In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Monday, September 7, 2026 11:50
VIEWED: 338648
PAGE 819 of 834

Going out in a bit. One heavy thing to do and then a couple of others. Wish I could stop over doing it on my hands but no such luck.

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Back and done for today.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Out in a bit. Have to find out what I can use to soak my partial because of everything having mint it. I can't have mint. Then a couple of other things to do.

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. I went online looking for a mint-free denture cleaner. Maybe they make something like that, but I sure didn't find any!

So I thought, well maybe soak in peroxide? But then I found it's not recommended bc the peroxide can damage some of the materials.


And since I don't have partials this is kind of out of my experience, but don't you have to rinse your partials before you put them in? And/ or scrub with a soft toothbrush? Doesn't that get rid of the taste? Or is it the smell? Maybe use a cover on whatever you soak them in so it doesn't keep effervescencing scent into the air?

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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I've found them to be shockingly low-maintenance.

Unfortunately for Brenda, that's mostly due to the store-brand denture cleaner that probably has the mint in it. My taste buds are so gone I didn't realize the onion rings I was eating at a restaurant last night were actually calamari. Good enough, whatever they were as delivery vehicles for the marinara sauce.

When I first got them I didn't have denture cleaner since I was told I didn't need to and that keeping them in clean water anytime you aren't using them and simply brushing them would keep them from being unsafe to continue using. I'd get my checkup and they'd always clean them during the visit, and they'd say they did the best with the stains that they could. But the funny thing was I realized at some point if I use that thing maybe twice in succession and just give it a pretty decent scrub with the denture brush, I'd get about 99% of it on my own and they'd go into the dentist's office without needing somebody to do any work on getting stains out. I still only use the cleaner every once in a while, but when you catch the staining early it's nothing but a quick 15 minute soak and a good brush and it comes out fine.

My denture brush is actually very hard bristles that you'd never brush your actual teeth in if you don't like bloody gums. But it appears that you've got to be extremely careful with what product comes in contact with them. You're not even supposed to clean them with a soft toothbrush that you use to brush your teeth. The small particles that are in the toothpaste and probably never fully leave your brush no matter how much you rinse it between brushing will scratch the hell out of your dentures. I'm not surprised to hear that about peroxide on them either. I'm sure over time whatever plastics they're made up of were standardized and designed to be cleaned by a very specific list of agents to the exclusion of any to all of the other possibilities and varies from manufacture to manufacturer's secret sauce. Outside of these chemicals or micro-abrasive substances, it's probably fairly hard to damage this plastic by other means. I've dropped mine on several occasions into my sink, and nothing broke. One time I was even working outside, had myself one hell of an allergy sneeze and blew them out onto the concrete... hard... and like Brenda with her pillow slip, nothing was hurt by my pride.

They don't make a cleaner that is without mint though???? That sounds insane to me. Even in 2026 I think I can still buy Piss Yellow Listerine that tastes like the floor cleaner that Listerine originally was before some genius decided people should put it in their mouth.

I'll have to check my tabs. I know there is a "taste" to them if I don't thoroughly rinse them before putting them in, but it just tasted "mediciney" to me, and I do my very best to avoid that. It just seems wild given differences in personal p

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Poisoned hot dogs, killer pillows and mystery men being served warrants down the hall for Brenda. Leaky A/C unit in 102 degree daymares in-between doctor's visits for Sigs.

Sounds like you both had your hands full while I was gone too.

Glad you got your t-shirt drawer sorted out, Brenda. I remember it was one of the last things we were talking about before we were so rudely interrupted.




How you feeling, Sigs? You sound good and you can put on one hell of a show if that wasn't the case. Sounds like Doggo is doing good now too, huh?

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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I do exactly what I knew I was going to do and took my first full day with power back off completely. Slept in late and so the day isn't even really technically halfway over for me, but I intend to do nothing of consequence. Maybe I'll work on getting myself set back up with the AI project, but I'm not going to start it back up other than verifying that we're all back online and ready to go when I get around to it.

I did remember one thing that I finished that I can show you pictures of. It was the bookcase and all the stuff I put in it. It really did turn out to be great tribute to some of the most important members of my family from both sides, both living and dead. I've even got something really cool from both of my full brothers on there too. The first is a beautiful and what had to have been fairly expensive replica of the CGI Pumbra Dagger from the movie The Shadow from the early 90's. I remember thinking that was the coolest freakin' thing I'd ever seen in a movie and raving about it after we watched it at the dollar theater with my dad, and years later he remembered that and bought me that as a present. And from my youngest brother I go to visit with my dad, I got the absolute coolest fidget spinner I'd ever seen. He had that thing for a few years and I always commented how much I liked it and one day he just said he wanted me to have it when I came out there. It's solid brass, very weighty, spins for days with a good push and has 6 real pennies fused to it on each side, and the finish is gorgeous.

The one thing I have located but don't remember where I put them was my grandfather's cufflinks. I won't even give initials here for obvious reasons, but let's just say that he had 3 of them that were quite humorous and literally wore that humor on his sleeves.



Other than that though, I've got beautiful pieces that belonged to each of my grandmothers and the coolest little statue of a blue collar worker with a hard hat lugging his tool box around with my other grandpa's name on it.


Though it's unfortunate there wasn't another shelf and there was no room to put my Uncle's American Flag from his military battle, or the beautifully framed picture my mom and step-dad made of him holding me when I was just a baby, he's got his own special place on my curio cabinet in the same room. If you knew my uncle, on his own but still in high regard is most likely the way he would have wanted it anyway.

I do have some of his favorite books on there though, a few of which were also mine after reading them, along with other cool books I'd picked up over the years, and a really special Sci-Fi picture book my dad bought me from the Planetarium when I was a kid called Barlowe's Guide to Extra Terrestrials. It was the coolest thing, with artwork renditions of a vast array of different alien races that had been in sci-fi literature all the way up to somewhere in the 80's when we'd bought it. I also had Grams' HUGE dictionary that was literally falling apart at the seems and I "fixed" with my trusty roll of aluminum tape. Now no matter how hard they try to gaslight me and change the meaning of English words, I'll always know what the real definitions to words are. I also saved my Uncles copy of Trump's "The Art of War" that was probably bought back when it came out up there just for shits and giggles. I don't know if I'm ever going to get around to actually reading that or not.

I always loved shells, and apparently one of my other uncles did too. I've got his awesome ash tray that looks like it was probably never used up there with all the rocks and shells he had on it, as well as the awesome HUGE shell that was always sitting on one piece of furniture or the other in Grams' living room or dining room since I was young enough to remember, and a painting he made of the Chicago cityscape at night behind it all.

I found the piggy bank I was given

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A lot to unpack here...

But first, no, not at all offended. Thankful you've given me solid ideas

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Heya SIX!
Glad you're OK!

SIX:
Hey Sigs. You too. I trust you're staying out of that heat as much as possible.

SIGNY:
12 days without power? That's ridiculous! But thank goodness for the genny! We keep toying with the idea of battery backup but a generator is probably a much cheaper and better bet.

SIX:
Yeah... Insane, really. But the crazy part about it was after 3 or 4 days it just became my new normal. That first night I was setting my alarm every 2 hours to check on the generator, and I know I didn't get to sleep until at least 4AM the first couple of nights. By around night 9 I was falling asleep watching movies well before midnight. Part of that was I was pretty sure by then anyone who needed a generator either bought one or stole one and I was in the clear. NWI is probably now the most prepared portion of the country for the next storm in the history of the nation. Not just because of this event, but the one that knocked out 1/3rd of the same customers for 3 to 5 days just 6 or so weeks ago. If they didn't learn their lesson the first time, they sure better have the second time or they get what they deserve the third time.

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OMG no kidding!

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SIX:
Get yourself a generator first. It's a no-brainier. But don't forget you need a few extension cords that are up to the task too. I probably went super overboard when I bought a 100ft cord that came out to more than a buck a foot after taxes for my sump well, but I'll never lose sleep worrying that it's going to melt on me. Until day 2 of the last power outage I would never have even dared to try to hook up the fridge on a plain orange 100ft extension cord, but I had to save the insulin and found it it wasn't a problem.

This time I was able to rotate that orange plug and do quite a few things with it. First and foremost, making coffee is no longer an issue whether my power is up or not.

I had it powering my laptop and charging my phones and my Ryobi batteries on my 6-battery charger every 2 or 3 nights just to keep everything topped off. No more sitting in my car reading a book for a few hours while the phone and my diabetes monitor charged up. No more worrying about what I was going to do when my 12 batteries for my flashlights inevitably ran out of juice long before the power came back up.

I had my Dad take all my insulin in an iced up cooler back to his place for me and just kept my existing bottle and the one I'd be opening soon, and I didn't have all that much food so I just threw out the stuff I couldn't cook, ate what I could eat and had that thing shut off after day 2. I'm sure I could have run the fridge and sump and still do everything else I was doing without overloading the generator, but with only 2 A/C outlets on the thing, it would have meant taking the fridge off of the plug for hours at a time, and I probalby wouldn't have watched any movies and would have had the plug split in the kitchen charging everything up overnight while feeding the fridge if I didn't give the insulin to Dad.

They're not cheap, but if you get yourself a nice one and follow the maintenance instructions, you will get years of use and piece of mind out of it. JUST MAKE SURE YOU ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH GAS ON HAND FOR A FEW DAYS!!!! Ask me how I know.

Mine isn't huge or an especially large energy export at only 3 gallon capacity and 2900 watts, but it was a DeWalt that was built 24 years ago and still kicks ass to this day. I've gone several years without ever firing it up, and it always starts in a few pulls if not the first pull.

And once I install that house generator R/V style plug with the interlock kit on the box to make sure I never feed the grid on accident by forgetting to turn off the main before plugging in the generator, I'll be able to feed anything I want i

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