TheCapeBlog

We started laundry this morning and eventually made the bed late this afternoon.

In the meantime, the visit to Geri’s for Free’s birthday party was a disaster.

We were drinking prosecco and the subject of Ron’s entertaining stories came up. I suggested that Ron tell Geri about one of his grandfather’s friends.

I can’t remember why, but this led to one of his “my wife” stories about his ex.

I’ve asked him before to not refer to that woman with that term. It upsets me and there he was, dwelling on something that happened some 30 years ago. Involving “his wife”.

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you can have only one wife. One. If that ain’t me, then this marriage is a F*g joke.

Geri was distracted and turned on her stove under a plastic container of ravioli. It filled the living room and kitchen with smoke, enough to trigger her smoke alarm. We opened windows, but that didn’t help very much.

I was out of my head with fury and insisted that we go home. I didn’t want to be responsible for more disturbance to Geri’s neighbors or cause her even more of a problem than the one she had to deal with because of her own “stuff”.

I yelled at Ron all the way home and afterwards. He doesn’t “get it”.

I was nervous about it, but made soup out of the pumpkin, and Ron finished off the seitan and gravy from Thanksgiving. We seem to be okay this morning.

It being a heavy rain day, I only went out in the late afternoon to find our favorite cashier at his new job and to mail letters.

I did a lot of work on the lead injector.

I had two job interviews yesterday, one in person, one by phone. I enjoyed the conversations with the hiring managers.

Ron signed up for another Highfield visit next Thursday.

A little more work for MRS and made progress with email parsing.

This morning, I walked on the treadmill and did a little rowing, maybe 10-12 minutes in all, while listening to Dvorak (New Bedford Symphony), Elgar and Ravel (NY Philharmonic).

The tub bench arrived yesterday. Ron put it together and seems to like it.

Ron misplaced his debit card, closed the card and got a new one yesterday.

We found out that our friend at Andy’s has moved on to a new job, with a promotion. Hope to see him soon!

It’s been raining for a while and expected to last all day.

Productive day.

We enjoyed the Christmas open house at Highfield. Ron was particularly impressed with the senior citizen tenor.

Ron did errands and I picked up several bags of chips to replace the one I finished, much to Ron’s chagrin. Got the chips at the South Sandwich Stop & Shop – Mashpee was sold out – then briefly visited Scenic Roots before heading home.

I raked up the small area between the driveway and the corner garden. Did a laundry and booked two interviews for this afternoon.

Finished up work for the school. Testing is going well.

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Had a second phone interview today and loaded MSF coupon codes to MRS. Got some registration debugging to do.

Researched insurance options through Viabenefits.

Checked out modems with voice and wifi. Looks like Best Buy is a decent option, but can’t get them to price match because they don’t honor third party vendor prices.

Moved a couple of smallish piles of leaves around the front hydrangeas and the stand of daylilies on the driveway side.

Received the fitness tracker and am waiting for the battery to charge.

We’ve been silly all day. Didn’t get outside enough. That and colloquies with a couple of “Back the Blue” bootlickers on FB.

Ron did a good job removing leaves from the back yard before yesterday’s rain. I’m hoping the month of November helped the county’s water deficit.

I received and deposited a reimbursement check for my new glasses and used Roche’s new curbside pickup: worked great!

Took care of a bunch of digital loose ends, including ordering more reimbursable Wallet supplies, like a tub bench and a pedometer.

Ran off mailing labels for holiday cards, hope Ron can get the ones for his Canadian friends in the mail today.

I spent the morning today cooking the mushrooms, which I’d promised myself to do. They are too valuable to risk going bad.

Lunch was very good: vegetable stuffed delicata squash, stuffed cremini mushrooms, brown rice with maitake mushrooms and toasted pecans, romanesco casserole.

This afternoon, I deposited a check to the Co-op for our HELOC payment and bought stamps for the holiday cards at the North Falmouth PO.

Finished the new schedule page for MRS to review.

Had a brief interview for a Business Analyst job in Falmouth. Applied for a warranty administration/customer service job at Bosun Marine. Probably flunked their test, but it was interesting to go through it.

The decorative pumpkin was in great shape for baking and pureeing. I spent the morning making pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread and roasted the seeds.

I put up the holiday lights while Ron got rid of the leaves in the front yard.

We enjoyed the last of the strawberries and chocolate fondue. Ron cleaned up the kitchen, twice. Good man!

I did a load of laundry, switched off the humidity sensor and closed the window for the attic fan and washed the kitchen floor, then picked up Geri and Free around noon.

Wanted fresh strawberries but every market was closed except for the convenience stores at Merry Meadow By-Way.

We had an enjoyable visit and it was nice to celebrate our anniversary with two of our favorite guests. Geri brought a bottle of prosecco and liked the meatloaf enough to bring the rest home. Ron made merry with brandy. I achieved my goal of not cooking.

This morning, we did the transfer station run. I brought winter solstice decorations down from the attic and put up wreaths. Mailed a Walmart gift card to James for an early gift, maybe the weights he wants.

Finished the cooking yesterday: green bean casserole (a hit), pumpkin pie, brussel sprouts (a miss). The grands asked for the sweet potato casserole recipe. They left early, James had plans to meet a friend. We kept the conversation to a neutral subject: politics.

The truck is fixed. Got a ride with Patrick. Traffic on MacArthur Boulevard was surprisingly light.

Ron did another shop and scrubbed the bathroom counter, which now looks great. I did the bathroom floor and dusted the living room. Ron did a magnificent job with cleaning up the kitchen after the boys left.

I cooked the seitan, meatloaf, cranberry/orange dressing and mashed potatoes yesterday to get ahead of our entertaining, which starts this evening.

After a stupid argument, Ron spilled some of the cooked potatoes on the floor. It infuriated me because it felt like reprisal for ignoring his unwanted, useless advice. I was not especially nice to him, even while he was cleaning up the mess; starch is a son of a gun to pick up.

Dropped off the truck to Falmouth Toyota and got a ride in the shuttle with Patrick. The problem is minor, cost-wise, and they hope to have it ready today.

It was close to freezing, but I got the garlic planted yesterday, almost 60 cloves. Froze a bunch more and filled the little jar for cooking near term. Used up the bale of straw on the garlic and strawberry beds. Cursed the post office for not getting the cloves to me early enough to allow planting the day before. I was ridiculous to wait so long.

We did a short walk, a little over a mile, late yesterday afternoon. Felt good to be outside.

Uploaded NEPS changes a couple of days ago. Got the expected results.