The Mariners are the only team in Major League Baseball who have never ever, not one single time, ever played in a World Series. Kids born the year they last played in even a playoff game, will graduate from high school this year.
By this time in the season, it's crystal clear that, once again, this year we have NoChanceInHell of playing past the regular season.
But this year we aren't there yet. And with every win, a teeny little bit of hope springs to life. The broadcasters carry the flag the loudest but everyone else is thinking it, too. What if. It's kind of fun. We've just won two games off a very excellent team. Of course, before that we lost two off a very horrible team. It's day to day but most very fun days.
Today's game is at 10 am. My housecleaner is coming which means I won't be home. I have a few, non-critical errands to run. I might do some and I might just find a shady spot somewhere with a breeze and listen to the game. Or put in my earbuds and walk around Costco. I should pick the latter since I cheated on the treadmill this morning. I only went 15 mins. Just because.
On the up side, I have won the 2021 insurance vs. inhaler battle!! My prescription is for 2 puffs a day from the expensive inhaler. But, the medicare drug coverage is such that once I hit $4K, that $50 inhaler starts costing me $450. 2 puffs a day gets me to $4k about May. Which means $450 a month until January. So. In January, I started 1 puff a day for most days. If I was really feeling it or needed extra (like when my brother was here) I did the full dose but otherwise, I stayed on my inhaler diet. And, now, I have enough in the larder to take me to January even if I did 2 puffs a day!! And I have about $400 til I hit $4k for other drugs or drug emergencies. Whew.
Breathing can be expensive!
Time now to shower and get dressed and ready to hit the road.
My baseball game was just interrupted by this. Thunderstorms around here are very rare but this kind of chicken little warning is ever more rare.
It's 5:04pm now. It's smokey-ish out now but the sun was out until a few minutes ago.
I've lived in parts of the country where we had thunderstorms every evening all summer long, interrupting TV this way would have pissed those people off fast.
I do get amused when Northwest weather people warn people about thunder - not lightening but thunder. I'm serious, thunderstorms just don't happen around here.
He's all over this feather on the end of the wire. The stick came with several furry worm things but they were of zero interest. He's a total feather man. We played for a good 30 minutes and wore him out.
My Modem lights are all fine and I haven't lost internet since yesterday. I'm close to declaring victory. I'll give it another day and then call off the Tech Who Would Get Here Too Late To Save Me Anyway.
Also Biggie is back to regular Biggie. Birding and coming over pets but not wanting to be petted. He must have such a confused brain. We did spend a fair amount of time last night playing with the wire stickie (like Stickie but with other stuff on the end connected by a wire so it looks like it's just randomly floating). He still ignores this fabulous toy which I should send back but I just can't bring myself to.
It will go in the Toy Garage for now. There's enough in there now that I should not have to pay actual money for another cat toy for a very long time. Also easy shopping and immediate delivery.
Today's todos include digitizing my vaccines. I've looked at a bunch of options and, yes, do have photos of my cards (I have one for each shot). But I think I'm going to go ahead and set everything up in the Clear app. It needs my photo id and a photo of me. My current license is down in the car so I'll need to go get it. Also I need to take the hand vac down there and give the car a go over. And, while I'm going down anyway, I need to drop a package off at the UPS OUT box. And grab a shower so my hair isn't sticking out. THEN back to the app. So... it's complicated.
I think I'm not going out today. The smoke's not bad, I'm just lazy. Tomorrow I have to go out while the housecleaner cleans so I'll save my errands for then and keep myownself cool inside today. With TV and with knitting and whatever else pops up.
Today I needed my little jewelry wire cutters and I not only knew right where they were but they were easy to access in a drawer that is only 20% full. The perks of purging. As I have with all the other rooms, I have wandered back to the sewing room just to open a drawer or open the armoire and admire my work. Talk about sparking joy!!
But, sometimes, no joy. I cannot find Biggie's papers. I had all of the papers origin, adoption, medical for Biggie and The Smalls, in a folder and that folder is no where to be found. I'm afraid that it got accidentally purged. Not a big deal, really. More of a nice to have than a something I really need. The only other vet that Biggie has been to besides his current one is the one at the emergency surgery. And they sent his records to his vet so they are all there. And that's all that matters. But, still. My system isn't perfect.
My internet started going in and out this afternoon. About a dozen times. It was out for as long as 5 minutes and as short as 1. Finally I went to Twitter and DM's the provider who checked and saw that my modem did not have service. She rebooted it on her end. No joy. She concluded that I had no internet. And scheduled a service call. For Thursday. BTW, this is Monday. She expects me to go without internet for four days? The drugs must be crazy good at that company.
Anyway, about the time she had everything settled, the internet came back solid and has been solid ever since. There's something hinky with my modem. There are usually four or five lights lit up and there are only two. BUT... I got internet and it's a fine speed. I'm going to keep an eye on it for a couple of days. I have a little utility that logs network outages so I'll just let it keep the data. If it takes four fucking days for them to get someone out here, I'm in no hurry to call off their dogs.
The Mariner game is going way better than I anticipated so I need to get back to it.
All of this went to Goodwill today. It's a couple of bags shy of a very full Smart Car.
I still need to label some boxes but, pretty much everything is done and Robby cleaned up after me. Nothing is crammed in, all is viewable easily so I can see where shit is, when I look on the shelf or in the drawer. And, all my winter coats and jackets are hung in the armoire and out of my everyday closet/scooter garage.
I'm quite happy with the project.
Something's up with Biggie. I first noticed it last night. I put some food in his bowl and he acted like there was a live bug or something in there. He would approach and then pop back and repeated that a bunch of times. Finally I moved the food to a new bowl and he ate it cautiously.
This morning he's still kind of jumpy. He let me do the sewing room project with minimal interference. He did bring in a bird but not to the killing field. He brought it over to me and then carried it over to another part of the living room. I was bread bag ready and he was not happy about losing his prey. He has a new toy with a feather and bell AND a laser and he's not one bit interested. He's back out on the terrace again now. Just have a weird week I guess.
I think I'll knit some and finish up listening to a tech podcast I started while cleaning.
The wildfire smoke, that is. It's still difficult to tell from just looking - is it morning fog? or smoke? And my app says it's the same as it has been for several days, on the line between ok and getting to be no ok. There is rain predicted for the end of the week. However, there is a huge chasm around here between predicted rain and moisture falling from the sky so who knows.
Much to do today. The next attack is a drawer that's going to be the most difficult. It's full of stuff that I have the hardest time parting with. Bags. Hand bags. Small zippered bags. Reusable grocery bags. I have a thing about bags. I guess since I always figured I'd turn out to be a bag lady, I just established a freakish attachment. I no longer even carry a handbag. I have enough small zippered bags to fill a dumpster and don't use a lot of them anyway. I have 8 excellent reusable grocery bags that fold up into themselves and fit nicely in my car's cubby. I don't need any others. And... yet...
So this will be a wrangle me against me.
Then there will be a trip to Goodwill. And a trip to the dumpsters. And then it will be done. With a day to spare.
Today's baseball is at 4. BUT, they gave up the last two games to one of the worst performing teams and today face one of the best. I'm not that hopeful.
Two of the massive drawers were emptied and then I emtied the drawers in the ugly chest of drawers. Turns out, once I agreed to let all fabric scraps go, that took care of half of the real estate!
I thought for a minute that even empty, I wouldn't be able to get that damn plastic thing out of the closet but I did.
And now I have hanging space!!! And bill_schubert, you can now use the real closet instead of the faux one!
Then I took the ugly thing down to the dumpsters which was not easy since it's more than 2 feet wide and 4 feet tall. But I got it down there and into the dumpster!! But, then I broke a nail.
I had meant to cut all my nails earlier today. They were getting too long to type. So, I put the rest of the project on hold and did my nails. I'll get back on it tomorrow. I thought about leaving it all until the end of the week since the house cleaner comes on Wednesday and the room must be tidy by then. But, nah. I need the incentive to finish.
I have one whole deep drawer to empty and then some shelves to organize. The daybed is now piled high with shit now so that all has to go. I have at least one car load for Goodwill. But, I'm already feeling excellent about The Last Room To Fall.
I'm now just about the Queen of Purge so it's kind of hard to believe I still have areas of this tiny home that are full o' crap that needs to go. It's true. I do. My sewing room has already had one big purge but now, needs another. Why?
Today, I decided I needed more space to hang long things. Like maybe an armoire. But, nowhere to put one. Well, there is one in the sewing room but its hanging area has one of those massively ugly plastic chests of drawers that is crammed full of stuff.
So I need to get rid of it. But it has stuff I really don't want to dump. One drawer, however, and parts of others can be deep sixed. There are three deep drawers in that room, all of which need to be emptied and purged. I am percolating a plan here.
I do not need 58 different colors of felt squares. Those plastic snaps are horrible to work with and need to go to Goodwill. And that drawer of fabric scraps call ALL go to Threadcycle.
I can put the stuff that I want to keep from the plastic chest of drawers into the deep drawers. Once I get the plastic drawers emptied, I'll trash it and then move the stuff that needs hanging in there. Problem solved.
We're in the 7th inning so I might even get started after the game.
I bought two giant t-shirts at Walmart last week. $4 each. To sleep in. I love them. So this morning I went to the website to buy more. I couldn't find the exact same ones at the same price so I shopped around and found 'close to' and then my brain said STOP!!!! Why in the world do you need more than 2?! Actually, why do you need 2? 1 would work fine.
I went and looked at the plain t-shirt section of my closet and discovered that there is a surplus there, too. Closed the web page, and tossed a few from the closet to the goodwill bin.
I do not need more stuff. ESPECIALLY redundant stuff that I could even make myself for free from the fabric I have on hand. Buying stuff is just too damn easy and I need to fight it.
Last night was rough. I woke up a couple of times with my hands hurting. My finger joints. They have been bugging me lately but not as bad as last night. Also in one dream Betty White told me I was wearing too much perfume when I wasn't wearing any!
August means only 4 more weeks of Summer. Actually that's no longer true but I'm going to believe it. I grew up in the south where we were lucky if it stopped being hot and humid by the end of November. At the end of the first year I lived in Seattle - 1992 - I went to visit my sister for Labor Day weekend. It was still pretty warm. I came home on Monday and on the ferry back, I nearly froze my butt off. And it did not warm up again until the end of June 1993. I was so thrilled.
These days, our warm extends to about mid-September but once August is done, it's really a short coast.
I think I'm going to give up on trying to convince Biggie to eat at least some wet food. I toss more than he eats. He's not hungry. Maybe one day I'll try again but for now, if he wants kibble, he gets kibble.
The baseball starts at 11 today. I may do laundry. I might not. I have a buffet of Chinese food to pick from for lunch... and dinner. Biggie's out in the sun on the terrace looking for the bird du jour. So far, thankfully, no joy. All is quite good here.
