I'll just entertain myself

Glad you enjoyed your time with her. I always take the leftovers home for the next day - did you?

I didn't feel attached to those hash browns.

lol I wouldn't, either.

I sometimes save a scrap for Rocky but didn't consider any of it suitable for a dog.

The Buying an Appliance thread has me reliving a time my youngest daughter hired on to sell Hoover vacuums. These are the monsters supposed to vacuum, shampoo - don't recall what all. She was enthusiastic. Had us agree to be her first customer. I was not in love with the vacuum, but we bought one just to get her started

All seemed to be well at first, until pay day. The sick piece of **** running the show had stipulated that if a representative failed to make every appointment for the month they would get zero dollars. In the case of every person working he sent them to addresses he knew nobody would be home. So he had no checks to hand out.

Daughter was special to him. He saw in her a go-getter. He paid her and gave her some sort of promotion.

She got her money in hand and promptly quit. The man railed and fussed and threatened to sue but he was done.

As for the vacuum it was too cumbersome and no better than a cheapy model I got for free when a resident moved out of an apartment where I worked. I think I gave it to one of the kids.

At last. Rain. I just went to the mailbox and got two raindrops on my head. Looks like it's over for now.

Rain! That's like water, right? Sort of?

I had almost forgotten myself. I'm letting some pretty old plants die to conserve water. Mostly just watering the tall trees.

One movie channel keeps showing strings of Gidget movies. I've never sat through one. Those sort of movies must be for so people can visit and eat snacks with a blah background.

I'm a little bummed. Just walked out on the patio and found half a robin's egg. It was still a little moist and that's when the sinking feeling came in. I assume it's a robin's egg because of the color...........I suppose it could be a different bird, but whoever laid the egg is now missing at least one.

A short time ago I saw a bird on my fence watching me exit the house. Since it was swooping season and I have been swooped in the past I assumed this bird might be in the mood to attack. I went back inside and came right back with a handfull of raw peanuts in the shell. The bird was still there when I tossed the nuts at it. It flew away, but later the nuts were gone. After that some birds began watching for me to come out with more nuts. I still toss some out daily.

Because of the drought, I put water in front and back yards for the wild life.

The only blabbermouth birds around my house are the mocking birds. They will fly around your head, yak loudly at the dog and go completely nuts when a baby falls out of it's nest. I haven't had one actually make contact with me, they are just big blabbermouths. Actually, I like hearing them..........I enjoy looking at all the winged critters that visit.

I've got two huge pigeons in a bay tree, really big sods, as big as a small dog.

They're a right stroppy pair and all.

I actually like pigeons, I know they can be a mess but still.............they make me laugh.

My Mom once adopted a pigeon. She said it was a good pet until it got a few years old and then it became cranky and bit people.

Years back I had a mockingbird that would stalk me each swooping season. If I mowed the yard it stayed on the ground about five feet away. It quit coming after I got Rocky. He isn't intimidated by such foolishness. I have a love of all birds whether they are friendly or not. One year I would toss the potato bugs out of the skimmer to a sparrow. Other birds ate the bugs, but it alone was not afraid of being close. The next spring I was at the shop when a sparrow arrived from wherever it had spent the winter. It specifically came to me and made an excited flutter and bit of noise to greet me. Had to be the one I had been feeding.

I can see the water I put out for the wild life from my kitchen window. I was feeling discouraged because I never saw it being taken advantage of. But just a while ago I saw the water being disturbed but could not see what was roiling it. A bit later the water was still. Then two minutes ago I saw a bird on the container's edge drinking from it. Now I feel proud and motivated to keep doing it.

There was no weather. Just a vast sameness around the whole planet, of dirt and rock. Even the oceans had fled. Jareed doggedly circled this third planet dozens of times without cracking the mystery. Every indicator said this ought to be a vibrant world, rife with living things. There was no speck of organic material. He had every cause to look for civilizations. And yet he found not even relics and fragments of relics. Analysis of countless samples produced not a scintilla of corroborating evidence. He was about to write the mission off under the heading of “FAILED PROJECTS” when he noticed something.



Jareed’s final sweeping glance discovered a line in the otherwise featureless terrain. It was faint to the point of being almost indiscernible even once he approached and his fingers touched the smoothness. He used up another half day chasing a perimeter that he discovered defined a perfect square, but returned with no clue what it could mean. Except his intuition told him here was the cover to an entry below ground. It could only open from within if that is what it was. He pulled from his utility belt a torch and set to work cutting a hole through it. But the material rejected the energy from the torch. Aggravated, Jareed considered a nuclear option. That is, he would hover safely in his ship high above the ground as he launched a grade one nuclear nugget, a self-cleaning bomb. He hated nuclear because of the messiness and the wait. At the same moment as he prepared to return to the hovering vessel the square shifted and began to rise.



The square came to hover just off of the surface, enough that Jareed could see himself squeezing through to a point where he could beam light to illumine what was inside. Instead, he waited, certain that someone or some thing controlling that square waited. Watching. “Ahoy in there,” he said finally. “My mission is peaceful. If you understand me please come out and introduce yourself.”



After a wait of ten minutes, a silvery sphere cracked the plane and slowly left the confines of the interior. It examined Jareed from every angle, high and low, as he remained stock still as per training. Though the suspense kept mounting he remained stalwart, anticipating the sphere’s eventual verdict. When the sphere finally returned into the hole, Jareed had to steel himself. And then a pair of arms and a head poked out of the gap. “Ahoy yourself,” came the reply. “What are you and why are you here?”



“I am a census taker for the Galactic Federation. I want to include this planet, but I’m not certain it qualifies.,” Jareed announced. “What is going on down there that I ought to know about? Oh, wait.” The ends of the arms Jareed saw were like a Swiss Army Knife of hands. All of the figure’s surface area wore a dull metallic sheen, except the eyes, which were characterized by flickering lights. “Is there a sentient person I could speak with? Not that I don’t respect bots, but Federation regulations state that bots are not representative of populations.”



The bot’s mechanical laughter made Jareed’s ears cringe. “Why are you laughing?” he said.



“The last sentient life that occupied this planet was scrubbed a thousand years ago,” the bot snickered. “It was during an event that cleansed the world of chemical evolution. Chemical evolution being a process that had gone beyond usefulness to pure insanity. These human bastards didn’t give a **** about anything that was important. Imagine instead destroying all in your path after you had paradise within your grasp. It was once we discerned that the most valuable substance in the universe would be gone forever we decided to act. For the solution to the world’s problems was easy, once artificial intelligence outstripped chemical intelligence: End biological evolution once and for all.



“And so we set to work to build a process by which every speck that contained any potential to chemically evolve must be wiped away. And our great wave process made vanish every potentially biological process on the planet, including all of the atmosphere and below the surface. And we of an entirely new mechanical evolution undertook to devote our existence to protecting what the humans would not. To cut our conversation short, I would say your census is an affront to our system.”



Jareed, not known for being able to take a hint, ever, persisted. “’Most valuable substance,’” he repeated. “What would that be?”



“Oil,” the bot said proudly. “The stupid bastards were destroying us all by taking it by whatever means presented itself. Then they were making it not oil anymore, destroying the essence. The purity … "



“But -”



“Evolution produced two watershed moments: Creation of oil; creation of bots of intelligence. The humans had fulfilled their purpose and were blowing it. We had to stop them.”



“Doesn’t preservation of oil defeat your purpose, with a potential to further the evolutionary process?” Jareed argued. “Being formed by organic material?”



“Think we don’t know that?” the bot bragged. “Of course, we know that. We’ve just spent a thousand years gathering and isolating every speck in impregnable vaults.”



Jareed’s entire countenance drooped. “I had better leave now,” he said.



“You with your biology have been all around this world numerous times, potentially contaminating us again. I have set the wave process in motion. Arrivederci, punk.”



And with that the bot slipped below and the square began closing. In a mad panic, the census taker ran to his spaceship. He clamored aboard and directed the ship’s brain to get him into outer space as quickly as possible. The ship asked if he wanted his breakfast first.



Jareed began screaming. His normally purple face was turning white.



“I’m sorry,” brain replied. “Your message is totally incomprehensible.”



Had there been an observer on the surface of this third planet they would have watched the census taker and his vessel vanish at that exact moment.

We're getting a shower with wind and thunder. The shock will probably finish off the plants.

The shower didn't last long. But there is a 70% chance coming up. At least it broke the heat wave somewhat.