A day of small adventures

Up at 4:30 am shivering. Put on my winter robe and went to the kitchen to bleed on a test strip. Hgl was 112, which is not shivers-inducing low. Checked the thermostat, it was at 71, bedroom temp was 69, boosting the thermostat solved the problem.

Back to bed, slept clear through to the alarm. KGO has changed its morning schedule, or rather they slapped down Armstrong & Getty, who had been routinely talking past the half hour. Now at 7:30 we get the tail end of the news, then the traffic (which is where they lose my patronage). Changed Sonos from the ambient sleep channel to one of the three big band stations. KCEA, which is local, tends to play a lot of loud jazzy instrumentals in the morning, which I find jarring, so I may switch to Radio Sausalito at the other end of the Bay, but their commercials may force me to Smile Sussex over in the UK near Brighton. Lately, though, they have been playing covers by singers who deserve to remain obscure, and more modern songs.

Weight is back down to 261, BP was so high I don't think the cuff was in the right place. I need to find a cuff that's Velcro only, no metal D-ring.

Some Zoe time after leaving treats for Spook. The water fountain in Zoe's room appears to be leaking. Hmmm. No time to mess with it now.

Work via 101, traffic is lighter. Friday near the holidays, but also ski season. Lots of people using their use it or lose it vacation days.

Continued the Sekret Projekt. Lunch was Tuna salad sandwich and grapes and some trail mix from the jars on the counter. A very pretty young woman with a diamond the size of Rhode Island on her ring finger had snagged my table, and was working on something on her laptop. Over by the booths which are my Plan B was a family with a very verbal pre-school son and a baby in a stroller.  So I sat in the back of the room, as far from infant as possible.

There was some eye candy briefly. ( A note about my ogling )

As I was running the very worst video clip for testing ever, W, one of the managers I work with, came through with a tour group of about 30 kids, either middle school or high school. He had me explain what I did/was doing, but the video clip on the screen mostly showed how poorly designed the test was.

Boss didn't make contact. There was a chance she would come down for the sync she missed yesterday. We have some talking to do. Sekret Projekt has 23 failed automated test cases, mostly the same failure, and I don't want to file 23 bugs.

Finished the project at about 4, except for a pair of 8-hour tests. So I fired up YouTube and watched 49ers press conferences while the first 8-hour test was running. I'll find out Monday if I needed to push a button after 8 hours or if the test wraps up by itself.

Traffic was fairly heavy, so I made a major shopping stop at Safeway. An hour and $127 later I was heading home with a Dungeness crab for dinner, a boneless lamb leg to put in the crock pot and turkey thighs to roast later.

Also found low-sodium tuna from all the major brands and some of the overpriced pseudo-organic ones. Bought enough Bumble Bee for 2 weeks' worth.

Mixed fruit (pre-cut) bowls were on sale, I bought 3. Milk, limes & assorted veggies. 3 packages of quinoa.

Home, hydrated, put stuff away. Zoe visit confirmed the water fountain has been spilling onto the carpet, apparently the house is not level anymore. This fountain worked fine on the bathroom floor, but not the guest room. So I took it out, and put the replacement pump in the old no-spill fountain and set it on a plastic place mat a little away from the damp spot. It's the same design as the one in the kitchen, so not a puzzle for Zoe.

Got out the crock pot, put the leg of lamb in, covered with home grown frozen mint leaves and home grown oregano. That was topped with baby carrots, parsnip slices, celery slices and quartered mushrooms. No onions or garlic, wanted to keep it minty.

Fired up the Tivo and watched PTI, while pulling the legs off the crab. Tossed some bits to Spook, who ate three or four small pieces then got bored. She will come by later and clean up under the tray table.

Put the shell bits and the main shell into a big ziplock bag and into the garbage. It may go into the table scraps bin outside on Sunday. Cleaned off the center section, put that in a plastic bag in the fridge for another time. Had about 1/4 of a fruit bowl for dessert.

Delivered were the RCA cables, and the mystery box from youngest sister. It was a small jar of aloe salve with a card saying it was for someone who has everything. She had offered to buy me one of those new pressure cookers, and a couple of other things I didn't need. I was kind of expecting a T-shirt.

Too late to watch The Orville. Maybe tomorrow.

Plans for tomorrow:
Build cables and set up the center speaker switch
Lowe's/SummerWinds ISO lilies of the Nile
If I find them, plant them in the front garden. Maybe after a trip to the SMART station for compost
Refill the hummingbird feeders
Transfer the lamb to freezer containers (should be fall-apart done by morning)
Work on the calendar

Calendars are done

Up at 7:30 but just to pee & weigh myself, then back to bed till 9. And got sucked into the video vortex till almost 11.

The crock pot lamb was done, and it was kind of dry. Falling off the bone done, which made me angry because it was supposed to be semi-boneless. It had a full leg bone and an extra couple of knuckle bones. I hate paying for bones which should not be there.

Went outside to check for packages, and there was a fire truck & ambulance in front of the house two doors up the block. Resident is about my age & shape. The EMTs were inside for longer than my curiosity lasted. Next door neighbors also gave up and went for their usual morning walk. Along those lines, a couple of days ago I got my ambulance bill, due next week. $200 co-pay on a $2k bill. Itemized, everything is inflated, of course. $35 for a disposable blanket. $25 to take my temperature. $60 to measure blood oxygen.

Went to Lowe's ISO lilies of the Nile, but they had no lilies at all. I almost bought a flat of the ground cover with the pretty flowers which has done so well keeping the blackbirds away, but the two flats they had looked sick.

All the nearby Summer Winds have shut down, so I went to Yamagami's which had all the lilies. I bought 5 of the blue ones which thrive so well at work. YouTube experts say to plant them close together, which is what we have at work too. Home at 3:30, not enough time or light to plant them, so they are on the side of the carport.

Camped out on the PC to do the many steps of the calendar project. First was seeing which pix got votes on Flickr, and then on Facebook. That narrowed it down to about 30.

There was one of Spook which many people liked, but she was the cover a couple of years ago, and the photo was taken on my phone, a different aspect ratio than the calendar uses. My sisters only agreed on two photos, one was already on my "must" list, the other was not, but when I took it I thought it might be, so it's in there.

I finally narrowed it to 13 plus a cover photo, but after reviewing all the photos, I swapped a few and ended up setting aside two photos which got votes and I liked, for one with a better story. As usual, I had enough material to make 3 calendars. The cover took some Photoshopping, about three resizings to get the text inside the frame. I ended up with white space at the bottom rather than crop the right-hand side.

Each of the monthly photos was given a title and location. I didn't add full moons, the online app wouldn't take the graphic, and I can't remember the kludge from last year. I also didn't add any holidays which weren't already on the template. It is also a bother to add my web URL, but I think I have gold foil labels for that from last year.

If you want one when they arrive, shoot me email with your snailmail address. howeird at howeird dot com.

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After the lamb was bagged and tossed into fridge/freezer, I added a bag of quinoa to the crock pot and set it for 4-hour high cooking. So dinner was lamb with a side of  quinoa stew. Pre-cut fruit for dessert.

Watched The Orville season finale. It sounds like they may be writing out the captain's hot blonde ex. A shame because she is a good actress and easy on the eyes, but it will put an end to some of Seth's needless angst.

 On the drive home, heard the end of the Army-Navy game. Navy did their 49ers imitation. At dinner I played the news, and they showed the blizzard the game was played in, I feel sorry for the Navy field goal kicker - his team let him down with stupid penalties.

I gathered the RCA cables and audio switch box and pulled out the center speaker to make an on-off switch. The box was overkill - all I needed was a single wire connected to an SPST switch. I found wire in the office closet and a switch in the kitchen island drawer. It only took a minute to hook up and works perfectly. Almost. It would be perfect if the switch was remote controllable, but I'm not seeing any online for less than $50. And most need to be plugged into A/C. Tomorrow I'll test it on a football game or two.

Plans for tomorrow:
Plant the lilies
Watch some football
1940's Radio Hour in San Jose