WEEKLY CHAT (non-osprey) SUNDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2019

Only 24 shopping days to Christmas!   

PatO:  There was a discussion on the radio this morning about Black Friday having spilled over into the preceding and following days and even weeks.  Watch out!  It will soon by Cyber Monday, to be followed by Giving Tuesday.  (Today is Small Business Saturday.)    Then it will be When Will-It-Ever-End Wednesday,  Thoroughly-Fed-up-with-It Thursday and For-Heaven's-Sake-Enough-Already Friday! etc., etc.....

Lindybird: Hope Tomasz had a super b/day and that you had a good ride home.

OG:  No speech necessary to Chat here!

Raining again today.   I went down to Ventura to look for a couple of things early this morning.  Found them all at TJMaxx after fruitless and overwhelming brief stop at the nearby mall, which was still very quiet that early.   If you know Ugg boots, the company that makes (Deckers) them has its corporate headquarters a mile from us just across the freeway - and an outlet store in Oxnard, where things are half price or less. This morning, they had Ugg ankle boots for $14.99 - all in large sizes (didn't need any; didn't buy any).   I watched a couple take an entire stack and load them into their car, presumably to sell somewhere else for more money, which I though was a bit rude, but nobody asked me.

Anyway, have a good Sunday all.  

  • Annette: I so wish I could go back to 2010 and make some different decisions.

    Lindy: That baby is so adorable!
  • LINDA - That babe is worth a cuddle.
    Developments around us. Last week Back-Fence busy with noisy diggers producing foundation trenches; today the rumble of cement trucks. Next-Door had a flurry on Fri & Sat with front yard rotary-hoed. It is starting to look less derelict.
  • Good Morning. AQ - Glad that there is progress, at least, on two fronts and hope that Next Door will soon be finished with disruption to your peace.

    Annette - thought for a minute there that we had gone forward in time, but backwards is OK as we will all be younger...... However Tomasz would only be one day old today instead of the 9 yr old young man he is now! Your description of the upset when you moved the desk filled me with terror, as we will have to unplug our desktop pc and move the entire messy desk it's on when they fit the new carpet, one week from now. Ugh.

    Lynette - Well done on noticing Annettes Time Machine -- I hadn't. Sorry you were sick but it sounds like one of those 24 hour stomach bugs which are going around. Hope you're recovered now.
  • Here's the view out of our bedroom window an hour ago:

  • What a beautiful sky, LINDY.
    The talk about desks and modems etc reminded me - I discovered, yesterday, that eldest son in law has moved all my OH's documents over to my PC, not just his pictures and has put a short cut icon on my screen. OG wondered about external storage. I think I might have something akin to that. There is a small box with an intermittent flashing light beneath my desk. My son may have installed it. He can't remember but will check when he comes to stay at the end of December.

  • Good morning! Weather is more of the same – possibly changing to warmer and wet mid-week. Have seen smaller Mouse (and OH said he saw it yesterday) – it has been clearing up dropped food when Robin was feeding on the tray - probably trying to refill his larder after Blackbird raid!

    SHEILA – good to see you posting – hope all is well with you.

    ANNETTE – our desks are corner workstations supported between stationary cupboards, so all the wires, cables, surge protectors etc are visible for the world to see. But them how often does the world come into the study? It’s probably only me who is offended by them! Pleased to see that you now have an improved signal.

    LINDA – pleased you had a good day with the family, and Tomasz enjoyed his birthday. Wee Rosie always looks so puzzled in photos, but she has such lovely big eyes! Lovely sunrise photo too.

    LYNETTE – sorry you were unwell yesterday – glad it didn’t linger.

    ANNETTE/DIANE – I wouldn’t want to go back to 2010 – I would still have that nightmare broken leg ahead of me!

    AQ - sounds like progress all around you, but a pity it is in summer when builder’s dust will be in the air.

    HEATHER – that gizmo does sound like an external/expansion drive on your PC – need to check whether that is where those added files reside. How many drives does your PC list? For example, mine goes up to “F”.

    Got a job to do for J – he wants me to check his license application form. It’s a beast of a document – a “one size fits all” form – “ if you answered x to y then go to Z.99 below”!
  • It's really cold here, and when I took the above pic, the ground beneath was white over. We now have some watery sunshine but its only warmed up to about one degree! Incidentally, the pic I took looks way much more red on my phone than the version which came up when I posted it on here, so actually quite disappointing!

    OG - Glad things are getting back to normal for you all, there. Can't believe its that long since you broke your leg - how time flies. Hold on, wait a minute, you don't say it was then that it happened, just that it was ahead.... I've jumped to conclusions. Good luck filling in the ghastly form: they can be a nightmare these days.

    Rosie did look puzzled by a lot of the proceedings yesterday, but we all laughed as she seems to spend a lot of time trying to make sense of things, and squinting closely at us: goodness knows what she makes of this strange world!  She has the most delightful grin when we can make her laugh, and so a lot of time was spent trying to capture it on film. No luck, however.

  • OG - I worked out how to find out about drives ( don't all clap at once !) Mine goes up to F. It looks as if I've got loads of space available....

  • PS the gizmo has 'my passport' written on it.
  • Morning all:

    Lindybird:  What I did was turn everything off, then follow each of the cords from beginning to end and try to not cross them with other component's wire when hooking it all back up. A not entirely successful undertaking.  In some cases, there were several feet of 'spare' cable and I gathered them up and tied them neatly, but in a couple of cases that created a pull on the device, tipping it over (and that's not even the heavy cable that goes into the wall, which I finally wedged between the bookcase and the wall to lessen the drag). We're going to be doing all this again too when we put in the new floor in the spring.    I just wish my OH would cull some of his books: He has four floor-to-ceiling bookcases in his office that are jammed with books and old files and make it impossible to work or clean in there; no room to swing a cat as they say.    Anyway.   It won't be long before Rosie will be reacting more definitively to the goings on  - so much fun to watch them then!   Re your sky photo, I took photos of the fire behind us last week and had the same experience.  The flames - even in daylight and with the sun on them - were a startling red, but turned out rather anemic in the photos.

    OG:  I'm not sure I can remember what was going on in 2010!  Maybe a good thing. :-)     I usually screw up forms right at the beginning by writing my first, middle and last name in the wrong order for that particular form. Or putting them below or above the correct line.  :-(  When I went to the Dept. of Motor Vehicles (with a driver's licence notice for that they'd sent me), they made me enter masses of basic info on a computer and I said to the lady,  "But I've been driving for 50 years! Surely you have all this info already?"  Got a typical bureaucratic response: "ours not to reason why...."

    AQ:  Do you know if this is a one- or two-story house that's going up?  Sounds like it will be going on for a  while yet....

    Garden is still thrilled to be damp and clean; more rain due tomorrow.  Take care all.