Holy Carp, I'm sore

The second coat of varnish went on flight 2 Friday and flight 3 was prepped for taping. That and a third cost for flight 2 and the taping and first coats for flight 3 are the plan for Saturday. If Ms. P gets the first coat on flight 3 before 1 p.m., she plans to go back 8 hours later and do the second coat - with the third coat on Sunday, following the detaping of the other flights. Note, this plan leave fudge factor on Sunday if things do not go as planned.

The three steps at the entry? Next weekend, doing alternate stairs so that entry and exit remain possible.

And then Ms. P plans no further projects for at least a month. Please. She hurts in places she did not know she had places. There is still the matter of unrolling, mothproofing and rerolling the oriental carpets which Joe says they can store for me until the floors are done. But that's an afternoon's labor each, not the death march of this past week.

It's been an utter and complete blessing to stay at Marleen & Joe's - not only as a respite from CONSTRUCTION ZONE, but also because knowing that I need to go tend dogs has kept me from staying on too long and doing too much. About the time that I've really had it, the watch tells me it's time to go exercise dogs or such.

Time for a cuppa tea and an Aleve.

Never forget, never forgive until Islam is *gone*

Stranger and stranger

Well, when I got back from work, the first set of surveyors stakes were all gone and a different set in their place (in entirely different places). And a bunch of plate sized holes have punched in the concrete of the driveway. But nothing else.

Ms. P nonetheless left her chariot at the foot of the hill - it was a little late to be pulling into the neighbor's driveway, waking their 2 large dogs and clambering up through the ivy. Instead she parks across the street and did the buns and thigh workout by walking up the driveway.

At this rate, the driveway might be done by Christmas.

Now, Ms. P on the other hand? Third coat on the very top flight; first coat on the next flight down. Tomorrow morning the plan is to remove the tape from stage 1, put a second coat on stage 2 and start the prep on stage 3 - which is also the longest of all the flights. I need to move the bundle of quarter round and pull the covers and staples etc. But if I can get that part done Friday a.m. and tape it and first coat it Saturday before noon, I can get 2 coats on Sunday - early am and late pm and by Monday night? walkable. Meanwhile, stage 2 will get a third coat Saturday. Ms. P will not get home until 8:30 or later Friday, so she doubts she will have time or energy to start taping Friday night - but all things are possible.

Got to get more varnish and more blue tape. But I'm really seeing that this can get finished before I go to bed Sunday night. The last flight of 4 steps? That's going to be harder because I'll probably have to do them while using them. But I had to do this top down or I wouldn't have been able to work on more than one section at a time, so ... However, this entire exercise does not fill Ms. Packratty's heart with joy thinking about the painting of the risers and the stringers. That will have to happen slowly and, Ms. P suspects will be just as painful as the varnishing, although it won't involve all the vacating of the premises. The taping will be much more critical, however.

Enough woodworking though - the big news at work, other than the VP shuffle, is that The Conservative Corporation that Ms. Packratty labors for has actually decided to allow women to wear open toed shoes - although not sandals of any sort. Ms. P doubts this will truly affect her much, as the shoes available for her large boats that are also not painful to wear are generally lacking in anything that might be termed "style". However, the dress code amendments came with some vigorous restating of other standards, including the requirement that skanky tattoos must be concealed, that earrings may not dangle to the shoulders and that clothing may not be skintight or see-through, all offenses by some of her co-workers that have made her shudder (and feel cranky about) in recent months. If Ms. P has to obey the rules, she expects everyone else to have to obey the same damn rules.

Progress Report

Well, the driveway at Joe and Marleen's had stayed completely untouched. Then a surveyor came. Then nothing. I was no longer getting up early and shifting the car down the hill. So of course, this is the day the heavy machinery started to arrive. But once again, that might have been a false start, because when i came back from taping stairs and going to the dentist (where a tooth cleaning uncovered yet another damaged filling that wants replacing), the heavy equipment was gone and the surveyors were back.

Joy.

Getting some real traction on the stair project, the second flight is taped and I'll third coat the first flight and first coat the second one tonight and move on to prepping the third flight tomorrow morning when I have an even longer morning - I don't go to work until 4 p.m. I think I may be done with everything but the first mini-flight (4 steps) by the time Mar and Joe return.
Please, I hope, hope, hope. I need to reroll and mothball the rugs and keep moving steadily toward getting the floors laid. We're getting there. It's slow, but Ms. P really feels, for the first time, that she has really finally got some traction on getting this project done.

House Pixie

The House Pixie put the crowbar back into the toolbucket. The toolbucket that Ms. Packratty moved twice while searching for the crowbar.

My House Pixie has an odd sense of humor. Ms. P wishes he or she would return my missing earring.

How do you misplace a crowbar?

I had it the other day. I used it to pry up tread covers. I had it in my hand Saturday and this morning? So missing.

I don't mind having multiple pliers. Or even having 2 hammers (they are different weights). Extra screwdrivers are a good thing. But I refuse to buy a second crowbar.

Holy carp, losing a CROWBAR? in a 1200 sf condo? I know I either leaned it against something or put it down someplace where it couldn't fall over and go bang and now it's just missing (and I may have just remembered where - since I brought in a box from Mark & Liana's house Saturday night ....)

In other notes, prep on the second flight? Every single staple came out - only two broke and had to be yanked with vise grips. No countersinking. Karmic payback for Saturday? Or will section 3 break my heart as I get overconfident? Perhaps it's the blood sacrifice. I knocked my head on one of the newel posts and have a 1/4 inch cut on my forehead. Section 2 is ready for taping - section one was sanded, wiped and got the second coat of varnish. Taping on section 2 begins this evening.

Painful Progress

I have some degree of victory. The second shortest flight of the four has been prepped, taped and gotten coat one of varnish. It's been quite a learning process that I am sure is not over and my blistered, cut and abused fingers bear testimony.

I learned that if staples won't pull out, yanking on them until your fingers are blistered is not smart. Also, take off your jewelry, as that only makes blisters worse.

There are pliers that can cut off the sharp bits very close to the woood, however, finding the sharp bits by running your hand over the tread is a good way to get cut.

Once the staples have been trimmed down as far as you can, a countersink is your best friend. So is wood filler that is color coordinated to the type of wood.

Blue tape is good stuff. So are kneepads. So are tack cloths.

Ms. Packratty is estimating that she can get about half the prep work done on the next section of stairs tomorrow after her early appointment and before reporting for work at 3 p.m. That would be removing the tread covers, pulling all the staples possible, countersinking the ones she can't pull and putting woood putty in the resulting holes. She also hopes to do the light sand, tack cloth wipe and a second coat of varnish on section one before she goes to work

The worst part of the prep, the taping, she hopes to start tomorrow evening, after work and after exercising dogs. If Ms. P can spend so much as 45 minutes at it, she will be in far better trim on Friday morning, when her worktime is neatly bisected by a dental appointment.

Friday morning would be her chance to repeat the revarnish for coat 3 on the first section. If section two is taped and wiped down, a first coat could go on that Friday afternoon and a second on Saturday morning and the third Saturday evening.

Section 3, the longest run of stairs, would be the Saturday and Sunday project In between the varnishing on section 2. The plan would be to pull the covers and prep and start taping, with the hopes of getting 2 coats on the stairs Sunday. Since Ms. P won't be back home until Monday evening, two coats should be sufficient to make it through the week with a third coat applied on Saturday and the final 4 step section for later. If need be, the bottom section could be done in alternate steps so it could be used even though it was being worked on. Ms. P simply hopes she does not wake up tomorrow feeling as though she has been thrashed and pummelled.

Now, the pictures:

Before - tread covers off, no other work:

Taped and prepped:

And finally - first coat on - isn't that oak PRETTY?

A few complications

The Stair Project has hit some complications. First, the staples that had secured the temporary tread covers were coming out in pieces, leaving other sharp little pieces sticking up. Wrestling with them cost me several hours of sweating, a blister on my right index finger and about $22 in new pliers, to little avail.

I also managed to slice my left index finger in the same spot as the blister on my right - right on the pad of the middle section of the finger. Right where almost everything you do hurts. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

So back to Home Depot on the advice of a friend to get a countersink. So I will shortly go back to the house and simply countersink the sharp little buggers and wood putty the holes. But not until after I get Norman washed. It is not easy looking after a herd of terriers and those puppies poop like geese.

And, of course, the people who swore to Joe that they were starting work on the driveway this morning? So not here.

Ouch

I have blisters. Getting the staples that secured the covers to the treads out has been miserable. I cannot find the tool I used to do the job before nor my vise grip pliers. A stop at Home Depot is indicated if I am to get the sharp little spikes out.

However, I have some of the job done and an idea of what I am facing. I may not get the entire thing done this week. I am NOT going to try to paint the risers - only to do the varnishing. The risers can be done one or two at a time.

And I didn't get to devote a great deal of time to the house today. There were two dogs dropped off this morning, so I waited around for that to happen. And I am due for dinner with Mark & Liana shortly, so I am flying out of here, wine bottles clanking in a cooler!

Hoarding lightbulbs

Ms. Packratty has a serious issue with the push to force people to use compact fluorescent bulbs. There's a light quality - to her they are sort of the processed cheese food of light bulbs - but they also contain mercury. And people are not going to recycle them, they are going to throw them in the trash.

So anyway, she's been stuffing light bulbs by the box into the tall space at the top of the linen closet and today, when she was picking up some wood putty and sandpaper for the coming stair finishing festivities, her local Home Depot had a special. Boxes of 4 60 watt bulbs for 25 cents a BOX. Ms. Packratty bought $5 worth - 80 bulbs. They are some weird offbrand, but Ms. P suspects she will nonetheless get more than 6.25 cents worth of use out of each of them.

And speaking of energy, Ms. Packratty had commented on a friend's Facebook that she was desirous of purchasing a bottom freezer fridge unit as she is tall and tired of bending over to see the contents of the fridge and having to kneel on the floor when the fridge needs a thorough cleaning. Another friend of her friend posted a reply pompously informing her that a bottom freezer was less efficient than a top freezer and that Consumer Reports blah blah blah. So when Ms. Packratty was in the Home Depot, she compared the energy estimates on a GE bottom freezer fridge of 22 CF and one for a top freezer of 21.8 (close enough, in other words). The big energy savings that Ms. Packratty should sacrifice her back and knees for? FIVE dollars a YEAR. Five hundred pennies 41.6 CENTS a month. Yes, indeedy. That's advice from Consumer Reports on the par with their ridiculous advice on dog and cat food, in which they posited that corn and starch-laden cheap foods were a better value than meat protein based foods. Which is when CR basically lost most of their credibility with Ms. Packratty.

Speaking of consumer issues - have you ever felt like screaming at the television over an advertisement? This morning, Ms. Packratty was running around preparing for work when an ad appeared on the television. In the ad, this purported mother was talking about how her child - who appeared to be four or five years old - would not eat - "anything green" or this or that, "until it finally began to affect her growth" when "mom" consulted the doctor, who "told" her to feed the kid a canned vitamin-enhanced milkshake called Pediasure. Excuse me? What is happening to parents? Do they not have the sense to deal with their own children? Letting a child pull something like that over eating to the extent they were worried about their health is insane. Absolutely, totally insane. And any doctor who would prescribe fortified milkshakes as an alternative to real food for an otherwise healthy child ought to be defrocked.

Someone Ms. Packratty knows was confronted with a grandchild who was using eating as a way to control his parents. The Wise Grandmother invited the parents to leave the grandchild with her at the beach and for the parents to go off and have a vacation of their own. The first time grandson declined what was offered at a meal as well as the proffered leftovers from a prior meal and demanded something not on the menu, the Wise Grandmother looked calmly at the Picky Grandson and said "You must be ill, if you can't eat this nice whatever. Let's get you into bed for the afternoon." So while other children were with their Wise Grandfather at the beach and tennis court, the Picky Grandson spent the afternoon in bed. At dinner, the PG again declined the offered dinner or a chicken sandwich and demanded a hamburger and french fries. The Wise Grandmother again looked at him and said "That isn't what we have tonight. If you can't eat the ham or a chicken sandwich, you must still be feeling ill. Off to bed with you." And the PG spent the evening in bed while the other grandchildren had ice cream, played Monopoly and went to the movies at the Beach Club.

The next morning, the PG threw a temper tantrum at breakfast, refusing scrambled eggs, oatmeal or Cherrios and demanding some chocolate flavored cereal. The WG put him right back in bed and so it went for another entire day. On the evening of the second day, the PG actually ate some of his boiled shrimp, but refused salad, rice and the other parts of the dinner, so he got no dessert and had to go to bed early. But lo and behold, on the next morning, the PG came out of the young boys' bunkroom at the beach house early and found his Grandfather making some oatmeal and marched up and said "Grandpa, may I please have some oatmeal with brown sugar?" And that was that. Ever after, all his mother or father had to do if he started playing food games was to put him to bed because a boy who won't eat "must be feeling ill". You can't cater to those sorts of games with children. Pediasure - for a perfectly healthy child? The problem there isn't the child's nutrition, but a lack of calcium in the parental spines.

And now, if you will excuse her, Ms. Packratty really is going to the dogs. She needs to head out of here and go tend the pooches and collect her overnight bag.

So much for cash for clunkers

Observed this Sunday at a local parking lot. Seriously, folks, if the cops pull people over for a burned out brake light, exactly how does this thing make it even a mile down the road?

This is sheer insanity that something like this is allowed to move on the public streets. But there it is.

As I was walking into the store this was parked in front off, I saw a man coming out with a very odd expression on his face. I turned and watched, and it was the owner of this hunk of junk. He struck me as having ... problems deeper than the condition of his ride.




The monthly death march of month end close has started and, off course, GA 400 did me in this morning. I left the house with a 15 minute margin of error and ended up late - not only did I use up the margin, but another 18 minutes besides. One disabled car and a 4 car fender-bender caused the road to back up for close to 20 miles and 40 minutes. Go figure. Imagine if it had happened during real rush hour instead of between 9 and 10 a.m.?

I'm also very pleased - I used a Tuesday Morning gift certificate that was about to expire to snag an Outward Hound dog booster seat for the PU's pup who likes to see out and tries to ride in laps. Now I just have to get it all mailed. I have about a crate of stuff to send down there.

I am still trying to make sense of the new camera, but perhaps I'll have a chance to study it in the evenings at Marleen's next week. Turns out there will be three pups in residence rather than two, but my feeling is - what's 50% more poop? You''re cleaning up after two, might as well clean up after three. And there's the fun factor - watching three puppies is about 500% more amusing than two. Pictures, I hope, to follow. Along with pictures of the work on the house. I hope.

Charlie Rufus, Terrier Extraordinaire

I'm very proud of my Charlie this week for a couple of reasons.

Saturday morning, Charlie went with me to the Peachtree Road Farmer's market . It's a very exciting place for a dog - lots of people of all ages, other dogs, good smells, the possibility of scraps of something tasty, as well as the lady with the home-baked doggie treats.

Charlie was in fine form Saturday, he was behaving very well and making friends left and right and really being very good. he sat quietly and let any number of small folks pat him - I've been very pleased with his tolerance for the attentions of children. But then, on our way out, we stopped to get a few yellow squash and some figs at the Taylor's booth and there was a little girl with glorious red curls who was watching Charlie with a mixture of fear and curiosity. I asked her if she wanted to pat him and she shrank away in fear. Just as I was thinking "What a pity for a little girl to be so fearful", her father who was standing behind me, told me that a large dog had jumped in their car when she was small and licked her all over the face while she was in the baby seat and couldn't fend him off and that she had been scared ever since.

Well, I sat down on the curbing and asked the little girl, whose name was Susannah, if she would pat Charlie if I held him tight so that he would not lick her, that it would be up to her to touch him. And darned if my little fellow didn't snuggle up to me and sit patiently while this little girl got her courage up to pat him. Not once or twice, but a dozen times. She even got the nerve up to look at his face and ask me why his eyes had black rims and why his lips were black. And then she went over to the dog treat lady, picked out a treat and put the treat on the ground right in front of my boy. And he didn't snarf it or gulp or grab, he picked it up and carried it.

Then later, at Marleen's, he was out on the back patio and he was patiently letting the two Norwich pups and Jack's son chew on him, chase him and generally harass him, without any impatience with the pups. Nancy seemed to realize that he was no danger to the pups as she made no effort to get between them and him.

All in all, my dear boy did very well and behaved like the dog I've been hoping he would become. Good boy, Charlie.

And the Rains Came ...

Somewhere around 5 a.m. Friday, Ms. Packratty was awakened by the thunderous drumming of rain on the roof. No thunder - just a torrential blast of rain that apparently dropped about 2-3 inches of rain in the space of 90 minutes to 2 hours. That amount is estimated after emptying the plant trays outside the front door and looking at the level of the pool in the condo complex, where the water was close to the top of the tile coping. It was still wet enough at Charlie walking time for him to get quite drenched - he's so smart - he knows that when he's wet, he's supposed to go into the travel crate with the nice clean dry towels.

For a brief moment, Ms. Packratty actually thought she was back in her tiny cinderblock rental house that she lived in as a young reporter in Beaufort SC — the back side of the house had a tin roof and a good rainstorm was an event. That house, sadly, was soon after her departure from Beaufort, torn down to make way for an anonymously ugly apartment complex.

The temperatures took a plunge too - it is about 10 degrees cooler hour-by-hour today, than it was on Thursday. Marvelous. And it is payday, as well. All told, the ingredients for a better than decent day.

It followed on the heels of a delightful evening with Ms. Basketcasecafe, a classmate from the bookbinding class last winter. We have been meeting once a week to catch up and we're making friends ... Ms. B is exceedingly talented in the webpage area of the world, a skill Ms. P envies terribly but suspects she does not have the patience to master.

With the weekend at hand and the fact that Ms. P is the Officer of the Day, so to speak, and has to stick close to home and access to the internet connection, there are high hopes of a productive weekend. But heavens, after last weekend's baked bean frenzy, there is plenty of the cleaning still to do - so rather than make ambitious plans, Ms. P is going to be conservative and just take it as it comes - the library, picking up the veg co-op and possibly going to the farmer's market for tomatoes are about all of the hard and fast plans, although she hopes to get the kitchen recovered completely from the Beans Of Hell.

The sad thing that Ms. Packratty does not understand is seeing people - many of whom have more creative and remunerative jobs than she - spend their weeks counting the days until the weekend arrives. While Ms. P hardly sails into work singing, she does not dread the workweek very often, except when she ill enough to feel dreadful, but not ill enough to use a precious sick or vacation day. Oh well, they have to live their lives as best they can and Ms. P has to live hers - but she feels slightly sorry for them somehow - spending 40 hours of your life - or more - focused on the 48 in the weekend seems a bit starved.

Excuuuuse me?

NEW YORK – Crystal Renn was miserable as a super-thin model who had heart palpitations when she'd worry that there might be calories in Diet Coke.

Her moment of epiphany came when "I couldn't walk another step without being exhausted, or having hair clumps falling out." She knew she needed to live in the body she was supposed to have — specifically a curvy size 12.

Just how the Hades does a size 12 translate to plus size? The *average* American woman is a 14. The notion that a size 12 is a model for plus size just makes me want to throw things.

St. Willis of Carrier

Truly, this man:




















should be one of the patron saints of the South.

Last night, massive storms manages to skirt and even spritz the general vicinity of Chez Packrat, but there was no rain, just humidity. So this morning was as sticky as treacle, too warm in the house to even make breakfast. So the a/c is back on, drat it.

Ms. Packratty is looking forward to Labor Day. She has Monday off and then is working half days the remainder of the week because - DRUMROLL PLEASE - the plan is that she is going to stay at Marleen's house and finally get the stair treads polyurethaned. The weekend will be reserved to clearing stuff away and making ready and starting Tuesday afternoon, the top flights will get a first coat, with a second coat on Wednesday; the bottom flight should get a first coat on Wednesday and a second coat on Thursday. Third coats Thursday and Friday is needed, then Ms. P will begin the process of taping off and painting the risers, which can be done a few at a time and without major misery. By working half days, I only use 2 days of my precious remaining holiday time and I should be able to keep myself from overdoing. One hopes.

Tack cloths
Polyurethane high gloss
Latex enamel in bright white
Blue painters tape
find the kneepads

Once that's done, it's back to squirrelling money away toward laying the flooring in the living room and dining room. With some car bills probably coming up and another potential household cost - over and above the furnace and a/c, a conservative approach is required ...

Sigh of Relief, Maybe

The car's service manual said that the light that was on and blinking might be caused by a loose gas cap and to remove and replace it and drive on carefully. Lo and behold, the light is gone. I'm still holding my breath, as there are some other things that the poor baby Buick needs done, but if I can just avoid a horror story for a little while ...

It's hot again, I'm debating whether to turn the a/c back on or hope that the storm moving up from the southwest will cool things off a bit more quickly. Temps are forecast in the mid 60s every night, so it is hard to justify having the expensive a/c on when it's 12 degrees cooler outside in the am than it is inside with the a/c running. Someone needs to invent an air system that senses when the outside temp has dropped below the thermostat level and open an intake and pull in, filter and dry outside air.

Time to go to bed and try to sleep. The only good night of sleep I've had in 3+ weeks was when I took my last sleeping pill. Seeing the doctor week after next to get scripts refilled - I think I went 2 years on a scrip for 30, so that's not excessive. Heaven would be an Ambien every night, I think. I can't remember the last time I slept more than 5 hours straight. Fibromyalgia is a real pain that way.

Math-Impaired

Has Ms. Packratty mentioned what a dunce she is at the mathematics? She just had a panic-stricken moment when she realized that she had added instead of subtracting and it took some fast footwork with the emergency fund to prevent an overdraft. By, gee whiz, roughly the amount of the office party cooking expenditure.

Oh well.

And now the car is saying it needs attention. Dammit.

What was it that Dorothy Parker said? "What fresh Hell is this?" Story of my life.

And how was the rest of the weekend?

Now, on to the weekend. How bad could it be, you ask?

Well, try this - stayed up late prepping the baked beans; cost of beans and salt pork and other ingredients $13.09, plus disposable chafing dish $12.88. Then put them up for the night, tried to sleep and the house was overheated as the result of having the oven on, slept very poorly; up at 7:30 a.m., walked dog, etc., got box to pack the pans in for transport; bought 5 packages of hamburger buns and 5 packages of hotdog buns $17.70. At 9:30 a.m. put the beans in to reheat, at 10:45 a.m. got them out and packed them in box with newspapers to cushion and insulate; cost of aluminum pans and covers $5.98; showered, dressed, carried stuff out to car, drove to Piedmont Park toll .50 cents, gas undetermined; schlepped beans, dog, buns, water and chafing dish set to site; was subjected to loud music, too much heat, approximately 20 percent of those who said they would bring food had not showed by the time I escaped; after about 1 hour 45 minutes, I nibbled on a rib and ate a bit of my beans (side dishes and dessert being among the dishes of the missing "team" members), Charlie was getting more and more skittish due to noise and my headache was escalating, so I skulked off before the party games could begin as I hate, despise and detest such activities with a passion. Parking $4.75, plus another .50 cent toll. Grand total for 2 hours of relative misery and misfittery - 6 hours of work related to preparing food and $55.40 cents in direct costs for buying and preparing and transporting the food and myself to the park. Gas costs not included. I can't afford any more "fun" or "teambuilding" like that. I feel quite built upon, thankyewverymuch. Oh, and I brought 2 drinks with me as I was sure (and that conviction was borne out) that the only drinks supplied would be sodas with HFCS in them. So add another $2.50 to the cost.

Stopped and got my veg co-op on the way home and then went home and made a sandwich and tried to lie down and rest. Feet hurting terribly. Got to sleep finally about 4 a.m. Sunday and was awake at 8:30 a.m. Sunday was awful - I had to try and get done all the things that I normally do Saturday, as well as cleaning up the beanpots and Sunday's chores. Not again. $57.90. I could have gone out and had bloody lobster and champagne for that.

New Camera

Yes, the camera arrived, but not without some drama. When I got home Friday, I checked the mailbox and nada. Nothing at all, no bills, no delivery slip, nothing. Got into the house and checked and lo and behold, the USPS site said that a delivery attempt had been made and a notice left. There WAS NO NOTICE.

The last time I had difficulties with delivery on an insured parcel, the parcel arrived plundered. A set of expensive scissors was neatly removed from the ornamental fob and tip guard and a set of stitch markers was missing.

Needless to say, I was not having that with this and on Saturday morning, in between getting ready for the department "retreat" (more on that idiocy later), I ran by the post office with the printout that had the tracking number on it. When I rang at the call window, I was delighted to see my former carrier (the one who let Charlie kiss her) answer at the window. She took the number and disappeared into the bowels of the PO and emerged with my package about 10 minutes later. The box appeared to have gotten wet and had some "damage" to the sealing tape, so I opened it promptly and discovered that a> no water had reached the inside and b> the attempt to open the box had been unsuccessful. Perusing the camera and the manual though, Ms. P has determined that there WILL be a learning curve.

Wow!

Ms. Packratty came into her office this morning to find a large box waiting in her cube. Upon opening, she discovered an utterly yummy Namaste Knitting bag, one of their newest, in a deep plum.

See picture.

Yum Yum Yum.

Thanks, Mom!

(Yes, that is a case of San Pelligrino water the bag is sitting on. Ms. P is always fighting the food issue and she likes fizzy, hence, fizzy without calories.).

And she is deeply hopeful that the new camera will be here tonight, as the USPS website reported that it reached my local PO at 9 a.m. this morning. OTOH, if Atlanta emulates Chicago, said camera may be in limbo until sometime next week. The clever little camera bag I bought on eBay arrived in 3 days:
It's blue and Ms. P is very pleased with it.


Almost quitting time at the zoo and time to go home and ruin my evening cooking for the departmental "luau" that is being staged Saturday to improve team spirit. Yes, paying for and cooking food for people whom I only know from work and would not socialize with except that we work for the same company is clearly the way to waste half or more of my precious weekend.

And doing it in August is a public park in the center of the city is just another way to insure that Ms. P will be miserable. We do not fare well in the heat and we sunburn in minutes, so this is bound to be a trip to one of the circles of Hades. On top of the food, Ms. P also had to go purchase a disposable chafing dish. Clearly looking for a thrift store chafing dish, plate will be just fine, should be on the Packratty radar, since the disposable ones are not cheap and they are ... disposable.

Sigh.
2000 hours, time to go.