Triceratops!

Great first dash, all things considered. I had one weird dash, though. I put the address into the car’s nav system and it sent me to the border of Waterloo and Seneca Falls, no where near the pin that the Dasher app had. So I used the dasher navigation. Which took me to a place outside of Seneca Falls that looked like an abandoned house. So I called the person. Turns out that the address was wrong. I don’t know if it was Wegman’s that got it wrong, or the app just misinterpreted what the people put in, but I had to drive back to Waterloo, about 12 minutes away. But that’s ok. I was paid really well. Catering order! Woo hoo!

During my lunch break, I ran an errand for SM (and a couple for me). First stop, library to drop off a finished book. Then to the Post Office. Boy, some of those boxes were heavy! No wonder SM wanted me to take them to the post office for her. While at the post office, I also mailed off a Juror Information form. Sigh. I wouldn’t mind being on a jury again. Someday. I was shocked that stamps are up to $.73 a piece!

Something went wrong with charging the car during my lunch break. Maybe I stopped it by mistake or something else happened. But when I went to start my second dashing shift, the car had barely charged. Oh well. I will try to ensure that doesn’t happen again. Why am I having all these charging issues? Is it because I am old and silly? It could be – I have a few owies that I have no idea how they got there. And I fell down (gracefully and without damage) on someone’s steps today while dashing. Signs of age?

My favorite type of Dinosaur!

My second dash was cut short because I don’t really like to drive the Tesla around when the charge is less than 20%. I have no idea why. I just don’t. It was a decent dash for the time I spent. There was a server who returned to Denny’s that I was happy to see. And I delivered to the Emergency Room which I haven’t done in a long while. And I saw my favorite type of dinosaur standing by the side of the road. It was placed in the “free to a good home” location. I didn’t take it home, though. It looked like it was actually designed to be ridden by a little person (a child perhaps). Someday I will ride a triceratops. Ok, probably not…

It is almost time for dinner. More yummy tacos. So excited. Oh, I started watching a new Mindy Kaling created series on Netflix called Running Point (or something like that). Starring Kate Hudson. So far, it is fun. And I am enjoying Weyward as my current read.

Booted and Spurred but…

I thought I was going to dash today. And I still might. But not right now. I woke up in a timely fashion, did my morning ablutions and some online gaming to get my mind and body to the here and now. The phone had said that Door Dash could use my help – even offered $2 extra a ride. So, I got my clothes on and was about to head out the door when I realized I really didn’t want to go. I thought: It is very cold. It is snowing. The roads are not in good condition. So, no. I am just not going to do it. So what if it is a light month. I don’t care! I would rather stay home and do nothing than go out and suffer to earn a little money. Maybe with these extra three hours at home I can accomplish some things. Such were my thoughts.

Like what things, Augustus? Good question. One thing that I already did was clean out one of the kitchen drawers. (I did a few more drawers) Go me. I might tackle replacing the bidet. (I didn’t) I might look into other ways to earn money. (Nope) Including thinking more about taking my Social Security sooner rather than later. (Still thinking) Or just nap. (Maybe a little one) I guess time will tell! Ooh, I have already paid some bills. That’s a step!

I might go and do an evening dash if the snow stops. Maybe just three hours – from 3 until 6 so I don’t have that much time in the dark. But if I do go, I reserve the right to stop at any time due to the conditions being worse than I thought or getting too many not so good dashes offered to me.

I feel good about the teeny bit I have accomplished today. I cleaned two drawers in the kitchen. One was in dire need. The other was just overcrowded. No idea why it got so over filled, besides that just being the way life can get when one isn’t a true minimalist. I put a lot of things into a bag that will go into the attic or the basement to be dealt with in the future by Future Augustus! (I imagine he wears a cape…)

A Drawer’s Contents – what the poo?

I did do an afternoon/evening dash. I am very proud of myself. I declined two rides. Both were long distances for not enough money. One wanted to take me to Seneca Falls. The other out into the boonies – where the roads were bound to be bad. I did one sort of bad ride that took me out that way and it wasn’t fun. Most of my other rides were ok to good. I had one pair of bad rides – thanks Door Dash – little money for a lot of work – two stops and two deliveries. That is irksome. But I survived. I even stopped after getting the second very bad offer.

Then, I went to Walmart (ick). I don’t really like to give any money to Walmart (ick) if I can avoid it. I had a long list and got most everything on it. Even they didn’t have the sesame candies that I like. I guess I will have to get them from Amazon. Though they only come in a huge container. Sigh. Anyway, at Walmart (ick) I got some food items, including a substitute for Utz’s caramel corn – Crunch and Munch. I also got some more long underwear. I mean if the weather is going to continue to be this cold, long underwear is crucial, imho. I looked at TVs – I wanted a stupid TV that was a little more modern and a little bigger than the one I have in my bedroom. Yes, I have a TV in my bedroom. Only for the cold months. After that it will go back and live on the porch for the nicer part of the year. But they only had smart TVs. Which is all the rage, I guess. And Tang! I forgot that I got more Tang! Woo hoo!

Dinner tonight will be chicken from KFC. I was going to get some Krispy Krunchy Chicken, but their two piece meal was about the same price as 4 legs and 4 thighs from KFC (their Tuesday night deal). I have done Duolingo – math and French today. And am ready to think about dinner. After my boarder has finished in the kitchen.

Vacuum Packed!

Brick pants!

Like a brick of green fluff! And when I opened it and expanded it, I found a lovely pair of green fluff trousers! My Grinch ensemble is basically ready. I will check on everything tomorrow, so I don’t have to look for things on Thursday. It is going to be a warm day, which is a mixed blessing. But I only have to wear it for seven hours or so. I will survive.

Today was a two dash day. Despite doing decently for the first dash, it just seemed difficult and a bit painful. The second dash was just painful. Two good rides out of 11. Lots of crappy long rides. With long waits at stores. Just not a good dash at all. Let’s hope that tomorrow’s dashes are both good, shall we? Hope springs eternal.

We had some rain today. I didn’t check for leaks. I should have. But I just didn’t want to get up at around 2:45pm and look. So, next rain storm.

I paid bills. Pretty painless since I don’t have to write checks and stuff envelopes and put on stamps etc.

My friend LF gifted me some of a delicious spaghetti squash dish that she made. I am so lucky!

Tomorrow, I need to call the insurance people. And I also want to go by Chris Buttons’ office and drop off a copy of the letter for him. Maybe they will let me copy it there. Or something. I like doing Chris tomorrow because it is going to be a warm day and I can walk to his office. I doubt he will be there or that he will be receiving. I don’t need to talk with him, I just want to drop off the letter about the sidewalk. I am of course hoping that he will just take care of it and leave me out of it entirely. That would be nifty. But we shall of course see.

Tonight, more MacGyver. Working through the second season. 22 episodes a season! Old school! The show is pre-covid! Ancient history.

Oh, something out of the ordinary happened. I made it weird I think. I was in MacDonald’s picking up and order and someone tapped me on the shoulder. A woman was there and asked if I liked McCafe. I told her that I was dashing. She said she wanted to buy me a cup of coffee. I told her that I didn’t actually drink coffee, but thank you very much for the thought. I asked her name and she gave it. I told her mine as she walked away. In the car, I thought about giving her my phone number, but when I am dashing, I don’t generally like to dilly dally. Too little too late. I might never see her again. Though I think she works at a restaurant downtown. Not one that I pickup dashing orders from. Anyway. I am not suave.

And that’s all the news for tonight. I have done some duolingo (working on music today). And had leftover Mexican food food dinner. Yum!

It Begins!

The houses and yards are getting decorated! I guess it is almost some holiday or other. Who knows. Anyway, saw this one and thought it worthy of a picture. There are lots of decorated houses. And they are so varied. From the simple (even more simple than this) to the truly awesome. I think the house on West Street is doing even more this year! Maybe I will pay for an entry if they have tours. We shall see.

It’s begun!

Today was the last two dash day of the week. Huzzuh! Both dashes were decent. One funny thing happened late in my second shift. I had picked up one of two orders from Char Burrito and I was heading to pick up an order at Man Yuan, when I noticed that I had the Char Burrito order in my hand. I am so used to delivering food, that I instinctively took the order with me when I got out of the car. Definitely a sign that I need to develop a different way of earning money.

One crappy thing also happened. Luckily not crappy in a physical or mental harm sort of way. This was a ride that I was offered and took. The offer was presented to me as $6.25 for about 6 miles. Not great, but I was doing ok fiscally so I thought “why not.” I picked up the order and entered the address into the car’s navigation system and…it wasn’t six miles by car – but by flying car! Alas my Tesla does not yet fly. So I had to drive. 10 miles one direction!! This has happened a few times and it is really irksome. A bad ride turns into a terrible ride. I even called and complained to dasher support. Hopefully they will fix this issue. Grrr.

I have eaten already. I had an omelet. Well, half of an omelet. And guess who forgot he had pork still in the fridge? Yes, this guy. I hope it will still be good on Saturday which is my next meal at home opportunity. Anyway, with the omelet, I had a hash brown (a frozen patty like hash brown), an English muffin and two left over buffalo chicken wings that I hadn’t eaten. I am always fighting entropy by trying to eat what is in the fridge and letting nothing go to waste.

And I have done my Duolingo. Spanish mostly today. Working on a quest to finish 50 lessons with more than a 90% correct score. Percolating along. My partner has been known to do many lessons in a day sometimes, so hopefully they will finish it up for us in a timely fashion.

I watched all of Nobody Wants This starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brodie. I have always liked Kristen Bell. Adam Brodie…he’s ok. It was a good show, overall. First season. We shall see if there is another one. Now I have nothing I am dying to watch. I am saving the final Last Kingdom movie for this weekend. So, I guess I will just watch whatever happens to cross my path tonight.

Happy Thursday! Tomorrow is another exciting day!

House of Cards and Still Alice

Recently finished watching the first season of House of Cards. Yes, it is good stuff. But it feels slightly like The Sopranos for some reason – rooting for the bad guys maybe? Or the theme music perhaps? Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright are both enjoyable to watch. Neither of them “chews the scenery” as a good friend of mine says of over acting. I will probably watch the second season. Don’t know if I will go much further than that, though…

Ok, fallen into another obsession: Fallout Shelter. This is a game app for phones that is based on the popular Fallout Video Game series. Way too fun. I have already given up on one Vault and am hard at work on my second. Hopefully this too shall pass because I am barely able to not play. That is not a good thing. What is good, besides the fun of the game, is that I learned how to take a screenshot of my phone!

Mom had a good day today – she seemed full of the desire to explore – and she ate a lot at lunch time. Good signs.

Last night, I watched Still Alice – mom sort of watched it. I thought it was ok, Julianne Moore did a good job, but it was sort of light on showing the ickiness of the disease. From diagnosis to the end of the movie, I am guessing a year or maybe two elapsed at most. It was early onset, so I don’t have any personal experience with that, but I am guessing that mom was cognitively impaired since at least 77 years old – if not longer. She is 85 now – 8 years. In the four years that I have been helping out, I have certainly seen quite a decline. But at this rate, I am guessing it will be 2 to 4 years before she loses command of language. And then maybe 4 more years before Alzheimer’s kills her. In all I am guessing she has 10 more years of life – such as it is. Sigh (for her, for me, for all the world and especially those dealing with Alzheimer’s in any way, shape or form…)!

Latest Binge

Agents of Shield Season 2 is now on Netflix! Huzzuh! Do I mind being a season behind? Sure. Do I like being able to watch the episodes anytime I like? Yes. Do I like watching as many as my eyeballs and my brain can stand to watch before they melt? Yes. Life is full of trade offs. I was depressed to see on the internet (so it must be true) that people who tend to binge watch tv shows also have a higher probability of being clinically depressed. Sigh.

The other day I was at Wegman’s, which isn’t odd since I am there fairly frequently (and still haven’t met the love of my life wandering the Lucky Charms aisle), and I was in the beer section. In NYS, we can buy beer in a grocery store – but not wine. I thought about buying some Yeti Imperial Stout from Great Divide (one of my all time favorite beers – and it comes in all sorts of variations as well, but I, as usual, digress) when North Coast’s Old Rasputin popped into my mind. And lo and behold, there it was.  Old Rasputin was the first Russian Imperial Stout that I remember tasting. I might have tasted others before and have certainly tasted many since. So I picked up a four pack. Yippee! I like to mix the Imperial Stout with Yuengling’s Black and Tan. Yum! Somewhere else I have a beer blog – well, a blog about places I have been that have a beer like focus – brewpubs are a passion of mine – ok, I will go to breweries as well. And Wineries. And Distilleries, though I have been to very few of those. Where was I?

Turns out that the reason the DVDs sounded bad is because they were mixed so that 90 percent of their sound was going through the center speaker. Sigh. The amp for the center speaker seemed to work fine when I tested it Monday. And it didn’t look impossible to switch the amps around (given 20 minutes or so) so that the sub woofer amp would be feeding the center channel. I am going to look at the back of the server today and see if it has audio out just in case as well. And I hope to contact the Amp manufacturer and see what they have to say. I don’t have to call Oppo (the Blu-Ray player’s manufacturer) since there isn’t anything wrong with it. Yay.

Mom’s listening comprehension is getting worse. Very sad. And the weather is making her all itchy and scratchy. That isn’t fun for anyone, mom least of all I am sure.