You can have all my hot chocolate and popcorn, Arfie. (Unless you want to magic back my filling? *sniffle* Then we can share! Hot cocoa and popcorn for us both for bravery!)

No suggestions beyond find that volume control and speaker feature. WHen Hubby had an ear infection, he did business that way, and lame as it sounds, that's all I got. *sigh*

Gentle purrs. I lisped badly as a small child. I hated the way people mocked me.

Whoops, sorry, gentle... um, that growly-rumble noise happy big dogs make!

It doesn't take much hot chocolate or popcorn to bloat my envied figure, Leo. Fashion models watch the pounds. My flavor of weight loss seems to be gaseous. . .

Don't want ALL the popcorn and hot chocolate. The nutrient I crave is the sharing.

That growly-rumble noise IS the doggy purr. It matches my hearing range better, but a purr is a purr in any language. Those translate easily at my Tower of Babel. The words are only part of the communication.

Hubs tried real hard to be there for me this morning. Should I be surprised at the blow up before he rushed off for his busy day? It was gentler than most. . .

Here with a cuppa and a handful of munchable popcorn...

Courage, friend, and rumble-growly-happy dog noises to you:-) I swear my childhood BFF (my dog) had this croon of pure joy!

I love the direct simplicity of the furry dialects. The ones spoken from four legs.

I finally replayed the voicemail message this morning. The fact of the tone clarity I was remembering from yesterday did not bear out. Just another delusion in my . . . whatever you want to call the confused details that emerge from all the domestic yaddahs. I was in the truck with hubs when the call came through and a few minutes later when the cell phone let me know it was a message and not just another telemarketing machine systematically doing its thing. This morning's listen to the message was as garbled as the average speaker voice is for me. I have listened to the recording quite a few times and still don't know the man's last name or phone number. The idea of a phone interview is giving me a psychosomatic ear ache. Nor did I find his first name on the "Contact us" link of the website. I did not find an employee directory. Just the executive staff.

One of the execs had an out of the box sub-title beneath her portrait. Was thinking about an emailed shot in through the sounds of silence.. . . Just thinking. . . And not too clearly, at that. . .

Drip measure update. The first coat of paint in the closet is on and the second coat is going on smoother than the first. My drips of the morning are gratifyingly few. So far. . .

Wax on. . . Wax off. . .

The phone didi not store the man's number?

...The off and on ear infections have given me a taste of how unfun it is to be even a little hearing-impaired...
" WHAT? WHAT?"
...Sympathies...

I'm not a fan of phones, either, arfie. Disembodied voices. Mobile phones meaning walking around in public but disengaging with the public. Those are just a couple of the notions that cross my mind concerning them, despite all the obvious good they do. While I'm on this Uruguay trip my cell phone has no service here, so it's kind of a nice break for me.

One of my favorite stories of phones in my paid career was when I was installing HVAC systems -yes, folks, dirty nails, fiberglass and all- and I walked in to report to the Lead Man on the job. He got all happy, handed me his cell phone and said, "This thing has been driving me crazy." I walked over to the crew Job Box(TM), dropped the phone in, locked the box and asked with all DUE respect, "Got any other problems in need of solving?"

Yup, me and phones have a lo-o-o-ong and bloody herstory.

Yea, cook on a river barge is one of my fantasy jobs, but there are reasons their docks are not lined with volunteers willing to pay for the privilege of doing the job. Among those reasons is that the diesel drone of a trawler engine is a 24/7 soundtrack. My riverside camp sites are well punctuated with the noise of their passing. I don't much mind it from the riverside, but I have often wondered how people live with it 24/7 from the on board proximity. This morning I woke from a nightmare about it. I was at a stoplight with a Rich Boy Pickup -all big tires, bells and whistles, detailed by Daddy's Pro Squad- running with the hot, noisy diesel stink next to me at the light. All I could see from my car window was the blood red panel of the spit polished passenger door. You know, the passenger door with no passenger behind it. . .

But still. . . Camp cook is, easily, my favorite of all the volunteer jobs I have had. Not all river boats are that noisy and . . . I've been haunting river banks for more than half a century. Think I am over due for seeing the river banks from the river. . . Maybe.

My observations from the river banks has offered clues that boat people are even crazier than horse people. Just clues. Me and my social anxiety. . . Then we get to the "Imaginary They's" of my paranoia. . .

Back to my closet. . . Almost done in there. . . Wax on. Wax off.

Yep. Wax on. Wax off. Breathe in. Breahte out.
Nature speaks without words and is so much more eloquent.

Love the cell phone solution!

I want to use cellphones for skeet shooting. "Pull!" KABOOM! Bye-bye evil intrusive phone! Mwahahahah!

Ifonly... Oh well, makes for a fun fantasy.

Got some other tech toys I'd like to add to your skeet shooting bucket, Leo. One of the background problems of the tech market is what to do with last season's toys. Developing the recycling process is not going well.

Hm-m-m-m-m. . .

Environmental solutions and profit margin in one? You could be on to something, gentle lioness. Get your innovative purrs on! When can we show up at your skeet range? Got my own bucket of skeets to scat.

Well, halfway between us would be Tennessee, let's find a patch of quiet suburbia to disrupt. Put up hives, hold skeet-your-toy shoots (I nominate game consoles!).... Ahhh.... '

Of course the detritus would be a problem, but then again, just build it atop a landfill?

My paint meditated (fuzzy duckling on a september morning) thought of the moment is to just let the interview invitation slide into Neglectville. The domestic chaos here in the homestead is still intense and I have yet to get good results from efforts begun while I was in flight mode. Thinking I need to settle affairs here -whichever way the dust settles- before I try to start a new endeavor.

Sure am getting tired of the wait, though. . . Is there such a thing as being too patient?

Still sorting. . . Off to see how this declaration sets during the next painting round. Brush left. Brush right. Brush up. Brush down. Breathe in. Breathe out.

If we keep shooting the pieces until they are all small enough, maybe we can use the detritus as foundation for the badminton court. Gots me another bucket or twenty of bads I'd like to minton. . .

What's a "minton," anyway? Sure sounds like a good place to put your bads.

Hmmm.... Bad... Mint.... On.... Your julep? No, wait.... Huh.

Actually, Minton's a family name in the UK and Badminton is one of the family estates, sooooo..... Guess that was one bad Minton?

(I know this b/c Hubby knows a Minton.)

We shall give our bads to Minton! Yeah! Buh-bye!

Let it go. Domestic chaos is not conducive to clear decision-making for me, at least. Between my mama drama and my dental drama, I'm thinking of retreating to a mountaintop to ask the resident lama to budge over and give me a seat...