What did you do today?

[Blarghagh]

I'd read that.

 

(My stock response is 'That's a tough question for me.')

[Bartimaeus]

Yesterday, after getting asked for the half a dozenth time by the same guy "how are you" and responding, as I do, with "I don't know, you're asking the wrong guy," I came up with a new book idea.

 

Conversation Stoppers for the Socially Awkward: Making People Regret Smalltalk

It's a collection of very short stories you can share with people to make things even more awkward. I already have three pieces for it. "The Time I Thought A Woman Was Flirting With Me, But She Was Just On Her Bluetooth," "Job Interview Goes Great Until One Interviewer Reveals He Was My High School Bully," and "That Time My Friends Surprised Me With An Intervention Even Though I Don't Have A Problem."

Ooh, I hate it when people do that. Somebody repeatedly asking questions like that (and others such as "what're you doing") within the same day day just feels like code for, "Entertain me!". I usually start giving the worst possible answers - answers that are completely boring, unnecessarily obfuscated, flat-out repeated word-for-word, self-referential, etc. They either will get sick of your answers and will stop asking or improvise something themselves, and in the meanwhile, you have your rote answer. Either way, the problem eventually gets solved. Once in a while, though, you have somebody whom you really just can't shake...and you can unfortunately no longer just be politely passive aggressive about it.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Bartimaeus

[Blarghagh]

"I don't know, you're asking the wrong guy,"

Who IS the right guy, though?

[LadyCrimson]

Tossed 5pound pork shoulder roast in the slow cooker, then sat and watched some tutorials on Blender on one monitor, trying to follow along with the program opened on the other monitor (make a donut! make an anvil!).

 

The guy doing these videos is good and you learn what buttons to press to do some stuff and it's easy to follow along and see it happen in your own window, but I don't understand why it works or why it's doing what it's doing so it never really sinks in. Which is exactly how I felt about schooling. Especially math. There's that level of acceptance of "it just does/works that way/accept it/do it" which makes me go "yeah but..."

 

 

But it's interesting. I might figure out how to do the things I want to do, eventually. Unless I get bored first.

[Malcador]

Watching this instead of working

 

[Gfted1]

I was planning on going fishing this morning. Got my fishing license last night and packed the poles/cast net/tackle box into the car so I could get a running start this morning and then woke up to rain. I don't want it bad enough to go stand in the rain.

[Guard Dog]

I was planning on going fishing this morning. Got my fishing license last night and packed the poles/cast net/tackle box into the car so I could get a running start this morning and then woke up to rain. I don't want it bad enough to go stand in the rain.

You need to pack the family up and move out of that suburban hell. If you live out in the sticks going fishing may be nothing more than a short, pleasant walk. 

[Guard Dog]

This week I picked the last of the veggies in the garden. I kept what I wanted and packed the rest into hampers. As soon as my coffee is done I'm heading to the farmers market. It's weird looking out and seeing the field empty now. Tomorrow I'll turn the soil and leave it be until next month when I do the fall plant. 

 

When I go the the farmers market I need to buy a bushel of jalapenos. I planted two full rows of strawberries and now I have 400 or so fat red strawberries. I'm making preserves, strawberry chips  in the dehydrator, strawberry bread, and this: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/180695/jalapeno-strawberry-jam/

 

That is going to be awesome!

[Lexx]

What an event heavy summer week. So I subbed to PewDiePie and HeyImBee and why do i waste my life so much.

[Bartimaeus]

I have a strict "separate but equal" policy for my strawberries and jalapenos, .

[Azdeus]

 

I was planning on going fishing this morning. Got my fishing license last night and packed the poles/cast net/tackle box into the car so I could get a running start this morning and then woke up to rain. I don't want it bad enough to go stand in the rain.

You need to pack the family up and move out of that suburban hell. If you live out in the sticks going fishing may be nothing more than a short, pleasant walk. 

 

´Soo much this. I've got a hundred metres to the lake. It's awesome for warm days too.

 

GD, did you ever share any images of where you live?

[Gfted1]

You need to pack the family up and move out of that suburban hell. If you live out in the sticks going fishing may be nothing more than a short, pleasant walk.

 

Where I go fishing is only ~2 miles from my house but I would love waterfront or walking distance fishing access. I once had a place in Jacksonville where the entire neighborhood was only 8 houses on one street. At the end of the street there was a community shared pier that went about 100 feet out into the intercoastal. It had 8 boat slips and a deck at the end and every house in the neighborhood owned one of the slip and had use the deck. It was glorious. I fished almost every day after work and weekends.

[Guard Dog]

 

 

I was planning on going fishing this morning. Got my fishing license last night and packed the poles/cast net/tackle box into the car so I could get a running start this morning and then woke up to rain. I don't want it bad enough to go stand in the rain.

You need to pack the family up and move out of that suburban hell. If you live out in the sticks going fishing may be nothing more than a short, pleasant walk. 

 

´Soo much this. I've got a hundred metres to the lake. It's awesome for warm days too.

 

GD, did you ever share any images of where you live?

 

A few over the years. I posted a picture of Sunny chasing ducks where Cold Creek meets the Lauderdale river a few weeks ago. I KNOW I've posted coyote pics. 

 

Edit: I guess I haven't Azdeus. The only pic of the house was back when it was being built almost 9 years ago. The coyote was in my front yard. 

 

 

Edited June 9, 2018 by Guard Dog

[Guard Dog]

I have a strict "separate but equal" policy for my strawberries and jalapenos, .

You may change your mind once you tried what I'm gonna make!

[LadyCrimson]

Whenever hubby wears his cheap old-man straw wide-brim fedora-like hat and cheap plaid long-sleeved shirt when he gardens, at some point in the day enter the garage and he'll be standing at the open outside-garage door frame, just standing in hunched-shoulder lanky silhouette, squinting in the sun with a scowl on his face as he smokes a cancer-stick.

 

And I'm reminded of all those horror movies where the kiddies drive by on a lonely road and look out the window where somewhere in a vast wheat field a creepy old farmer in a hat is staring back at them.

 

...and I go back inside the house. 

 

Edited June 10, 2018 by LadyCrimson

[Hurlshort]

I've been trying to find a way to get better at open water swimming, and I figured the ocean is the best way to do that since the calm waters of the Pacific Ocean are so warm and inviting. I found a group that does a mile swim every Sunday, heading half a mile out to a buoy and back in a kelp forest in Monterey. It was cleaner water than Santa Cruz and fairly safe from sharks (although not jellyfish) so I decided to give it a try. It also ha da nice beach for the kids to play at.

 

I got there, suited up in my wetsuit (which I regret is sleeveless) and headed out to the group. I don't know what it is, but for some reason I just can't breathe right for the first few minutes of open water swimming. I can jump in a pool and settle right into a rhythm, but out in the open I nearly hyperventilate. I kept trying to steady myself, but I basically had to breaststroke with my head up for the first few minutes. Finally I calmed down and got a steady stroke going, but I still did mostly breaststroke while using freestyle bursts here and there to keep up with the back crowd. 

 

I got to the yellow buoy a half mile out after 18 minutes, and they had me kiss the barnacle encrusted thing. Then I asked for an uber, which got a laugh, so I'm guessing the answer was no. Swimming back was actually harder, as the wind and waves had really picked up and the tide doesn't actually carry you in along this stretch of beach. 

 

I got out and my legs didn't really work, and I was shivering pretty badly, but it felt good to be done. It wasn't enjoyable like running and biking. It is just such a different feeling to know that there is no stopping on the swim, not really. You can slow down or tread for a bit, but really that just means you are going to get hit by waves and it's not really rest. It's tough, but hopefully I can get more comfortable out there if I do it more often.

 

Edited June 11, 2018 by Hurlshot

[teknoman2]

When my cat was murdered i said "may whoever did it see whatever he loves die in agony". For about a month now a neighbor was getting sicker and sicker without any doctor being able to figure out what's wrong with him as the only symptom was intense pain and today he died. The thing is that according to my mother, his wife is the most possible suspect for the death of my cat. Do you think there's a relation?

[Epaminondas]

When my cat was murdered i said "may whoever did it see whatever he loves die in agony". For about a month now a neighbor was getting sicker and sicker without any doctor being able to figure out what's wrong with him as the only symptom was intense pain and today he died. The thing is that according to my mother, his wife is the most possible suspect for the death of my cat. Do you think there's a relation?

 

Good God, I hope not!

 

Anyhow, I have good news.  This month sees my life getting back together.

 

Last month, my father-in-law spent the whole time dying.  It was a brutal experience.  For years, I've been the guy who talked to doctors and whatnot for the family.  Now that I've been in school, I literally did virtually all the talking with the health care folks.  I could describe things as they happened.  I didn't want to be pushy, but the staff soon figured out I had some sort of background and the doctor finally asked me what I did because I actually knew what was happening.  Yep, I was really smart.  Nothing like being smart enough to see the train coming while standing in the middle of the tunnel.  All my smarts and acumen were of absolutely no help.  The ending was obvious in the middle of the play.  Didn't need to be a genius to see what was happening.  Just a matter of letting it grind out in brutally inevitable fashion.

 

On the first morning when things became set in stone, we get a call in the wee hours of the morning and go to the hospital because my father-in-law had ended up intubated in the ICU.  While walking through the lot at 0330, my wife trips over construction materials and breaks her wrist.  I spent the whole time that morning going back and forth between the ICU and ED.  By the way, getting to see a closed reduction on a loved one's wrist... fun FUN FUN!  Cool story, I sat with my wife and her respiration and heart rate spiked as the ketamine wore off.  I held my wife's good hand and told her to breathe more slowly.  "Breathe steady, my dear.  It's good.  Breathe with me."  One of the health care folks behind me said to another, "living the dream!"  He wasn't being facetious.  Pretty emo, huh?  piss off!

 

So, when my wife went in for the open reduction and have a plate screwed into her radius, her dad finally gave up the fight and died.  The hospital allowed her to stay in the recovery bed for a couple extra hours so I could go be with the family.  Good times.

 

At the end of last month, I was driving through the canyon to get back home after taking my wife to visit her family and I hit a burro.  bwahahaha.  Good Lord.  I felt so terrible, but highway patrol thinks the burro actually lived, so I guess there's that.  Car had to have several thousand dollars work, my wife still has bruises across her abdomen, and I missed mental health clinical the next day, but that's life for ya.

 

Anyhow, I never missed an assignment, never missed an exam, and still managed to go down to Moreno Valley at least once a day and often twice.  I fulfilled every familial and academic obligation.  the beauty of my anonymity is that I can say this, brag a little, but I'm not bragging to people who know me anyway.  When I was a kid, I pulled a tooth out of my head with the root still attached because I was afraid of going to the dentist.  I tell you now, I would rather have done that every day again last month rather than live through May.  Praise God, June is here and I have a feeling it's gonna a be a great month.  It's gonna be great indeed!

[Keyrock]

Only use your powers for good, teknoman2