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As you know…. Stephen King is from, and still lives in Maine. His home in Bangor is a veritable tourist attraction and people drive from far and wide just to take selfies in front of it.
But now?
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You could save time and gas by purchasing a house in his neighborhood.
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Imagine knocking on Stephen’s door the next time you run out of sugar while baking. Surely that’s worth 900k.
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Have all computers and/or cash registers run amok?
Is there a new Y2K bug of which I’m unaware?
Because for the second time in less than a month I’ve received a strange receipt/check. First they wanted to give me $2,000 change from a twenty dollar bill…. and now?
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We grabbed a quick sandwich the other day and while I was going to leave a ten dollar tip…. I had to do a double take at the establishment’s gratuity recommendations.
My math has 20% of $39.19 equaling $7.83… so yeah. This new math can bite me.
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Our wallets are all feeling the sting of inflation, be it at the grocery store or the gas pump… but after receiving the monthly newsletter from our little rural town the other day? I had a serious WTF moment.
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A bill that jumps from $50,000 a year to $65,000 a month is the very definition of insane. Increase aside, how is it even legal to break the existing contract and give the town no time to find alternative service?
😠
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Since I hadn’t heavily decorated the inside of our house for the holidays in a few years… I’d forgotten what a time sucking nightmare it was to put everything away.
Three days after I started…
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With help from Lord Dudley Mountcatten…. I was done.
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And after buying a fresh cut ( I use that term loosely) tree from a roadside stand instead of cutting our own as we usually do, I’m seriously cursing needle drop again.
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While I do love a real Christmas tree…
( Note the lack of snow and abundance of green grass in our yard. In Maine. In January! 😠 )
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I do not love clogging up my vacuum with 20lbs of dry needle droppings. Though I have to admit, it does smell wonderful.
How about you?
Are you de-Christmased yet?
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Every once in a while I have to take a break from complaining about people and realize there are a few good ones left on the planet.
The Woodchucks are proof.
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Old guys with chainsaws… and mighty big hearts.
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These guys restore my faith in humanity.
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That’s just a picture, but you can find the video on YouTube.
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I often wonder how Lord Dudley Mountcatten manages to looks pudgy when the silly cat actually eats very little. Maybe half a Fancy Feast tin in the morning and another half at night… on a good day. Sometimes he just turns his nose up and walks away.
He won’t eat fish, or treats, or any human food. He won’t eat anything sliced, diced or shredded. The husband laughs at my attempts to stimulate his Royal highness’s appetite… and it’s not uncommon to see me following the little bugger around the house at mealtime with a bowl of food and a spoon. ( the cat, not the husband )
So when Lord Dudley recently expressed an interest in being fed on the laundry room windowsill?
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His loyal minion obeyed and fed him on the laundry room windowsill.
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Dinner with a view, you can’t blame him. And I’d already covered the dryer with a soft towel for his comfort… so why not?
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Well, that wasn’t necessary.
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No. Not spoiled at all…
😉
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I woke up this morning to one very relaxed cat.
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Went to a craft show where I didn’t buy anything but did have a few laughs.
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Lunch?
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It came with a flight of margaritas. Blood orange cranberry, traditional and passion fruit.
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It’s $500 more for the W.
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I’m not sure how I rated $2,035 change from a twenty dollar bill,… must be that new math. Sadly I was unsuccessful in procuring the change, no matter how many times I argued computers are never wrong.
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To pea or not to pea. That is today’s question.
Personally, I do not pea… but the husband is a huge fan so when hams are on sale for Christmas and I’m left with a bone, there’s only one thing he wants.
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Split pea soup. Which happens to be the easiest soup to make… so it’s hard to refuse even though I can’t stand the smell or taste.
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5 hours later ? A pot full of slop with the consistency of sludge as far as I’m concerned.
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But the husband is in leftover pea heaven, and hey… I have to throw him a bone now and then.
😉
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A few more chuckles from our recent power outage during the storm.
When you live in Maine, you own lobster cooking pots.
And when the power is out for a day and a half due to a monster winter storm, you use your fireplace for heat. This burns copious amounts of wood, which results in copious amounts of ash. And when you can’t find your old ash bucket?
You improvise.
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With a lobster pot.
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Which worked remarkably well.
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Though I probably should have dug a little deeper in the closet for the larger one.
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And speaking of improvising…
The wire mesh curtain that slides across our fireplace is a wonderful thing. It keeps sparks and small pieces of wood from jumping out and burning down our house. In other words, it’s important.
Ours has always been temperamental and must be slid with care, something my husband naturally ignored. He tugged and pulled and ripped all day which resulted in half of the metal strip that holds the curtain in place to come crashing down.
His solution?
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I think you know me well enough to realize this will not be tolerated for long.
🤣
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We will start and end this post with photos of His Lordship.
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Seen here giving me the evil eye for lowering the blinds and blocking his morning sun.
I had a birthday recently… yay me, another trip around the sun and straight down the road to decrepitude.
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The husband told me to pick a place for dinner but I’d skipped lunch and decided we should go cocktail hopping early.
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Enter Royal River Grille, one of my favorite spots.
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We settled happily at the bar… but were presented with brunch menus since it was a Sunday. I’m not a breakfast person so the thought of scrambled eggs with my Cosmo at 4:00pm did not please me, not one little bit. Brunch until 5:00pm? Come on.
We decided to move on and got the check.
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With tip, $30.92 for a drink and a beer. What’s the world coming to?
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Next stop was Goodfire Brewery, a new place I’d been wanting to try. On arrival we discovered they were almost out of beer and only had three left on tap. Thankfully one was a blackberry currant sour, but at $9.50 per for the small pour and a virtually non existent menu, we paid $24 for two beers and moved on again.
We ended at a nice seafood place we hadn’t visited in a while and I had a lovely crab, shrimp and scallop lasagna which I didn’t photograph.
So we end with me another year older and a very innocent Lord Dudley Mountcatten.
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Well, maybe not that innocent.
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