tag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509chochiyo_samachochiyo_samachochiyo_sama2024-01-21T07:38:00Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:881585"Gambling Debts"2024-01-20T22:26:29Z2024-01-21T07:38:00Zpublic6<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: medium;"> This is a full section of my story that I call "Gambling Debts." It's section 7 of 10, so there has been quite a bit of activity before this. Last night, I talked to Godiva via text for some time, and this section of my story was part of the conversation. She had a good idea about Sister's actions when she was caught by Langford with chaw in her mouth.<br /><br />Her idea was that she could refuse to spit out the chaw, take the whuppin' then spit it out on his boots. That would suit her personality for sure. The only thing is that Sister is absolutely humiliated by the thought of anyone even knowing she got a licking--to have someone--or a dozen folks!--actually see it might kill her. And you can bet that Langford would whup her to a fare-thee-well if she did that--he'd probably take her britches down and whup her on the bare in front of all those cowboys. In that case, she'd rather just die. <br /><br />I just wanted to post up that whole part of the story for Godiva because I am kinda proud of it. </span></span><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I become a regular visitor to the stables and the pastures near them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Queso and I rode every single day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Dewey worked with me as much as he worked with the horses—he was a patient teacher who talked a lot about the connection between a rider and a horse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Langford even reluctantly allowed me to ride some of the green broke horses, telling me he’d wear me out if I broke my neck doing something stupid.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“If I break my neck, I won’t feel nuthin’ anyhow” was my response.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Sometimes Johnny came along, riding his big black beast.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We’d tear up the road along the edge of the home place.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The folks often sent Stu along to make sure we didn’t die.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His buckskin didn’t have the same fire that our monsters had, but he was no slouch.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Stu joined in on the occasional mad races and put his foot down when we come up with really stupid ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Langford relaxed some when we always come back in one piece, and we enjoyed the freedom that was give to us, so long as the chores was done and done well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Once in a while, Dewey come along on a particularly rough mount to work the kinks out or to practice cattle skills that the horses needed to know.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Queso took to cattle work like a pig takes to mud.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Those, I think, was the happiest days of my life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We rode miles of fences, discovered all sorts of interesting places, took to carrying buckets to gather berries and mushrooms, herded random wandering critters back to where they belonged—some to our place and some to the neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I doubt the fences were ever so well took care of before.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">We helped the hands wherever they needed us, and I learned more cuss words than I knew existed. Also took a lot of good-humored teasing and returned it in kind.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All the time in the saddle in the sun turned my skin as brown as a nut and bleached the brown right out of my hair.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Of course, I didn’t get let off one lick of school work or chores.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The folks wouldn’t tolerate that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And they never let up on the task of civilizing me, which was exhausting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t think I was born to be civilized.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I might should have been born a Comanche.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>All that Dewey told me about them sounded mighty fine to me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">One day, I was put to work mucking out stalls in the stable.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At the same time, a bunch of hands was making hay in the fields right close to the stable.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When a ranch has as many horses and cattle as the Diamond L, producing and storing enough hay to get those critters through a long, cold winter is a never ending task in the growing season.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">While I was forking dirty straw and manure out of individual horse stalls and dragging it in a wheelbarrow to the manure pit, a dozen of the hands was working in the hay fields with scythes and rakes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One group swung the scythes, cutting the hay down, and the other group come behind with rakes, pulling the sweet smelling grasses into long, shallow rows where it would lie in the sun and dry out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In a few days, the hands would be back to turn the rows over so the underside could also dry.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was important to let the crop dry completely so it wouldn’t mold when it was stored in the barns.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Moldy hay ain’t a good thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">When the hay was ready, a couple flat wagons would be brung to the hay fields so the hands could fork it onto them, drive them to the barns, and move it into the mows where it would rest until it was needed. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Haying was a hot, dirty, exhausting job.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At the end of the day, everyone involved was sore and tired.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At midmorning it was already hot, and all of the hands were sweating and swatting away the bugs that clung and bit and pestered a person in the heat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most of the hands were young and full of piss and vinegar.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They were no strangers to hard, hot work, and they were young enough to be frolicsome in spite of it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most every one of those cowboys had a cheek full of chaw which led to spitting contests and foolishness that really didn’t interfere with their work.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Their antics made the work seem easier.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was a lot of laughter and tomfoolery as they attempted to shoot streams of chew spit at various targets—birds, fence posts, each other’s backsides—whatever presented as a target.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Hitting a bird in flight was an especially admired accomplishment.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Poor birds.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">While I wasn’t working with them, I was working near enough that we were able to see and speak to each other easily.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was just as sweaty and just as deviled by bugs and heat as they was.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The wheelbarrow full of straw and manure that I trundled out to the big manure pile downwind of the barn became a prime target for spitting as I passed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I didn’t really care so long as none of it touched me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">When one daring fool shot a streamer at my feet, I pulled a nice, solid “horse apple” (which is a roundish chunk of horse shit dry enough to hold its shape) out of the wheel barrow and nailed him square in the chest.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Mess with me, and I will mess with you,” I warned.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I coulda put that thing right between your eyes.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I grinned my most evil grin and added, “Some of them are a lot juicier than that one.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have spent my whole life in the company of young hooligans like these, and I learnt early how to hold my own.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">While the young hand stared, gobsmacked, at the remains of the glob stuck to his shirt, the others hooted and catcalled him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I went on about my business, and no one spit any more chew juice at my feet.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Whether they believed I was that skilled a pitcher of horse crap or not, they chose to respect the possibility.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Nobody wants a face full of horse shit.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Naturally, him and his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">compaňeros</i> had to retaliate some way, so they started tormenting me—all in good fun, of course—offering me a plug of tobaccy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Naturally, I responded, “I’d rather eat dirt than put that nasty stuff in my mouth.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">They took that as a challenge and began trying to figure out what it would take to tempt me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Finally, one of them bet me that I wouldn’t be able to keep a plug in my cheek till sundown—appealing to my pride and ego. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When that didn’t work, a few of them had a quick conference then offered an enticing challenge. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Each of them would bet two bits to my dime that I couldn’t do it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, shit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I didn’t have a dime to my name, but they didn’t know that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And there were a dozen of them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I felt pretty confident that I could last.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was already midmorning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">They grinned at me like wolves in a lamb pen when they saw me set the wheelbarrow down and consider it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What I was considering was what I could do with the $3 I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">knew</i> I could win.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One of my most annoying traits is obstinacy. I’d been scolded and lectured about that more times than I could count on all ten fingers and toes.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">So there was a big ruckus when I spat in my palm and offered up my hand.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That was a serious sign of commitment in our world.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A signed contract didn’t carry more weight than that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I gotta say, it was pretty disgusting to shake the spitty hands of a dozen sweaty ranch hands, but I saw a stack of shiny quarters in my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The next thing was all them boys pulling their chaw out of their pockets so I could take my pick.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was a pretty spirited debate about how big a plug I’d be expected to tuck into my cheek.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was decided that it should be about half a thumb length.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I stood firm that it would be half the length of my own thumb—not one of their big old greasy thumbs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I picked out the cleanest looking plug, and the young hand who went by Little Ed whittled off a chunk and handed it to me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They all whistled and hooted when I stuck it into my cheek. They gave me some basic instructions on how to spit properly—between the front teeth was the most recommended—and we all went back to work.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">What the hell was I thinking?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I’ve asked myself that a dozen times since then.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The first thing I noticed was that it caused my mouth to flood with spit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It took me some time to learn to spit properly.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>To begin with, a lot of spit ended up running down my chin and onto my shirt.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The second thing I noticed was a buzz that started up in my head, making me feel dizzy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t what I’d call pleasant neither.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I tried to avoid swallowing any of the juices in my mouth because it made my stomach feel queasy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I begun to think that maybe this would be harder than I thought it would be.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">But I dug down deep and kept working.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Every time I passed them, I had to show them that the plug was still firmly tucked in my cheek.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">For obvious reasons, I did not go up to the house for the noon meal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No one at the house thought much of it as it wasn’t uncommon for me to just eat with the hands when I was working in that general area.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I begun to get used to the buzz in my head, but one of the hands made quite a show of pointing out that I had turned “a little green around the gills.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I told him he needed glasses and spit in his general direction.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had no talent for it and ended up with half of it running down my chin which made them all howl with laughter.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">But the sun was starting to move toward the horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I grinned and pointed that out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I shouldn’ta never done that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was tempting fate.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I worked steady, putting down the bedding straw as I finished each stall, filling the water buckets with fresh water, and hauling one wheelbarrow of soiled straw and manure after another out to the pit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">On my last trip, the hands did not send anyone over to see if the chew was still riding in my cheek.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I saw why immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Langford was over there checking their progress and passing the time of day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wiped the drool off my chin and rubbed my dirty hands over the stains on my shirt, hoping they’d be camouflaged by the dirt.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I toted the wheelbarrow to the pile and dumped it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Prayed sincerely that he’d just turn and go back up to the house or that the sun would speed up a touch.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course, none of them things happened.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He came sauntering down to check the stalls.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The idiots all stopped working and watched him come my way.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">His brow furrowed as he looked at me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“What’s wrong with your face?” he asked.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I tilted my head like I didn’t understand what he meant.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I saw the understanding come over his face, and he frowned.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Do you want to explain what you’ve got stuffed in your cheek?” he growled.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I chewed my bottom lip.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Not particularly,” I mumbled.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Spit it out,” he ordered.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I looked at the sun—so close.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So close to the horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I can’t.” I could hear the whine in my voice.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A stormy expression took over his face, and those dark blue eyes snapped.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“What do you mean, you can’t?” he thundered.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“I’ll lose the bet,” I explained weakly.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Bet?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’re gambling too?” he demanded.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Just for fun.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Is money involved in this ‘just for fun’ gambling?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Not much money.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“You have two choices,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His hands went to his belt and started to unbuckle it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“You can spit out that wad of chew or you can get your backside tanned right now in front of all these boneheads.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You have about three seconds to decide.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I spat the wet wad of nastiness on the ground and looked sadly at the sun.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Almost touching the horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I hunched my shoulders and screwed up my face, waiting for the tongue lashing to start.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He shook his finger in my face, struggling to find the words he needed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“You lost the bet,” he growled.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I nodded.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Just how much did you lose?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“A dime,” I offered, my voice barely audible.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Just a dime?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“A piece,” I confessed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Girl—” he turned to glare at the cowboys who all got busy looking at their feet.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He shook his head and seemed to struggle to control himself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Do you even own 12 dimes?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I flushed red and looked toward the cowboys and whispered, “Not even one.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He roared in frustration.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“So you are a welsher too.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“But, I was winning!” I cried.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I woulda won.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If you had come just a few minutes later….”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Stop!” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I braced myself for the slap I was sure was gonna come, but it didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He dug into his pocket and come up with some silver.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He grabbed my hand and slapped it into my palm.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“You march up there and cover your bets,” he hissed. “And you make sure you apologize to those boys for making a bet you knew you couldn’t cover.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then you march yourself over to the river and cut me a decent switch.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We’ll finish this conversation at the house.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“But you said if I spit it out…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Do you really want to back talk me right now?” he asked in the most deadly voice I have ever heard.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“No, sir,” I muttered.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I marched myself up to give Little Ed the money and humbly begged their pardon for betting money I didn’t have.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And bought myself just a little more trouble by adding, “But I would have won.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">know</i> I would have.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Shut your mouth and git!”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Langford yelled.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">And that’s what I did.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As I scuttled away, I heard him lecturing the cowboys about leading a child astray and how he better see that money going into the collection plate at church on Sunday instead of being wasted on chaw and foolishness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And he ended his spiel by ordering them to finish the last of the stall cleaning as “that little knot head is about to become too <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">indisposed</i> to finish it herself.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Indisposed</span></i><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sure to turn up on a word list.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Almost certain to mean <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">unable to sit</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I could still taste the molasses and tobacco from the plug; it was making me feel queasy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I stopped at the well to get a dipper of water and rinse the dregs of chaw out of my mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even after rinsing with three dippers full, I could still taste it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know what those cowboys seen in it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I drank a fourth dipper, and the cold well water hit my belly like a chunk of ice and came up again in a rush.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I gagged a while. My stomach cramped, and I puked up the brown tobacco juice I had swallowed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I drank a little more water, hoping that would settle the cramps.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I rinsed the sticky residue off my chin, and started back to where the willows lined the river.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I thought about Queso in his paddock and considered going on a bareback ride into the woods.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Just disappearing for a few days.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Then the humiliating image of being dragged back kicking and squealing in front of everybody rose in my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yeah.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not interested in that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or worse yet, having to come slinking back after being gone for a few days.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not interested in that either. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I told myself to stop being a baby and get on with it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So, I broke a switch off the first tree I come to and headed to the house.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Funny.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The thought of the actual whuppin’ didn’t bother me as much as the dread of getting my ass chewed first.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And then the embarrassment of having everyone knowing afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I went in the side door and washed my face and hands.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I slunk up the stairway to change into a clean shirt.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One that wasn’t stiff with tobacco juice and filth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wadded up the filthy shirt and stuffed it in a corner.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Later, I’d wash it myself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I didn’t need <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">mamacita</i> questioning the tobacco juice saturating it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Dealing with the wrath of Langford was enough.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wondered how long I was going to have to wait before he showed up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I pulled out one of the tablets and settled on the chair at Jessie’s little table.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I could work on my arithmetic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or read the next story in the McGuffey’s.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or go through this week’s list of words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or, maybe, I could start a letter to Dusty.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had sent him a pretty long letter just before I got Queso.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Since then, I had been way too busy riding every chance I got.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I had not received a reply from him yet.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wondered what he thought of the story about the Bishop and the mice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I almost grinned thinking how he would embellish that story and make it even more grisly and dramatic than it was.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">So I started a fresh letter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Dear Dusty:<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I expect you are powerful busy since I have not heard from you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Don’t forget that you promised you would write to me if I writ to you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What did you think of that story about the murdering low-down skunk of a bishop and the millions of mice that et him alive?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have been wondering if the mice et him from the feet up or if they all just jumped on him and chawed him down from every direction.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know which would be worst.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Either way it would be a grim way to meet your end.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I can’t talk about that story around here as Mrs. L. thinks it is a inappropriate story and has promised to take a stick to me if I dare to mention one word of it to Cactus Bill.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And that little varmint would enjoy that story so much.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a shame.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A few weeks back, I got me a horse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He is a little pinto pony which is just as purty as a field of sweet grass.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There is a buster working here who may know as much about horses as you do.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe you have met him somewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He says his name is Dwight Christopher Sawyer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That is quite a mouthful, ain’t it?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He goes by Dewey, and I don’t blame him because it took me a long time to learn to spell that long ass name.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Had to copy it over and over to get it right. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I can’t wait for you to see my horse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He is a beauty and so smart.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Johnny named him—said that a mouse should get the cheese sometimes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Except he said it in Spanish.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Cheese is Queso in Spanish, and that was the perfect name for him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He is near as fast as Johnny’s black which is a lot bigger than my little Queso.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mr. L. give him to me for my very own.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I cried that day, I was so happy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I have been working very hard and keeping terrible busy too.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mr. L. lets me work with Dewey and the green broke horses sometimes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mrs. L. is sure I will break my dang neck, but so far my head is still attached to my body.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Dewey says I have a talent for horses and that is good to know since I ain’t got much talent for anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Stu keeps telling the folks that I am smart, but I don’t know where he gets that idea.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I did some thing really dumb today and am writing this letter while waiting for Mr. L. to whup me for it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I guess I got it coming.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I took a dare that turnt into a bet and I should have won, and I would have won but for bad luck.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wish I could get some of them lucky freckles of yourn to jump over on to me because I got no luck whatsomeever.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">So it has not been a great day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I learnt I have no talent for spitting tobacco juice either.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most of it ended up on my chin or down the front of my shirt which is now pretty much destroyed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I also ended up puking because some of it got swallowed by accident.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My belly still hurts a little, but I will forget all about that by the time Mr. L. gets done with me.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">In case you are wondering, some of the hands didn’t think I could suck on a plug of tobaccy till sunset, and I knew I could.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I would have except Mr. L come upon us unexpected and made me spit it out just as the sun was about to kiss the horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I got no luck at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I expect he will be here soon, so I will end this letter with my very best wishes to you.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I miss you very much, and Cactus Bill asks about you most every day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Your friend,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Sister<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I tore the pages out of the tablet and folded them up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’d have to ask Langford for a envelope.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I felt much better after writing the letter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was like having a actual chat with Dusty and him helping me stop being fearful.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">It’s just a whuppin’ and I been whupped before.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I had to keep my mind busy, so I got busy on the arithmetic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Got a few problems done before Langford come up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“There you are,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I thought maybe you had holed up somewhere to think things over again.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“No, sir,” I said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I remember what you said last time about not running from you and facing up to consequences.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I pointed to the bed where the switch was laying.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I done what you told me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He nodded and picked it up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I stood up and wiped my hands on my pants.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“You didn’t say where to wait, so I waited here.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He nodded again and sat on the edge of the bed and waited.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Can I ask for a favor before?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He raised an eye brow.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“You think I am in the mood to do you any favors right now?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I sighed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Probably not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But it ain’t a very big one.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“No promises, but you can ask.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“I writ a letter to Dusty while I was waiting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Could you put it in an envelope for me and send it off to the Bar B?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Like last time?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“That, I think I can do.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He held his hand out for the letter, and I passed it to him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He tucked it into his shirt pocket.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I’ll get it in the mail this week.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Thanks.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I straightened my spine and took a deep breath.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I’m ready.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He tapped the switch against the floor a couple of times, looking very serious.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Tell me something, Sister,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Do you think at all when you get yourself into these situations?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or do you just plunge in without a thought?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I thought about this for a moment, not sure how to respond.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I guess I don’t think far enough.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">not</i> think.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Did those hands bully you into this bet?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Shame you? Force it on you?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I was surprised by this question.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“What?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They teased me—but no different than Stu or Johnny tease.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or Dusty.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Like brothers teasing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They all had their cheeks stuffed full of chew and deviled me about trying it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I told them I’d rather eat dirt.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I rolled my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Do you really think anyone could force that sh…stuff into my mouth?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’d bite their hands off.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">His gaze was stern.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Little Ed told me they’d all bullied you till you gave in.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“They surely did not,” I declared.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“They said they didn’t think I could keep a plug in my mouth till sunset.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then they put their money where their mouths was, and I was pretty dang sure I could win.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I would have.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I thought about it a bit and continued, “Those numbskulls.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They made that shit up because they felt guilty.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They heard you tell me to cut a switch, and it made them feel bad.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I narrowed my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I suppose they thought I’d fall into a faint at the thought of a whuppin’.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Idiots.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“First off, if I hear that vulgar language again, I am going to have Mother bring up a bar of soap.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He tapped the switch against his palm thoughtfully.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I did not think any of those boys would act like that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Your story sounds more like the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Which means that Little Ed lied to me, and every last one of them went along with it.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He scowled.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Those boys and I are going to have a little <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">discussion</i> tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I won’t have my men lying to me—even if they are trying to be noble.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Aww…” I said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Don’t be too hard on them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I am real put out with them for telling you that—but it’s kinda sweet too.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He scowled.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“If they were even a couple years younger, I would line them up and thrash every last one of them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then send them home to their mommas until they grew a little more sense.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As it is, there will be consequences for them too.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I swallowed hard.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We were getting to the consequences part now.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I just wanted to be done with this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Don’t ever lie to me, Sister,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“It is the one thing I hate more than anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even if you think you have a good reason for it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Mostly, I don’t lie.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Too hard to keep track of lies once you start,” I said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I don’t recall telling any lies to either of you folks.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I paused and confessed, “Sometimes I don’t tell the entire truth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I don’t make up a lie.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“I have noticed that you don’t always tell the whole truth,” he scowled, “but I don’t recall ever catching you in a complete lie.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Let’s keep it that way.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Yes, sir.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My mouth was getting dry, and I really wanted to be done with this business so I could lick my wounds and move on.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Time to get at it,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Why do I have to punish you today?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I really hate this part.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He calls it “accepting responsibility.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I call it putting your neck in your own noose.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I know ya’ll think chewing tobacco is a filthy, nasty habit—and I took it on a dare.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I didn’t really think about that part when I done it, but I shoulda knowed that you would take it poor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I also know that your missus is death against gambling—any kind of gambling—and we did make a bet with money—not much money, but still.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Young lady, do not minimize what you did.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Just give me the facts.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I faltered for a moment, then added, “And I guess I did some back-talking and arguing too…is that all?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“You are still missing something pretty significant.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">What could that be?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I ran my mind back over the day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then it struck me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Oh!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yeah.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I forgot.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I bet money I didn’t have.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was so sure I would win that it never crossed my mind that it mattered that I didn’t have a dime to my name.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“I think that about covers it,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“It goes without saying that I am very disappointed in you today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’ve been doing so well in your studies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’ve worked as hard and done as well as the older boys with your chores, and the garden is a thing of beauty.” He sighed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“So when I came across you with a wad of chewing tobacco as big as an apple in your mouth, well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You are very lucky I didn’t tan you right in front of those boys.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“It was only half the size of my thumb,” I interrupted.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“I made sure they used MY thumb to measure and not one of their big old giant thumbs.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He used that calm, cold voice to remind me not to back talk or interrupt, and I held back on reminding him that exaggeration is actually kind of a lie too.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“All right, let’s get this thing done,” he said, suddenly business like.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Once again, I was over his knees, listening to the switch cut the air on its way to my backside.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It hurt, and it went on a while, I suppose because there was a big ball of wickedness he felt he had to whup out of me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I personally think that he wanted to squeeze some howls out of me since he couldn’t do it last time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Couldn’t do it this time neither.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">At least he didn’t take my britches down.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">When it was over, I swiped my sleeve across my eyes and nose and took a couple deep breaths. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I told him I was sorry I disappointed him, and he told me he expected better from me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I told him I’d try, and he told me, “Don’t just try. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Then he muttered, “You are a stubborn little creature.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a good thing you weren’t born a horse or you’d end up at the glue factory.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“If I was born a horse,” I said, “I’d be so fast and wild that no one would ever catch me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">And he give me a good hard pop on the bottom with his hand and told me that it was not a wise time to run my sassy mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Even though it was pretty early, he told me there’d be no supper for me tonight and I should go to bed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Also that I stunk of chew and should arrange to take a bath tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I was a little sad because I didn’t get no lunch neither, but I been hungry before. and it never killed me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Also, the chew and the whuppin’ sorta took away my appetite.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I thought about going back to the arithmetic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was still pretty early and I wasn’t that tired.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But he specifically told me to go to bed, and I sure didn’t need another dose of the switch.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So, I put on my nightgown, rubbed my stinging rump a little, and crawled into bed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I hoped there’d be pancakes tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I hoped the consequences Langford planned for the cowboys wouldn’t be too harsh.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I hoped I could squeeze in some riding time tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I hoped I’d hear from Dusty soon.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I hoped I wouldn’t dream about millions of mice crawling all over me.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I probably hoped a bunch of other stuff, but I fell asleep and don’t remember what else I hoped.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=881585" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:860229Sunday, October 292023-10-30T05:49:38Z2023-10-30T05:49:38Zpublic2<p class="MsoNormal"><u><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Sunday, October 29<o:p></o:p></span></u></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The alarm went off at 9:05 this morning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I hit the snooze three times.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then I got up because I needed to zoom with DeAnn at 10 am.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I did my morning stuff, fed the cats, and cleaned the four litterboxes and swept up the scattered cat litter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I swear they spread that stuff out just to spite me.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I normally don’t eat breakfast, but today, I made myself some scrambled eggs and toast.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I just felt like breakfast today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m gonna have to buy eggs again soon.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I only have six left.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">DeAnn and I zoomed till 1:30 pm. She talked about things she needed to do since signing the paperwork on the new house.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She will be making payments on both her current house and her new one until she gets the work done on the new house and the upgrades done on her current house so she can sell it for more.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We talked about how school was going for her too.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I whined about how Lily is driving me crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know how it started, but I also had a little trip down memory lane with her about the months I spent in the rehab facility in 2018 after the appendix burst and I had to have two wound vacs and a drainage bulb.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I don’t think about those days much normally, but today, it swept over me like a series of flashbacks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I remembered how the staff had such a hellacious time getting the IVs into my veins.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It took them forever to get one into my vein, and my arm was black and purple and green from my shoulder to the ends of my fingers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sometimes, I just laid there and cried—not so much because it hurt—though it did hurt like a mother fucker when they kept jabbing the needles in—but because it took so long and it was so frustrating.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I remembered how those damned wound vacs were just a major pain in the ass.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Three times a week, Monday/Wednesday/Friday, a group of two or three staff would take me into this enormous shower, strip me naked, and pull off the sticky plastic thing that held the suction thing in the huge open wounds in my side—one from the appendix hole and the other from the hole where they’d scraped out gobs of infection. Then they had to spray down all the black spongy shit that looked like the insulation that goes around a window air conditioner that was packed into that wound so they could pull it out.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The tissue from inside my body would attach to that black shit, and just looking at it made me feel nauseated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One of the nurses was a tall young man named Mike.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He had enormous hands—and he could put his whole hand into that wound till nothing showed but his wrist coming out of it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They’d just toss that black spongy shit on the floor of the shower—it had little flecks of the tissue from inside my body stuck to it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was just as gross and disgusting as hell.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then this really nice nurse would hose down the inside of the wound with the shower spray attachment.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’d think it would hurt, but it really didn’t—unless the water was too hot—then it hurt some.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The really nice nurse would talk about her little girl who was about 18 months old while she scrubbed me down.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When that was happening, I had flashbacks of when I was a very little girl and my mother used to bathe my sister and me in the kitchen sink.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So many people saw me stark naked while I was in the hospital that it didn’t even bother me anymore—and I have always been very self-conscious and embarrassed by my big fat body.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I remember that they must have used twenty towels every time they showered me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They laid four or five of them on the floor so I didn’t slip in the shower when I stood up so they could rinse the soap off me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The three nurses all had towels and toweled me off after the shower—the towels were not very fluffy and got saturated with water pretty quick.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They’d just drop them on the floor when that happened and grab more towels.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">They brought me a tooth brush and a cup of water while I sat on the little bench thing in the shower, and I’d brush my teeth sitting there like that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was surreal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Like being in a dream, except I was awake.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">When I was clean and dry, they put one of those hospital gowns on me, open in the front and put a towel over the wounds because they seeped pale pink fluid until they got fresh black spongy shit packed in them with the suction things.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Between the shower and the wound specialist coming in to do that, they laid me out on the bed and covered me with the sheet.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sometimes I waited nearly an hour for the wound guy to show up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Dribbling my fluids on the sheets and towels.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The wound guy was like a head nurse too.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was very kind, and was a very talented singer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When he packed that black shit in the wound and put that suction thing in, he always sang the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Ballad of Poncho and Lefty</i></b> while he installed the wound vacs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoKvUYbGu7A&ab_channel=MerleHaggardVEVO">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoKvUYbGu7A&ab_channel=MerleHaggardVEVO</a><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He told me how his dad had played that song over and over and over again while he was recovering from a boating accident—his dad had been in a small fishing boat when a bigger power boat ran over his little boat.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His dad was flung into the water, and the propeller of the big boat roared right over him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Cut him to shreds.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a miracle the man survived, but it took him months to recover.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The whole time, he listened to that song over and over.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The kids all learned to sing the song.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now, he and his siblings sing at community events, and are pretty talented.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">After they dealt with that, they brought me breakfast.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I ate a lot of cheerios, as I recall.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most of the food they had there was so over seasoned that I could not eat it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When they had nothing I felt was fit to eat, I ate Cheerios.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I also ate a lot of chicken noodle soup and beef and barley soup.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Also, plates of raw vegetables dipped in ranch dressing, peanut butter and jelly on toast, and Ginger Ale.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I dropped weight like crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I lost almost 100 lbs. in just a few months.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Mike, the nurse, always teased me that I was going to turn into a Cheerio because that was always what I asked for.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was shocked that they always let me have them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I suppose it was because I just never ate whatever else they brought me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I hate almost every kind of seasoning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Especially when they have it piled on so thick that you might as well have upended a jar of oregano or whatever other nasty shit they had on that food directly into your mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Those damned wound vacs were sealed onto my skin by some plastic sheets that were sticky.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They would not stick tight.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I always woke up in the night, laying in a puddle of salt water—because the wound vacs would spray salt water into the wound, leave it sit for a while, and then suck it back out again.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a very odd and disturbing sensation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But when the plastic sticky shit didn’t stick, it all came out, soaking me and the bedding.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I’d have to press the call button, and since there were not many people on my section of the floor—long-termers, like me—every one of them would come in to try to fix it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Four or five of them would come in, crawl onto the bed with me, and try to get it to seal up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They’d also have to change the wet bedding.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They were all girls, and we’d laugh our heads off in the middle of the night, trying to deal with that shit.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We’d always sing that silly song by Little Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus—<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Old Town Road</i></b>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qovpFAGrQ&ab_channel=LilNasXVEVO">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qovpFAGrQ&ab_channel=LilNasXVEVO</a><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">We’d sing the whole damned song.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We knew all the words.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>“Gonna take my horse to the old town road….Gonna ride till I can’t no more….”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And we laughed our asses off every time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I look back on this stuff now—rarely—and I cannot believe it was real.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It seems like a really weird dream that I had once a long time ago now.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Some days I was so depressed when I was there that I just slept all day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And I cried a lot some days.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The bed was hard and uncomfortable, and the recliner was dreadful.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It cut off the circulation to my legs, and my feet swelled up like loaves of bread.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I don’t know that I could live through something like that again.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">It was pretty dreadful.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Most of the people were really nice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They gave me oxy whenever I asked for it—I usually only wanted it before they did that wound care which was very unpleasant.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Though sometimes, I wanted it at bedtime because I couldn’t sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That was the nice thing about oxy—it put me right to sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I never developed any kind of dependence on it, though.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As soon as I was back in my own bed in my own home, I didn’t have trouble sleeping any more.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Weirdly, the right side of my body where the deep wounds were still hurts almost every day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not unbearably painful, but it hurts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I suspect it always will.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=860229" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:855730I need a Tee Shirt that says this.2023-10-12T01:55:55Z2023-10-12T01:55:55Zpublic1<span style="font-size: large;"> I saw a meme today that went like this:<br /><br />"I am coming for you," the Devil whispered.<br /><br />"Bring tacos, you fucking prick," I whispered back.<br /><br />I really need a shirt that says that. I don't know why I enjoy all forms of the word "Fuck" but I do.<br /><br /></span><br type="_moz" /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=855730" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:846450Thursday, September 72023-09-07T21:32:54Z2023-09-07T21:32:54Zpublic1<span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Thursday, September 7</u></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I wasn’t planning on taking a shower this morning, but I felt so greasy and sticky when I woke up this morning that I couldn’t stand myself. My weird cat Sawyer laid on the rug next to the shower with his head between the opaque shower curtain and the clear one so he could watch. <br /><br />He is the weirdest cat. <br /><br />Of course, back when Stewie was alive and I lived in my house in West Concord, he’d always lay on the edge of the tub when I was taking a bath. I wonder if they think they are my life guards or something? Just in case I would start to drown, they are ready to leap into action.<br /><br />I still miss my Stewie dreadfully. He was the most wonderful cat I've ever known. Sawyer has some similar characteristics, but he is not the treasure that Stewie was.<br /><br />Stewie slept in my arms every night and he NEVER EVER hurt me on purpose. <br /><br />Sawyer is always attacking my feet and clawing me up--all in good fun, he thinks. Meanwhile, I am doctoring slow healing cat scratches ALL THE FUCKING TIME.<br /><br /><br type="_moz" /></span></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=846450" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:846191Wednesday, September 62023-09-07T02:38:30Z2023-09-07T02:38:30Zpublic1<span style="font-size: medium;">Star Trek, the original series, is everywhere.<br /><br />Today, I was watching an episode of an old western series called Laramie. Who should show up as a stage coach robber? Why it was Mr. Spock himself. Leonard Nimoy looked so young and strong and handsome in that old show. <br /><br />Spock was always my favorite character, though I dearly loved Chekov and Bones as well. I liked all of them, but those were my favorites.<br /><br />Now, having had lots of time to read comments by George Takei, I love him very dearly. He is so witty and clever, and I have loved his appearances on <em><strong>Big Bang Theory</strong></em> as well.<br /><br /></span><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=846191" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:845162Sunday, September 32023-09-04T02:54:54Z2023-09-04T02:54:54Zpublic1<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Sunday, September 3</u></span><u><o:p></o:p></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">DeAnn and I zoomed today. It was a short but good conversation. Before the zoom, my sister Tammy called me. She was on her way home from her horse show. She said it wasn’t as much fun as the other horse shows she’s participated in, but her horse loves to perform. He’s very pretty, and he knows it. He preens and prances and tosses his mane around like a starlet trying to attract a sugar daddy.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">She figured it was worth the money for the registration to give her horse that pleasure.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’ve been writing a little since the zoom, but mostly I have been holding and cuddling the cats. I was gone most of the day yesterday, so they need lots of attention now.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Today I ran across a quote made by a train robber who was waiting to be hung. The people set to hang him were having issues with the gallows, and the hanging kept getting delayed. Finally, aggravated and tired of waiting, he said, “Can’t we hurry this up, boys? I hear dinner is served promptly at noon in hell, and I don’t aim to be late.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was pretty impressed by the enormous chutzpah this guy must have had. I’d be peeing my pants and crying my eyes out if I was about to be hung. Not talking about my first dinner in hell.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">His name was Tom Ketchum. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">He was hung on April 26, 1901.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=845162" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:843376Sunday, August 272023-08-28T03:18:58Z2023-08-28T03:18:58Zpublic1<span style="font-size: medium;">Big news! <br /><br />Tonight I discovered a FOURTH feral feeding at my stray cat feeding pan. He (?) is a dark, solid gray cat of medium size. He looks a lot like my brother Jack's childhood cat Buckwheat. Except he is not a big, bulky guy. He is quite svelte. <br /><br />I am going to call him Buckley. He is such a handsome little fellow. Very shy, but once he realizes I am the provider of good things, he will calm down.<br /><br />Spot came to eat earlier today. She stepped back and waited for me to put in the hard kibble and then the soft canned food before coming forward to enjoy her meal. She was very scary when she first came--she'd run away and stay gone for a long time. Now, she just waits for me to give her the food she wants. I expect I will eventually be able to pet her. <br /><br />I think I could try now, but I don't want to freak her out unnecessarily.</span><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=843376" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:842345Thursday, August 242023-08-25T01:48:46Z2023-08-25T01:48:46Zpublic3<span style="font-size: medium;"> I have had the urge to bake ever since I posted about how Cora and I used to bake cookies when she was little. Today, Ed was here helping me with some house work that is hard for me due to my bad knees, and I decided to bake some chocolate chip cookies. Every time I ate a blob of cookie dough (which is delicious and does NOT</span> <span style="font-size: medium;">give you worms), I thought about the vast amount of cookie dough Cora used to eat when we baked together.<br /><br />I used to tease her that we only got about half the cookies the recipe normally made when I baked with her. Hahaha. <br /><br />Some day, in the future, if she maintains an interest in baking, I intend to give her the blue bowl that I got from my Grandma Harpel. I love that bowl. But I will only give it to her if she intends to use it and never let it leave the family. I don't know if she has the level of sentimentality necessary to cherish "family heirlooms" like the blue bowl. <br /><br />If she doesn't care about it, I'll give it to Sadie. She is working in a fancy bakery now, so maybe she would cherish it. I actually have two identical blue bowls, so I could give one to each of them, which would be appropriate since they are my only surviving nieces. One came from my Grandma Harpel (paternal grandmother) and the other came from one of her old lady friends, Marie Farr who was an excellent cook.<br /><br />She made the most fabulous watermelon rind pickles I have ever tasted. I sure wish I had that recipe.<br /><br />It would be nice if both my nieces treasured my blue bowls like I do, and would pass them down to someone they cherish the way I cherish them.<br /><br />I think my blue bowls enhance the flavor of everything I make in them. <br /><br />Or, maybe I just imagine it. All I know is that I love them.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /><br /><br /> </span><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=842345" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:841218Monday, August 212023-08-22T02:46:19Z2023-08-22T02:49:12Zpublic2<span style="font-size: medium;"> Today is my niece Cora's nineteenth birthday.<br /><br />She is the youngest of my "niblings," which is, I understand, the current "hip new unisex word" for nieces and nephews. I remember her first birthday party when we watched hurricane Katrina roaring into the Gulf of Mexico on the news. I remember being appalled at how it filled the entire Gulf, as well as being aghast at the number of people REFUSING to evacuate. I also remember how I cried when I saw the assholes who were bussing poor people out refuse to allow an elderly woman to take her little white lapdog on the bus with her. "He's all I have," she begged. But they forced her to leave that poor little pup on the sidewalk. <br /><br />Shit. Now, I am crying again, remembering how he stared at the bus as the driver closed the door in his face, and how he trotted after it for a little way...but he was also an old doggy and couldn't keep up.<br /><br />How do people like that sleep at night? <br /><br />How could they force that poor old lady to leave her baby like that?<br /><br />I'd stay and drown with my cats rather than leave them alone on the street with a monster storm like that roaring in.<br /><br />What damage could that little guy have done? He'd have sat on his human momma's lap and caused no trouble at all. <br /><br />I hope Karma took a gigantic bite out of those bastards' asses and that they suffered a long, long time from it.<br /><br />What a world we live in.<br /><br />In other news, my niece is a beautiful, talented, very intelligent young woman. When she was little, she used to say she was going to win the <em><strong>America's Got Talent</strong></em> competition and run an animal shelter that she was going to call "Cora's Critter Care."<br /><br />She was quite the little monkey-shiner when she was little. She was always thinking deep thoughts and improving her vocabulary.<br /><br />Some day, I fully expect her to either publish a series of novels that will rival Harry Potter in popularity or win a Nobel Peace Prize or do something completely unexpected, amazing, and brilliant.<br /><br />I hope her birthday is fabulous and that her DQ cookie dough birthday cake was delicious. (I'm assuming that's the kind of cake she will have since that has always been her favorite.) <br /><br />When she was little, we used to bake cookies together from time to time. Shockingly, when she "helped" me bake cookies, it took less time to bake all the dough because some weird paranormal phenomenon caused much of the dough to disappear from the bowl. Surely it had to be paranormal phenomenon, because what else could it be????<br /><br />Hahaha. <br /><br /><br type="_moz" /></span><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=841218" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:839193Monday, August 142023-08-15T02:14:45Z2023-08-15T02:17:35Zpublic3<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><u>Monday, August 14</u></span><u><o:p></o:p></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I woke up early this morning—it was just early enough to be sort of light outside, but not fully daylight. I had to pee rather intensely, but I was not fully AWAKE awake. I was actually awake but also still dreaming. I dreamed I had a “tickle” in my throat and coughed—and when I coughed, a bunch of wadded up and torn Kleenex fragments flew out of my mouth and bounced against the wall. They were streaked with bright red blood. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I thought, “Oh, shit NOW what?” </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then I was completely awake; I started looking for the shredded, bloody tissues to put them in the trash can, but, of course, they did not exist. It was just a really bizarre and realistic dream. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was glad to see that I had not been shoving bloody Kleenexes in my mouth in my sleep—or clean Kleenexes which were bloodied by some injury in my mouth. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I got up to use the bathroom, and then went back to bed and slept about three more hours. I don’t recall any other bizarre dreams, but there probably were some. All of my dreams are bizarre, very detailed, and strangely realistic.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">When I finally got up to stay up, I took a long, long, very hot shower. It felt good. William sat on the back of the toilet, and Sawyer sat on the purple rug next to the shower after weaseling himself between the outside opaque shower curtain and the clear plastic inside shower curtain. Both of the little idiots watched me shower. There is something a little unsettling about having cats staring at you with their large, round, yellow, unblinking eyes while you shower. Weirdos.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s all I have for today.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=839193" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:838221Saturday, August 112023-08-13T03:33:54Z2023-08-13T03:33:54Zpublic2<span style="font-size: medium;"> Last night there was a spider the size of a tea cup in my bathroom. It was way up by the ceiling where I could not reach it to either toss it outside or flush it down the toilet. <br /><br />William and Sawyer were obsessed with GETTING it. The last time I saw it, it was up at the top of the shower surround. It's probably just waiting for me to take a shower so it can drop down on me and crawl around on my naked body. <br /><br />Just to make me freak out and run screaming and naked out of the house.<br /><br />Mom, Lily, and I took Joni to the haunted farm place today. No ghosts, demons, or other supernatural "things" were spotted. <br /><br />That is all.<br /> </span><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=838221" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:837705Friday, August 112023-08-12T05:02:55Z2023-08-12T05:02:55Zpublic2<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Friday, August 11</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have been so busy cleaning and organizing and dealing with all the drama and trauma that is continuously boiling and bubbling around me that I just don’t have the time or the energy to post anything. And I get tired of posting boring descriptions of how much work I have done or about the most recent crazy political bullshit that makes me want to enroll in the Thanos School of Societal Improvements.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">For the record, the most recent political bullshit involves the Wee 1 Tactical creation of the JR15—a bunch of ignorant fuckwads who had designed a gun exactly like the AR15, including the ability to fire actual REAL fucking bullets, except that these guns are smaller and lighter so they are a perfect fit for very young children. Like children who are 5 to 7 years old. Or maybe even younger. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">This link is from the Rachael Maddow show. I am aghast that this is actual reality. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRojUekUYZg&ab_channel=MSNBC"><span style="font-size: medium;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRojUekUYZg&ab_channel=MSNBC</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">When I first heard about this, I was sure it was satire—you know, like the whole “Donald tRUMP is actually an alien lizard creature who is just wearing a human skin to fit in so he can lead the assault on our planet.” Not that I find it all that unlikely that tRUMP is more reptile than human, but seriously. The other would be the recent craziness that Lily and her GQP pals lapped up and believed—that “all the schools in the US are now going to be mandated to put litter boxes in all public school bathrooms to accommodate children who identify as cats.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Also extremely horrifying to me is the fact that, when Adam Schiff spoke out against this in congress, the even-more-psychotic-than-Sarah-Palin female republican idiot, Marjory Taylor Green, wailed about “gun rights” and how, if ONLY the children in Uvalde had been armed with these JR15s, they could have “protected themselves.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">That nutjob needs to be airlifted to the maw of the nearest active volcano and DROPPED IN.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">But, that’s not what I came here to talk about.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I came to talk about my pending adventure.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tomorrow I will be taking my mother, my aunt, and my sister Joni on a little road trip. I will pick up the first two and drive them to Owatonna to pick up my sister. Then we will drive to my paternal grandparents’ farm which is east of Geneva so we can look upon the rotting corpse of the haunted house that we lived in until I was in third or fourth grade.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I make it a point to go and look at it every year or two. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The last time I went out there, most of the bricks had fallen off the front of the house, the roof was falling in, and most of the windows were broken.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I always stare at the windows, half hoping I will see one of the entities that haunted that place drift by one and praying that I DO NOT see any of them. That place was literally haunted by something very dark and malevolent.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">All of us saw “things” there. I used to lay in my bed and look out the door to the open stairway and watch pulsating blobs of color (usually bruise purple and zombie flesh green) drift up the stairway making a faint rustling/tinkling noise, turn to the left at the landing, drift up another three steps and then make a faint champagne cork “POP” noise and disappear. Once I watched a full body skeleton slowly ascend the stairway, turn at the landing, go up the three steps, “POP,” and vanish.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The creepiest thing I ever saw there was a doppleganger of my sister Kim. The only bathroom was downstairs. No lights were allowed to be left on or even turned on in the night. The bathroom was right across the hallway from the stairway. The dark, scary kitchen was to the left, and the dark, scary dining room was to the right. I was terrified to go down there to pee in the night, but I knew I could not hold it all night. I stood on the landing, staring down at the darkness, trying to build up my courage to go down there.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Suddenly, my “sister” was there at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me with a slight smile on her face. It was very dark, so I could barely see her. She mostly looked gray. I very softly asked if she would wait for me to pee, but she just looked up at me, smiling that slight smile. It looked exactly like Kim—even wearing the same “shortie” summer pjs that we all wore.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I asked at least two or three more times, but she said nothing. Just smiled up at me.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was getting desperate. I really, really had to go! I didn’t want to speak any louder as I knew my father would be furious if I woke him up. He had a very bad temper.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The final time I asked her, her smile widened just a little and she tilted her head to the left. And tilted it to the left…and tilted it to the left…and then her head just rolled off her shoulders, down the side of her body, landed softly on the floor at her feet and rolled away into the very dark kitchen. Her body continued just standing there, motionless.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I ran back into my bedroom where I either peed into the wastebasket or onto the rug—I can’t remember exactly. I just knew I was terrified. I remember hoping that the pee would dry up by morning. I don’t think it did. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I just knew that there was NO WAY I was going downstairs with that THING, whatever it was, hanging around down there.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">BTW, Kim was sound asleep in our bed the whole time.</span><o:p></o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=837705" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:824466Monday, June 192023-06-20T02:23:48Z2023-06-20T02:32:18Zpublic1<span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>Monday, June 19</u></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I woke up early this morning and could not go back to sleep. So, I got up. It was just 8 am. Of course, I had gone to bed rather earlier than normal last night, so I guess I had slept myself out. I did all of my morning tasks including feeding the cats. I am a little worried about Peaches. She did not come when I fed the others, and she has not responded to my calls. If she doesn’t come out soon, I am going to have to call my brother and see if he will come over and look in the basement for her. She was fine yesterday—she sat in my lap and purred several times throughout the day like she normally does.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since I had two hours before I was scheduled to zoom with DeAnn, I sorted and started my laundry, cleaned all four litterboxes, broke down some cardboard, dumped a big bag of garbage from the living room, bathroom, and bed room along with today’s litterbox scoopings into the outside bin, and washed the sink full of dishes that I should have washed yesterday. I still had plenty of time before meeting with DeAnn, so I ate a bowl of the Jell-O “salad” I made the other day. It set up well with the fresh strawberries in it. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">DeAnn is late, so I think I am going to go put the next load of laundry in. I only have three loads today, so it shouldn’t take long to do that chore today. Especially if I stay on top of it.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am just back from throwing load 1 into the dryer and load 2 into the washer. I took my Jell-O bowl into the kitchen, all the while yelling for Peaches. The boys both ran down to the basement when I hollered for her down the steps. After a bit the boys came back up and Peaches was with them. She seems fine, and she ate the food I gave her. So what a relief! I was really worried that she was laying dead somewhere. I love my little Peach.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I finished the laundry. I spent most of the afternoon sewing on the Halloween overalls for the LeeAnn dolls. They will be so cute when they are done. I finished sewing and top stitching the facing for the bib part of the overalls. I fed the cats their supper and put out some food for Spot. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I made one of the Schwan’s egg/cheese/sausage breakfast sandwiches and a lettuce salad with blue cheese and Western dressing for my supper. I didn’t eat lunch. Tomorrow I will fry that steak and perhaps make something out of the hamburger. I am not sure what to make with it. I am sick of chili and spaghetti. I am not sick of meatloaf, but I’d rather make something that is a whole meal in itself. If I had some tator tots, I might make tator tot hotdish. That’s always good. And I love green beans.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am watching a rather depressing movie called <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Banshees of Inisherin</i></b>. I thought it might be funny by the description, but it isn’t. It’s sad and kind of stupid. At least the characters are behaving stupidly.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Irish scenery and the accents are lovely though.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I talked to my sister Tammy for a while today. She told me she went out to the garden to move her sprinkler to another spot, but she had to wait for a while because a little cardinal was having a bath in the spray. She said it was the cutest thing she had ever seen. So the cardinal had a lovely long shower which he enjoyed very much. She was still singing about it when I talked to her on the phone.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don’t have anything else very interesting to talk about. The movie just ended and the ending was stupid. The whole damned movie was sad and stupid. And a poor little donkey died in it which really pisses me off. All the humans can die, but leave the little animals alone.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=824466" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:823782Just catching up with the recent past....2023-06-17T05:26:08Z2023-06-17T05:26:08Zpublic2<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>Friday, June 16</u></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It has been a busy week. In the last six days, I have been moderately productive. I have:</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Swept and scrubbed the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom. I swept the breezeway too, but I have not scrubbed it yet.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>I cleaned out the refrigerator, threw out a bunch of old food that would not appeal to the random critters I cater to, and tossed 4 old ears of corn that I never cooked and some bruised and wrinkled cherries that I never got around to eating out for the squirrels, birds, and bunnies.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>I washed all the cat dishes and mats.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>I scrubbed the toilet and sink and washed the bathroom rugs (again) because one of the cats puked all over it.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>I vacuumed the area rug in the office and the runner in the bedroom.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>I got a few packages in the last few days—a Chewy order, the tiny Chatty baby twins, a couple of prescriptions, and the George Burns doll I got super cheap from Etsy. I unboxed all of those things, put them away, and broke down the cardboard.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>I did four loads of laundry, one of which was the bathroom rugs.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>I place a fairly large grocery order from Lerbergs on Wednesday, received it today, and put everything away. I also cleaned and prepared the two pounds of strawberries so that they are ready to be eaten over vanilla ice cream or in Grandma Harpel’s strawberry shortcake. (I have been craving that delicacy. I haven’t made or eaten it in several years. I’ve been craving it lately—probably having some childhood flashbacks of what a treat that was.) I cleaned and cut up the two bunches of celery. They were not impressive. The celery was rather bitter, and the individual pieces were thin and dry. I love celery plain or stuffed with cream cheese or in soup, potato salad, or hot dishes like chicken and rice. I also bought a bunch of broccoli, cleaned it, cooked it, and ate the whole thing (it didn’t amount to much) with butter for supper. I cleaned a good sized handful of cherries and ate them for dessert. They were delicious. The broccoli was okay. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>I spent Thursday at Lily’s house working on her recipe project. I got quite a few typed, but there are SOOOOO many still needing to be typed. I am not willing to spend more than one day a week over there as I have too much of my own work to do here. Most of the house is looking good, but with three shedding cats who love to tip over their food dishes and knock shit off shelves, there is a constant need for maintenance work. I try to clean the litter boxes every other day. I probably should clean them EVERY day, but I don’t. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>I had an appointment with Caitlin, my diabetic consultant. I like her a lot. After my appointment, Lily and I had lunch at the Kernal. I have not eaten there since the beginning of the pandemic—possibly before that as the year prior to the pandemic I was in the hospital with the appendix issues for months, and after that I was too weak and miserable to go anywhere or do anything. We had batter fried cod and coleslaw and banana cream pie for dessert. The Kernal is famous for its pies. Banana cream is not my favorite, but it was the only kind they had left. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am sure I did other stuff too, but that’s all I can remember at the moment. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tomorrow I hope to do some more food prep. I might bake the shortcake to eat with the strawberries. I have hamburger that I want to turn into something. I might just make it into hamburgers. I bought some hamburger buns, and I have been hungry for bacon cheeseburgers. Or, I could make spaghetti. I have everything I need to make that also. I bought a ribeye steak too. I might fry that for my lunch tomorrow. The last few steaks I have bought have been big enough to make into two meals. I have all I need to make quiche. I’ve been hungry for it. Quiche is a good value as provides six good meals.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now that the main living portion of my house is looking good, I am ready to start on the laundry/sewing/craft room. That is going to take a significant amount of time. I sure wish I had Cynthia or Hope to help me with it. I am good at organizing and sorting, but I suck at lifting and hauling. I’d really like to have shelving built into the closet in that room. Right now tons of stuff is just stacked up in there. It’s too hard to get at the stuff when it is all piled up like that. I want to have access to all my fabric and craft supplies. I was hoping I could have Jason build shelves in there for me. I wish he had put off moving for a couple of years.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I guess I just have to be grateful for all the things he did do for me. Everywhere I look I see improvements in my house that Jason is responsible for—the wonderful Bonsai Tint (green) of the living room/hallway/office as opposed to the hideous copper/milk chocolate and avocado green the living room was before, the ceiling fan in the office, the repaired light switch and towel bar in the bathroom, the concrete extension from the ramp to the driveway outside, the gorgeous oak bookshelves on the south wall of the office…all of those things make my home so much more beautiful and pleasant to be in. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I wish he could have stayed just a little longer. But, he was absolutely correct in his belief that Ellendale is boring and that there is nothing to do here. I have always referred to it as the anus of the universe. But, it is pretty cheap to live here. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s all I have for tonight. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’d list the things I hope to accomplish next week, but I don’t know if my gentle readers could stand all that excitement this late at night. Haha.</span> <o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=823782" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:816059Thursday, May 182023-05-19T03:18:54Z2023-05-19T03:18:54Zpublic1<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Thursday, May 18</u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Today was only slightly productive. I did not have a restful night because the greasy fish and onion rings gave me massive diarrhea in the wee hours of morning. I will not horrify you with details, but I will let you know that I had to deal with the clean-up which was very unpleasant. When I got done with that, I went back to bed and did not get up until close to 11 am. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I felt grungy and gross, so I took a very long, very hot shower and felt much better afterwards. Haylie had sent me a text at about 9 am letting me know that Lily was driving home and would like me to call her and talk to her on her way home. Obviously, I did not do that as I was still sleeping. I sent Haylie a text thanking her for taking such good care of Lily yesterday and keeping her overnight last night. I told her I would be calling her shortly, which I did.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">When I did call her, she hounded me to come to her house tomorrow as her friends Ed and Amy were coming over to “play games,” and she wanted me to come and play games with them. I hate card games other than “hand and foot” which is a form of canasta. They love to play pinocle and other games where you must bid on how many hands you are going to take and soon. I have NO card sense, and I HATE playing cards. Also, her friend Amy is a very poor sport. When she loses, she has tantrums, and when she wins, she gloats. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">No thank you. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Also, I have a grocery order coming in the afternoon, and I need to be here to receive it and put it away.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Before I left the bedroom, I vacuumed the runner in the bedroom and scrubbed the bedroom floor. Other than bagging up some garbage and recycling and picking up some scattered cat toys and other cat strewn objects, I didn’t accomplish any other household tasks. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I ate the Reuben sandwich from Culver’s for lunch. I warmed it up in a frying pan, and it got a little dark, but it was still good. After I ate lunch, I fell asleep in the recliner for at least an hour. Maybe more.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I watched a couple episodes of <b><i>Walker, Texas Ranger</i></b>, but I didn’t get much out of them. I was so tired—I kept dozing off. I tried to watch <b><i>Judge Judy</i></b>, but I kept getting phone calls. I enjoy picking up a few phrases and words in Yiddish from her. I got nothing out of her today as Lily, Tammy, and Joni all called. Lily wanted advice on cat food that Finn won’t throw up. She’s been feeding him cheap shit from Rachael Ray. I have read that her brand of cat food causes heart and stomach issues in cats. Tammy’s cat June Bug got very sick off the Rachael Ray crap. She almost died. Now she feeds her <b>Purina One for Cats with Sensitive Skin and Stomachs</b>. I went to Chewy.com and ordered a 7 lb. bag of it for Lily to try with Finn. I am hoping that will work for him.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tomorrow, I am hoping to finish cleaning the living room. All I need to do is pick up whatever cat toys get strewn across the floor overnight, sweep and scrub the floor, and haul the garbage and recycling out to the bins. If I have enough life left in me, I will cook the asparagus, clean out the fridge, wipe down the appliances, Orange Glow the wooden cupboards and table, and sweep and scrub the floor. If I can get those things done, the whole house (except the laundry room) will be very nice, and maybe I can work on some of my creative goals for a while.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I will need to do a little more in the bathroom as one of the cats puked on the bathroom rug last night. The rugs will have to be washed again, and if I am doing that, I may as well scrub the toilet and sink again and sweep and scrub the floor. Having a scrupulously clean bathroom is especially delightful for me.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s about all I have to share today.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=816059" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:814437Friday, May 122023-05-13T03:14:52Z2023-05-13T03:14:52Zpublic3<p class="MsoNormal"><b><u>Friday, May 12<o:p></o:p></u></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I did not go shopping with Lily today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a good thing as I ended up having a very productive day even though I had planned on being a lazy slacker.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It started with my mother calling me to complain about her ex insurance company drawing another month’s bill in April even though they should have stopped in February.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t know why she called me instead of her agent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have no control over that.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After she had complained for over half an hour, her soap opera started, so she hung up to watch it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I knew all hope of sleeping was slain, so I got up and did my routine morning activities, got dressed, fed the cats, and decided to wash my laundry.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>After I got that sorted and started, I discovered huge puddles of cat puke in the bathroom, in the living room, and in the kitchen.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>UGH.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think it was Sawyer as he has been under the weather for the last two days.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He did not eat anything for two days.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It really worried me as he is my little glutton.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He usually eats all his own food, then pushes William away from his food so he can eat that too.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He has Peaches’ food for dessert.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was really worried about him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He didn’t sleep in my bed with me for two nights either.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That is really unlike him.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The puke was nasty and slimy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was extremely gross to clean up.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In the bathroom, it was partially on the rug, so I decided I would clean the bathroom since I was going to have to wash the rugs and scrub the floor anyhow.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I thoroughly scrubbed the bathroom—I used Clorox Clean-Up to scrub the entire toilet, even the back of it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had to twist myself almost into a pretzel to get into all the cracks and crevices.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I scrubbed the sink and all the items that sit on it (tooth brush holder, soap container, bottle of mouth wash, etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I even scrubbed some of the containers of cleaning supplies as they were all dusty and crusty.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>After I swept and scrubbed the bathroom floor, I swept and scrubbed the bedroom floor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I cleaned all four litterboxes and tidied up all the random debris in the living room.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I also restocked my tiny fridge with Diet Coke.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Schwan’s man stopped just as I was cutting off the plastic thing that holds all the bottles together.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I did not want anything from the Schwan’s man as my freezer is way too full already.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However, Lily had told me she wanted some stuff from Schwan’s, so I called her and found out what she needed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then I called my mother and asked her if she needed anything.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They each ended up ordering two items which I was barely able to fit into my freezer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Lily came by later in the day to pick up her stuff and was kind enough to deliver my mother’s stuff too.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ross delivered my groceries from Lerbergs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I got that put away as soon as he left.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I am very excited about the two pounds of asparagus and the three ears of sweet corn I bought.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I love fresh produce.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I got all the laundry washed, dried, and folded except the very last load in the dryer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I am just too tired to fold that tonight.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’ll do it in the morning right after I feed the cats.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I also hope to sweep and scrub the living room and kitchen as well as vacuum the office area rug and the bedroom runner tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have a few dishes in the kitchen sink too—I should have washed them today, but I ran out of steam.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In other news, Sawyer seems to be returning to normal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe he ate something that made him feel bad.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That puke-a-thon he had this morning might have gotten whatever it was out of his system.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He wanted a lot of cuddles, and he has eaten a little bit too. Not as much as he normally chows down, but at least something.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I don’t think I could stand losing my little fatty pants.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He’s been sitting between my feet on the foot rest of my recliner the whole time I have been messing on my computer this evening.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I ate some of my roast beef with potatoes, carrots, onions, and cabbage for a very late lunch/early supper today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I ate a couple of those cookies I made on Wednesday for dessert.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was nothing worth watching on TV, so I watched a couple of hours of MSNBC news.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was doing a lot of other stuff while it was on, so I wasn’t paying too much attention.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However, the latest news from the lunatics in Texas did suck me in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Apparently, they require a master’s degree and two years of prior teaching experience for guidance counselors in their public schools—but their new bill makes it legal to replace those guidance counselors with white nationalist “chaplains” who have a single training session prior to being installed in the schools.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This same bill requires that the ten commandments be posted in every public school, and they are trying to require the ten commandments be posted in EVERY SINGLE CLASSROOM.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They are also discussing having mandatory prayer and Bible reading in the public schools.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now, I consider myself a Christian, but I am NOT a fanatic, and I shudder to think what kind of psychopathic lunatics these idiots are going to install to attempt to brainwash all the kids in the public schools.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What happened to the freedom of religion that is guaranteed in the Constitution?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And which branch of Christianity are these “chaplains” going to originate from?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are many different interpretations of Christianity out there.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Knowing what I do about Texas, I can only imagine what kind of horrific racist, misogynistic interpretations those innocent children are going to be subjected to.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ugh.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Texas needs to change its name to Dumbfuckistan.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That’s about all I have the energy to talk about today.<o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=814437" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:814136Thursday, May 112023-05-12T02:32:46Z2023-05-12T02:32:46Zpublic2<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Thursday, May 11</u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Today was a totally unproductive day. I was up before 10 because Lily told me last night that she was coming over around 11 to drop off some banana cupcakes and leftover mashed potatoes and pick up the cookies, pastries, and potato salad I made yesterday for her and Mom. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I worked so hard yesterday that I fell asleep in the recliner and didn’t wake up till after midnight. The oven had been on all afternoon and into the evening yesterday, so the house was very hot, and I was very sweaty. I was too tired to take a shower before I went to bed, but I had my ceiling fan going. It took a while, but eventually I cooled off enough to sleep. I was awakened several times in the night as a series of thunderstorms blew through with lots of loud thunder and heavy rain.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Also, all the physical work I did yesterday set off the arthritis pain in my shoulders (mostly) and knees. Tylenol has not been very effective in dulling the pain, either. I have spent most of the day in the recliner working on my doll inventory and putting pictures of my dolls on the “Joy of Doll Collecting” Facebook page.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was much later than 11 am when Lily showed up to drop off and pick up food. She brought my mail which was good. She hounded me to come to her house today to play games with her and her friends, which was annoying. She wants me to go to town with her tomorrow to look for cheap cat food for Finn. I don’t want to. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I called my mother to let her know that Lily would be there shortly to drop off some things for her. I ended up talking to her for far too long. She called me back twice. Sigh.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I did manage to call in my grocery order. I did not order a lot, but I needed a few things like milk, asparagus, chicken broth, and yogurt. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am worried about Sawyer. He has been dumpy today. Usually, he is right there hounding me for food when I am laying out their breakfast and supper. Also, he immediately comes out to escort me to the bathroom every time I head there. He has spent most of the day lying on the rug in the bedroom. He hasn’t puked or done anything like that, but I am worried because he just isn’t acting like himself. He has not eaten much today, and he LOVES his food. He was very active and playful yesterday. His eyes are bright, and he responds when I speak to him. He’s made at least two or three trips to the breezeway, presumably to use the litter boxes. I hope he hasn’t eaten something that isn’t food and plugged up his intestines or poisoned himself. I will keep a careful eye on him tomorrow. If he isn’t “right,” I will be taking him to the vet immediately.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">He can be an annoying little pain in the ass, but he is also my favorite of the two boys, and I love him very much. Please pray for my little boy.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Well, I want to be in bed very soon, so I’m going to sign off for now.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=814136" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:813781Tuesday, May 92023-05-10T04:32:49Z2023-05-10T04:32:49Zpublic5<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Tuesday, May 9</u></b></span><b><u><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast"><o:p></o:p></span></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"> At 7:15 I was up and bustling around to shower, do my morning routine, feed the cats, and search for my book (which I discovered between the side table and the wall, no doubt knocked down there by rampaging felines). Lily picked me up at 8:30, and off we went to the clinic where I had an appointment with Caitlin Terpstra, the diabetic nutritionist. This is the first time I have seen her face since the Mayo Clinic has suspended their mask mandates. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">We had a good meeting. We discussed my progress on my goals for improving my diabetes issues. I made her laugh a lot. She said she could see why I was successful in the classroom. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am pretty sure that she made an error in my records though. I asked her what my weight was today since for some unknown reason they decided to weigh me IN the wheelchair today, and then (supposedly) subtracted the weight of the wheelchair from the weight that registered. The last time I was weighed at the clinic was February 28. If the weight she gave me was correct, I have lost 59 pounds since February 28. There is no way this is possible. I thought maybe I had misheard her, so I called the clinic as I keep track of these statistics in my little record book. They sent me to the records department, and they emailed me the official medical record of today’s visit. Nope. I had heard her correctly. So, either she subtracted the wrong weight of the wheelchair, or she made an error writing down the amount. If I had lost nearly 60 pounds in less than three months, I’d have to have had a limb lopped off. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I do think I have lost some weight—but I highly doubt it could be 60 pounds! My clothes would be falling off me if I had lost that much.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sadly, there is no way I will be able to find out my real weight until my next doctor’s visit in June. Sigh. This reminds me that I must reschedule my appointment. My mother told me her next eye doctor appointment was on June 19. I told the scheduler that I could have an appointment on any day except the 19<sup>th</sup>. My appointment for labs and seeing Caitlin was set up for the 9<sup>th</sup>, a Friday. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">My mother tried to call me while I was in the clinic, and I ignored her call. When I got home, I returned her call. I told her I would have two appointments in June, and she said, “Make sure they aren’t on the 9<sup>th</sup>!” </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I said, “You mean the 19<sup>th</sup>?”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">“No! The 9<sup>th</sup>!”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">ARG. I KNOW she told me the 19<sup>th</sup>. She does this frequently. Tells me one thing, then it turns out that it is something else altogether. Now I must deal with the irritation of rescheduling. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Anyhow. On the way home, we went through the drive through of McDonalds. I wanted a fish burger, but they were still serving only breakfast, so I got a sausage and egg biscuit and a chocolate frappe. Lily had bought a couple of apple fritters for us, so I saved mine for later. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was tired from getting up so early, so I had a little nap in my recliner. When I woke up, I ate the apple fritter. Tammy called me on her way to the clinic for her own appointment. We talked for about half an hour. When she was on her way home from the clinic, she called me again. She might come down on Mother’s Day. She wants to pick up some BBQ ribs at Famous Dave’s for lunch and then take Mom to the movie <b><i>The Book Club #2</i></b>. I told her that Lily was going to be alone on Mother’s Day and asked her if it would be okay to invite her along. She said absolutely. She was going to call Jack and Kari and see if they were able to come too. That would be fun. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">They may have Mother’s Day plans with their kids, so it might not work out. They have a close knit family, which is a good thing.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">This afternoon, I watched a couple of things I had recorded on the DVR earlier while working on one of the vintage dolls my mother found in the basement. I took some pictures of her and posted them on my doll collectors’ page on Facebook, explaining the story of how I obtained this doll. I also went through some of the doll clothes I had made for the American Girl sized dolls a while back. This doll is a bit slimmer than the AG dolls, but the dress and panties look okay on her. At least she isn’t naked now.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The dress has a gathered skirt and a sleeveless bodice. It is a medium blue and has pink, purple, and yellow butterflies on it. It’s very simple but cute. I decided to name this doll Lydia. It just suits her. I looked on some baby name sites for a name meaning “rescued” or “second chance” or something similar that would indicate that this little doll was snatched back from the brink of disposal. Apparently, the name “Nadine” means “hope,” and it came up during my name search. I like it. I will name one of the other two dolls Nadine. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">They are all vintage dolls from the late 50s and early 60s, and Lydia and Nadine are kind of vintage names. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I posted three pictures of Lydia in her butterfly dress on the “Joys of Doll Collecting” FB page. I haven’t seen any responses to that post yet, but there were lots of responses to the other pictures I posted.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Lily called me in the evening to tell me that my cousin Gene survived his triple bypass surgery today and that his recovery was going to take about 8 weeks. I am glad he pulled through and hope his recovery isn’t too dreadful. My dad was in a lot of pain during his bypass surgery recovery. He had a horrific scar. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Not much else is worth reporting. DeAnn and I will have a productivity partnership zoom tomorrow. I boiled eggs for the potato salad tonight while I washed a bunch of dishes and heated up a bowl of my pseudo Asian casserole for supper. I think it tasted better tonight than it has before. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’ve been watching the news all night about tRUMP being found liable for sexual assault and defamation of the woman he raped back in the 1990s. Apparently, it was a civil case, not a criminal case, and he is going to have to pay her five million dollars. GOOD. It’s about time he was held accountable for his reprehensible behavior. The bastard.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=813781" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:813514Monday, May 82023-05-09T02:39:48Z2023-05-09T02:39:48Zpublic2<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Monday, May 8</u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">My alarm was set for 9:15 this morning because DeAnn and I were going to zoom at 10. I got up, took care of my morning obligations, and fired up my computer. I got a text from DeAnn asking if I minded doing the zoom at 11 instead of 10 as she was really tired and needed a little more sleep. I was fine with that as I have been craving Cream of Wheat, and delaying the zoom for an hour would give me the opportunity to have it for breakfast.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I did a little tidying up in the kitchen and unloaded the dish drainer before getting the Cream of Wheat started. I usually make it with milk instead of water. This resulted in all three of the cats swarming me and demanding milk. I don’t usually give them milk as it can give them diarrhea. However, I was tired of being swarmed and clawed by them as they demanded their cow juice. So, I poured about ½ a cup into a plastic container and set it down for them. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then, I was horrified to discover that my Cream of Wheat was boiling over. When that stuff dries on the stovetop, it is like concrete. Ugh. While I was attempting to clean that up, there was a feline kerfluffle with hissing and growling and, of course, rampaging that resulted in them tipping over the plastic container and getting milk all over the kitchen floor. The kitchen floor that I had recently mopped, I might add. ARG!!!</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">By this time it was almost 11, so I got my Cream of Wheat in a bowl, added sugar, cinnamon, and a splash of half-n-half. It was delicious, and after all the messes I had to clean up to get it made, I am thankful for that!</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was hungry as I didn’t eat much for supper last night, so I basically inhaled it. I was able to eat the whole thing before DeAnn appeared on our zoom.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">We had a good zoom, discussed Josh’s new computer which was still “under construction,” and shared some random points of interest that we had run across since we last talked. I showed her the man doll I talked about yesterday on my DW entry. She loved his face. She was less thrilled with my idea of making him the priest in charge of my Catholic Girl’s school as she had actually attended a Catholic girls’ school and does not have fond memories of it. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">But, my Catholic Girls’ Boarding School for Dolls (St. Agnes) will be the ideal version—not anything ugly or heart rending.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">And, in related news, I have named my French and Deportment teacher after perusing baby name sites for at least an hour. She will be Aurélie Solange. She needed a name like that to fit the personality I am imagining for her. I might have her be a piano teacher too, if I can find an affordable piano in the proper scale. I know such a piano exists, but I am afraid it will be insanely expensive. The Tonner company made pianos in the Tyler Wentworth scale—baby grands in white or black. I think they were over $800 before the company went out of business. They are probably triple that or more now. If there are even any available. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">After we ended the zoom, I spent most of the rest of the day in the kitchen. I husked the four ears of corn I bought from Lerbergs last week, boiled them, butchered and containerized the watermelon, and peeled and boiled the last of the potatoes that were starting to get withered. I ate one of the ears of corn, several chunks of watermelon as I chopped it up, and the last two slices of honey ham sandwich meat on toast for “lupper” (late lunch/early supper). I washed the huge pile of dirty dishes and did a very thorough job of scrubbing the stovetop where this morning’s Cream of Wheat had boiled over. Later, I cleaned the three litterboxes in the breezeway and the one in the laundry room. I did a lot of random tasks mostly involving tidying up the place. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I spoke to Lily and Mom on the phone for quite a while. I hadn’t talked to my mother since probably Wednesday or Thursday of last week. While I was talking to my mother, Nola called and asked if she could stop and drop something off to me. “As long as it isn’t another cat,” I said. “My cats have been making my life very stressful today.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">She laughed and said this would help to ease my stress. I resisted the urge to ask if it was a bag of edibles as I don’t think she would find that funny. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I told my mother (who was on hold) that Nola was stopping by and I would call her back later. Sweet Nola dragged my garbage bin back to the house when she arrived and visited briefly. She dropped off a tiny container of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia which is my favorite ice cream of all time. I often attempt to order it from Lerbergs when I order groceries, but they seldom have that particular flavor. They always have Chunky Monkey and other kinds, but seldom my favorite. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Nola had been to an appointment earlier today and stopped to pick up a few things. She saw the Cherry Garcia while she was shopping and remembered how I always ask about it. So she bought me a little carton. What a sweet thing to do!</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">She is such a thoughtful person.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Late in the afternoon, the sky to the west started getting dark. Again, there was not a breath of air stirring and the air grew really heavy and thick. It looked like a big storm was rolling in. Not long after that I got notifications in my weather app that “lightning had been detected in my area.” Then a severe storm warning was issued on TV for some counties in Iowa right on the border not far from here. For a while, we got some pretty impressive lightning and some heavy rain, but the severe weather never made it this far, and the warning was allowed to expire. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tomorrow I have an appointment with my diabetic counselor. Lily will be picking me up at 8:30, so I will have to get up at 7:15 to get showered, dressed, and ready to go. She needs to do some shopping, so she will drop me off at the clinic and pick me up after she is done. I’m just too tired to shower tonight. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’m going to try to be in bed by 10 tonight so I can get plenty of sleep. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s all I have for tonight. </span></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=813514" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:813294Sunday, May 72023-05-08T01:19:31Z2023-05-08T01:19:31Zpublic1<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Sunday, May 7 </u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I woke up at 8 am needing to pee this morning. My alarm was set for 9:15, so I could do my morning activities before zooming with DeAnn. I putzed around the house for a while tidying things up, feeding the cats, making myself toast with a ham slice on it for breakfast, and watching a show I had recorded on the DVR. At 10:03, I fired up the zoom and waited for DeAnn. While I waited, I checked out current events on the internet and uploaded some of my digital pictures onto my computer. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">DeAnn and her son had collected all the pieces to a new and powerful computer, and she had spent most of last night figuring out how to put it together. They didn’t get it all done, and like most kids, he was frothing to get it all put together and start using it today, so we only met for a little over an hour. I had plenty to do here, so I didn’t mind.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Lily stopped by shortly after we got off the computer. She had been to Owatonna to pick up the prescription I had called about yesterday. She had picked up a bottle of soy sauce and a package of cupcake papers for me and dropped them off along with my mail. She didn’t have time to visit as she and Nola were heading out to a civic music concert at 2 pm, and it was already 1:45 when she got here.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I had a bowl of my pseudo Asian casserole for lunch. It was much better with a little soy sauce. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">After I ate, I went through my mail. I got a $52 refund from the Mayo Clinic, so I suppose they double billed me at some point. Their organization is rife with incompetence. I also got a box with three wigs and some doll shoes in it from one of my doll collector friends who used to have a doll shop, but she is now liquidating it as the pandemic has basically killed it. She is getting rid of all her inventory at rock bottom prices. She sold me three wigs at $5 each. I paid $38 for the one wig I bought for my childhood Chatty Baby doll. Two of these wigs are probably going to be useless to me, but I put the third on one of the vintage dolls my mother found in her basement storage area. I cut the nasty dreadlocks looking hair that remained on her head off first. I didn’t especially like the way it looked on her, so I trimmed off a lot of the length. I think it looks much more appropriate for her now. I can probably use the hair from the other two wigs to reroot dolls with softer and smaller heads.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now I must dig up something for the poor naked girl to wear. She can probably wear something I have for the American Girl size dolls. It will be slightly baggy on her since she is more slender than those dolls. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of course, Sawyer had to be a complete dick with that doll. Something about the hair just drew him to her. He carried her off and attempted to rip the wig off her head. He almost succeeded. Now she is on top of a bookshelf and out of his reach. Before I go to bed tonight, I am going to see if I can find something for her to wear. I don’t like my dolls sitting around naked. It seems disrespectful to them.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have three dolls still wearing their Christmas clothing. They need to be more appropriately clothed as well. I probably won’t get that done until tomorrow. I found a ziplock bag yesterday full of doll clothes that have been cut out and partially sewed, so I brought them into the living room to look over. It appears that they are all for Barbie or Tonner scale dolls. I need to dig out my little pencil case sewing box and use my TV watching time to sew. Multitasking is fun.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The weather made me uneasy this morning—it was very still. There was not a breath of air stirring, and it felt heavy, kind of stale and foreboding. It was like the other day when you could just feel that the air was full of electricity and was just gathering itself up to cut loose. It was dark and kept getting darker. Eventually it did start to rain, but I never heard any thunder, nor did I see any lightning. Eventually, it all cleared away. There are still some clouds out there, but it is mostly sunny. The birds and squirrels have been out on the deck since the weather cleared, so I finally gave them some peanuts and put some canned soft food out for whatever beast comes at night to eat it. They are getting chunks of Friskies chicken and cheese in gravy tonight. Last night they got the portion of the pseudo Asian casserole that I didn’t eat, perhaps ¾ cup. It was gone and the 8x8” pan I dedicated as their food trough was licked clean. So, apparently the beasts in the night liked the experimental hotdish.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have been very tired all afternoon—I think I could have fallen asleep and continued to sleep all night long if I had given myself permission to close my eyes and drift off. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I texted my brother Jack last night and again today asking if he would come and drag my garbage and recycling bins to the curb today. He was at a movie (<b><i>Guardians of the Galaxy 3</i></b>) with his family. They were celebrating Caleb’s birthday today as he was busy on his actual birthday. He stopped after the movie and carried out the smelly kitchen garbage for me then dragged the bins to the curb. He is so good to do this for me. There is no way I can get those heavy bins out to the curb—to walk that distance, I need my walker, and there is no way I can use the walker AND push the bins out at the same time. And both of those bins were stuffed full today. I have another can full of garbage in the living room right now, but I knew it wouldn’t fit in the bin—and the kitchen garbage had priority because it STUNK.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I took some pictures of one of my Tonner dolls today. She is the red-headed version of the Cinderella line’s “wicked stepsister,” whom they call Hortencia. I don’t like the name Hortencia for her. This is an image of the doll I own, not my doll, but one just like her: </span><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e7/fd/ca/e7fdca0cd3c131ba29a175e4e12089f9.jpg"><span style="font-size: medium;">e7fdca0cd3c131ba29a175e4e12089f9.jpg (450×600) (pinimg.com)</span></a><span style="font-size: medium;">. In my doll community, she teaches French and Deportment in St. Agnes School for Girls, a Catholic boarding school. I love her face. To me, she appears both haughty and vulnerable. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The other “wicked stepsister” is Euphemia. I do not have her, but I WANT her. I have a place reserved for her in my doll family tree as the sister of Haven Astor, the mother of Louisa. I love her face. I don’t think she looks wicked at all. I think she looks somewhat traumatized and anxious. I want her in dark hair—I like this version with her hair up the best: </span><a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/24/49/01/2449012ba3efedb19e62777e94e057ca.png"><span style="font-size: medium;">2449012ba3efedb19e62777e94e057ca.png (640×480) (pinimg.com)</span></a><span style="font-size: medium;">. But I would be okay with this basic version of her with long straight hair: </span><a href="https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ZpgAAOSwLu5ef7j5/s-l300.jpg"><span style="font-size: medium;">s-l300.jpg (225×300) (ebayimg.com)</span></a><span style="font-size: medium;">. The Tonner company is no more, but the dolls can still be found on the secondary market—but are expensive. I got most of mine while the company was shutting down, and I got them amazingly cheap. I think I got my Hortencia for about $40. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hey, while I am going on about my dolls, I found this guy on Etsy last night when I was just looking for fun: </span><a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/1252332940/niada-doll-artist-marianne-denunez-cyril?click_key=62a38238d6988c58425e6bb65f74be95e963e0f0%3A1252332940&click_sum=3553e45e&ref=hp_rf-2&sts=1"><span style="font-size: medium;">NIADA Doll Artist Marianne Denunez Cyril Civil War Man 1977 - Etsy</span></a><span style="font-size: medium;"> I wish I could see a picture of him next to one of the Tonner dolls. I need a priest for my Catholic girls’ school. He has that pale aesthetic look that I think would be ideal for a priest dedicated to educating the young. I kind of see a bunch of short stories about all these characters coming out of my head and using these dolls as inspiration. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">And, I think that is enough of my rambling for one day. </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=813294" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:812777Friday, May 52023-05-06T03:32:08Z2023-05-06T03:32:08Zpublic1<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Friday, May 5 </u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I slept in a little while today, but I got woken up by my endocrinologist’s nurse who gave me the number to call to find out why my Trulicity has not been delivered yet. I should have called today, but I got busy doing a bunch of household chores and before I knew it, it was after 5 pm and it was too late. Oh well. I will call on Monday.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I kept busy all day with a lot of random chores and some cooking and food prep. I did not get the last load of laundry folded, but I will do that right after my morning activities tomorrow. I spent most of the afternoon and early evening in the kitchen. I bought two rib eyes last week and finally got around to frying them today. I ate the smaller one for a late lunch—it was delicious. So tender and flavorful! I cut off all the fat and gristle and chopped it up small for the outside kitties. They got a little bit of the actual meat too. I put the other one in the fridge for tomorrow. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">While the steaks were frying, I cleaned and chopped up both bunches of celery I had bought last week. I sautéed some of the chopped celery in sesame oil along with the frozen peas and carrots and put the rest in a storage container to use in the potato salad I plan to make later. When the celery was tender, I cooked up the rice, added the hamburger, vegetables, can of sliced mushrooms, and mushroom soup. When it was properly combined, I greased my roaster with a little vegetable oil, threw the mixture in the roaster, sprinkled the works with teriyaki sauce, and put a thin layer of chow mein noodles over all of it. Then I popped it into the oven for about an hour. I really didn’t have very high hopes for that casserole. It just didn’t look or smell that appealing.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">While that was cooking, I put away the groceries, washed all the dishes, and cleaned out some stuff that got old in the fridge again. I thought I could butcher the watermelon I got today, but I was just too tired. My arms felt so weak from all the work I had done. So, I set it aside. Something else I can do tomorrow. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">When I took the casserole out of the oven, I dished up a small bowl to sample it. It was actually better than I thought it would be. It would be greatly improved with a little soy sauce, but I couldn’t find any in my stash. I’ll have to get some next time I buy groceries. I am aghast at what a huge batch it made. After letting it cool for a while, I put the bulk of it in a big plastic storage container and put the rest in two smaller containers for Mom and Lily. There’s enough in them for at least two if not three meals. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I had to break down a couple more cardboard boxes. I am hoping my brother will come and take that big pile of cardboard to the recycling center for me. I don’t want to attempt to stuff it all in the recycling bin.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">When I finally got done in the kitchen, I practically crawled to my recliner. I was talking to my sister Tammy on the phone while the sky was turning darker and darker. I said I thought we might get a hellacious storm as I could hear a continuous, distant rumble. That is not normal. The last time I heard a rumbling like that, there was a terrifying electrical storm. This was many years ago when I was still living with my family. We sat in the living room and watched little balls of lightning rolling across the concrete railings on the front porch.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">While I was talking to her, a huge bolt of lightning that was thick and a blue/white color struck from the sky to the ground over by the water tower which is only a couple blocks from my house. A few moments later, an even bigger bolt flashed down by the Methodist church which is at the end of the street that runs from my driveway west. It’s only about a block and a half from my house. The thunder was immediate and LOUD! It just crackled.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It freaked my cats out, and they all ran down to the basement to hide.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The sound and light show did not last too long, but it rained really hard for about an hour. After that it has drizzled continuously.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I finished my written prayers and fed my starving cats. I have been watching an old Jimmy Stewart western called <b><i>The Naked Spur</i></b>. It also has Janet Leigh and Robert Ryan in it. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Lily gets her feelings so hurt if I don’t call her at least once a day, so I am on the phone with her now. She must be really tired because she is not grasping anything I say. I have repeated myself about 400 times in this conversation, and it just doesn’t seem to sink in. Poor thing.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don’t know any other interesting tidbits to share, so I guess I will call an end to this entry.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=812777" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:812355Thursday, May 42023-05-05T03:56:40Z2023-05-05T03:56:40Zpublic2<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Thursday, May 4 </u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU.</span></strong></span><br /><br />Sorry. Couldn't resist. <br /><br />My sister called me this morning. I had planned to sleep in for a long, long time, but she called at 9 am. I was not asleep as I had been up to pee just before she called. We had a nice chat. She told me about rescuing a robin from Ricky, her adorable little outdoor cat. The robin had knocked himself out flying into a window, and Ricky was on him in an instant. Tammy got the robin as quickly as she could, but Ricky had already pulled out most of his feathers. The robin did not survive, poor thing. Either he had given himself internal injuries or he died of the shock.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">We talked for quite a while, then I did my morning activities, fed the cats, threw peanuts out to the squirrels and blue jays, and settled down to check out current events on my computer. While I was reading about all the most recent embarrassments to our nation, the Fed Ex truck pulled up. This driver was an older guy, but he was speedy. I barely made it to the door before he was there handing me a package. I was so glad to see the truck as I thought surely it would be my Trulicity for the next four months, but nope. That comes in a very specific box, and this was a repurposed box. I was just about to slice it open with my box cutter when I saw the address. It was not my address. It was for someone named Tanya. The truck was still sitting on the street, so I went out onto the deck and started yelling at the driver (to get his attention, not to YELL at him). </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It took a while for him to notice. When I told him that the package he had brought me was not mine, he trotted over to get it and told me, “That explains why I could not find the package for my next delivery.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">He went back to the truck and returned with a Chewy box which he set inside the house for me—it was very heavy because it contained two boxes of cat litter—one 30 lbs and the other 19 lbs. The 30 lb box is for the three litterboxes in the breezeway. The lighter one is for the laundry room litterbox. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">After he left, I opened and unpacked all the boxes and dragged the heavy boxes of litter to their proper locations. I sorted this week’s laundry and got it all washed and dried. The last load is in the dryer, and I will fold that in the morning. While I was in the laundry room, I cleaned that litterbox and swept up all the scattered litter resulting from overly enthusiastic feline digging. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I bagged up the recycling in the main part of the house and the kitchen and took that into the breezeway. While I was in there, I watered the plants, cleaned the three litterboxes, swept up the mess from the feline monsters, and got the heavy boxes of litter stacked up out of the way. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I called a small grocery order into Lerbergs. Sally took my order, so only God knows what I will get in my delivery. Hahaha. She is a very sweet person, but she tends to get very confused. I tried to order frozen pot stickers, and she thought I said “hard <i>something.</i>” Maybe crackers. I didn’t get what that word was, but it was not stickers. LOL. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ah well. I shall savor the mystery and make the best out of whatever I end up with.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I spent a very long time breaking down cardboard today. I got all of it wedged into a large cardboard box. Tomorrow I will call my brother and ask if he would be willing to run that big box of cardboard to the recycling center and throw it in the large dumpster. I don’t think I can fit it in my recycling bin, and I don’t want it hanging around in my living room for a month. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Later in the afternoon, Lily stopped and dropped off my test strips for the glucose monitor and the bag of frozen carrots and peas I asked her to pick up for me. I am going to make an experimental hotdish with the hamburger I made the other day. I am going to sauté some celery, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, and sliced mushrooms in sesame seed oil then add it into the hamburger and cooked rice with some cream of mushroom soup. I will put it in my roaster with chow mein noodles on top and bake it till it is crispy on the top. It will be a pseudo Asian dish conceived in my warped little brain. I am just sick of tomato sauce based casseroles. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was too tired to mess with anything that complex today. I had not eaten anything all day except for a couple of cookies, a few Ritz crackers, and one of the bonbons my sweet friend Minoan Miss sent to me. That was delicious. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am going to send her a sampler from a local candy store owned by Greek immigrants for at least three generations. They make the best candy I have ever tasted. That’s what I give my family for Christmas and to my mother for her birthday. The shop was recently restored to its original charming state, including the pressed aluminum ceiling. Here is the link to the site: </span><a href="https://www.costascandies.com/"><span style="font-size: medium;">Costas Candies | Since 1919 | Owatonna, Minnesota</span></a><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is very interesting to read about its history, and looking at all their delicious wares is fun too. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Earlier today, I also called the clinic to leave a message with my endocrinologist, Ashleigh, about the Trulicity. I am hoping she will return my call and give me a number I can call to see when/if they are sending me another four month’s supply. I am hoping it gets delivered tomorrow. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I watched and deleted a couple of things from the DVR while I worked today. Right now, I am looking forward to going to bed soon. I worked hard, and my arms/shoulders/back/knees are not happy about it. I was hungry all day but didn’t feel like cooking or eating. I considered driving to Owatonna to get some fish from Culvers or maybe a black olive and mushroom pizza from Godfather’s, but I just didn’t want to put on shoes and a bra and leave the house.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">At about 7 pm, made some toast and a couple of “over easy” eggs. I like to dip my toasted French bread in the runny egg—but only if the runny part is HOT. I don’t like cold runny eggs. Peaches enjoys licking the remnants of the runny stuff off the bottom of the dish. I figure it is good for her. A little protein is a nice treat for her.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I gets that’s all I have for today. Nothing too exciting or interesting.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=812355" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:812199May 2 & 32023-05-04T04:36:54Z2023-05-04T04:36:54Zpublic5<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Tuesday, May 2 </u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was kind of a busy, crazy day.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">After I did my morning obligations, I went into the kitchen where I planned to clean and cook all day. I fried the hamburger I intend to make into some kind of casserole. I’d prefer not to have anything with tomato sauce. I’ve had sort of a touchy stomach the last few days, and tomato sauce is so acidic. I’m trying to clean out my freezer a bit. It is so full. I had bought some cookie dough from one of Becky’s foster kids, and I decided to bake one of the two packages while the hamburger was frying. It made a little over 3 dozen cookies. I put a few aside in a plastic container for Lily. She likes the white chocolate/macadamia nut cookies.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I cleaned up a few things in the kitchen, swept the breezeway and cleaned the three litterboxes. The boxes needed fresh litter added to them, so I needed to open a fresh box. The boxes I get are 30 lbs, so heavy that I can barely move them. While attempting to pull the tab that opens the top up, I tipped the box over. The corner lit on my ankle and was sharp enough to slash a big gash on the side of my ankle. It’s hurt like a bitch ever since. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I managed to get the fresh box of litter open and transferred about half of it into the boxes. The cats were thrilled and spent a good share of the day digging in it as if they were excavating a gold mine. You can’t tell I ever had a broom in that room. Sigh.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I couldn’t think of anything that sounded good for a casserole, so I just put the cooked hamburger and onion in the fridge, planning to give it some thought and make something tomorrow. Lily had given me a container of barbeque and a couple of buns, so I warmed that up and ate that for my lunch/supper. It was okay. I don’t like that much seasoning in my food, but I was hungry and it was edible. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I didn’t have too many dirty dishes, but I decided I might as well wash them, so I did.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I decided I was tired and sick of messing around in the kitchen, so I settled into my recliner and did my written prayers. I was still working on them when four young teenagers came strolling up the ramp and onto my deck. There were three girls and one boy. All of them were just as cute as buttons. I figured they were out selling stuff for a fund raiser. I think every kid in town knows that I always buy. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I waved them in. They came I and just stood in front of the door looking shy. I asked them what they were up to, and one of the girls said, “Can I use your bathroom?” </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now this made me feel a little weird because I didn’t know any of these kids—or at least I didn’t think I did at that time. I just looked at them for a few seconds and considered giving them a lecture about how it is dangerous in this day and age to go into people’s houses and ask to use the bathroom. (I am still suffering a lot of sadness over the shooting of young Ralph. And the young lad with the girls was black. I would hope that no one in my small town would kill a kid just for the “crime” of coming to the door while being black, but there were an awful lot of tRUMP signs, posters, and flags festooning the place during the last election cycle.)</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I pointed the girl to the bathroom and she disappeared for a few minutes. While she was in the bathroom I made small talk with the kids and offered them some of my fresh baked cookies. They told me they went to NRHEG (the local school New Richland/Hartland/Ellendale/Geneva). The boy said he was a seventh grader (but he was the tallest of them all), the bathroom girl was an eighth grader, and the two blonde girls were ninth graders. I had guessed they were all about ninth grade. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I told them I used to be an English teacher, and one of the ninth graders said, “You were our teacher.” Suddenly, I recognized them. They were the twins I had tutored for two years when they were in second and third grade! They are actually cousins—their great grandmother and my mother are first cousins, making their grandpa my second cousin, their mother my third cousin, and them my fourth cousins. I have not seen the girls since before the appendix issues in 2019, and they look so completely different now that I didn’t recognize them. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">They had been wandering around town when their friend “had an emergency” and desperately needed a bathroom. They had often come to my house when their step grandma threw them out of the house for being noisy and rambunctious. We’d watch kids’ movies on Netflix and I’d fix them snacks. When I had health problems and spent weeks and weeks in the hospital and recovery facility, I wasn’t available---then my worthless nephews moved in with me and were not welcoming to my little buddies. So they found other companions and pursuits. Then of course the pandemic came around, so it has probably been close to five years since I have even seen them. I am shocked at how grown up they looked.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">So, the mystery of why they came to use my bathroom is solved. They regarded my house as a “safe house” and knew I was always welcoming to them. They knew I’d be kind to their friends too.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">My evening was disrupted enough that I wasn’t up to writing my DW entry for today before going to bed. I needed to be in bed fairly early as DeAnn and I zoom on Wednesday mornings.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"> In the morning, I spent some time cutting off all my blonde Chatty Baby’s hair and putting her new wig on. She looks absolutely adorable with her new hair. I have three more vintage dolls with horrible hair whom I plan to get new wigs for. These dolls were not my childhood dolls, but they did belong to my sisters who did not want them. I could not let the poor abused, abandoned babies be tossed into a dumpster—not when I can salvage them.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Wednesday, May 3 </u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I woke up before 9 am and did all my morning activities before 10 am. My head ached this morning, and I felt a little dizzy. My blood sugar was a little elevated this morning, so that’s probably why—sampled too many cookies yesterday, I guess. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">After I fed the cats and the squirrels, I fired up my computer and waited for DeAnn to join me on zoom. I checked out the current news items online and cleaned out my email folder. When she came on, we mostly just chatted. I told her about my visitors last night, and she was a little freaked out by the event. Too many weird stories in the news lately. But I have a pretty good instinct about people, and I didn’t sense anything too scary about those kids. They were so loving to the cats that I knew there was no meanness in them.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">And when I recognized Bailey and Brenna, all qualms were stilled.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was supposed to be a productivity partnership zoom today, but I didn’t produce anything. DeAnn worked a little on her masters’ work while we chatted. She showed me some of the stuff she’s been doing on the AI art generator. It’s pretty cool, and I can see that it would be fun to play around with. However, I don’t have time for that kind of thing right now. I prefer to continue to work on my house and my doll hobbies.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">We wrapped up our meeting when it was almost 2 pm. I dozed a bit in my chair. I wanted to write yesterday’s entry, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. Eventually, I called Lily as she wanted to come over to have me look at some of her mail that she didn’t understand and to drop off the six 6-packs of Diet Coke she bought on sale for me at Cashwise and a carton of white mushrooms. She did not come until after 3 pm. She picked up my mail on her way, which I appreciated. I went through her mail with her and explained everything to her. Then I helped her fill out her post-hospitalization survey and the document for her “I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get UP” button. (I don’t remember what that thing is called.)</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">We visited for a while and I showed her my Chatty Baby with her new hair. I am so thrilled with how pretty she looks.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">When she left, I put away the Diet Coke and went through my mail. I got such a nice surprise! It was a small box of chocolate truffles sent to me by the lovely and talented Minoan Miss! I tucked the box away in my fridge until tomorrow since I have eaten so many cookies in the last two days that I figured I had better avoid any more sweets for today.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Other than the squirrels, the blue jays, and Lily, I had no other visitors. My Trulicity did not arrive again today. I will not have a dose for Saturday if it doesn’t come by then.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Not much else is new today. I told Lily about Brenna and Bailey’s visit and she was horrified until I revealed that they were Joel’s twin granddaughters. She is so fearful of everything. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tomorrow I will probably do laundry, turn that hamburger into some sort of pseudo Asian casserole, and decide whether or not I need to order groceries to be delivered again. I see that there is watermelon on the sale ad. I would LOVE some fresh watermelon. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The feral cats have been coming and eating every drop of the soft food I have been putting out for them before I go to bed at night. At least, I hope it is the feral cats. It could just as easily be a brave coyote (I live only a block from the edge of town) or a hungry raccoon.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=812199" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:811846Monday, May 12023-05-02T05:26:26Z2023-05-02T05:26:26Zpublic0<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Monday, May 1</u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I got up early as DeAnn and I were scheduled to meet for a productivity partnership zoom. She was about an hour late, but it was okay as I had a lot of stuff to do. I finally folded the clothes in the dryer—mostly underwear and socks. I filed some medical stuff in my medical file and put the April written prayers into the 3-ring binder for 2023. I tidied up a lot of stuff around the house, cleaned out and reorganized my purse, and made a new checklist for the month of May. I also did the math on my April checklist to see how I did, statistically speaking, on my goals. I don’t feel like reporting on that tonight as it is already after 11 pm, and I am tired. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I put peanuts out for the squirrels, and the wind blew about half of them off the deck and into the grass below. That was fine. The squirrels can eat them off the ground as easily as they eat them off the deck. The cats do love to watch them eating the peanuts on the deck though. So fun to watch them. When I threw out the peanuts, I saw that the scratched up 8x8” bar pan that I have been using to put food out for the feral kitties had been licked clean. I am so happy to provide some food for those poor homeless kitties.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I put the current book I am reading and a notebook and some fresh pens in my purse for the trip to Rochester to get Lily from the Clinic. I wasn’t 100% sure that my mother would end up coming with me, and I wanted something to do while waiting if she did not come along. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">At about 2:15 pm, I got into my car, called my mother and told her I was on my way, and stopped to get my mail at the mailbox. I saw several garbage cans laying on their sides as I went to Mom’s. The wind was insane this morning. There was no trash laying around, so it must have been collected before they tipped over. My trash did not go out to the street today. Next week both the garbage and recycling can go out.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It has been literally years since I went to Rochester, so I was hoping I could remember how to get to the Clinic. It takes about an hour to get to Rochester from Ellendale, but now that the four lane is finished, it is a lot easier to drive there. It was a beautiful day—very sunny and in the mid 50s. The wind wanted to throw the car around, but it was good to be out and about, seeing different scenes. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I found the Clinic with no problem. We got there at 3:45, and Lily figured she’d be done by 4 pm. Roger brought her out in a wheel chair at about 4:20, so it was a bit of a wait, but I’ve had worse. Roger thanked me for getting Lily so he could go directly home instead of having to drive the extra two hours to take her home. She cried when she hugged him good-bye and told him to drive carefully. Saving him those two hours should have made it possible for him to get almost all the way home before dark. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">As we were driving out of town, Lily told us that they found out she has a very slow growing cancer. She has two spots on her liver and one or two spots on the “tail” of her pancreas. She had pancreatic cancer about eleven years ago ad recovered from it due to a surgical procedure called “The Whipple.” </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">The doctors told her that this was a very slow cancer—that it was unlikely it would kill her—that she would most likely die of something else rather than this. They also told her she could get “hormone shots” at the hospital in Albert Lea. I am not sure if this was once a week or once a month. These shots are supposed to slow the slow cancer down even more. She was very calm when she told us this and seemed not too freaked out by all of it. She said that Roger had taped everything the doctor said, so that was a good thing. Then they can listen to it again and make sure they fully understand everything he had to say.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">She also told us that Rhonda and Loren had moved into a house across the street from the hospital in Sioux Falls where they have a bedroom with a king sized bed and a single bed and a smaller room that is like a little private lounge where they can read or watch TV. It sounds like this is something like the Ronald McDonald house. Apparently the place provides the house with tons of food, but since they are glutton and lactose free, there is very little available for them to eat. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even though the doctors told Loren earlier that chemo and radiation are not effective against his particular kind of brain tumor, he will be taking both chemo and radiation for six weeks. Their farm is two hours away from the hospital, so it would be very difficult for them to travel that far every day for six weeks. I guess they plan to come home for the weekends, and his son is going to visit the farm once a week to feed and water the animals. They have goats to keep the weeds eaten down, one or two Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, a dozen or so outside cats, and two inside cats. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am worried about the pets. Dogs and cats need interaction with their humans, especially the inside cats. A week without their humans can seem like a decade to an indoor cat who counts on that human interaction. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I do not have a good feeling about Loren’s chances of recovery—and he has already signed the very isolated farm over to his son. I assume he has it in the agreement that Rhonda is allowed to live there as long as she wants to. So far as I know, she has a good relationship with Loren’s son and his family. I know the grandsons adore her. But I cannot imagine her wanting to live on that isolated farm in the middle of Redneckistan by herself. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">If Loren dies, I am sure she will want to move to Sioux Falls to be near her daughter and her two granddaughters. But did Loren make sure that she had access to enough money for a house in Sioux Falls? Or did he consign all the money over to his son in the event of his death too? He is very controlling and opinionated and seems to think that he is the boss of everything. *I* could never live with him.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">And if he dies, what will become of all those animals? She could not bring two gigantic dogs, over a dozen cats, and a small herd of goats to Sioux Falls.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Times are scary.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">We stopped at the Byron Dairy Queen on the way home. I had not eaten anything but a couple of mini Mounds bars all day. I was hungry. Lily insisted on buying food for me and Mom since we had come to get her. She only wanted a small caramel malt for herself since she was going to her friends Doug and Julie’s house for supper tonight. Mom got an order of cheese curds and a turtle blizzard. I got a cheese burger, onion rings, and a banana malt. I ate the onion rings and drank the malt on my way home. I didn’t eat the cheeseburger till I got home. It was cold, but I ate it anyway.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I dropped Lily off at her house by 5:50, so she was home early enough to feed her cats and give Missy her insulin shot. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I did my written prayers first, then I called Tammy and gave her an update on Lily’s condition. She told me that the lady who owns the barn where Tammy boards her show horse is having a Native American shaman sage the barn and all the land around it as so much negative shit has happened there lately that she things a negative energy of some kind has invaded her space. It’s been one thing after another. The horses have had more sicknesses and accidents than are normal, people have been hurt in freakish accidents, Todd died in that freak scuba diving accident, and the people at the barn have been at each other’s throats. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I don’t know if saging the place will help, but it probably cannot hurt. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I didn’t get the food out for the feral cats as early as normal, and I saw a cat peeking in the window, sitting on the railing of the ramp. Now, the two cats I have seen before were black/gray striped and white with black spots. Tonight’s cat was an orange one. Not as big as my cats, but an adult. When one of mine jumped up to the window to get a closer look, he ran off. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I fed the cats and put out food for the strays. I assume he will be back. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I called my cousin Kari who has been very close to Lily and Jerry (when he was alive) and gave her the update on Lily. She did not tell me to keep it a secret, and she did tell my mother, so everyone in town likely already knows. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I went through my mail and the little yellow raincoat was in it as was the wig for my Chatty Baby doll. I put the raincoat on Micah and left my review. It was very well made and looked very cute on him. Now all six of the Wellies have raincoats.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tomorrow I will attempt to cook enough food to get me through the week.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=811846" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentstag:dreamwidth.org,2017-06-09:3216509:811744Sunday, April 302023-05-01T02:03:49Z2023-05-01T02:03:49Zpublic1<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><u>Sunday, April 30</u></b></span><b><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I woke up to pee at about 6 am. I saw I had a text from DeAnn telling me that she had been up till 5 am, didn’t feel great, and needed to sleep. She offered to do a zoom in the afternoon, but I said I wasn’t feeling that great either, so why not just skip the Sunday zoom and meet at our regular time tomorrow. She was good with that, so that’s what we did.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I slept (off and on) until noon today. I think I needed it. I might have slept longer but Sawyer was attacking my feet, leaping on me, head butting me, and generally being an annoying little asshole because he was hungry and wanted to be fed. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I made the poor little furball wait at least another hour as I took a long, hot shower before doing my morning activities and feeding them. They had plenty of dry food in their dishes, but they wanted the delicious soft, wet food.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I accomplished very little today. I mostly sat in my recliner, watched TV, and perused the computer. I did bake a couple of small potatoes for my lunch and ate an avocado. I put some more of the Chewy cat food order away but still have more left to unbox and store. I “butchered” my cantaloupe, but I should have let it sit another day or two as it was still a little crunchy and I prefer my melon soft. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">My mother called and mostly talked about how much she loves all of LaVonna’s family and how wonderful they all are and what good care they take of her. Also, two of her grandsons ALWAYS hug my mother at church and are such nice boys. Then she spent several minutes enumerating all of LaVonna’s children, their children, their children’s children, and one child’s child’s baby, who is LaVonna’s first great-great grandchild. I personally think it is a bit ghastly that they all started having their kids so young and producing so many of them and (almost) all of them “home schooling” their kids, keeping them as ignorant, gullible, and uneducated as they are. (Yes. Most of them are extreme tRUMP lovers. Ugh)</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then she told me all about every contestant on the talent show she is obsessed with (<b><i>The Voice</i></b>? <b><i>America’s Got Talent</i></b>? I’m not sure, but it is one with singers and has Blake Shelton as a judge.) I have told her a million times that I hate contest shows ad reality shows. She was a big fan of <b><i>The Bachelor/Bachelorette</i></b> too. I found that show to be the ultimate in CRINGE.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sometimes, I find it hard to be patient with her, but I manage it most of the time. I managed it today, even though I felt like screaming and plugging my ears through most of the conversation.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I got a call from Lily while I was talking to my mother. She wanted to come over to bring me some left overs from her family party yesterday and have Roger bring the box of stuff I had packed for the garage sale she hopes to have at some point this spring/summer. I think she plans to have it during “Ellendale Days.” There are community wide garage sales then.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Later in the afternoon, they came over. She brought me some buns, some barbecue to put in the buns, and a bagging of a few cookies and a couple of bars. Roger took the garage sale stuff away, and I am very glad to get it out of my living room. I asked Roger if he would run my car to the gas station and fill it with gas for me since I have to pick Lily up after her medical stuff in Rochester tomorrow. I gave him my debit card to pay for it. It was almost empty, and my knees are in such bad shape, I knew it would hurt to stand out in the cold on the concrete filling the dang thing.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was very nice of him to do it for me. But, my picking Lily up will save him two hours tomorrow, so it was to his advantage as much as it was to mine.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">After they left, I fed my cats their supper soft food, put a can of the cheap soft food that my cats will not eat out for the feral kitties, and locked the door. I am going to bed shortly—probably before 10 pm because I am still tired and sore. I ate a couple of the bars Lily brought instead of supper. I have had enough calories to get me through the night. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Tomorrow DeAnn and I will zoom at 10 am. It is a productivity zoom, so I am hoping to get a couple of things done, including putting away the rest of the cat food, folding the socks and underwear that have been sitting in the dryer for a couple of days, making something out of the hamburger in the fridge, and cleaning the two bunches of celery that are in there. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">We have to be done by 2:30 so I can head to Rochester to pick Lily up. My mother wants to ride with, so that will make the time go faster—or drive me completely insane, one or the other. Ha.</span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=chochiyo_sama&ditemid=811744" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments