Our RV Adventures

Well, Mister continues to improve every day. He’s less restless and his hunger is more controlled. The vet said to bring him back in 10 days, which will be next Thursday so I guess we’ll know more then.

I do want to thank everyone who left comments about their experiences with their cat’s similar problems, especially those who’re using the cheaper human insulin on their cats. I’m definitely going to check this out.

When I came out at 11 this morning with our coffee, I found Christmas had come early this year. There were 3 big Amazon boxes waiting for me. I’d given up trying to find a local place to send my orders to, so I ask our landowner’s son and he said he’d be glad to. I offered to pick them up from him, but he said he came out here almost every day, so it was no problem.

First off, I got a bunch of repair parts, the new thermostat for our water heater,

the new LED bulb for our shower,

the new connector for our sewer,

and a new ball and shaft for our toilet.

I’ve already installed the LED light and the sewer connector, and I’ll do the thermostat tomorrow morning, but unfortunately the toilet repair will probably have to wait.

A couple of weeks ago the foot flush lever on our Sealand toilet went limp and stopped flushing. At first I thought it was the spring cartridge had broken so I got a new one (for $30!) and quickly found that it wasn’t the problem.

I finally figured what the problem was after looking at replacement parts online. I noticed that the online parts had a square brass shaft, but my shaft was plastic. It looks like that over time, the sharp corners on the square shaft had rounded off until it was just turning inside the spring cartridge and not moving the ball. So for the last few weeks we’ve been flushing the toilet with a pair of Vice Grip pliers on the plastic shaft.

But right now I’m not sure I will be able to change things out while we’re on the gate. The toilet will need to come completely apart, since I want to also clean the entire thing, and the replace the seals as well as the ball and shaft assembly. Which is all going to take several hours or more, and that’s hard to find while we’re on the gate.

So we’ll see how long the pliers work. Hopefully until we’re off the gate.

I also ordered one of these.

It’s a Mighty Mule Driveway Alarm. We had another brand for a couple of years, but it was kind of finicky, and finally died. We didn’t use one last year due to where we were located on a road with private homes, but this year it would be nice.

A number of other gate guards have recommended this one, so I thought I’d give it a try. It also didn’t hurt, that at $60, it’s half the price of the other one.

I quickly got it set up and took it down the road and place it where the trucks first come into view around the curve. It’s at least 400 feet, and it works great. I’ll probably order a second one to monitor the trucks leaving the pad and coming our way.

But the best thing in the boxes, and my new favorite toy ever, is an Amazon Echo. 

But more about it tomorrow.

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Thought for the Day:

This is called Irony.

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First off, Jan and I want to wish our wonderful daughter Brandi a very Happy Birthday.

Sorry we couldn’t be there, sweetie, but we’ll see you soon.

Mister still seems to be doing fine with his insulin shots. He never meows or even jerks. He just looks at me with that, “Can I have my treat now?” look. He also seems to be eating and drinking less. So far, so good.

The procedure is pretty easy and only takes a couple of minutes. I just get the insulin out of the fridge and roll it between my fingers (don’t shake it). The I pulled a new syringe out of the container, pop off the end caps and drop them in the disposal top. Next I insert the needle into the bottle of insulin and first pull out 5 units. Then I push back in until I only have 2 units left in the syringe.

At this point I’ve already got Mister up on the counter, watching me as I do all of this. Then I just pinch off a fold of skin on a thigh or shoulder, and pop him. Easy Peezy.

Apparently for both him and me.

I had to go into Carthage this morning to drop some packages off at the Post Office, and on the way back I stopped off to pick up lunch. No, not Whataburger this time.

Jan said she was wanting chicken so I decided to check out Chicken Express. They’re always busy when I drive by, and they’ve got 4.5 stars on Yelp, so it looked like a good bet. And it was.

I’ve seen them around, and according to their website, they’ve got over 200 locations, but this was our first time to try one. Unfortunately, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished. But it wasn’t Chicken Express’ fault, it was mine. Sometimes I’m just too polite for my own good.

As I started to enter the store, I could see in the glass door reflection, a lady about 30 or 40 feet behind me following me in. Now she was far enough back that I could have been at the counter before she got to the door. But Nooo, I had wait the extra time to hold the door open for her, and then follow her in and get in line behind her.

Whereupon she proceeded to order 250 chicken tenders to go. I was going to be here for a while.

But, as they say, it was worth the wait.

Jan got the chicken tenders, FINALLY, along with Mac N Cheese and a biscuit. I decided to check out their catfish fillets and hushpuppies, along with corn on the cob and fried okra.

Jan said hers was delicious, and some of the best Mac N Cheese she’s had. For my part, the fish was great, with crunchy crust, and the fried okra was some of the best I’ve had. So we were both happy.

We did get some rain around 8pm. Not long, only about 20 minutes, and with no wind to blow it under the canopy.

Pretty much the perfect amount to settle the dust for a couple of days.

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Thought for the Day:

Waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay sounds super rad if you don’t know what either of those things are.

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