BooksRule

I took the day off from work (well, I'm technically off, but I've got my e-mail open because I'm expecting a couple of e-mails that can't wait until tomorrow for me to answer). I'm still doing some fall housecleaning and have just started the oven on its self-cleaning mode. Boy, it sure stinks when it's running through the cycle (and it has about 3 more hours to go). I have the back door open and a window in the dining room for some cross-breeze to help. It really needed it, though. It had gotten really gross-looking with spills and such. The shelves have to be cleaned separately, and they will have to wait a couple of days (and I'm sure the inside of the door will need some extra scrubbing as well). I'm still working on kitchen cleaning, and have only a couple of cabinets to go. Then it's the fun job of scrubbing out the fridge and maybe getting to at least part of the pantry. The kitchen table (a catch-all for junk mail and other stuff) looks better, too.

I've had a couple of people tell me that they love roasted radishes, so I thought I would give them a try. I cut them in half and tossed with a little veg oil (I don't like olive oil) and some garlic salt. Not bad (the usual 'peppery' taste definitely gets mild), but I'll take roasted Brussels Sprouts over them any day.

It's a rainy Saturday around here, so I thought I would get back to my fall housecleaning. I started it a couple of weeks ago--a cabinet here, a closet there--but quit before I got too far. One of my problems is that I do the parts that don't take much effort and when the house really doesn't look any different (even though I know I've done some 'behind the scenes' cleaning in a closet, cabinet or two), I stop. So, I decided to focus today on only cleaning/organizing in the kitchen. I've gotten some of the lower cabinets cleaned out and straightened and will work on the top cabinets after I get some lunch. I might even tackle the pantry, but it's pretty messy (if I can get motivated to clean/straighten just one shelf, I'll probably continue). I really want to have at least one room in my house where I can stand and admire the organization and cleanliness. 🙂

Google just helped me out with something that might be useful to any of you who use Facebook and want to clean out your 'likes' page of obsolete pages. I was doing that just now and found that if the page is not active any longer (when you click on it you are sent to an 'oops, no longer available' page) and there is no option to delete the 'like' (as you can do on other active pages). It's not a big deal, but I found it annoying to have those generic-looking boxes for pages that I know no longer exist. I googled the problem and found others complaining about the same thing. If you change your Facebook setting back to the 'old' Facebook look (which you can do for a 48 hour time if you list a reason why you are changing back temporarily--and I definitely listed why I was changing back), you can go to your 'likes' page and unlike those pesky pages to your heart's content. But, this will only work as long as you can change back to the 'old' Facebook look (which is only available through September, I think). Maybe I'll be the only one here who is interested, but it felt a little better and more organized once I got rid of those junk pages (although I'm not sure what I'll do after September!)

I don't think that Sally has officially made landfall yet (2 MPH! So slow!), but it's moved far enough to the east that my area isn't going to get much from it. That's good news for me, but not so good for south Alabama and West Florida. At least it has lost strength. All we've had here (so far) is some good gusts of wind, but very little rain (if any at all). I think the high tide is pushing some of the seawater to cover the beach roads, and some rivers might overflow their banks, but most of the people who live along those areas are prepared for periodic flooding, so I'm hoping everything is okay. I just went out to the street to get the mail and the wind felt nice. I'll consider this to be a good rehearsal for any future storms (although I've already worked my way through most of my hurricane snacks!).

I'm still in the south and that sounds like a good meal. Do you buy breaded okra to fry or 'plain' for other recipes? I don't fix fried okra too often (makes a mess, is not good for me) but I love it. I also like to buy the whole okra pods (frozen) and oven-roast them (tossed with a little oil and salt) until they are almost blackened. Not attractive, but tasty.

I guess I'm as ready for Hurricane Sally as I'll ever be. My campus closed at noon, so that everyone could go home and get their prep work done (some low-lying roads are already beginning to flood). After a quick stop at Walgreen's (not that I really needed anything, but there is something that comes over most of us when we are getting ready for a storm that compells us to shop right before we go home to 'hunker down', even if we really don't need anything. I got extra cat food and some Double-Stuf Oreos). The only 'storm staple' that I didn't buy was charcoal for my little outdoor grill. I know that some people like to cook out after a storm when there's no power, but unless I have a freezer full of meat that I have to either cook or throw away, I'm not making a fire in 90+ heat outside when there's no power for A/C so I can cool off inside. I'll just eat my peanut butter, crackers, my fruit, and drink my lukewarm water, thank you very much. My car has about 3/4 tank of gas. I have snacks and filled up several jugs of fresh water. I have candles and a couple of flashlights (and batteries). I also filled up a few plastic containers with water and put them in the freezer (you want to have the freezer fairly full and as cold as possible in case of a power outage. If you don't open the door, food will stay frozen for several days). My car is backed into the carport in case I have to open the back for some reason. I picked up a few light objects from the yard/porch and put them in the corner of the carport in a protected area so that they won't get caught by any wind and become missiles. I plan to fix a good dinner because if the power goes out tomorrow it might be my last good meal for a couple of days. Then I can just sit and watch TV and read and if the power goes out late tonight or tomorrow, then I'll just sit and read (and fan myself).

Unless she changes course, it looks like Sally will heading my way and she'll probably turn into a hurricane before she arrives. If she's a cat 1, that won't be bad, but I've learned not to trust any weather prediction about a storm until it gets much closer (not that it would be a Katrina, but I still remember going to bed that Saturday night and Katrina was a reasonably weak cat 3 and waking up the next morning and she was a strong cat 5 and heading right for my area). A cat 1 is mainly bad for people who live in low-lying areas, since she's expected to dump a foot or more of rain and some storm surge. We need some of the rain, but I wish I could send a bunch of it to the wildfire areas.

I can't comment much on weddings (never had one myself, was a bridesmaid for one, and attended several others--none considered 'fancy'), but I'll put my two cents in about waste disposal and trash pickup. I'm lucky that I live in an area where you can put just about anything out at the curb where it will either be picked up by the regular trash pickup people or by a 'picker' that usually makes the rounds on the weekend (our trash pickup is on Mondays). There's no extra charge for 'extra' trash. I've seen mountains of cut limbs and bags of grass clippings, etc. at the curb and they usually get picked up unless it's after a storm when it might take a couple of weeks. Almost every other type of 'stuff' that gets put at the curb gets taken by somebody, too. I put a microwave out there one day (definitely didn't work) and it was gone in less than an hour. An ugly loveseat was gone before dawn the next day. I put an old rolling desk chair with a torn seat out one time and happened to look out to see the man across the street walk over and push it back to his house. I was surprised, though, that the time I put out the 20 gallon aquarium (no leaks) and the aquarium stand (solid wood, but had a few carpenter bee holes because it had been stored on the back patio) no one picked them up. They sat until the regular trash pick up that week. I think the only things that won't get picked up (because you aren't supposed to put them out there anyway) are tires and hazardous waste (gasoline, oil, paint, etc.). You're supposed to take that stuff to the once-a-month drop-off spot. However, I do have a peeve with the yard trash pick-up. If you have more than just a few limbs (a handful), they use the big 'claw' that reaches down and picks up the limbs and puts them in the truck. However, when they do, it just gouges the heck out of the lawn near the curb. I've started just putting out a few limbs at a time so I can preserve what little grass I have.

My county has a 'hazardous waste' day one Saturday a month. I haven't been in a while, but I remember that even pre-Covid, you could drive up and they would take stuff out of the back of your car or truck without you even having to get out of your vehicle. (Which reminds me, I need to see if they are still doing that--I have two containers of 'old' gasoline that I need to get rid of.)

According to the book 'Andy & Don: the making of a friendship and a classic American TV show', it was true. I highly recommend this book (which was published several years ago). It seems to be a good balance of the 'good' and 'bad' about both actors and has some good behind-the-scenes about the show. As far as I know, Ron Howard hasn't written an autobiography yet, but I wish he would. I've only read little snippets about what it was like for him to be a child actor, especially on TAGS, and would love to know the whole story. He was one of the few child actors who seemed to have come through the experience with little or no bad problems. (I would like to read more about his parents, too, since I know they had a lot to do with it, especially his dad.) I hadn't checked this thread in a while, and now I want to watch some of the older episodes. It's been a while (I think the only channel I get that is showing TAGS right now is Sundance.)

I skipped most of the Charlton Heston movies the other day, but I did record 'Soylent Green' and 'The Omega Man' for later viewing. I watched 'The Omega Man' this morning and realized that I probably hadn't seen it since just a few years after it was released (probably on a TV airing, I don't think I saw it in the theater). I don't think I've ever seen other versions of the story (even the one with Vincent Price and I'm a huge Price fan), but it defintely wasn't much like the novel. If the brief scenes of nudity were removed, it was almost like watching a made-for-TV movie of the '70s. I'm glad I watched it again even though it didn't live up to the 'scary' movie I remembered from when I was much younger. I kind of liked the soundtrack, though. I'll save my re-watch of 'Soylent Green' for another day. Both of those movies are reminding me that I need to re-read the original source novels again. A couple of years ago, I added some science fiction titles to my library's collection (that's the fun part of my job) and focused on authors whose works had been made into films (we have a film studies program). I added most of Richard Matheson's works, and it looks like we also have a book about his novels being translated into film versions.

Joining in on the 'bugs don't belong in the house' pet peeve discussion. I live in the deep south, and we have those huge roaches (sometimes called 'Palmetto bugs', but that pleasant name is not fooling anybody) that like to visit inside. I've heard that it helps to keep no food or water out (not that I generally leave uncovered food lying around), but I have two cats, so there's always going to be at least dry cat food and a bowl of water around. I haven't seen many lately, because I see them mainly when there is a lot of rain (they come in to get dry?) or not enough rain (they are coming in to look for water maybe), but I do see one now and then. One of my cats loves to hunt them, and if I'm anywhere in the house and hear her make that high-pitched 'rwow, rwow' sound I know that she's either getting ready to hork up a hairball or she's on her way to bring me an offering of a live bug. Either way, if it's dark in the room I'm at the time, I have to quickly turn on a light so I can see what she's doing. Spiders are not welcome either. I know they eat other bugs, but they need to do that outside. I remember years ago (pre-cats) I was the bathroom and happened to casually look down at the floor right next to my feet. There was the biggest spider I had ever seen. I immediately screamed, jumped up and ran into the bedroom to grab a shoe. When I swatted at it I missed and it scrambled up into a wicker wastebasket. That sucker was so big that I could hear it scratching as it ran up the wicker. Of course, the basket was full of dental floss, tissues, etc. I tipped the basket over and pounded the heck out of everything that fell out. Wham! Wham! Wham! I smushed it good. I looked it up later and it looked like a nursery web spider (google it. I won't provide a link to the creepy thing) and I guess it came in the open window (around the screen somehow). I never hope to see a Cujo spider like that again. I'm glad I didn't have my cats at the time, because I guess my hunter cat would have caught it and dropped it into my bed as a present for me.

I haven't gotten back around to cleaning the fridge, but I did decide to get started on my fall housecleaning (mainly doing 'extra' cleaning, that requires more than the usual weekly 'scrub the bathrooms, and dust/Swiffer the rest of the house'). I started with straightening the kitchen cabinets today, alternating with bathroom cabinets and a closet or two. During rest breaks, I've been having a 'Sharknado' marathon. I recorded them a few weeks ago and decided I needed to get the watched so I can clear some room on my DVR. Cheesy fun! I did take a few minutes to mow the north side of my yard. When my neighbor on that side was mowing her yard herself, she was good about mowing along the property line. However, now she hires someone to do it and almost every time they've mowed they've mowed about a foot and half over the property line onto my property. I have a little concrete section alongside part of my driveway where I can park a second car, and I think they think that the property line is right along that extra part sticking out. It's not a huge problem, but it does irritate me. I know she would say something to them if I said something to her, but now that her husband -- the one I had the problem with about him playing his loud country/rock music on back porch when they first moved in several years ago -- no longer lives there (yay!), she's been a really good neighbor (she's quiet, her kids are pretty well-behaved, and she's been really doing a lot of work around the house) and I don't want to be that 'grouchy old lady from next door'. I can kind of anticipate when she might be getting ready to have the yard mowed (she lets her yard get kind of straggly, like I do--none of that 'mow every week like clockwork nonsense') and I mow that side of the yard and either go ahead and finish mowing the rest of my yard or finish it the next day or the next. It's then easy to see where the property line is (although it's easy even when the grass is high in both yards--all you have to do it look at the corner of the fence and mow along the little 'dip' between our yards. 🙂 ) It's worked out fine for the last few weeks and it's probably a good incentive for me to mow more often as well.

I decided that my fridge and my upright freezer were both overdue for a big purge and cleaning. I have the evening shift at work today, so I didn't get too far, but I did get a start. I threw out a few questionable things from the fridge (no leftovers, though, because I generally cook only enough for one meal at a time). The crisper bins were a little scary-looking and I tossed some ugly (meaning shriveled or semi-smooshy) oranges, apples, peppers, and carrots. Doing that already makes the fridge look better, but actually taking things out and giving the inside a good scrub will have to wait a day or so. The freezer will have to wait until the weekend, but I don't think there's much in there that needs to be tossed--just a couple of bags of old veggies that probably have freezer-burn. The freezer mainly needs organizing. They'll look so nice when I finish, though. I might just stand there and gaze for a few minutes.