February 15 through 24

[chochiyo_sama]

Sunday, February 14

It was a quiet day.  My biggest accomplishment was catching up with this journal.  My brother Jack came over to drag my recycling bin to the curb and was apparently disturbed by the  unbroken down cardboard I had shoved into the bin.  My box cutter has disappeared.  I suspect Peaches knocked it off the side table into the garbage can.  Anyway, he stomped the boxes apart and shoved all the cardboard into the bin.  I appreciated his efforts greatly.  If I had tried that, I would have fallen over and possibly broken my neck then frozen to death in the 20 below cold.

I ate hot house tomatoes on toast for breakfast and warmed up the hamburger patties I had cooked a few days ago for a cheese burger. 

There was another pile of puke in the living room for me to clean up today.  Peaches likes to make sure I have something to do.

 

Monday, February 15

When I woke up this morning, I had a text from my nephew Matthew telling me he was in “a bad place” and asking if he could call me and talk.  I immediately texted back that OF COURSE, he can call me any time of the night or day.  So he called and we had a nice chat.  His electricity had been off for quite a while due to the huge Texas snow storm.  We talked about the weather, the girl friend who dumped him to go to New York City to meet some guy she met on the internet, and his CPTSD—most of which was caused by his dumb ass, vicious father who treated him like shit from the time he was born.  It was a good talk.  I have to make an effort to contact him more often.  From the minute he was born, he was my precious boy.  When he was a very little boy, he told his mother, “I love you, Mom, but I am Auntie Cheryl’s boy.”  I wasn’t even there at the time.  As he got older, my job got harder.  I had a total asshole superintendent and later a MEGA asshole principal.  I became so depressed and filled with anxiety that I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything.  Also, the kids were getting bigger so they didn’t need a baby sitter any more and they were more interested in skate boarding, paint balling, and snow boarding than they were with playing Chutes and Ladders and Hi Ho Cherry-O with said Auntie.  I miss them as little tykes. 

Later, Lily called and wanted my help to get on the live stream of a funeral of a lady from her church.  She is completely computer illiterate, and I was trying to help her over the phone.  So I told her step by step what to do as  I figured it out on my laptop.  There were two windows.  One was the live stream of the funeral and the other was a memorial series of pictures of the lady’s life and music.  She got on the memorial and couldn’t figure out how to get out of it.  I finally was able to get her out of it and onto the livestream.  Arg.  What an ordeal! 

But, I am glad to help her in whatever I can.  She does so much for me.  And her own children have NO patience with her.  They make it so clear to her that she is a burden to them.  They are so impatient with her inability to catch on to technical stuff.  They forget that she dropped out of school at 15 because she was pregnant with the oldest one.  Then she was a wife and mother and Avon Lady and never got much instruction in anything but the bare minimum. 

 

Tuesday, February 16

I got a couple of packages today but did not open them.  I will savor the mystery till tomorrow.  I cleaned the litterboxes and washed the dishes.  The highlight of the day was the eggs and toast I had for supper.  The eggs were a perfect “over easy”—nice and runny but hot.  And that is basically my day.

 

Wednesday, February 17

Today I did the laundry and made myself a delicious dinner of fresh fried potatoes and a rib eye steak.  It was very good.  I don’t eat like that too often.

There was a very light, gentle snowfall that lasted most of the day but did not amount to much. 

Matt let me know that he and Floof (his cat) drove to the home of a friend of his.  That house still had electricity and therefore heat.  Also a two and four year old who made the stay “interesting.”  Matt is not used to small children.  Neither is Floof, who loudly and disruptively voiced her disapproval.

I hope the water pipes in his apartment do not burst.

 

Thursday, February 18

Lily came over, bringing my mail and dragging my recycle bin back up to the house.  She wanted me to help her find the special Hartz Delectable cat food that is one of the few things her finicky cat will eat.  We (I) searched Amazon, Chewy.com, and some other sites, but there was none to be had.  All “out of stock.”   In the Chewy.com site, you can use a message feature to talk to a real person, so I asked what the deal was with the Hartz Delectables.  She said that production had stopped at the factory due to supply issues.  I began to worry about all pet food production, so I ordered all of the things Peaches enjoys eating in large bags and multiple pods.  It cost me over $200, but now I will have enough food to last her well into the summer.  I also bought two boxes of cat litter.  Just to be safe.

Lily was disappointed, but I promised her I would keep checking and signed up for email alerts for when it becomes available again.  I had a very small bag of garbage sitting by the door, so she took it out to the bin for me. 

Matthew and Randi, Lily’s oldest granddaughter who also lives in Austin, Texas, are safe.  Their electricity is back on. 

I had a Schwan’s frozen spaghetti dinner for supper.  It was acceptable but nothing fabulous.  It’s good to have quick, easy to make meals like that on hand. 

 

Friday, February 19

My groceries from Lerberg’s were delivered.  I wiped them down and put them away.  I had bought a package of chicken—three thigh and leg pieces with skin attached. I put all three I my roaster with a can of chicken broth and a chopped up onion and baked them.  When it had cooled enough to not melt the plastic storage container, I put them in the fridge to chill overnight.

The Schwan’s man stopped and I bought a box of coconut shrimp.  There was a sale on all the shrimp products. 

I wasn’t very hungry for supper, so I made a banana malt for supper.  I have a jar of malt powder and vanilla ice cream and a bunch of bananas.  It tasted good, but for some reason, it did not sit well in my body.  After about an hour, I ended up puking every drop of it up again.  No fun.

It was much warmer today.  I hope that means spring is on the way.

 

Saturday, February 20

Today I skimmed the fat off the chicken.  It floats to the top of the broth when you refrigerate it, then the chicken doesn’t have all that gross grease on it.  Then I peeled off the skin, picked the meat off the bones, and cut the meat into small chunks.  I used 2/3 of the meat to make chicken and rice and the other 1/3 to make chicken salad.  I used one of my left over hamburger buns to make a chicken salad sandwich, and it was very tasty.  Lily had come over while I was dealing with the chicken and brought me a container of cream of broccoli and cauliflower soup she had made and two cinnamon rolls from Mary Groth.    

I put away the clean dishes that were in the drainer and washed the dishes I dirtied dealing with the chicken.  While I did all that work in the kitchen, I listened to an audio book on YouTube called The Summer House by James Patterson.  It was a murder mystery. 

Kim spent the day with Mom, which was good for her.  Apparently my nephew Erik, Joni’s youngest, got a job working for the housing place he rents from.  Not sure what the job entails—probably maintenance—but his rent is cut in half as part of his pay.  He is so happy.  He was so depressed when the job with NPR fell through.

 

Sunday, February 21

I filled my pill caddy first thing.  I ate Lily’s cauliflower/broccoli soup and a chicken salad sandwich with slices of fresh tomato for lunch.  I spent most of the day listening to the audio book, watching the gentle snowfall that again went on most of the day, and poking around on the internet. 

I found a seller on Etsy who knits beautiful Barbie doll sized sweaters.  I filled a whole cart up with about $200 worth of sweaters for various Barbie family members, but I did not order them.  I am still considering them.  I want them.  But, I feel guilty spending that much money on sweaters for dolls.  Especially dolls that I haven’t been that “into” lately.  I still love them.  I just haven’t spent a lot of time with them lately.

 

Monday, February 22

I got more boxes today.  I dragged them into the house.  They were heavy because they were the big bags of cat food.  I broke down the cardboard as best I could.  I got the new box cutters from Amazon, but there were no directions on how to load the blades, and when I tried, I almost cut my fingers off.  So I have put them aside until I have time to look up how to do it on line.  I cleaned the litter boxes and took the bag of scoopings and the living room garbage out to the bin. 

I had chicken and rice for lunch and beef hotdogs on buns and black olives for supper.  I bought the hot dogs from Lerbergs as they are a nice “quick” meal.  It was much warmer again today, and the snow is melting rapidly.  OH, hurry and come to us, Spring! 

I finished listening to the audio book and was glad to see the accused proved innocent and the guilty exposed and punished.

 

Tuesday, February 23

Waylon (my mailman) brought a package and my loose mail to the door today.  It was my order from Denis Bastian from Affordable Designs—Canada.  I got two more LeeAnn dolls and a Liang (a Chinese boy doll) along with some tennis shoes for the boy dolls and some jeans and jeans jackets for boy dolls.  One girl was a blue-eyed blonde with long braids.  I am calling her Katrina.  I intend to give her freckles.  Her face cries out for freckles!  The other girl has long red/orange hair and green eyes.  She is stunning.  I have wanted her for years.  I am calling her Ember.  The boy has brown eyes and black hair.  I am calling him Micah.  They all came to me naked.  I put the jeans and jeans jacket on the boy and put the girls in matching purple flannel fairy motif pajamas. They look adorable in them.  I am going to have to go to work and sew more clothes for these dolls.  I have more than doubled the number of these dolls I have.  The population has gone from four girls and no boys to seven girls and four boys.  Eventually I want an equal number of boys and girls.  And I know there is at least one more of the girl dolls that I really want.

Today I finally turned my pile of withered apples into an apple dumpling.  It turned out very delicious.  While it was baking, I did the dishes and made myself a chicken salad sandwich and some Schwan’s mixed vegetables—corn, peas, green beans, and carrots.  Those vegetables tasted so good!  I haven’t been eating a lot of veggies lately, so they really hit the spot.

 

Wednesday, February 24

I dragged in two more packages of cat food/litter today.  I ate the other half of the Schwan’s vegetables and more of the chicken and rice for lunch and tomatoes on toast and apple dumpling for supper.  It was another warm day with the snow melting like crazy. 

I spent most of the day on the phone.  I talked to my mother for about an hour—she was howling about how privileged black people are and how they are persecuting the police who killed George Floyd who “WAS A BAD GUY.”  I told her that even if he was guilty of bad deeds, it is NOT the cops’ job to be judge, jury and executioner on a public street!  And then I heard the “WHAT ABOUT BLACKS KILLING BLACKS??” I told her that was completely irrelevant to the discussion.  No matter how many black people have killed other black people, it is STILL not acceptable for the cops to kill unarmed black people.  And also, that cop had a history of excessive force and violence.  HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN OFF THE FORCE YEARS AGO.  But there is no talking to her.  I should learn to just hang up on her when she starts this shit. 

Lily must have called me seven or more times.  She was having issues with her phone.  She wanted me to help her over the phone to fix her phone.  Well, I have an I-phone and she has another brand, so I don’t know much about how that works.  She had some numbers on her screen and could not call some of the numbers she wanted to call—though it would let her call me.  I have no idea how to clear that off of her phone.  Mine, it would be gone if I pressed the middle button.  Hers did not work that way.  Finally I told her to shut the phone off completely, wait a couple minutes, then turn it back on.  Then I had to tell her how to turn her phone off and on.  That did the trick.  Later, she called about her cat who had been making weird howls and then gobbled up a lot of food.  She didn’t know if she should give the cat her insulin shot.  She finally decided she should give her the shot, and the cat survived.

I am sure I probably was on the phone with her at least two hours.

My sister Joni and I talked for over an hour.  Mainly we talked about politics and how irritating certain family members who worship tRUMP as a god are.  She did fill me in on the boys and how they are doing.  We also talked briefly about Kim’s spawn. 

And finally, Dean Lilya called me.  He is a former student who calls me occasionally.  We talked for over two hours and he introduced me to his wife over  the phone.  She couldn’t talk much as English is a struggle for her.  She is Chinese.  We had a very nice chat.  We talked about everything under the sun—for over 2 hours.

It was good to talk to all of these people (well, except once mom started being racist again), but I got practically nothing done all day as I was on the phone all day.

I started listening to another audio book on YouTube:  Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein (one of my absolute favorite authors from my youth onward.  I read that book when I was very young, and I had not remembered a lot of it.  I thoroughly enjoyed hearing it read aloud to me by a guy who could do a lot of voices.  Good times.  Though I got irritated every time the phone rang as I was enjoying the story so much.

Comments

[cmcmck]

You really must learn to hang up!

[the_godiva]

Have you replaced the box cutters yet? If you like, I can pick you up one at Home Depot and send it with your second box of mixed birthday/Christmas stuff. I need to get that stuff out of the house. If it stays any longer I'll just keep adding to it.

I cooked a bit this week. Not real cooking but more than I have been doing. I bought a bunch of microwave dinners at Windmill Farms and have been having them. The Scampi wasn't bad. I didn't care for the shrimp Alfredo at all. I still have the garlic shrimp on rice to go. When I've eaten through them all I'll fry up the breaded shrimp in the cast iron skillet and microwave some mac n cheese or make rice. Probably Sunday or Monday. What little is left I might move to the dorm fridge's freezer and the chest freezer in the garage. I want to start clearing out the refrigerator except for what I absolutely need every day or that can be gone through quickly. I will eventually have to shop every few days. But I want to be able to clear the refrigerator quickly. I also need to start packing up the cookbooks in the cabinet over the microwave so that can be removed quickly too. There is stuff over the refrigerator as well. Part of the shopping I did in the midst of the pandemic. Extra bag of flour, corn bread mix, biscuit mix and I think there is a scone mix there too. Not sure where I am going to put the crates I store that stuff in when the Refrigerator arrives. Either dining room or garage. I could just set them outside for the few hours but if it rains, I'm screwed.

On a weird note, my landline started working again. Not sure why. I thought there was aa bad connection where it goes from the box into the house. It's all overgrown there so I've never gone to inspect it or to redo the connecions. But the other day it rang and I picked it up. It was a fraud alert messabe purporting to be from Amazon but in the end it was a hacker trying to get me to install malware on my laptop. I essentially told him to go screw himself. Two other spam calls have come up on that phone. I don't know whether the phone company cut my line last year and have just now gotten around to repairing it or for some reason the wiring is just working again. Odd that it would happen after our last mild rain. You'd think rain would knock it out, not bring it back. Well, everyone knows to call the cell phone so now all the landline really gets is spam.I don't think I'm going to bother even picking it up any more.

Meanwhile my Mother bought new cordless phones for the house. Did she ask me about it? No. Does she hate them? Yes. I would have suggested the same cordless phones I have but....she didn't ask.