(Kn) That's good, but how are your knees?

At first I had no memory of what the hell I was talking about. Troubling. It was a suggested move/rhyme for the moribund Sticky End game.

Just been back to Paris, and saw a shop selling quinoa vodka. How hipsterish is that?

Just been back to sunny Lincolnshire to visit family and friends and for a project meeting for a new annual festival for which I volunteer my comms expertise (Louth Pie Day, in case you're hungry). As part of that, I met up with the wife of a guy I worked for 7 years after I graduated. Their son and daughter (mere dots when I worked there) are about to set up a VERY Lincolnshire flavoured business.
Potato vodka.
I'm interested to konw what that entails - I hestitated to write 'artisan potato vodka' because I knew some clever bottom would ask me what an artisan potato is.

(pen) Ferment spuds in a freshly cleaned dustbin. Transfer, using a bucket, to a 50-litre flask and fractionate carefully by distillation. You can make it as strong as you like. No additives allowed. Potatoes are intrinsically artisan as are dustbins and buckets. Note - I have done a fair amount of "bucket chemistry" as it is termed.

55 years and 4 days on this planet without being stung by bees or wasps, until now. A pesky wasp was hiding in my top.

[pen] I thought that *all* vodka is made from potatoes. You use grains, you get whisk(e)y. You use grapes you get brandy. You use spuds you get vodka. You use old tea bags, banana peels or beetroot*, you get what you deserve.

* - As per a bloke on the same corridor in Waveny Terrace as me in my 2nd year at UEA. If it stopped moving, he fermented it and drank the results. Heart of gold. Nerves of steel. Bowels of water.

(Stevie) A choleric personality, then?

Not much you can't make booze from if you try hard enough. Elderflower champagne? Actually rather nice if you can do it without exploding bottles everywhere

My first taste of poteen was during the beginning of my second career (in comms) sitting at my desk, offered by my boss. Sadly all I could smell were rotting potato peelings, an odour I'd had a professional interest in since my first career as a lab technician, analysing waste water from veg processing plants.
I guess if you're desperate for a drink then it'll do the job. or you could put it in tea or coffee.

Strange idea of your PR boss coming around with something a) homebrewed b) alcoholic c) of uncertain content and expecting you to drink it - was he an Irishman trying to pick you up?

Sorry that I've been amiss. Things with Briana (Giertrude) haven't been great and I've been job searching. Briana has gone back and forth. They had her eating, but things were getting beyond difficult for me with being a caretaker. I've needed space for years, but I love my sister, so I wouldn't NOT take care of her. They got her into a group home and she's had to be transferred to a different one that is not as close to me as the first one. She was at the first one and eating and she started having problems breathing, so they sent her to the hospital. She had aspiration pneumonia. They did some swallow tests on her and they found that her epiglottis (the part that closes off in your throat so you can swallow without choking on or breathing in your food) isn't working. She has a PEG tube (feeding tube) inserted into her stomach so she can be fed. She needs 24/7 nursing care, so that's why she is now in a different group home, but it's a two hour drive from where I live. She's had to have her dogs given to a foster who is looking for a new home for them. And I'm still job searching. I can't get out to see her if i don't have money.

[KS] Sympathy. You're going through something terrible. I am sorry. Got a fund page we could chip in to?

[KS] 8o(

[KS] So sorry to hear that. I do hope things improve soon for you and your sister, and offer a hug if you are ever in my vicinity.

[Superman] I don't have a fund page. Whenever I have one, people don't tend to chip in - I may get a few dollars here or there, but it's never enough. I hate fund pages by now, partly because of that, but then I learned that they basically run by taking money that is donated because they all take a percentage from what is donated that could be going to the person or people who really do need that money. It's not like a hope thing with Kickstarter. Sadly, things are not going well. She's been admitted to the hospital out where she was. Then she's been released. I've not been given updates like the group home organization promised. I only found out that she had been admitted to the hospital because a nurse called me when Briana (Giertrud) was asking to talk to me.

(Rosie) Rain December 2019 - 0.3mm: Rain 2019 - 500.2mm: Rain Days 2019 - 78. Yesterday 2019-12-31 max temp 43.6ºC (110.5ºF). Phew!

(Dujon) Forty-three? Faaaakinell. 8.3° here - rather mild, a bit misty, hardly any wind, boring really. Rainfall 141 mm this month so garden a bit sodden. Swapsies? I hope the inferno is nowhere near you.

[Rosie] Temperatures in the mid 40s are rapidly becoming commonplace here. At this point the amount of Australia that has burned is about 44,000 km². That's more than the area of Switzerland. Or more than two Waleses, if you prefer. Here in Melbourne we have so far been spared any serious impact, but I suspect things are much scarier in Dujon's neck of the woods.

[KS] Sorry to hear that things are so tough for you. Hang in there.

(Rosie) We're fine at the moment, thanks, other than some pretty severe smoke being intermittently in evidence. That doesn't mean that we are not alert to what is going on around us; the 'local' fires are not all that far from us, and we are practised in packing suitcases and shoving the cat into its carry basket.
(CdM) I don't think your comment regarding the mid-forties becoming more common is true - not here anyway. In fact it's not common to have max. temps. at 40ºC. I shall have to dig into my data base to check that, but I am sure that I am correct.

[Dujon] I'm glad that you are OK (at least for now); I do always keep a particular eye out when fires seem to be approaching your neighbourhood. I should know better than to present to you and Rosie a vague impressionistic generalisation about the weather in the form of a fact-checkable statement! Guilty as charged. I suppose it all depends on your definition of "mid" and "commonplace". :) We do know that Australia has just experienced its hottest year on record and in December experienced the two hottest days on record. We had two days above 40 here in Melbourne last month, and while that's certainly not unprecedented, it's definitely unusual for December.

(CdM) Fires are more caused by extreme dryness and the density and type of vegetation than by heat alone though of course heat and dryness are often associated. There have been fires in Britain, nearly always in early spring after a very dry winter. This is the problem of using proxies - some are very sensitive to environmental change whereas others have a multitude of causes and may tell you very little. By far the safest assessment is to use measured and quality-controlled data and proper analysis will tell you if anything's happening. (It is. It's getting warmer)

I clicked the "See More" button on the front page, and only got games up to February 2016.

[Raak] I can see back to 2003. Oh look, The Beige Allegro!

Old games, yes, but it seems recently we've been getting too shy about killing games off. I think all the sites might benefit from greater turnover.

[SM] 'sbeen that way for years, they just tend to dwindle into total inertia. Presumably because no-one feels like sufficiently involved in a given game enough to be the person to end it. I fear there aren't many budding ideas waiting to be started though (I'd love to be wrong).

Not just involvement, it's respect for the denizens of this universe in following their lead. Make it clear that anyone has the right to kill off a game, and that running a new version of an old game us not a problem. Also rules for the bloody ostrich game and Wigwam would be useful.

Barometers - tap! Mine reads the highest I have ever seen it - 1048 mb. (Dujon) This is one meteorological element in which we beat you hands down. The other one is low pressure. UK record is 925 mb (Scotland of course). I don't think it was caused by global warming, not in 1884, part of a cool stormy decade.

Pressure at ours: max was about 1044mb according to my neighbour's weather station. I can see it on the roof opposite from my kitchen window.

(pen) Try the first full page chart here.

(pen) Too late - you've missed it. There was a 1050 centre over Belgium. A paltry 1047 now.

[Rosie] In NY in the last four days it has been roast city, intolerable heat, sweatbox weather, then snow. It would seem that the weather system hereabouts now functions the same way the pop-o-matic does for certain board games; three numbers the same then one properly random one.

(Stevie) That's North America for you. What you need is an ocean round you - moderation in all things.

[Rosie] I'll have you know I have the same ocean round my part of North America as you do in Standalone Great (Again) Britain. The Long Island Sound is part of the Atlantic doncher know.

I don't mind snow, I just want it to be proper snow, not "here's an inconvenience to bugger up Saturday" snow. There wasn't even enough to make firing up Troll (the Snowblower of Supreme Spiffiness) worthwhile. Too much to shovel manually, though. I used the Toro electric snow broom I had for years before I got serious about snow removal.

(Stevie) Shurely proper snow is not just going to bugger up Saturday but the whole weekend and very likely the LIRR to boot.

a) I use Troll, the Snowblower of Supreme Spiffiness to get rid of it once it stops falling. Two hours tops.

2) Snow on Saturday = shopping trips replaced by marathon Netflix sessions.

þ) LIRR broken? Stay-at-home day!

♣) Monday was a holiday anyway.

(Stevie) Excellent attitude. Similar to my Rain = Don't have to do any gardening.

[Rosie] Florida is cooler than it sometimes is this time of year, but still shirt-sleeve weather to this son o' the Midlands. No rain (yet - like cockroaches, it's always there waiting to make a pleasant time less so). This year we are infested with a band of thoughtless pricks all driving the same model of humongous pick-up (and all bearing New York plates wouldn'tcha know) and parking so inconsiderately that we've had to park several spaces away from our villa. Plenty of space if they'd stop being gits. I saw one of them wander out on Saturday night and almost hurled. Grossly obese with folds of fat tumbling down, it was wearing only a pair of jeans and *they* were at half-mast. Jesus! I've describe things that should not be in my Call of Cthulhu game that were less vomit-inducing.

On the plus side, the Stevieling and Mr Stevieling are thriving as a married couple, so somewhere the balance is in, er, balance. I brought some trains with me this time. British trains! Bit o' cork-faced foamcore, some old set-track from 30 years ago and the Minitrix Britannia will steam again! As will the Farish 97xx, the Dapol 57xx and 14xx and sundry BR diesels in intercity livery. Going to experiment with Peco's uncoupling gadget. It isn't as clever as Kaydee knuckles but the rolling stock is so light I dunno that knuckles would work properly anyway. When working right they allow some eye-popping shunting moves with only one uncoupling magnet. I'll have to seed a yard with Peco uncoupling magnets for a similar flexibility. On the plus side, the Peco device is supposed to work with the dreadful Rapido couplings fitted to the stock.

(Stevie) Magnetic couplings? Blimey, there's posh. Wouldn't last long if a big 28xx got hold of them. BTW I have seen 97xx's at Paddongton. They used to go down the Tube to Moorgate, condensing their exhaust. Horrible to drive; no draught, no steam.

I used to know a barman whose surname was Barrett. Trousers at half-mast I thought of him as Bumcrack Barrett. One of the things about being old is you never need be a fashion victim.

That big station I mentioned is Paddington, not Paddongton, which sounds a bit phallic and not something the starchy old GWR would approve of.

[Rosie] Well the results have been mixed. I won't have time to construct the test bed needed for the uncoupling magnet thing. The new Dapol 57xx and the new-then-stored-for-years Dapol 14xx run super smoothly over set-track including a dead-frog point. Astounding for an N scale 0-4-2. The two Dapol prairie tanks run slightly less smoothly, but are still impressive. The Farish 97xx I bought to replace the warping and hideously manufactured one I bought when I was 17 runs impressively smoothly too (and for some reason looks prettier on hte track than any of the other locos, even though the others are manufactured to a finer finish), as does the $20 from eBay class 08. The one I bought for just over 20 quid in '91 will sometimes not run in reverse, so I took the body off to diagnose the issue. During the testing, which did not uncover the problem, the spring from the rear coupler launched itself into oblivion and it seems they are impossible to replace these days. Another success there, then. And the Britannia runs very roughly. I think I will have to strip it down to clean the wiper contacts. It is all very annoying.

I want to do shunting operations with this kit, so I need a reliable coupler that can be remotely uncoupled. I think the kaydee knucles that work so well on US pattern stock won't work on the UK 10ft wheelbase stock because the action is one of lateral force applied by magnets and I think the lightweight UK wagons will simply derail. The Peco device is a metal strip that attaches to the rapido coupler, lifting it when the magnet is energised. Only thing is, they are only guaranteed to work with Peco unsprung couplers. Most of my rolling stock is fitted with sprung couplers.

Oh well.

(Rosie) I've not been ignoring you; my Internet connection went walkabout for a couple of weeks. That's 'phone, e-mail - the lot.
As far as pressure is concerned you are quite correct for readings at my humble abode.

(Rosie) It's 15:55 as I type - temp = 44.4ºC. Perhaps CdM is right.

(Dujon) Well, it's over 44.4 here. Wait a minute; that's Fahrenheit.
It's been a mild and rather boring January here - mean temperature 6.2, 1.9 above average. BTW the pressure reached 1050 for a few hours in S. Wales on the 19th. (World record is 1084, NW Russia, 31 Dec 1968).

*sigh* I'm so busy job searching. I am a teach on VIPkid, but I can't do the overnights that are required. I tried and it just didn't work for me. I MIGHT be able to do them sometimes, but I definitely couldn't support myself with that job. I really need a job, so prayers, good wishes, good vibes, etc, are definitely appreciated because I need something in my time zone . . . or at least in a U.S. time zone that might just make things a little off. Or a decently paying independent contractor job. The problem is that many of those don't pay decently.

Does anybody here use Facebook or Instagram? Just curious . ..

[KagomeShuko] Facebook, I've left my account to rot, and I find it increasingly creepy how much it continues to 'follow' me about. A pox on Zuckerberg and all his spawn. Instagram, no. I've got a Nerdica account I've never used and a slight Pluspora presence.

(SM) This (and the Other Place)is the nearest I get to Social Media, though I've had some useful interactions on YouTube comment threads.

Other than the strange name for the storm, most of the footie in B and NL got called off. So far a bit blowy here, but hardly a storm.

Getting quite windy here now. From the Met Office there is what is referred to on my weather group as a "Custard Warning", i.e. areas affected are coloured yellow. On the 0030 Radio 4 forecast Helen Willetts said the storm would be "impactful". Helen, you're a poet. Now sod off and speak English.
Naming storms like this, apart from being cheesy, is meteorologically unsound as they have much less of a singular identity than a tropical hurricane and can split up and do all sorts of funny things.

Gusts over 60 mph here, so far no trees damaged in the area, though elsewhere there has been quite some damage.

It seems as though your weather is as barmy as ours. After all the hot temperatures and bushfires we have now inundation. Yesteryear we had a total of 500.2mm of rainfall. Less than six weeks into the new year we have already had 534mm of drips and drops on our roof tops.

(Dujon) I had a look at OZBOM, excellent as usual, but it seems I've just missed the action. I find it more difficult to interpret synoptic charts for semi-tropical latitudes than for areas like Britain. Maybe just a case of what you're used to.
Your rainfall of 534 mm in 6 weeks is phenomenal. That's about 13 mm a day,every day. The "best" I've done in that style is 574 mm in three months, winter 2013-14.

(Rosie) Just an update for you. Jan - 95.8mm; Feb - 552.4mm; Mar ro date - 69.5mm; Total for year-to-date 717.7mm.

(Dujon) February 552 mm. No answer to that. What were temperatures like during your monsoon?

Not being boastful, Rosie, just celebrating. To answer your question re February, rain in mm and max temp in brackets ºC:
7th - 73.2 (32.4) ; 8th - 107.6 (35.6) ; 9th - 203.0 (36.7} ; 10th - 49.5 (42.2) ; 13th - 36.4 (31.9)
There were 16 rain days in the 29-day month, so the balance was scattered around the remaining 24 days.

(Dujon) Presumably the temperature was a lot below the maximum each day while the rain was actually falling. Looking at the figures I'd say they were all pretty violent thunderstorms. I'm extremely envious.

Sorry I keep dipping in and out of this place. I had hoped to join in a bit more after creating a more mobile-friendly skin. You can find it here but be warned. It’s somewhat experimental and plays fast and loose with flex-based layouts, which seem to be supported idiosyncratically across browsers. (My css was never that great anyway). I know for a fact it doesn’t work on Internet Explorer, if anyone actually still uses that, but it seems ok on Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc, as well whatever the latest stock Android browser is (I think).

Give it a whirl, tell me what you think, and if it works for enough people I might make it the default.

Not exactly the colour scheme I would have chosen, and what is that enormous decorative font? But it works (Samsung phone with Chrome browser). The automatic bold & italic is a major step into the Century of the Fruitbat, thanks!

Not sure it's the colour scheme I would have chosen either :) Being colour blind I always have difficulty choosing colour palettes. Most of the colours came with Bootstrap (which does the responsive mobile goodness), but there are a few that are specific to this site. If you have a css editor extension in your browser, the relevant attributes are the background in the .rab-bg-head, .rab-bg-flip and .rab-bg-flop classes. These cover the bluey tones that appear on the front page, and the top of the game page. The color attribute of .rab-bg-head a, .rab-bg-flip a and .rab-bg-flop a classes controls the colour that the links on the front page appear. If you come up with some better numbers than the ones I did, feel free to share!

The enormous decorative font is called Merienda. Again I can tone down the size if it's too much. (And if it's too much, you should have seen the first one I played with for a while...)

There's something going on here that I don't understand...

Is it to do with having very few cars running, local deliveries available and very few aircraft flying? Yes, as you suspected, you're in a time warp - this is the 1970's again, but this time you're old!

Don't talk to me about old. For blokes, it's the time that every bit of your body starts going stiff except the one bit you actually want to. Call that fair?

Have any of ever you become dog owners for the first time in your 50s? The windy miller and I are both now working at home for the foreseeable, and I anticipate that even after September I'll be working from home quite a bit. We're thinking seriously about it.
A friendly, middle-aged, middle-sized rescue dog of indeterminate breed would do us fine.
Any thoughts?

[pen] I'd say go for it. The dog will soon have you quickly trained. Alas, I am no longer a dog owner in my 50s, which has set me down the road of possibly looking for another.

Well I'd volunteer for the position myself, but I don't have a waggy enough tail. Go for it.

[Pablo] I know what you mean. My upper lip is not what it used to be.

(Pablo) Fair? Depends how much you spread your seed earlier. That doesn't include the bedroom floor BTW. Try being 77 and hoping for some gloriously horny old bat to turn up. It can happen.

I'm beginning to notice that the lockdown is having an effect (on me at least) similar to large quantities of alcohol in that inhibition is disappearing. Do other morniversers notice this? Who wants a fuck?

[Rosie] As I understand the Human Condition, everyone wants a fuck, but no-one is willing to give one.

(Stevie) Shurely I at least have indicated my willingness to attempt the required act. Success, of course, cannot be guaranteed.
Still ROFLMAO at your second item. Top drawer.

[Rosie] Er, something about alcohol increasing the desire but decreasing the performance? I believe you can get good beer goggles online these days ;-)

(Pablo) Androgen Deprivation Therapy Is even more effective but I've just come off it after 3 years. Hooray!

[Rosie] Ow! that sounds diabolical

(Pablo) Doesn't hurt, just reduces the libido (to about zero). Some men sprout tits but fortunately I didn't. A prostate cancer needs male hormone in order to grow. Deprive it and it goes "to sleep" and can then be zapped with radiotherapy. It seems to have worked. Well done the Royal Marsden.

Irrelevant bollocks or not, [Rosie], that's excellent news.

(pen) Tiz, innit. I look forward to putting the improvement into practice.

[Rosie] Good news indeed. Sometimes libido reduction just happens, no drugs needed. Wish it didn't. Or maybe red wine counts as a drug?

(Pablo) I don't expect at my age to go round shafting anything that moves (and certain things that don't) but it's nice to have a bit more energy, you could say.

First, Giertrud is in the ICU in the hospital in the city with the nearest hospital to the group home where she has been. Same issues that she's been having and is on oxygen. Was so sick that they thought she was non-verbal when she was admitted.

Second, that I do well with my new job. I REALLY need and am very thankful for it. I pray I do well and I hope it leads into me being able to do something that I really WANT to do. I have a few things and it might just be the company that I need to be with in order to get things going.

[Rosie]

Hidden text

Riiiight. So will the pornhub servers be featuring a "Hot'n'Horny Retired Chemist Action" category soon? Will "checking the raingauge" become a Rule-34 meme?

Found my old Mammod traction engine in the basement and decided to fire the old girl up to check she was in good repair after years sitting in a box.

The burns are healing nicely, thank you.

(Stevie) Not quite yet. You see, most people think I look about 6O but I know better. Rain-gauge? No activity all month ym Mhlas Huws. Forgotten how to do it. That's another thing.
(KagomeShuko) Best wishes for your new job and for your poor sister.

Decided to use the new Air Fryer to make a hamburger while Mrs Stevie was looking after her mother.

The burns are healing nicely, thank you.

[KagomeShuko] we're on the case.

Ah, the airfryer. It’s our patriotic duty right now to eat our bodyweight in potatoes every week to save the Dutch potato farmers whose produce is no longer being made into chips and eaten by hordes of diners and visitors. Airfryer chips/frites/frieten/patat every other night, innit?

Chips should be deep fried in beef dripping. There is no argument that can be effective against doing so.

Bugger! My May drought has been ruined by a brief shower Saturday lunchtime, amounting to 0.2 mm and therefore counting as a rain day. It still might be my driest month EVER, as people say, the Universe having been created in 1983.

[Stevie] I’d like to live a long time AND eat chips. Beef dripping is summingelse, although I’m not too keen on the lingering greasy sensation around the chops afterwards. As my dear daddy used to recite - and humour me here because we grew up 15 miles from Grimsby which had its own fishing port town reputation at the time - :
Little girls from Grimsby
Blue eyes and cherry lips
Every time you kiss them
They taste of fish and chips.

(pen) Nothing wrong with that. Award yourself an LLB, Lincolnshire Lip Balm. Sooooo much nicer than garlicky breath.

[penelope] And your point is? I agree wholeheartedly and unreservedly with Rosie. Watch out for avian pigs.

[Rosie] I guffawed! (which looks like it might be a Welsh word but I bet it isn't and now I have to go google its etymology.)

(pen) It does rather, doesn't it, but it's not in my copy of Y Geiriadur Mawr, ("The Big Wordery"). It can join my other favourite warthog. Incidentally arthog literally means bear-like and as in English the sub-text is "grumpy". BTW can't wait to hear you guffaw.

It's awfully quiet in here. Is everyone well?

[pen] The usual ta. My Chambers Dictionary says guffawed is onomatopoeic, disappointingly.

(pen) I'm very well, thanks, but bored stiff. Could do with a bit of conversation.

[pen] Well, how's Project Dog coming along?

[Simons] Had two hot leads this week (see what I did there?) but one (Stanbijhoun/Collie cross) was withdrawn from sale and the other (wire-haired fox terrier) was sold before we could go over to see it. We keep searching, and some friends are putting the word out for us too - which might prove more fruitful.

Well I have just enacted Project Beer and Project Less Hair, but I really ought to get on with Project Barstools, Project Chair and Project Plates. I have been having a smashing time recently. I should also enact Project Washing Up, but I particularly hate that one. But no space for a dishwasher, unfortunately.

Project Star Wars Rulebook is in the home straight, but that's a marathon, and there's still weeks at least before I'll finish it. Especially as there's content I'd like to farm out into a couple of other books which are barely into draft stage.

I am so thankful that I have a job and that I can work from home with this virus being so rampant, and especially now, that the area where I live has one of the highest rates of people infected with the virus (I don't go out and do all that much as it is - I prefer small gathers, but even those are happening much). Anyway, though, this job is tiring. I worked 50+ hours last week. I need to spend some time putting out job proposals when I happen to have time. I'm praying that I can start teaching theatre online somehow - and be paid for it, not just independently.

[KS] How is Giertrud?

Thanks for asking. She's not doing well. She's still about a three hour drive away from where I am. They want to move her into a nursing home because they said her medical issues are too much for her to go back to the group home. In a way, I think she will be happier, but I also worry about her. She's not supposed to eat anything by mouth, and she is very hard headed about what she wants to do and I worry she'll get a hold of food or the nursing home will make a mistake and give her food and then she'll eventually not make it because somebody won't catch her pneumonia. I'm quite angry at the medical community in Louisiana right now since nobody had actually tried to find what is wrong now and they just keep tossing her from place to place.

8o(

What Stevie emojied.

My usual "system update" check 'post' also for funny stuff

Giertrud called me recently. She is now at the nursing home Legacy in Plaquemine, Louisiana. She sounded much better and much happier than she has been for a long time. She told me that they did a swallow test and that this time it was different as they put a camera up her nose and watched her eat live. She said that they give her a medicine to break up secretions and that it tastes bitter. However, it seems to help. She said that when she eats, they saw that secretions seem to pool in her throat. She told me that they are going to soon try to allow her to eat soft foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She's been going to speech and physical therapy and there is somebody who helps her remember how to brush her brush her teeth. She also said that she sleeps sitting up. That might help with the secretions.

We actually talked for over a half hour. I could mainly understand her. The conversation didn't get too repetitive. She's in room 421 and she loves her 420 jokes, so of course she had to say it was a minute past time to smoke marijuana. We mainly talked about the dogs and dogs that we've had. She didn't dwell too much on Krueger and Nala and agreed if she is ever able to come home, small dogs like chihuahuas are much better for her. They at least have to be calmer.

So, I'm praying that she is finally in a place that can help her get better. Who knows what will happen if she gets better, but right now, not much really matters with this virus.

I'm sure the nursing home environment is better for her than the group home. She was actually out in a public area and able to call me.

(KagomeShuko) I wish her the best and I'm sure the whole Morniverse does too. Maybe things are on the up. We all hope so.

(KagomeShuko) That does sound like a positive improvement. My best wishes to you both.

So, it seems like the issue with Giertrud isn't going away. I got a call from the nursing home/rehab facility and they said they were sending Briana to the hospital because it seemed like she aspirated. I don't know what that will mean for her eating. I know she was thrilled to be eating again.

Hey all. So, when they called for the mandatory evacuation from Lake Charles, I picked up a few things and got out. I didn't take time to pack up tons of things. I didn't want to get stuck at home or in traffic. I went north and found myself in West Monroe, Louisiana. I found one single hotel room. It was literally THE hotel with a room vacancy that I could find. Somebody had ended up cancelling that night. So, I had my service dogs, no change of clothes, and my laptop, basically. I had a few other things, but I couldn't pack up everything because of my back problems and not wanting to get stuck in the traffic or in heavy rain. Lake Charles is in awful condition. My house had a tree fall through the roof of the back of my rooms. So, the roof and ceiling is all ruined in two main rooms, maybe a little bathroom, and a little area where a file cabinet can fit. Some people have helped me with donating some money so I could get some clothes and eat and should be able to travel when I check out of the hotel on September 4th. My job is one that I do from home as it is. At first, I thought I wasn't happy with the company, but they have really stepped up. They payed for the hotel from the day Ii checked in and then checking out on the 4th. I will have a host up in Tennessee while Lake Charles and my house are all being repaired. Lake Charles does not have any running water or any electricity. I think it was only one life that the storm, itself, took. I know another one was taken when somebody fell off of a ladder. Most of them seem to end up being because people will get a generator, they won't get a CO alarm, and they will run the generator and they will place it somewhere they think it safe and it may seem so, but CO gas seeps into their house. That's sad and it is sad seeing all of the destruction in my hometown. I know we will rebuild, but it certainly hurts my heart.

(KagomeShuko) Life is dealing you some lousy cards just now. At least you have somewhere to stay and don't forget you will always have friends here.

I made it up to Tennessee. My host will be home this evening. I'm sad for Lake Charles. There are people who rode out the storm. There are people who were only able to leave for a bit while the storm hit and had to go back. They say it will be at least three weeks before electricity is restored to the city. Water is iffy and if people can get water, it is under a boil advisory . . . which, if people have electric stoves, is basically impossible for them . . .

[KagomeShuko] Let's hope this brings out the best in neighbours so they can help each other until things start to get back to normal. A colleague was with her family in Florida and was caught in the storms there a couple of years ago - she blogged in detail and very movingly about the incredible neighbourliness she experienced. I hope that happens for your community.
And don't forget to take good care of yourself too - without feeling guilty. Without that, you can't look after anyone else either.

Another fortnight, another two weeks working at home, and still no closer to being able to return to the UK for a visit. (Complicated by my UK family's bubble to protect my sister who's about to start chemotherapy to complete her treatment for ovarian cancer - thankfully she should make a full recovery.)
Feeling a bit exiled TBH. Distracting myself by walking the dog loads and have raised 200 quid for Cancer Research as a result - and have lost weight - so it's not all bad.

Giertrud passed away today.

[KS] So so sorry to hear that. You're in our thoughts.

[KS] Sad news indeed. I'm sorry for your loss.

[KS] So sorry to hear of your loss. I have just been re-reading some of her contributions here: she will be missed.

[KS] Sincere condolences.

Sorry for your loss. Very sad to hear.

Vale Giertrud.
Chin up, KS, time does heal - as I can verify (my daughter was killed earlier this year in a MVA.) You seem to have had a bad trot of late, so it's time to think positive and take care of the future. Good luck.

[Dujon] Please also accept my deep sympathy; that is just awful to hear.

Thanks, CdM, but I should not have let that slip. Grief is very personal thing, so, please, no more messages, everyone.
That is not to criticise KS as Giertrud was a contributor to the MC community.

After such a period of respectful silence, I propose that we now resume doing what made us all come here in the first place - to celebrate life, intelligence, being funny, and being too-bloody-clever-by-half with words.
You go first.

I shall, penelope.
See, I've done it.

This is the one place that keeps me sane. That and the piano.

For me it's my collection of singing potatoes.

[SM] Are they accompanied by a Maris Piper?

Well they are now...

(Boolbar) V good. But can he do the theme from MASH?

I did wonder what Rosie was doing in the piano.

(Dan) Poking around with a screwdriver, as ever. Got a Yamaha keyboard - no strings attached, and you can play it with the headphones at two in the morning, fortified with a good slug of brandy. Some aspects of life are not bad.