Monday at the Froggy Bottom Cafe
Fully caffeinated host on duty today!
Newcomers welcome, please introduce yourselves.
|
Newspapers are in their regular spot next to the door
|
Please recommend
(and unrecommend the Cafe/Lounge from earlier) |
May the 4’s be with you
Monday and Tax day…does it get any better than this?
Hi SN. This is a hit and run.
I saw earlier your headache is better. Good.
I now have another Adventure in Home Repair going. A pipe burst in the bathroom which I didn’t know about until George came and put wet paws on me. He was trying to get away from the water.
Half the hallway is flooded and some into the bedrooms. I’ve got the water cut off and used about every towel we have so far. Still 1/2 inch of water in the BR.
I’ve got one of those steam carpet cleaner and I’ve already emptied the fill bucket about 20 time. Still a long way to go.
Relatives response. Well I guess I’ll have to use the guest bathroom and That’s a heck of a way to get the carpet clean.
The frustration level is starting to rise. Someone or something is trying to tell me something, and that something is a life of slackdom is not in the cards.
ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
I don’t know when I’ll be back, but Calgon Take Me Away.
Oh no! Sounds like it’s just not your month to slack off, Family Man.
Maybe your family members could pitch in a little! I’d be about ready to strangle them too.
Here’s a thought, add Calgon to the flood water and then your whole house would be a Calgon bath. š
Good luck with your adventures in homeownership.
Good lord, Family Man, I’m so sorry to hear that. It might, just might, be time to get a good plumber out to your place to check all the pipes.
Thanks Indy. Next thing on the list.
Wow, what rotten luck. I feel so bad for you that I’m not going to pick on you for … well, I’m sure I can last at least a day, maybe even two or three.
What’s a day without being picked on by Andi. Don’t you even think about stopping. š
OH noooo! Sorry to hear about your disaster there, FM! As if it weren’t already bad enough with the renegades taking over… you sure don’t need this on top of it!
Good luck with the clean up, and I suppose that thanks are in order for George, who after all, alerted you to the problem in the first place! Good doggie! Bad situation…
Take care, FM, sending you positive thoughts (dry, cool ones!)
Thanks IVG. Got those positive thoughts right now.
Sorry to hear that. Plumbing is at the very top of my home-owner hate list. I used to do maintenance for my parents on rental properties and memories of lying under a sink or behind a tub while filthy water rains down around me are etched deep into my psyche. So is the sound of the bathroom ceiling caving in at one in the morning as a giant rainstorm discovers its way in through the newly leaky roof. You have my sympathies.
I’ve only tried plumbing 3 times. Total failure at all tries. I was lucky this time.
Thanks Kelly.
I’m back again for awhile. Getting to winded, tired and too hot.
The count now is 45 fill buckets emptied, and every towel washed and bleached. The dryer is filled right now so I’m waiting for those to get done and then put some more in.
Optimism – that’s what I’m looking at today. With the AC out it will help dry out the carpet quicker. I found the leak and it was to a small hot water heater installed years ago in the main BR. Luckily it has a cut off valve on it so; I cut that off and turned back on the main water.
I’m actually feeling blessed with have no AC now and the day is looking up.
Hope everybody else’s day is going good.
Man, you are thorough! It’s nice and cool this week, and that’s good because the AC guys can’t come until Friday. Hope you have better luck this week. Sure started out bad.
Just another Adventure in Home Repair. š
This might sound yucky, but I’m just glad it was clean water and not a toilet. (puking sound)
I’m really hoping out AC man makes it today, but in the meanwhle, it’s OK. Glad to hear it will be cool for you.
Yea I decided to get out of the whinning sideline. It’s interfering too much with my slacking/lazy inner self.
Good morning again.
I have noticed that Oui has not posted lately (only a couple of comments in April). Did he announce a break or something?
I noticed that too, but don’t know why he hasn’t been around. Maybe spring fever?
I just checked over in the European Tribune and didn’t see him there, either, at least not yet today.
my rhododendrons before I kill them.
So sad, so funny.
They do have a sort of terrified look.
Gardening we do well. But bringing a plant into ourn house is as good as signing its death warrent. If we don’t kill with too much or too little water the feline herd either eat it or treat it as a plaything.
lol, why do they do that? We used to have a cat who was so obsessed with plants and flowers that we could not have any in the house. If someone sent us flowers, we’d have to lock them up in the bathroom because she’d climb walls to get to them. Even when we locked them up, she’d stand outside the bathroom and howl — I assume something that roughly translated to, “Oh just let me have them already, I have to have them right now, if you don’t open this door I will stand here and howl until 3 in the morning, you know I will, I’ve done it before!”
Yeah, not sure about that one. Three of the cats are like “oh, house plants whaaateverr.” But the other two, oy. One of them checks once a day to see if the grass by the back door is long enough have gotten closed into the door yet so she can chew on it. Season doesn’t matter to her. She just has to check for the grasssss! Every day. Crazy beast.
Still Monday?
The cable guy was just here to give me a new cable box. Whew. Can’t live without being able to record shows.
Morning,all. May all your Mondays be Tuesdays.
You must be so excited this week! Is it like being about 9 mos. pregnant and ready to give birth?
Oh, soooo much easier than that. But funny you’d mention that. My first book and first (and only) baby were delivered on the same day in 1983. On a Friday I got a call from a local bookstore that my book had arrived and three hours later I went into labor! BeLIEVE me, the book gestation,labor, delivery were easier!
I can do the book birth thing, but even if I had the right plumbing I couldn’t imagine going for the other kind.
I bought two of your books to read on my upcoming cross country trip! (I had to pick them up used, sorry, but cash is a little tight; I s’pose I could mail you a few dollars, hee hee.) I’m very much looking forward to checking out your work, and promise to buy the next ones new! š
It is reward enough to know they are keeping you company. And I even said that with a straight face.
That’s a great diary you have hanging up there on the recommended list for days.
Thank you. That always means a lot to me coming from you and/or Kelly.
It’s a really nicely reasoned and written piece. I buzzed through and rated posts up but didn’t have anything coherent to add.
Thanks, Kelly. Believe me, I noticed your rec. š
And the rest of us are chopped liver. :::sniff:::
Lol! But hey, don’t feel bad–ManEee’s dog Bud just loves chopped liver.
Oy. You are a very effective manipulator. I feel guilty now. Tell your kids I empathize with them, and tell your husband I want a raise in my allowance. ;p
Yes, always the victim. š
because now that roomie is driving, you will have all kinds of time for reading. Wonder what it’s like to read Judith Butler while crusing I-40 through New Mexico.
I actually have read Butler on I-40, lol. I suspect it would make most people puke.
But I usually read in the hotel rooms at night, not on the road. I like to look at the scenery, and especially now that I haven’t been on a trip in nearly a decade (unless you count Phx to see doctors, which I totally don’t).
Once you drop off the Mogollon Rim, there is no scenery.
about the drive between Flagstaff and Phoenix.
No kidding. It’s just desert foothills and dust. I mean, saguaro cacti are pretty and all but once you’ve seen a few…
I find it a little creepy, actually, because it all looks just like ocean floor (of course, it used to be) with no ocean left. It stirs up my Reagan-era dystopia nightmares.
on the excellent reviews the book has been getting.
Nice review in the Detroit Free Press but nothing compared to the literary crush that Dorman T. Shindler has on you. I read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch review and thought how happy you’d be and then I saw what he wrote in the Denver Post.
I hope this one goes high best seller for you.
Your lips, readers’ ears.
Yes, I’m thinking of having his children.
I didn’t know about a Detroit Free Press review. I’ll go check it out.
at your service: here it is.
Oh, you’re slowing down. I beat you to it. Or, gasp, does this mean I’m losing my passive-aggressive creds?
Not a bad review! Definitely a blurb-worthy phrase or two. Of course I disagree with his one criticism, but he’s allowed his own opinion. š
And it’s so nice he isolated it in the last two paragraphs making it so easy to copy the review in a manner consistent with a need for brevity best native-born writer to emerge from the state of Kansas™ (more judicious brevity at work).
Clients got the last tax returns on Saturday. No new tax work for a week anyway…
Sun is shining and the forecast is for at least 3 days of sunshine! Yeah! No rain for a few days!
It’s going to be a busy week so I’m not sure when I’ll drop by. It is priority registration week on campus…so it’s my job to resolve student ‘issues’.
Have a good day every one…I’ll drop by when I can!
This is all Olivia’s fault. She’s made us pay such close attention that Jim and I are noticing things we’ve never seen before. Like these baby leaves on a very young tree (too young to have recognizable bark). It’s driving us crazy trying to figure out what it is. I’ve proposed that it is a chestnut oak but Jim isn’t convinced and I can’t find anything that says that their young leaves are red. Anybody recognize it?
I’ve never heard of a chestnut oak but it makes sense. The leaves look alot like a buckeye tree which is a horse chestnut.
and hope he buys it — otherwise we’re going to be arguing about this for next 5-7 years until the tree gets big enough.
Heyas everyone! Gloomy Monday out here today, made worse by the fact that I’m back in the office. <whine> Seems like the only “weekend” I had was posting off and on in the cafe while I worked on Fri and Sat. Sunday was a complete wash with relatives and a bad headache.
Anyway, wish I could help you out with identifying that tree, Andi… but I’m very lame on tree knowledge (too many flowers in the brain I guess). My best guess would be that it’s some kind of oak, since the leaves resemble them, but which variety, I have no idea, unless (and I’m stretchin here!) it’s red oak. Lol. I can say that a lot of plants may start out a different color than their eventual one, so maybe it’s just a temporary phase. Be interested to know what it is if you do indeed find out what it is.
thanks for the non-help š
(I will now show off my anal-retentive obsessiveness by admitting that I went out and put some surveyor’s tape on the tree so that I can keep checking it until we can figure out what it is.)
Sorry you can’t identify the tree — but I love the idea that “She’s made us pay such close attention that Jim and I are noticing things we’ve never seen before.”
How cool is that! š
if you would help solve the problems you cause! :-T
Looking for new leaves, and found this link w/ photo: Chestnut Oak
What do you think?
How many problems do I cause anyway…
I’d looked at some pictures myself and thought the leaves were close in shape to the mature ones but I hadn’t been able to find any young leaves. But the picture you found, while it does show some red, has a really different shape. So I guess I’m giving up on chestnut oak. Now I have no idea. š
As for the problem you cause — need I say anything more than mud wrestling? š
Mud Wrestling, did someone say Mud Wrestling?
mud wrestling is just what you need today with your water woes! Get your mind out of the drain pipe, my friend! hehe.
Hey IVG. Everything is getting back to normal and I even squeezed a nap in.
It doesn’t look like the AC man is showing up today, but it’s not too bad. Towel washing and drying.
Other than that, everything is peachy. š
I think Andi mentioned the mud just to see if I was lurking. OK it worked. š
Thankfully!!! Andi, you’re a fine one to bring that up, seeing as how you and FM were ganging up on lil me. š
(FM – I’m working on your list.)
If I remember right you wanted to have you and Andi gang up on me. Now how would little-ole-me stand a chance against that.
Don’t worry about the list. I didn’t realize you had the day off. SLACK!
I’ve been fiddling w/ my own second version blog, so I’m having fun. I can fiddle on my day off you see, and not feel guilt about it.
And you can’t pull that lil-ole-me thing off now — I know how tall you are now! You probably wouldn’t even fit in a mud pit. š
So now you know my plan. I was trying to get you and Andi in the pit first. Hah. š
to deny the whole mud wrestling thing — it does wonders for your image. Moves you out of the Shy English Rose category and right into Queen of the Hockey Rink.
Nice to see you both doing the gang-up thing again… š
What the hell — everyone already knows I like to play in the dirt anyways (and I’m talking about my gardening, and photos here. :P)
I would never gang up on you Olivia, but…..
Let me see if I’ve got this right.
You embrace the mud pit, like playing in the dirt and you take a camera with you.
I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong here.
Works for me. š
you’re too powerful. Anyway, we only do it because we love you.
Once again I’m just stopping by on my way to work. I have a convention report for later today sometime, but for now just let it be known that one of the things I bought at the dealers’ room was the polo shirt I’m wearing right this moment — a black affair sporting the logo of the “League of Evil Geniuses.”
Tomorrow I may wear one of the others I got, sporting a picture of Ben Franklin with the quote about liberty and security.
Just wanted to say that once again. Being able to do the whole tendonitis inducing rate-up process as a bookmark makes this froggy very happy! Thank you, Omir!
What Kelly said!
Yikes, I gotta check out, I have appointments all day and didn’t realize how late in the morn it was. See all you cool cats later, dig, thanks for the coffee chat. š
Well, I better quit slacking and do some real work here, as much as I dread it. Nice to see all the regular crowd up and at it again so early. Wish I could slack the day away, but the next report I have to write isn’t going to do it itself, so I best take off.
Hope to stop in later if possible, otherwise I’ll see who’s around later tonight. Have a great day everyone!
Taxes are done, checks are written (had to grit my teeth to avoid writing “Infernal Revenue” on the check), and spouse will go run them over to the post office. Probably the latest I’ve ever done them, and they’re still not done; will have to send an amended tax return once we get the fuck-up with the IRAs completely resolved. As I told the spouse, better me than him — his number skills are a little lower than mine.
Going back to bed for another hour…
Lovely, as always, Andi! You keep making me envious with these nature shots… I wish we had similar enough schedules that we could go out in the woods and get such shots. Maybe when morel season comes around soon we can go looking for them and perhaps not only get pics of the delicious things, but the other cool stuff growing around them. Seeing that pic is not making it any easier for me to remain in my cube for the rest of the day. š
Not to make you even more jealous but this is a picture of my “yard” so all I had to do to take it was get up from the computer and go out the door.
On morels — we’ve been here since 1979 and have found a grand total of 6 (I think we have to many critters tearing things up).
Seeing the new growth — it’s so wonderful. Spring is the best. I really appreciate you posting these photos!
How ya doing today? Are you busy working (we have the day off here.)
I’m working but I’m doing some stuff that has some built-in breaks.
A few of the beech trees started leafing out just today. I think the way they open is pretty nifty — they emerge from a ‘plain brown wrapper’.
Tree buds just starting. No tulips yet.
and poor Olivia merely has green grass… but we have tulips in proliferation just readying themselves for a very colorful show later this week!
And yeah, Andi… you’re making me eat my heart out on that view you have… at least we have better luck finding morels, but we have to leave the city to hunt them.
Glad you have the day off Olivia… I’m sneaking a post in between trying to finish some more analysis and start the report. š
Get up a good burst of speed and work madly and soon it will be time to go home to your wonderful garden. And I’ll be waiting to hear more about these proliferatin’ tulips later tonight, including colours and types! {{{IVG}}}
Thanks, Olivia! Burst of speed is what I need today, but it’s one of those cloudy, cool days and I could have sooo easily just stayed in bed most of the day, but being the night owl I am, I am paying for it in lack of motivation. Not to mention, the project I am working on right now has me bored to tears, so it’s hard to get excited about doing that report. Now if it related to gardening issues, I’d probably be done right now!
I will try to snap a few pics when I get home (if Chris hasn’t done it already, since he had the day off) and see if any are worth posting later. I did a mental count this morning of the tulips… I think there were about 80-90 new Darwins of various colors, mostly purples, reds, yellows, and a mix of orange-yellow, red-purple, etc. The ones we previously planted were almost exclusively reds and yellows, except for the Olympic Flames, which you saw over the weekend. Ok, enough procrastinating! Take care all, and hope to pop in later tonight.
That scene reminds me of a Bobby Ross painting on PBS. I can just see him tickling the canvas with that 3-inch wide brush saying “make some happy little trees right…here.”
How are you today?
Hey Olivia, any new flowers popping up in your neck of the woods? Our blooming trees are already fading and it’s starting to look like high summer already.
Not yet. We’re still waiting for tulips. Crocus is the only flowers so far. You are way ahead of us. š
And are you visualizing a happy little Second Nature among them?
Why yes, I can feel my feet sinking into the grass. Ouch, was that an acorn?
Hopeful brings in acorns, crunches them, eats the meat, and then leaves the shells where I’ll walk on them.
Hey SN. How’re you feeling and how’s the heat?
Feeling good, and there was just a teeny little thundershower – the first since last summer. It’s nice and cool today.
Did you get your house dried out?
The carpet is still wet, but water doesn’t squish up when you walk on it now.
I’m glad the weather is cooperating with you.
I hope it dries out before mold starts to grow. That would suck. Are you going to have to take up the carpet?
I don’t think so, at least I hope not. I didn’t even thing of the mold. I had better get the newest dried towels and start working on the wet areas again.
We’ve got every window open and my thermometer say it’s about 85F in the house right now, so I’m hoping it dries out pretty quickly.
You could rent a big industrial fan from Home Depot or something to help dry it out. I think they use those after floods.
I’ve alread got two fans going between putting down towels and steping on them to soak up water. This has to be a self help type thing, so I’m having to go with what I got.
It is a pain in the butt though.
Drive-by
Feeling like a finalist for the Dead Duck Award today…
Gaaaaa! Back into the fray
Later
Peace
What is it? Great picture by the way.
Now I’ve got it. I thought it would be like another Zen Cohen.
That doesn’t sound good — hope things get better for ya…