Early wrap-up because I can

[howeird]

Morning wasn't as lazy as it could have been. Got up around 9, was on the PC when I saw that Domino had pooped right next to my chair. I think it is just old age. I wanted t lock her out of the computer room, but the door is misaligned - it has double doors - so it won't latch closed. It opens inward, so I don't have a way of blocking it closed unless I am inside.

Maybe I should take her to the vet, but I don't think there is anything medically wrong with her. Maybe I should take her with me to Santa Barbara next weekend and leave her there.

So I moved the exercise bike which she has been parking herself under, and put it next to the recliner, which meant finding a place for the easy chair, which was easy because it could go in the little nook next to the sofa where she tends to park herself when I'm in the livingroom and have already ignored her pleas for treats.

That done, I grabbed the coupon and went to the car wash. Strange that there wasn't much of a line.

Still to do was make a Lowe's run, but first I thought that since it was lunchtime, I could check out Butter & Zeus Chicken and Waffles. This required a short stop at home, to get my Nexus so I would have something to read. Am reading Snuff by Terry Pratchett, and it it clear I have missed at least one book in the series because Vimes is somehow the Duke of Ankh. So, B&Z. It's a small shop in a strip way down Tasman, just past Levi's Stadium. There is a lot of turnover in that strip, which also has Thai, Viet, Mexican, pancakes & Togos.

I ordered the chicken & waffles. Dark meat. What arrived was a large piece of flattened, breaded processed chicken substance on a thin previously frozen waffle-shaped piece of cardboard, with a tablespoon's worth of cole slaw in one of those paper cuplets which one finds in fast food places to hold ketchup. Bland tasting, but at least it wasn't greasy or burned. I will not be returning there. But I probably will try the pancake place, and the Thai place. I almost detoured into the Thai place because as I was pulling out of my driveway, the postman was driving up, and he flagged me down because he had a large envelope for me to sign for. From Thailand. It contained three of a series of Thai/English children's books which I ordered because a Peace Corps alumni friend had done the English translation. I was holding one of the books, which I read a couple of pages from before firing up the Nexus. The Thai is just at the right level for me, and even in the first few pages I see where Peter made some different choices than I would have. And maybe the editor too, because a couple of pages showed ads for toys at the mall, which were all in Thai, but there is no English translation of the ads. Back up, Howard. The book is teaching kids about having enough stuff, and not being greedy, and it starts with three friends looking at the mall's ads for toys and games. I was surprised there is a Thai word for "robot" which is not derivative of the English.

So, lunch consumed and forgotten, next stop was Safeway, which is just around the corner on the opposite side of Tasman, which is divided because the light rail runs down the center. It was a much longer corner than I remembered.

On my list was ice cream, frozen dinners and bananas. I also got Ho-Hos (in honor of yesterday's raid on a bunch of massage parlors in several Bay Area counties, performed by more than 400 law enforcement officers, which netted a grand total of 18 arrests. That's 22+ officers per criminal.). And strawberries, which are massively on sale and not quite ripe. And a few small spreadable goat cheeses. And $14 of coconut water (two brands). And some other small items not worth mentioning here.

Took that home, re-arranged the freezer a bit to make room for all the dinners, put everything away and had myself a break, with a glass of coconut water and something mindless on TV. Channel 2 news.

Okay, time to get off my butt, I says to myself, so I did and went to Lowe's. Put four flats of orange flowering iceplant in the cart (the one flat already in the ground is bright purple, but they didn't have any left). Wheeled all the way across the garden department and halfway through the main store to get a big (on sale) pump-spray can of Roundup. And down another aisle for a non-vacuum hummingbird feeder.

Home, set the iceplant flats out near where they would be planted, put the feeder on the stoop, looked in vain for instructions on the Roundup label only to find them right on the top rim of the bucket. Pumped up the killer chemical and went around spraying all the cracks in the driveway and along the street where weeds have been coming up, and also targeted some weeds in front of the hedges, in the back pathway behind the house and also sprayed a bit onto a huge dandelion-ish thing my neighbor has not taken care of.

That done, the chemical was placed in the shed, and I got out the rake and shovel and planted the four new flats. And watered them. During which time the fancy plastic nozzle broke, but I still had the metal one I'd bought when I first moved in, and that worked fine.

Back inside, cooked up some hummingbird nectar and filled the feeder, and hung it outside. Also filled the seed feeder.

Caught up on FB and LJ, and here I am.

Time to make some dinner. And if it is clear enough outside I will take the telescope out.

Plans for tomorrow:
Relax
Frappuchinos & chat with Janice
Maybe catch the end of the Seattle Seagals final auditions online.
 

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

"Robot" is not an English word.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/segment/04/22/2011/science-diction-the-origin-of-the-word-robot.html

[howeird]

Robot has become an English word, you will find it in all the English language dictionaries as such. My point is that a majority of Thai technical terms are just transliterations of the English word, but somehow they have their own word for robot.