Best of 2023
January
Magnetic Miracle
Tuesday the 17th
About twenty years ago we discovered Easyclip glasses as a replacement for having a pair of sunglasses and a pair of glasses. Somewhere around a decade ago I moved to photochromatic lenses because I was tired of having to put the clips on and off. Donna still uses the magnetic Easyclip style because she hates the time lag when when moving from shade to sun and vice versa.
Two weeks ago when Donna went to put her magnetic clip-on sunglasses that came as a set with her regular glasses they weren’t where she expected them to be.
We looked everywhere for them. All her jacket pockets, her purse and the knapsack that acts her alternate purse. We checked in all the nooks and crannies in the interiors of the Miata and the Mini. We looked on the floor and every horizontal surface around the house, from the dresser in her closet to desk in the living room. We asked at our favorite coffee shop where we were the day before if anyone had turned them into their lost & found. They were just gone.
We hightailed down to Rite Aid to get an aftermarket set of clip-on sunglasses. They are spring loaded instead of the magnetic, but the fit is pretty good and were a darn sight cheaper than getting a real replacement. The only thing we could figure as they fell out of her pocket getting in or out of the car somewhere during our running around the day before.
While doing laundry today, what did I find at the bottom of the dryer after pulling out all the clothes? Right, her Easyclip sunglasses!
Had they been in a piece of clothing that got washed two weeks ago and the magnetic part stuck to somewhere inside the dryer drum? I find that that hard to believe, we do a load of laundry almost everyday and a couple times a week we two loads, those clip-ons would have appeared before now.
This was eerily reminiscent of the Easter Miracle of 2018.
February
Note To Past Self…
Wednesday the 15th
…I am not lazy.
Twenty years ago today I wrote a post called The Epitome of Laziness. Even though I have linked it here, there is no reason to go back and read it because it involved me whining about power recliners where instead of manually moving your arm to move the chair’s arm, a motor does it for you.
Currently we have a couch and a loveseat that raises and lowers using a switch. It is not lazy, but merely working smarter not harder.
March
Just Who Do You Think You Are Messing With?
Tuesday the 21st
This was really the genesis for Last Saturday’s post, Watching Family Trees Grow, but I got long winded there and I didn’t want it to get lost, so here you go:
As we powered through the episodes of “Who Do You Think You Are” we had a couple of instances weirdness. First was the 5th Episode of Season 9 about Molly Shannon. Molly’s maternal grandfather came from an island off the coast of County Mayo called Achill. Ms. Shannon actually travels to the island and meets folks who knew her grandfather and some cousins she never knew she had. Later that evening Donna and I were doing the crossword puzzle from that day’s newspaper when we came to a clue that read, “Western Ireland Island.” The answer was five letters long and we had the last letter already, an ‘L’…
The second time it happened was Episode 2 of Season 10 about Josh Duhamel. Josh discovers that his 12x great-grandfather, a man named Thomas Norton, held prominent status in 16th century England, and was an influential figure in the war between Protestantism and Catholicism at the time. When they were discussing this religious schism the names of Queen Mary the 1st (Catholic) who was succeeded on the throne by her half-sister Elizabeth the 1st who was Protestant my ears perked up. Earlier in the day I had started watching the movie Elizabeth starring Cate Blanchett which covers this very period. Unfortunately Mr. Duhamel’s 12x great-grandfather didn’t figure in the movie. Or maybe fortunately because Thomas Norton “interrogations” of Catholics in the Tower of London led to his being nicknamed “Rackmaster-General.”
April
What’s The Buzz
Saturday the 8th
Tell me what’s happening.
It’s Easter weekend which means it was time for my sporadic annual rewatching of my favorite rock opera – Jesus Christ Superstar.
Some folks have called this rock opera/stage play/movie blasphemes, but how about this for blasphemes, Marjorie Taylor Greene comparing Donald Trump’s recent arrest to Jesus’s arrest a couple of centuries ago.
Though having heard this comment earlier in the week while watching the movie it got me thinking, maybe she’s on to something, Substitute Jewish priests for the NYC DA’s office, the Donald for Jesus, Stormy Daniels for Mary Magdalene and Michael Cohen for Judas.
After the overture the first song is ‘Heaven on Their Minds’ and the first stanza works well unchanged:
[JUDAS]
My mind is clearer now
At last, all too well
I can see where we all soon will be
If you strip away
The myth from the man
You will see where we all soon will be
Now, in no way do I think that Mr. Trump is in any way worthy of adoration, but wow, as I was listening to the rest of the songs in the movie there were several that could also be slightly reworked to fit my analogy…
Anyway, try and have a Happy Easter.
May
Then Came the Last Day of May
Wednesday the 31st
It’s said the West is nice this time of year, that’s what they say
My favorite heavy metal band from the 70s was Blue Oyster Cult and the title of one of my favorite songs from them almost matches the title of this post – Days instead of Day.
This is a Public Service Announcement: If you ever need to stay overnight in Leesville, Louisiana do not stay in the Holiday Inn Express there. Stay at the rundown motel next door with the swimming pool that is 3/4 full of green algae water, it’ll probably be nicer. Here is a partial list of things that were wrong:
- The rug between the beds was not vacuumed, there was lint and what was possibly clothes soap powder on the floor.
- There was also a small round red squishy thing near one of the beds, possibly a cat toy.
- Inside the closet were the totally dry swimsuits of two small children on the hotels hangers.
- When you turned on the TV there was nothing but snow. It defaults to the cable input which is not connected. You have to hit the I/O button on the side of the TV to select the Component Input.
- The TV has Direct TV and no guide. Even if it did it wouldn’t help, there is no other way to select the channel except using the up/down toggle on the remote.
- Every other channel you scroll through is either an all infomercial our is not part of the package the hotel has bought.
- The screen on the window, which I didn’t even consider opening, was torn and the bottom third was gone.
- The shower head in the bath was not the typical HIE unit but a random brand thing that had a spray selector that wouldn’t change, so you ended up with a spray that resembled the pattern of Death Star ray.
- Surprise, the bathroom floor was dirty.
- The usually mediocre breakfast was shitty, fewer than usual selections, food not really hot and the sometime saving grace cinnamon bun was so dry as to be inedible.
Maybe just bypass Leesville entirely. A couple miles up the road from the hotel I found a coffee shop, so I thought maybe I can get a good caramel latte there. The last two I have tried on this trip, Green River, UT and Hammond, LA have been respectfully, awful and then sub-par. Well, the one from “Back To Nature” was worse than the other two, it was served in a Styrofoam cup and I can’t be sure, but the caramel shot I think was a squirt of Hershey’s caramel ice cream sundae syrup.
To top off the day just after crossing into Texas either the box truck or SUV following on its tail tossed a rock up and plunked the lower part of the windshield creating a nice star crack. It didn’t seem to spread any on the rest of the 300 mile drive, but I circled it tonight with a Sharpie so I can see if it does expand further.
At least we don’t end up like the three kids in Blue Oyster Cult’s song.
It wasn’t until the car suddenly stopped
In the middle of a cold and barren place
And the other guy turned and spilled
Three boys blood, did they know a trap had been laid?
June
Happy Summer Solstice
Wednesday the 21st
Although I’d be hard pressed to say summer was here. The last two nights there has been a freeze warning in Klamath Falls and this morning when I went out to run a quick errand I put the top up because it was still in the upper 30s…
Keeping in the spirit of the solstice, today’s Bing Wallpaper is of Stonehenge, on this last road trip we found a Stonehenge replica in Odessa, TX and 14 years ago we made a pilgrimage to Alliance, NE to visit Carhenge.
Ed Note: Exactly 2 weeks later we found this “Stonehenge” near the town of Maryville, Washington just off US97.
July
82,000 Points on a Chart
Tuesday the 18th
We are only a little over two weeks away from 7 years of ownership of the CTBNL and in that time frame we have driven it almost 35,700 miles. If you look at the chart above you will notice that there is a really noticeable change in the trajectory of the mileage numbers between the left side of the red line to the right side. During the first 38 months of ownership we put a good portion of 30,000 miles on the car, so that works out to an approximate average of 790 miles per month. That red line indicates when we moved from Aiken to Klamath Falls. Since then in 46 months we have added just under 6,000 making the average around 130 miles per month.
There are several reasons for the decline in miles for the Miata. First up is winter, in Aiken it got driven practically year round while here it is luck if it gets driven every 10 days or so and then for just a quick local spin. But probably the main reason is that we no longer take real road trips in it anymore. Since we have been here we took one 3 day trip to the coast in it. We’ve almost aged out of road tripping in entirely.
Now when we go somewhere we usually take the Mini. For comparison, during those same 46 months here in Klamath Falls the Minis have travel 19,000 miles or over 400 miles a month. That could have been higher too because we made three trips (2 to Santa Fe & 1 to Granite Falls) in rentals for various reasons.
Yesterday on a 30 mile morning drive, the CTBNL it rolled past the 82,000 mile mark.
Ed Note: Almost 2 months in the future, we do something about the lack of Miata mileage, see the upcoming September story.
August
1973 NBHS Class Will
Sunday the 27th
There were around 600 kids in my high school graduating class and with a circle of friends of maybe 1% of the that, I was practically invisible among those masses, except for this one thing.
In the fall of senior year our Current Events class made a field trip to NYC, about a 100 miles away, to see a couple of Broadway plays. Most of the details of the trip are lost to dying brain cells, but two of them are indelibly etched in my memory. The first play was Jesus Christ Superstar which I love to this day and I, along with 2 other classmates, were left behind in the Big Apple.
The two plays were at different theaters about 10 city blocks apart. We were told that after the second show the bus would be parked right outside the theater and to just get on it. After the wonder that was JCS rock opera, the second play was a real drag and the three of us, based on the Playbill listing, ducked out of that second theater at the beginning of the last song to get a good seat on the bus for the ride home. There was no bus!
In typical teenager fashion, none of us had really paid that much attention to the details, so we put our heads together and we decided that maybe the bus was parked at the first theater. We hustled back the 10 blocks to theater number one and of course there was no bus there either. Well, hell. So, we high-tailed it back to theater number two only to find no bus there either.
Obviously the bus was supposed to be at theater #2, but had yet to arrive when we ducked out early, so there we were 100 miles from home and no ride back. We walked a a few blocks over to Grand Central Station. I was broke, along with one other kid, but the third had enough money to buy three tickets for a Greyhound or Trailways bus that was bound for Boston with one of its stops being New Britain. Now with all of us penniless we had to call parents collect to let them know what happened so no one was panic at the other end when 3 less kids got off the charter bus. I think the three of us got a stern talking to from the vice-principal the next day at school, but I’m betting our teacher and any chaperons got it a lot worse.
September
The End of an Era
Saturday the 16th
This photo is from 2 days ago as I watched the new owner drive off.
For the first time in just shy of 34 years (or a little over a billion seconds) I don’t own a Miata. We just didn’t drive it much and if it got driven once a week it was lucky. Usually when it did go for a drive, it was short hops to pick up a pizza or a run to the cannabis store. We did take it a couple of times to get breakfast or a coffee at our favorite spot this summer.
We have probably been in Brevada over a thousand times in the four years we’ve lived here and are known by the owners and staff. It is not exactly like Cheers, where everyone in the place shouts our names when we come in, but close. Most of folks there do know what our usual order is and will start making our drinks while we are waiting in line to pay.
About a week ago one of the owners, David, was manning the register. He asked me, “How do you like your Miata?” I of course replied, “Love it.” “I’ve always wanted one”, said David. So I said, “Do you want to buy mine?” He responded with how much do you want for it and I threw out a figure that was a few hundred more than what I paid for it. “How many miles does it have on it?”, he asked. I told him it was 2002 with just over 83K. David said he’d have to drive it, but he’d have to run it by his CFO (his wife). I told him I’d drive it up on Monday, when we came in for breakfast.
Monday we went to Brevada for breakfast in the Miata. After eating, David broke away during a lull in customers and we went for a 15 minute drive. He had driven a Miata before, he and his wife had rented one on their honeymoon and both enjoyed the experience. The rental was of course a new fourth generation Miata. Mazda has steadily improved the car over the generations, without changing the essence of the car. David said that the second gen Miata, like the CTBNL, was his favorite looking one. He was smitten. Now if we can pass the wife test.
He mentioned that his wife’s car needed to go over the mountain to Medford tomorrow for some service and would I let him take the Miata and follow her over. Then they’d drive back to Klamath Falls together so he could get her to like it enough to let them buy it. Later in the day David texted me to say the wife’s car didn’t need to go over to Medford, but could he borrow the car to go on a dinner date with her. When they picked up the Miata that afternoon David asked politely could they take it the Lake of the Woods. Now, Lake of the Woods is halfway between here and Medford, so I didn’t have any problem. After all, I was willing to to let them take the car for 140 miles, so 70 was fine.
When they returned the CTBNL a few hours later, David’s “evil” plan worked to perfection. They wanted to buy it. Seeing how much they both enjoyed the car Donna said we would sell it to them a bit cheaper than my off the cuff price from before. So I sold it to them for a few hundred less that what we bought it for 7 years and 40,000 miles ago. Win, win for all concerned. David came over the next day with a check and we signed the title. I showed him how to use the cockpit cover, loaded up the trunk with a box of spare Miata parts, tossed in a couple of Miata coffee table books I had and, well the picture above tells the story.
October
42,000 Dust Bunnies
Friday the 20th
This post has been sitting in the drafts folder for a bit over three weeks now for one reason or another. It has been so long long that we are more than half way towards the forty-three thousand mile mark…
In preparation for our big move we have been packing up little used stuff and cleaning every nook and cranny of 4 years of accumulated dirt and dust that we don’t really need to take with us. We are both fairly neat people and we have no pets, so it is amazing how much dust could be found in the house. I’m blaming it on the dry high-desert climate.
While running errands around Klamath Falls, the Mini rolled over the 42,000 mile barrier.
November
The Definition Of Insanity
Tuesday the 14th
It’s often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. This has been most commonly attributed to Albert Einstein, but the quote is much more contemporary. Some research done by Michael Becker, an editor at the Bozeman (Montana) Daily Chronicle, discovered that it is really from the 80’s.
Neither Klamath Falls or Medford had a Popeye’s, but in our new hometown of Fairview, there are couple of them within 3 miles of us. In spite of our checkered past with the franchise we do remember their food fondly.
A couple weeks ago we headed over to Gresham to restock our cannabis supply and what was right next door, but a Popeye’s. It was a little past 11:00 AM, but we opted to head over and get our lunch to take home. Donna ordered a couple of chicken strips with a side of red beans and rice while I went for the chicken sandwich combo. Most of our troubles in the past with these guys was order related, but the drive-thru experience wasn’t too bad. Trouble came when we got home. While her chosen meal was good, but mine no so much, the chicken was obviously left over from the day before and dropped back in the fryer. The breading was very dark and the meat tough and chewy.
Today we decided to try the one that is actually 1/2 mile closer to our front door even though it was not a stand alone store, but inside a truck stop off I-84. We took it as a good sign when there were 3 people in line ahead of us and no one in line at the Subway it shared a spot inside with. The line moved fairly quickly and it didn’t take long to get our food. This was a dine in meal and we ordered a combo meal of popcorn shrimp (for me) with 2 tenders (for her), a side red beans & rice (for her) and a biscuit (for me.) The shoe was on the other foot today, my shrimp were hot and fresh while her tenders, not as dark as my sandwich from before, was either double fried or cooked several hours ago and bathed by a heat lamp for hours as the breading was rock hard and the meat tough.
Call us crazy, but in a couple weeks we’ll probably try the Gresham location again at lunch time and see what happens.
December
Holiday Viewing
Friday the 29th
Did you know that Iron Man 3 is a holiday movie? I didn’t and I have watched it, albeit several years ago, and don’t remember any Christmasy stuff in it. Well, Plex remembers. When I open the app there on the home page was a section entitled “Home for the Holidays” and Iron Man 3 was right there.
I cued up the movie and watched it. Sure enough there are several scenes that have Christmas decor in the background. In my humble opinion there was not enough to push this to be classified as a holiday movie. I probably last watched it on DVD way back in 2013 when it first came out. Maybe I even got the DVD as a Christmas present that year…still not a Christmas movie.
There were 3 other titles, of the 150 or so movies I have digital copies of, in that “Home for the Holidays” category. And one of those is also a controversial pick, Die Hard. I say no, but the listing gave me an excuse to watch the movie again. Yippie-ki-yay.
Movie number three was definitely a Christmas movie, Elf and this movie is a yearly watch. And we watched it on Thanksgiving weekend when Donna’s brother and family were here.
The last of the four, but not least, was Bad Santa. And I didn’t watch this one this year.
What was conspicuously missing from that list, it even has the word Christmas in the title, was A Moody Christmas. There are two possible reasons for its non-inclusion in the “Home for the Holidays” list. IMDB lists its title as The Moodys without the C word. But probably it is because it is an Australian TV series and TV is already home viewing. This is also a yearly must watch for me during the holidays. There are just six half hour shows with each one covering a dysfunctional family’s annual Christmas lunch in 6 consecutive years.
