Something to look forward to

 Eight days ago, I posted the Cubs' record.  Since then, they have only won 3 more games, lost a few heartbreakers and had a day off.  As it stands today, their Magic Number for the Division is 24, which they won't get because Milwaukee has a 6.5 game lead, and their MN is 11.

Happier Times

For the Wild Card the Magic Number is 10 and they have a 6 game lead for the top WC spot.  I believe there are 17 games left so if they go .500 and the Giants lose a couple, they are in.  The Cubs don't play a good team until they face the Giants in the last week of regular season.  They finish up against the Cardinals, who could make a run for the last playoff spot but doesn't seem likely.  They did take 2 of 3 from the Giants which helped the Cubs.

Meanwhile, the Bears managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  I don't know what is worse: seeing them get spanked from the start or them playing good football for 75-85% of the game just to lose in the 4th quarter.  We even had a pick six!

I will say this. The Bears looked better than last year even with all of Caleb Williams' missed throws.  I think they will get better.  Playoff Better?  Not sure.  Winning record?  perhaps.  I'm still glad that I opted not to buy any streaming service to watch the games.

What I am watching or have watched these days

Unfortunately, I have too much time on my hands these days.  That is not to say I don't do things to keep up the household and take care of the children.  To be sure, in the mornings I feed them breakfast, pick out their clothes and make sure they brush their teeth and comb their hair. 

And then I try to get some things done around the house.  It might just be laundry or sweeping up the floors or picking up the yard after my douche nuggets leave all their toys in it.  

I also do the majority of the cooking

When I catch a break, I watch or have watched the following shows listed here in no particular order.

• Emily in Paris: This is essentially Friends in France.  A group of well-to-do young adults whose luck only surpasses their good looks.  
  
  
• Fallout: Season two will air in December, and there will be a Season Three, so if I can just stay alive, I have a lot to look forward to.
  
  
• School Spirits: Waiting for Season 3.  The first two seasons are spread around a typical school year, but how long can they reasonably stretch this out?
  
  
• Interview with the Vampire: Season 3 will premiere in 2026, and I just cannot wait.
  
  
• Mayfair Witches: This show has had the unfortunate problem of dealing with the source material and making it work.
  
  
• Watson: getting better.  It was a bit clumsy at first but that was because they were busy setting the table.  Investing in everyone's backstory, fleshing out the characters and building chemistry.  The last few episodes really stuck the landing.  
  
  
• Ghosts (US): it's kinda mailing it in this season, but we watch it as a family.
  
  
• Strange New Worlds: The first two seasons were great with one or two WTF episodes.  The 3rd season seems to have a few more WTF episodes.
  
  
• Alien Earth:

ththt

Two more to go

Yesterday I went for my 10th visit for the Clinical Eye Study.  This means I only have two left: one the first week of August and the last one will be mid-September.

That's still a lot of time that needs to pass before i get the check that will go directly to Home Depot to pay off the appliances we had to buy last November.  The kids will be back in class for their last year of Elementary School.  

The funny thing about participating in this is that it was almost doomed from the start.  At the beginning, almost every visit conflicted with something else.  The last few have been relatively drama free, however.

But...two weeks ago we went to Michigan for a graduation party.  I forgot my eye drops!  Luckily, Sister-In-Law wasn't leaving until the next day, and she phoned us to ask if we had forgotten anything.  So I only missed a couple of nights, but didn't record it as such on the log.  

My SIL, however, had some mega drama on the drive down.  They rented a minivan and were going to do the entire drive in one day.  But when they were around Nashville, the check engine light came on.  Turns out, the car hadn't had its oil changed in a long, long time.  They were going to try and swap out rentals, but instead had to just get an oil change and get reimbursed.  This delayed their arrival but many hours.

I'm torn because, as much as I dislike my BIL, it isn't fair that his wife and two young children had to endure that.  Speaking of Confederate Jethro, we got into it on Saturday of that trip when we were having lunch at Rainfall Cafe.  He just cannot got more than 5 minutes without saying something that would get you in front of HR in Corporate America.   His latest issue is men using the women's bathroom probably because Fox News told him this is happening.   

I told him to STFU at lunch but he refused.  When we got to SIL Adama's home, I told Nightingale's parents how pissed I am and that if they don't want me to go nuclear, it might be a good idea to back me up.  I had meant only after confederate Jethro said anything stupid but MIL preemptively got on his case when they arrived, so of course he was pissy the rest of the trip.  

It's officially summer and the entire United States is experiencing a heat wave.  It's actually hotter in Chicago than it is down here, by a few degrees.  This is the time of year I cannot really stand to be outside too long.  The kids are bored out of their minds.  

I have a few appointments to keep but once those are over, I hope to be able to get them out of the house more.  

What Streaming Services Might Cost a Family

After receiving one of my credit card Year-End Summary reports, I went down a rabbit hole of a sort.  I decided to see how much we spend on fixed services like our streaming services, and also our mortgage and utilities.  I limited it to things like Gas, electricity, Internet, and Water (which includes rubbish, recycle, and sewer) and also added Cell Phones and must-have-in-the-South Pest/Termite control.

I'm gonna share the Streaming services here because it isn't a state secret how much people pay for each individual service.   We have the 4 we explicitly pay for.  We also have 2 that other members of our family pay for but choose the plan that lets you add extra accounts for supposedly cheaper than each member getting their own account.  

[We aren't talking trip to Paris saving; it's more like we can supersize our quarter pounder meal.]  And then there are a couple of services that don't have extra account options but they don't care yet if you share with family members.

The four we have:

We have Amazon Music because my nephew re-enabled it once and I have been too lazy to cancel.  Plus the ability to play any song at will is worth the $10 to keep my kids entertained for 10-15 minutes when they use it.

The Paramount+ auto-renewed last Fall so we are stuck with it for a year.  My understanding is that if I do cancel it, I will not get a prorated amount of money back.  

We keep Amazon Prime because we use it more for the free shipping and whatever other benefits still exist. 

I think the point I'm trying to make is that barring some extreme series of unfortunate events, it isn't game changing to drop all of these Streaming Services, let alone any particular one.

It would be smart to drop all but one, bing watch everything we can, then cancel and add one of the dropped.  Rinse and Repeat.  But that takes timing and organization which is not currently in surplus in the Icarus household.  

NightStands have improved this room

 At the end of 1996, the beginning of 1997, I invested in a grown-up bedroom set. I was living in Berwyn and had some extra money since my rent was cheap, and I needed a bigger bed than the twin I grew up with.  

I honestly don't remember where I bought the set from but I think it was Polk Brothers.  In the late 90s, there were three popular bed styles:  The Sleigh bed.  The Mary Poppins bed. The Four Poster bed (what I call the Alister Scrooge bed.)

Even though I had cheap rent I was still not earning big bucks and always looking for a bargain.  The salespeople talked me into buying the store model of the four-poster bed along with a matching dresser. 

 I declined the nightstands because 1) I couldn't imagine any bedroom in Chicago (or even Berwyn) that could accommodate two nighttables 2) I'm cheap and 3) I figured I could always add them on later.

Flash forward to my Albany Park Condo.  That bedroom could have accommodated a couple of side tables but it wasn't a priority and I think by then Polk Brothers had gone out of business.

When we moved into our Portage Park home, we didn't have enough space for a king bed and large nightstands, which would never have worked.

But it was cozy

Our Mississippi house has a master bedroom that is the biggest bedroom I have ever lived in.  We have a king bed, two dressers, and a sofa (the remnants of the Costco sectional we bought and the kids and cats destroyed)

We have been looking for good but inexpensive nightstands for a while now.  We also could use a set of matching end tables for the living room.  My FIL sent me a link to a yard sale that was going on near my kids' school.  In fact it was on the 2nd day of school (Friday) that it started and went through the weekend.  I decided to check it out and I was not disappointed.  

I found these and sent the picture to NG.  She immediately liked them and I asked the Proprietess how much.  Let me back up.  She was ready to sell everything she could but she didn't have everything ready by the start of the sale.  These were in the garage attached to the main house.  That's right main house.  They own a small walking horse ranch and most of the garage sale was out of the Pole Barn.  

I'm gonna skip ahead because this is getting long in the tooth.  She asked for $250 for the set and my cheap self felt that was fair.  These are good quality, mostly wood not cheap pressboard nightstands.  Yeah, there might be some veneer instead of pure stain but these are the perfect fit for our space.  Could I have talked her down to $200? maybe but why not give her her asking price as I can still afford to do so.

Salt Shaker and Baseball Games

This isn't a Living in the South Thing:  Even back in Chicago, even before the World Series run in 2015, it was getting harder and harder to watch Cubs games.  

Pay Us! 

I'm too lazy to look it all up but it might have started with the 2015 playoff games and only being able to watch those on streaming services.  

I don't like the Cubs, let alone baseball enough to pay for a subscription.  But i do like the Bears and football.  It was worth it to buy the YouTube TV Sunday package (or whatever they call it) so I could watch my terrible Bears games.

I have to make a decision on whether to renew the package this year in the hopes that Caleb Williams elevates the Bears and they are at least exciting to watch, or save the money and do something else on Sundays.  

What a waste of a perfectly good power cord:  For Christmas last year, at Nightingale's request, I got her this electronic salt and pepper shaker set.  it came with a warranty and I actually remembered to register the product.  

One of the shakers broke, in that you couldn't lock it closed because the glass was broken.  I contacted Cuisinart support via telephone and they told me they don't replace individual shakers and would have to send me a new unit.

Wasteful, but okay.  But the catch was, I had to cut the power cord and send them a picture.  I asked why and the support person agreed this was wasteful, but policy.  Also, while she took all my info, she did not send me any email with instructions or confirmation.  She said that the email address was just to send me tracking information after I sent the picture.

So I do as instructed, which admittedly is a rarity for me when something doesn't make any sense.  I get a confirmation "we got your email" message.  After a bit of time goes but I contacted them again, via the website online form (I should have done this in the first place).

They claimed they never got my email with the picture of the severed cord.  Oh no, now you've done it.  I emailed back attaching the email with my picture and the "We got your email" message attached.  They respond that they cannot open/read the attachments.  I copy and paste the picture within the email and they tell me they will expedite sending me the shaker.  It still took another week or two before it arrived but I did get it.

Since the warranty is now completely over and I don't want to go through this again, I've saved the working shaker and power station although I really would have liked to have a second working cord.

Trimming the bushes

 One of the things I got to do while we were in Chicago was trim my mother's hedges.  Notice, I call them hedges because the more common identifier would sound a lot more scandalous.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

The Chicago Style Hot Dog

When I was a kid in the late 70s and even the early 80s, I don't recall any issue with putting ketchup on a hot dog.  Most of the hotdog stands and burger joints I frequented could care less what you put on it once you paid for the item.

I suspect the Chicago Style Hot Dog was a marketing ploy and it got a little out of hand.  Sure, you don't need ketchup because you have the tomato already.  Just like if you are making Fettuccine alfredo, you don't use marinara sauce because that would be something else.  [You are allowed to use a different pasta than Fettichine because Grandma Mary is too tired to go back to the store and hasn't made homemade pasta since child #4.]

Not Invited to Easter this year

On NYE 2017 I was added to a Group Text Chat.  Someone likely transposed a few numbers.  Contrary to popular belief, I don't always have my phone at my side so through the evening and next day I'd come back to some interesting messages.  I assumed after the holiday the chat would go dead.  

Boy was I wrong.  They kept it up for months.  based on messages and pictures, I can only conclude that it was a Filipino family with multiple Drama Llamas as pets.  

Anyway, on Easter, I decided to end a message and I guess my Eastern European sense of humor didn't win them over.

Orange Shrimp with Fettuccine

Sometime in the 90s, someone gave me a cookbook with different pasta dishes.  This is one of the first grown-up dishes I used to make and it was my go-to for trying to impress a lady.  It took many iterations before I ever made it with all the correct ingredients.  

For one thing, Shrimp was usually expensive, though I was probably being cheap versus budget-conscious.  I’d wait for that big shrimp sale Jewel used to do twice a year.  

Also, a bottle of sesame oil seemed pricy for the little amount.  Again, more about my cheapness than actual reality.  But once I used it, I would never not make this dish without it.  

 

Finding snow peas was tough too  Jewel didn't have fresh ones so I had to find them in the frozen section.  I learned it was easier to use a can of mandarin oranges than peeling and sectioning 2 actual oranges.   

Anyway, I made it again for Friday dinner and even Natasha likes it.

How snow fall can snowball in a Mid-South city

Because of holidays and snow days, my kids have been out of school more days than they have been in school so far this year.

It's understandable why they didn't have school yesterday as the snow was finally melting.  Not having it today is a questionable decision.  I get that they had to make it based on how conditions looked at 8 pm last night.  They couldn't count on the snow and ice being melted by the time school buses needed to pick up kids (it mostly was).

But honestly, it is damn near impossible to work while my kids are home.  First, they seem to know when I'm on a call and they come into the kitchen area and make lots of noise.

Second, Boris is an eating machine and I have to keep him from raiding the fridge and eating all the food at once.  

It's a balmy 50 degrees right now which is good for melting the last remnants of the snowfall.  But it also means it's wet and muddy so playing outside is not an option.

The snow also affected garbage pickup.  It was already going to be a day late because of MLK Day.  For some reason here, a Monday holiday causes everything to shift one day whereas in Chicago it would be caught up by Thursday.  But the snow made it impossible for the trucks to do pickup so we skipped a week.  Apparently, there were problems yesterday and they are gonna try to catch up today.  

We have two garbage bins which average about 1.5 fullness unless we have family over.  But our recycle bin is almost full and I still have some boxes and our usual daily production to figure out.  I could run some over to my FIL since he only recycles cardboard boxes.

2023 Bears Predication Update: Need Some Help

 The Chicago Bears have now played 13 games and before going to a 17-game season, this would be the last quarter of the season, so I'm gonna check in with my 2023 predictions.

The Asterik games are games I didn't make a prediction but did lean a certain way. 
 so I'm going to count them at face value

Thus my record is 8-5, the opposite of the Bears' Win-Loss record (5-8).  Do the Bears still have a chance?  Mathematically, sure.  Realistically, they need a lot of help.  They should have won the Tampa Bay, Broncos, and Saints games, and first meetings with the Vikings and Lions, but didn't.   

To make the playoffs, first, the Bears have to Win out the rest of the season.  A single loss now essentially eliminates them.  So let's assume they win their next 4 games and finish the season 9-8.  The next four games are winnable but given how they blew other winnable games, I'm not holding my breath.

Second, they need a bunch of teams to lose at least 2, if not 3 more games.   

It's a little too early to come up with scenarios where they make the playoffs.  San Francisco is the only team that has clinched a playoff berth, but Dallas and Philadelphia aren't going away.  The Rams, Seahawks, and Giants are trying to sneak in and playing very well right now.

There might be a scenario where Detroit implodes and finishes 9 and 8, and I think the Bears would win that tiebreaker?  Unfortunately, that would mean the Vikings win the division.  

It gets even trickier with the NFC South because the Bears lost to the Saints and Buccaneers, but beat Carolina.  They have to win the game against Atlanta (since becoming a fan, the Bears have missed the playoffs twice to Atlanta because of tie-breaker rules). 

But here's the thing.  Even if they do and have a 9-8 record, they would still miss the playoffs because of tiebreakers because that is who the Bears are.  They fail to control their destiny.

Let's assume over the next four games everyone goes 2-2 while the Bears go 4-0.  Lions would win the division, Minnesota would get the last wild Card and the Bears would be watching the playoffs from home.  

 

2023 Bears Predication Update: Not promising

The Chicago Bears have played 8 games and before going to a 17-game season, this would be the midpoint so I'm gonna check in with my 2023 predictions.

The Asterik games are games I didn't technically make a prediction but did lean a certain way.  so I'm going to count them at face value.

Thus my record is 4-4.  Do the Bears still have a chance?  Mathematically, sure.  Realistically, nope.  They should have won the Tampa Bay, Broncos, and Vikings games but didn't.  

The rest of the schedule is comprised of beatable teams and the Lions so they could go 7 and 2.  They won't.  But they could.  Last year the Detroit Lions started 1-6 and finished 9-8.  The difference is some of those losses were helped by the refs. 

But here's the thing.  Even if they do and have a 9-8 record, they would still miss the playoffs because of tiebreakers because that is who the Bears are.  They fail to control their destiny.

Happy Halloween 2023

for those who celebrate.  Back in Chicago, it was rare that Halloween --  or the Halloween season once
Halloween became more of an adult holiday  -- had good weather.  As a kid, I recall many a Halloween where I had to wear a coat over my costume.   

Well, it looks like the South is trying to make me feel at home.  We had great weather last week, and last weekend and will have good weather after Wednesday.  But yesterday, today, and tomorrow are COLD.  We actually have frost warnings.

According to Facebook, it is snowing in Chicago today.  It also snowed 9 years ago on Halloween.  I remember our decorations being covered in snow and trick-or-treaters showing up with coats.  

We have discovered that going to my in-laws' subdivision for trick-or-treating is the best option.  The houses are closer together and there are sidewalks.  Our subdivision is comprised of homes with 1-2 acres of land and no sidewalks.

Our first year my Brother in Law Jethrow told us that no one trick-or-treat until after dark.  Unfortunately, he didn't tell us until the last minute.

****

Last Friday we went to Marshall's Steakhouse to celebrate my in-law's 50th wedding anniversary.  The planning had been in the works for quite some time.  We did a last minute switch from the Bass Pro Shop to Marshall's because 1) ostensibly the food is terrible there and 2) Memphis at night is scary for some white people.

My belly isn't this big, camera angle I swear!

Shelves and Steaks

 I did a couple of things around the house.   First, I finally used these shelves I bought at my in-laws bi-annual yard sale.   

I've always wanted to set up a coffee bar (with hidden liquor bar components) but didn't have the chance to do so until now.

Next, I created this shelf from a shelf we used on our old sectional.  The kids destroyed the sectional and parts of it are in the Master Bedroom and Kid's room.  

Finally, here are some steaks I grilled for Nightingale's 49th birthday.  I thought about buying some lobster tails but as I have never cooked those before, I didn't want to screw up a $29/lb purchase.

Keeping Busy

 While Nightingale is away at her new job, I have been trying to keep busy and be productive by working on projects around the house.  The weather is more favorable and I can do outdoor things in the morning before it heats up, then switch to inside stuff just before picking up the kids from school.

• 
  patched a small dent in the kids room wall 
• painted scratched paint in the master bedroom 
• various garage organizations/cleaning/purging  
• installing bike racks
• Cut some dead tree limbs 
• cleaned and polished printer stand

It might be hard to notice but the stand looks much cleaner and has a darker finish.  I don't dare try to sand, stain, and seal this antique.  

There are many more things on my ToDo list.  Some are actually quite ambitious.   Stay Tuned.

My LinkedIn Diet

 Last Wednesday I decided to take advantage of the option in the settings of my LinkedIn account and "take a break" from LinkedIn.  What this does is log one out of LinkedIn and make your profile invisible to searches.

and it was necessary.  LinkedIn is one of the 6 or 7 places I browse constantly, looking for new content.  Not to mention hope for a new job.  but unfortunately, the possibility of a new job is gone while I live in Miss.  And honestly, my No-Name Software Skillset isn't getting any sharper.  I'm not likely to re-enter that sphere ever again.  

I only plan for this LinkedIn diet to last until after Labor Day.  It's a slow time of year anyway and I doubt I'm missing anything besides the cagey recruiter who wants to see my cards before telling me anything useful.

About that weather

 Remember how I said 

"It won't get cool enough to work on the garden for at least another month but we need to get that done too.  Right now we have bags of mulch and dirt sitting on the driveway."

As it turns out, The Weather gods gifted us two wonderful, relatively cool (70s to low 80s) days this week.  We were able to finish the garden and clear up that driveway space.  I am also able to start my project of organizing the detached garage.

Last year, I installed some racks to store the lumber more neatly.  I was thinking of moving those to the other side of the window and putting bike racks in their place.  Upon dwelling on it for a few weeks, I think it might be better to leave them alone and just put the bike racks closer to the garage door.  Less work and it makes the back of the garage more of a work area.  

So far we have organized the linen closet, and a back bathroom closet, and culled a lot of kids' clothes.  Next up is purging the toys they no longer play with.  That will likely take the rest of this week.  Then we tackle the pantry and the office.  We have a few sit-down and research projects too like getting cheaper car insurance.

headed to Chicago

 We are headed to Chicago for a week via Mt Vernon.  We stay at the Drury Inn to split the drive into two manageable 4-hour legs.

Katniss has graciously offered her house for us to stay in since she and the family are going out of town for a vacation with some extended family.

I didn't tell a lot of people we will be in town but I did tell a few.  It's hard to see everyone and it's just easier to do our own thing with an occasional lunch or dinner with another adult.

financially, we really shouldn't be doing this trip.  We are doing it so my mom can see her grandkids again, especially since I'm not sure we will make our annual Thanksgiving Day visit.  But it will be good for the kids and for me.  

If my mom could be a functional adult, we would have a better solution.  She could sell her crapshack in Humboldt Park and buy a nicer home.  Then we'd have a place to stay and could visit more often.  But she is afraid of change and doesn't care that I will have to spend tons of money when she finally dies and I have to deal with her hoarder issues.

Look what I've done now

One of the blogs I frequent is Nancynall.com.  I'm probably more of a lurker but I do contribute now and again.  Usually, my comments are ignored don't lead to anything or there is a 1-2 response.  This is how most of the comments there work.

The other day I shared my unpopular opinion ...

Of course, I have an unpopular opinion that Sentence Diagramming is just an excuse to give Neurodivergent students lower grades and that cursive writing should go the way of the Dodo.

... and it seems to have short-term thread jacked the post.  I actually wrote a thing about Cursive Writing at ChicagoNow but since Alden Global Capital killed the site, you can find it here:

Who cares if Cursive Writing becomes Extinct?

I've met Nancy once, we had a beer in Grosse Pointe.  Her blog is a bit different as she posts a variety of things and readers comment on one or more of them, but then after a day or so the commentary takes over and talks about whatever until Nancy posts again.