Category: Family

Shortly after moving to Parrish, I was surprised to find a large flock of these ducks that would invade our old neighborhood eating the bird seed. Large flock as in anywhere from thirty to forty ducks. Doing some cursory research resulted in finding the Wikipedia article.

They’ve been showing up at Ward Manor for the last several months – most likely drawn by the cornucopia of bird seed we set out for the birds. They’ll come pretty close to the house.

What gets me is their bright orange beaks with that gray spot that looks like the paint’s worn off.

The other thing that surprises me about them? They don’t really quack like the mallards.

Safe Happenings – A couple of weeks ago I tried getting into my big gun safe. Spun the dial. Nope. Grunt. Try again. Nope. Again. Nope. WTF? Try several more times. Finally call the place I bought the safe from. Owner says to retry with numbers one up and one down. Oookay. Did that. No joy. Y’know what? Screw it, let’s swap out with a new digital lock.

“Sure, can I swing by tonight at 8 or 9?” Um no, Ward Manor is an early to bed, early to rise place. Originally, we planned for him to come down on Sunday, but he called and asked if we minded him coming on Friday. Nope. Not at all.

He opened the safe. It was one number off. Not sure how that happened since the combo worked the last time I opened it up. I’m going to blame it on the fact the lock was made in 2020, and a lot of stuff made that year had “quality control issues.” Anywhoo, I have a brand new shiny keypad.

Screen Door Happenings – Since the temp on Sunday dipped below 65, The Wife thew open the screen door for the first time since February. This also means we had to monitor which cat was by the front door to avoid some of the more spectacular furballs.

Backpack Happenings – I picked up this new pouch for my EDC backpack, mostly because I was trying to meet the free shipping threshold. But, it looked like it would at least replace one pouch that I was never really happy with. I get it in and there’s a small problem. It’s supposed to attach via hook and loop (e.g., velcro). Well, the pouch has the loop portion (aka, the fuzzy part) and the backpack has the loop portion. Looking online I couldn’t find a double-sided hook adapter. I did find a suggestion to take some hook and loop tape and essentially create an adapter. First prototype created and now we test!

Backpack Happenings – Much to my surprise, I find myself going to theme parks more and more often. Usually it’s just our normal trip to Disney World with The Wife’s co-workers, however, there’s been more and more “side quests” at other times. While my normal EDC backpack is technically TSA-compliant, I’ve run into issues with the theme parks. They really don’t like you bringing in trauma shears – which I don’t understand – among other things.

So, I’ve decided to use a spare backpack to create my “theme park” bag. It will have what I consider the essentials for a day in the theme parks without causing undo issues with security. The other benefit is because I’m limiting what goes in the bag, it’s going to be lighter for the walking. Right now, I’m trying to build it with as much of my spare gear as possible. Apparently, I have a lot of spare gear because I’ve only had to pick up a few things as of right now.

Transformers Happenings – Last Saturday, The Wife and I trekked up to our preferred cinema to catch a screening of the 1986 “Transformers The Movie.” Hasbro was really pushing this 40th anniversary “Apology Tour” with the screenings and associated merchandise. Expensive merchandise. Feck it, I’m just there to see the movie. It started with a tribute to Peter Cullen, and damn it if there wasn’t dust in the air in the theater. The movie, was well, the movie. The same one I’ve been watching for forty years. Then came the short, which was heavily promoted as Peter Cullen’s last performance as Optimus Prime. Let’s just say I found it disappointing and a good example of what happens when you let writers get too philosophical with material that should have just been a damn tribute to a beloved series / character / voice actor.

At least The Wife got a nifty cup.

Here are at Ward Manor, we have a nice pond / small lake in the back. It’s why we get some interesting water birds.

One joke about Florida is that our mammals are small, but our birds are big. Which is true for the Great Blue Heron.

Image from Wikipedia.

Every so often, I will see one of these with it’s wings akimbo and ready to fight.

I’ve seen one of the great blues take on another or some of the other birds around the lake.

In addition to the great blue herons, we have a couple of Little Blue Herons running around.

Image again from Wikipedia.

I really don’t have any good pics of the little blue herons, but it’s fun to see them perch on top of the arbor.

Computer Happenings – Last week, we had some nasty thunderstorms roll through Ward Manor’s AO. One decided to lay down some lightning nearby. As in a few houses down the street. It caused some nasty flickering at Ward Manor, which resulted in the death of The Wife’s work dock. As you can imagine, this caused some calamity. We managed to get The Wife’s work laptop hooked up to her personal workstation, but that was, shall we say, limited.

Anywhoo, we were already discussing consolidating her home workstation and personal workstation when we redid her office. We just decided to go ahead and do the consolidation on her current desk. We had this curved widescreen monitor bouncing around, and The Wife made envious looks at my widescreen every time I had Excel on it. So, we set the big monitor in the center and flanked it with a couple of others. We also got to use this Anker monitor stand/dock I’d had hanging around. Which gave The Wife a great place to charge her work phone. Took us a couple of hours, but we got the basic set up done.

AI Happenings – Do I use AI for helping me with my writing? Yes. Do I find AI to be helpful? Yes. Do I probably have more fun than I should by having AI create fake reviews and podcast transcripts featuring famous writers and thinkers review my stories? Yes. Do I think AI will replace good writing or good editing? Nope. I have seen it make shit up that didn’t happen, misread whole passages, and other hallucinations. I’m still having way too much fun with my fake reviews and podcasts.

First Date Happenings (plus nine years) – The Wife and I celebrate the anniversary of our first date the Sunday before Labor Day. It’s just easier for us, and makes sure we generally have the time to go out and enjoy ourselves. This year, we went up to the EBISU up in Tampa. When we went up for the grand opening, the line to get in was too daunting. Much to our surprise, there was still a line to get in. After about ten minutes, we entered. Um, how to describe it? Imagine a Japanese arcade, toy store, and grocery store were jammed into the same area. It was fun, but crowded. The staff recommended we should come during the week if we wanted to avoid the crowds. Much to my surprise, they had some Macross.

If it wasn’t $400, it would have probably followed us home. At any rate, we stocked up on Kit Kats and Pocky. Which was why we brought the cooler.

After EBISU, we went to the restaurant. The same restaurant we met at nine years ago. We enjoyed our food, reminisced on all the life events we’ve experienced since that night nine years ago. Then, unlike that night, we went home together.

Grandniece Birthday Happenings – Last Saturday, we had a small birthday party for the Grandniece. It was just family, as she was having a larger party with her friends on Sunday at Chuck E Cheese. She seemed pleased with her present haul, but had the most fun when she went up to my office. I have a small bin with some of my toys – I mean, collectibles – that I don’t have a problem with her playing with. She calls them puppet shows. The grandniece also loves talking to Alexa – which I’m not sure how I feel about that. She thought it was really neat when I had my office lights cycle colors. And, as always, when she left, so did the last of our energy.

Conversations at Ward Manor – As The Wife and I were coming back from picking up Grandniece’s birthday cake, we were discussing the need to hide somethings because we have an upcoming surprise for the Grandniece.

The Wife: How likely is it that Grandniece won’t want to go upstairs and see our offices?

Me: It’s possible. Granted about as possible as a meteor hitting the house.

The Wife: Can we not put that kind of thing out to the universe?

Me: Can we not indulge in magical thinking?

The Wife: Meteors are not magical.

Me: No, the concept of putting things out in the universe.

The Wife: Oh, I see. No.

Obviously, this week’s entry is overshadowed by the loss of Lola as detailed in Monday’s post, but I did want to comment on some of the more mundane items.

Shoe Happenings – I used a pair of Sketcher slip-ons for walking on the treadmill, but it felt like my feet were “rolling” with them. After talking with The Wife, we decided that I should upgrade my footwear. Now, I hate laces. Absolutely hate laces. So, I ended with a pair of Hoka laceless shoes. It’s weird getting used to a tall, springy shoe. On the plus side, I went through a good portion of my morning without needing my standing mat.

Recovery Happenings – The Wife continues with her recovery, with a focus on getting her extension to full. Good days and bad days, which is frustrating because her bad leg is a lot more painful than her good leg. It’s just going to be a process, which she understands intellectually, but it’s trying her patience. Good days and bad days. At least she’s met her out of pocket maximum.

This wasn’t something we expected. The Wife took our cat Lola to the vet for the cat’s monthly arthritis shot. I was busy teaching an Excel class for the day job. The Wife suspected something was wrong because Lola’s stomach was rock hard.

Just have them give her a look. I said that and forgot about it as I focused on my class. After all, outside of her arthritis, Lola wasn’t one of our cats that I worried about. Which was why The Wife’s next message shocked me.

They looked at her and it doesn’t look good. You may want to come down here.

Fluid in the abdomen and chest. Lots. Vet was pretty sure it was cancer, but the only way to find out was exploratory surgery – and even with that it was most likely untreatable. The Wife made a promise to herself that she would not make one of her cats suffer just to comfort herself – and it’s a sentiment I share. We talked and decided Lola suffered enough. Gods damn it, I hate when it’s time to make that decision. Especially when we weren’t expecting it. I snapped one last picture before we said goodbye.

The Wife told me that she got kitty Lola as a playmate for our dearly departed Titus – who was a kitty himself – so that Titus would leave her older cat Spike alone. Instead, baby Lola attached herself to Spike, which meant Titus was still free to cause havoc.

When I came in to the picture, Lola was less than pleased. I think it took me the better part of two years before she finally accepted me. It helped that I was one of the humans that fed her. Still, The Wife was very much her person. I was just there as a somewhat useful accessory.

Lola was a sassy cat with a croaky meow when one of the other cats got closer than she wanted. I’m going to miss hearing that. I’m going to miss seeing her get into it with Freya – who I think Lola never really forgave us for bringing into Ward Manor. I’m going to miss her dancing on the cat tree when she thought treats were incoming. In short, I’m going to miss Lola.

Road Trip Happenings – Last Friday, The Wife and I decided to trek up to Tampa for the opening of the new Ebisu store. Because Derek is a weeb and they were offering all those wonderful kinds of KitKats that I usually only get at EPCOT. Among other things. Plus, I needed to swing by the office to get showerhead that was delivered there (see last week’s post). So, after making sure to load the rollator for The Wife, we hoped in the Wardmobile and made our way north. No problem picking up the showerhead, we got lunch at one of our favorite places, we made plans to meet up with The Brother afterwards – everything was going smoothly.

Then we got to the store – and saw the line that to get in. The line that went past two large storefronts and to the end of the shopping plaza. The Wife took one look at that line, looked at her knees, and informed me that there was no physical way she could endure that line. Even with the rollator. Disappointing, but we’re not the young folks we would like to be. We agreed to try again at a later date, texted The Brother, and headed over his way. We chatted with him for a bit. It was the first time The Wife and he were able to meet up since her latest surgery. After that, The Wife and I decided to go down to the Tampa 5.11 store, since they were running clearance. I picked up one of their attache cases among the discounted clothes. Did I need the attache case? Nope. After looking at it, my Maxpedition was better suited for getting my stuff to work. I rationalized on it being better to carry my personal laptop for any future trips.

The trip home wasn’t so much eventful as long. Plus rainy. Plus a Friday rush hour. Not a bad day, even if we didn’t get to do the featured event.

Return To Work Happenings – The Wife started back to work this week after being out for recovery. So, it’s getting back into routines that have lain at least partially dormant for the past three weeks. We worked last week on starting to get back to normal, but there are some things that only happen when it’s all “real.” The Wife did start clearing out her emails last week so she wasn’t walking into a mailbox apocalypse.

Voting Happenings – I did my civic duty and voted in the primaries. It was difficult, because, well, let’s just say the slates of candidates were unappealing at best and repulsive at worst. I could opine on the state of the parties in Florida, the need for a jungle primary versus the closed primary system, and more, but let’s just say this cycle is not endearing me to the current climate.

Best Wife Happenings – I walked into my office and found the below note. I will admit to suffering a bit from dust after reading it. I’m really excited to try it out. If it works as well as I expect, that little device will be added to my daily carry. There’s too many times when inspiration strikes and I need to write on one of my stories.