In this case, perfectly ironic

Tonight, Chris has taken the Black Forest cake he requested to the church for the auction, & figured he would eat dinner there, because we’re having spaghetti here for dinner, & he’s not a fan of it.

He comes back a short time later, squalling, wanting to know what’s for dinner. When I tell him, the drama king launches himself on the counter, crying “NO” as loud & as long as he can. I said something about thinking he was eating at church & he only got louder. Then Joe clued me in.

It’s a spaghetti dinner at church.  

Time to be fair

On April 2nd, I did a post about the trials & tribulations of a trip to my local PetsMart, & the response I got from the complaint that I lodged. Now it’s time to be fair.

I went the other night, to replace the cheap food I had tried with the more expensive (& well worth the cost) stuff I should have gotten. I also needed something to raise the PH in the 55, because it was too low. I was looking, thought I found something, & checked with the young man that was working in that department at the time. Not only did he explain how the stuff I picked up would work, he also showed me a better test kit that the one I had been using, & wasn’t too happy with. When I got home, I added the stuff to raise the PH, then checked the levels the next morning with the new test kit. I was thrilled with both items, because they worked as I wanted them to. I told Chris about it, & my plan, which he agreed with.

I was quick to file a complaint, so it was time to let the Aquatics manager know the guy did something right. While she has 2 male employees who have dark hair & eyes, only 1 of them has a 250 gallon salt water tank, which this guy did, because he told me the test kit he recommended is the one that he uses in his. I told her how nice it was, talking to someone who actually knew what he was talking about & could make recommendations based on his own experience, even though my tanks are freshwater. She was also surprised that I would make the call. I told her it was all about being fair. He will get some kind of appreciation acknowledgement for the call, too. Maybe it’ll help him when it comes time for his annual review.  

Can altitude cause stupid?

My phone rings yesterday, & I looked at the caller ID, saw who it was, & thought it was strange. Normally when a CasCo work order comes in, it’s via email, not the phone. Then he tells me what the deal is. A fish vendor for a store in our area called him to report that an idiot employee put Drano in a stopped up line on a system, & Chris has to fix it. Without letting the Drano into the rest of the system, if possible. The long & the short of it is that Chris did it, without killing any fish. The line is clear, flushed, & the useless Drano couldn’t unstop the clog, which turned out to be a very good thing. If it had, the complete inventory of warm water fish would have been goners. Drano will melt soap in a trap, but not the snails & fish bodies that was the clog. (Drano is lye with chemicals.) 

A point was brought up when I was on the phone with Chris’ contact. He’s in Texas, in the Houston area, which would make Denver seem high up. The store that had the issue is in Monument, which is somewhere between 7,500′ & 8,000′. Can altitude cause stupid? Can a person be perpetually deprived of oxygen at that level & become dumb? I don’t think it happens all the time, because we know people who live in Conifer & Evergreen who aren’t stupid.

No, I don’t think so. I think it just happened that the store employee had no idea about how delicate fish are, & how the systems work, who happened to see a stupid plumber that was in the store to clear a line there. I don’t think the altitude had any part of it. It was a convergence of 1 ignorant person & 1 stupid plumber who each had the same goal.  

Although at this particular point in time, I have no room to call anyone “stupid”. I tried to save money when I last bought fish food, didn’t get the good stuff, now I have 2 tanks with crapped up water. (No Chris, I didn’t overfeed.) I will pay for my own stupid moment this afternoon when I have to do water changes on both of them. At least it wasn’t the 210. Thank goodness all that one needs is the filters cleaned.      

How to torture a husband in less than 50 moves

1. As he’s standing in a nice, warm shower, go to the sink right beside the shower & turn on the hot water. Since there is no balancing valve in the shower, the warm water he’s standing under suddenly turns cold. Do this numerous times, until said husband decides to stop the torture by changing the valve.

2. Wait til said husband is installing ballasts on a UV system, then call him to inform him that one of his Oscars is feeding on the newborn Mollies that are at the top of the tank. Wait for the squall of “my babies” before sending email to California to identify the noise they heard.

3. Tell irritant husband to “stand there & eat your cookie” while in the grocery store, so that the woman who’s behind him hears it & starts laughing. (He was working on something he got from the bakery section at the time. We didn’t know she was behind him, it just worked out that way.)

4. Inform him that if he doesn’t stop being a pest, he’s gonna have spaghetti for dinner.

Yes, all these things happened to Chris. Yes, he asked for each & every bit of it.

Things to do today

Because it’s Mother’s Day, maybe some will get done.

The last time I went to move the glass top on the 210, I cut my finger. A small cut, but that was enough. Today a trip to Home Depot is in order. They have plexiglass that I can make new tops from. According to the website, it comes several sheets to a package, so if I have to, I can double up, to make sure they don’t sag. Then to the door section, for screws (I don’t want to use glue because of the fumes in the tank), handles, & hinges. Custom made tops that not only can support the tank lights, but be cleaned easily when the water level is down. They have something called ‘Lexan’, but I don’t think I need anything that strong. The Oscars can’t hit the tops hard enough that I would have to worry about anything shattering. While we’re there, a backflow preventer will be gotten, & it will be installed today.

Then a trip to PetsMart, minus the girls. Everyone needs food, & I need filter cartridges & media. Along with water treatments. Fish are NOT cheap. If I thought about it, I think I would find that I spend more on the care & feeding of the fish than I do the girls & the cat.

Then to the grocery. Paper products are needed, as well as food. I’ve been “volunteered” to bake a cake, Black Forest, for the church auction on Friday, so I better make sure I have everything I need before Thursday. I already have the chocolate, the cocoa powder, & the cherries. Oh yeah, powdered sugar.

Between all these trips, I still have to spray the Weed-Be-Gone on the lawn vermin again. I missed last week because of rain. So far, they aren’t calling for it again until Tuesday. (Watch Bob call the water police on me for watering between 10 & 6.)  

Dinner last night for Chris & I was Marie Callander’s Chicken pot pies. Joe had left overs. (Yesterday I made 4 quiches for the ladies today in 2 Sunday School classes.) Re-reading my to-do list is making me think it’ll be that direction again tonight.  

He’s at it again

Billy Mays, that is.

This time it’s a piece of garbage that’s been around for a bit, but they’ve brought it, & him, back out. An auger that’s supposed to pull weeds from the yard, the flower beds, gardens, or anywhere. Except for 1 thing. It’s more of a con from sleazy people that employ Mays.

When we saw the ad on TV, we both noticed this thing was “plowing” through loose potting soil. Even established flower beds aren’t that loose. Brand new ones, maybe. And the $120.00 value for $19.99 (plus shipping & handling) is a joke. I saw the drill. I know what will happen. Being married to a plumber, I’ve been tool shopping with them, many times. I know what happens when a person buys a cheap drill. It burns out fast. I’ve listened to their complaints about that often enough to be sure, don’t buy cheap. It’s not worth it.

Even if I had money to throw away, I wouldn’t throw it in the direction Mays is pointing at.

I don’t see a problem

Finally! A restaurant that sees things the way many adults see them.

I don’t generally go out to eat. But when I do, I hate sitting there, trying to have a quiet dinner, with a small child in the next booth, screaming its head off & the parents doing nothing about it. Now an owner of a restaurant in Silverton, Oregon has done something about it. He’s banned any child under the age of 6. The Red Thai wants to run a restaurant that caters to adults, & there are many family style restaurants in the city, so there are places for families with small children to go to.

“He said most of his customers like the new rule, but he’s had to turn some people away. We’ve had to turn a few young parents away. They’re a little bit appalled, a little bit annoyed, but we have to do what we have to do. We can’t stay in business to please everybody,” Gereau said.” 

I don’t see the problem with it. The owner of any establishment has the right to refuse service to anyone. And if an owner wants to cater to people who don’t want to have dinner with screaming children around, then more power to him. There are people who appreciate it. 

If I were in Silverton, Oregon, I would eat dinner there.

Do I look like a doper?

Since tomorrow is Mother’s Day, I had to go to the store last night. Mother’s Day = quiche for the Sunday School classes I bake for. (On Father’s Day, it’s breakfast burritos.) I needed everything “different” to make them, & it was late enough that all the parents with kids had gone home. Since Chris decided he wanted to go, I didn’t take my drivers license. I wasn’t driving, so I didn’t see the need in it. I found out after we got there, he was hungry, which was a mistake on my part. I should’ve asked before we left, then left him at home. It would have prevented the scene in front of the meat department. But that’s neither here nor there.

Since it’s spring, my nose, sinuses, & eyes have gone nuts. The doctor told me I can use Claratin to stop the allergy symptoms without it bothering my blood pressure too much. (I took it while we were there, 159/95, it doesn’t need any help to act up.) I found a display for Claratin that said it will stop the drainage as well as clear my head. This was what I wanted, but you had to take a card to the Pharmacy to buy it. I take the card up there, & the little man behind the counter wanted to see my drivers license, to copy all my information down, because of the decongestant. I didn’t mind too much having to fill it out, but I didn’t have the required drivers license with me. It was fast becoming ridiculous. The only thing I could do, other than say forget it, was ring Chris’ phone to get him over there. I knew there would be retribution, & he was in rare form. He started off with “Lady, I just met you!” & it got worse from there. The woman behind us in line was giggling when I threatened to beat him, if only he would stand still & let me. When the guy went to ring it up, he asked Chris if we had a SoopersCard, which is phone # based. I gave the man the number with Chris standing there “Lady, I don’t know you!” All to buy a single package of 10 tablets, extended release. If I were buying several packages, I could see the reasoning behind the collection of information. But 1 package? I admit I was dirty, but I defy anyone to clean 5 filters & 3 aquariums & stay clean in the process. I’m too old for the kind of nonsense that should require information collection. Other than lightly argue about it, I think I kept my cool pretty well. And I had my revenge on Chris. He had to go through the different aisles with me, & see 2 books by 2 of my favorite authors go in the basket. And if he doesn’t behave, the next view he has will be something like this:

 

 

She’s a Ding Dong, alright

The yard & the vermin in it has me on a date schedule. Yesterday I cut the grass in the front & noticed how dry it was. Listening to a professional on the news one morning, he advised weeds can’t infiltrate if the grass is thick. Fine. My way hasn’t worked, so I’ll try theirs. Almost 2 weeks ago, I sprayed Weed-Be-Gone on the front. Tomorrow, according to the package directions, it needs to be done again, but the grass has to be cut 2 days prior to application. I did that while Chris was gone, but to ease his little mind, I let him know when I was finished. (He’s positive I’m going to hurt myself somehow, cutting the grass.) That’s when I saw how dry the grass was. I had to water.

To follow the water saving “laws” of Green Mountain Water District, any watering has to be done after 6:00 PM, or before 10:00 AM. After dinner & the dishes, it’s time to water. I knew if Loki saw what I was doing, she would have a fit. She loves playing in the hose. I had the front door closed, so she couldn’t see. Joe let her out. I was still a way from being done & here she comes. Ready to play. She chased the stream for 30 minutes at a full run. Even the kids next door, who are afraid of her, had to stand by their door so they could see this idiot dog chasing the water. (Katie, who’s almost 12, was positive running around the yard chasing water is undignified, stayed to the side where she wouldn’t get wet.) I wouldn’t get her as wet as she wanted simply because she wouldn’t have time to get dry, before dark. That undercoat German Shepherds have takes forever to dry & I didn’t want her getting cold. Only the top coat was wet & she had to suffer through being dried with a towel after Joe took them in. Then I was able to get finished.

Katie was 2 when we got her, & the playful had been beaten out of her. Loki was 8 months when we got her, & while she has the mental & emotional scars from the abuse she suffered, she’s still a playful youngster. You can see it when she gets excited. It can even be seen when Malcolm (my 12 year old cat) decides to come off her high horse & tease Loki. From everything I’ve read, serious training isn’t started with German Shepherds until they hit 4, because of their slow maturing.   

She even answers to “Ding Dong”. That’s sad.  

Lose a patent dispute? There may be hope

According to Prof. John Duffy, there’s a problem with how judges are put on the bench to decide patent disputes. According to the framers of the Constitution: ”some government officials may be appointed only by the president, the courts or “heads of departments” like the attorney general or the secretary of commerce.  

But a 1999 law changed the way administrative patent judges are appointed, substituting the director of the Patent and Trademark Office for the secretary of commerce. Jennifer Rankin Byrne, a spokeswoman for the office, said 46 of the 74 judges on the patent court, the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, were appointed under the new law.

“That method of appointment is almost certainly unconstitutional,” Professor Duffy wrote in his paper, first published last summer on an influential patent law blog.”

Hello! Can you see the lines now, for all the losers of the cases? I can. I don’t even want to think about the amount of money involved.

For all those who lost, buck up. There’s hope yet.