August 14 through 17

[chochiyo_sama]

 

Saturday, August 14

My shoulder hurt so much yesterday that the first thing I did when I got up this morning was to take a very long, hot, intense shower to loosen up the muscles in my shoulder, back, and arms.  It seemed to help, at least for the early part of the day.   

Kim was supposed to come down and visit Mom this weekend, but she ended up having to do some overtime and was too tired to come down after that.

Mom really wanted me to take her to Owatonna or somewhere for some take out, but my shoulder just hurt too much.  I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything.  I spent the bulk of the day farting around on line and watching stuff I had recorded of the DVR and deleting it.

I texted my nephew Caleb to see if he could come over and drag my garbage and recycling bins to the curb as both were really full and heavy.  He responded that he was working on a big paper for his internship that is due Monday, so he did not think he could.  I told him not to worry about it, that I would try to call someone else.  I thought I could call the Stitt boys or maybe my nephew Erik since he is living with my mother now.

 

Sunday, August 15

I woke up to a text from DeAnn asking if I would be okay with delaying our Zoom meeting to 11 am instead of 10 am as she was really exhausted.  That was fine with me.  I used the extra hour to pick up a little clutter, do some laundry, and poke around on the internet. 

I was surprised to see that both my garbage and recycling had been hauled to the curb at some point—either late last night or early this morning!  I texted Caleb to see if he had done it and thanked him profusely when I found out he had done it.  I try not to bug people too much, but I just cannot do it myself.

DeAnn and I had a good Zoom meeting and discussed a lot of things.  She had spent the whole day yesterday cleaning out her garage and moving a bunch of stuff from the house to the now cleaned out garage. 

I think our meeting went close to four hours!  I think it is very good for both of us to meet and chat every Sunday morning.  When we both lived in West Concord, we were together at least 3-4 times a week and talked almost every day. 

Later in the day I was sort of dozing in my recliner with an ice bag on my shoulder when my doorbell rang.  It was Patrick’s two youngest boys with a pint jar of homemade plum jelly made from the plums they had grown on their own tree!  Those kids are properly home schooled and have a true education.  In addition to a pretty classical education, they also learn to cook, bake, and now can!  The plum jelly is the most beautiful honey gold color.  I have not opened it yet, but I will!  In my next grocery order, I will get some English muffins which are delicious toasted with butter and jelly—better than cake! 

Patrick is the former pastor of my mother’s church.  He was a good guy—not like some of the fanatical loonies they have had there in the past.

 

Monday, August 15

Today I had enough ambition to fry a pound of hamburger with onions then “butcher” a black diamond watermelon (the most delicious of all watermelons!) and a cantaloupe.  Both of those melons were delicious. 

The cantaloupe could have been just a little riper, but it was still very tasty.  The watermelon was PERFECTION. 

I worked hard in the kitchen preparing food, cleaning things up, and gathering garbage and recycling together.  I got so hot I felt like I was about to pass out.  Lily stopped over to get my mail for me.  She had been bugging me to come to her house tomorrow to play games with her friends Amy and Ed, but I told her I just wasn’t up to it.  Just the bit of work I had done today made my shoulder feel like someone had driven rusty, dull spikes into my shoulder bones.  Also, she had declared that it was “so cool now” that she was turning off her air conditioning.  I cannot stand to be hot, and she is freezing if the temperature is below 88 degrees.  I told her that I just wasn’t up for it.

To soften the blow, I gave her large plastic tubs of watermelon and cantaloupe.  She dragged my garbage bin back up to the house.  When it is empty, it isn’t too bad to roll.  Later she called me and told me she had really enjoyed the fruit.

I spent most of the late afternoon and evening in my recliner, icing my shoulder again.  The ice seems to help it.  The arthritis formula Tylenol takes the edge off but it does not take away the pain completely.

 

Tuesday, August 17

This morning, I sorted and started my laundry then did some tidying in my bedroom, including gathering the recycling and garbage from my bedroom, bathroom, and living room.  I went through the big bag of mail Lily had picked up for me, recycled all of the junk mail (there was a HUGE bag of just junk mail), and wrote out checks for three bills—the plumber’s bill from the sea of shit in the basement ordeal, the Culligan bill, and the Minnesota Energy bill.  While I did those things, I watched and deleted some stuff from the DVR. 

I called my mother to see if she would like to go to Owatonna for a late lunch/early supper today since she had wanted to do that over the weekend, and I just was not up for it.  She was eager to go, so I put on my shoes and bra and gathered my bills to be mailed and the two gifts I had ordered for my sister Joni as “get well” gifts.  She wanted a Kelly and Ryan mug as that is her favorite show.  I don’t think I have ever watched it myself, but I looked on Amazon and found one it came last week.  In the bag of mail Lily had picked up for me was the “Soft Kitty” shirt I had also ordered from her. 

She loves the Big Bang Theory too, and Sheldon Cooper always had to have “Soft Kitty” sung to him when he was sick or sad.  The whole song was printed on the tee shirt.  I got her the blue one—a very pretty shade of blue.  The lyrics are “Soft kitty, warm kitty—little ball of fur!  Happy kitty, sleepy kitty—purr, purr, purr.”  It will surely heal her of her illness. 

I talked to Tammy on the phone earlier—she told me that Joni had told her that Jeff had managed to charge $2,500 on her credit card while she was in the hospital hanging on by a fingernail for 8 days.  I can actually say that I HATE him.  Bastard.

Mom wanted to go to the post office as she hoped the dog toys I had ordered for the puppies had come, but the post office was locked up and no key for the lockers was left in mom’s mailbox.  Since she was at the post office, she dropped my three bill payments in the outgoing mail.  Berniece Cornelius was there to get her mail too, so they stood outside the post office and chatted for about twenty minutes.  Berniece is married to my mom’s first cousin Gene.  She is just a wonderful person.  When we were kids, they were the second farm to the south of us, and we were constantly playing at their house or our house.  We were four girls and one boy, and they were three girls and one boy.  We celebrated all our birthdays together. 

I took Mom back to my house when we left the post office and she dragged my recycling bin back up to the house.  So that is taken care of!  We stopped at Casey’s just outside of town so I could fill my car up with gas.  Mom insisted on paying for it, which was fair since I ran the whole tank of gas I had before out taking her to several doctor’s appointments.  It took $50 of gas to fill the dang tank.  Ouch.

I went up to Owatonna on the interstate because the county fair is going on, and we would have had to drive right through the fair area if we went up on the old highway 45.  Too many people who just hurl themselves into the streets and distracted motorists in that area, so we went up to Bridge Street, through town, and out to Joni’s house.  When we got there, I grabbed my phone to call her and tell her we were there, when I saw that she had texted me not to come as she was just too exhausted to visit.  I never heard the text message alert.  So I called her and told her we were in her driveway, but that we would not stay, but we had gifts for her which Mom would just bring in and leave.

Well, she said she could come out for a few minutes, but she couldn’t visit long.  That was okay as I didn’t really want to hang around too long anyhow.  She loved her mug and the tee shirt.  Jeff brought one of the puppies out—OMG, they are SO CUTE!!  He went back and forth a couple of times and then the whole brood came bouncing out following him to see what was going on.  All you could see was fluffy little puff balls with bouncing butts and wagging tails. 

So precious.  I want them ALL.  Unfortunately I am just not physically able to meet the needs of huge, very intelligent and very active dogs.  I keep boxes of dog treats in my car especially for Joni’s dogs, so each of the puppies got a little milk bone for a treat. 

Joni said they had no nibbles on new homes for any of them.  There are ten still alive.  The poor little runt died.  They will grow to be 100 pound dogs as they are a mix of Great Pyrenes, Standard Poodle, Irish Setter, and OGK (only God knows). 

Jeff gave us a big bag of tomatoes for which I am thankful.  There is nothing more delicious than tomatoes fresh out of the garden.  Tomato sandwiches for days!

From there we went to Culvers where we each ordered two piece fish dinners with onion rings and coleslaw plus a six piece order of fish and an order of cheese curds.  We ate the shrimp in the car on the way back to Ellendale—and would have eaten the cheese curds, but those assholes did not give us the cheese curds.  They DID charge us for them, however!  We also did not get our coleslaw or our silverware.  Sigh. 

It was a good thing that we had planned to take the meals home to eat rather than go to the park by the dam as we usually do.  This is the third time we did not get our coleslaw.  From now on we will be sitting at the drive through until I CHECK to be sure everything we ordered is in the bag. 

I dropped Mom off at her house and managed to get all the stuff into the house.  The bag of vegetables was heavy.  I got a giant zucchini and some summer squash as well as tomatoes.  I plan to turn the zucchini into Zucchini muffins and possibly zucchini fritters as well. 

I was starving as I have not eaten much in the past few days.  I ate everything—even the bun which I usually just throw out for the birds.  I watched more stuff off the DVR and went to bed before 11 pm.  I was tired.

Comments

[the_godiva]

Can you make a deal with whoever is mowing your lawn to haul your cans to the curb and then return them after they're emptied every week? Just add a bit to the monthly mowing bill for the service. That way you'd have it regularly taken care of and wouldn't have to call Jack or Caleb every week.

Jeff thinks he's going to pay off that $2,500 credit card bill by selling a few puppies? Schmuck.

Cases of booze for every occasion you can think of. He is weak and will finish the bottles in a matter of days. If he does it enough he'll die just like Kevin. Just make sure Joni has all of his life insurance up to date. (My stupid sister let her husband's policy lapse the year before he died. It's not like you couldn't tell he wasn't in good health. I don't give a shit what the premiums were. My Mother and I both thought he looked horrible at Christmas and wouldn't last the year. Sure enough, dead in February. I said the same thing about their dog the Christmas before. He had to be put down a few months later he was in such poor shape.) So make sure Joni's life insurance on Jeff is up to date and maxxed out. Then start sending over those cases of whiskey or bourbon or whatever for Christmas, his birthday and their anniversary. Have the other siblings do the same. He'll be too stupid to notice that everyone is hoping he off himself with cirrhosis.

Joni needs to see if there are any rescues in the area. If those puppies go to animal control they will only be held so long before they are put down to make room for other dogs. That's the way it goes. Those are mutts, not designer dogs and not many people want to take on a 100lb "pet" that can't herd farm animals. That mutt mix isn't good for anything except eating and pooping. Sure, they'll love you to death but unless they have training they will also be very destructive. And the last thing you want is an untrained puppy to run in the street and get hit by a car. Jeff was very irresponsible, but now the responsible thing to do is to make sure they go someplace that will take the time and patience to see that they are all adopted and not euthanized.

I've gotten in the habit of checking my take out order and my receipt before leaving any drive in window. Service has just gotten so shoddy lately. Likely because they are all working long, hard hours due to under staffing.

[chochiyo_sama]

Jeff is a schmuck. I don't think there is any hope for him.

Next time I see the young man who mows my yard, I will ask him about that. I am sure he would do it--the only problem would be making sure that I have everything in the bins that needs to go to the curb. I pay him once a month for lawn mowing. We will be going into September now, so he will soon be done mowing for the season. I might call my mom's old minister to see if one of his kids would haul them out for me for $5. They are usually very willing to do a little work for a $5 bill. It takes them only seconds to do it.

Today I also, they are currently on their own outside on the deck or in the yard. So they are not being potty trained at all. They do their business wherever they happen to be. If people wanted them as house dogs--they are way behind in appropriate behavior training.

This whole deal with attempting to build a puppy mill industry has been ill advised and poorly managed from the start. I feel so sorry for these little puppies. They deserve so much better than what they have been getting.

I will also be checking my complete order from now on before I drive away. I will turn into a complete KAREN if I have to. Haha.

[the_godiva]

He might be willing to switch from lawn mowing to trash duty just to keep the monthly money coming in. Maybe even arrange with him to carry out anything that needs putting in the bins, setting them out, then hauling them back.

Jeff wants $1500 for mutts and they're not even house broken? Diana was half-way there even though they housed the puppies in the garage and Dolly was almost totally house broken. Neither dog was over $500 and they had all their vaccinations and were spade to boot. Jeff has done nothing and wants three times that amount? Dream on. They won't be cute for very long. He has about a 4 week window right now to get them adopted. Once they are past 12 weeks they're no longer puppies and beyond 16 weeks they are on their way to being dogs and he's stuck with them. If he dumps them in a shelter they might be euthanized depending on how crowded the shelter is. Jeff is a schmuck. Feel free to tell him I said so. He's a callous, cruel, asshole schmuck. Feel free to throw in stupid as well.

The first thing I do is check my change, then I check the receipt and then the order as I always say no pickles or "secret sauce." They don't put onions on them any more thankfully. But I always open my burger to make sure there's nothing but ketchup.

[minoanmiss]

How's your shoulder doing?

[chochiyo_sama]

It isn't too bad right this second, but the extreme pain kind of comes and goes. I think my main problem is when it finally settles down and feels better, I take advantage of it and work hard for as long as I can. Then I pay for it with 2-3 days of agony. Stupid shoulder. Stupid old age. Stupid broken, used up body. Grr.