National Night Out

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Last night we went to our neighboring town’s National Night Out event because I saw Pasatiempo BBQ was providing free pulled pork sandwiches at the event. I was super excited because we had them a couple of years back when they gave out the same sandwiches at a local business open house. They were amazing then, and amazing last night too.

National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign held on the first Tuesday in August (or the first Tuesday in October in some southern regions like Texas). It enhances the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while promoting a true sense of community and local crime prevention awareness

We were shocked upon arriving at 5:30ish how packed it was. Even more so than the summer concerts held there which we’ve been attending on some Thursday nights. We had never been to this particular event so we were confused about where to get the food, so we had to ask the woman handing it out and she directed us to the police station’s tent where they give you a ticket.

After grabbing our food tickets we walked around the grounds to see what else was going on. There were booths from several local businesses including a rescue I’m familiar with. One of the women was holding the cutest little Yorkie whose name was Charlie. He immediately licked my hand when I approached. She explained how their fostering worked and that you could foster to adopt which is something I’m really interested in doing; I’m just not sure when.

They had four huge inflatable obstacle courses and bounce houses set up for the kids and a band playing music which switched to a DJ temporarily while the band members got something to eat. The weather, while hot, wasn’t bad, especially in the shade.

In addition to the pulled pork, they were giving out free hot dogs, pizza slices, water, and soda (I saw Signature Select cola and root beer). We grabbed a root beer, pulled pork sandwiches, and Cape Cod potato chips, then made our way over to a park bench in the shade to enjoy our meal. I had thought about bringing plates but decided they would probably provide those. Wrong! Technically there were some in the back of the car, but neither of us felt like walking back to get them so we balanced the foil-wrapped sandwiches on our laps. There wasn’t any sauce on the sandwiches, so Joe set out to find some. Apparently we had completely missed the condiment station! They didn’t have containers, so he got a slice of pizza since it came with a plate and then poured sauce on the plate for us to dip our sandwiches in.

This photo of the sandwich (prior to adding BBQ sauce) does not do it justice.

It was so incredibly flavorful, I wish I could share that taste with everyone.

A view from the less crowded area of the park we chose to sit down and enjoy our food.

As were were eating we started discussing the times the other towns around us were doing the same event. The one we were attending was from 5-9, our actual town’s was only 6-8, and another close by town was 5-8 at a park we’ve visited often.

So we came up with a funny idea – next year act like influencers and do a National Night Out challenge and hit up as many towns as possible to get free stuff (in addition to the free food and drinks they were also giving out little tchotchkes like chip clips, bracelets, keyrings, etc).

Oh, and for some reason they had someone flying an actual helicopter pass over the event twice rather low and turn on police sirens. Who knew the helicopters even had sirens? That was quite the sight, ahem, sound.

July 2026 Recap

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07/03-07/06 – 4th of July extended weekend recap

07/08 (Wed)
Our new neighbors to the east moved in. They were confused by the placement of the water hose. This happens every time someone moves in because the placement of the faucets is dumb and ours is right next to the neighbor’s patio door. They texted the property manager who in turn texted me for clarification. I answered quickly and also told the property manager they could feel free to share my number with the new neighbors in case they had any further questions. I’m perturbed by the fact that she never acknowledged my reply. Did she pass along my number? Who knows. She could have at least said thank you or even sent a thumbs up. Every day I am just amazed by how self-involved everyone is.

I also was thinking about the cartoon, O’Grady, we watched years ago and how much I miss it.

I’ve been searching online for a copy for years since it’s not available on DVD (which I’d happily pay for). I came across a Reddit post and learned it’s now on the Internet Archive for all. I promptly downloaded it. It’s making me so happy to be able to watch it again! It was really funny and deserved a longer run. H. Jon Benjamin (Bob of Bob’s Burgers) voices Kevin, one of the main characters.

07/11-07/12 – Weekend recap

07/15 (Wed)
I was watering our plants in the early morning when a mourning dove kept flying in, walking toward the water dish I keep out for the wildlife, and getting too spooked by my presence to take a drink. It even circled the nearby bush thinking surely she won’t be on both sides! At one point it got super close to me but changed its mind at the last second even though I was standing very still. The SECOND I went inside, it swooped in to get a drink. I could hear the familiar whistling of its wings before the door was even closed.

07/17 (Fri)
Sofi Tukker had a live stream on Twitch to celebrate the release of their latest single, Barthelona, which I am loving so much. The high energy nature of this song makes me happy every time I hear it.

My only complaint? It isn’t long enough. I need an extended remix, stat!

In the middle of preparing dinner our rice cooker decided to stop working so I had to finish cooking the rice on the stove. I was pretty perturbed until I realized we bought it in 2009, which makes it 17 years old. So the question now is do we replace it, and if so, with another rice cooker or one that doubles as a slow cooker? I can prepare the rice on the stove in the meantime so that we don’t rush into a decision. Plus if we can wait until the holidays they’ll likely be good deals on one.

07/18 (Sat)
Decided to go to Burlington and TJ Maxx in search of some new cookware. Well, the former didn’t even have a section for it anymore, and the latter didn’t have anything we liked. We also stopped by Barn Owl to look for something I could use as a bee watering station and struck out once more.

07/21 (Tue)
I did a little shopping on my own after getting some blood drawn. I browsed a cute store called Daiso and ended up picking up some Christmas gifts for the kids and making a mental note of some things I could get Joe as well. I liked a lot of the things I saw but didn’t really feel compelled to buy anything.

07/22 (Wed)
Spent a little time relaxing on the patio which I love to do when the weather permits. I saw baby bunny, as I like to call him. I also had a hummingbird come over and hover in front of my face twice within a short time. I always always assumed when they do that that they are either inspecting me or saying thank you for keeping the feeder filled. I googled it just now and that’s actually the consensus.

In the evening I kept hearing loud peeping noises when we were watching TV. I went over to the dining room to look outside and two newly fledged robins were standing by the patio door looking inside. Then one hopped closer to the edge of the patio and the other to the neighbor’s patio. They both were looking around and chirping. I assume waiting for mom to bring food.

07/23 (Thu)
The two Robin fledglings were back this morning, hopping behind mom while chirping at her incessantly while she hunted for food. They followed her all over the courtyard until disappearing out of earshot.

They came back later to take a bath and get a drink.

I made what is becoming one of my favorite dinners – Harvest Grain bowls.

It’s wild rice topped with sweet potatos and zucchini seasoned with garlic powder, smoked paprika, salt, and pepper (cooked in the air fryer) with some dried cranberries and feta cheese crumbles added at the end.

We attended a concert in the park and enjoyed it much better than last time now that we know a better place to sit.

07/24 (Fri)
We decided to take advantage of the cooler weather and visit the arboretum in the evening. We grabbed dinner from Jimmy Johns and ate it on the arboretum’s veranda. Joe fed a sparrow a bit of his bread. I brought my Canon point and shoot camera and got a few photos around the gardens by the visitor center.

Before leaving the Visitor Center, I went inside to claim my free chip clip and listened to the lady at the member desk explain membership perks to someone who was joining. She mentioned how busy it had been that day with people asking for the chip clip almost in a manner like she thought it was ridiculous. Then the lady joining asked if she could have one and she told her no because you had to receive the text the day prior to claiming one. Wow, talk about strict.

After that conversion I was next in line and said “well, I’m here for the chip clip” and the girl behind me said “me too!” LOL

This is what it looks like.

We have the same style of chip clips from when Joe used to work for Xfinity. In fact, we still use them and not a single one has broken because they are a better quality than the long plastic ones. They also have a magnet on the other side so they can live on the side of the refrigerator when not in use.

I got this quick shot of the trail by turtle pond before running back to the car to get away from the mosquitos.

They are the only thing I can’t stand about summer. Well, them and ticks, but the mosquitos are a bigger menace.

07/25 (Sat)
Two mourning dove fledglings decided to take up residence by the water hose so I was not able to water my flowers before we went out.

We visited K and her friend J came by too so we could all chat and have lunch together. We stopped at McDonald’s first to get some warm chocolate chip cookies which we do almost every time we visit.

Before J came by I gave K an early Christmas present so she could use it during Halloween season:

You can never have too many towels with dogs on them!

07/26 (Sun)
We hit up Dairy Queen to redeem a T-Mobile Tuesday offer. I got a Dilly Bar (still as good as I remember, albeit smaller) and a mini Biscoff Cookie Blizzard. The latter was good, but not quite as good as I remember.

07/27 (Mon)
I set up an insect watering station on the patio using a ceramic sunflower plate I remembered I had in the garage.

I’ve also been trying all the different Bubbl’r sparkling water flavors to see if any of them are as good as the Twisted Elix’r and finally hit the jackpot.

The Orange Dream Freez’r tastes like a bubbly melted orange creamsicle which kinda sounds gross but isn’t. I definitely plan to get more of that flavor in the future.

Later that morning we had one of the strongest, scariest storms in recent history. Between the high winds and golf ball sized hail, I was pretty scared. I hid in the downstairs bathroom with my bike helmet on when the tornado sirens started going off. When the hail was coming down it was so loud I messaged Joe (who was at work) that it sounded like it was putting holes in the roof. For a short time it sounded to me like the roof was going to cave in.

A panel of siding on the front of our unit was pulled up and there were roof shingles and tree branches littering the streets afterwards. We only lost power briefly during the storm (just long enough to reset the microwave clock), which was much better than others in our area. Some homes in our subdivision just mere blocks away ended up losing power for days.

Our internet did go down the following day for a good part of the day, but that was the worst of it for us. Even the patio umbrella and bee water station stayed put which was amazing to me because I peeked outside at different times and the trees were practically bending over from the wind. In the building perpendicular to ours someone’s very large grill was knocked over, as was someone’s patio furniture.

I later learned there was a tornado in a nearby town, but our town got something called straight line winds which can be just as powerful as a small tornado.

Our patio area after the storm:

07/30 (Thu)
Joe took off from work early to accompany me to my breast ultrasound. No issues, just a precaution. Afterwards we got Burger King for dinner but it wasn’t as good as last time. If I had to guess, I don’t think our local restaurant followed the “off the broiler” directions we selected because the burgers didn’t feel as hot as last time. We then attended another concert in the park.

07/31 (Fri)
Watched several acts at Lollapalooza via Hulu. Yungblud sounded good but The Smashing Pumpkins sounded distorted much of the time.

Notable media this month:

Over Your Dead Body – After watching and enjoying the film I went on IMDb to read the trivia like I enjoy doing only to learn it was a remake. Even worse, we watched the original, The Trip, less than five years ago and yet this premise didn’t ring a bell to me while watching. Is that normal to not remember such things?

Michael
I watched this while Joe was at work and I was eating a yummy Trader Joe’s Beef and Queso bowel.

I admit, I had my doubts about Michael Jackson’s intentions when he was hanging out with all those kids back in Neverland. But between Instagram Reels re-educating me, and this movie, which focuses on his life from childhood until he separated from his father musically, I feel we were all duped by the media who sought to paint him in such a horrible light. He was truly a kind, innocent soul who never fully grew up. Between showing how he was treated to just listening to the great music he wrote, I was brought to tears multiple times by this movie. I just feel so awful for him and what he went through and how his father ultimately is the reason he’s no longer with us. I’m sorry for thinking ill of him for so long. This is a lesson not to believe everything we’re told, especially by an industry who only cares about someone until they stop being profitable.

Running Point
This series completely flew under the radar until recently and luckily we found it, and binged it, before cancelling our Netflix subscription (more on that next month). Once again, something Mindy Kaling has touched has turned to gold. At this point I’m just going to stalk her IMDb profile and watch whatever she’s involved in since I always love it.

Scream 7 – Even though I thought “ANOTHER Scream movie, really?” I still put myself on the hold list at the library. This was one of the better ones, IMHO, and somehow Neve Campbell was a little less Neve Campbell (IYKYK) than usual. It didn’t hurt that the focus was more on her daughter and friends too.

Disney+ Billing Shenanigans

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On July 28th I was on chat, then the phone, with Disney+ for 45 minutes.

We’ve had Hulu free via T-Mobile since sometime in early 2025 I believe. In November 2025 I learned I was able to add Disney+ for $1 which was then billed to me directly by Disney+. Due to the Hulu portion being free, my charges looked like this (taken from the email Disney+ sent me when I signed up):

Everything was fine, until yesterday when I noted on my credit card a charge from Disney+ for $12.99. I logged into my Disney+ account and saw two subscriptions:

One for the Hulu/Disney bundle showing $12.99
One for Hulu on Us via T-Mobile for $0 (which was greyed out since you have to manage it via the T-Mobile website).

I thought back to an email I got in June from Disney+:

At the time I did log into my Disney+ account and didn’t see two subscriptions, or anything other than the $1. I chalked it up to a phishing scam but kept the email just in case. I forgot about the whole thing until I saw that charge.

I was told by the nice Disney+ rep that T-Mobile won’t allow the $1 upgrade, so my choices were to pay the full bundle price or cancel it and be left with just Hulu. I did the latter, and also requested a refund for the charge (which they processed).

I wish I had thought to take screenshots of the billing page in my account throughout all this but I did not.

When I checked Reddit there were multiple posts about this happening to other people and they were given different explanations by the Disney+ reps, so who knows what the truth is:

1) T-Mobile no longer allows adding Disney+ for $1 more
2) Since Hulu and Disney merged billing systems, it no longer allows split billing
3) It was a mistake caused by the Hulu and Disney merge and would be rectified

I’m not sure I buy any of those explanations and this is why:

1) Why would T-Mobile care what subscribers do beyond their free subscription?
2) If Disney+ can show two subscriptions on the account, then they can adjust the pricing on the one that includes Disney+ like they did in the past.
3) If it was a billing error, shouldn’t it have been rectified by now? Those posts were weeks ago and I still had the same thing happen to me.

My thought? They are trying to double-dip. In any case, we weren’t using Disney+ much anymore and were planning on getting rid of T-Mobile soon (more on that in a future post) and therefore will be cancelling Hulu (and Netflix) soon anyway.

Weekend Recap (07/11-07/12)

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Saturday (07/11) we ate homemade breakfast burritos I had prepped on Friday before heading to the arboretum.

We arrived just after they opened at 7 am. The plan was to take advantage of the relatively cool weather and get a few hours of bird watching in before we had to get home to prepare to drive out to my parents house. Well, the mosquitos had other ideas so we mostly drove around the grounds, although we did stop by the visitor center to look at the flowers.

We made a quick stop at Walmart before heading home where I spent two hours on the patio reading a book before it got too hot and humid for comfort.

We left the house around 1 pm so we could get to my parents around 2 pm. We had some good food, helped my mom and brother with a few things, and left around 8:30 so we could be home by 9:30. I had a hard time sleeping which is typical anytime I socialize.

Sunday (07/12) we stopped at Old Time Pottery before heading out to the Bath & Body Works in Geneva to pick up an online order I had made on Thursday for this adorable light-up spooky kitty hand sanitizer holder.

It was sold out nearly everywhere else so I feel lucky I was able to grab one. I hate buying Halloween stuff in mid-summer though. Why can’t we live in the moment a little more? Call me crazy but didn’t stores wait until kids were back in school to start putting out the Halloween stuff back when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s? Now it’s out in early July. It’s very annoying. By the time any holiday arrives these days I’m burnt out on it because of this nonsense. But I digress…

After B&BW we went to the Barnes & Noble store in the same shopping center.

I love the smell of a bookstore; there is nothing like it.

I looked at their e-readers but they seem overpriced for what they do and seemed to operate slower than my very old Kindle.

I was also amazed by all the cool educational toys they had from stuff about bugs to things about our solar system. I would have loved so many of them if they had been available when I was a child.

We browsed the magazines last and this caught my eye…

Hmmm… that seems familiar. A little closer look…

Aha, I knew it was Robert Smith!

I was shocked to see that 2600 magazine is still being printed.

I used to think I was so cool reading that even though I never hacked a damn thing.

We were getting hungry so we headed home to eat the stromboli sandwiches and potato salad my mom sent home with us on Saturday. Then Joe washed both our cars while I attempted to install garden edging around the tree out front before giving up.

I got it because my next door neighbor put some around her tree and it looked really nice, but the soil was too hard and the plastic edging too flimsy. It just felt like more effort than I was willing to put in. Back to Walmart it goes!

And yes, I know that makes me a hypocrite after I said I was boycotting Walmart. I do admittedly buy things from there once in a blue moon if I can’t get in anywhere else, like the bike shorts I’ve been living in since my skin went all sensitive on me.

4th of July Weekend (07/03-07/05)

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Joe had Friday (07/03) off for the holiday. Since it was so hot and humid we decided it would be a perfect day to run errands, like dropping off an Amazon return at FedEx and hitting up Trader Joe’s since it had been awhile since our last visit.

Afterwards we stopped at Paris Baguette for some delicious pastries and Korean Iced Milk Coffee. It’s a good thing they aren’t closer because I’ve gained enough weight this year since I’ve been stuffing my face without discipline; I’m just so happy to be able to eat after what I went through last year. I do need to reel it in though.

We had Culver’s for dinner as our little holiday celebration since Joe had to eat light on Saturday in preparation for a medical procedure on Sunday.

Saturday (07/04) we hid in the house all day and didn’t do anything to celebrate. Not sure what is worth celebrating right now anyway. This current administration is fucking up anything and everything it can get its hands on. That’s what happens when you put a bunch of narcissistic, unempathetic, rich, brainless cretins in office. Not saying the other side are angels, but this group of people takes the cake.

I temporarily unfroze our credit at all three bureaus so we could apply for Amazon’s Prime VISA. They sent an invitation in the mail and we had just been talking about how annoying it is that Costco only takes VISA or debit and how much we hate using debit, so they caught us at the right time. Plus we got $200 just for signing up!

Now we have all the frickin cards – AMEX, Discover, Mastercard, Target, and VISA. I literally had to put together a cheat sheet for both of us so we know which card to use where to maximize the cash back benefits on each.

Obviously the VISA will be used at Amazon, as well as Costco. We have no choice but to use Discover at Woodman’s since they do not accept any other card, and we’ve been using the AMEX at Aldi since we get more cash back for groceries on it vs the other cards. Frankly the Mastercard offers the least incentives lately so it barely gets used. Target doesn’t get used a ton, although with having to get our prescriptions at the CVS inside, I have been using it more this year than previous years.

Surprisingly I was able to fall asleep before midnight and wasn’t woken up by fireworks even though I know they were popping off.

Sunday (07/05) after grocery shopping, my B12 injection, and Joe’s procedure we headed to REI so I could look at binoculars. I do not understand how an outdoor store has so few binoculars on display to try.

In fact, it doesn’t seem like ANY store really offers the ability to try most of the binoculars they sell, although to be fair the variety is always lacking. Are people really buying them without trying them first? This seems like yet another example of the patriarchy at work – chances are most binoculars are perfectly suitable for men, but for women, and petite ones with small heads, close-set eyes, and glasses like myself, it’s not that easy. I can’t even see through most of them because either the minimum distance between barrels is too wide, or the eye relief isn’t high enough. In fact, I tried two different Nikon models and I was able to see through the mid-range ones with my glasses on, which is the goal, but couldn’t with the higher end pair.

I’m a buy it for life gal so it’s frustrating that I might have to resort to ordering thousands of dollars of binoculars off Amazon just to see if I like any of them. That makes me feel icky and I’m trying to avoid that, but none of these retailers are making it easy.

We even stopped in Best Buy briefly because they sell binoculars but we couldn’t find them. It’s amazing how much I used to love that store and now abhor it.

We stopped in Disc Replay to look around but didn’t buy anything, then picked up Potbelly since we were starving by this point.

We made it home just in time to watch The Cure playing a festival show in Belgium. Since it was being streamed on YouTube we watched on the TV which was especially nice.