Category: Barb

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Jell-O experiment

Barb has been assigned the task of bringing Jell-O to Thanksgiving dinner at Mark’s place. She didn’t have a Jell-O mold so she went to Goodwill and found one. Last night we put the test Jell-O and fruit in it. It spent the night in the refrigerator and when we got back from our walk she warmed the mold in some warm water then flipped the Jell-O and mold onto a plate. It turned out fairly well. She warmed it just a little bit too much though. It was good to do the trial run so she can have it turn out perfect for Thanksgiving.

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A walk in the park

Barb and I went for a walk in Lewis Creek Park this morning after breakfast. The temperature was 40F but there was zero wind and the sun was shining. We were surprised at how warm it felt. I didn’t even wear a coat.

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Bricks

When I worked on Windows Phone 7 for Microsoft there sometimes a risk you could load a new version of the O/S you had just built on the phone and it would fail so catastrophically that it couldn’t even boot up enough to load a new O/S to replace the broken one. We called this “bricking your phone”. You had turned your smart phone into an object that was about as useful as a brick.

A few days ago Barb L. decided she needed to use the self-cleaning feature on her oven. The oven is fairly new and she had always cleaned it by hand and sometimes with oven cleaner spray. But this time she “dinked around” with the controls and got it to do a self-clean. After about two hours she decided it was probably done and turned it off. She went back to the oven a while later and the door was still locked. The display was off and all the controls were dead. She went to breaker box and cycled the power. It was still dead. She left the power off over night and turned it back on. It was still dead with the door locked.

Barb is the only person I have ever heard of that is able to brick an oven. That takes some special talent. She’s a keeper.

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Finishing up with Fred

Barb and I had lunch together today. We had some really nice hamburgers at Johnny Rockets in Pacific Place. We had finished eating and were just sitting around talking when Barb received a phone call.

It was about some papers that were supposed to be picked up at Fred’s lawyers office but somehow ended up at a messenger service in downtown Seattle a few blocks away. Barb had planned to pick them up at Fred’s lawyers office and take them to the King County Recorders Office on 4th Ave. But now they were in Seattle and it would save her a drive into Seattle if she picked them up and took car of them today.

We immediately walked to the messenger service, picked up the papers and headed to the King County Recorders Office. It was about 16 blocks away. It was raining and windy. Barb had to hold on to her hat several times and the umbrella was in danger of being damaged but she was in good spirits. She almost had another “bullet item” checked off on the path to being completely separated from Fred.

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We arrived at the Recorders office and were thrilled to find there was no line. The person behind the counter was helpful enough but I’m certain she had her ability to smile, laugh, or show any evidence of friendliness surgically removed.

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By the time we got back to our offices Barb had wet feet and pants up to her calves. My feet were dry but my pants were wet up to my mid-thigh. My coat and hat were soaked but it was good to have saved the extra hour plus of driving into town tomorrow and being one step closer to Finished with Fred.

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Halloween

The first Trick or Treaters showed up at 4:50. The last about 7:40. There were 15 total.

Barb and Max put out decorations and put orange bulbs in the outside lights:

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Max had to be persuaded to let me take his picture with his ice machine but he finally relented:

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Eventually Max got a little bored with his machine and put the dry ice in some soapy water:

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It was a pretty quiet Halloween but quite pleasant.

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Update on shirts

A fair number of people previously expressed some concern about Barb counting my shirts. As I said in an update to the post and in the comments I don’t really think there is anything to be worried about. A few days ago she gave me two coats, two sweaters, and a pair of pants for my birthday.

The only way I can resolve the present data in an adverse manner is if Barb is trying to get my closet rod to break due to excessive loading then suggest it was my fault for having so many clothes. That would be far too subtle and complicated for her personality. She is very direct.

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Lunch

Barb and I work a short distance from each other and when there are no conflicts with meetings or Barb working from home we have lunch together. Today we had lunch at Taco del Mar in Westlake center. We both had a “Mondo Burrito.” Barb had a spinach based wrap and I had a whole wheat wrap.

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Helping Lisa

I was in Idaho this weekend to visit my family. Saturday night after dinner at my brother Doug’s place my sister in law, Julie, checked her email and came back. My niece Lisa, who lives in Kent, asked if they could have the couch her brother, Brad, had before he died. The plans was for her unemployed boyfriend, Kevin, to drive to Idaho load up the couch in Brad’s pickup, drive to Kent, then drive back to Idaho, get his car, then drive back to Kent.

I thought this was crazy talk and told them that if they would arrange for the U-Haul trailer I would pull the trailer and couch back to Kent for Lisa. They did and I did.

About half-way back I stopped for a break and to check on the condition of the trailer, hitch, load, etc. I took a picture of my car and trailer and sent it to Barb with the message, “I have more stuff to unpack. Want to come over and help tonight?”

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After about five minutes without a reply I began to worry. Maybe she was plotting my death, or at least, a break up with me. She has helped so much with my move and all the old stuff that should be thrown away I was worried I could be endangering the relationship by asking for even more help.

So I sent her another text message, “It’s a couch for Lisa.”

She replied back in about two minutes, “LOL. I was too busy typing OMG.”

Via text messages we arranged to meet up and take the couch to Lisa together.

I arrived shortly after Maddy and Barb started their weekly telephone conversation. After the conversation was over Barb navigated and I drove to Lisa’s place. We delivered the couch, went back to my place, and unloaded the rifles I had brought back from the Boomershoot site:

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Barb still had a smile on her face and I don’t think it was because she was envisioning a painful and horrible fate for me during the night.

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It must be that eclectic thing

The other day Barb was helping me unpack my stuff at the new clock tower. She was out of sight for a while then came back, walked up to me and said, “You have 242 shirts.” “And your point is?”, I asked. No verbal reply. There was some body language but it was indecipherable to me. Okay. Whatever. Her Match.com profile did say she was eclectic* so maybe this was an example of this. I thought maybe she just liked to keep count of things like that. She has a great head for numbers. So I asked, “Did you include the ones in the dirty clothes? And I think there are some I left at your place.” She had not included those and a couple of days later she reported, “You have over 250 shirts.” Again I asked, “And your point is?” Again I got silence and that indecipherable body language. I thought about it a while and thought maybe she was trying to say I had too many shirts. So I went into my closet and looked. Nope. I still have room for more: WP_20131010_004 Today she told me she was going to count my gloves. It must be that eclectic thing again. 

* Originally it had said, “eccentric” but her daughter suggested “eclectic” instead and so it was changed before I saw it.