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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 28 October 2000 (Week 44)

wpoison

To respond or comment on something I have written email me. I would love to hear from you.  If you have problems reaching me at the first address, I can also be reached at fritchman@triad.rr.com.

You can view the Netwidows Recipe web site for recipes from myself and the other Netwidows and Daynotes Gang.

Saturday, 28 October 2000

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It was a rather busy day yesterday. I worked on some stuff when I got back from the gym. Then I took a lunch break followed by another leave session. I blew some more leaves to the street from under the red maple and blew the back leaves into the natural area to be mulched.

More work after my shower. Bob's brother, showed up unexpected around 3:00 for a visit. Fortunately I had steak and chicken thawed to grill, so we had plenty for dinner. After dinner I started on a new book. The jury is still out on this one. It is Alice Adam's new book After the War. After the first 100 pages I am not too overly impressed. I will post a full review on my favorites page sometime this weekend after I have read a little more.

I still have not put together my photo album from the last Canada trip. I have had so much else to do that I just have not had a chance to get to it. I plan on working on that this weekend too. This is a no race weekend in Winston Cup, so I have all day Sunday to work in my office and get these little projects finished. Part of what is taking so long is that I cannot work except in my office because of Malcolm. With his thieving still going on, I have to have things like that out in rooms protected by baby gates and the den is not one of them. 

I have missed spinning class again for a week so I am going to the gym this morning for the 10:30 class. Bob can do the backup on my system while I am gone and by the time I get home, have lunch, and take a shower it should be done. Then I can work this afternoon.

Sunday, 29 October 2000

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Dogs do not understand time changes. They are still on DST and woke us up at 6:30. They thought it was 7:30, even though I did set the clock beside the bed so they would see it was still only 6:30. But, they go by other instincts and to them, it was time to get up. It takes a few days to get them back on standard time and, in fact it takes me several days too.

No NASCAR Winston Cup race today.  There are only three races left beginning next weekend. And, with the golf season about over too, my sports watching pretty much grinds to a halt until after the first of the year. That is good though because I have Sunday afternoons to work and do holiday stuff that I need time for.

So, since I have the entire day to get things done, today is vacuum and mop day. I will vacuum and mop each room of the house starting in the kitchen. With hardwood floors they only need a good mopping periodically. With dogs and humans they are always getting spot cleanings but not a full mopping. Then I will dust and do bathrooms and such.

This is probably my last big deep clean until after the holidays. I have always done a big cleaning after I take down Christmas decorations since all the rooms are torn up anyway. 

I spent all afternoon yesterday getting my trip photograph album put together and feel relieved with that project out of the way. 

Monday, 30 October 2000

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Okay, I was going to be nice and just not even get into the discussion about the bathroom electrical box. As you can see from the picture on Bob's diary page, it had been hanging out of the wall since we had the bathroom remodeled in the fall of 1997. Yes, I allowed for the fact that we tried to fix it twice in the last three years. I also understand double gang boxes, studs in the way, etc. Just call me Al. I am Bob the tool man's assistant on many a project in this house and know all about the above and more.  And, no I have not used it since he installed it yesterday. But, when I get ready to use the damn thing it will now be working. Plus, I will not get fried, like I almost have twice, cleaning around it and hitting my hand on the exposed wires while holding a wet rag. And finally, it need to be fixed before we sell the house, which is months away, but, it took him three years to finally fix it. I rest my case.

We had a pretty quiet day around here yesterday. I think the change in time always makes the first few days a little rough on the system. Bob slept, I worked in my office listening to music and working on various projects that needed tidied up.

I promised a full review of Alice Adams' After the  War on my favorites page.

Still no rain but we are having some beautiful weather. It was very warm yesterday but dropped down to the 30's last night, which is more normal. Another couple of weeks and most of the leaves should be down.

Tuesday, 31 October 2000

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How would you like to invite someone over to your house for dinner and have them call and ask if they can bring their laundry along? That's just what we did to our friends last night. We have suspected that our twenty year old dryer was slowly failing. It was not drying clothes in one or even two cycles. This morning I started a load of towels to wash and checked the dryer to see if load I did yesterday for Lenore was dry. It was damp, so I started it going again and left to go to the gym and the library. 

When I got back I checked the dryer and the clothes were not even warm. Dead dryer. Now I had two loads of wet clothes. I took a shower and Bob stopped working long enough to head down to Sears. In ten minutes' time we had bought the dryer to be delivered on Wednesday. The old dryer was a Whirlpool which I purchased along with the washer in 1980 when I moved into my rent house. They have been moved twice since and have never had any work done on either one of them.  So, we bought another Whirlpool, hoping it will be made as good as the old one.

So, we arrived at our friends house with two baskets of wet laundry. Robin cooked us an excellent meal of meatloaf, mash potatoes, and green beans with a fruit salad. We had cake for dessert. It was a wonderful evening. Upon arriving back home around 10:30, Bob and I realized we had not been out for an evening away from home (not counting our recent trip), to visit with friends for a long time. It was very nice. And, we did get our laundry dried.

Tonight is Halloween and all will say is that the Thompsons do not participate in this holiday. I know, I went trick or treating when I was a kid. And, I know it was dangerous back then with razors in apples, kids doing pranks, etc. But, I think Halloween today should be celebrated with parties, haunted houses, and controlled settings rather than going house to house getting candy. For one thing, most kids today get all the candy and junk they can eat all the time. I think back in the 50's and 60's it was not as prevalent and more of a treat to get a sack full of candy once a year. I also feel that today it is just too dangerous to open your doors to anybody let alone be out wandering the streets. We don't turn on our lights. It is also very dangerous for the dogs because kids will do things to animals.

If you do have kids or even as adults, if you participate in the traditional trick or treat, please be careful. I am sure that in some communities it is very safe and I know the kids love to get dressed up as their favorite character or whatever.

Okay Lynne. Hang in there. You are having a really tough time with Benson and your mom and holding down the fort. Now, Bob is not even showing up for meals when he is called. I am like you and desire to eat my dinner hot rather than cold/congealed. But, I give my Bob the warning, I dish it up. If he doesn't come, I start eating. He too, will eat it cold, warm, hot, whatever. I would say it must be a guy thing, but my dad has to have his so hot it burns your tongue when it's served. 

We often get in "deadline" mode around here and the scenario is pretty much the same. Bob works, I do everything else. They need to focus on the task at hand with blinders on to anything else that lives and breaths in the world. Hey, that is why we have the Netwidows group in the first place.  They know they can't live without us, they just don't have time to tell us.

Wednesday, 1 November 2000

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Sears is supposed to deliver the dryer this morning. Yesterday, Bob and I went down to clean out the vent tube of 13 years of lint. As we were working on it, it cracked anyway. Off I head to Lowe's to get a new one for the installation this morning. I will hang around here until they come and then do my gym and store afterward. We are supposed to get "first thing this morning" delivery.

Thirty six days without rain. Our record is 41 and we may make it. I think there is an outside chance of rain by the end of the week. Several surrounding areas have already reached their new records of no rainfall. The back yard is covered in leaves and there are still a couple of trees to finish shedding. The front doesn't look too bad. I think I will mulch some of the back ones today. With the dry weather, my allergies are really acting up making the need for rain even more important.

The city vacuumed up leaves yesterday so now the street is clear again to start piling them up again. The gutters only need one more blowing out in front, anyway. And the back, maybe twice. 

Guess that's about it for today.

Thursday, 2 November 2000

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Not really much news to talk about. Sears installed the new dryer. I worked on the book. Bob worked on his book. The dogs aren't doing a book at this point, I don't think.

I am playing golf this morning with dad. I did not get leaves up yesterday, so I may work on leaves. It will take several days to get them all cleaned up anyway. 

Still no rain, just warm, pretty, sunny days. Things are getting pretty dry and we have forest fires in many of the surrounding counties that fire fighters are having trouble keeping contained.

Have a good one.

Friday, 3 November 2000

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Talk about an exciting week.  Lynne and Bob, in addition to getting all the rain we need here in NC, have birds "with dangly bits", baby hedgehogs, and gassy dogs. I do hope you are able to get the hedgehog fattened up for winter. They are very cute. The local wildlife rehab group brought a baby to a children's program for the kids to see and touch.  

And, if you did not notice my snide remark yesterday about the dogs and writing books, Marcia did. Turns out Malcolm sent mail to Marcia on Monday and told her he and Duncan were writing a book about living in the Thompson house. Marcia sent me this yesterday: 

Actually, the other day I got this email from Malcolm:

Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 15:23:25 -0800
From: Malcolm@ttgnet.com
Subject: How to find a publisher?
To: marcia@dutchgirl.net

Dear Auntie Marcia,

You've always been so supportive of me and my intellect and, its not that my Mom and Dad don't appreciate that same element in me but I think that sometimes they resent my intelligence. Duncan and I were thinking of writing a book-- do you know anything about how to sell the concept of "Owner Management" and what publishers might be interested in a topic of that nature? I would almost think that it would have to be a university-type of publisher because so often, this type of topic would is seen as a psychologically-related kind of thing.

Let me know what you come up with, if anything.

Big hugs,

Malcolm

Aren't we all glad it's Friday? Busy day yesterday. The golf course was crowded so it took us four hours to play. By the time we finished and ate a bite of lunch it was 2:00 until we got back to dad's. While over there, I wanted to stop in for just a minute to visit our long time next door neighbor, who has been under the weather. I had not had a chance to go over since she has been home. 

Dad then went to get a couple of things from his little freezer in the shed and we found water all over the floor. The compressor must have died and it had defrosted all the meat and stuff. We cleaned up the water and got the food in the house into the refrigerator. The food was still cold but thawed, so now they had enough food thawed to feed the neighborhood. I took several pieces of chicken and a pork loin to fix and some Pennsylvania sausage. We had fried chicken and corn for dinner. Tonight it will be pork loin and the chops I had thawed for us. I will have to do another Southern Foods order before I can restock their meat stock because I am almost out of meat too.

Have a good weekend everybody and if you have rain send it our way. The forest fires are now burning all over the western part of NC and the VA line.

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