Plans for today (2019-2022)

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rascal said:
My nana and my mother were both chain smokers, died through smoking, both at age 66. So glad I gave up in 06.

Russ
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It got my mother. I stopped 21 September 2001, I call it my second birthday.

If anyone I know talks about stopping, I suggest they honestly work out how much they spend, add 35% (UK tax etc) then go and ask their boss for the same pay rise. The difference to your pocket is amazing, I worked out I was working the first 1 hour of the day just to feed my cigarette habit.
 
The Velvet Curtain said:
It got my mother. I stopped 21 September 2001, I call it my second birthday.

If anyone I know talks about stopping, I suggest they honestly work out how much they spend, add 35% (UK tax etc) then go and ask their boss for the same pay rise. The difference to your pocket is amazing, I worked out I was working the first 1 hour of the day just to feed my cigarette habit.
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I heard just a few days ago, they are $2 each per ciggys for Taylor made. Unbelievable!!!

Russ
 
I never really smoked. Okay, I tried it when I was 9 years old when visiting my 9 year old cousin, and the foster kid my aunt and uncle had brought in - the girl brought in cigarettes. I was very curious.

My parents both smoked (Dad used cigars). I thought both cigarettes and cigars smelt awful. But, hey, this young kid loved broccoli which smelled bad when cooking - maybe cigarettes would be like that, too.

So when I was visiting, the two of them offered me their (forbidden) cigarettes. Tasted as bad as it smelled. I handed the thing back to my cousin.

I did try again a couple times during high school, but I still hated it. I was hanging with some of the "outcasts" but they were of the sort of "outcasts" that didn't want or mean to make their friends do the same things they did. Perhaps lucky? Once I did try a menthol cigarette, and I probably could have gone that way (this didn't taste that bad), but at that point I was in college and knew that wasn't a direction I didn't want to go.
 
Plans for today - other than regular chicken tasks, bringing the Xmas stuff back down to the basement storage area (DONE), bringing more stuff down for storage including some art projects I plan to work on (stained glass, mostly). Making sous vide skirt steak and a veggie collection to go with it once the sous vide part is done. We had 5 inches of snow overnight, and now it is snowing again, but I don't expect accumulations beyond the previous.
 
Today is a federal/bank holiday (MLK Day) and one of those (unlike Independence Day or Thanksgiving) that not everyone gets off, so I'm glad that my employer observes it.

I'm planning to meet my parents for (their) breakfast/(my) lunch. I live 75 minutes (by car) away, so one of my brothers who lives near them will choose a spot a little closer to me and that's where we'll meet.

This can be a pretty frustrating endeavor all around, as my folks are in their 80's and my dad has mild dementia and my mom is wildly disorganized. My brother is supposed to meet them at their house at 10AM, with the intent of getting them out the door at 11AM, but who knows if that'll happen. They can be all dressed and ready to go, then my dad will decide he wants to watch a TV show or listen to a record, and then there's no shifting him until he's done.

They also won't decide on a place to eat until they're getting in the car, and they have a running list of where either my dad has been banned (temporarily), or he won't go, or my mom won't go, which should make it easy, as it eliminates 2/3rds of the places around them, but it doesn't.

All that means I'm stuck sitting here, waiting for a text that I may get at 11AM...or 11:15AM...or 12:30PM...or I might get one that tells me the whole thing has been called off. It's cold this morning, windchill of 7F/-14C, and there's a better than half chance my folks'll refuse for go out in it.

The biggest irritant to all this is, if we do go out, it'll end up being at a time when I don't eat. It'll fall right in between meal times for me, because they're on their own schedule and don't eat at set times necessarily. Then I have to sit there and get the Spanish Inquisition from my mom over why I'm not eating: "Are you sick? He's sick! Have you been to the doctor?! Eat some of mine. Here, have half of mine! LORD HAVE MERCY, EAT SOMETHING!!!"😱

And I start on-call this week...
 
TastyReuben said:
I'm on-call, though, so it's really like stepping in dog poop with both feet.
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working in the IT industry, I can understand. I hated working on call to the point that I simply wouldn't do it. Any job that required it as a mandatory part of the requirements, I wouldn't even consider applying for. Luckily for me, all of my jobs in IT, I had for 5 or more years, so could pick and choose in all but 1 case which was my last job and ironically the one I held the longest (7 years). I was asked at the last job's interview why I was applying for a much lower position than I was qualified for and was blunt with them: 1, It was so close to home that I wouldn't need to replace to company car I was loosing after being made redundant (best thing that happened to me in that place). 2: I didn't want the stress of call out that came with the 'trade' (didn't mind working extra hours when needed for either projects or emergencies, I understood that that WAS part of the job, but I 100% refused to be on call.) 3. most jobs were what you made of them and it wouldn't take long for me to make what I wanted of the roll.
Within 2 years, I was pretty much running the entire network single handedly.5 years of doing that was more than enough and I quit after 7 years with them to go off and(attempt to) cycle around the world instead.
 
I skinned and deboned the pork shoulders. Used 2.5 pounds each for garlic/red wine sausage for cassoulet, among other things, and chorizo. They are both new recipes to us so didn't want to make a lot. Remainder was ground for 6 pounds. Got 2 good sized beef roasts, beef stew cubes for dinner, and 12 pounds of ground round from the beef knuckles. Craig did the grinding and I did the vacu-packaging. The chorizo will be bulk since we nearly always use it in dishes where it comes out of the casing. It has to have tequila and red wine vinegar added, then be emulsified in the mixer. I'll stuff the garlic/red wine sausage tomorrow after I add the wine and emulsify.
 
Following up the parents/brother meet-up: ended up meeting right at 11AM, which isn't too bad considering everything.

Dad tells the same jokes and stories, but he always weaves them in like a storyteller, and this time, he added to one of his favorites. Here's how it went:

Me: MrsTasty wants to retire to an over-55 community in Floria, but if we have to do that, I'll probably blow my brains out.

Mom: Oh, don't say that! That's horrible!

Me: We couldn't be more opposite; she wants Florida old folks retirement, I want to be in a high-rise, in a big city.

Mom: Like Chicago?

Dad: Chicago? Chicago?! I had to go there once with Little Jack, the plant owner's son. See, the old man, he was Jack, and his boy was Jack, but we just called him Little Jack.

Now, we're driving up there, and Little Jack tells me, 'Buddy, this is Chicago, it ain't Fairfield, and it ain't Cincinnati, it's Chicago. Big city, and they'll pickpocket you just as soon as look at you!'"

"So I said, 'Little Jack, I already got that figured out!' and what I did was, see, was to just cut holes in both my pants pockets. Yessir, a hole in each one, and then, when I felt someone a-rootin' around in one of my pockets, why I just stuck my hand in the other one, reached over, and shook hands with him!"

That joke is older than my dad, but he's since added this bit to it:

"...and that, boys, is how I met your mother."

:laugh:

There was something going on with Mom, though, she seemed more irritated that usual with my dad.
 
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