Oddments

Bits of this & that from the last week, that didn’t get into any other post…

When we came back earlier in the week to drop off Big V and toss chickens, I found that The Boy had swiped two bottles of beer. They had only been in the bottle for a couple of days, so I’m sure they were pretty raw (and not much alcohol content either). I’d kind of hoped they would give him a bellyache, but he told me today that they were pretty good and not flat. I’m still going to put off drinking any for a month.

After the wedding yesterday, I came out to Barge Vader to find Daughter Dearest waiting. Even with the windows down, it was still fairly warm in there, so I dug out the keys to open the sunroof. “It’s just because I’m so hot,” DD joked deadpan. “Yeah, I see steam coming out of that little vent there,” I said. Her dress did a good job of covering the decotellage, but had a small opening (I suppose to push the “naughty” button).

“Maybe not,” she said, “but the groom got a good long look as he went by. I don’t think she [our friend, the bride] noticed, though.” Or maybe she did: she smeared him good with the cake downstairs.

I discovered that the (push) lawn mower is pretty well toast: J must have hit a stump or huge rock last time he mowed. He didn’t bend the blade, he bent the shaft. You could say it had the shaft, but doesn’t have it anymore. I also discovered today, that the riding mower has no brakes — makes for an exciting trip down the driveway to mow along the road. I also had to adjust the belt tensioner to get the mower blades to turn. Good thing I got the weed-eater going yesterday, because there’s no way I was going to try riding that beast in the ditch.

I got bored this afternoon and jumped on the motorcycle, using the need to look at new lawn mowers and pick up a how-to for laying patio stone as excuses. I’d just as soon get a reel mower as a replacement, but Home Despot has none. Plenty of online sources, though, all of which think the brands they carry are the best. The Sunlawn line is a bit more expensive than the others, but tend to be a bit lighter (not sure that’s all good or not) and have optional baggers.

Some text-spam scammer has been dinging us for $20/month on our cellphone bill. AT&T is going to fix this, or it’s going to cost them a lot more than $40 (two months). I’ll just turn the phone off, toss it in a drawer, and toss the bills in the trash while getting the PSC and FCC involved.

Cleaning up the grounds, I learned a little bit about the litterbugs that frequent the road passing FAR Manor. They like to eat mostly at Dairy Queen, but Zaxby’s and McDonald’s are also popular. They drink primarily lite beer, but Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Diet Dr. Pepper, and fast food drinks are all represented as well. They smoke a little, and shop at Wal-Mart (of course) — the empty plastic bag was actually a welcome find, but only because I had filled the one bag I’d brought with me. Spammers, of course, are a sub-species of litterbug; neither one has any respect for other people’s property. Or, judging by their diets, their own health either. I’d like to find the morons who thought tossing glass bottles would be a good idea.

Korean baseball is, shall we say, a little strange. The link showed up in my email this week.