Birthday Party Happenings – Ward Manor is often the site of family gatherings due to location, size, configuration. So, it wasn’t exactly a shock when it fell on us to host the Grandniece’s fifth birthday party. The Wife loves to decorate and was excited to host. She made shirts on her Cricut for the birthday girl and the “Birthday Squad” who were helping with the hosting. That did not include me, mostly because I refused to wear a pink shirt. Eh, even I have my quirks. The party was catered by Publix, in as much as we ordered a bunch of various food trays as well as the cake from the grocery store across the thoroughfare from the neighborhood. There was a lot of set up including getting certain things out of reach from a half-dozen children under the age of 6. Including locking away some of our cats who don’t do well with being groped or who might bolt if a door is left open. There was also an “outside area” that needed to be set up, including a pretty decent size inflatable pool. At least we had a chance to get all the kinks out of the hose.

The Wife and I don’t understand this trend with certain folks of lateness. If I see an event starts at X o’clock, I assume I need to be there at X o’clock. Not X:30 or later. Different subcultures. Although slightly annoying for people who regard promptness as politeness. Still, once the guests started coming, we just kind of sat back and let The Wife’s Niece handle it.

Did I eat way too much? Yes. Did I have fun? Eh, more of glad I got to make a special day for The Grandniece. Was I complete exhausted once we got everyone out and the house somewhat put back to normal? Hells yes. And the neighbors were happy to take the inflatable pool off of our hands. Particularly when they heard the price – free.

Labor Day Happenings – Labor Day morning started with me finding the hall with some very odd streaks. Like the robot got a hold of some cat poop. Yet, the downstairs robot wasn’t supposed to be running. Grumble. Grumble. Grumble. Clean the hall. Clean the robot. Then we found the source of the problem. Freya, the youngest of the clowder found a streamer from the party. How did we know? Let’s just say it was streaming from her rear end until The Wife pulled it out like she was a magician drawing a string of handkerchiefs.

After much hemming and hawing, we took Freya down to the ER Vet. With it being Labor Day, our normal vet was closed, as was the urgent care. The vet did x-rays and couldn’t see anything that looked bad. So, the prescription was something Freya found most enjoyable – lots of treats and food to keep the digestive track moving.

I swear, between what we spent on the party and the ER bill, it would’ve been cheaper to take The Grandniece to Disney World for the day.

Car Technology Happenings – The Friday before Labor Day was very quiet at the office. It was just pretty much one other teammate and myself for most of the day. Anywhoo, I decided to just tackle a couple of my more simple tasks and spend the day listening to a book. Which is probably why I noticed the banner.

The Wife likes to use the Subaru app to remote start the Ward Wagon or the Wardmobile. Unfortunately, because both cars are Subarus, they use the same app. Which meant that The Wife down in Bradenton accidentally remote started the Ward Wagon up in Tampa. Fortunately, I saw the banner flash across my phone. Which meant just going out to the mostly deserted parking lot and turning it off. Then getting to let The Wife in on her little mistake. The small humors of life.

Garbage Can Happenings – The minor drama happening around the neighborhood surrounds the change of garbage collection. The county’s new contract meant we were all provided with new big garbage cans, but we were going to once a week pickup – and only what’s in the can. Not unusual for the area, but very different than what we are used to. Beyond the normal sturm und drang by the Nextdoor crowd, it means that we have the next month to do some heavy duty purging.

Weight Happenings – The mighty scale says 288, which means I’ve gained a pound over last week. Which, considering my work team went out to lunch and The Grandniece’s birthday party, I’m not surprised. I tried to keep the week on an even keel, but I guess I underestimated calorie counts for stuff. Hopefully, this week will be better.