The BB cafe

[Kazzl]

The BB cafe is open for business!
Welcome all to a new chill and chat place for everyone on the forum.

The BB cafe is whatever you want it to be. There are comfy sofas, tables and chairs, coffee machines, a kitchen stocked with everything. There's a pool outside, a bbq area, an annexe with comfy beds for a quiet sleep, tv, dvd, books and whatever else you would like to have here.

Most of all, it's a place to meet friends and fellow travellers for a bit of company. Talk over problems, tell jokes, share your day, escape into a world of your making. Grab a coffee and pull up a chair ... 

So, with a nod to the wonderful Carole King (Hard Rock Cafe) ...

Now if you're feeling just a little bit lonely
Don't sit at home just mopin'
Come on down to where the friendship flows freely
You know the door is always open

At the BB cafe
Come to the BB cafe
They will help keep your blues at bay
At the BB cafe

Important Message from ModSupport: 
The main intention of the BB Cafe is to encourage light conversation. Please look after your fellow community members by nuturing the BB Cafe as a place to escape some of the more pressing issues in life and save those conversations for personal threads. 

[mmMekitty]

Yes,HappySheep, love puppy & all sorts of furry, feathered, scaley, finned, hairy, smooth, or mechanical friends here. As Paws indicates, the floors are 'Magiclean', as are all the other surfaces, including the baize on the pool table. Everyone is welcome to gnaw & claw all the furniture , too, as it has been treated with 'Instarepair' so no damage lasts longer than it takes to remove claws/teeth/talons, etc so they don't get stuck while the 'Instarepair' does its work That has been the most valuable improvement to the prod😹uct in the last 43 years. I must say, well worth the trillions spent on r&d.

In the BB Cafe, I like to play around a bit, sometimes, as a cat, LRC, (Little Red Cat), who likes nothing better than zoomies, eating, sleeping on the very wide & long window sill,or on the pool table, or up in the hammock over the fireplace, (not lately though, prefering to float randomly in the swimming pool), climbing trees & flying a kite & making music, too. So, I would love to have puppy & others join in & sing along.

😹"fake chicken with fake goosebumps" - Hillarious! Wonder, will they also include fake bones for the fake chicken soup?

The weather sure has been extraordinary, in so many ways... even in this well-tempered place I am in, I am becoming unsure about what to expect from day to day, except for this humidity, which seems to go on regardless.

I was very relieved to not get the rain that had been forecast for this week... still, even if we had, I am aware, it would not have been as much as some areas have recieved - record breaking in some places.  I was wondering how farmers can possibly plan for the months ahead when the weather has been so unpredictable?

Take care, everyone,

Hugzies

mmMekitty

[blondguy]

Hey HappySheep!!  A big Welcome to the Beyond Blue Cafe! Its really nice to have you as part of our Family

I love your post....excellent! Id rather eat plain pasta than fake meat....To me it doesnt make any sense.

I really hope you can stick around the forums...(if and when convenient for you of course)

my kindest

Paul

[Fiatlux]

Hi and a Happy Friday everyone,

I have gotten my grocery shopping done today as it’s meant to be a scorcher in Melbourne this weekend. Wow, we waited till February for this to arrive. The weather is going insane. My daughter finally had snow in late January and the temperature was down to zero but it didn’t last. They had 20 degrees and sunny last weekend and it all started to melt. She’s also complaining about the humidity it created. Suppose for Melbourne that’s like getting a 30 degree day in winter. 

So tomorrow I will be indoors trying out some Thai recipes. Thai basil chilli stir fry with jasmine rice will be on the menu, possibly with pork and chicken. Maybe some jackfruit for vegans. I know we’ve had a discussion about jackfruit in the past but I am attempting to use this for the first time. I have had jackfruit in the past and I didn’t know what it expect. My son would also like mango with sticky rice for dessert with a scoop of ice cream. He had this often in Thailand, so I have nice mangoes cooling in the fridge.

If I can be bothered staying up or waking up at 2am, we will be watching the Socceroos play South Korea. We have our fingers crossed that South Korea don’t run rings around the Roos… 🙏🏼

[HappySheep]

I've never tried Jackfruit as a meat substitute. Let me know how it goes.  Both green pawpaw and soursop work a treat and Jackfruit is supposed to be even better.....

[mmMekitty]

Hello Fiatlux,

Good thinking to get the grocery shopping done before it gets too hot.

I 'm having computer problems, needing to figure out how to get my website to show up with dark backgrounds & light fonts again.... thought I had but it's not sticking. A few other annoying things to fix up, again. Want my colours showing - especially, that vivid blue my eyes find annoying.

Then, I wan & then, go back & listen to all the content I was sleeping through.t to find another book to listen to tonight & into the morning.

Hugzies

mmMekitty  

[Fiatlux]

Hi mmMekitty,

With regards to the bright screen glare, I have often resorted to wearing lightly tinted sunglasses indoors. There were times when I would wear my darker driving glasses and forget to remove them when I got inside as the lighting at work was so bright that I didn’t notice I still had them on. I wear contact lenses every day. I can’t see more than a metre in front of me without them.

Maybe try sunglasses to cut out some of the bright light.

Have a good night and good luck fixing your screen. 🙏🏼  Fiatlux 

[Fiatlux]

Hello and Happy Friday everyone,

It’s so good to get through another week. I clocked off at 4:30pm and working from home means I can switch off and be in the backyard in a minute. Tonight I had leftovers from last nights dinner and a nice glass of wine. Generally I wouldn’t but today was a pretty stressful one.

Grocery shopping has been completed so I can relax again this weekend. As I work for myself I can switch off and not worry about the phone calls until Monday again. There has been so much talk about workers being able to switch off and I can remember a time when it was highly unusual for an employer to phone an employee outside of work hours. We only had a home phone then and it was only ever used for the occasional social call. When moving to a 24/7 industry my phone was expected to be on and answered at any time, night or day. I am not missing the 3am phone calls!

This weekend I am going to start a project, putting together a photo album for my daughter to send to her for her birthday in March. I am going to be a little bit sad letting go of her photos but she will enjoy them.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone. Fiatlux 🙏🏼

[HappySheep]

Hi Fiatlux,

A happy weekend to you and to everyone.

The photo album sounds like a fabulous gift for your daughter. She will treasure it.  Are you able to scan the photos before you send them so you can at least keep a digital copy for yourself? A public library may have a scanner available for use at low cost.

I too have been watching the growth of employee availability 24/7 with sadness.  It's almost become something we sign up to accidentally for convenience sake. My company is happy to 'allow' employees to install MSTeams or the Company systems on their personal phones for the convenience of not having to carry a separate work phone. Many employees are happy to do this so they don't carry two phones. Of course, this means that they get work alerts on weekends, at night and while on holidays etc. Argh! As a Union delegate, this does my head in.  I'm all for working hard while you're at work but, unless it's an emergency or you're paid on-call, why oh why should people be answering work emails on their time off?  People do it because they just want to be helpful but we all know the results of never truly having down-time or work/life balance - it's not good for your health or wellbeing.  (I know, practice what you preach Happy Sheep. If I'd followed my own advice I may not be on sick leave now! 🤣🤣🤣🙄) Anyway, end of my rant.

This weekend, I'm taking my new puppy (7 weeks old) to visit some friends to get him used to other dogs - and to show off how cute he is.  I am taking lunch and need to find a soup recipe - without tomatoes, lentils, chunky bits and vegetarian, as one is recovering from throat cancer and can't eat much.  I love a good recipe challenge!

mmMeKitty, I hope you have been able to sort your computer issues. Most frustrating indeed!

[mmMekitty]

Hello HappySheep, Fiatlux, Paul Paws & everyone

I have not been able to solve my PC's problems. It is all apparently happening because of things Microsoft has done, & included in recent updates, which we seem to have no choice but to accept. Had a computer tech in to see what could be done, & nothing is possible as far as how websites now appear. They are simply not accepting the customised settings I prefer.

I'm trialling your idea, Fiatlux, - wearing my dark glasses while here. They simply make everything look darker, so there is actually less contrast between any dark text I find & the background. Not helping at all on    

I'm soon to have an appointment with someone from Vision Australia, & will bring up this problem with them, & see if they know if I'd have similar problems with Apple products. (Well, I know my iphone shows websites as they are, not as I'd prefer. BB's looks all white with blue things, & those bright pictures. I find it would be dang near impossible for me to be on BB using my phone.

Fiatlux, with the soups, would you have to strain out any lumpy bits? Or would it be okay to make them like baby food, mashed up & half-liquified, like very smooth & wet mashed potato?  *

I'm not employed, but still, what I have are messages & mail coming in at all hours. The only way is if I can block all except for those on my contacts list - but some of those are service organisations, such as Vision Australi. I'd appreciate if they would not have automated emails or messages coming in after hours, too.

I am all for restricting employer messages, mail & call to regular business hours. How do people suppose business was accomplished before computers & mobile phones became commonplace?Hugzies everyone,

mmMekitty

[HappySheep]

Hey Kitty,

I'm truly sorry about your computer problems! What a pain! I find it difficult to believe that computer settings can't be changed - especially as you can 'theme' Microsoft Word and Outlook etc. to make background colours whatever you like - but I am technologically illiterate. I just get in the car and drive - someone else has to fix the mechanical issues.

This may be a stupid question, but would those yellow lens, night driving glasses help? They're supposed to cut down the glare of oncoming lights and streetlights - without making everything dark. Vision Australia should know. Either that or some other coloured lens? I believe they use (literally) rose coloured glasses on kids with dyslexia or something - the different light filtering does something.... Sorry for the vagueness, reaching into the recesses of my mind for something I happened to read hundreds of years ago; I could be wrong. Anyway, the possibility is there. Bound to be cheaper to get coloured lenses than to replace computer hardware!

Was the soup question for me? If so, my friend Geoff has recently finished radiation therapy on his throat. He's doing well but struggles with food texture etc. Apparently he can eat mashed food, or solid food with plenty of gravy and MANY exceptions! His wife has just had dental work and is on soft foods as well. The vegetarian bit is for me! 🤣 We're doing lunch so I figured soup would be easiest. I found a recipe for mushroom and fennel soup - leek and potatoes, cream and stock, blended. It looks creamy enough. I hope it's tasty. I'll leave a few chunkier pieces of mushroom for texture. I'm making a loaf of sundried-tomato bread for those who are able. I'll let you know how the soup goes. 

Re email/phone notifications: I've just turned them all off on my computer and the sound off on my phone. 😆 I'm constantly in trouble from friends for missing emails (I rarely check them) and being tardy responding to phone messages. I'm old enough to remember the bliss of not being contactable for hours! If I ever do answer my phone, it's only because I was using the device to listen to audio books or play on Facebook when it rang.