It was a sunny but cool day on Friday. Honey agreed to go look at the water birds with me after tacos, but he didn't want to walk the mile there. Sigh. So we drove home, picked up the binoculars and drove to where the park path started. We saw this muskrat nibbling on something in the wetland. A little further down the trail was the pond where I thought I saw a bufflehead. With the binoculars, I could see it clearly and showed honey. I really like the diving ducks! A man loaded with all the birding equipment (binoculars, camera with super zoom, notebook and pencil) came by and we started talking birds. He pointed out a brown creeper, which he said was one of his favorite birds. When I told him I was trying to get to know water birds better, he said there was a pair of Gadwalls in the pond. We found what he was talking about, but I'm kind of doubtful it was Gadwalls based on the description in my bird book. On the other hand, he looked more experienced than me, so maybe he knew what he was talking about.

When we got back, we started on the slow drain. He removed the trap, but there wasn't very much I there. I was trying to help holding the bucket, but every time I was in the room I started coughing because my throat would start itching. (I realized later that the ceiling tiles he removed to get to the trap had fiberglass. That explains it!!) He then tried to unscrew the stopper screw in the tub, but he couldn't get it to budge either (which made me glad that I wasn't just being a weakling.) So we got the drain snake out and he fed it down the pipe and finally hooked a big gross lump. So disgusting! It all looked like poop to me. And the smell!! Yuck!!

Daughter texted me a picture of the kids with Minnie Mouse. Apparently they are on another Disney cruise. That was the first I heard of the trip. It made me kind of sad. Both honey and I grew up poor, our parents growing up during the great depression years, so we're always saving and any big payments are almost physically painful to us, but definitely mentally painful. Spending money frivolously, like on something as expensive as a Disney Cruise, just isn't something we can do. And it makes me sad that we are that way. We could well afford it every now and then. So I asked him last night, what are we saving for? Old age, he said. 'So we sit around and do nothing when we are physically able to enjoy outings and travel, so that we can save enough money to sit around and do nothing because we aren't physically able?' I asked. It seems like a waste of a life.

There is a new coffee shop by the strip mall I frequent that opened 3 weeks ago. There is a huge line of cars to get coffee. As in, people are literally idling for 2 HOURS(!) for a drink. They are blocking an entire lane of the road for over a half mile and backing up the interstate exit ramp!. For sugared coffee!! And yet, the same idiots are complaining about gas prices. And I don't even want to know the environmental impacts of their idling cars. Honey and I went to the grocery near there today at 1pm and he could not believe it either. I have to imagine the businesses in the strip mall are losing business, as people see the traffic and drive on by. We come in from the opposite direction fortunately, so we don't have to deal with it. But still, what nonsense for a cup of sugar milk.