Category: Family

Since The Wife and I both have our birthdays in July, we generally use up birthday gift monies on Amazon’s Prime Days. This year, I used my available funding on illumination, charging, toys, and a big Echo.

Illumination – I replaced my “walking around” flashlight that I’ve had for the better part of a decade with a new Streamlight 500-lumen rechargeable. I also picked up one of their rechargeable headlamps.

Charging – For the EDC bag, I replaced the battery with one of Anker’s mag-charger ones and added a small USB-C plug. I also picked up one of Amazon’s 100W wall plug that has a couple of USB-C ports. I also got one of Anker’s batteries that plug into the wall. This one’s a bit bigger than I expected, but it can deliver 65W of power.

Toys – On impulse, I picked up the Black series Cad Bane as well as an SD VF-25 Messiah with cutesy Sheryl Nome figure. I need to rearrange my office a bit with all the little toys I’ve picked up over the past few years.

Echo – Yes, I know all the security concerns around Amazon’s smart home devices. I’ve decided that it’s an acceptable risk for the convenience. With that throat clearing out of the way, I’ve kinda wanted a Show in my office. They’re great for accessing the Ring cameras, looking at our calendar, and acting a smart photo frame. I will admit, the Echo 15 I got was maybe a bit more than I needed, but dang it looks nice in my office.

Back on Friday the seventh, the Ward Wagon was rear-ended as I was coming home from helping my mom. As I said last week, no injuries on either side, but the Ward Wagon needed to be towed due to its exhaust trailing on the ground. Tow truck was supposed to deliver the Ward Wagon to an auto shop in Palmetto, which was much nearer to Ward Manor than where the accident occurred. Insurance rep tells me that I should hear from the auto shop on Monday with an estimate and authorization for repair.

Monday comes and nothing. Tuesday, The Wife calls. The auto shop says they will get back to her. Nope. Wednesday she calls. We’ll check and get back to you. Not five minutes later the auto shop calls me back. We don’t have your car. Umm, what? We’re at capacity and refused the driver on Friday night. So, where the hell is my car? Don’t know. You’ll have to contact your insurance company.

Instead, I call the tow company. Nice guy answers the phone. He pulls up the information. The Ward Wagon is at their storage lot. Do you know why no one bothered to inform us about this before now? We notified the middleman that talks to insurance company and tow companies. We have to wait for an authorization from them before we can do anything. Have to call the insurance company to find a new place. The Wife calls insurance company. The first rep plays the “I can’t hear you” game. The second is very helpful. Unfortunately, the closest place with capacity is an hour away up in Pinellas Park. Well, fuck. Still, we can’t be without a car. Okay, let me talk with them and get things in motion. -CLICK- DISCONNECT. The Wife let out a primal scream of frustration ladened with appropriate expletives. Fortunately, the rep calls back within ten minutes. Everything is set up. I get text from new auto shop. The Wife calls new shop. They’ve received initial information from Middleman and hope to have the vehicle delivered. They’ll call us when they receive it for authorizations.

Thursday – nothing. Getting concerned. Friday, The Wife calls the new auto shop. No, they don’t have it yet, but they have it on the schedule to be received. Later on, I get a call from new auto shop saying that they’ve received the car and that they need me to sign authorizations. Would I like to come in or have them email me the documents to e-sign. Email please. I get that turned around. Less than a half-hour later, insurance company calls. Need some additional information not originally collected. Okay. Basic car info. License plate. By the way, the auto shop is showing that it can’t take your vehicle due to capacity. Did you tell them it was going to be a tow-in? WTF? Not only was that made clear by last insurance rep, but by The Wife when she talked to them on Wednesday. Besides they contacted me with documents to sign for authorization. When was this? Back on Wednesday? No, less than an hour ago. Do you mind while I put you on a brief hold and contact the auto shop? Nope. A few minutes pass. Insurance rep and customer service rep from new auto shop. No, they have space for the car, but they haven’t received some sort of authorization from Middleman. We have our own towing company than go fetch your vehicle, but we need your authorization. Authorized. Just get the damn car. (I didn’t vocalize that last part). Customer service rep starts getting my information. Her co-worker overhears and says something I can’t hear. Oh, his car’s already here? It came in an hour ago? Back when I was on lunch? Okay. So, Mr. Ward, we have everything we need. We will call you early next week.

Monday nothing. Tuesday nothing. Call yesterday. We hope to have it disassembled today with an estimate to you sometime Thursday.

This is not helping my blood pressure or my work productivity. Feck.

As previously stated, we recently brought a new cat into the house. We took him to the vet to get him established.

The vet took a listen and informed us Boo has a pretty strong heart murmur. We are in the process of determining the murmur’s etiology. Hopefully it will be something we can easily treat.

The point of the title is that this murmur was something the vet at the shelter should have known about it. Or did know about it and didn’t tell us. I’m not going to ascribe malice, but it’s annoying that we had to find this out on our own.

The Friday before Independence Day, we were expecting that our weekend was going to be filled with taking care of the newest member of the clowder. Particularly keeping him off the counters and out of food. That lasted until I got a call from The Brother that our mother was heading to the ER. The Wife and I jumped into the Ward Wagon and trekked up to the hospital.

Upon arriving, I found out that the hospital has full security screening. Which meant most of my normal EDC had to be left in the vehicle. In true Florida fashion, I walked through the metal detector. it went off and the security guy had to wand me.

“Hey, what’s this?” “My holster.” “Cool, I just need to make sure it’s empty.” Satisfied, The Wife and I went over to where Mom was waiting with Shootin’ Buddy and his girlfriend (who live with Mom). A few hours later, Mom was ensconced in her room.

Over the next week, I made sure I went to see Mom every day to make sure she has everything she needs. Normally, The Brother would have handled that as he is much closer. Unfortunately, The Brother currently has a bum leg. Which meant I had to make the trek up. Since I still had to work for most of that week, I hauled up my work laptop and peripherals up. I am so glad we bought that portable monitor back in October for our trip out west.

Friday comes and Mom gets discharged. It was a bunch of wait, wait, now hurry up. Still, we got her home and settled in. Shooting Buddy started doing meal planning with Mom’s diet restrictions while I retrieved her prescriptions. It had been a long week, and I was ready to go home.

Then someone rear-ended the Ward Wagon. I don’t blame the kid. Traffic came to a quick stop on 75. It took me standing on my brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of me. Two cars behind me had to veer on the shoulder. The third car just couldn’t stop in time. No one was injured, but the Ward Wagon was dragging its exhaust. So, it’s off to the shop our insurance recommended. Due to the traffic, it took The Wife and MIL a while to come and get me.

Since the Ward Wagon is our only car, we rented a vehicle. We asked for a smaller SUV. We ended up with a Ford Expedition. Yeah, that SUV is bigger than I want to deal with. Yet, we needed something because I was supposed to go to jury duty and The Wife was going to have to schlep three of the cats to the vet. I was not looking forward to taking that into downtown Bradenton. Fortunately, when I checked on Sunday, I was not required to report. I’m going to chalk it up to my brutal honesty on my voire dire form. After all, I can just see attorneys seeing interests of “reading, writing, libertarian political theory, firearms, economics” and everyone asking to just keep me away. Or at least, that’s my head cannon.

Hopefully, we will get the Ward Wagon back quickly.

Back in September, we lost our sphinx cat Titus. It The Wife hard because he was her baby – and it was such an unexpected loss.

Everyone who knows The Wife, knows how much she loves her sphinxes. And how bereft the clowder has been without one. Enter SIL (more accurately, BIL’s Wife, but I call her my SIL). She helpfully sent The Wife an article that the local shelter had just gotten in a sphinx.

But we weren’t planning on adding any more cats. But it’s a sphinx. But we’ll have to buy a bunch of new stuff to accommodate another cat. But it’s a sphinx. Well, the article has gotten a lot of attention. We probably won’t get it. What do you mean we’re the first people to come see him?

So, Friday, our new sphinx joined the clowder. He’s very food motivated. And hasn’t learned that he’s not to get on counters or the table. This resulted in MIL discovering the little rascal had climbed on the counter and figured out how to open the door to the toaster oven to get to the melted cheese and crumbs. Insert Anchorman meme of “I’m not mad, I’m impressed”.

He’s going to be a handful, but he’s our Boo Radley. (Name change is still under discussion.)

Yesterday was Independence Day. That day has special significance for The Wife and me. Back in 2018, we agreed that would be the day I “moved in.” I use quotes because it would be another month before I stopped sleeping at my Tampa house during the week. The big event to signal our change in status was moving down my cats to form our blended clowder. Or at least, that’s what she thought was going to be the event.

That night, after things and cats had settled down, I proposed. In many ways, this was the start of two people who had been independent agreeing to depend on each other for the rest of their lives. It was our Dependence Day.

My jury summons has showed up for early next month. While I don’t have a problem with going for the jury pool, I also realize that I’m not really the ideal candidate for any attorney. Which is probably why I’ve never been selected to serve on the few times I’ve had to go previously. However, this is my first time in my new county. I don’t know if the dynamics are any different.

My other issue with having to go to do jury duty is the same as when I go to the airport. Too much of my normal EDC has to be left at home. Which means going through my bag and other things to remove prohibited items and switch out for things that aren’t as objectionable.

When I started smoking meat, I had a big tub full of charcoal. I left that with my old grill back in Tampa when I moved down to Parrish. When we moved into Ward Manor, I bought a new tub and proceeded to fill it up. Part of it was the belief that if I had a full “coal bunker” I could always have fire to cook and/or heat the house if we had a significant disruption.

I think the damage started with Ian. Sometime over the past few months, the tub warped, and the coal was soaked. As in crumbling from water impregnation. I thought it was just the top layer. Nope. The Wife, MIL, and I methodically parceled out the ruined charcoal into reasonable weight trash bags. Garbage day is going to be oh-so-fun.

Anyways, we bought a couple of new deck boxes for outside. I’m not going to go as hog wild with the charcoal. Probably try to keep it to a couple of bags.

Last weekend, The Wife and I took my mom to a local winery for a tasting. As the post title states, I generally don’t do wine, but I figured I could at least try some and enjoy the food.

We went to the Bunker Hill Vineyard. We each got six samples of wines we chose from their menu. I know I’m not big on dry wines, so I chose mine from their medium dry wines. Mom chose hers. The Wife chose hers. We traded. Some we liked. Some we didn’t like as much. Here’s what came home with us: Black Tea Wine, Black Coffee Wine, Strawberry Wine, Spiced Apple Wine, Sparkling Cucumber Wine.

What also came home with us was a jar of Apple Butter and Key Lime Marmalade.

If you happen to be in the West Central Florida area, I highly recommend you swing by. It’s good stuff and a fun time was had by all.

There are a couple of graduations happening in these parts of the world that are impacting Ward Manor. This resulted in The Wife making her Cricut machine go BRRR on Saturday morning to make cards and other supplies for the celebrations.

While she was working furiously on that, I was busy working on my fantasy novel. The good news is that I have finished most of the major action. It’s really down to the denouement. Upon relating this to The Wife, she said “Did you kill anyone else off?” I’ll take the Fifth on that.

Mom and The Brother came down for dinner and board games. Well, one board game. I highly recommend the Quacks of Quedlinburg. Plus both Mom and The Brother enjoy playing with the newest member of the Gubler clowder.

On Sunday, we remedied an issue with the dining room and put down a rug. That wouldn’t normally incite a comment on the blog. However, the room occasioned a larger than normal rug. Which was kind of fun toting down in the Ward Wagon. Then all the fun getting it appropriately aligned.

A relatively regular weekend, including the resulting back and shoulder pains.