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November 1, 2016: All Hallowed Out

43 Comments

Hope everyone had a productive night. We had two separate candy runs (even involving costume changes).

Anyway, we're now entering the holiday season. Vendors can freely shill lighted trees and blast "Jingle Bells" with impunity. Have fun with that.

43 thoughts on “November 1, 2016: All Hallowed Out”

  1. The girls had a decent enough Halloween - it was probably the last time Skim will go trick-or-treating, as I'm convinced she has aged several years in the last year. Sour Cream is still undoubtedly a kid.

    We ended up doing it right around my mom's place (which is where we're moving). It isn't a popular spot to go, apparently, as there was a near-total lack of kids around that made the whole thing almost seem like we were doing something wrong. We wanted to get out to St. Paul for some big event The Milkmaid found, but didn't have time after Skim was done with play rehearsal.

    Skim is sick this morning. I'm wondering how many pieces of candy she wolfed down when I wasn't looking.

  2. The Milkmaid left for a business trip to San Francisco this morning. She'll be gone for about five days, which is the longest I will have been sole caregiver in quite a while. I'm good to go, but it's already strange not to have her around. I looked at a kitchen mess the girls left and realized, well, this one's all me. We agreed a dozen years ago that I never have to handle dishes if she never has to handle laundry.

    2. We agreed a dozen years ago that I never have to handle dishes if she never has to handle laundry.

      I would take this deal in a heartbeat. I hate dishes, and find laundry to be perfectly pleasant.

      1. Wait ... you can make these deals!? We share, but it's more of a 75%-25% of dishes and laundry on my side of the ledger.
        Of course, it may simply be that she can wait out a pile of dirty laundry and/or dishes a lot longer than I can.

        1. []he can wait out a pile of dirty laundry and/or dishes a lot longer than I can.
          This describes me, but it does spend a lot of the relationship surplus that has been built up over the years.

          1. Yeah, I could easily wait her out by a good fortnight, but it seems very ill advised.

            Instead, I've got a setup very similar to Can or Corn's, and that doesn't bother me one iota.

      2. My plan to take more of the dishes burden has been foiled of late by the fritziness of the dishwasher. Sounds like it's a control-board thing that'll cost $150 just for the part.
        I feel kindof ripped because we bought it like 15 months ago and the warranty is 12.

        I've been able to reset it a few times and get it to work again, but I keep doing the same thing and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

        1. Dishwashers, washing machines, and dryers are all wonderful, awful appliances. I've replaced so many parts on each of them that it boggles the mind. The things are only 5 or 6 years old.

          1. My mom just replaced the washer & dryer set she bought in Thief River when my little sister was born. They lasted thirty years and survived a 400 mile move. (Do people still move their appliances that far?) She must've gotten the pick of that litter.

            We don't have a dishwasher, which is fine because our furnace & A/C were installed in 1989. I'm really not looking forward to replacing those.

            1. I think 30 year old washer/dryers and 2 year-old washer/driers are equally likely to die or need major repair this year.

              1. Which suggests a Poisson distribution. I think I've stated that wrong. Should me more like a 2-year-old is more likely than a 30-year-old.

                    1. Yeah, I looked it up before responding (hoping the distribution itself made some sort of fish-shaped line on a graph), but I couldn't help myself.

          2. The washer and dryer in our new house are both in need of some repair. The washer PCB I already replaced, and the cold water inlet is going to need to be replaced eventually. Our well water has quite a bit of sediment in it, and the previous owner was not great about regular filter changes, so I had to take it out and soak it in vinegar over night to loosen the deposits.

            The dryer PCB is on the way. Thankfully, the on and start buttons still work. That wasn't the case on the washer. There, the start button didn't work. You could turn it on, select your cycle and then nothing. That part was easy to switch out and now it works pretty well.

            Total cost for parts across the two - $110. Which is a lot better than not having a washer/dryer at all like we used to not.

            1. The washing machine and dryer that were in the place when we bought it were horrible (the washer, in particular, was so violent in its spin cycle that it disconnected the water intake hose one time). We replaced them 5 or 6 years ago, and the replacements are good, but I swear I've replaced every knob on them - some of them twice.

      1. Reminds me of an old joke. I wanted to go to Florida for our honeymoon, and she wanted to go to California. So, we compromised and we went to California.

    4. Junior and Trey load and unload the dishwasher. Whoever doesn't do dinner (which is usually me because of my work schedule) washes whatever pots and pans can't be washed in the dishwasher. The boys do their own laundry and my wife and I share it, although she usually is the one to put in through the machines and we fold our own clothes.

    5. I generally do most of the dishwashing. We share the laundry--the facilities are in the basement and steps are difficult for Mrs. A, so she sorts it upstairs, I load the washer and dryer and hang up/fold, and she puts away when I get it upstairs. She does do pretty much all of the other cleaning, though, so it works out. And of course, it's only the two of us, so dishwashing and laundry are usually not terribly odious tasks.

    6. I don't mind dishes or laundry. I'm happy to pitch in whenever needed.
      Now, other projects... I loathe with the passion of a thousand suns. Flooring, painting, construction, staining, construction, etc. Can't stand any of that.

  3. I woke up to learn that the Vikings played a MNF game last night. Huh. I didn't even miss watching.

    2. I didn't see it, but it sounds like the Vikings didn't actually play. But what can you do? Bears are cool.

    2. I've got a weird mishmash of his stuff, but the collection needs rounding out.

      This is familiar - I just(!) picked up Wilco's Being There at HalfPriced Books today ... I've heard many of the songs, but never owned the album. So far, so good.

      Also picked up Neil Sheehen's A Bright Shining Lie* as well as The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass and Children of the Mind

      *CH bait?

      1. Tons of respect for Sheehan's work, and not just for that book. A Bright Shining Lie and H.R. McMaster's Dereliction of Duty are on my (theoretical) Vietnam War grad seminar shortlist.

    1. Heh, I figured what it was before I even hovered over the link.

      Then I clicked on the link, because it said "millipede" and those don't bother me at all.

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