thisendoftheswamp

. . . you can hear me scream!

A friend from church stopped by in the morning to drop off some handmade greeting cards, and remarked that she had been trying to reach me by phone for several days. “The phone goes straight to voice mail.” Hmm. So she dialed my phone while we both stood there, and it went straight to voice mail without even ringing. The Squire tried it later and not only did it go to voicemail but it told him the mailbox was full!

After supper, he called me again, sitting directly across the table, and my phone beside my plate. It rang busy. He punched some buttons, swore softly under his breath, and finally tried again. Lo! And behold! Mozart’s concerto rang out and I was actually able to answer my phone.

I called my BFF and she was able to call me back, and so was Eldest Daughter. Now if I can just solve the Great Email Dilemma, I’ll be in business. What I really, really want is to get a landline again.

Every blessed time I go to sign into my email, I am asked for a code, which is sent to The Squire’s phone. If he is not at home, I cannot get to my messages. So – I spent almost an hour yesterday afternoon in a chat with a nice young lady (I presume) at Xfinity trying to either stop this nonsense or convince them to use MY number instead of his. After all of that, she transferred me to some sort of Tech Support line, which wanted $5. Not too bad, so I entered my VISA number.

It was declined.

I entered another number, which was also declined.

And then I entered my own personal account number – and guess what?

At least I didn’t get charged for all of this, so there’s that.

This is ridiculous! If this is progress, I don’t want any part if it,

We have memory foam mattresses, which tend to really hold the heat, so we sprang for toppers that are supposed to keep you feeling cool during those long summer nights.

The new pad is also memory foam, but the secret is apparently in all those little holes. The cat is terrified of the thing. He was “helping” us make the bed, but when he jumped up his feet sank into the pad a good two inches. He sprang unto the headboard and tried to make it across the bed without falling back onto the mattress. Poor baby.

Cats are supposed to be color blind (how can you see what a cat sees, anyway?) but as far as Boris is concerned this shimmery blue thing is water and it gets his feet wet! Now, if we can figure out how to keep him off the bed after we cover the pad with a sheet, we’ll be in business.

Speaking of keeping cool on summer nights, last week was in the 80s every day. Today in has barely cleared 50, and tomorrow’s low will be 32. There are frost warnings. Flanders and Swann are still my favorite comedy team, even though they’ve both been gone for decades. One time Michael Flanders was talking about the weather. “It was nice, yesterday. Spring, wasn’t it? I missed it last year. I was in the bathroom.”

I seem to be awfully rough on smart watches.

I had one that I rather liked but accidentally wore in into the shower. Even though it was touted as being waterproof it died, so The Squire ordered me another one. We never could get it to tell the correct time or date, and it didn’t have the apps that the first one had. The second “new” watch was even worse. We were supposed to download the apps we wanted, but the company took no responsibility for the apps actually working as advertised. “Maybe they will and maybe they won’t” and by the way, each one cost money. None fundable, of course.

I’m now on my third watch. This one doesn’t give my blood pressure, and has one screen that doesn’t seem to do anything, but it counts steps accurately, and have a very good sleep pattern app. That being said, it lights up at odd times, and it seems to be busiest in the middle of the night. Sometimes I feel as if I’m trying to sleep across the bay from a bloody lighthouse!

Several buttons on my favorite jacket have broken, so I trotted off and bought an entire set of new ones. While I was removing the old buttons, I realized there was a MUCH easier way to attached them than laboriously sewing them over and over with plain sewing thread.

I grabbed some embroidery floss from the box and threaded a large needle. Tied a knot in the end of the floss, leaving maybe an inch beyond the knot. One stab up, a stab through the shank of the button, another stab down and knotted the ends of the thread. Done!

I removed and reattached all seven buttons in about twenty minutes.

It’s supposed to be in the 50s tomorrow.

And It Doesn’t End Well.

About three weeks ago, we had a massive snowstorm that dumped about 9 inches of snow over Baltimore; there are still piles of the stuff around the complex. Last week we got another couple of inches. That was no big deal, as it wasn’t cold enough to stick, although it came as the same time as the Carbon-Monoxide flap chez Rice.

This past week the temps have been in the upper 40s and low 50s by mid-afternoon, and The Squire and I have been going for our walks again. It is 48 degrees right now – 1:00 pm – so we’ll mosey on out in a few minutes.

Tomorrow will only be 35, and they are calling for snow on Tuesday.

A very nice young man came over yesterday and had a look-see at the stove.

According to him, most people generally use two “favorite” burners on any stove and that can lead to the sort of problem we had. He showed us that the underside of the burner had been worn down on one side because the top plate was loose and soot had built up around it. The combination of soot and unburned gas was what had set off the alarm.

We ordered a new insert for the burner, and all is well in the kingdom.

Does anybody need six frozen dinners?