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Post by breeze on Jun 21, 2021 16:19:07 GMT
Thanks for the update, bjd. You're probably thinking to yourself as you type each name, Is this person really worth keeping a phone number for?
A friend just bought one of the Samsung Galaxy A series and is happy with it.
We're going out shopping again tomorrow. The test will be if the screen lets me read the Guardian. My main interest is the camera, but I spend more time reading than snapping photos.
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Post by breeze on Jun 20, 2021 15:07:03 GMT
Get out a third chair, mick. I'm coming right over to meet Mrs Mick and all the little cactuses. I see you have dozens of the little dears in your well-kept greenhouse.
I always regret not taking time to post whenever you put up a photo of one of these in bloom. So many have fascinating shapes and colors. Some of the ones you've shown recently are little jewels.
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Post by breeze on Jun 20, 2021 14:45:21 GMT
That cottage is the essence of charm.
Bixa, you have whetted my interest in this project even further since you mentioned casimira's flair.
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Post by breeze on Jun 19, 2021 17:59:00 GMT
Yakety Yak!
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Post by breeze on Jun 19, 2021 16:40:51 GMT
Casimira, I know I sound (and am) enthusiastic about your new house, but don't worry, I'm not about to pester you with ideas. I'll sit quietly and wait to see what happens. Have fun with it.
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Post by breeze on Jun 19, 2021 13:40:58 GMT
casimira, I asked an architect once what's the most important thing about a room and he said its proportions. I assume a house in New Orleans needs high ceilings so the heat can rise. I wish we didn't have low ceilings here.
He was also a fan of natural light indoors. This is the first house we've lived in where nearly every room has light coming in from three or four sides and I appreciate it.
tod, I'd love to see your photos. I was influenced at an early age by my mother's House & Garden subscription. I love to tour houses or stately homes but I will settle for photos.
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Post by breeze on Jun 19, 2021 12:06:21 GMT
Casimira, I'm so happy to see you're moving forward with rebuilding. You've been very attached to your house, your garden, and your street. It's telling that your neighbors want you to stay and that your architect friends have volunteered to help. You two have been a big influence on the spirit of your neighborhood.
Designing a house from scratch is one of my dreams. I hope this new design will give you everything you want in a house and eventually in the garden.
You'd better have a good camera, since we will want to see photos of the process.
As aside: When we bought our house it was a mess so we took no photos. Later we regretted that since without documentation, nobody knew how bad it had been and nobody would believe we'd actually been making a lot of progress.
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Post by breeze on Jun 17, 2021 17:36:27 GMT
France has now declared the US a green country, so US residents only need to show a vaccination card at the departure airport; no need to test beforehand. I'm hoping by the time we travel, in September, we won't need to have a test to come back to the US.
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Post by breeze on Jun 17, 2021 16:51:17 GMT
On the Icelandair website: "From July 1, 2021, there is no longer a requirement for arrival testing for passengers vaccinated against COVID-19 or recovered from it." Looks like you are off the hook, Kimby.
At this point you will still need a recent negative test to re-enter the US. I'm hoping that changes.
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Post by breeze on Jun 17, 2021 15:00:54 GMT
Thanks, bjd.
Kerouac, the 15-year-olds are a lot more free with their money and more in thrall to the latest technology, than I am.
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Post by breeze on Jun 17, 2021 11:25:32 GMT
bjd, if you don't mind, would you let me know which model you got, and how you like it?
I'm going through the same tortured process. At first I thought I'd just get the camera replaced in my Samsung S5 (7 years old! the horror!) but several phone repair places told me it couldn't be done. So I started the trek through phone stores and it turns out I can't understand what the sales people tell me, and later I can't remember a thing they said, and worst of all I can't figure out my notes.
My husband made up a chart comparing features of four newer Samsung models with my old phone. None of them appeal to me, but we'll go back to the stores tomorrow and try again. If you have a specific model to recommend, bjd, that might help me focus.
Or anyone else who knows anything about recent Samsungs, I'd appreciate your help.
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Post by breeze on Jun 12, 2021 11:33:39 GMT
The CDC guideline allowing vaccinated people to stop wearing a mask has led to only vaccinated people wearing a mask. We wear them to protect us from all the anti-vaxxers who never did and never will wear masks. If you look at shoppers in a grocery store in our area you might think from the lack of masks that vaccination rates are high, whereas the opposite is true. Our county has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state of Pennsylvania.
These days when I see masks I tend to think those people have been vaccinated, which I realize is faulty thinking. In the town 75 miles away where we go on a weekly basis, most people are wearing masks. We had lunch in a small restaurant where the staff wore masks and everyone who came in wore a mask and kept it on part of the time. That gives me hope, even if it is faulty thinking.
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Post by breeze on Jun 7, 2021 15:50:28 GMT
I will follow this with interest because my dear old 2014 Samsung phone's camera suddenly started to take poor photos. I'd prefer to swap in a new camera lens but my in-house advisor won't do it (if it can even be done). He put in a new lens cover, but beyond that he will not go.
So I may wind up buying a new phone but I'm held back because I have no clue what I might lose. For one thing, I now have wifi calling but wouldn't with a non--T-mobile phone.
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Post by breeze on May 25, 2021 13:09:37 GMT
Casimira, what a pile-on of horrible things to happen. It’s obviously devastating to lose two beloved homes, but if you also have to lose your garden that you have created and cared for, that would be another sad blow. I hope you don’t have to leave it all behind.
What good neighbors you have, and good friends to house and feed you and find you an apartment.
In an ideal world there’d be a house for you in the same neighborhood with the same character as your present home and an even bigger space to garden. I wish you good luck with house hunting. Here's hoping your network comes through with just the right place.
Kimby makes a good point about one-level living.
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Post by breeze on May 25, 2021 12:47:20 GMT
Mick, your echeveria has the most subtle, tender coloring. Really marvelous.
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Post by breeze on May 24, 2021 12:30:44 GMT
Kimby, I've been looking at the Rick Steves France forum for a while and I like the civility there, as well as finding good information. TripAdvisor is contentious too much of the time. I like Fodors but it's not very active these days (speaking only of the France forum). I looked at the Rick Steves Iceland forum last night with you in mind just to see if there's been recent activity and yes, there has been. Enjoy your planning; for me, that's when the trip starts.
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Post by breeze on Apr 1, 2021 12:16:44 GMT
Mick, so many pretty and different daffodils. Are daffs your second love? Plant love, I mean.
Do you remember the names of the second one and the last one? #2 has such a delicate pink and they both have the colors I've been looking for.
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Post by breeze on Mar 20, 2021 13:49:12 GMT
Hi Lagatta! I'm so glad you're back! You're just in time for spring in the northern hemisphere. I'm reading backwards through recent posts, so I hope to read more from you.
Spring here in our part of Pennsylvania is taking its time, but that's okay. I like a slow spring, and for the moment the snowdrops and the tiny crocuses in the lawn and flower beds are enough to keep me going. I hope to start some seeds indoors today.
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Post by breeze on Mar 17, 2021 22:37:28 GMT
I'll be so glad to see Lagatta back here among the regulars. It was disconcerting when she stopped posting, especially after having some baffling health problems and lack of appetite.
Good health also to Questa and whatagain and Mick's family.
I hope I haven't missed anybody. If so, consider them included.
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Post by breeze on Feb 11, 2021 2:42:13 GMT
I just listened to a podcast on cave art, and one of the experts referred to aurochs, horses, and deer as "the lawnmowers of the pleistocene."
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Post by breeze on Feb 6, 2021 20:58:25 GMT
Good thing you are retired, Mark, so you aren't limited to weekend visits. As refreshing as this park is now, it'll be even more so when there are leaves on the trees.
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Post by breeze on Jan 30, 2021 15:35:15 GMT
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Post by breeze on Jan 26, 2021 14:50:50 GMT
When they first started talking about a vaccine, I knew I definitely didn't want to be first in line. Let's see how it pans out over a few months, I said to myself. Apparently I'm not as cautious as I'd thought, because once the vaccine became available in Pennsylvania I started calling around to see how and where we could get it. We were in group 1b, over 65, and 1a was for health care and essential workers. I wanted to be ready for when 1b opened up.
My doctor's office knew nothing and didn't know where to send me. Hospital ditto, local pharmacy ditto, local branch of state health service ditto, state health service in our state capital ditto. Someone told me about a map of the state showing pharmacies that had or would have the vaccine. We called and got on three lists and waited. The third place called us on Friday and gave us a date, time slot, and location. They had 500 vaccines available and we were #325 and #326 on the list. I asked if we were guaranteed to get the second shot as well and they said the state had committed to sending them the same number of vaccines in four weeks.
So Sunday we had the first of two Moderna shots.
When we arrived the woman registering us asked where we were from and didn't seem too impressed when we named our nearby town. They'd had people from adjacent area codes sign up, people from urban areas to the east and west who couldn't get the vaccine close to home and drove a long way to this tiny rural town.
They had a well-organized setup in the lunchroom of a local business. There was no waiting at the time we arrived. All went smoothly. The woman who gave us the shots was the nurse we see most often at our doctor's office, volunteering for the day. I asked if the doctor's office had been busy and she said phenomenally busy.
She hadn't had the vaccine yet.
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Post by breeze on Jan 25, 2021 22:38:14 GMT
Okay, I went back to bixa's visit, and I believe this is what she called the mihrab. The definition is the semicircular niche that shows the direction of Mecca. I've wiki'd the word and the illustrations show various styles, including one similar to your photos, Mark.
If after all that I don't remember the word, there's no hope for me.
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Post by breeze on Jan 25, 2021 19:16:41 GMT
I'm enjoying your explorations, Mark. I wonder if those are chimneys on the madrasa. Does each room need its own chimney?
Two of your photos reminded me of a word bixa introduced us to, which I can't remember. It's the thing over the door to the madrasa and the mosque. Bixa explained it during her visit to mosques in Istanbul. Funnily enough, I haven't been able to work the word into a conversation; otherwise I might be able to remember it.
I wonder how merchants felt when all their competitors were on the same street. If there was a sense of cooperation among them, great. Otherwise...miserable.
If I were a wealthy visitor, it would be so much fun to shop among all those pretty things. It's almost as much fun seeing their pictures.
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Post by breeze on Jan 25, 2021 1:14:43 GMT
cheery, she's a lovely witch, and I like her dress fabric very much.
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Post by breeze on Jan 20, 2021 22:41:57 GMT
whatagain has the right idea, or at least one of the right ideas.
I used to have a Danish cookbook. It seems to be gone, but I have their recipe for frikadeller. It calls for 1/2# each of beef and pork and one onion, put through the grinder twice. Then add a little flour or breadcrumbs. Then, two tablespoons at a time, stir in soda water up to 1/2 pint. Then add one egg, salt and pepper. Make into ovals and fry in hot butter slowly.
The recipe says frikadeller made with milk and bread crumbs are not as light but are easier to handle.
The book also had recipes for Veiled country lass and Rodgrod med flod (sorry, don't have the keyboard for Danish vowels).
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Post by breeze on Jan 18, 2021 22:03:50 GMT
casimira, I read one of his earlier books (you don't forget a name like Flowerdew) back when he was hinting that he'd like to have a wife and now he has a wife, so time has passed and he's still writing. I think that book was where I first read about starting spring pea seeds in guttering. Do I need to add, not guttering currently in use on your roof? I hope not.
In addition to bixa's good suggestion of amazon, I looked him up on archive.org and several of his books are there. A guest can search a book using whatever search words they want whereas a member can have access to the whole book for an hour or often more.
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Post by breeze on Jan 17, 2021 23:07:46 GMT
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Post by breeze on Jan 17, 2021 22:54:51 GMT
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