The Besttechie Cafe'

[thesidekickcat]

Calgon bubbling up and out of the pool and down the patio making a great skidzone, Liz how many wheelbarrowsful did you put in?

Glad you got the 'gators out first. And turning up the pool heat sounds really good to me, now can someone install those jacuzzi bubbler thingys just for my old achy back?

Tell Mom and Dad that those who want to see the Spring flowers need to do own gardening chores when they come back early...that ought to cure them if it is still cold when they get back.

Mac it is sure good to see you back on the boards, now you can sit back and watch me in real hot water elsewhere on the boards. Like I said earlier, I still have a temper and when someone in our board family is picked on I jump to their defense like a fourth of july rocket going off and all h... breaks loose. Ooops!

Just come back to get us/me back on the right track Mac by just your being here gabbing to us on a regular basis, and don't forget to start doing your funny stuff again please?

I think I'll head to bed pretty quick, that nice heated pool of calgon bubbles was sure soothing.

Love you all.

Pat

God bless everyone.

[bozodog]

Mmmmmm, a giant jacuzzi! That sounds great. And cold beers too? Ooohh yeah.

Liz, you didn't by any chance put the gators in the basement did you? Mac's been working on something down there and I'm not sure what may happen. Errr, do crocs have long fluffy fur?

[TheTerrorist_75]

I could stand some time in a hot tub right now followed by a deep massage. I decided to walk the mile and a half to the local grocery store to do my shopping. They had so many sales that I decided to load up. I bought a months worth of goods and then some. I like two for one sales. I ended up calling a cab to haul my all of it back. It took me about a half hour to put everything away except the meat. I placed that in the bottom of the fridge so I can wrap it for the freezer tomorrow. I was just getting ready to sit down and give my legs a rest when I realized I forgot a few items. I took off on another walk to the local convenience and dollar stores a half mile away. The walk back with several bags did me in. I need to start walking every day to get my muscles back in shape.

[robroy]

Me push you in the pool Liz? Who? Me? It wasn't me, nobody saw me and you can't prove it was me. Hehe

[macmarauder]

Liz, you didn't by any chance put the gators in the basement did you? Mac's been working on something down there and I'm not sure what may happen. Errr, do crocs have long fluffy fur?

well i haven't even been down into the labs since i left so i don't know what that might be.

[blim]

OK, OK, I've been in the basement....it's kinda chilly down there and the gators were getting cold. I tweaked 'em with some fur coats (fake fur!) Ummmm, you might want to check some things down there, though, Macmarauder....You KNOW how well I do tech....

And Robroy, you are such a bad liar!

Good for you, Terrorist, for the walking routine! Sandydog decided it was officially Spring, so we've been walking for the past few days--but she's as out-of-shape as I am---walking and romping at my parents house has her jumping up on the couch quite "slowly".

Pat, yup, there are years when my folks end up doing their own yard cleaning, depends on the weather. I'm a fair weather gardener and refuse to rake if I have to wear a winter coat or when there's snow on the ground. Raked over there today---geez, how I hate oak trees! They have leaf pick-up in their area and the spot in front of their house is FULL of leaves, and I only raked about 1/6th of the backyard! And all those little bitty branches. Of course, Sandydog decided when I was done (she LOVES to go over there) when I placed the tarp down to rake leaves onto and she decided it was time for "tug of war" instead of raking.

Liz

[JSKY]

Hey. I would love to have Oak trees. Try raking pine needles. I don't care what anyone says. Pine needles have to be the worst to try to rake. Next to trying to bag them up that is. OUCH

Yes it's spring here also. The wife has me outside fixing up the yard already. Maybe I need you all to sent me a couple of them gators, good reason to put it off for awhile longer.

But everything is comming along just fine. Now I should find a couple of goats so I can get away from the mowing of the grass.......

[blim]

Jsky, my trick with pine needles is to rake them into a snow shovel (my 'yard dustpan') and then dump the shovelful into the bag Works great with no owwies! Well, I dump them into the wheelbarrow and mulch my berries with them. My problem with pine trees is the myrtle patch I have underneath mine. Sandydog LOVES to lie in it and gets sap in her fur....and she's afraid of scissors (she's afraid of everything!)

You reminded me of a childhood memory! Our next door neighbors had a pony. My Dad would "borrow" the pony and tie him up in various places in the yard to cut the grass......And when my Mom and us kids would visit Grandparents in Michigan and he'd get lonely....he'd bring the pony into the house, "testing the floor strength", he'd say Yeah, he's eccentric!

Spring has finally sprung up here. Daffidols and forsythia are blooming---as my old neighbor would say, "the yellows are out" and my backyard smells like violets. Great time to hang laundry on the line! I just want to get digging in my garden--Parent's house first, as they're due up here in about 10 days (their backyard is almost done, but then frontyard, alley and the inside of the house still need to be cleaned and I can't count on Sister's help!) then I'll tackle my yard (I HOPE! Ugh, Jury Duty next week)

Liz

[bozodog]

Mmmmm, can't wait for baked ham and all the fixin's Sunday.

[thesidekickcat]

Well folks I guess I'd better tell you all what's been going on last couple of days here. The good news is I survived it all and doing so much better than I expected to be feeling today...still sore and black and blue but not as hurting to bad considering....!

So to save typing with sore hand, I will copy part of a PM I sent to someone yesterday, so this is what happened yesterday. Seems like stuff just comes along and throws a monkey wrench into the best laid plans every so often just to see if you are paying attention.

Written yesterday;

Ten minutes or so after I checked out the new thread posts over here this morning, I decided I'd better get back to work preparing for our vacation. We are either leaving tomorrow or Sunday for a week at the coast. So have been getting the motorhome ready little by little this week, but most work to be done today and tomorrow, like major cooking projects etc for today, and washing and loading clothes tomorrow and loading food into MH refrig (hubby will now be doing more of that now).

So I was going to finish watering my houseplants today before my late breakfast, the high ones that are hard to get to...well I got one batch done, and got up on step stool to bring down the small ones off refrigerator (I water the back big ones in place), coming down I slipped and missed the last step and fell hard on my right side across kitchen into stove so hard the oven door metal trim caught my blouse sleeve tight as I scraped my whole right arm on the now broken trim going on down to floor. (noticed after supper that the freestanding stove had moved catywampus about a couple of inches! So I wonder if it hadn't moved if I would have broken oven door glass or me?) So after I disentangled my sleeve from metal trim, and checked to see if I broke any thing besides the trim...like me... I got up shaking and crying. Thank God no broken bones, but lots of bruises from shoulder to elbow and skin scraped off in places, and bruised side of hip/thigh, and right hand has metal sliver in it and is bruised too. So thankful it wasn't alot worse! Called hubby after limping to bed to lie down for a few minutes because I was still shaking so much. Poor hubby, like what can he do for me 25 or so miles away? But he was so sweet trying to calm me down, and asking if I needed him to come home to go to Kaiser to be Xrayed etc. Well no I didn't, just wanted to calm down from being so mad at myself for trying to bring down 2 plants at a time instead of doing 2 trips up/down step stool.

You'd think at 61 I would learn to use some common sense about things...noooo! I have to learn it all the hard way over and over again repeating those hard lessons that I forget. Sigh!!!

So finally decided I'd better get busy before I stiffened up, to get all my stuff for the day done...yes I did remember finally to eat that late breakfast. So I made a huge potato salad, oh boy was peeling all the spuds, shelling the hard cooked eggs, cutting up spuds and eggs, and mixing it all up, alot of fun with a sore hand, not to mention sore everything else!!!

Did lots of other stuff too, then mail came late and as I checked it out, found a letter from our MH insurance company saying they can't get Oregon DMV to accept the electronic insurance notice because of an incorrect VIN #. Except it is correct but by time the mail came it was to late on East Coast to call to straighten it out with them, so luckily our agent (AON), is based up in Seattle area so called them and hopefully they can get it straightened out with Insurance Company and with Oregon. Said we would still have insurance coverage so to go ahead and go on vacation and have fun. I can't figure out why Oregon is having a problem with the VIN #, we have had the MH since 1988 and that's the correct #. In fact just recently took MH through DEQ for emissions testing (passed with flying colors!) and the attendant checked the VIN sticker by door of MH and compared it to computer and it was OK then!!! So why the problem now, other than to bug me on a hard day???

Back to today now...well as you can see I could have easily busted shoulder/arm/hip/leg...oh yeah my head too! But no broken bones, in fact my back and neck feel pretty good considering how hard I landed (actually didn't break the flower pots either just spilled their contents and had to repot the plants!)! I was doing my back exercises last night and today and I have had various vertebra 'snapping' into place that never would even for chiropractor when I used to go to one. My back feels remarkably pain free...sure wish I could say the same about my right arm! It is many shades of black/blue/reds/ etc from shoulder to elbow. My thigh is similarly colored but not as sore yet, or arm pain is cancelling it out? I did take alot of aspirin over course of day/night yesterday until my ears rang...so cut back to day. Am taking Vit C (Ester C) for the bruises, and extra MSM for speedier healing and for muscle pain relief. Did more MH packing today, and will finish off last minute stuff early tomorrow. Nice to have tempature about 60, compared to over 80 yesterday (our first 80 degree day). We did end up with a couple of good showers just before supper, but hubby had finished mowing the lawn so that worked out ok.

Oh here is some potato salad for everyone...I made alot...so enjoy! Not as good as my usual though, been trying to remember what I forgot in my secret mayo mix? Anyone care to guess? Oh well it's still good, and have some of the chicken too...it's done in a special convection air type cooker, called a Flavor Wave, that drains the fat off as it cooks so it looks and tastes like fried but without the fat!

Saw a young man at Walgreens pharmacy counter today that had had a bad spill off his motorcycle yesterday and got 21 stitches on his leg but when he saw my arm he said he was luckier than me as he wasn't that bruised at least not yet! I said I'd rather be bruised than stitched up! So we laughed about our mishaps. I asked the pharmacist what to watch out for like clots or whatever with that much bruising since we will be out in the boonies all week, he told me to head to an emergency room if hard to breathe, or if heart or brain acting weird could be traveling clots...so how do I tell if my head is any weirder than normal??? Also he said to rub strong alcohol on arm....made motion of drinking... I said do I drink it (would have been tempted to yesterday if anyone had offered me any!) or rub it on arm? He said rubbing it on arm would make bruising heal faster! I never heard that one before! Since I don't drink and don't want to smell like a brewery I guess that's out. He did say to massage arm often to loosen it up!! OOOWWW!!!

Been typing to much even with the copying from a PM I sent yesterday, did I mention my thumb to forefinger of right hand is all swollen too? I do many things left handed (both hubby and I were strongly persuaded to switch from left to right as toddlers), but some things I normally only do right handed like holding my coffee mug and am finding out just how much I really do use right hand as it definitely tells on me! So does arm if anything brushes it. So will be an interesting vacation....sigh!

Love you all!

Pat

God bless everyone.

[blim]

Oh, my gosh, Pat!

Sure hope you start feeling better FAST! Are you sure you didn't break anything, young lady? And if you're going on vacation, if you smell like a brewery, so what? You likely aren't going to run into anyone you know, and if you do, just explain your "therapy"! The alcohol treatment sounds good (although, I'd probably opt for the "inside-out effect" )

Are you caught up on your tetnus? They say once every ten years and that piece of metal that got stuck in you certainly merits a shot if you arent current (might as well get it in your already sore arm instead of having BOTH arms sore)

You now deserve a wonderful vacation! Hoping it turns out great!

I spent most of the day in the gardens. Planted carrot and spinach seeds (late, crossing the fingers) and only have the West side of the house to go (and that's the worst--neighbor's dogs decided the flowerbed was a perfect place to poop, so I gave up on it last summer)

Even after a shower and washing dishes, my fingernails are still dirty....oh well, an artists hands are always ugly. Fingers are sore, knees are sore, but not as sore as you are, Pat, I'm sure! Creeping Charlie is still making me mad. Discovered it must be a good year for that (wasn't sure if it was my compost or a "banner year"). I drove past the plots that 3rd graders plant flowers in annually and the plots were stuffed with it!

Liz

[bozodog]

Oohh my, Pat. That's no way to start a vacation. Thank God it wasn't worse. I don't know what kind of stepstool you have, but the ones with the tall hand grip is the best to use. They even have one that has a little shelf/tray on it. Personally I leave all the high reach stuff for my 6'4" Sweet Brit. Heh heh

Liz, our garden is doing great! We had to put covers on the maters and peppers two nights because of frost warnings. The lilacs are just opening and suddenly everything is green! Waiting for the radishes and green onions to sprout. And SB is so proud of his new and improved lawn... the grass is coming up fine after his maniacal bout with the tiller.

[robroy]

hope you are ok Pat. know what you mean about not learning to slow down a little. we still think we can do what we did when we were twenty, but we can't

[TheTerrorist_75]

When I trashed my ankle playing softball my leg from the knee down to the tips of my toes turned almost solid black from bruising. I used Asorbine Jr to relieve the pain and reduce the bruising. It worked quite well.

[macmarauder]

wow thesidekickcat i hope that you get better real soon and have tons of fun on your vacation. you are 1 of the nicest people ever!!! and deserve better.

(builds her a super duper step stool hand rail)

i just want to say again thank you to everyone for caring about me.

ok so now how my day went. well i'm not feeling well again, i had a real bad day with the party yesterday and today sucked from trying to vall people to smooth things over. but i did get to meet someone that i talk to all the time online and that was really fun. she had a bunch of old apple computers that she wanted to get rid of and she let me have them. but on the way back i started to have another episode while driving. i made it home fine but i had to cry for a bit when i got home and then after talking to sara on the phone i felt like shit again. so i'm not doing well.

2 of my friends are getting married in about a month and it's like people have gone even crazier than usual. and Rich and Rosa have now gotten on everybody else's nerves instead of just mine. but no body wants to deal with it. i'm just an antisocial repressed nerd, i never dealt with all this drama crap like most people did in high school so i don't have any experience like most and i've still got my own mental problems to deal with. and it's getting harder and harder to keep my secrets from people. and to top it off i screwed up things with Lindy, so much for that attempt at a life. and i'm it's getting harder and harder to hold all my secrets in, i'm really thinking just blurting them out online at least.

this moment of whining and complaining has been brought to you by macmarauder productions

where crap slides up hill too

[bozodog]

*sends the robotic super duper pooper scoopers over the hill and dale to clean up Mac's path to health and happiness.

[macmarauder]

thanks bozodog.

now if i could just build a machine to get rid of the nightmares and the inability to have a trusting emotional relationship then i'd be set. although i think that i would feel alot better if i just used a meat grinder on the person that is the source of my nightmares. but i just can't do something like that.

[blim]

Use the imaginary meatgrinder, Macmarauder, you'll feel better! Or a Gypsy Curse.

As far as Lindy (new interest, I take it?) keep trying, keep being your sweet self and in time, who knows, you might end up with her!

Some engaged couples can be a royal pain in the patootie--they think the entire world revolves around their big day. Normal, and after they settle into married life, they get "ordinary" again

It's been cold here and I've been "jonesing" to play outside. Argghh . Well, today I put on a second sweatshirt and tackled the Boston Ivy on the West side of the house while the sun was shining on it--the ivy got totally out of hand. Now I have a nice space to transplant a bleeding heart, a rhodie and some hostas that need to be moved. A gardener who has a plot of "bare ground" is a gardener in Heaven! Just need to decide who is going to go where!

THEN it's off to Sister's house to get a load of horse manure now that "most" of the weeds and crabgrass are pulled. Finally, Hubby's precious truck is going to be useful, I can get a BIG load of sh*t Maybe tomorrow if it warms up.

Yup, been gardening my head off since opening my parent's house. I have a deadline.

My "nut with a walker" is due to be released from the nursing home on Thursday and then my free time will likely be limited. Argghhh again . It's been great while she was in "the Manor"--she's been well taken care of and too busy to "need me" more than about once a week. Makes me mad, she is flourishing in the nursing home and once she's released, she'll slip right back to not eating, not taking her medicines, not exercising and she'll get sick again. The past year she has developed a definite pattern. Even a "rant of concern" with the Home's So-so worker fell on deaf ears (he had the personality of a treestump!). So I got ticked off and ended it with "well, she'll be back in two weeks!"

At least I'm getting "good" experience for IF my parents ever "get old" (Robroy, they still act like they're in their twenties and don't suffer the concequences!! Heck, my 72 year old Mom LOVES punk rock )

Liz

Edited May 7, 2006 by blim

[macmarauder]

thanks blim i'll use the imaginary one especially since i don't wanta even touch gypsy curses.

as far as Lindy, i tried and failed but that's ok.

the weather has been weird here, it went from hot days to.... we actually had snow overnight a few days ago. sure it melted and dried by 9am but weird.

[bozodog]

So Mac, what kind of projects are you up to now? I could use a herd of robotic weeders for my flower gardens. Can you build them like little bunnies that ONLY eat weeds?

[macmarauder]

well i do have some Goabbits. a mix of Goats and Rabbits and that's exactly what they do.

well for projects i've got neat 1 to tell you guys about. i was at an estate sale auction and there was this old railroad model landscape thing. instead of a real rail road it was a crappy toy train track and instead of being made of foam it is made of paper mache and it was all busted up. 1 of the mountains came completely off and nobody even wanted it. so i bought it for a bid of $2.50 plus tax. it's about 5ft 6 X 4ft. i'm trying to fix it up, replace the crappy wide wooded toy track with more landscape and a eventually a real outdoor train track. and i'm gons try to patch it up and water proof it so that i can put it outside. here's some pictures of what i got done so far.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y195/macmarauder/RR1.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y195/macmarauder/RR2.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y195/macmarauder/RR3.jpg

all the lard white spots are patches that i made using bathtub cocking. at the top around the mountain there was a 3" wide gap where the toy track used to go. the imbedded it into the landscape for some reason which made the mountain com completely off and 1 of the large balancing rock things on the bottom left come completely off too. now i've got that all patched and carved and now it's time to paint. Oohhh and while i was at the auction i also bought an old broken water fountain that nobody really wanted. all the concrete stuff is busted good but there was a water pump built into it that btw works now. it lives again and i when the model is done i'm gona put the water pump into the model and flow actual water through the river and back to the pump.

[bozodog]

Jeesch Mac, how will you get a train to run outdoors? Err, I mean will it be an electric one like "N" gage or HO? Too bad I need too much $$ for this(almost antique) "N" New York Central Passenger set up. I have tons of track and even the transformer.

Mmmm......... The goabbits look like they can do the job. Cute lil' rascals.

[blim]

Oh, wow, Macmarauder, that is going to be one great project! Good idea using caulk for patching. Can't wait to see what you do with it

My Dad had old electric trains--no idea what happened to them, he probably gave them all to a nephew. All I remember is that we had them in Chicago set up in the basement and we didn't have them once we moved to Michigan

Dreary, dreary, dreary day......still raining with maybe a break on Tuesday and back to rain. I need sun!

Liz

[bar5]

Pretty much same wather here also. Was 69 degrees and the rain came and temp went to 59 degrees in about 15 min. Calls for rain, thunderstorms all week. Temp flucuating between 70-60. Crazy weather all over.

Oh well, not much I can do about it. Can't worry about something I can not control.

Barb

[thesidekickcat]

Hello everyone!

Yes I am back, just haven't had time to really sit down and talk much. Had a lot of pages here to catch up on the other day with short posts to some threads, but no time for real talk.

Thanks for the well wishes from you folks for me to recover from my bad fall before our vacation. The well wishes and prayers must have worked, as I felt so much better than I expected to feel considering how hard I fell. Still some stiffness and soreness, but most of the bruises are gone now...I wore different colored print shirts as the bruise colors changed so they would blend in! Ha! It was hard to sleep though, I'd turn over in my sleep and yelp in pain and wake hubby, cat, and me up several times a night! I did wonder if it was wise not to have gone in for a checkup though after a few days with various body parts from shoulder to ankle kicking in with swelling and pain...saying 'my turn'! But I seem to be ok, except my eyesight seems to be worse ever since the fall....which is weird since I don't think I hit my head. As soon as I catch up on some stuff around home, I will finally make that long procrastinated Eye Dr appt.

TT, I hadn't thought of Absorbine Jr in years. My Dad always had it on hand when I was a kid falling out of trees etc. It did seem to help the scrapes and bruises back then.

Liz, I didn't even think of a tetanus shot. Haven't had one in years, and have tried to get a booster at various normal Dr appointments but the Drs always say only can get it when I need it after an accident. Seems like a dumb policy to me! Seems like if it lasts for several years it shouldn't be only given on a need basis! Most of my scrapes aren't serious enough to go to urgent care and wait for hours just to get a booster shot. Oh well, that's modern medicine nowadays!

I got brave today and got back up on the stepstool to water those top of refrigerator plants again....very carefully!!! Kind of scared me, but I knew I had to face up to doing it sooner or later and figured I might as well do it before the plants croaked from lack of water. Yes it is a good sturdy stepstool, though Thanks Mac for making it better with a superdooper handrail.

You are so sweet Mac. I am glad to see you posting some funny stuff again, and for sharing with us how things are going with you. It's ok to talk with us...we're all family here...and we love you! By the way, more of us than you can imagine have had challenging relationship problems, and are in various stages of healing from not so perfect lives whether childhood or later problems...it's all part of growing and learning how to overcome the stresses from not so normal childhoods etc. My hubby has similar problems emotionally I think to yours, where for him it was not safe to open up as a kid, so has had alot of trouble to learn how to communicate with anyone especially about his inner thoughts and feelings. Plus his dyslexia is a problem too. So writing things down is hard for him too. Says he never ever felt part of family (was orphaned when less than a year old but raised part of life by family members) or groups etc so is a 'loner' by introverted nature and by self protection too I think. Actually I think there are more of us that have had problems than the quote unquote normal kids/adults. The various media would have us believe there is a better "normal" out there...but I gave up looking for it years ago as I finally figured out that what I do with my life and inner growth/maturity whatever you call it is up to me...and that is my 'normal'! Made a lot more sense than trying for some fantasy normal that isn't me/my life. So hope that rambling made some sense for you to think about Mac. Keep striving to grow, even in scary areas, to go forward to peace with yourself, and acceptance as you let each day be a better day than one before. Sure there will be setbacks, but pick up and step forward again, or as in my case making myself stepping up...on a scary stepstool (well it was a do it or else thing for me!) I heard Joyce Meyers (a lady preacher on tv,radio and the author of many books, an overcomer a terrible childhood abuse from her father) say something once that helps me at times..."Do it afraid"! That makes sense to me to overcome stuff without trying to cover all the bases...for me it is trust God and go forward while doing it afraid.

Gotta get this done soon, hubby will be home hot and hungry in a few minutes.

Did I mention we are in a heat wave? Yesterday was 96 degrees here, officially was 93 at the airport I think. The north and central Or coast had mid to high 90's too which is just unheard of. I am so glad we weren't at the coast this week, esp since our air conditioner on mh is old, broken and not worth fixing. So high 80's today and tomorrow, and maybe cooler by weekend but with thundershowers. Our state broke high temp records all over the place yesterday for this early in May. We have had it hotter later in month, 100 I think once.

Hubby home, so see you all later, sorry no time to proof read this or spell check either.

Love Pat

God bless everyone