August 1-6

[chochiyo_sama]

Sunday, August 1

DeAnn and I had a good Zoom meeting.  We did not discuss a lot of the  content of The Artist’s Way, but we had very good conversation about our current circumstances, the projects we are attempting, and the progress we are achieving. 

Joni is out of ICU and may be allowed to go home on Tuesday.  She is feeling a bit better—still very weak and exhausted, but not puking or having massive amounts of bloody diarrhea. 

I spent a lot of time on the phone, talking to Mom, Lily, and Tammy.  I didn’t accomplish much else.  My shoulder hurt too much all day to allow me to do much of anything.

 

Monday, August 2

I had two strange dreams last night.  I don’t remember a lot about them, but in one, I was walking down the side of a big brick building which looked a lot like the north side of ROC, except the building was much bigger than it was in reality, and there was a sidewalk there where none existed in reality.  I was on my way to see my mother (who was not my REAL mother) who was also “the queen.” 

There were two men dressed in livery walking down the sidewalk on the east side of the building.  One of them said something about the queen being “Stupid.”  Now, in my dream, I was not an adult but I think I was probably a teenager.  And I was obnoxious.  I yelled something back over my shoulder that I was on my way to see the queen, and that I would be sure to tell her his opinion of her.  Then I called him a “fuck boy.”  I don’t even know what that meant.  Haha.  He took offensive to that and started running towards me.  I started running to the end of the building as he was much bigger than me and he was mad.  He yelled something like, “You will be sorry for being disrespectful to me!” And I yelled back, “Oh, disrespectful like calling the queen stupid?”

I knew if I could make it around the corner, I could get to my mother and he would not be able to hurt me.  I also knew that I was never going to make it.  I started yelling, “MOM!” 

And that’s when I woke up.

I never got to tattle on him, but I never got my ass kicked either, so I guess it was okay.

When I went back to sleep, I dreamed I was babysitting a really naughty and obnoxious little boy with sandy-brown hair.  I don’t remember much about that dream except that he was a brat, and his father was a very grumpy man.

My shoulder did not hurt quite as much today.  I wiped down a six pack of Diet Coke and filled the pop fridge in the living room and watched a few things off the DVR.  I did not feel much motivation to do anything else.  My house is a mess and I have been cleaning up dead fly carcasses all over the house.  Disgusting.

 

Tuesday, August 3

I had some white clothes and sheets in the dryer, so I folded them.  Then spent a long time catching up on the July DW entries.  I took my electric sweeper and swept up just scores of dead flies.  The flies have begun to keel over of old age, but there are still plenty of live ones in here too.  I have been killing some of them with the fly swatter, but there are SO MANY.  I will be glad when they are all dead.

It sounds like the medical people in Rochester are getting a handle on Joni’s issues and are making progress getting her back to good health.  She isn’t home yet, but by the end of the week, she should be.

Mom has been complaining about being bored and feeling trapped in the house for days, so I took her to Owatonna today to get food at Culvers.  They make delicious fish, so we had batter fried fish, onion rings and coleslaw.  We ate our food in Morehouse Park near the dam.  The river is definitely very low.  We need some rain to fill it back up again.

The swamp is really low and scummy looking too.  There was no sign of the swan family.

In the evening, I was looking at some of my doll collector groups on FaceBook.  On the “buy and sell” feature, a lady was selling 6 American Girl dolls.  I have three of the real American Girl dolls that I bought before the appendix issues from a little girl in Owatonna who had outgrown them, but they are all blondes.  This lady had two brunettes, one with straight hair and another with curlier hair.  So I chatted with her a bit and decided I would buy those two.  We were discussing whether she would mail them to me, and when I gave her my address, it turns out she lives in Albert Lea—which is exactly where I would be going tomorrow for mom’s eye doctor appointment!  So, we agreed that I would pay her cash—a very low price for the “real thing,” and I would pick them up at the car dealership where her ex-husband works.  I will pick them up after her appointment.

Not much else of note happened today.

 

Wednesday, August 4

I had to get up early today to take Mom to Dr. Skorin for her macular degeneration shot in the eye.  I was able to get up early enough to take a shower which I desperately needed.  Before picking up Mom, I stopped and got my mail.  Since I have to sit in the car for as long as it takes her to see her doctor, I can get through my mail and write out some bills if I have any. 

Mom had a catalog which she wanted me to order a couch cover and a recliner cover from for her new living room furniture. Mojo likes to lay on her new furniture and shed his hair on it.  She wanted me to order it as her eyes are so bad that she cannot read the directions or the numbers of the items.  I filled out the order form and discovered you could get free shipping if you ordered three items.  She only ordered two items, so shipping would be $9.99.  However, there was a set of four unstuffed dog toys for $11.99.  Joni’s puppies are starting to enjoy playing with toys and were having a high old time beating up another unstuffed toy last week.  But there are 10 of them and only one toy at present.  So for only about $2 more, we could get four more toys.  They were cute and were in farm animal shapes—a cow, a lamb, a rooster, and a pig.  So I ordered them too.

Mom was okay with it when I told her what I had done. 

On the way out of town, I picked up the two dolls at Mann’s Motors, giving her father (who had the dolls) the envelop with the money.  He was kind of an asshole.  He didn’t know me from Adam, but he immediately started raving about how “Joe Biden is destroying America” and ranting about the greatness of Donald tRUMP.  I just got the hell out of there after poking a couple of holes in some of the shit he was spewing.  If I had stayed any longer, we might have had a real issue.

Mom was kind of a bitch about the dolls.  It always makes me a little disgusted when she criticizes my dolls when she has scores of Precious Moments figurines and hundreds of angel figurines, but my dolls are a waste of money.  And she will bitch about it to everyone she knows.  But Jack, with his magical penis, is totally fine to have hundreds of his little game figurines for his RPGs. 

Mom has been starving for fried chicken, so we went through the drive through of KFC and got the $5 box lunches.  They contain a thigh, a drumstick, a little pod of mashed potatoes and gravy, and a little pod of coleslaw.  I waited till I got home to eat it as it was too greasy to try to eat it on the road.  It was okay.  I wouldn’t rush out to get another any time soon, but it was okay.

The dolls are a little scruffy—they need a wash and a good hair comb-out, but otherwise they are perfect.  In the pictures I saw last night, the dolls were naked, but they had put little dresses on them, so I will probably wash the doll clothes too.  Their bodies are perfect as are their faces.

I got two small packages in the mail—one was the shoes I had bought off Etsy for my “My Friend” dolls.  The other was the  stuff I had bought from Affordable Designs (Denis Bastien) from his 50% off cleaning out the stock sale.  I bought some red “mary jane” shoes and some white “If only there were more hours in the day” tee shirts for the LeeAnn dolls.  It was a very good deal on all of it.

When I got home, I put away the clean dishes in the dish drainer, washed the dirty dishes in the sink, cleaned the litter boxes, and got all my mail and packages in from the garage.

Joni’s condition continues to improve, and the medical staff at St. Mary’s in Rochester seems to be much more competent than the idiots in Owatonna.

 

Thursday, August 5

Another day of next to nothing accomplished.  I was tired and my body ached, and I had no ambition at all.  I mostly dozed in my recliner all day.

Joni came home from the hospital today, and her husband was an absolute asshole.  She is still very weak and exhausted.  When she walked into her three seasons porch, the stench of cat urine was overpowering.  The cats had peed all over the porch.  When she asked him why he had not cleaned it up, he snarled, “They are not my fucking cats.”

Then he snidely told her the whole upstairs was covered in cat shit as well.

So, home from several days in the hospital, weak as a kitten, sick as a dog, and the first thing she has to do is pull up all the rugs in the three seasons porch, wash them, and scrub up all the cat pee.  Then she had to go upstairs and clean up several piles of cat poop as well.  And all the while, her husband is telling her that she needs to get “off her lazy ass and do some work around here because I can’t keep this place up by myself.” 

When she responded, “I can’t.  Do you think I was in the hospital all this time for fun?”  His response was that he thought she treated it like a vacation where people would wait on her day and night. 

He is a complete asshole, and I am beginning to hope for his slow and painful death.  Grr.

I made my grocery list and called in a delivery order this afternoon. I didn’t need much, but I bought some produce and some mayonnaise for my tomato sandwiches. 

 

Friday, August 6

I was a little more productive today.  I folded last week’s white clothes and sorted and started this weeks laundry, of which there is MUCH.  I dragged some garbage out to the bins, cleaned the litterboxes and added more clean litter, shucked the sweet corn mom had given me, cleaned some old, nasty stuff out of the refrigerator, and cleaned Peaches’ food and water area.  I gave her a clean water bowl, wiped down her food mat, and gave her fresh kibbles. 

The Schwan’s man stopped, so I bought some egg rolls, General Tsao’s chicken, and vegetable fried rice.  At some point, I will have a delicious Asian themed meal.  Ross delivered my grocery order, and I wiped everything down and put it away.  As soon as he was out the door, I ate one of the caramel pecan rolls that a local baker has been making and selling through Lerbergs.  It was delicious.  Next time I order groceries, I am going to buy a loaf of her home made bread.  I bought a container of 4 brownies too.  I ate one of those before bed, and it was delicious.

My new phone has not been working right, so I called the Verizon people and insisted on talking to an actual human being who did get it rebooted so it now seems to be working effectively.  We will see.

I also called Arlen Brekke, the local contractor about my need to reside my house and my desire to put a deck on the front of the house.  My other wants are to add a garage stall, so there will be a two-car garage (mostly for resell value), and to install one of those stair-chair things so I have access to my basement.  I left a long and detailed message on his answering machine.

I did a little picking up of clutter and other small chores as well.  I at least felt like I did something today.  I don’t feel like quite as big a lazy loser as I have most of the rest  of the week. 

Comments

[the_godiva]

I would have left, picked up the dolls and then gone back. Thus avoiding judgement from your Mother.

What's Jeff's favorite poison? Bourbon? Whiskey? Rum? Whatever it is give him a CASE of it for his birthday and again for Christmas every year. Hopefully he will follow Kevin sooner than later. How is it so many of your sisters married assholes? More opportunity to be grateful you are single. *This* is why widows don't remarry.

When the plumbers installed the toilet, did they put the high rise upstairs and move that one to the basement?

Why isn't the tub on your list? I'd do the tub before I did the deck. The deck you can only enjoy in the summer but the tub is year round and more of a necessity.

tub, stair chair, deck, garage.

[chochiyo_sama]

WEll, the contractor does not do plumbing, and the siding has to be done, so I figured, I would have him do all the stuff HE does at once, since I will probably have to borrow money from my credit union to complete the job. I am truly considering providing Jeff with a shit load of liquor in hopes that he will expire.