Later than late start, and late finish

I set the alarm for 9, turned it off and went back to sleep for an hour with Spot purring beside me. Finally up & taking meds at noon, Spook was in the kitchen slurping from the top of the water fountain. I have learned to not go pet her because she runs away. Shook some treats out of the jar for her, but she ran and hid.

Had a lot of stuff to clean up. Made some more by cutting three huge onions in half and slicing them in the Cuisinart one at a time. Two are in the cast iron skillet, one is on a paper plate next to it. Loaded the dishwasher and started it.

BP readings have been wonky, Very high then very low. Pulse has been high too.

Went to PetSmart for a harness for Spot, and there was this adorable husky puppy (8 weeks old?) about the same size being fitted into one. Small worked, so I bought one.

Home, after a bit of a struggle to get his legs into it, I buckled it up and it was too small. Ordered a medium online - costs less on Amazon too.

Went through my poster prints for Worldcon, and picked out my faves, then was reminded of some world class pix from the past and ordered them online to be picked up tomorrow at the Santa Clara store. Got a call from them, their printer is broken, earliest would be Tuesday. They were able to cancel the order, I went online again and had them printed in Mountain View, where I will be tomorrow and during the week.

One is of lightning behind the Rama IX Bridge, which zyzyly reminded me of. Another is a cat sitting on a bamboo bench in Surin. That one was my first sale at a con art show.

That done, I opened up and filled in the art show control sheet, and emailed it. 20 photos, but probably won't have room to display that many. Still need to print labels for them. The con does the bid tags. Also need to apply the hangers to the back.

Lunch was three eggs on rye bread with thyme, oregano and pepper, and a slice of American cheese. Peach for dessert. Don't know why that required four trips to the loo.

Watched some TV, vegged out in the recliner. Totally forgot to veg out on the porch. Watered all the indoor plants.

CA flag was all wrapped up around the pole again, the swivels were held in place with screw-in spacers and they had come off. Piece of junk. I flipped the swivels upside down so the spacers would be held in place by gravity. It looked like it would work.

6:30 drove to SJ downtown, traffic was stupid and slow for no reason. 3-below theater kicked out Psycho Donuts, and the snack bar they share with Comedy Sports which used to be donuts and lots of other goodies is now just serving popcorn and pop. They improved and enlarged the lounge seating, and built new restrooms. Got a spot in the parking lot with a charger and plugged in.

7:30 people were still coming into the theater as if they were early, the lights were still up as the announcements started, and Mr. Funt the junior (Funt the senior died in '99) started his talk with audience members continuing to talk among themselves.

It was interesting, and he is an excellent speaker. But the trademark cheap look and feel of Candid Camera was in evidence all evening. To me the most surprising was who the early co-hosts were. Suzanne Somers, Mrs. Clint Eastwood, and that ugly chick from that stupid sitcom about the flaming boy genius. I seem to have blocked out its name. Her name is Hebrew for Water. She's a PhD and Funt says she is brilliant IRL. Sometimes too much so.

There was a 15-minute intermission which lasted closer to half an hour. Funt had to tell about 30 people to sit down - they were lining the aisles having a cocktail party.

The obligatory memorial montage for Alan Funt left a lot to be desired. The final photo portrait of him was superb, however.

Restroom break, then home.

CA flag was all wrapped up around the pole again so I took it down.

Dinner was reheated pizza and a long forgotten piece of corned beef. Coffee ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup for dessert.

Watched some bad CFL football, FFed from the end of the first quarter to the 4th quarter, hardly missed anything. Hamilton (a blue collar suburb of Toronto I have been to twice) almost made a last minute comeback.

Plans for tomorrow:
Cut up the chicken skins
Cook them up with the onions
Collect the chicken fat
Storage containers for the rest
4-ish MV Costco for the prints
5 pm MV Starbucks on the other side of the tracks for Janice coffee
Safeway shopping next door. Lunches, fruit, ice cream
Home

Dizzy too much

Forced myself to get out of bed by 10, got dressed (socks included) and proceeded to haul the huge pan out of the cabinet, pull a bar stool up to the kitchen island, and use my kitchen scissors to cut up about 3 lbs of chicken skin into pieces varying between a 1 and 3 inches. Widths also varied, as this is not an engineering project.

Threw them into the heated, peanut oiled pan, and stirred for about half an hour. Added the three sliced onions and cooked for another hour. The onions rendered down to barely cover the bottom of the pan, but the skins refused to pop until I drained out most of the carbonized onions. The mix is okay, but not like grandma used to make. Instead of a space-eating storage bin I put them in a freezer bag and shoved it into the fridge. Made a filter out of a paper towel and funnel and poured chicken fat into a small preserves jar. That's also in the fridge.

That was exhausting, so I went out onto the porch to sit in the rocker and watch hummingbirds battle around the feeders. Spot could be heard through the closed door, yelling for me. All three screen doors now have separated from the bottom. Not Spot-resistant.

Had several dizzy spells when standing up. They passed in several seconds, but lasted longer than usual. BP was erratic as was pulse rate.

Lunch was a corn dog.

Hgl was low so I had a Klondike bar.

23&me sent a note that 80+ people related to me are in my database, so I took a look. Only one was legit - a cousin who lives in Salinas. His mother used to date my dad - kissing cousins, they shared a grandmother. One other person who only used initials and won't share data had almost the same 4% match. Also a shared great-grandparent, but not the same one. My mother's parents each had more than a dozen siblings, and my dad's father had several as well. And dad's father's first wife died, second wife was her cousin. So there may be hundreds of 4th cousins out there. But none of my 1st cousins have taken the test. One is dead, another was adopted. He's dead too. That only leaves two on Mom's side and two on Dad's side. All of my aunts and uncles are gone. There were only 6.

It's complicated to map out, partly because I don't know much about Dad's aunts & uncles. That's middle sister's job. By accident my older sister, when she moved to Israel, discovered my father's mother's half-sister and some of her relatives. That's a story for another time.

3-ish, drove to MV Costco and collected the poster board prints. Started shopping, but prices were not that great ($110 for a 6 oz Instant Pot which costs $80 on Amazon), and the crowds were out of control. And I was going to Safeway soon. Forgot to bring the empty soda stream cannister to take next door to BB&B for an exchange.

4-ish to Starbucks up the road a piece. Checked out the new Asian fusion place which replaced the Thai bistro. But it was empty & about to close. Almost got my nails done next door but they were booked. Starbucks was sporting the planet's slowest barista, it took 20 minutes to get my drink. I reserved a table outside, but the wind was too fierce so I went around front and made a space for a table out of the wind.

Janice showed up 15 minutes early. Before she broke her arm she was always late. Now that she has to slow down, she's early.

After our chat I went next door to Safeway and bought all the things. $127. None of the fruit was ripe except for limes & grapes, so now I have bananas, nectarines, peaches, mangoes & strawberries which need to ripen. Back when I was a kid, the challenge was to time it so you only bought as much fruit as the family could eat in a couple-three days, because it came to the store ripe, and seasons were short. Bananas were the only items imported from SA. The only reason I know this is one of Mom's cousins was a big wheel at a United Fruit plantation down there.

Now we get hard-as-baseballs fruit delivered almost non-stop year-round, and have to let it sit on a counter to ripen. Then rush it into the fridge to not ripen any further. Still a timing challenge, but a different one.

Bought enough frozen lunches for 2 weeks. Maybe more.

Three steaks on hand, one in the fridge and two in the freezer, so I bought two bottles of cheap Aussie wine to marinate them. Don't want to waste the port or starboard sherry on that. Also bought some cream style horseradish and generic A-1. Generic moosetrack ice cream was a 2-fer so I bought 2. And a huge package of frozen mixed veggies was on sale too.

This Safeway has no bakery, and its baked goods section is small and lame. So no black forest cake.

Home, mostly took back roads to 237. Lots more traffic than usual for a Sunday evening.

Put stuff away, most of the way through, #6 neighbors asked me to help connect their new garden hose, which was leaking profusely at the faucet when they turned off the water. The connector had a piece with air holes, probably to aid water flow out the hose. Once we removed that everything worked as expected. She has planted a beautiful set of gardens all around the house, very orderly and carefully planned. Makes mine look slipshod. Which it mostly is.

I watered the plants on the porch and some of the front and back garden. Cool and cloudy today, so not much needed.

Took out the garbages.

Dinner was macaroni & turkey frank slices with some fresh basil leaves, topped with Swiss & American cheese. Mint moosetrack ice cream for dessert.

No Tivo, so watched live 90-day fiancé. Fat young blonde American girl with a 4-year-old baby has fallen for a Moroccan gold digger who has canceled the wedding twice, and stolen $6k from her, claiming he bought a shop where they will do makeup. She doesn't wear makeup, he has no background in it either. When asked to show her the shop he pulls out his phone but the photos have mysteriously disappeared. Her mother is visiting, tries to get her to understand she is being scammed, but she decides to not take her child and go home with Mom. She stays till her visa runs out then takes the kid and goes home, leaving "fiancé" behind. She still thinks they will open a shop and get married. No way.

Wanted to watch something on the NFL network, but Comcast says I don't get that channel anymore.  I'll have to ask what's up with that, I got it all last year.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work in the morning
Lunchtime, take both BP meters and go to my pacemaker checkup.
May or may not go back to work after
Label my photos