Week of 20260614 - Missing Church; Baptism in French; Hiccupping Refrigerator; Floating Package; MRI for Lipoma; Back Strained; Day with Shelley; Helping Missionaries

Week of 20260614 - Missing Church; Baptism in French; Hiccupping Refrigerator; Floating Package; MRI for Lipoma; Back Strained; Day with Shelley; Helping Missionaries

= Sunday, I went to church without Steph, who couldn't muster the energy to go - after a night without sleep and medicine taken too late. Takeaways: Personal revelation often brings reassurance that you matter and you are loved. While you wait for your doubts to clear, busy yourself with service to the Lord; we were sent here to love. What are we willing to give up? Grudges; anger; pride; fear; distraction. Everyone has burdens: some visible, some hidden.

= I attended choir practice, left my wallet bag at church, and returned to find the door locked, but I knew I would be back at 5 for a baptism. Reading a church magazine, two thoughts stood out: If we were protected from everything, we would learn nothing. Paying attention to the fruits of the people you spend time with can help you know whether they are worthy of your trust. 

= The baptism was conducted in French; the confirmation and a talk were conducted in Creole (as spoken in Haiti). It's a small world.

= Home, I tried to "talk" to the "smart" refrigerator; the compartment where ice is made was at room temperature; we had probably not closed it all the way. I cooked tofu for the first time and did OK; boiling it in heavily salted water before cooking it drove out most of its internal water. 

= Monday, the refrigerator had recovered. Work was as usual. Home, I had extended chats with HP's help desk. I provided a log with a month's worth of errors, and the help desk seemed to agree that the physical RAM stick was unstable and needed to be replaced. It rained so hard that a package delivered at our front door floated a couple of yards away from the door!

= Tuesday, Steph received an MRI of her left arm, focused on the lipoma near her elbow. We engaged in Toastmasters. Steph created a meal from ground beef, mushrooms, instant mashed potatoes, butternut squash, and an onion I diced finely using the “Vidalia Chop Wizard” from storage. Nice. We watched “Don’t Miss This” (scripture discussion) while we ate.

= Wednesday, I felt I had solved for now the problem of providing performance estimates and turned my attention to working with another data source: Athena.

= At climate-controlled storage, I strained my lower back and a hip while trying to move a plastic dresser full of clothes that was sitting on Steph’s container of Zumba weights.

= Home, I drilled the remaining planters at the edge of their false bottoms so rainwater would not collect in the dirt above.

= Thursday, I made a large Walmart run. An appointment to help missionaries fell through. We had cheddar bratwurst in the air fryer.

= Friday, our salad included tomatoes from our "garden". At work, I pulled the estimator out of the KPI reports; I wasn’t comfortable with it yet. Afterward, we had Korean corn dogs, then eventually had Papa John's pizza (delivered), finished another season of Reacher, and a couple of episodes of The Closer.

= Saturday, Steph spent the day with Shelley Patterson. I went to an afternoon eye appointment and picked out three sets of glasses: distance, computer, and blended bifocals. I eventually had to sign an old-school paper credit card slip; the system there (and at an unrelated store Eastchase, I later learned) had problems.

= I drove Dan Gordon to Piggly Wiggly. Home again, I received an address to join with the missionaries. When I arrived, I learned that it was the wrong address. 20 minutes later, I arrived at the right address, and joined them for a nice visit with a nice couple and their children. When Steph got home, she moved directly to the studio while I updated the journal.

Church

Don't tread on me!

Liberty for...

[those willing to fight for it]

I had left my wallet bag after choir rehearsal; the church was locked when I doubled back. [But I knew it would be open again for a baptism this evening and retrieved it then.]

Most of the baptismal service was conducted in Creole!

Unusual roof rack

8 casino locations, including some overseas (windcreek.com). (3 more do racing gaming, perhaps not included here.)

How much was paid *in* daily?

This was my first experience cooking tofu

Instead of pressing it to drive out internal water, I boiled it in heavily salted water.

..

Drained and patted dry

Coated with corn starch and basted with sauce. (Instructions said I should have basted it first and then dusted it with corn starch.)

Veggies

(I burned the first set trying to do too many things at once.)

Tofu

Fancy ramen

Supper; it turned out OK.

The refrigerator recovered after the compartment providing ice was probably left open.

Back in business.

Just one day's worth of dishes. I don't know how anyone gets by with the tiny dish drainers generally available.

Serious rain

..

..

Retrieved; I had to wade to get it.

It dripped.

Kraft Mac and Cheese with hot dogs

With the lid in place, Elsa couldn't turn around; she needs a bigger litter box.

Poop winds up outside the box, though none in this photo.

Paperwork

Responding to the music

"Cards" seen at Tropical Smoothie use 4x6-inch photo paper nicely: Make two copies of the display and carefully cut the paper in half.

(Check spelling, though; it's often wrong on generated caricatures.)

(It's a table decoration.)

Examining the meal; not large, but nice. And the smoothies were great; we waited 2 1/2 years for them.

Subtle lettering embossed in the edge of the lid: "You're on tropic time now"

Nasty spikes

He needs extra room.

I had plugged in the fridge left by renters, just in case. (Don't feel sorry for them; they took our washer and dryer, created damage, etc.)

Toastmasters was fully via Zoom today. Steph was fanning herself; I was chilled from the rain and put on a sweater and wool cap.

Definitely too big for the litter box

Shopping in our pantry

Feeling the music

Another day of rain

Whimsical straw cover

Ground beef

Vidalia Chop Wizard

..

Could have made larger chunks.

..

Mushrooms

Butternut squash

Ghee

And barbeque sauce

Mixed Nido for milk

    

Instant mashed potatoes

Our meal

Don't Miss This (scripture discussion)

..

Grace Freeman

David Butler

At least they got the car sticker right-side-up.

Climate-controlled storage

Sometimes, the easiest way to remove a box is to back out with it on your head. The aisles aren't much wider than the length of a box.

..

..

Craft room, filling up

Planter, flooded by rain

Drilled where its false bottom would meet the soil

Cream of mushroom soup, some of this tomato paste,

and meatballs

over cornbread.

Consider a K-Pop girl group that leads double lives banishing individual demons and uses music to push back against the demon world. Animated.

..

..

A demon boy band

..

..

Help End Epilepsy

Cheddar Wurst

From our garden

..

Ham; then greens and shredded cheese

Rain

A modern logo..

That to us, subtly includes the company initials.

Korean corn dog (this one mostly cheese)

..

Working when they can

Greeting in a box..

..

..

It's not a hair dryer..

It's a hair vacuum that straightens your hair while it dries it, without heat.

I had my corn dog coated with potato this time. As you can see, the hotdog isn't the main event; the coating is the main event.

Date Night supper

Steph set out for a planner day with Shelly Patterson.

I used dollys to wheel the middle seats back to the minivan.

..

The crucial instruction was to catch the front latch; then rolling back locks the seat into place.

..

Jacob Parott says this used to hold cubes for the current date.

But it makes a great business card holder for an eyeglass store.

Raise your hand if you remember these. His system was down; I signed this after he documented the card number and sale.

Bicycle with trailer

The ring of light flashes off and on. It's evidently solar powered.

Missing a turn, my detour took me past a TV station..

And Lincoln Cemetery. "Lincoln was designed for 700 graves. So far, volunteers have recorded more than nine times that amount — a total of 6,700 graves, some of which are actually under nearby roads."

https://www.npr.org/2012/08/09/158428314/uncovering-secrets-buried-at-a-neglected-cemetery

"In 1907 the American Securities Company opened Lincoln Cemetery for African Americans and Greenwood Cemetery for whites, the first commercial cemeteries in the city." American Securities ended its support in 1957.

Historical Marker Database:
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=71342 

The sun said farewell.