"The Life of Riley"

Some of us have it...

(Does anyone else remember William Bendix's show of that name?)



Then there are the rest of us who work for a living!

Between the work hours and the gym hours it's been a busy week; thank goodness I got a 3 day weekend, although Dottie gets to work all 3 of them. I have enough things on my plate to keep me occupied, however, with pleny to spare!

Since I didn't mow for 3 weeks through the worst of the drought, then when I was going to two weekends ago, other things intervened, we just had to go and get about 4 inches of rain last weekend, so when I started my lawn work this afternoon, it was as tall as the mower. I got the front done, having to double cut it to make it look even, and trimmed most of it; the back I'll finish today. I also have to put the passenger-side wiper arm in my Chrysler back together, as it disconnected itself last week at the height of one of the storms. Of course, it's not somewhere easy to get to...

If I get those done tomorrow, then Monday I may try and go walking or ride my bike for a while, and maybe slip off to the the "art house" for a movie before Dottie gets off work.

I also have to box my Nikon up to return to them, as after two and half years, I pulled it out of the bag last weekend at my sister's birthday and the display was black. I changed batteries and CF cards, then gave up and finished fixing dinner.

I had lent it to Noel for "first day back to school pictures" so I thought somehow something must have happened to it when it was out of my hands; checking the extended warranty I found it had expired last February.

Finally, early in the week I went to Nikon's website, hoping to find out they made something that would still use the lenses I bought to go with it; instead I found a notice saying they had found out there was an electronic component that would cause this, or color aberrations (had a few of those a while back, but assumed it was a low battery causing them, as it was almost time to change it when they occurred). They also stated that they would happily repair any affected cameras for free!

Hooray for Nikon!

One of the highlights of my week was hearing "Click and Clack", the "Car Talk" brothers on NPR say that Honda was having to recall several million Hondas and Acuras, but not for a mechanical defect! It seems one of the 1-800 numbers they printed in the owner's manuals for help charges $2.99 a minute because it's "Erotic Encounters" phone number, they were off by one digit...

Better them than us! :o)

Which brings us to my first Photo Sunday in a while. Above is "Frankie" sleeping in my wife's chair, originally my Dad's 1950 Bishop platform rocker. It was the first piece of furniture Mom and Dad bought; he recovered it twice, and it's in need of it again, along with some spring work this time...guess I'm going to have to figure out how to do that before long, 'cuz the one bid I had is more than my house payment!

Frankie has grown a bit since we got him, and is full enough of himself to warrant the moniker "Frankestein" at times, but we love him dearly!



Some of you will remember Angel from a previous post; her hair is about half grown back now after her spring clipping, and another thing I need to do this weekend is brush and bathe her again, then put "the medicine" on her neck, as the chiggers are eating she and I both alive, but Dottie won't let me spray outside because Frankie eats all the bugs that get into the house...anyway, I have a few of Angel I'll put up soon...

All of these, by the way are from my camera/phone; the following are the Saturday night repast while I was fixing it.

A pound of mushrooms...



Something new for us, "Pierogies" (Costco frozen, in Newman's "Pesto")...



And a couple of "Sam's Club" sirloins..



Tonight I'm going to try cubing up a cheap patio steak and making a stir fry with it...no recipe, just a shot in the dark...beef and veggies...

Hope you are all having great weekends and for those who get Monday off, that you have a wonderful "Labor Day"!

alan