Diet Pepsi

I was reading today about how pop can upset my stomach and thought I should stop drinking so much diet Pepsi. So today instead to drinking my diet Pepsi, I spilled two cans on the carpet of my study.

Banging

 I was on the back porch and Barb was taking a shower. I came in and was emptying out the walnuts container by banging it on the garbage can. Barb thought there was someone at the door and came running out with only a towel wrapped around her.

Ottawa

 I got an email today saying my Ottawa Public Library card had been renewed for another year. That is great because I use it all the time to get ebooks and audiobooks.

Christmas Letters

 I was putting together an ebook of all my Christmas letters and I was missing some in my computer files. So I decided to check my old sent emails from my old Yahoo account. I guess it keeps everything forever. I found a letter for the 1990's that was handwritten that I sent out as a pdf document.

Nails

 Barb says she loves the way her finger nails feel when she clips them with the toe nail clippers.

The Curse of Knowledge

 I read a book on non-fiction writing called a Sense of Style by Stephen Pinker. He was describing the curse of knowledge where the author knows so much about what they are talking about they don't realize that the readers don't understand it all. He suggested you should always get someone unfamiliar with the subject to read your writing before you try to publish it. When I told Sarah about that, she took offense because she said she thought I was getting her to read my reports because she was so smart.

Wedding Anniversary

 I posted an anniversary photo on Facebook but no one commented on it. Even Barb and Sarah who only reacted and didn't comment. Barb posted a photo and got 300 comments. She even got a message from Brad Whiteduck my old fastball buddy.

Party Mix

 Barb buys big bags of Party Mix at Costco. She was going to have a bowl of Party Mix and I said Why bother it is just sunchips. Barb started laughing and I didn't know why. It was because after she had picked out all the cheesies, she picked out all the doritos and now it was just sunchips. She leaves me only the pretzels.

Lucky Day

 Barb was filling her pill container with her vitamins and was very excited that she poured out exactly the right number of pills 3 times in a row.

Spots

 When I was getting dressed this morning, I noticed all these white spots on the mirror and on the dresser and Barb's jewelry box. When I showed Barb she realized she must have shook her deodorant container to get the last bit out and didn't have her glasses on.

Peanuts

 Barb buys me salted peanuts for a snack in my study while I am working. I dropped a peanut today while I was eating them and I couldn't find it on the floor. Then when I walked into the kitchen there was something in my slipper.

Moving Target

 I made a New Year's Resolution to get my blood sugar under 7 which is the limit for diabetes. I got a blood test back today and it was 6.9. I was so happy but then I read the notes and they had changed the limit to 6.5.

Notes to Myself

I make little notes on pieces of paper of things to do and then I never look at the pieces of paper. So I wrote a note on a pile of paper to read the notes.

Pill Box

 Barb bought me a new pill container with big labels on it for the days of the week. I could definitely read it now. But I still put my AM pills in the PM cells and vice versa.

I Thought So

 I was moving my iPad while I was talking to Barb and I said "Yeah" and Siri said "I thought so". Barb asked if she only talks if you touch it and I said that is what a good robot wife does.

Economics

 Barb and I were having a deep discussion about economics over breakfast. I cut my bagel and put the kettle on to make my instant coffee. After the coffee was ready, I realized I hadn't put the bagel in the toaster yet. I was really into the discussion.

Sunflower

 I found a sunflower seed on my chair in the living room the day after I ate salad for dinner in my pajamas.

Answer

 

Today I was talking to my Nigerian friend with my phone in my pocket and I asked him "How are you?" and my phone answered me.

Moistly

 

We all got a great kick out of the music video of Trudeau Talking Moistly. Today I was sitting in my chair in the sun room at just the right angle for Barb to see me yawn moistly.

Laura's Birthday Party

 

Barb went to Laura's birthday party on Zoom and it was the first time we had used Zoom. So she couldn't get the sound at first. She was screaming at me to come and fix it for her. What she didn't know was that everyone on the Zoom gathering could hear her yelling even though she couldn't hear them. The instructor was trying to give instructions to the group but Barb's yelling kept drowning her out. It was like a classic scene from the movie Mother and after the meeting the Zoom instructor told Laura it was okay because it was just like when her mother tries to use Zoom.

Episode 3

 

Barb was trying to watch episode 4 of Better Call Saul's current season but she couldn't see that the episodes were listed in the wrong order on Kodi and kept getting episode 3 over and over again.

First Date

 

Barb was messaging her friend Ellen who was telling her about having a special dinner to celebrate their first date and Barb was amazed when I remembered that our first date was on June 16th, 1980. Of course, she couldn't remember when our first date was. So she had no way to verify it.

Audio Book

 

Tonight I was listening to my audio book in bed before I fell asleep. When I turned off my book and put the phone away, I accidently started my radio station. It used 60% of the battery playing all night. I found out my radio station was on all night when I woke up in the morning and unplugged my headphones and the radio was playing.

Recharge

 

The battery pack only works for one recharge of my phone. So when I got home from my walk, I searched around in my electronics box for the cable to recharge the battery pack. Of course, like all cables, it is different from all the others. Anyway while I was searching for the cable to recharge the battery pack, I found the telephone cable that I thought I had left in Florida.

Charger

 

I listen to audio books on my phone when I got for my afternoon walk. However, often my phone battery is dead and Barb gets so mad at me because I don't just charge it every night like her. So today I was complaining about my phone being dead and Barb reminded me of the battery pack that Laura had given me for my birthday last year. So I got it out and tried it. At first, it just drained the phone even more. Then it started charging the phone and I could go for my walk a happy man.

Socks

 

Barb didn't believe me when I told her that she had mixed up my socks after washing them and putting them in by sock drawer. I had to get them out of the sock drawer and show her that they didn't match.

Milk Bag

 

Barb buys me these really good potato chips from Costco that come in super sized bags. I usually have a bowl of chips and a glass of water after Barb goes to bed and I am finished washing the dishes. Tonight I ripped open a new bag and accidently ripped the bag all the way down the side. There were chips all over the counter. We save milk bags for garbage because you don't get plastic bags from stores anymore. So I picked up all the chips and then tried to fix the chip bag problem by putting the chip bag inside a milk bag. In the morning, Barb found chips under the toaster and thought I was crazy to have put the bag of chips in a milk bag.

Humidity

 

Barb set my humidity on my CPAP higher because I was having a dry mouth during the night. Then the next day she got a message on her phone from the CPAP sales office about the high humidity setting because they monitor my CPAP over wifi.

Dinner

 

We usually have a late dinner and I have to rush from the dinner table to my office to video chat with my friend Stan on Tuesday nights at 8:30. Barb likes to make these packaged salads to eat with dinner. Tonight after my video chat with Stan, Barb came into my study to talk to me but before she could say anything she told me that I had lettuce stuck in my front teeth.

Wash

 

Barb started watching this television show called Ozark. She told me that lead character in the show was a good guy but he had to wash money for a drug dealer. I told her it was launder.

Sleep

 Barb is very competitive with her Fitbit. She no longer competes with Laura in steps because Laura gets so many steps for work that it is unfair. So she competes with Haliegh and she sometimes wins, if she plays enough pickleball. But now with COVID the only thing she can compete in is sleep with me. Barb's sleep is terrible but today she was so happy she got a score of 83 last night and I got only 81

Sledge

 

Sarah told us today that she didn't graduate with a degree in environmental engineering to be out in the field making fences with a sledge.

Bingo

 

There wasn't much to do when we got back to Canada because all the recreation was closed because of COVID. So Barb and I would take afternoon walks. One day we met one of Barb's friends from darts driving by and he stopped to welcome us back. Barb started talking about COVID with him and he said that he stopped watching the numbers on the television because it was just like Bingo.

Buffoon

 

Barb hates Trump more than anything. She calls him a buffoon. One day she was talking about how he looks just like a buffoon, a big monkey. I said, "That's a baboon".

Cable

 

We found out our insurance was going to uphold our agreement even during COVID. So we were planning to stay in Florida as long as we had health insurance. But things started to get creepy and one night Barb, all of a sudden, decided we would just pack up and go back to Canada. So that night we packed everything and summer-ized the house. Then the next morning, we left at 3 am.

When we got home, it was my job to set up the landline phone. I found that I forgot the cable to connect the wifi to the phone. I was so upset because my only job was to pack the electronics. Barb packed everything else. We searched the house looking for another cable. Eventually, I found one attached to an old fax machine that I had inherited from an old consultant friend in the 1990s. So I was able to set up the phone and everything was cool.

COVID

 The COVID-19 pandemic was just starting to be a problem and we were in Florida. Barb wanted to write an email to her friends the next day to ask them what she should do about it. She woke up in the middle of the night and in the dark, she jotted her thoughts on a little piece of paper on her night table. Then in the morning, she couldn't read her writing.

Green

 

The big tree in the front yard goes to seed every Spring and sheds all of this green pollen that falls and covers our cars. We hate it because we don't like to have to get a carwash all the time. So often Barb and I drive to our sports with our cars covered in green pollen. Barb's friend Annie at pickleball told Barb today "your car is covered with green". As if Barb was blind or something.

GMT

 

So we are not confused about our meeting time, my Nigeria fellow and I meet at 1700 Greenwich Mean Time. However, today I found out the GMT does not change for Daylight Savings Time and I was up one hour too early for our mentoring meeting.

Tap

 Barb somehow discovered that she had never turned on the cold water tap for the washing machine and it only was using hot water. That was why she always had to take cold showers when she was doing laundry.

Dresses

 

Barb takes pride in wearing matching tops and skirts to pickleball. She even tries to match her shoes and her watch band. There was a guy sitting on the bench beside the court who mentioned how well Barb dressed to another man. The other man asked how was her third shot coming. The third shot is the most important shot in pickleball and the one Barb always had trouble and has been working so hard to perfect. The man replied, "Like I said, she dresses well."

Looking at the Flowers

 

I was walking down the path in front of the house holding my computer after working on the side yard patio for the afternoon. I was looking at the flowers in our garden and stepped on the brick sticking up on the path that I had tripped on a couple of weeks ago. Because I stepped on the brick, I didn't fall this time but I could have.

Everglades

 

They are building a whole new section of The Villages in the south of town. They are building a softball complex. It would be about an hour drive for me to get there. The league executive were doing a survey to see whether the current players were willing to play there part of next season. I was going to say that I would play there if I had to but Barb told me to lie and tell them I wouldn't play there because it was too far to drive. She was hoping that if enough players said they wouldn't play there, the executive might not move the league that far away.

Nigeria

 

I am mentoring a young man in Nigeria in System Dynamics once a week. We video chat at noon on Wednesdays which is 6 pm Nigerian time. We often chat for two or three hours. So by the time we are finished it is night in Nigeria. The power is not very reliable in Nigeria. So often I end up chatting with him while he is in his room in the dark working off the battery of his computer and the hotspot from his phone.

Lowquats

 

I was worried about all the lowquats on our side yard tree ripening and going to waste.  There were only so many lowquats I could eat without making myself sick. Then today when I was sitting out on the patio on the side yard, I saw lots of birds eating the lowquats right off the tree and was no longer worried.

My Shirt

 

At Rachel and Shannon's party, the first thing I did was spill dip on my shirt. Then a few days later after Cindy's memorial service, I spilled coffee on my shirt. Fortunately, it was a different shirt.

The Rebel

 

The line up at the car wash at the gas station at Costco was too long. So Barb tried to wash her car with the windshield washing water and brush. The man monitoring the gas station came up her and told her she couldn't do that.

Runners

Barb was learning how to make emojis of herself for Facebook messenger. She couldn't choose the shoes for her emoji without losing all her clothes. So her emoji looked like her in her runners and her underwear.

 

Go Canada

 

We often go over to parties at Rachel and Shannon's house. They are professional musicians and have sing-a-longs at their parties. Tonight they sang Joni Mitchell's Big Yellow Taxi and I wanted to yell "Go Canada" after they were finished but I was too shy.

You Say Composite

 

I went to Softball 'R Us to buy a new bat for the restricted bat league. I told the lady it couldn't be com-POS-ite. And she said you mean it can't be compos-IT. I never knew all this time I was saying composite wrong.

Impressive

 

In the living room, Barb was trying to explain an amazing pickleball move she made today. She stood up in from of her arm chair and jumped and swung her imaginary paddle and mashed the table lamp which went flying. The move seemed quite impressive to me.

Shirley and Joe

 

Barb has had trouble with the CRV battery since she got an oil change. She got it checked it out and they said it was okay. Then today the car died at pickleball. Her friend Shirley who she was playing with said she would go home, get her husband and come back to help. While she was gone, Barb asked an old man if he had jumper cables. He said he did and then he opened up his car and had all kinds of tools in it. He was able to start Barb's car. And just as Barb was about to leave Shirley and Joe returned. Barb thought how nice were Shirley and Joe.

iTunes

I am getting impatient with dj's talking too much and the commercials on the radio. So I have been listening to iTunes on my computer and enjoying my own music. I am surprised at how much of it I have never heard before. I collect a lot of CDs and I download 10 songs a week from the library but I never get around to listening to them. So this is quite a treat.

Coffee

I set up the coffee pot with a filter and coffee grinds. I filled that pot with water but left the pot in the sink. Then after a while I noticed the coffee maker wasn't making any noise and realized that I had forgotten to put the water in the coffee maker. I had to wait for the coffee maker to cool down before I could restart it.

Lob

Barb's partner at pickleball today was going back to get a lob. So Barb bent over so as to get out of the way of her partner's shot and her partner hit the ball right at her butt.

Quilt

Barb posted two pictures of her new quilt on her facebook page. Our bedroom looked like some kind of show house. She got 300 comments about how beautiful everyone of her friends thought it was.

Dayta

Barb was talking to her friends at pickleball about why we don't have cellphones in the US because we don't want to pay of dayta.  Her friends said what is dayta. Barb said you know dayta like you're able to use the internet on your phone. Her friends said oh you mean data.

Game Winner

My Buccaneers softball team is either very bad or very unlucky. We have only one two games out of the 12 we have played. We are tied for last place in a league of 24 teams. We have lost a lot of games in the last inning but today we had a chance to win the game in the last inning. The bottom of our batting order is pretty terrible and I start the decline batting in the number 8 spot out of 12 players. I came up to bat with the score tied and a runner on second base and hit a single between the third baseman and shortstop to win the game. We were all very happy.

The Curse of Knowledge

Barb's friend Loretta asked for my advice about her pension plan. I did an analysis and made some beautiful graphs to explain the break even points for when to take out her pension. I showed my write up with the graphs to Barb before I sent it to Loretta and Barb couldn't figure out the graphs at all. So I decided to write the analysis up in tables instead of graphs. I had been listening to a book on nonfiction writing and it talked about the curse of knowledge where the author knows what he is talking about and thinks his reader will understand it as well but usually doesn't. The suggestion was to get someone to read your work before you sent it out. This was a perfect example of how it worked.

Front Door

Barb decided we should go out for dinner and use a coupon that her friend had given her for a two for one meal at the Sweet Tomatoes Buffet Restaurant. As soon as she mentioned it, I got up and put on my shoes and went outside. I was going to pick up some oranges that had fallen off our tree but Barb thought I was in a hurry to go out to dinner. I always go around the front of the house to get to the orange tree while Barb always goes around the back of the house to get to the orange tree. As I was walking I saw a package on the steps of the front door. Usually all of our packages come to our side door. So I picked up the package and noticed it was slightly ripped open. I was looking into the package to see what it was and all of a sudden I was face down on the ground on the pavement of our front walk. I had smacked my head on the pavement and bent my glasses. At first, I didn't know where I was. Then I got up and felt the blood on my head and went inside to check the cut on my forehead. I was just a scratch and so it didn't stop us from going out for dinner but I will go around the back of the house to get to the orange tree in the future.

Rebel

Our community has one of the few outdoor hot tubs and Barb likes to go there after a hard day of pickleball. Today she went and found the pool and hot tub were closed for maintenance. There was a man in the hot tub. So Barb asked him how he got in the locked gate. The man said the entrance through the dressing rooms was open. So Barb went through there and into the pool and hot tub area. She was in the pool cooling of after getting out of the hot tub when a Community Security Officer came by and told her she had to leave.

Brunch

I get together with my sister for brunch once a month. She drives her RV and I drive my SUV. I usually park in the restaurant parking lot right beside her. Today she arrived before me. I didn't realize that her RV is a lot bigger than my SUV and it has a lot of over hang over the curb. So when I tried to line up my SUV with her RV in the parking spot I crashed into the curb.

Finals

Barb wanted to watch the Men's Finals of the Australian Open but it had already started. She didn't put her glasses on and turned on the computer and asked me to tell her if it had just started but not what set it was in. I didn't hear the final details of the instructions because I had my earphones in and I said she was lucky it was in the fourth set. Barb was furious because she said I had ruined the surprise for her.

Etim

I volunteered to mentor a young person who was trying to build a System Dynamics model for the first time. I was assigned a young man from Nigeria and we had to arrange a time to video chat. I found out that time difference was 6 hours. So we meet at noon my time and 6 pm his time.

Doppler Chick

Barb used to call herself the Doppler Chick when we lived in Ottawa because she would always check the radar for me to tell me if it was going to rain when I went to my ball games in the evenings. The radar was very reliable in Ottawa but the radar is not very reliable in Florida. So she finds it is wrong more often than it is right about the timing of the rain. That doesn't stop her from checking the radar every time she thinks it might rain.

United States

We were at a house party playing games and I had to laugh at Barb's friend Gayle from Minnesota who thought there were 51 States in the US. And Barb said yeah even I know there are 52. I had to correct them both and tell them there were 50 States.

Walmart

Man at the Walmart check out was checking out Barb while she was checking herself out at the self checkout. Then he said Barb had good hair.

Roger

My sister showed me how to get live television on the internet. Barb was very excited because she was able to watch the Australian Open tennis tournament. But the time zones in Australia are a lot different than the time in Florida. Tonight Barb was up until 4 am watching Roger Federer come back to win in 5 sets.

Recreation Center

Barb went to a meeting of the pickleball club at what she thought was Laurel Manor Recreation Center. She had a terrible time trying to find a parking spot because the lot was so full. She finally found a spot and went in to find she was at Savanagh Recreation Center and not Laurel Manor Recreation Center. So then she had to find the actual recreation center and find a parking spot and got to the pickleball club meeting just as the meeting was starting. Fortunately, some of her friends were saving her a seat.

Google

My phone had a very dim screen. I could hardly read it. I had to look up on Google to find out how to lighten up the screen but had a hard time reading and following the instructions because I couldn't read the dim screen in the first place.

Pillow Case

Barb got a ride to a pickleball tournament with Dave and Helen. Helen is Barb's womens partner and Dave is her husband. When Dave was taking stuff out of the trunk of the car a pillow case fell out on the ground and a gun fell out of the pillow case. Barb had never seen a gun in real life.

Long John Silver's

I was having dinner at Long John Silver's seafood restaurant in Orlando. A father and daughter came in and were standing in line. The father asked the daughter what she wanted. The little girl who was about 8 or 9 was playing with her Playstation. I guess she didn't reply quick enough. So the father grabbed the Playstation out of her hands and hit her over the head with it. She told him what she wanted and then he gave her back the Playstation and she started playing with it again.

ETA

Barb was looking at the radar to see when rain was coming. Her mixed partner said he had an ETA of 10 minutes. Barb thought he meant the rain was coming in 10 minutes but he meant he would arrive in 10 minutes.

Buzzing

Laura and Sarah were messaging each other on the Famjam Facebook messenger group about the snow in Vancouver. Barb's wrist was burning from all the messages. I was happy my watch wasn't working.

Everything is a Math Quiz

Barb's Stephen King book ended with a discussion of the Bernoulli Probability Formula. She asked me if I knew the Bernoulli Probability Formula and I went into a long explanation about the Bernoulli brothers the great mathematicians from the 17th Century.

Spin Move

The other day I was playing first base and the shortstop threw the ball to me a little wide. So I had to come off the base to catch the ball. Then I was able to catch it and spin around to tag the runner before he got to the base to get him out. The coach wrote an email to the team to tell us about the next game and mentioned the good things about the last game and he said that Ivan made a sweet spin move at first base.