The Small Stuff That Doesn't Need a Thread. #7

[kissdbyfire]

4 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

Do you have a link to the interview? I'd like to hear that. 

It’s a podcast actually, here it is. 

[BigFatCoward]

Isn't OK to call in sick with extreme tiredness? Kids are sick and i was up all night from 0030 until 0430 when he woke for the day anyway. This is on the back of about 10 days of 0330-0345 wake ups with occasional night time disturbances. 

I doubt I can do anything anyway so what's the point of going in? 

[Fragile Bird]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Isn't OK to call in sick with extreme tiredness? Kids are sick and i was up all night from 0030 until 0430 when he woke for the day anyway. This is on the back of about 10 days of 0330-0345 wake ups with occasional night time disturbances. 

I doubt I can do anything anyway so what's the point of going in? 

Hey. You’re human. The body needs rest.

[BigFatCoward]

5 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Hey. You’re human. The body needs rest.

I slept from 0930-1525. I feel great. 

Edited November 8, 2023 by BigFatCoward

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

What?!? How did I miss this?

 

[LongRider]

A flock of about 40 wild turkeys just meandered through my front yard.  I knew they were around, but not that many!

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 hours ago, LongRider said:

A flock of about 40 wild turkeys just meandered through my front yard.  I knew they were around, but not that many!

You know, 37 or 38 of them could have made it out and no one would notice. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Sigh, found my stepfather on his back in the kitchen a few hours ago. He keeps falling and the last time he had to be hospitalized for nearly two weeks. This time was worse. There was blood everywhere from a large looking gash on the back of his head. Thankfully the ambulance got here quickly. Cleaning up afterwards was less than pleasant.  

[Zorral]

Walking to the supermarket a hawk landed right next to me, on the other side of our community garden's fence!  She was huge.  She must have gone for something, and missed.  I had been wondering where all the pigeons were, as there was bird seed spilled all over the walkway where people put it out for the birds.  There were no other birds either.  But as he took off, I saw small birds racing to hide in the trees, which is harder now, as the foliage is thinning (it's a beautiful autumn day here).  Then, above, crows were fiercely flocking squalling "Danger! Danger! Danger!"  Last summer I saw a crow flock try to make a hawk on West Broadway let go of a crow chick, but he/she found a niche where they couldn't reach, and the hawk calmly ate it.

I just hope this hawk doesn't go after the 2 - 3 squirrels have come to the garden, after the entire squirrel community's kill off with rat poison the previous spring.

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

I was going to work once, climbing the ramp from downtown Milwaukee onto 794 east (you saw it in the blues brothers movie) and I see a hawk shooting the gap between the on-ramp and the roadway, heading up, like it was fired out of a cannon. Grasped in its talons was the biggest, fattest rat I‘ve ever seen.

Still makes me laugh when I think about it. 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Deadlines? What Deadlines?

[A True Kaniggit]

Also, today was Veterans Day in America yeah?

Who all we got? @Starkess, ain’t you a Veteran? Or is my brain too scrambled.

Thank you for your service.  

Edited November 12, 2023 by A True Kaniggit

[Fragile Bird]

Ok, I feel like puking. The grocery store I’m at has it’s live Christmas trees and wreaths up and out for sale. It’s bloody Nov. 13 for crying out loud. 

[ThinkerX]

Introducing the 'Giant Wooden Club of Damocles,' or a tale of 'Four Trees, a house, and a blizzard.'

First, I dwell in the frequently frozen north - Alaska, in the midst of a vast forest ravaged by spruce bark beetles that have killed literally millions of spruce trees. In the remoter stretches, these tinder-dry sticks tend to catch fire from stray sparks, setting off conflagrations that encompass hundreds of square miles (solves the problem, but leaves a bunch of scorch marks). In what passes for civilization hereabouts, though, many of these standing sticks of deadwood are on uninhabited tracts of private property that abut against lots where people actually live. Such is my situation.

 

The First Tree here is 'Angle' - a beetle killed spruce tree rooted in the neighbor's lot that fell over a couple of years ago. The very tip of Angle would have missed the back corner of the house by about a yard, maybe two, except for the second tree...

 

'Brace.' Brace isn't one tree, but rather a clutch of five or six trees of different species, all sprouting from a patch of dirt literally a yard across (and most of them have trunks at least eight inches thick. Anyhow, the Brace was so completely intertwined they stopped Angle cold on the way down. As a result, Angle is pitched at about a 35 degree angle - hence the name.

 

Next up is the 'Giant Wooden Cudgel of Damocles,' or Cudgel for short. This is another beetle killed spruce, about ten inches thick at the base and checking in at around 80-90 feet tall - before the bottom part of the trunk did a near vertical split and the top part toppled over during a wind/snowstorm a few days ago. Now...Cudgel would have hit the garage part of the house - except the lower third crashed into Angle at about a 30 degree angle. preventing that. Dangerously unstable situation all the way around. Then, the Cudgel started to *roll* down Angle, which meant the top part dropped more and more. What stopped this progression was Tree Four, aka...

'Twiggy.' Twiggy is young birch tree, not quite thirty feet tall - and about as thick as my wrist. Right now, Twiggy is the main thing keeping the Cudgel from continuing its bumpy roll down Angle. But Twiggy is starting to buckle under the strain.

Right now, I have about a twenty-foot stretch of the Cudgel hanging about ten feet up over the garage roof. Almost that entire stretch is encased in a yard-thick layer of crumbling branches, providing a bit of padding. More snow is anticipated, which means the Cudgel will get heavier, putting ever more stress on Twiggy, which means that the Cudgel will drop even lower, maybe to within four or five feet of the roof. The upcoming blizzards should put around a foot of snow on the roof, making for even more of a cushion (in years past, that roof has held over a yard of snow with not trouble.) If the Cudgel gets low enough, and the condition are right, I might be able to get up there with the chainsaw...

 

[Zorral]

Partner finally returned from Southern Spain, to where he and team are bringing 40 people on a two week deep dive into music, history, architecture and related spiritual/religious connections.  And food. And wine.  For example during our time in Córdoba, we'll explore with academic and art experts the Judería de Córdoba, with the home of Maimonides, the Córdoba Synagogue, have dinner in a Sephardic restaurant, which has, Partner says, one of the best menus of delicious foods and wines, all made from locally produced ingredients. Covering all the religious baselines that meet in Córdoba, we'll also visit the incredible La Mezquita and the Real Alcázar, among other activities.  Which are indescribable, as we learned last year during our first preliminary visit.

All this has to be arranged long ahead of time, so we have the admissions, don't do the lines, etc., the restaurants are ready for us, and so on so forth.  This kind of thing is being done for Jerez and Jaén, Cadíz, Sevilla, and Granada (arrangements have to be done ahead of time for a group to come in --  not only paying for the tickets to the Alhambra since the numbers admitted are strictly regulated). Then there is is the music.  What one wants to hear if one wishes to not do the regular tourism offerings, but more innovative and not only Flamenco, well, this music happens in private spaces.  So lots of negotiations, meetings, figuring out payments and so on.

A really good team on the ground is essential, and as usual Partner has one.  All women naturally, who are excited, enthusiastic, local, and VERY connected.

It's going to be an incredible trip.  Not only the activities -- we're also visiting a horse fair! -- but the people who are coming.  So that will be March, like last year, when we did the first exploration.  (Next year, Morocco.)

All this of course if God's willin' and the crick don't rise.  So much can happen to block it all, from government shut down so the planes can't fly, pandemic, war, financial crash -- so much.

In the meantime though, just in time for the weather, Partner brought back for me a beautiful cashmere shawl, so soft and light and warm, wine! olive oil from Jaén, and an aromatic woods box, good for jewelry.

Eating some very fine Italian bakery loaf bread, dipping it into a saucer of the Jaén olive oil (olive oil is very expensive now due to the climate change effect on the olives this year).  This stuff is like no olive oil I've ever had, not even in the restaurants in March.  Spain, of course, was the major supplier of the Roman Empire's olive oil, and this is the center of that industry and lucrative business for those who controlled it then, as now.

[Zorral]

So much to do here this fall!  Really looking forward to our visit early next week to the Morgan, where we shall attend this:

Medieval Money, Merchants, and Morality

https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/medieval-money

It will amplify in many ways, that transition in finance from the medieval systems to that of the Renaissance, that the biography of Jacob Fugger, The Richest Man Who Ever Lived by Greg Steinmetz (2015), brilliantly illustrated.

It will be especially gratifying to see this exhibit in the House that J.P. Morgan Built of course!  Ha!

Edited November 17, 2023 by Zorral

[A True Kaniggit]

It has begun. Or should I say….. It began long ago?

I’ve already wrapped a present. A Princess Poppy toy from the Trolls with accessories. 
 

Christmas is coming. 
 

May we all be prepared. 

Edited November 18, 2023 by A True Kaniggit

[Fragile Bird]

Hah! Two weeks ago, for the very first time in my life, I bought a Christmas sweater. At Walmart. And actually pretty damn nice, s navy blue pullover with a stylized Christmas tree in gold and silver threads on it.

[A True Kaniggit]

50 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Hah! Two weeks ago, for the very first time in my life, I bought a Christmas sweater. At Walmart. And it’s actually pretty damn nice, a navy blue pullover with a stylized Christmas tree in gold and silver threads on it.

I hope you’re happy.

You’ve made me jealous / (envious?).

Edited November 18, 2023 by A True Kaniggit

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

I hope you’re happy.

You’ve made me jealous / (envious?).

You have to buy them now, before they’re all gone, or your size is gone.

[BigFatCoward]

11 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Hah! Two weeks ago, for the very first time in my life, I bought a Christmas sweater. At Walmart. And actually pretty damn nice, s navy blue pullover with a stylized Christmas tree in gold and silver threads on it.

Mrs BFC starts wearing Christmas jumpers mid November, and has enough that she never needs to wear the same one twice. She's a ridiculous person. 

Edited November 19, 2023 by BigFatCoward