BINGO IS ON THE LINE

 4:00 am sure comes early in the morning.  That's when my eyes pop wide open and no matter what I do, sleep escapes me.  This time it was because of the worst Board Meeting we have ever had.  It's no fun any more.  But first ... let's look outside and see what the weather is doing today.

It's dark, with a little light from the tiny town a few miles away.  Stars are visible, so I guess it will be another hot day in spite of the 64 degrees on my patio.

The van got some new digs on this day.  I exchanged the black wheel covers for white, and these fit MUCH better.  The last time I drove it, the windshield was so covered in dust and dirt that I had to wash it with a hose so I could see.  I purchased a cover, but the lining was black.  In less than two weeks, it had completely disintegrated into a pile of dust.  This one is much heavier and comes with heavy magnets to hold it in place.  I admit I'm not quite tall enough for an easy install, but I got it done.

Cyndae and I discussed the microwave placement.  This is where it used to live, about 12" off the floor.  You had to bend over to see the control panel and remove anything after heating.  I admit, it is MUCH easier to use when it's on top of the counter next door.  It is also SO much quieter.

I like Dave's idea of a big drawer here, or maybe I'll get a wine cooler like the last owners.  It might help me with the Elks Lodge Board Meetings.  I could have used a GALLON last night.

I have been putting off showing you these pictures for the last week.  It's just so sad.  This is what Lahaina, on the island of Maui, looked like when I spent more time there.  It was old, quaint, full of little nooks and crannies where locals sold their trinkets and artists sold their paintings for huge dollar amounts.  This is the Main Street of town.  I have walked every square inch.

This is the exact same street today, looking to the right in the picture above.  You can't even begin to recognize where you are on the street because it is all gone.  

Lahaina will never be the local hotspot again.  There is nothing left on either side of the road for a couple of miles.  Two concrete buildings remain, but they are gutted and will have to be torn down.  I'm so very sad for Lahaina.

On the other hand, there is nothing like going to an Elks Lodge meeting with people that don't like you, to make you forget everything else.  There was lots of screaming this time, and I mean SCREAMING!!  It's ridiculous to get to a point of calling someone a liar.  The Board makes all the decisions, but they don't seem to understand that concept.

It got so bad that three people walked out and left the building.   I'm pretty sure five people will quit Bingo come January 1st, or probably before that.  I will be one of them.  It used to be a blast and we had lots of fun, but that is no more.  It was a four hour marathon of folks yelling because they did not get their way.  It's like kindergarten all over and I'm too old for this stuff.  It's time I took everyone's advice.

 This morning I will try to recover with Kitters and my fake coffee on the couch.  Though I felt great yesterday morning, I'm a tired wreck this morning with a splitting headache.  Maybe a PEPSI and a couple of cookies will jazz up my constitution for the day.

If Cooper was here, he would make it all better.

LIZARD CITY

 LIZARD COUNTER:  24

It's morning once again and a fabulous 68 degrees.  Maybe we will survive this heat wave after all.  There is certainly not much to see today.  Just a dark clear sky.

The day began with a record breaker.  At 4:30 am I grabbed my first cup of caffeine and headed to the computer.  Out of the corner of my little eye, I spotted it.  A LIZARD ON MY COUNTER!!  NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

How the heck did he get up there.  No, Kitters has never been on the counter.  Nor have I ever seen ANY lizard hanging out on ANY wall.  They don't have the feet for it.  Why am I inundated with lizards?

I distracted him with one hand while fast as lightning I grabbed him with the other.  Okay, not quite fast as lightning, but I CAUGHT him and made an unceremonious trip to the front yard when he jumped into the bushes.  NO MORE!!!  Please NO MORE!!  Let's get with the rain and cold so they go away!!

Sadly, that's all I've got today folks.  I was so tired yesterday, still trying to get back on the right time schedule, that I did absolutely nothing.  I even had company coming and didn't even vacuum.  

She showed up in time for dinner at Habit Burger.  Upon the last complaint about no chicken on the salad, they sent me coupons for TWO Char Burgers.  I got this instead ... the Santa Barbara Char.  I couldn't even eat half of it.

Hopefully today is just as exciting as yesterday so I can rest up for an epic Lodge Board Meeting tonight.  I'm not looking forward to it one bit.  Then I will have three glorious days of also doing absolutely nothing!!!

Sorry Kitters, but a kitty can never take the place of a puppy.

BINGO FAIL

 A good 3:30 in the morning to ye.  That's when I started this.  There's nothing like a rousing night of Bingo to give you three hours of sleep.  

But first ..... I have to wake up.  This was the view this morning, though much darker than the picture shows.  I did everything I could to go back to sleep, but with all the crap ... I mean happenings .... at Bingo last night, it was a lost cause.

Kitters spent the morning sleeping on the bed.  Not much of a watch cat, right?  In fact, she spent more of the night on my bed than I did.

I got a big surprise about 11:00 am when someone knocked on the door.  I hate it when that happens.  It's usually someone selling something I don't want and I'm not dressed for the occasion.

Amazingly, there was my new microwave on the porch.  See this hole?  It was once a wine fridge, until the previous owners took every appliance they could out of this house (and then some) when they declared bankruptcy.  This is where my microwave lived.  Out of the way and off the counters.

This is where the new one now lives.  It was delivered a day early.  Lucky I was home or it would have been stolen right off the porch.  Why is it on the counter?  Because I could not find the dimensions when I ordered it and it is too deep to fit in that hole.  I lost all of my mixing/baking countertop, but I now have a microwave.

The good news is that it works.  Of course nothing works the same as the old one, but it IS much quieter.  Company will appreciate not being woken up at 4:00 in the morning by the microwave.

YAY I CAN COOK AGAIN!  So what do I have for lunch?  A BLTT.  Bacon, lettuce, tomato and turkey sandwich.  I'm trying to use up the turkey and lettuce before it goes bad.

In a flash, it was time to head off to Bingo.  Mostly because I got a phone call asking me to please get there now.  Everything bingo is always an emergency.  Come to find out, someone ... and I will make this sound as nice as I can ... got some guy to come in and completely redo our sound system.  The important part is they did it without the Board's approval.  I hope they have a lot of money in their bank account to pay for it.

The entire system was locked up tight, so I could not set it up for bingo.  Not only that, but all the components were new ... well not new, they were USED ... but new to us.  Nothing even looked the same, let alone worked the same.  I made a phone call.  That did not make that person very happy at all.  She screamed at me and walked out when I told her she did not have approval to do that. All of a sudden, it wasn't done without permission ..... it was ON APPROVAL.  No it wasn't ... she already had the invoice in her phone.

She had to call the installer to come and explain how to set it up for us.  With it finally working for Bingo, we began calling the games.  An hour later there was a big POP and the system died.  She was called again to get it fixed.  We had to wait for the guy to show up, who had no idea about Bingo's requirements.  Maybe someone should have asked?  It blew some circuit because he had two microphones on the same frequency?  

The caller tried to call just using his voice, but that doesn't work in the back room.  No one could hear.

And so bingo ran 45 minutes late, meaning I got home at 11:00 and in bed at midnight.  You know how stuff you really want to say goes through your mind ALL NIGHT LONG.  Yeah, that's how it was last night.  I was awake at 3:00 and finally just got up at 3:20.  I'm hoping my morning cup of caffeine either wakes me up or puts me back to sleep.  I really don't need to deal with people like that and my Bingo career may be short lived!!!

OOOOOH KETTLE CORN!!!!

 It was a very warm 78 degrees by 9:30 on this lovely California morning.  There was no running, no sunning and no funning!!  

ALMOST anyway.  What to my wondering eyes did appear on my front porch at 6:00 this morning but TWO bags of popcorn.  Kettle corn to be exact, fresh from the Pumpkin Patch.  It helps to know your neighbors!!  It was like Christmas morning!!!

Then I grabbed the critter cam to check out the kids.  Good grief ... there were 67 videos this morning.  These guys keep a very close watch out, for what I don't know.  But every time they move, the camera starts a new video.  This is one of the scaredy cats ... and a piggy at the feed trough.  He's the one I chased into the culvert.  As much as he eats, I'll be surprised if he can fit for long.

 

With that done ... and having watched half of those 67 videos, I waited for the "business is open" sign before calling on my underwater camera gear.  It's a 2.5 hour drive to the store, so I thought to get some info ahead of time.  Maybe they can help me with the Olympus, and if not, they do have cheaper cameras with housings other than the Nikon Z9.  I mean really, who has an extra $8,000 to spend on a camera and housing?  BTW I did order that Olympus charger from Amazon.

Then it was on to rodeo.  These big guys can easily push through just about any corral you have them in.  They weigh well over 2,000 pounds and have those pointy things on their heads.

Worse than that is the Git Off.  The riders are taught to get on their hands and knees as quickly as humanly possible and crawl away while the "bull fighters" keep the big guy distracted.  This guy didn't quite do it correctly and got stepped on with both hind feet, one right on his neck, that smashed his face into the dirt.  Lucky for him, he got up in one unbroken piece.  All I can say is his guardian angel was watching out for him.

Enough of that.  The van was screaming at me to drive it before its battery went dead.  That is definitely the downside to van life.  So off I went to the quilt store to pick up the last four Veteran quilts.  These are the embroidered ones.

I'm not sure who quilted them this time, but it left a lot to be desired.  I had to get creative in cutting off the excess because it was rather stretched out of shape.  Apparently they have a new quilter.  

That was followed by cutting and stitching the binding pieces together before attaching them to the quilt itself.  These are the two I finished that are now lounging on the back of the couch to remind me to hand stitch them over the next few days.  Oh the fun!!

That was it for the day.  It's too hot to do anything else.  I would be praying for rain, but instead I'm praying for sunshine until my gutters get fixed and the window sill painting is done.  

September disappeared in a poof of dust, and October is melting away from the heat.  Maybe November will bring us a little rain ... you know, like the El Niño guys keep telling us is going to happen.  They have even already declared a National Emergency in parts of our County ... and we have yet to see one drop of water.

I know, you've seen some of these pics before.  I look at all of them every day.  My sweet Cooper.

PANIC SETS IN

It's morning and I'm kind of dragging.  I must be catching up on sleep because it's WAY past my get up time.  I'm burning daylight as my dad would say.  So let's get going!! 

Here's two of the kitties that visit me every night, and sometimes during the day.  Quite by accident I found that this one hides in the culvert under my driveway.  I've no idea how he gets in there because it's VERY small.  I might have to get out my shovel and clean out some of the dirt for him.

This beauty lives in the tree line between my house and the neighbor.  I've no idea where the little one hangs out.

At any rate, it was time for breakfast to wake me up.  While Walmarts veggies used to be perfect, they are sliding downhill.  I got five small avocados, all of which are totally overripe.  Makes them more spreadable I guess.

This was my first problem of the day.  Anyone else have this SHOE problem?  It's just such a long walk into the closet at the far end of the bathroom.  This is right next to the bed so I just slip on a pair and go!!  Okay, I cleaned it up ... which was a mistake because that's when I realized I had not vacuumed in a while.

And THAT brought up another problem.  What the heck happened when I was gone?  The robot guy didn't want to leave the dock.  After resetting him three times, he took off, went four feet and ran around in circles.  Nothing I did would change his mind.  I even turned him upside down and cleaned everything.  I paid a lot of money for this thing and it hasn't even lasted two years.   I actually had to get out the REAL vacuum.  Well that was no fun.

While doing that, I ran across this monster.  Back in my scuba diving instructor days, I took a lot of trips to Hawaii and Mexico, hauling along a huge camera setup.

This is a Gates housing for a film camera, along with all the crapola that goes with it.  I knew that somewhere I had the actual film camera.  I began the search.  Who knew I had not one, but THREE.  I've no idea if they work any more, because no one does film nowadays.  It's all digital.  These should probably go in a museum somewhere.

That's when I found THIS housing.  To be honest, I don't ever remember even using this one.  It requires a Olympus C8080 camera, which I just happened to find in the closet.

This is a digital camera, which I could probably still use today except I can't find the battery charger.  You know when you have that drawer completely full of cords and crap ... and you don't know what the heck they are for so you throw them away?  Yeah, I think that's what happened to this one.  Trouble is, it's 20 years old and no chargers can be found now, not to mention the fact that I could not get it IN the housing.

I even found this.  I swear I never bought this camera.  At least this one uses AA batteries and it WORKED, so I may get some use out of it.  In all, I found three video cameras and two digital ones.  Maybe I can donate them to a camera museum.

Then I got completely distracted with the new Z8 and Z9 cameras from Nikon.  Mirrorless they are, lightweight and fantastic according to every camera guru out there that uses them.  

That's when I realized I had wasted an entire day.  Maybe some of those chargers are in my current camera backpack.  But where is it?  I literally searched this house from top to bottom ... every closet, under every bed.  PANIC SET IN.  WHERE IS MY GEAR?  My D4, my D300, my 500 mm lens???????

I vaguely remember hiding it, but WHERE?  All of a sudden, my saddle rang a bell.  It sits on a rolling stand that has a big shelf underneath.  I pulled back the blanket.  YES!!!!!  You dummy, next time write down WHERE you put it so you don't forget.  What a relief that was!!

With a big sigh, I finally fixed dinner.  Another leftover meatloaf special with the last of the Elks baked potato.  

Here's hoping better things happen today.  I've nixed the idea of a Nikon Z8 or 9.  They are quite pricey, and since none of my old camera gear is really workable, I may just get a simple point and shoot  underwater setup, if I can find such an animal.  Yes they do have cheap plastic bags you can put your phone in ... or even your little camera, but they most always leak.  

Today I'm off to pick up the last four Veteran quilts from the quilt shop.  Since I don't have an ocean here to swim in, I'll be sewing instead.  Hope you have a GREAT day!!

KITTY STALKING

 I'm finally getting closer to my normal sleep schedule.  I hate taking pills, but I took one whole Advil PM and it seemed to work.  I walked into the living room to see kitty butt watching for gophers.  Yup there's a pile of sand in the middle of the lawn.  I expect to see a dead gopher in my hallway any day now.  She is definitely a good hunter.

I would have had my cup of coffee on the patio this morning, but COW is here once again.  It must be the angle of the wind because the closest dairy is six miles away.  A much smaller breakfast followed after I got on the scales for the first time.  Still no microwave, so the same pot that heats my water on the stove, also cooks my egg.  My how I have become addicted to that microwave!

First things first ... I looked up the name of the guy who is supposed to repair my gutters.  I truly was expecting him to say NO.  This is not a guy who is Johnny on the spot.  He said he had an estimate he would send to me and maybe in three weeks, get to the job.  I have no doubt it will be raining by then, so I'm not holding my breath.

In the meantime, it's HOT.  Hotter than Maui for sure!!  Come ON ... IT'S OCTOBER!!  It should be in the 70's by now.

I figured I better change out the light bulbs on the porch before I got sun cooked.  Trouble is, I don't have any good lights to replace the ones that burned out.  Only three 15 amp bulbs could be found, which will barely light up the welcome mat, let alone the porch.  I added them to my very long shopping list.

Every time I turned around, guess who was there.

She was not the least bit happy to find me cleaning up the old dog feeder.  This hails back to the days of bird hunting.  I cleaned it up and taped the door open.  Yes, I'm feeding the outside kitties.  Good grief ... they have been dumped to fend for themselves, and two are starving.  I just cannot stand that.  

No they will not become house kitties.  At least this feeder will last a month or more when full with kitty food.  

Here's the littlest one ... a new baby who just appeared.  She or he seems to hang out with this other kitty, maybe for a little protection.  It had a bad limp before I left, which has sort of healed up a bit.  None of them dare wander in the back yard where Kitters rules.  They all stay out front.

I spent an exciting remainder of the day doing laundry.  Oh the fun!!  Kitters was never five feet from me.

Since I really had nothing to eat but cookies for dinner, I placed a Walmart order, delivered by a beautiful blond gal driving a Mercedes.  Good way to make extra money for school she said.  

Dinner was half a sandwich and some fruit with the last of the scoops.  This is what we ate most every day in Maui.  

Another two hours on the computer trying to balance my checking accounts and I was sufficiently frustrated for the day.  Then it was on to my phone.  I was panicking because my bank app didn't show the correct balance, so I deleted it to download again.  Seems now when you download apps, they put them where THEY want them, not where I want it.  After searching my phone, I finally found it under FINANCE.  Who knew there even WAS a finance block.  

And so another day passes by as I try to recover from the time change.  Three hours going forward was a breeze.  Three hours coming back the other direction has been a trial.  Walmart is on my radar for some things they only ship ... and I need them now.  Sunday at Walmart ... that should be fun.  Oh well ... it has been another beautiful sunny day in the neighborhood!!

JUST MY LUCK

 Can someone explain why time change one way is so easy and the other way it's the Devil in disguise?  I've been awake every night until midnight or later, not able to sleep.  I finally dozed off around 3 am and woke up at 6.  UGH .... I NEED COFFEE.

Too bad Nancy ... the first day home, I stuck my cup of water in the microwave like I do every morning.  It came out cold.  How can that be?  It worked just fine the day I left.  There were no storms here, no power surges ... and everything else in the house works just fine.  

Big sigh ..... now I'm relegated to boiling water on the stove for my morning wake up coffee.  I keep trying the microwave just in case it changes its mind, but it's being quite stubborn.  I have another one on order because so far I have poured boiling water over my thumb and forgotten to turn the stove off. 

Breakfast was the same disaster.  Thank goodness the toaster works, but I had to actually use a FRYING PAN to heat up my steak and potatoes.  That microwave can't get here fast enough!!

Kitters agrees.  Yes, every time I turn around, there she is.  She meows quite a bit now, very unlike her.

It's probably a good thing we don't live on Maui.  I've never seen so many lizards in my life, including these weird green things that crawl the walls.  They seem to have suction cups for feet.  Maybe it's a gecko?

When I returned, I refilled the outside kitty food container and in one night it was half empty.  I set up the camera to find out who was partaking ... and who Kitters was staring at all the time ..... besides me.

Here's one of apparently FOUR I am now feeding.  I know ... I probably should not be doing that, but I just cannot stand to see a hungry critter.  Truly, I thought it was the fox, maybe the local coyote or even dogs.  Nope ... it was kitties.  This guy is extra suspicious of the camera.  He reminded me of the skunks that also still roam the area.

What a pretty tuxedo baby.  I think I need to bring out the BIG feeder from the back yard.  

I had an appointment for a haircut in the afternoon, which took up the rest of the day.  Dinner was a bust. Truly, I didn't realize how much I use the microwave.  Washing all those dishes is NOT on my list of fun things.  Sadly, my new one won't be here until Wednesday.  Oh the horror!!!  WASHING DISHES!!!

Since my Breville oven still works like a charm, I drug out some of those 18 dozen cookies I bought.  No, I never asked ... or looked ... to see how many I was buying.  If you need any cookies for Halloween, look me up.  

Here they are ..... and boy do they taste good.  I don't know why, but they just do.  Maybe it's because they are still warm from the oven.  Later today, I'll nuke a couple for a snack.  Oh wait ..........

It was now 9:00 and I was wide awake.  I even took a sleeping pill that didn't help one bit.  I have three days to get back on schedule.  Until then I feel like a deer in the headlights!!!!

Yes, still missing my happy boy.