DBWright

It's kinda warm today but I just did a quick version of autumn comfort food.
          
          I have five quarts of chili on the stove simmering away for supper.
          
          My easy version is diced onion, minced garlic, ground beef, beans (I usually use dry but today was a result of not being able to hit up the store so I'm using rinsed canned black beans), chili spiced beans,  tomato paste, diced tomatoes and used to be Mccormick taco seasoning packets but covid kindly turned smoked paprika into a tire fire for me so seasonings like chili powder, cumin, coriander  and oregano.

Koira here! Mom took me to run errands today.  She usually takes Musta. They say it's to give me a break from him because teenagers are annoying and he gets on my nerves. He must have been bad yesterday,  though, because she chose me.
          
          We drove to the pet supply store a long way away.  Mom said something about a gift certificate and that's why we went there instead of the store the next town over.
          
          I was bummed she put my seat belt on. I wanted to sit in the front seat with her. I don't know why she didn't let me.  No one else was there.  Anyway,  it's good that I had it on. I bumped my head on the door a couple times.  Mom says it's because I need to sit or lay down when the car is moving but it's totally because she's a bad driver. When I said that she laughed and said she has something called a seedy ell and was driving carefully. 
          
          I was so excited when we got to the store I forgot about wearing a seat belt and tried to jump out.  I wound up dangling out the door by my harness. That was unpleasant.  Mom put me back and said I have to wait so she can unbuckle me.  I'm not going to do that again.  At least not today. 
          
          When we went in there was a human puppy I wanted pets from.  I used my best manners to sit so they knew I was a good girl but a very tall human,  even taller than Mom, called a grampa picked them up and didn't let them pet me. When that was done Mom talked to a lady who I think was dumb. Mom told her my name is Koira but then she called me Bailey.  Pfft. Please. I have a name as pretty as I am (mom here: she doesn't know her name is "dog").
          
          After we got the stuff in the car I was ready to go home. This time I made sure I showed Mom I know how to let her put my seat belt on and laid down because I didn't trust Mom to drive any better than before. 
          
          Now that we're home I'm going to put my puppies to bed after checking on them. They're good puppies. The cow puppy and alligator puppy like to sleep in my bed but the chicken puppy goes in Musta's.

Musta ran errands this morning.  He says it's very boring and kind of hot driving the car because *some* people don't think the air conditioning needs to be on when it's only in the low 80s. Those people have no consideration for dogs who are black and need haircuts.
          
          He further reports that he met a very nice young man who gave him pets and asked him who's a good boy. Musta suspects he was talking about him because he's the bestest boy. He would have liked to spend more time with him but he put boring things that didn't even smell interesting in the trunk and rudely left without giving enough wubbins.
          
          Musta would like to conclude his report by saying he was a very good boy and liked hanging out with Mom away from Koira but he isn't sure if running errands is worth his time because it was exhausting and all he got was some bubbles he's not sure about.  They're very suspicious. But maybe he can scare the evil chicken puppy that bawks, squeaks and sneaks up on him when he's not looking away with them.
          
          He needs a nap now as soon as he makes sure Koira didn't put the evil chicken in his favorite bed.

This was supposed to be a week off. It's been crazy around here, instead.
          
          We got the house painted which means no more fifty shades of diarrhea with leprosy for us! But that was a thing. Then we traveled to another city a  few hours away a couple times and came home with two golden doodles the second trip. *THEN* while the painters were here something happened with light fixture over the door to the apartment upstairs so we've been to three locations all over the city of the same hardware store to buy new outdoor fixtures in anticipation of the electrician who's scheduled to show up sometime this afternoon. 
          
          We still have to replace a sill plate, install a solar floodlight, weed, plant hydrangeas we bought...
          
          I miss when a holiday week actually was.  I'm going to need a vacation to recover from this vacation. 
          
          In other news, I've been sitting on a few stories.  Does anyone have opinions on whether I should work on posting a hea with a supernatural spin or a past life slash ghost story slash romance?

Thanks a bunch for the follow :-)

I'm such a cheap date.
          
          Today is my birthday and I wanted what I want every year.  Supper I didn't have to cook and which I can eat in my pajamas. 
          
          We got Applebee's takeout (there isn't a lot of choice in my town) which we do every couple months.  Mine was upgraded to onion rings on the side to make it special.

I wrote a dumb but hopefully cute and semi-scary short story for Halloween.   It's posted in its entirety on my page under the name Joslyn's Legacy.
          
          It's a quick read clocking in somewhere around 8k words.
          
          It's completely unedited. I didn't even read it over before posting so let the typo hunt begin!

Our house is very empty and quiet this afternoon. 
          
          Our Tiny Cat has been unwell recently and we knew we had to make an appointment for him early next week.  He took a turn for the worse this morning and C brought him to the emergency vet and came home alone.
          
          Our son, who is far too old to be crawling into anyone's lap, never mind that he's 6'5", crawled into mine for mom cuddles when we told him what was happening. 
          
          We're going to give ourselves a minute and then look for a dog. Our son needs some kind of therapeutic animal and I've been resistant to a dog since our last one died.  I love cats but dogs crawl straight into core of your heart and shatter it when they go.  But I don't have the excuse of how our little guy who had a mysterious but obviously traumatic life before he came to us would react to a dog.
          
          At least I can take comfort knowing Tiny Cat is now with our other animals and will be back to teach whoever comes how to best love and annoy us like they did for him.

C and I had a major anniversary yesterday.  I am in recovery from a major surgery with multiple complications (enough I have an assigned complex case manager from my insurance,  y'all) so nothing big was happening.   We took a mini road trip along the river.
          
          We stopped for lunch at an A&W that still had a drive in and full service restaurant,  got lost in Iowa because they can't mark their roads properly,  had supper in a seedy dive bar (I've had amazing food in some dive bars, this was not one of them) and stayed at a chain hotel that had a whirlpool tub next to the bed and such an uncomfortable mattress we took off for home at like 5 this morning. 
          
          It was an unadventurous adventure but I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend date with my spouse.

I've been thinking about it anyway but I just finished a pretty decent read that fits. I'm adding a reading list called hidden gems that will feature stories by authors who don't have many followers consisting of books that don't have much attention that I think are totally worth reading,  especially if your list is down to that one novel that says it's a 27 hour read and three things you aren't sure you actually want to read anymore.