{"id":96904,"date":"2026-06-07T06:36:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T13:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/?p=96904"},"modified":"2026-06-08T07:43:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T14:43:55","slug":"sunday-with-no-sun-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/?p=96904","title":{"rendered":"Sunday With No Sun, Yet!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s us again!\u00a0 Getting ready to take on the world!<\/p><\/div>\n

At 6:00 am today, I was successful.\u00a0 I slipped out of bed without being detected!\u00a0 Of course, the two pounds of Crisco, a bottle of vegetable oil, and a can of WD-40 were quite helpful, even though they left quite a mess.\u00a0 My jammies may never be the same!<\/p>\n

Today, according to our calendars, is blissfully wide open\u2014our only scheduled event is a trip to Joe’s to celebrate Alex’s 17th birthday.\u00a0 Seventeen!\u00a0 Oh my stars, I asked Mary to fetch me a fainting couch and some smelling salts.\u00a0 I am feeling faint!<\/p>\n

I had grand plans to make Jell-O and use up the remaining Polish sour cherries, because nothing says “celebration” quite like a wobbling dessert with international fruit.\u00a0 But then we opened the refrigerator.<\/p>\n

Big mistake.<\/p>\n

It was like Fibber McGee’s closet in there\u2014containers, leftovers, and unidentified foodstuffs came tumbling out like they’d been waiting all week to escape.\u00a0 So the Jell-O plan was immediately canceled in favor of the more urgent activity: surviving the fridge avalanche.<\/p>\n

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Run for your life!\u00a0 We found Mary’s science project!<\/p><\/div>\n

Mary had planned to have Dianne come over and had some secret plan to entertain her, but she would not tell me what it was!\u00a0 I was getting skeptical when she handed me my morning meds and opened a new Amazon arrival label, “Quoits”!<\/p>\n

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Oh Dear!!!!\u00a0 This is more embarrassing than “Pin The Tail On The Donkey!”<\/p><\/div>\n

What is a QUOIT,<\/strong> you ask?\u00a0 A quoit (pronounced kwoit) is an ancient outdoor target game similar to horseshoes.\u00a0 It involves players tossing heavy rings\u2014traditionally made of iron, steel, or heavy rubber\u2014across a set distance to land over or as close as possible to a central spike (called a hob or pin).<\/div>\n

I worked in the yard taking care of Mary’s roses, which needed some attention, and Mary was not up to the task today!\u00a0 After some serious TLC, including an exorcism, de-thorning, weeding, fertilizing, and selective use of a fungicide, they looked top-notch again!<\/p>\n

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The roses are ready to continue blooming the rest of the summer!<\/p><\/div>\n

While Mary was in the shower and putting on her face, I “AI-ed” two old photos, and they turned out amazingly well (I thought).<\/p>\n

Here I am with the old “boat anchors*”: a National NC-303, which I converted to solid-state; a Gonset GSB-100, which drove my 10 kW homebrew amplifier, featuring 2 each of Eimac 4-1000As running 8,000 vdc on the plates at 1.2 amperes; and my Collins 75A4 receiver.<\/p>\n

* In Ham Radio jargon, after transistors were invented and radios got significantly smaller, older vacuum-tube radios, which were very heavy, were referred to as “boat anchors”.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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WA6CJC at your service in 1975<\/p><\/div>\n

This photo was one of the last taken of my dear father, taken at my aunt’s home in Downey in early 1970, just before he passed around Thanksgiving of that year.<\/p>\n

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Paul William in 1969, just before his passing.<\/p><\/div>\n

We got ready for today’s outing, a trip to Joe’s to celebrate Alex’s 17th birthday (which is Tuesday!\u00a0 This will be slightly different, since it will be the first time his brother has been away from home.<\/p>\n

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From left to right, our son Joe and grandson Alex!\u00a0 Two pods in a pee!!<\/p><\/div>\n

We departed for Joe’s at 4:15 pm and arrived within 10 minutes of the specified time after three attempts to leave with everything!\u00a0 The family all gathered together, Joe and Alex assumed the TV position!<\/p>\n

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Looks normal!<\/p><\/div>\n

Then it happened: the sneaky old Sandman sprinkled his magic dust over Joe, and immediately he was off to Never Never Land!<\/p>\n

One look at him and my mind went to Disney, wondering why he never produced a feature film entitled “Sleeping Ugly”?\u00a0 It could feature Apollo as the handsome prince, me as the wicked witch (it fits), and Joe’s crew of dwarfs.<\/p>\n

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YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z<\/p><\/div>\n

After placing dynamite under Joe to wake him up, we began to devour pizza!\u00a0 Joe mumbled something like, “In crust we trust,” and then threw himself into a pizza-eating frenzy!<\/p>\n

Alex started opening cards and presents with the calm confidence of a seasoned professional.\u00a0 Clearly, this was not his first rodeo\u2014he handled those envelopes like a man with 17 years of gift-unwrapping experience and a highly refined sense of where the cash might be hidden.<\/p>\n

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Alex is well-versed in opening GIFs.\u00a0 He cut through the ribbons, scotch tape, and masking tape in a matter of seconds!<\/p><\/div>\n

In costume, Alex resembles Harry Potter!<\/p>\n

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Our own movie star!<\/p><\/div>\n

Then cake time came.\u00a0 Of course, Apollo immediately volunteered as tribute to taste the first piece, purely for “quality control” and absolutely not because he is a Labrador-shaped dessert vacuum.<\/p>\n

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“Whoa!!! This can’t be right, Alex is not 71!”<\/p><\/div>\n

Unfortunately, the official house rules clearly state: “Labradors are NOT allowed to eat ice cream and\/or cake!”<\/p>\n

Apollo has since filed a formal complaint with management and is seeking legal representation.<\/p>\n

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Chocolate and chocolate, what can be better than that??<\/p><\/div>\n

Just before dark, we headed home to get Dr. Mary horizontal again, as she was getting tired from her cold.\u00a0 Ah, that sound of the TV and her favorite drink!\u00a0 Plop Plot Fizz Fizz, Oh What a Relief It Is!<\/p>\n

We watched several episodes of various series and declared victory at 11:30 pm.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow we are going to make tomato pie and Jello, and I will be making steak and eggs for mid-morning breakfast before we head to the pulmonologist for my checkup!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 6:00 am today, I was successful.\u00a0 I slipped out of bed without being detected!\u00a0 Of course, the two pounds of Crisco, a bottle of vegetable oil, and a can of WD-40 were quite helpful, even though they left quite … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,17,4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-friends","category-fun","category-gardening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96904"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96942,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96904\/revisions\/96942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lilesnet.com\/dailydiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}