August 17 through 20

 Monday, August 17

It was a pretty slow day.

I took a shower which I really needed as I woke up feeling sticky and sweaty.   Life always looks better when a person feels clean and fresh.

There was another bill from Mayo--only $20 this time.  So I paid that.  Then I went through the mail and recycled the junk mail.  I get so much stupid, wasteful junk mail.

Waylon, the mail man, brought a package to the door.  I love Waylon as he always honks his horn when he pulls into the driveway so I know a have a package.  It was a box of Chunky candy bars.  I don't even remember ordering them.  

Today Lily called and told me more about the stray kitty that has been coming to her patio door every day, looking for food and affection.  She is worried about her as she is pregnant and very young.  So, I called my sister Joni who is a huge animal lover.  She has a lot of cats since she lives on a small acreage just outside of Owatonna.  Joni said she would love to take her in, so hurray!  A little kitty will have a safe and loving home instead of having a bunch of kittens under a pine tree at the mercy of the elements.

Tuesday, August 18

Huzzah for a productive day!  After weeks and weeks of being so lazy and unmotivated that I felt like a total loser, I woke up and felt motivated to clean.  As soon as my feet hit the floor, I grabbed my battery operated sweeper and cleaned the living room and kitchen floors.  Immediately after that, I scrubbed them.  While I was in the kitchen, I wiped down 12 bottles of Lipton green citrus tea, a 12 pack of cans of Canada Dry ginger ale (my favorite), and 6 bottles of Pure Leaf iced tea and restocked my large mini fridge in the kitchen. The work I did was really hard on my messed up shoulder, so when I was done, I sat in my recliner for a while to rest. Lily called me, and I chatted with her for a while.  

I took two bags of garbage and a bag of litter scoopings out to the bin.  There was a nasty earwig in the garbage bag with the litter droppings, so I was glad to get it out of the house.  

I watched some stuff off the DVR, took some Tylenol, and dozed on my chair for a little while.  After a while, I felt better, so I went into the kitchen where I continued my on-going battle against the forces of chaos and clutter.  I did the dishes and decided the counters had been a cluttered, disorganized mess long enough.  I had a bunch of canned goods, some dishes looking for a "home," and some other groceries sitting on the counter, along with the three dolls I had recently purchased and scrubbed up.  I threw away four boxes of cereal that had been bought before I went into the hospital last year.  All of them were stale.  I wiped down and put away all the canned goods.  I didn't think I could get them all into the lazy susan, but I did!  My flour and sugar canisters were almost empty, and I had bags of both flour and sugar on the counter, so I poured them into the appropriate canisters.  There were a couple of cups of each that did not fit, so I will have to bake something soon to use that up.  

The cat fountain I had bought in hopes of getting Stewie to drink was sitting on the counter too.  Peaches has shown no interest in it, so I had washed it and was trying to decide what to do with it.  There was a practically empty shelf at the very top of one of my cupboards, and it just fit in there.  I had a dreadfully difficult time getting it up there, but now it is out of the way.  I moved the dolls into the living room where I will get them dressed later.  When everything was put away, I scrubbed the counter tops with Clorox Clean Up.  Everything looks really good through most of the kitchen now. 

I just ran out of steam and could not deal with the tiny area of the counter top where the spice rack is.  I have decided to throw away all the spices that I never use.  Most of them are likely no good anyhow as I am pretty sure there are some that are over 20 years old.  That will free up a lot of space.  The other thing I need to do is thoroughly scrub the top of the stove.  I need to hose it down with something  that will cut the grease and scrub it good.

Those will be projects for another day.  

I made fried eggs for supper.  that is always my "I'm lazy and hungry" go-to meal.

Wednesday, August 19

My Chatty Cathy dolls have been wearing their Easter dresses since before Easter.  I had two cute little dresses to change them into, but I have been trying to take pictures of them in their various outfits.  So, I took pictures of them in their little Easter outfits.  They are just gray tee shirt material with little white rabbits on it.  Then I stripped them out of those little dresses and put on their new dresses.  One is pink and one is blue, but they are made exactly the same with Peter Pan collars, cuffed sleeves, and full skirts. I just ordered another dress in yellow for the Chatty Baby I just cleaned up.  I am still sad about the two brunette Chatty Cathy dolls and twin tiny chatty Brothers, but I have let them go in my mind.  They were in very rough shape anyhow--they would have needed a lot of work to make them nice again.  I would even have had to repaint their lips and possibly get wigs for them, since their hair was pretty bad.  But, I felt like they needed me.  Sigh.  

Oh well.  

I will just keep my eyes out for others.  I want a brunette Chatty Cathy with brown eyes.  I guess they are quite rare.  I also want a tiny chatty brother.  And I wish wish wish I had bought that AA Chatty Baby--she was pretty expensive, but I could have afforded her.  I don't know if I will ever see one again--and I want a AA Chatty Cathy too.  But I do not NEED them.  I just WANT them.

I need a bigger house so I have more room to display all my dolls.

Lily and Rhonda came over for a visit.  I showed them all the fairies that Sadie had sent to me.  I had given them to her when she was a little girl.  She gave them back to me as she knows I love them.  Three of them are hand made porcelain fairy dolls that are maybe 4-5".  Some day, I want to get a large bird cage and make it into a fairy house for these three and furnish it with high quality doll house furniture.  There is some that I have always admired that is made of twisted wire--it looks like beautiful Victorian wicker furniture.  I can sew little pillows and crochet tiny afghans and make any other fabric accessories I need to make it homey--and of course, the door to the bird cage will always remain open so the fairies are free to come and go at will--not be "imprisoned"!

They brought me a dessert made with strawberries, jello, and angel food cake.  It's very good.  

When they left, they took my two bills with them to mail at the post office.

I didn't do any cleaning today.  I watched and deleted a bunch of programs from the DVR.


Thursday, August 20

I had one of my intense, highly dramatic and detailed, apocalyptic dreams again last night.  It was so impressive that I am going to give it a post of its own after I catch up with this journal.

Mom had an appointment to get her hair cut at 11 am, so I got up early, spent an hour doing stuff, and picked her up at about 10:30.  On the way to Owatonna, we drove by the swamp and saw the swan family in the middle of the swamp near the tall grass.  The babies are really big now.  

While she was in the salon, getting her hair cut, I called Costa's Candy Store which is right across the street and ordered a pound of mixed dark and milk chocolate turtles and chocolate covered toffees.  The chocolate was much better today than it was the last time I got it.  I got a small bag of plain caramels and dark chocolate turtles for Mom.  

When she got out of the appointment, she looked very nice.  I called El Tequila, a fabulous Mexican restaurant, and ordered take out.  For me, I ordered my favorite--a tamale, an enchilada with ground beef, and a chili rellano.  It comes with chips, refried beans, and rice.  I ordered a side of guacamole and a piece of flan.  Mom got her favorite meal which is a chimichanga and a ground beef enchilada.  She hates flan, so she did not get any dessert.

We came to my house to eat as it is very hard for me to get into Mom's house, especially since I had not brought my walker along.  At my house, I discovered a large Amazon box had been delivered.  It was the paraffin and drawer organizers I had ordered for Lily earlier this month.  The doll sized record player did not come, but the small composition books did.  I was disappointed as they were way too big for what I wanted them for.  Disappointed.  But I will use them for other things.

Mom had a whole list of things, mostly vitamins and soap and deoderant, from Target.  I had her credit card, so we had it charged to her card and sent directly to her house.  That makes it easier.  It was $273 worth of stuff, but it will keep her supplied with all her needs through the entire winter.

Mom wanted to fill my gas tank for me, since I have only driven my car to take her to her appointments or on rides in the country to get out of the house for a while.  She also wanted to bring her gas cans along and have me fill them so she has them for her lawn mower.  I called Lily and told her we would drop off the stuff she had ordered.  I have to remember to look up the order and see what she owes me.  

We were talking to Lily and Rhonda in the driveway when Rachelle drove up with Sophie and Chloe.  Sophie just keeps getting cuter and cuter.  They'd driven three hours, so Sophie had a ton of energy built up and tore all over the yard.  She sang the A-B-C song for mom.  She has totally mastered the potty training now--and little Chloe has mastered the rolling from back to tummy but gets very frustrated that she cannot roll back again.

We left there and went to Casey's where I filled her gas cans and my car.  Now I am probably good to go till the snow flies too.  I just don't go very far from home unless it is earth shakingly important.  Mom and I decided that we would get take out from El Tequila at least once a month.  We want that restaurant to stay afloat.

Unfortunately, I saw a hideous thing right next to El Tequila!  It used to be a Godfather's Pizza place, but NOW, it is a fucking tRUMP store!  hideous tRUMP merchandise was hanging in every window.  I never felt such a strong desire for a flame thrower in my life.  And even worse, there were at least a dozen people that went in and out while we waited to get our food.  Fucking tRUMP.  How I long for the day that someone beats him to death with a shovel.

I dropped Mom off at her house with her gas cans and went home.  I was very tired.  I dozed in my recliner for a while, watched some TV, and ate more of the chips and guacamole for supper.  I went to bed fairly early as it had been a long day.

I did not finish my kitchen counters again today--there is so little left to do.  Maybe tomorrow or Saturday.

It will get done eventually.

Dreams

 I have had two very detailed, interesting, and disturbing dreams this week.

The first was an apocalyptic dream.  It was odd.  

It was set in New York City.  I was living in an apartment building on a very high floor.  Directly across the street from my apartment building was the Chrysler building.  I had three roommates.  One was a youngish woman and the other two were small children--probably around 7 or 8 years old.  A little blonde girl and boy.  They were not my biological children, nor were they the biological children of the other woman, but we were their guardians.  No idea how that happened.  It was never made clear in the dream.

I had recently come home after being at the grocery store.  The kids had come running to greet me and were very glad that I was home.  I was torn as I wanted to give them the attention they were craving, but I had a big paper due the next day.  The research was all done and in a zipper case, but I had not begun the actual writing of it yet. 

My adult roommate called my attention to the window, and we looked out to see a bunch of black vans pulling up in the street below.  A bunch of militaristic looking men swarmed out of the vehicles with large weapons.  They hauled all kinds of scary looking equipment into the Chrysler building, and soon they were up near the top, setting up large barreled devices near the top of the building.  They looked like long barreled cannons which were pointed directly at our building.  This was very disturbing.  They appeared to be pointed right at our approximate level.  I was worried about the kids and what would happen if they started shooting at the apartment building.  

My adult roommate and I decided to gather a few  things and take the kids to the basement.  I grabbed my case of research, figuring I could work on that in the basement.  She grabbed blankets, pillows, and a few toys to keep the kids occupied and took them down to the basement.  I was gathering some food and other supplies to follow them.  I was watching those military looking guys continuing to swarm the Chrysler building and setting up major large weapons at all the levels.  I decided I had better go before they started firing.  

When I left the apartment, I could see the neighbor across the hall had left his apartment and had left his door wide open.  I glanced inside and saw his large gray cat was sleeping inside a cardboard box.  I didn't know whether he had abandoned his cat or if he was just taking a load of stuff to his car or the basement and was coming back for the cat. 

I was torn about the cat--I wanted to take him with me to the basement so he would be safe, but I didn't want to do it if the neighbor was coming back for him.  I decided I would take the pile of stuff I had to the basement and think about what I needed to do about the cat.  

In the basement, my roommate and the kids had claimed a space and had set up a little nest of blankets and pillows and were settling in.  I couldn't stop thinking about the cat.  I put down my stuff and laid out my research, figuring I could work on my paper there.  I worried about the electricity going out and also about the building being so structurally damaged that it would collapse down in on us and bury us in rubble.  

I decided to go back up to the neighbor's apartment and get the cat, his litterbox, and some food and bring him down with us.

When I got back up there, his apartment was full of looters who were digging through his stuff.  I couldn't find the cat.  I hoped he had come back for it.

I was thinking that we really should get out of the building--that we should load up our vehicle and head out of the city--go someplace safe in the country.  Staying was surely a doomed enterprise.  I worried that my roommate would not be willing to risk leaving our apartment and our stuff and put the kids at risk on  the road.  I was thinking we should go to my mother's house, which wasn't her real house but the farm I grew up on.  

I woke up before we headed out, but I've thought about that dream a lot in  the last few days.  I think that the militaristic people were tRUMP paramilitary nut jobs and they were fighting to keep tRUMP in power and planning to destroy everyone they considered to be a threat to him.

I was very worried about those children.

And that big gray cat of the neighbor's.  Peaches was not in this dream.

Another thing that was odd about the dream is that it seemed like the female roommate and I were a couple in this dream.  Even though I am straight in my real life, in the dream, it just seemed normal and natural that we were together.  The kids, I think, were either adopted or foster children that we were taking care of.  And in the dream, I was much younger--early to mid thirties, I would guess, yet, in the dream, I knew my mother was 86.  

It seemed very odd and unnatural that I would not have any cats.

Well, that was THAT dream.

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The other dream that made a strong impact was set at my Grandma Harpel's house, and even though she has been dead for almost 20 years in real life, she was there.  

I don't remember much of  the details of the dream, why I was there, or who else was there, though I think Lily and her daughter Rhonda were both there too.  

I was in the kitchen at the sink doing dishes. Grandma approached me, stressed out and upset.  

"There is a man in here!" she whispered urgently.  "I don't know how he got in.  I don't see him now."

I glanced over by the back door, where her laundry area was, and I saw a short, slender male figure standing near the top of the basement stairs.  The thing was, he was a ghost--he was pale and translucent.  He was about 5 feet tall.  He was looking to the side, not directly at us.

I was instantly filled with annoyance that he was in my grandmother's house, freaking her out, so I yelled at him, "GET OUT!  YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE."  

He looked at me, then sort of WHOOSHED down the basement steps--it wasn't normal human movement, it was like he glided rapidly down the stairs.  I ran to the top of the stairs, and saw him moving like a flash of light down the stairway, saw the basement door fly open and slam against the wall and him swish through it.   

Grandma was freaking out.  I was shocked and overwhelmed by what had happened, but I wasn't scared of it. I was just really really angry that it had come into the house and seemed determined to stay.  

The feeling I had was not in articulated words--it was more just a wordless determination--"Oh, no you don't, bucko.  You WILL NOT be staying in this house!"

I had resolve in my heart that it was LEAVING, but I had no plan or even idea of how to get it out.  But I was ready to do battle with it.

There was more detail to the dream, but it has faded away.  

The main image that remains is that thing swooshing down those steps and slamming the door against the wall hard enough to shake the house and my poor grandma freaking out.