I finally got through to my mother. While we were talking on the phone, it started to crackle loudly. We had to cut the call short.
Now it’s back to “home line busy.”
*sigh*
I don’t know why I’m so hesitant to call the phone company. I just am really loathing the idea. I guess there’s always this thought in the back of my head that they’ll decide it’s a customer problem, and we’ll end up with a massive repair bill. Given how things have been for the last couple of years, that would not surprise me at all.
I’ve mentioned before that our landlines is out. On the base, the “hold” light was blinking, and the display read “home line busy” all the time. When I picked up, I could hear a slight crackling. Basically, our phone was acting as if it were on hold, a feature we’ve never had to use, and coyodnt hang up.
Not my phone. 😆
We suspected a cat may have sprayed on a phone jack somewhere. The one in my husband’s room being a prime suspect. At the suggestion of my brother, I traced that line in the basement to the hub, and unhooked it.
No change.
The next day, I decided to find and trace the line from the upstairs jack, which we have never used. I did that, yesterday evening.
I also tried moving the base and hooking it up in the living room. That jack has a device hooked up with a voice that announces the number that is calling. Unfortunately, before we were able to barricade the living room, the cats knocked it over, and now it speaks Spanish. I don’t see how to change it!
The jack, however, fits two phone lines, and is well above the floor, so it’s easy to reach. Unlike the jack in my room, which requires crawling under a table.
After unhooking the upstairs jack, there was some change. Sometimes, the display would read “no line,” and the hold light stopped blinking. When activating the phone, however, I heard the same crackling.
Then it would switch back to “home line busy” and the hold light would start blinking again.
After a while, I got tired of crawling under my table, so I set the base up in the living room again, and left it there. It’s very visible right now.
Then, after going to the post office this afternoon (alas; the heat lamp did not come in, yet), I went into the living room, walked past the phone, and did a double take.
The hold light was no longer blinking.
The display screen was inactive. No message showing.
I picked up, and there was a dial tone!
I test called my cell phone, and my pocket started ringing.
Our land line is working again!
So now I’m thinking that it may have been an external problem, and something got fixed somewhere. That’s just a guess, though.
So very strange!
I’m glad it’s working again, though! Even if I have no idea why!
Okay, I have to admit, I was expecting this. I was hoping to avoid it, but I knew it was coming.
I just got off the phone with the computer repair shop.
Good news is, all my data has been saved. No loss there.
The bad news…
My computer isn’t worth fixing.
He did manage to get it started, but right off the hop, I need a new hard drive.
And a new power supply.
Plus, other things are starting to go.
I’ve been hearing that from my machine for quite some time. Honestly, I’m amazed it didn’t die earlier.
It’s just old. He could fix the main things, but I would be on borrowed time. Plus, Windows 11 is coming, and my machine is not going to handle that well. It’s simply not worth the cost of repair.
So when I’m in the city again, I’ll get my data and a new external hard drive to store it on, since there is not enough space left on the external hard drive I have at home. I’ve been looking at new PCs, but they are all insanely beyond our budget, to get a system that meets my needs.
However, we might be able to swing a refurbished machine. I don’t know. When I pick up my data, we can talk shop.
Who knew wanting to do a fondue for New Years would be so difficult? Or that I would be doing so much running around this year!
After searching online, I decided to go to the nearest Canadian Tire, as the website said they had the gel fuel I needed in stock.
Of course, I walked right past the display and missed it, until an employee told me exactly where it was.
I was confused by the website description saying the fuel I got was a liquid gel fuel suitable for the burners we have, so when I got home, I double checked.
*sigh*
Another reason I hate using my phone as a computer. I so look forward to having my desktop again!
It turned out the three images in the listing were not three different views of the same product, as is typical. It was three different versions of the same product. The liquid fuel I bought, the liquid gel fuel, and the gel fuel.
The photo on the website for the gel fuel did not have the big blue box on the label, like in the above photo.
So I was reading a different description for products with almost identical labels.
Apparently, the one I got is suitable for cheese or chocolate fondue.
The prices were all the same, though, so it was a straight exchange. That part went smoothly.
After that, I still needed the dry white wine, but the liquor store I knew about was next to a Safeway, so I went there to look at their cheese selection.
Yes, I did find Swiss cheese.
I also had a slight heart attack over the price! The smallest block was still over $17!
Then I noticed the display above.
There was ready-made cheese fondue sauce.
For only $12.
The ingredients differ from our recipe slightly. We don’t have potato starch, but the recipe calls for either flour or cornstarch as a thickener. I have never seen kirsch in my life, so that would have been skipped, but it is an optional ingredient in our recipe. “Spices” is vague, but we would use whatever we have in our cupboard. Sodium phosphate is not in the recipe, of course, but it’s just a salt compound used as an emulsifier.
I had actually been trying to find this in all my shopping, and never did until today. If I’d found it before, I would have bought three, and we would have saved quite a bit of money!
I just got the one, though, as a back up.
I hadn’t had breakfast yet, so I also got a little thing of hot chicken strips with potato wedges, and a drink. Plus, I found some stir fry pork that I also got for the oil fondue.
My next stop was the liquor store. After going through the first set of doors, I was confused when the second set wouldn’t open. Then I realized there was a woman’s voice calling to me.
She was seated behind a plexiglass barrier. I had to slide my photo ID through a slot for her to scan before she let me in. I’ve never had to do this before, so I had to ask. Turns out, they had a major problem with theft, so now they don’t let anyone in without scanning ID first!
People really suck, sometimes.
But not here! She was really nice. Once inside, I started looking at the wine section for the Canadian wines. An employee saw me and offered to help. I told him I was looking for a dry white wine, and he asked if it was for drinking or for cooking. I told him it was for a fondue. He got quite happy and recommended a dry riesling, which is what he always uses for fondue. I was quite tickled to find someone that actually does fondue; not a lot of people do, anymore.
He then led me right to the Canadian wine section and to his preferred riesling.
The price was right, so I got two!
Of course, I looked around as I made my way to pay for it. There are so many interesting drinks I’d like to try. One display caught my attention, though. It was a beer display, and the cans had a bison on it. I half saw the name, which immediately made me think of a particular Polish vodka I haven’t seen in years, Zubrowka, that uses bison grass.
The beer turned out to be called Zubr, which means bison, and yes, it is from Poland. I just looked it up. Turns out it’s a lager that has been brewed, under a different name, since 1768!
As I waited in line, the guy who helped me earlier came over to open another till, so he rang me through. As we chatted, I told him I don’t care for beer, myself, but my daughters like beer, so I got it for them to try. He said it was quite good. I hope they do like it. I can’t remember if they like lagers. I do know they don’t care for IPAs, but that’s all I can remember.
So that went well enough.
I remembered that my husband needed distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. Since it was on the way, I decided to stop at the Walmart.
Out of curiosity, I also looked for the gel fuel, since I was pretty sure I saw it at this location before, but found nothing.
Nor did I find distilled water! All I could find was spring water, which can’t be used in the humidifier.
After a while, I snagged an employee with a pallet jack. I figured he might have at least seen the display, or even filled it.
He didn’t know, but after parking his pallet, he went looking for me. Then he found another employee with a phone and tried looking it up. They spoke for a while, though not in English, so I had no idea what they were saying. Their final conclusion, though, was to check the pharmacy section. I mentioned I did check there, but I may have missed it.
The guy then went with me to the pharmacy section and found another employee there to ask. This guy came over and explained why I wasn’t finding it.
The distilled water was under recall. !!! Something about the plastic. They had a whole pallet in the back they weren’t allowed to sell.
Well, now!
Of course, I’d found a couple of things we needed while looking for the water, so I paid for those. I decided to take a different route home, to hit the town near us, and try the grocery store there, which carries a different brand, then gas up and go home.
Once at the store, I went straight to where they have their distilled water and…
The shelves were empty, except for a couple jugs of spring water.
I snagged an employee. He went to check in the back and came out with a jug.
With all the trouble I’ve been having, I asked if there was more available. He asked how many I wanted, and I asked for 3 more. He went back, then returned with a case of four for me! The one he brought first went straight onto shelf. Lol
Finally! All done!
Of course, I got something extra, too. There were Christmas chocolates at half price, so I got three boxes. Most of the sales on Christmas stock has been things like only 50 cents off.
With all that driving around, I burned quite a bit of gas. I’d chosen where I went in the city so I could fill up at Costco. If I’d known then, how much trouble – and how expensive! – everything would be, I would have gone to the nearer city and found everything I needed, burned less gas, and saved money in the long run.
Ah, well.
At least we’ll know better, for the next time we do fondue!
The Re-Farmer
[Edited for autocorrect typos. I hate blogging on my phone!]
I was just talking to my daughter about our fondue plans. As we were talking, she took a look at the box with the spare burner I got.
The one that was on the shelf right next to the burner fuel that I got.
Unlike me, she turned the box around to read the side.
Oops.
It’s compatible with gel fuel only.
So I went and brought down the oil fondue set and checked the burner.
They’re the same.
I’m going to have to try and find gel fuel, after all.
Looks like I might be going further afield than originally planned, tomorrow. I will try a specific hardware store in town, first. If they don’t have it, I’ll have to drive to the nearer Walmart, where I’m sure I saw some in stock before.
What I can’t understand is why the Canadian Tire had only liquid fuel with only gel fuel burners. It’s not like there were spaces on the self for gel fuel or liquid fuel burners. They are even the same brand.
As for the liquid fuel, unless I can find the right burners for them, I’ll return them.
Danity. I never expected this to be a hard thing to find! But then, fondue aren’t as popular as they used to be, and oil fondue even less so.
Depending on how things go, I wonder if we would be able to use the hot plate as a heat source, instead?
I headed into the city to pick up mostly stuff for our New Years fondue plans, though of course, I got other stuff, too. I ended up going to 3 different places in the city, then swinging by town to pick up my husband’s insulin, before heading home.
I’m totally drained.
My first stop was actually the post office, where I found a package I am quite excited about. I haven’t opened it, yet, but it’s a book I won.
My next stop was in the city. The international grocery store is part of a franchise, and there is a new location near the Costco we normally go to. It’s not an international store, but we used to shop this franchise all the time before we moved, so I decided to check it out. They had hot food available, too, so that was where I had breakfast.
Sadly, I was a bit disappointed. Not in the food. That was delicious. There just weren’t a lot of options. The store may be about the same size as the international one we normally go to, as far as I could tell, but all the departments seemed like they were half the size. I was particularly surprised by how small their meat section was. The beef section was not only small, but many of the choices were discounted “cook tonight” packs that were near the end of their shelf life. The Cat Lady often buys these to use as cat food! Even the regular cuts, though, were looking oxidized.
Still, this is where I got the bulk of my list.
This is what $229.84 looks like.
Yeah. Pretty sparse.
Here’s what I got.
For the meats, I was looking mostly for stir fry type cuts, but there weren’t any. So I just got trays of beef, pork and chicken breast that we could cut to size ourselves. Then I found a package of frozen hot pot combination meats – beef, pork and lamb. So I got one of those, too. I also got small frozen scallops. Together with the frozen prawns I got earlier, we have plenty of protein for our oil fondue. I got 2 bottles of peanut oil for that.
I found a basic recipe for the cheese fondue, and was looking for Swiss and Gruyere, but was really surprised by how small their fancy cheese section was. I got two cheeses there, but I wasn’t sure if they would be enough.
I got a tempura batter mix, plus a mixed vegetable tray and some pears, strawberries, and tiny crimini mushrooms. The pears and strawberries are for the cheese fondue, along with the French bread. The mushrooms are for the tempura batter and the oil fondue, while the vegetables can be for either.
I picked up various sauces for dipping, but could not find marinara sauce anywhere. That was unexpected.
Aside from other household stuff, I also got two tubs of seasonal ice cream- Eggnog flavour – that were on send of season clearance.
My next stop was Walmart. The main thing I was looking for there was fuel for the oil fondue burner. I’d seen the gel fuel we’ve used before at another location, so I figured I’d find it at this one.
This is what $74.43 looks like.
Also very sparse!
You’ll notice there is no fondue burner fuel in there.
I looked all over that store! I even asked for help. The employee I snagged looked up gel fondue fuel on her phone at the Walmart website, which said it was in stock, but she couldn’t find it. I went through the housewares section it should have been in, the camping fuel section, the grocery aisles, and even end cap and aisles displays. Nothing!
I did find stir fry beef, though, and grabbed a package as an extra. I also got another cheese for the fondue.
Still no marinara sauce!
Along with drinks and household items, there are mini cupcakes for dessert. While still looking for the burner fuel, I spotted an excellent sale price on Kraft Dinner, which my daughters like, so I snagged a case. By this time, I was also feeling really dehydrated, so I got some drinks for the road.
I still needed burner fuel, though. I can’t say I was too unhappy about not finding it at Walmart. The employee that tried to help me showed me her search results to confirm the item, and it cost almost $40! For one bottle, not a case. I was shocked, to say the least!
So, it was another trip up the road to a Canadian Tire.
I’m happy to say, I found what I needed, and more!
This is what $54.24 looks like.
It wasn’t the gel fuel we’d used before, but I confirmed it was for fondue burners.
They were $9.99 each, so I bought two.
I also got a little strainer to scoop out anything that might fall off the fondue forks. Plus, an extra burner. That way, if we used up the fuel in the burner, we can just switch and not have to wait for it to cool down.
And yes. That is a second vegetable peeler you are seeing in there. We need to replace the ones we have, and are forever losing track of them.
Since I was there anyhow, I picked up a tri-light bulb for my bedside lamp, which has a normal incandescent bulb right now. I also picked up no-mortise door hinges. The girls took measurements of where they need to hang a door. It may be possible we have an interior door in one of the sheds they can use. If so, these hinges can be used. We shall see. If they can’t be used, it won’t hurt to have them for the future.
That done, my next stop was for gas at Coscto. Prices around the city have dropped to 129.9 cents/L, but Costco was 117.9!
From there, it was time to drive the hour or so to pick up my husband’s prescription. By then, it was getting quite dark.
It was also a long time since breakfast, so after I got the prescription, I went to the Dairy Queen and got us burgers for supper.
That and I really needed to use a bathroom, and the one in the pharmacy was out of order!
Yeah. That’s my excuse!
As of now, the only thing we are missing is dry white wine for the cheese fondue sauce. I will pick that up tomorrow!
Somehow, I didn’t expect that doing a fondue for New Years would make it more expensive than having all finger food for Christmas!
I tapped away at a blog post this morning. Tried to publish it, but it wouldn’t work. Turned out we lost power while I was writing it.
So I set it aside for later.
Later was a few minutes ago, when I discovered it hadn’t even been saved as draft.
*sigh*
I’ll try to remember what I meant to write, and try again, later.
Well… I guess if I’d been writing it on my computer, I would have known the power was put because my machine would have died as I was typing, so… I’ll take the W for that, at least. 😄
The Re-Farmer
Update: oh!!! I just realized why it didn’t save to draft! My phone published it on its own!
Freezing fog rolled in last night, making for a gorgeous morning!
It didn’t go away.
My daughter and I headed into the city pretty much as soon as I was done the morning rounds. The roads were good and the visibility was okay, so long as no one tried to pass anyone. We made a quick stop at a gas station in my mother’s town to pick up drinks, and I sent an update to a road conditions group I’m on. When a was able to check it later on, people driving a highway almost parallel to the one we were on described several times when there were people trying to pass others in the fog and almost causing accidents! That highway is notorious for dangerous drivers.
Once in the city, our first stop was the computer place to drop off my tower. I told them, no hurry, for budgetary reasons. We talked a bit and I got an idea on what things might cost, depending on what he finds. The prices were quite reasonable, though if it’s a worst case scenario, replacing the valves on the truck tires will have to wait a month. In talking budget, I mentioned the various expenses that crop up, especially this time of year, and he totally understood. Turns out his engine blew on his own vehicle, recently! He’s got a loaner that needs to be returned today.
When I mentioned the valves on our tires, he immediately asked if the rims were aluminum. Why, yes. Yes, they are! He suggested getting steel ones, as soon as we can afford it. Which is funny, because the mechanic that checked my tires was saying much the same thing! 😄
With the computer, I’d things turn out to be badly damaged, we might need a new hard drive. He told me the cost for a 1T drive, which was very reasonable. Except, it turns out we have a spare! A recent care package we received included a hard drive, in case we found it useful. When I messaged my husband about the computer and the worst case scenario, he checked, and it’s a 1T hard drive.
Thank you, M! We may not need it, but what a serendipitous gift!
Once that was taken of, we went across the street to the Costco. We topped up on gas, which was 123.9 cents/litter. Higher than last time, but still 10 cents lower than everywhere else. After tanking up, I dashed in to get more eggs and cream. The girls are planning to make eggnog.
After that, we finally went for breakfast, though it was noon by then. We then went to a Sobeys I wanted to check out, which had a liquor store attached. I got stuff for our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals, which will be all finger food this year. My daughter went to the liquor store and picked up what they would need for the eggnog, and for both Christmas and New Year imbibing.
Our last stop was supposed to be the Superstore, where I got the last of what we needed for our celebrating. We will need to pick up other stuff for our New Years fondue, but that will wait until after Christmas.
I was also looking for a gift for my mother. She always says, she has too much stuff, so I wanted to get her food gifts as treats. I had no luck, so I left my daughter to pack away the purchases (I even got $50 off with loyalty points!) while I walked over to a Walmart.
I took me so long to settle on something. What did you get for the person who hates everything?
I ended up getting a little gift set with tea, crackers and tiny jam jars, which is the sort of thing she eats when she takes her medications. I got a pretty cup for the tea. I also found a Hickory Farm set with beef sausage, cheese, crackers, and a little cleaver. Again, stuff much like what she likes to have. Just a bit fancier.
I got a gift bag for it all, with plans to drop it off at her place on the way home.
I was settling into the truck and about to call my mother to let her know I’d be dropping her gift off, but not staying, because of the fog, which was still just as dense, when I saw a message from my husband suggesting we bring home McDonald’s. The budget was getting slim by then (McRaunchies is not a cheap deal anymore!), plus burgers from the city would be cold and wet by the time we got home. I’m not sure why he didn’t suggest the new Dairy Queen that’s closer to home!
I called my mother, and my daughter started messaging her sister. Before I knew it, she’d sent me the funds to stop at the Greek restaurant in town.
Before all that was settled, though, we’d reached my mother’s place and I ran in to drop off her gift.
She had already forgotten I was coming.
When I gave her the bag, she asked what it was, and I told her it was her Christmas present. She promptly started telling my she didn’t need it, and we needed it more (even though she had no idea what “it” was).
Then she wanted me to sit and visit. I reminded her, I was just dropping the gift off, because its foggy out there, and it was going to get dark, soon. I made the mistake of mentioning my daughter was with me, to help look out for deer. She started going on about how she didn’t even come in to say hi…
I left, with her glaring daggers as me.
*sigh*
With supper arrangements made, we crossed to the next highway to go to town and order four meals to go. This place is so generous in their portion sizes, it’ll be enough to feed us for 2 days!
Unfortunately, by the time it was ready, it wS fully dark. Thankfully, the fog was not as dense, so I could use my brights at times. We only saw one deer along the way!
Though it felt far later, it was only past 5 when we got home and unloaded. My daughter parked the truck while I distracted the outside cats by feeding them, while my other daughter put the shopping away.
It was a couple of hours late, so we went straight to cleaning that cats’ ears with mineral oil. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one cat. Grandma. Even when we started putting out wet cat food, she didn’t come out. I still haven’t seen her.
Unfortunately, with a senior cat, I can’t help but think she found a quiet place for her final nap. But where? My daughter even checked the basement. We can’t find her.
I’ll try looking in the basement myself, later on. I hope I’m wrong in my concern.
It’s been a while, and we’ve had our supper (the girls and I all ordered pickerel dinners, and I got a burger meal for my husband), but as I tap away, writing this post, I have eleven greasy cats on the bed behind me, most of whom are still grooming either their own ears, or the ears of a cat next to them! They all look so bedraggled. 😁
I really hope this treatment does the trick. Some of them still have such dirty ears, which means they still have active mites. At least some of them are noticeably better! Some were never bad at all. We’ve got at least 4 more days of this, though if we feel they still need more, we might switch to using aloe vera gel, which should also help with healing. We shall see.
Beyond that, I’m just glad we got this trip in and, hopefully, we won’t need to go anywhere until after Christmas!
With all the running around I did, I was happy to get the Costco shopping over and done with!
We’ll still need to make another trip, though.
When I got to the city, I noticed gas prices were 132.9 cents per litter, so I figured Costco would be the usual 5-10 cents lower. They turned out to be 119.9 cents per litter! It’s been ages since I’ve seen a price like that.
As you can imagine, the lineups were insane. They went by fast, though.
Once tanked up, it was time to get all this.
Not my biggest shop, by any means, but it still totalled $719.81
I got the pet supplies on a separate bill. Eight bags of Kirkland 9kg dry kibble ($215.92), 1 case wet cat food ($24.99) and one case of puppy pads ($38.99). After taxes, it totalled $313.49
While we no longer have the problem of Toni peeing on my bed, or kittens not using the litter boxes, we still use the puppy pads. There are spots where other cats have been making a mess, regularly, so we use them to help with clean up. For example, I keep one under the litter box under my desk, with another in front, were my feet and chair got. I would leave the room and come back to find a pee spot next to the litter box. Always in the same spot. Only this morning did I catch Leyendecker doing it! Which is frustrating, because he will go from litter box to litter box and use them. I was afraid he might be getting blocked again, but given the size of the puddle on the puppy pad, I know think he’s marking territory!
The puppy pads may be an expense, but they do save out carpets and make cleaning the lino easier.
So that’s the cats stuff.
Then there was the shopping for us.
I won’t list the prices this time because it’s such a pain to tap out on the phone, but this is what I got today.
Two 1L of whipping cream, a pack of 60 eggs, hazelnuts, walnuts, stewing beef, 2 packages of wraps, three 2pks of rye bread, 1 brick Old Cheddar, 1 brick mozzarella, a wheel of brie, 5 pounds of butter, 6 pk of canned chicken, peanut butter, truffle parmasan seasoning mix, mayonnaise, a case of mixed fruit packs (with cherry!), kitchen garbage bags, and toilet paper. Oh, and a 20kg bag of sugar!
We are doing a finger food Christmas dinner, so for that, I found mini quiches – we like those a lot, so I got 2 boxes – bacon wrapped scallops, fried pickle chips (!!), and garlic stuffed olives. I also got raw frozen shrimp, but that will likely be for our New Years fondue.
All of this, after taxes, totaled $406.32
Meat is getting insanely expensive. Especially beef. Thankfully, we still have meat in the freezer, and we are getting our quarter beef next month.
We still have other things we need to get for both Christmas and New Years, but that will be for other stores. I’m sure I have the gel fuel for our oil fondue burner, but I can’t remember where it was hidden, so I will get more. I also need to get peanut oil or some other high smoke point cooking oil. The final things for the dinners will be picked up fresh, closer to when we need them.
I rather look forward to a Christmas dinner that will involve so little cooking, and so few dirty dishes! 😆😄
The Re-Farmer 