The last two weeks have taken a toll on my cash flow. They say bad things come in threes and I’ve cycled through that at least a couple times now. Each time something decides to quit working it’s between $100 and $250 to replace — and then Mother Nature decided to pile on more.
Remember when I talked about having no power for hours this week?
I posted about how we didn’t have damage from Tuesday’s storm but were without power for hours. I wasn’t aware until yesterday that I was the cause of that outage!
After paying Fluff to clean up 2 fallen trees last week, the storm uprooted another tree in almost the same exact place. I wasn’t aware the tree had fallen across the power lines causing everyone on this road’s electric to go off.
REMC cut the top off releasing it from the lines that they then repaired. Fluff is coming back and I’ll hemorrhage some more money.
Other than a bajillion set-backs, all is right in my world.
Now you know: In Japan, there are services where you can rent a person to listen to you talk about your problems, no advice or judgment given. It’s part of Japan’s booming ‘rent-a-friend’ industry and is meant to help people who need someone to talk to without any strings attached.
We had over 2 inches of rainfall yesterday. Steady showers and storms caused the temp to go from around 90° to 69°. I know crops needed the rain and farmers were happy to get it. But not Merida! The second it thundered the first time, she’d already had enough.
Bloomington got hit harder than we did here — and I saw on FB some in Uniontown had several limbs down. My g/f Julie lives in Scipio, (about 20 minutes from here), and they got nothing. Here on the outskirts of the Ville we got the rain and some hail earlier in the afternoon, but otherwise came out unscathed.
EXCEPT… we were without power for hours.
I had a lengthy text exchange with my friend, Jeff, about his cat named Phil. That killed some time. As dusk settled in, we watched a doe grazing at the edge of the field where it joins the woods. Then, we listened to the dogs snore. I fell asleep on the chaise but not before I heard Perry start snoring on the couch.
What did people do in the early 20’s without power??
They didn’t stay up until 1:00 or 2:00 AM, that’s for certain. It’s pretty darned boring. At one point, I turned to Perry and said, “we could take a drive and see if any trees are down close to here.” I felt pretty dumb when he reminded me the garage door is powered by electric — and it’s a BIG ole’ door that’s heavy to open by hand.
Now you know: In 1925, only half of American houses had electrical power. Thanks in great part to FDR’s Rural Electrification Act of 1936, by 1945, 85 percent of American homes were powered by electricity, with virtually all homes having electricity by 1960.
Perry and I were talking last night about who invented coffee as a drink.
Because inquiring minds want to know, I asked my friend, Google, who wasn’t sure. I next asked ChatGPT and came away with the same results.
Best guess is that it was probably a goat herder.
Legend has it that Kaldi, an Ethiopian goat herder, noticed his goats were energetic after eating red berries from a certain tree. He reported his findings to a local monastery. The monks brewed a drink with the berries and found that consumption of the drink allowed them to stay awake during long hours of prayer.
I have a new appreciation for goat herders — and monks!
After one of the worst weeks ever, today will be a pool day. Coffee in hand, I plan to do as little as possible. After days in code working to fix a server challenge, I got a message on FB asking for a call regarding a website I created in 2011. Even without a calculator I know that’s been a long time.
Waste my time on a call? Nope. I responded on Facebook with the year I created the site and that I chose not to provide an RFP when asked at the time they did a rework… probably around 2016 or so. I got a response right away…
Practice retirement is back on. Yippee!
Now you know: Elephants stay cancer free as they have 20 copies of a key tumor-fighting gene; humans have just one.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could train dogs to recognize weekends? I’m talking about the days that many humans have off from the regular grind of a workweek. It’s when people would love to sleep in.
Habits are difficult for humans to break — it’s harder for dogs.
My hounds are accustomed to going outside at 5:30 AM. They expect to go out again at 7:30 AM with breakfast to follow immediately. That morning routine is the exact same every single day because they force their humans to comply.
Happy Saturday morning. It’s the butt crack of dawn. 😏
The pool steps are going in today and I’m thinking about mowing. So many hot days in the forecast without rain, I’m on the fence about that. I don’t want to cause the grass to burn and die (I guess), but it drives me crazy when the yard doesn’t look nice.
That’s a habit that I can’t seem to break after living in Seymour city for 10 years. I know rural living doesn’t require a manicured lawn. My body is thrilled about that, but my brain keeps forgetting.
Mr. Pesky’s garden looks GREAT!
I took a photo of Mr. Pesky’s garden yesterday when I went to help water it. So much goodness is growing in there…
Now you know: Most escaped mental patients just go home and resume their everyday activities.
So many people I know are retiring. Of course, that’s a sign that I’m old — especially since some of them are younger than I am. I’m in my 2nd week of practice retirement wondering if I want to commit to long hours in front of a computer and on the phone come fall.
Practice retirement brings me closer to nature.
Birds of all sorts love me. Hummingbirds have fresh food on the ready and the woodpeckers have a new hanging basket with goodies in a tree where I can see them feast.
On the downside, I’m also closer to snakes than ever before. Skin #2 was left at the front door.
Because of practice retirement, I get to be a Nana throughout the summer without the constraints of work hours getting in the way. (I know this won’t apply once the winter months are upon us.) I also have more quality time with the puppies.
Merida approves!
And finally, I have time to actually READ a book. It’s been years since I had my Kindle out or held a real book. I listen to audio books while cooking or taking a shower, but to actually sit down and read? I can’t remember the last time… until yesterday.
The saying, “time is money” is true. While I may not be doing a Disney vacation this summer, there’s plenty to do that old people on a fixed income can enjoy. (By fixed income, I mean ZERO since I’ve not filed for SSI.)
So far I’m good with this retirement training… but it’s still early days. 🙂
Now you know: The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling tested parachutes as a part time job. The amount of money he earned depended on the danger of the jump. In one instance, he earned $1,000 for testing a jet ejection seat that had killed the previous three testers.
