Saturday, we went down to Home Depot, where Brian bought a new gas grill. He’s had a really hard time getting the coals on the little Weber going the past few times. And I’ve noticed an odd taste to the meat, whether it’s hamburger or filet mignon. Which really wasn’t the reason for the gas grill, that was because of the hassle of lighting the coals. I have to say, I was pretty surprised at this decision, because I always thought hubby was a barbeque purist.
Anyway, he got it put together (we had to move some of the cat condos and trees that are on the patio, if you visit the patiocam with any regularity, you’ll see the moved condos at the right of the picture; good deal, because this means more cats on camera), then we left to go to CostCo, where he could get some propane tanks (less than $20 each, empty of course), then we headed down to the Sears Outlet store in San Diego to look for a new frig for the shop. The one out there died years ago, its only purpose is to set crap on. Garden crap, suntanning crap and a big speaker. We don’t have much available storage in the house and the house frig is filled with cans of Miller Lite (CostCo sells it by the 36 pack and I don’t drink it all that fast; for some reason, Brian put every single can in the frig and Brian doesn’t drink beer, never even tasted it). I’ve kind of been pushing for a running refrigerator for the shop to put sodas, all this beer, bottles of water and other kinds of beverages in.
He’d checked online at Sears, we looked at Home Depot and at CostCo for a new refrigerator, but there wasn’t anything acceptable for a reasonable price. Off to the outlet store, the same place I got my humungous front loading washer and dryer a few years back (for an awesome price). We found a really nice model, it’s black (like the one inside) and it’s 20 cubic feet (bigger than the one inside). The freezer is on the bottom (“energy efficient” I tell Brian, he doesn’t know why, I say “heat rises”) and there is a ton of space on the top. So, this will be really nice for us. Its normal price was $889.00. We got it for $419.00 (cosmetic damage, which we sure couldn’t see) and by using our Sears card, we got an additional $21.00 off of the price. So, it was only $398.00, plus tax. A deal.
Of course, energy usage will be going up, but we know that we won’t always be on the grid. When we move up to Ranchita, we’ll make and store our own energy. Both solar and wind generated. There’s quite a bit of sun and I don’t think I’ve ever been up there when there wasn’t some sort of breeze. From the day we first saw the property, I’ve been calling our little dirt street “Windy Way”.
When we got home, he put the refrigerator back in the shop where it had to stand up for at least 24 hours before it was plugged in. Because he’d laid it down in the back of the Ranger for the ride home and the oil had run out of the motor. It needed that 24 hours to relubricate.
He went up to Ranchita yesterday, got home around 5:30, plugged the frig in, then started dinner on the grill. We had cheeseburgers. The first thing that happened was the smoke alarm in the house went off. Amazing. I had to shut the office door because the grill is right outside of it. But the burgers took less than five minutes to cook and it was really nice to not have to wait hours for dinner.
I told him he has a new job. He told me that I can cook dinner on the grill, like baking, you know? There’s a thermometer on the lid, so I guess I’ll check out the book that came with it and look at some of the recipes. It would be nice to not heat the house for dinner when it’s so very, very hot outside.
This weekend I also set up a fund, where all of the donations sent to the cathouse will go. I call it Benny’s Fund. I’ll use it to help out other cat owners in need. In all honesty, although I like people sending money to me, I never felt quite right about accepting it. So, I set up the fund for those that do appreciate what’s done here and if they want to donate, then I know it will go to good use. I mean, how many fuzzy, rattling mousies can one cat home need? I’ve got a drawer full of extra toys, since I buy them in bulk. We’re set for a while. I’d rather pay to get a feral queen spayed so that she doesn’t bring more unwanted cats into this world (it’s a hard life for many ferals). And there are many people who can’t afford it. I hope that we can help a few.
Welp, that’s it for now. I need to refresh my coffee.
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