The random scrub sprouts in my yard are defeating my back and me.
45 thoughts on “April 22, 2020: Tug Of War”
I couldn't find a book post for April, and we're pretty close to the first Monday in May. Anyway, is anybody else participating in the statewide book club and reading Because of Winn-Dixie? I started it with Honest Abe last night.
I read that one to my girls around ten years ago or so. It was probably my second favorite to Harry Potter for books I read to the kids. I loved it!
I left out "to" in that sentence, and was thinking "I don't remember Harry Potter and the dog called Winn-Dixie in the canon"
Some common themes!
I'm kinda hosed on the reading front, what with the library closed. I'm not really in to purchasing ebooks, but I'd really like to finish Scalzi's Interdependency series with book 3 The Last Emporox
Suddenly, me and my proclivity for buying bokjs then not getting around to reading them makes me look like a genius! I have enough backlogged for years of isolation!
Hell, the Neal Stephenson alone (Anathem) could last me months!
That was tedious (but good)
You may already know this, but many library systems let you check out e-books, too. And ours at least is still up and running for e-books.
That particular book is the only Scalzi available in ebook form from my library. You might want to check it out on Libby. (Granted it is an 8-week wait for me here.)
Our library district is closed - no new books available.
Right, so is ours, but we can still get ebooks on the Libby app.
yep, but no one there to add brand new books, which Emperox is
Ah, I figured that was just a work-from-home switch flip. Or the larger library group would manage it somehow. Bummer!
It is rough having kids asking about the different sports & activities we signed up for months ago. Especially when there isn't an answer, my hunch is we just lose the entire spring/summer sports season but none of the groups (other than a short hockey camp) want to throw in the towel until absolutely necessary. My 12-year old understands that his travel baseball season might not happen, but I don't think he is ready for that to be reality. The 5-year old just keeps asking about when he can play soccer with his friends.
Our church choir director is a HS choir director, and his choir was supposed to go sing at Carnegie; not only are they not going to, but they may all be out money on the deal 🙁
That is a huge bummer, there are going to be a lot of lost money to canceled activities. We'll probably end up eating 50-75% of the usual cost of baseball even if they don't play--it isn't like they can wait until we get a green light to play to order the uniforms.
We still don't know if we're getting out airfare back for our Ireland trip (next week). Aer Lingus would give us a voucher good for two years, but we got it through a third party and I'm not sure we'll get anything (or at the very most, a voucher good until the end of the year -- too soon!)
So far, we've gotten vouchers for all cancelled trips. The catch is that you have to use within 1 year of BOOKING the trip. If we booked in January for an April trip, we only have 9 months to use.
We have two tickets on Delta and two on Sun Country. It looks like we'll be splitting up for flights next Christmas. (Fingers crossed that we can fly in December.)
My brothers had a school orchestra trip to NY cancelled, and they aren't getting refunds from many of their scheduled events. I understand that it's hitting those venues pretty hard, but keeping the high schooler's money seems somehow especially cruel. Think of all the butter braids they had to sell!
Spring soccer was cancelled for us. My daughter was pretty bummed, but understood. My son likes it because he can play video games all the time right now.
I don't know what scrub sprouts are, but I split and planted hostas and daylilies on Sunday without hurting myself. I also ripped out some plants from three years ago that didn't take to make room for the hostas.
I laid three courses of bricks last week, and my body still hasn't recovered. I have a lot of respect for manual laborers anyway, but now I have an appreciation for how easy they make the hard work look.
I have two weeks of vacation I need to use or lose before 30 June, and am debating whether to use them to build a retaining wall along the southwest side of our house. But, what’s holding me up is the back injury I incurred in February. I’m finally feeling better, but I’m still pretty cautious, for exactly the reasons you described, meat. It’s not going to be easy work (which is fine), but it’s also going to exact a toll.
We have about an eight foot drop from back yard to front sidewalk; this side features the milder grade and doesn’t have a great deal of erosion. The goal is to cosmetically improve that side, which is presents pretty tough growing conditions since it’s full sun much of the day. I’m thinking I’d like to amend the soil and double down on the native prairie plants we’ve brought in that have successfully (re-)established themselves there. Tackling the northeast side will be more challenging, as the grade is significantly steeper. So, this would be a bit of a test run. I also haven’t built a retaining wall since I helped my dad with his back in the mid-Nineties...
If I lived closer I'd offer to come over and drink beer while you worked on this project.
me too. from a responsible distance, of course.
I should also mention that I dug two 36 inch deep post holes, built a hammock trellis, and poured concrete into the post holes. Today, my hammock arrived, and it is glorious to hang out in the back yard with the jasmine in full bloom. I'll heal up just fine.
I'm in the planning stages of building TLO a swingset/slide. Two 6x6's about 24" apart, with another 6x6 across the top. Slide down the middle, swings on the outside.
I have now replaced one sprinkler head riser three times in less than a week. Woke up this morning to discover it had blown out again.
I can't figure out the issue here. Time to call in a professional, I guess. ☹️
I wanted to pull out the roses on the east side of my house this spring and plant something else (Japanese beetles LOVE roses), but I'm thinking that will not happen.
Japanese beetles LOVE roses
So they're romantics?
Nah, just cliche.
The opposite of that. They immediately attack every blossom and destroy any beauty that might have been.
Love stinks. Yeah, yeah!
I'm still waiting for FilmWise Invisibles to be fixed so I can see the answers from the last couple weeks.
CNN is reporting that at least 19 people in Wisconsin have tested positive for COVID-19 (it's gonna be more) as a result of their participation in the primary election. So, yeah. I want to thank all those responsible, most notably the SCOTUS.
I bailed on my election judge duties (I would have done it, but my boss overruled). I was very surprised they had gone ahead with the election.
I’ve heard from several people that mail in ballots are fundamentally unamerican. Lots of people are saying it. I hear it all the time from some of the best, like greatest people. Very smart people, and some people say it’s okay to do it by mail, other very smart, the best people say it’s bad for America
There’s good people on both sides.
Just a question, not intended to be argumentative but just asked out of ignorance. How do they know the positive test is a result of participation in the primary election, rather than from some other source?
Process of elimination, I'd guess.
They don't. But circumstantial evidence is, I would guess, strongly suggestive.
If they did contact tracing and learned that these folks were clustered near previously identified, infected persons in line, for example.
The same is always true for community-acquired cases.
Strat-O-Matic news: Minnesota hotter than a pistol, win 7th straight today. Now 15-10 and half game out of first.
WEB GEMS- Top 1st: Byron Buxton robbed Kyle Lewis of a Homerun!
38,872 fans watched an exciting game at Target Field. The sizzling Minnesota
club topped the Seattle team by the slimmest of margins, 3 to 2.
Minnesota had 1 run cross the plate in the bottom of the 7th inning. Mitch
Garver drew a walk. A balk was called. After an out was recorded, Carl
Edwards Jr then threw one that got by the catcher for a passed ball scoring
the run. Seattle had a chance in the 9th but they came up short.
Trevor May(2-0) went 1 inning allowing no runs for the win. Taylor Rogers
earned his 5th save. Edwards Jr(0-1) took the loss in relief.
In another of a string of victories, Minnesota extended their winning streak
to 7 games.
SIMULATED TWINS BASEBALL!
The Dazzle Special!
NBB miscellany:
After Monday's daylong dance with diarrhea and chills (temps up to 99.1F), I had a smartphone appt. with Dr. Fear who counselled to wait to see how Tuesday went to decide on sending me for testing. Tuesday was much better, and actually ate and kept down food. Down 5.5 lbs since Monday. Today was mixed - no diarrhea, but got the chills again; little appetite, but forced myself to eat homemade chicken broth/ramen noodles. No coughing/no headaches/no lack of taste/smell. Minny/Sconnie buddies on my 6PM happy hour call were thinking maybe some kind of stomach bug...
One of them said he's been watching live baseball recently. Where is that at you say?
Also on Monday I got a call from the house in Scandia (alert triggered due to power outage). Xcel had the power back on in 2 hrs - good thing as the temps were going down to 26F that night...
I planted pole beans and sugarsnap peas last weekend in the backyard along the garage and prepped the ground for dahlias - word out here is to wait for May 15 to plant them.
Watched the first edition of Unorthodox on Netflix yesterday. Quite good.
I couldn't find a book post for April, and we're pretty close to the first Monday in May. Anyway, is anybody else participating in the statewide book club and reading Because of Winn-Dixie? I started it with Honest Abe last night.
I read that one to my girls around ten years ago or so. It was probably my second favorite to Harry Potter for books I read to the kids. I loved it!
I left out "to" in that sentence, and was thinking "I don't remember Harry Potter and the dog called Winn-Dixie in the canon"
Some common themes!
I'm kinda hosed on the reading front, what with the library closed. I'm not really in to purchasing ebooks, but I'd really like to finish Scalzi's Interdependency series with book 3 The Last Emporox
Suddenly, me and my proclivity for buying bokjs then not getting around to reading them makes me look like a genius! I have enough backlogged for years of isolation!
Hell, the Neal Stephenson alone (Anathem) could last me months!
That was tedious (but good)
You may already know this, but many library systems let you check out e-books, too. And ours at least is still up and running for e-books.
That particular book is the only Scalzi available in ebook form from my library. You might want to check it out on Libby. (Granted it is an 8-week wait for me here.)
Our library district is closed - no new books available.
Right, so is ours, but we can still get ebooks on the Libby app.
yep, but no one there to add brand new books, which Emperox is
Ah, I figured that was just a work-from-home switch flip. Or the larger library group would manage it somehow. Bummer!
It is rough having kids asking about the different sports & activities we signed up for months ago. Especially when there isn't an answer, my hunch is we just lose the entire spring/summer sports season but none of the groups (other than a short hockey camp) want to throw in the towel until absolutely necessary. My 12-year old understands that his travel baseball season might not happen, but I don't think he is ready for that to be reality. The 5-year old just keeps asking about when he can play soccer with his friends.
Our church choir director is a HS choir director, and his choir was supposed to go sing at Carnegie; not only are they not going to, but they may all be out money on the deal 🙁
That is a huge bummer, there are going to be a lot of lost money to canceled activities. We'll probably end up eating 50-75% of the usual cost of baseball even if they don't play--it isn't like they can wait until we get a green light to play to order the uniforms.
We still don't know if we're getting out airfare back for our Ireland trip (next week). Aer Lingus would give us a voucher good for two years, but we got it through a third party and I'm not sure we'll get anything (or at the very most, a voucher good until the end of the year -- too soon!)
So far, we've gotten vouchers for all cancelled trips. The catch is that you have to use within 1 year of BOOKING the trip. If we booked in January for an April trip, we only have 9 months to use.
We have two tickets on Delta and two on Sun Country. It looks like we'll be splitting up for flights next Christmas. (Fingers crossed that we can fly in December.)
My brothers had a school orchestra trip to NY cancelled, and they aren't getting refunds from many of their scheduled events. I understand that it's hitting those venues pretty hard, but keeping the high schooler's money seems somehow especially cruel. Think of all the butter braids they had to sell!
Spring soccer was cancelled for us. My daughter was pretty bummed, but understood. My son likes it because he can play video games all the time right now.
I don't know what scrub sprouts are, but I split and planted hostas and daylilies on Sunday without hurting myself. I also ripped out some plants from three years ago that didn't take to make room for the hostas.
I laid three courses of bricks last week, and my body still hasn't recovered. I have a lot of respect for manual laborers anyway, but now I have an appreciation for how easy they make the hard work look.
I have two weeks of vacation I need to use or lose before 30 June, and am debating whether to use them to build a retaining wall along the southwest side of our house. But, what’s holding me up is the back injury I incurred in February. I’m finally feeling better, but I’m still pretty cautious, for exactly the reasons you described, meat. It’s not going to be easy work (which is fine), but it’s also going to exact a toll.
We have about an eight foot drop from back yard to front sidewalk; this side features the milder grade and doesn’t have a great deal of erosion. The goal is to cosmetically improve that side, which is presents pretty tough growing conditions since it’s full sun much of the day. I’m thinking I’d like to amend the soil and double down on the native prairie plants we’ve brought in that have successfully (re-)established themselves there. Tackling the northeast side will be more challenging, as the grade is significantly steeper. So, this would be a bit of a test run. I also haven’t built a retaining wall since I helped my dad with his back in the mid-Nineties...
If I lived closer I'd offer to come over and drink beer while you worked on this project.
me too. from a responsible distance, of course.
I should also mention that I dug two 36 inch deep post holes, built a hammock trellis, and poured concrete into the post holes. Today, my hammock arrived, and it is glorious to hang out in the back yard with the jasmine in full bloom. I'll heal up just fine.
I'm in the planning stages of building TLO a swingset/slide. Two 6x6's about 24" apart, with another 6x6 across the top. Slide down the middle, swings on the outside.
I have now replaced one sprinkler head riser three times in less than a week. Woke up this morning to discover it had blown out again.
I can't figure out the issue here. Time to call in a professional, I guess. ☹️
I wanted to pull out the roses on the east side of my house this spring and plant something else (Japanese beetles LOVE roses), but I'm thinking that will not happen.
So they're romantics?
Nah, just cliche.
The opposite of that. They immediately attack every blossom and destroy any beauty that might have been.
Love stinks. Yeah, yeah!
I'm still waiting for FilmWise Invisibles to be fixed so I can see the answers from the last couple weeks.
CNN is reporting that at least 19 people in Wisconsin have tested positive for COVID-19 (it's gonna be more) as a result of their participation in the primary election. So, yeah. I want to thank all those responsible, most notably the SCOTUS.
I bailed on my election judge duties (I would have done it, but my boss overruled). I was very surprised they had gone ahead with the election.
I’ve heard from several people that mail in ballots are fundamentally unamerican. Lots of people are saying it. I hear it all the time from some of the best, like greatest people. Very smart people, and some people say it’s okay to do it by mail, other very smart, the best people say it’s bad for America
There’s good people on both sides.
Just a question, not intended to be argumentative but just asked out of ignorance. How do they know the positive test is a result of participation in the primary election, rather than from some other source?
Process of elimination, I'd guess.
They don't. But circumstantial evidence is, I would guess, strongly suggestive.
If they did contact tracing and learned that these folks were clustered near previously identified, infected persons in line, for example.
The same is always true for community-acquired cases.
Strat-O-Matic news: Minnesota hotter than a pistol, win 7th straight today. Now 15-10 and half game out of first.
SIMULATED TWINS BASEBALL!
The Dazzle Special!
NBB miscellany:
After Monday's daylong dance with diarrhea and chills (temps up to 99.1F), I had a smartphone appt. with Dr. Fear who counselled to wait to see how Tuesday went to decide on sending me for testing. Tuesday was much better, and actually ate and kept down food. Down 5.5 lbs since Monday. Today was mixed - no diarrhea, but got the chills again; little appetite, but forced myself to eat homemade chicken broth/ramen noodles. No coughing/no headaches/no lack of taste/smell. Minny/Sconnie buddies on my 6PM happy hour call were thinking maybe some kind of stomach bug...
One of them said he's been watching live baseball recently. Where is that at you say?
I haven't gotten the link yet.
Also on Monday I got a call from the house in Scandia (alert triggered due to power outage). Xcel had the power back on in 2 hrs - good thing as the temps were going down to 26F that night...
I planted pole beans and sugarsnap peas last weekend in the backyard along the garage and prepped the ground for dahlias - word out here is to wait for May 15 to plant them.
Watched the first edition of Unorthodox on Netflix yesterday. Quite good.