.75 if I used a credit card.

Air used to be free at gas stations when I first started to drive. Then, in the 90s I think, it cost 25 cents. In the cartoon it was 50 cents.

 

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