“I have absolutely no idea what we’re doing here, or what I’m doing here, or what this place is about. But I am determined to enjoy myself.”
If you have a cat fountain, please keep it clean. You must disassemble and clean the fountain, including the pump, every time you refill it with water. Every. Time. That means taking the little magnet impeller out and cleaning that (including the hollow center of it — use a pipe cleaner or a very thin brush), and the hole where the impeller goes in the pump. Clean EVERYTHING, EVERY TIME. If you don’t, slime and junk will build up, which is bad for the cat, but will also prevent the pump impeller from spinning. I really can’t stress this enough: disassemble and clean EVERYTHING, EVERY TIME you refill it.
I also fill the fountain with a diluted bleach solution and let that soak, every month or two, just to thoroughly disinfect the thing (and then rinse it a dozen times before setting back out for the cats). Some people use vinegar; I prefer to use bleach for that.
Bic introduced the Bic Metal disposable razor in 1988. I still prefer it to any other disposable razor.
I have been looking at other places in earnest since early 2016, but have fantasized about it since the early 2000s. Places that have come and gone on my list of potential destinations are Mexico, Ecuador, Panama, the US Virgin Islands, and the Czech Republic (which I suppose is called Czechia now). Nowadays my short list is Nova Scotia (Canada), Portugal, and most recently Estonia. We’ve never actually been to Portugal or Estonia — by the time we became aware of those, our near-future travel plans had already been made (we plan trips at least a year ahead), and then travel ceased to be possible due to the pandemic.
Between the pandemic and the fact that we are far too comfortable in our current jobs (neither of which we could keep if we expatriated), I suspect we may have waited too long to leave. Which is … not sad, exactly. We are well off, and the problems of the USA are at arm’s-length for us. So it seems ungrateful to complain. But I wish we could leave. I don’t want to be here.
Panama is attractive due to its ease of immigration and favourable tax laws, but it’s too hot, too wet, and just as expensive as the USA. We are excluding it from consideration.
Is good news even a thing anymore? Not “making the best of it” news. Not “people staving off doom for one more day” news. Not “here’s some trivia about some stranger’s personal life” news. Not “be thankful things aren’t even worse” news. Actual good news.
That would be nice.
After several years of consideration (seriously — I started looking into this a little over five years ago), I have decided to exclude Ecuador as a possible retirement destination. It has its appeals, and for the sake of the people who live there, I hope it always will, but for me, the disadvantages are more than I am willing to bear.
It is bad for people to be obeyed too readily. It is corrosive to good manners and a healthy relationship with those around them. When you resist someone with authority, you are looking out for the well being and sanity of that person.
Personally, I think we have too many punctuation symbols. Do we need commas, colons, and semicolons? Do we need three different kinds of dash? If you used a comma instead of a colon or a semicolon, or vice versa (as millions of people routinely do), would anyone be more or less confused about the meaning of the sentence?
My answer is: no, they would not; most people couldn’t tell you the proper usage of a colon vs. a semicolon — or an n-dash vs. an m-dash — if you paid them.
If you are like me (and I know I am), you buy juice mainly to mix it with alcohol. FUN FACT! Mr. & Mrs. T Spicy Bloody Bold & Mary Mix has 19 times as much juice as V8 Splash Berry Blend, and 8 times as much juice as Ocean Spray Cran-Blackberry.
Et tu, Ocean Spray?
On the other hand, Mr & Mrs T Pina Colada Mix is literally just sugar water. “Natural and artificial flavors” comes after “titanium dioxide, potassium sorbate, sodium citrate” in the ingredients. Pineapple juice is not expensive (around $0.06 an ounce). Cream of coconut is not cheap, but it’s not that expensive (around $0.25 an ounce). Mr & Mrs T Pina Colada Mix costs about $0.10 an ounce.
Buying good rum or good vodka and then mixing it with sugar water is OFFENSIVE to me, on a deep and personal level.
The moral of this story is: READ THE LABEL. But if you want me to read them for you, here is what you should buy:
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Blackmoor Vituperative