RadioShack Is Finished

Once when Bob and I were in Germany, we went to visit this castle at the end of the day. The ticket office was closing as we walked up and the clerk came out and waved his arms at us and hollered: The castle is finished!

That sentence construction is still our favorite.

I can’t recall a pleasant experience in a RadioShack, well, ever. How did it even last as long as it did?

I went into that shop in the last couple of years and it was one of my most unpleasant retail experiences in recent memory. I think they were really into micromanagement? Some person in charge pretended to do something while narrating everything the clerk was supposed to be doing while he was helping me. It was awful and I’m not sad to see them go.

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Are Your Utensils Happy?

Mushroom at the Orleans dump.

When I first saw this I had to double and then triple check that it wasn’t satire or The Onion.

This is a real thing. It’s called the hapifork and it’s wonderful technology that tells you if you’re eating too fast. And you can manage this data from all your devices.

The technology is covered by four patents.

Oh hapi day!

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Bad Gourd

This lizard was committed to the playing dead thing. I was like, “I know you’re not dead. Run and do something.” But it stayed frozen.

Big tragedy – the pumpkins all started getting squishy and moldy within days of bringing them into the house.

I’m not sure what went wrong. I didn’t do anything different from normal.

Maybe a spore from the garden? Maybe different weather pattern that I didn’t read right?

When I discovered the problem, I had just come home from work and was so tired I could hardly see straight. I threw them in the fridge and processed everything this weekend. I saved enough pumpkin for pies and chili.

The butternut squash are still looking good so we’ll have some soup or something fun with those.

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Junior High School Talent Show — Click the Link

My pumpkins and gourds with a beet, a few tomatoes, and a little too much photoshop.

Back in September when I took 15 minutes off, I managed to cram in two movies. I saw Wonder Woman and I saw Guardians of the Galaxy 2 at what used to be the “fancy theater” about 15 years ago. Now it’s $3.50 all the time and still pretty nice.

Since the ticket was so cheap I thought I’d treat myself to some popcorn. They have to make money somehow.

Here: treat yourself to a Hot Butter Popcorn earworm.

For $6.50 you could get one of those little paper bags, the same size they give you for free at the credit union.

For $7 you could get a small cup and for $8 you could get a giant tub that could house a family of 4.

I did not get any popcorn.

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Prove You Were Born

It recently came to my attention that I don’t have a certified copy of my birth certificate. I have an unofficial copy. It hasn’t come up for me recently that I need one but I thought I should probably get one. It’s been on my list forever.

The fee was $28 — which I thought was kinda high. I almost didn’t do it but figured, it would be good to have.

So I filled out the online form and at the end it said: print and take to a window.

I’m about 1000 miles from the window right now. I’m not going to be able to take it to a window so I clicked around until I found the way to get it online but if I did it that way, with all the fees it would be $45.

That seemed like a lot of money to get a document that many jurisdictions in this country now require for an identity card.

I clicked around some more and found a way to get it through the mail for $28 if I wasn’t in a hurry. Which I’m not.

I still wanted to blow it off but I felt like I cursed it. If I decided not to do it, inevitably there will be something coming up where I need it and then I won’t have it.

I got it.

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Perpetual Motion

End of the season garden. It’s supposed to freeze any day now. I need to clear out the last of it.

I’m perpetually in a state of being overwhelmed. A podcast showed up in my feeds that said, “Here’s some stuff to think about if you’re overwhelmed.”

One of the big tips had to do with being more organized.

World, I’m here to tell you: If organization could help, I would know it. But being organized takes time, too. Sometimes that’s the overwhelmed. “Where do I find the time to get organized?”

There was also a bunch of stuff about social media is garbage. I know that one, too.

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What Are Words For When No One Listens?

The title is a lyric from a song by an 80s band Missing Persons. But when I typed it made sense for the world right now. I feel like social media is shouting into a void where people listen only long enough to solidify their rage and then shout something else in response.

These are words that seem like they should mean something else:

penultimate — means second to last in a series. Should mean: biggest, baddest ever.
defenestrate — means throw someone out a window. Should mean: disembowel someone.
peripatetic — traveling from place to place. Should mean: digestive problems.
inimitable — incomparable, impossible to copy. Should mean: shouldn’t even be a word – it’s so awkward to say. I don’t like this word.

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Apple Pie for Amateurs

Gold panning with Grandma and Grandpa, Klamath River, 70s.

At the time I’m writing this I’ve made at least three apple pies in the last 3-4 weeks. No special occasions. All for us.

Bob still saves me the NYT food section even though I haven’t loved an issue in ages. I used to cut out recipe(s) or talk about an article every week. Now I can barely get through it without rolling my eyes back into my head in a way that is dangerous to health.

This week there was an article about apple pie that I should have written had I know that I had knowledge that needed to be in the NYT.

In the author’s experience, the pie is gone too quickly.

Hm… how to remedy? Oh, how about make a bigger pie? Those nine inch pies are for people with tiny bellies. You should be making 10 inch pies. And you can cram more filling in. And thin crust is for timid home bakers, it’s okay to make a thicker crust. She also recommends mixing sweet and tart apples.

None of this is new information. Last time I made a 9 inch pie I did it on purpose because it was for one person who wanted less pie. But I do all these things and our normal pie distribution is after sharing, we usually end up with three pieces each. It is my favorite food.

NYT Recipe.

I use this crust recipe and more or less the Betty Crocker classic pie recipe. I use a mix of Granny Smith and other sweeter apples. I like to slice as thin as I can and add 3/4 c sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 cup flour and I let it sit on the counter a couple of hours. I like a lot of apples and will flatten them with my hands to get them in there. I also sometimes nuke them a minute or two but if you like firmer apples don’t worry about it.

If I remember I’ll make a pie in my extra big giant pie plate and take photos.

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Remember When Banking Was Harder?

This is Percy the Desert King fig tree, year one. It’s going to be so sad when he’s just a couple of little sticks with no leaves.

I’ve been complaining about how technology makes me want to pull my hair out but remember the olden days of banking?

I recently received a letter from my bank telling me that my branch was closing and they would be “moving my account” to another branch.

I haven’t been in that branch, on the Washington side of the river, since we opened the account. I do about 99% of my in branch banking in Portland at one of two branches that are an easy walk from my office.

But remember when you had to do business with your branch? And had to move branches when you moved? And doing stuff out of state was giant pain in the hoohaw?

I remember waiting in a long line on Friday afternoons when I got my paycheck from Jack-in-the-Box to get cash for the weekend. I was only allowed to work 19 hours a week while I was in school and I earned $3.10 an hour. After taxes, what was my paycheck? $90 for two weeks’ work? I have some really old check registers somewhere, I could probably figure it out.

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Super Spies

These are the last of the last. A few of them were sun ripened. Most of them were underdone and pulled off the plant either before heavy rains or before I finally yanked the plants out of the ground. I’m enjoying them while I can.

A few weeks ago I noticed what looked like drywall dust on the floor under one of the electrical outlets at the office.

Naturally, I assumed we’d been bugged.

I dug around to find a screwdriver so I could look inside. Colleague saw me going about this and asked what I was doing.

When I explained he said, “Move. I know what bugs look like. I’ve seen them on T.V.”

Under our careful examination, it appeared to be a regular electrical outlet. So either the bug or other secret hidden item was well disguised, or there’s nothing weird going on in our office.

Wednesday starts NaBlo which I don’t think is even a thing anymore. Way back in 2006 when all the kids were blogging someone started National Blog Posting Month and then eventually handed it off to another organization that has since rebranded and so I think it’s purely independent study at this point.

Almost every year since I’ve manage to post every day in November and even though I’m perpetually frazzled within an inch of my life *and* can barely post something halfway coherent once a week *and* I’m working on another book that I plan to write 36K words in the same time period, I’m going to give it a shot.

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