We had another nice one half and a rather less than nice second half of this weekend that just ended. Saturday was just one mighty gorgeous day that just begged us to be on the outside. Sunday, though, started out with rain and it continued just about all day, although mostly just as intermittent showers.
About the only outdoor work I do is lawn mowing in the grass growing season and snow blowing in the snow season. I think it might be fair to say I’m not an outdoorsy person. Now that’s not to say I never do anything outside, but Gator Wife might mention that it takes a very gentle “pretty please” for me to go out there for work.
Some people who don’t know me might say I must be a lazy son-of-a-gun; but those who know that I worked two jobs for all my adult life until I retired, and worked for various youth sports in various capacities but mostly as an official, might have a different picture.
That’s not what today is all about. Today is about a semi nice weekend. And that part occurred Saturday. Gator Daughter came over by mid morning. Naturally she brought her dog so that both hers and our Golden could have a great time outside. They did, running, tackling, wrestling and getting in the way of their humans. They were in that “seventh heaven” place. Gator Golden, and I suspect her sister, slept soundly all night.
Meanwhile, I took my tractor ride around the yard. The mid-morning part was a rather slow ride. The grass was still damp, downright wet in some places. That chute that usually clogs with even damp grass has a little gauge that will tell me when the air flow, thus the grass flow, is going through. I think that because that grass in the sunny area was relatively dry while it was shaded grass that was still damp, the dry grass won out. As long as I went slowly, the chute didn’t clog.
Meanwhile, the ladies had three cars lined up in the driveway and each got a thorough washing followed by a good waxing. That, too, was time consuming, but for a half a day at least they were shiny and clean. Daughter Gator’s car came out the best as it’s only a couple years old. GW’s and my car, nine and ten years old respectively, were a little more challenging.
I got into a fun exchange with my Fearless Friend over the definition of BBQ. The Gator trio had BBQ for lunch. I call anything we grill, especially if it is properly ‘doctored’ up, “Bar-B-Que.” I mentioned in the first message to FF that we had BBQ for lunch, then mentioned I heard on the television a week or two ago that BBQ was only when the food was cooked with wood and smoke. I think I included charcoal in that mix. Nevertheless, I said we had BBQ.
His response was a good one. One of those Bar-b-cue cookout contests we occasionally see on the Food Channel was held across the street from his Florida home this past season. He said he learned that a real BBQ was indeed made with wood and smoke, usually slowly. However, he learned from Emeril on TV that anything prepared for that special cooking on a grill was BBQ. It mattered not what “everyone” said. FF liked that, so he agreed with me: we had BBQ for lunch. There are times when FF is actually correct.
Did you notice I used three different ways to refer to that cooking in those last two paragraphs? I wonder which was correct.
Sunday started out very wet and we made the decision early not to do much. Even though the rain ended reasonably early, the ground remained wet and showers did pass through for a while. So GD and dog stayed home to do stuff around her house and GW and I stayed in. GW worked her puzzles; I did some crossword puzzle and watched sports on TV. Sunday could best be described as a lazy day.
That doesn’t take anything away from our having had a good, productive weekend, however.
I had said Friday I’d give a report on cable guy’s visit to fix my seemingly ever on-going problems getting some of my cable stations. He came, but this guy was the first to admit after all his testing that I had a problem. Not only could he see the breaking up of the sound and picture inside the house, he spent an hour and a half or so outside with equipment attached to the cable at the pole.
After watching and reading his devices, he came in and said, “There is a problem, but it’s not here.” He went on to explain that his testing showed the problem was between where the fiber wire used for wide area transmission splits into cable wire for neighborhood transmission. It could be a bad splice, a broken wire along the way, a bad node, or something like that. But it wasn’t in my home.
Unfortunately, he had to elevate the service call to the “wire guys” to come out and give the line a good going over. He suspects, but can’t say for sure, the problem might be at the splice where the wire heads to our home since no one else in the neighborhood is having the same problem. He asked for another few days to get the problem resolved before I considered alternatives.
That seemed fair and that’s where I am now, in those few days of patience. I do know nothing happened over the weekend. Watching the Red Sox and College World Series games showed the problem is still with me. So, as they say in the broadcast industry, stay tuned. I want to stay with cable, but the final decision is getting closer.
GiM
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