FRIDAY'S AIR

[Annette]

It is finally that day of the week that workers' like - except the hours seem to go so slowly it almost feels like you work a 40 hour week on Friday.

I had to work late last night and my desk is no cleaner so I need to bust some chops today. I am also going to the post office at lunch to get off a package of tourist brochures to Eric. One step closer to July and his visit.

(Speaking of that has anyone heard from Libby?)

My daughter called me the other day - she lives about 3 hours from me so I don't see her as often as I should with her really so close. Anyway she as two children one is almost 4 and one is almost 2. They were at the grocery store and the 3 year old grabbed a box of lucky charms and took off running saying "My Lucky Charms" at the end of the aisle he slid in some water - kinda like sliding into home base - and hit the meat counter. Some poor lady was standing close by and thought for sure he had broken something. He gets up grabs the box of Lucky Charms, smiles his sweet little blue eyed smile at her and says "It's okay the Lucky Charms saved me". Kids you absolutely gotta love em. (Then they morph into teenagers.....sigh)

I better hit the work button now. I will hopefully check back in later.

Annette

[Bud Baker]

Good morning, everyone!

It was 51 degrees as I rode to work this morning. Forecast high is 86.

MI Judy, did you have any luck training your dog to get through the dog door yet? I installed one right after we moved here. Petey had never used one before, and like his owner, is old and a bit senile, so I had my doubts about how well he would learn to use it.

But he learned it quickly. Being blind, he has to nose around a bit to find it if he's not following Pixie, but he always gets through it. It was funny watching him try to get through it yesterday with that lampshade around his neck, though.

LOL @ Annette's cat taking after Keith. Annette, when one of our dogs does something really dumb, either Rose or I will look and the other and say, "he gets that from YOUR side of the family."

Have a great day, all!

[Joppette]

Hello! Happy Friday.

Bud, I'm still working on the dog door issue. Loved your story about that. She has figured out that it's okay to go out the door. But she is not connecting the dots on that is how she comes in the house! Aargh. Randy left her outside this morning, and I got up at 8:00 and she was barking outside. I opened the inside door and called her name and she popped her head in the other door. I encouraged her and she did come in.

I left for my Bible study, and she was excited enough to run outside! Yeah! But I got home 3 hours later, and she was still outside. Don't know if she went in and out or not.

I'm home for the rest of the day, so her only option for "out" is through those doors! Sheesh! The stuff we do for our kids.

Speaking of kids, Annette, that story about your Grandson was great. You are so right, they are so cute until the morph process kicks in! LOL.

So where is everybody? I agree about Libby. I am getting worried. She has not been here in a while! I left her a pm, but no response.

I wonder if I have her "friended" on facebook? I'm going to go look.

Judy in MI

[ts]

Hi all,

Took myself out for breakfast at 11:30. Could only eat about half of it, tasty as it was. Just not much of an appetite this week (but I tried!) Went to stand up and almost fainted. Oops. Drank water, took some deep breaths and drove home carefully. Not sure what that was about, but really glad I did not try walking to the cafe today!

Ate a little bit of fruit, yummy cubed potatoes, and a freshly made biscuit with scrambled eggs with cheddar and fresh tomatoes. Half of it anyways. A latte too (too much caffeine perhaps?) Also brought home a pecan sticky roll. A very homey little cafe. Neighborhood joint - oh, for Eric, this was almost $12 plus tip. And we tip around 20% in Seattle. (Our sales tax is 10% in restaurants, yikes!)

More on restaurants for Eric - eating in ethnic restaurants (Mexican, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, but not Japanese except for ramen houses) will usually cost you less than anywhere but maybe some fast food places (I don't really know the cost of those.) Counter service gets you out of tipping, even if they have tables - though there is almost always a tip jar by the register.

Happy Hour at nice restaurants is a great way to go especially if you don't mind eating early (or very late - some have a second HH close to closing.) You can get some high quality food at low prices and sample a few dishes. Prices in big cities will almost always be higher than in the country. But a lot of nice restaurants are now opening second more casual places that are worth finding.

Do you want to another forum to join? There are a bunch of food forums that operate nationally and internationally. Many are old and tired or tend to have diners who are not very reliable, but I like Mouthfulsfood.com (do not leave off "food" or you get a nasty surprise, so I've been told.) Others to explore include eGullet, Chowhound, and Yelp. There are also regional ones. And then there is just asking when you get into your towns. When we cycled in England, we found our best B&B's and places to eat by asking at bakeries - and also got to try lots of bakeries that way. But that was a long time ago - before the internet even!