Modern Vespa

Not necessarily today, but in general:

A month ago I posted in the What's Pissing You Off thread about my MIL having throat cancer. As of that post, I had driven my wife up to Van Buren, Arkansas from Dallas, so that she could help her mom with the surgery recovery.

Initially, she was going to be up there for a week, but we knew it might be two weeks, depending on how the surgery went.

First surgery went well. They removed the cells on Tuesday, December 8, and would have the biopsy results by Friday, December 11.

Turns out they got everything on the voice box, but they needed to go back in and remove some cells that were found on the vocal cords. So they scheduled that for Tuesday, December 15. They also scheduled a PET scan for the same day.

On Thursday, December 17, they gave her the results. The surgery got all of the cancer, and it hasn't spread anywhere else. It was a squamous cell cancer sitting on top of the top layer of skin on the vocal cords (in situ), but hadn't invaded past the epithelial layer. The PET scan didn't find cancer anywhere (just the start of emphysema, which isn't surprising in an 81 year old who has smoked since the age of 17).

I drove up on Saturday, the 19th, and stayed there until Wednesday, the 23rd, when my wife and I returned home, the day before my MIL was allowed to try talking again. I spent 5 quiet days with my MIL (insert stereotypical MIL joke here).

She has since gotten her voice back, although she says it's "a little froggy."

So while I am firmly in the "F*** Cancer" camp, my MIL has survived it.

Monogodo, Sounds good!

As good as it gets, I'd say. We'll give dear MIL a break on the humor all considering...

I'm sure I've said it before here, but if not, I love my MIL. She's great. She treated me like family before I even married her daughter.

You struck gold!

Reminds me of feeling like family with my SIL. Always nice to me...when my wife told her sisters she was getting married on relatively short notice (long-distance relationships are make or break IMO), one asked my wife if she was crazy...the other one was like, "cool!" Got put to the test when I wound up totaling her favorite (and somewhat older) car in Mexico City. I was thinking I was going to be the family pariah, but her first response was "that's what we have insurance for." End of subject.

To be fair, the other SIL then offered up her new Jetta as a replacement. "Are you crazy, I just totaled your sister's car!"

"Well, I don't think you can have TWO accidents..."

My family had always left cookies for our mail carrier at Christmas. In subsequent years, I dropped the ball, but the past years I've thought about some sort of thank you, but mostly got distracted in the busy pre-holiday season. So finally this year, got in gear, wrapped a small box of chocolates and a thank you note....

Thought several times subsequently how it was received, then thought it didn't matter, but yesterday got a card in the mail... too nice not to share.

I think I'll be back next year....

that's rad.

whenever it gets up above 90 or so i always leave a cooler with water, bubblies and a few sodas on the porch for the mail carriers and various delivery persons.

it's always nice to get that UPS "we missed you note" but instead is says: thanks so much you guys rock! or an amazon box that has: thanks for the cool drink scribbled on it.

these days, just that little bit can mean the world to somebody. change their mood for the day or lift up their spirit. and just that little bit, what's that take or cost? couple of bucks and but a moment of your time.

and today was a beautiful day here. the sun was shining the weather was nice. i got to play with my kitties. the ham hock stew is bubbling along nicely and i get to have tamales and rosca de reyes cake! in a good place.

-g

Sounds like a good day indeed. We just finished the better part of our rosca too. I got two of the plastic dolls, so according to tradition (so my wife tells me), I need to buy the tamales Feb 2. Fair enough.

Sounds like my house, though we're probably not going to do all three of these things in one day.

I get a lot of play time in every day with our four 6-month-old rescue kitties. My wife's delicious tamales are in the freezer, so they're available any time. And we have a ham hock in there also from Christmas dinner just waiting to be combined with the bag of split peas we just bought.

In all the strife, loss, and tumult these days, life can still be good.

BTW, as cancer survivors, my wife and I don't take it for granted.

I'm happy as a clam expecting an Amazon delivery today of not one, but THREE bags of new coffee to try. Decided my weekend cappuccino ritual needed a perc (no pun intended).

This is what my life has become. Getting over the moon about a couple of bags of coffee...

Actually, probably equally cheering...I bought a Baratza burr coffee grinder years ago, having grind problems. Their support, as in the past was fantastic. Website has great troubleshooting support, parts available, and they almost beg you to share your grinder with someone if you don't want to keep it. Seems unheard of in an era of disposable goods. They have my undying loyalty.

As I'm sure y'all have heard, Texas recently had some Very Bad Weather come through.

We experienced rolling blackouts for 3-4 days. The blackout periods lasted about 2-5 hours, and the powered periods between were about 2-4 hours long. The temperature in the house got down to about 52°F (11°C), while outside it got down to 0°F (-32°C). For reference, the normal low temperature for this time of year is around 48°F (9°C).

We kept the cold water faucets dripping, but didn't think about the hot water. Our (gas) hot water heater is outside the house, in an enclosure attached to the outside wall near the kitchen. It got cold enough that the hot water pipes where they enter the house started to freeze. They froze enough on Sunday/Monday that the north side of the house had no water coming from the hot water tap, while the south side had just a trickle of water, and it never got hot. My wife and I had extremely high anxiety levels because of this, and worrying how much it was going to cost to get it repaired. Would it be just a couple hundred dollars? Or would it be a few thousand dollars? We placed a space heater in the closet where the pipes enter the building, but with the power cycling, it never got hot enough for long enough to thaw them before it would get cold again and refreeze.

On Thursday I thought to bump the hot water temperature up a smidge. That adjustment was enough to get the heater going again, which caused the blockage to thaw, and hot water to start flowing again. After a few hours we checked, and discovered that there was no damage from the freezing.

On Friday I went outside to clear the snow from the driveway. I also walked around the property to check for any snow/ice damage. I found lots of huge icicles, which I knocked off, and I cleared a lot of snow from the roof, to reduce the chance of more icicles.

All in all, we weathered (no pun intended) the storm very well, and the lack of consistent power was essentially a non-issue.


Snowpocalypse2021 - Fresh Snow

Snowpocalypse2021 - Panoramic shot of the neighborhood

Snowpocalypse2021 - Icicles on the North side of house

Snowpocalypse2021 - Icicles on the West side of house

Hell, you grow better icicles than we do in Wisconsin!

Glad you weathered the storm without too much damage.

Now to pay the utility bill....

I'm cheered a bit too.... had a sensor go wonky on my treatment table, got sent a (rather expensive) replacement..... in the meanwhile, another switch went bad (I suspect from brine dripping off of shoes, which I could have prevented. The circuit board which is normally replaced as a unit was like $80 (don't ask how I know), but I asked the engineer from the manufacturer if I could just solder on a new switch. Told me I could try...bought a 33 cent switch (with $7 postage ).

So, went to work on it Saturday. Other than the fun of trying to install an Allen bolt in a tight space with a too-short wrench and aligning parts while laying on your back, it went smoothly. And best of all, when I fired it up, everything worked perfectly. Woot!

We have a fixed-rate electricity plan that we pre-pay into, and they deduct from our account on a daily basis. Because we had those days with partial outages, our usage was lower, and our costs stayed down.

Unlike the people who went with Griddy, and have astronomical bills.

I almost switched to them this past summer, and am SOOO glad I didn't.

Post cold spell report:

Mostly good, which is why I am posting here.

I think it got a little colder there than Texas but not much. Last Monday morning it got down to -17°F, -27°C, the fourth coldest event since records have been kept about 150 years ago. 13 consecutive days of below freezing temperatures, the longest stretch since 1989.

The forecast for today is a high of 68°F, 20°C. 85° higher than a week ago. 47°C, if my math is correct.

Most of Texas and Oklahoma had it much worse than I did because they are not used to that kind of cold. Their utility companies are more concerned about summer heat than winter cold and some power generating plants were shut down for yearly maintenance. There are still widespread power outages.

I came through with one busted pipe that I fixed for about $10 and a water valve on my washing machine, $50. Could have been worse.

The only thing that remains to be seen is what my utility bills will be, particularly the gas bill. During the coldest days the price of gas was, in some places hundreds of times what would be considered normal.

It was one of those beautiful late-winter days in CLE yesterday. Warm and sunny, blinding bright off the snow. High temps close to 50F. After work, I grabbed the Super Cub (as it was closest to the door) and went for a ride.

I felt like a thief, getting away with something valuable that I did not earn - an extra, unearned ride.

As the sun lowered and dipped behind the clouds, the temps dropped dramatically - low 40s to upper 30s by the time I got home less than an hour later. That’s damn cold on a bike. I see that I am not like you year rounders.

Good day, good Ride. Stay safe. Spring is near.

Chris From CLE

... i am reading posts where there is a lot where cheering to you up ...nice.

Not my best day, because or despite, LMAO....