November 9 through 18
Nov. 27th, 2021 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chochiyo_samaTuesday, November 9
Today I dealt with garbage. I bagged up and took out all the garbage in the house then cleaned the litterboxes and took the scoopings out as well. I washed the dishes and the cats’ dishes then refilled them with fresh food and drink. I had a brief sighting of LeeLee scuttling out of the laundry room to eat soft food and use the breezeway litter boxes. He is getting bolder. Still no overtures of friendship toward me though he does try to engage Peaches occasionally. She shows no interest in him.
Lily stopped in. She brought my mail and dragged my bins up from the curb. She had been to the grocery store and brought me a six pack of Diet Coke, a bag of hard rolls, and a loaf of French bread. I gave her several sturdy boxes I have been saving for her as she is going through all her stuff with an eye to having a garage sale in the spring or donating a bunch of stuff. She is also reconsidering moving into that senior living center. To do so, she will have to get rid of more than half of what she owns. I told her she should set up a system where she has one set of boxes for what she wants to keep, one for what she wants to sell or give to her family, and one for garbage or donations. Joni and Jeff had dropped several winter squash from their garden off at my house, so I told her to take half of them. I think she only took 2-3, but that’s a help as I could never eat all of them and I don’t feel like baking and freezing all of them.
My Chewy.com was delivered and I was able to get it into the house. It was very heavy as there were two boxes of cat litter in the order. I have cat litter set up to be delivered every 6 weeks now. I may change it to every 8 weeks since Ollie is no longer with me and LeeLee will be going back to his original home as soon as we can capture the illusive little shit.
Wednesday, November 10
I got a lovely, refreshing shower in today. Later, I talked to Mom who told me she had made it downstairs and got her first shower since being diagnosed with Covid. Tammy said she really needed one as she smelled nasty. I suppose that was partially a side effect of Covid itself and also due to the inability to get down to the basement to shower. We have been working on her to have a shower put into her upstairs bathroom. Her bathroom in the basement has the world’s smallest shower—it’s like a little tin cracker box.
My prescription refills came today. The FedEx driver and I always have a nice chat when she delivers my prescriptions. She complimented my new siding and deck. She is a very nice lady.
Today, I put the rest of my stale unsalted sunflower seeds out on the deck railing. The blue jays LOVE that stuff. The squirrels don’t seem to care for them.
It rained a little bit today. It was supposed to snow, but it never did. It wasn’t supposed to be much anyway. I unloaded the dish drainer and put a Marie Callander chicken pot pie in the oven for supper. That brand is so much better than the Schwan’s chicken pot pies. Much better flavor.
Thursday, November 11
Laundry again. Sorted and washed the lot. I baked Schwan’s breaded chicken patties for lunch and ate them on hamburger buns. They are actually much better than I thought they’d be. I need to buy some pickle relish to add to the sandwich. After lunch, I had an unplanned nap. I guess I was more tired than I thought I’d be. I think I slept about 2 hours.
I talked to Tammy on the phone. She told me that the rescue she supports is going to give me little football fatty pants kitty for free since they know I am disabled and limited income and she is a special situation kitty who will need a lot of love and attention due to her original owners being idiots. They got her as a tiny kitten but could not handle the natural energy of kittens. So they locked her in a room with nothing but a litter box and food and water. All she had to do for two years was eat, sleep, and poop. So she became pretty obese. I don’t know why they finally came to their senses and gave her to the rescue. She has been neutered and declawed. Since being in the rescue facility, she has discovered that she likes affection and petting. I am really looking forward to showering her with love and attention and spoiling her rotten. She has some kind of respiratory infection, so they cannot release her till that is resolved. That is a good thing as I don’t want Peaches getting some disease. Also, this will save me vet costs.
This rescue has also agreed to take the five remaining puppies that my idiot brother in law Jeffrey thought he was going to get $1,500 a piece for. They will also take the three wire hair hunting dogs that Jeff bought for $750 each to “train” and then sell. Those poor little things have spent the last 3 years locked in a kennel in shit up to their knees with no attention, no affection, no toys, no social interaction, and no training. On the rare occasions that they escaped from their kennels, they immediately started killing anything they could get their paws on—chickens, squirrels, cats…anything they could catch. Jeff is such a fucking idiot. I felt so sorry for those dogs. I had seriously been considering calling the Humane Society on them, but now that rescue will take care of them and socialize them, if they are salvageable. Poor little innocent creatures. They were just babies when the idiot got his hands on them.
I am investigating a company that comes to your house and puts Christmas lights on the outside. I saw it advertised on Facebook and chatted with the guy who runs the place. He said he would come to my house on Saturday to give me an estimate. I would love to have my house’s roof edge lined with Christmas lights—the white lighted “icicles” that hang down—and the deck railing decorated with artificial pine boughs and colored lights. Maybe a wreath in the center of the deck and the big picture window also outlined in colored lights. I am not willing to spend more than $300 to do this, and it is probably foolishness to pay that much. Lights and other decorations are included in the price of decorating it.
Friday, November 12
Prior to the deliveries of groceries from Schwan’s and Lerberg’s today, I cleaned all of the old stuff out of the refrigerator and dragged the kitchen garbage to the breezeway. I have plenty of things to eat in the house again. I washed the dishes and put away the food. I had a bunch of shriveled apples in the fridge. I threw away the ones that had rotten spots and moved those that were only shriveled onto the counter, possibly to be turned into apple dumpling or apple crisp or coffee cake. I have not baked in quite some time, but I hate for those apples to just be thrown away.
It was another quiet day. I was able to catch up with all the episodes of Young and Restless I was behind on while sorting through some paper stuff and messing around on the computer. There was a bit of snow today—it amounted to nothing but it looked pretty falling out of the sky. I enjoyed watching the blue jays gobbling up the sunflower seeds on the deck railings. There were up to 5 or 6 out there eating at a time. They do not like to share. Ha. Each of them thinks that he/she and ONLY he/she is entitled to eat the offerings placed out there.
Saturday, November 13
I washed a load of laundry and then went into the kitchen to sauté mushrooms and onions in butter, boil some potatoes, and fry an enormous beef steak. It was big enough to cut into four pieces for four different meals. I love onions and mushrooms sauteed in butter with steak. Such a good flavor.
I used the battery operated broom to sweep the main rooms on the main floor. The cats seem to be tracking a lot more litter than normal throughout the house. I need to get one of those pad things to put under the litter boxes to catch the litter that sticks to their little feet.
Tammy told me Michaels on-line had a big half price sale on Christmas trees. My tree went to the landfill in the great sewage back up debacle this summer, so I ordered a nice tree with the lights wired right into it and a few cute half-price ornaments. I used to have so many ornaments, but when I left West Concord, many of them disappeared. I don’t know if I lost them or gave them away. It was a dark time for me.
Sunday, November 14
I got up early as I had a Zoom meeting with DeAnn this morning. I had time to fill my pill caddy and review my chapter for the Zoom meeting. DeAnn and I had a good discussion, as usual. When it was over, I had a late lunch of leftover steak, potatoes, mushrooms and onions. While my food was heating in the microwave, I washed my dishes.
While I ate my lunch, I watched the crowd of blue jays eating on my deck again. Shortly after 6 pm, I checked Ebay. I had a bid on an “Urban Song” doll. I have a Song with long braids, but the one with the short bob is the one I originally wanted. She wasn’t going for much, so I bid on her and WON! I was so happy. I’d really like a “Peaceful Warrior” who is also a Kish Chrysalis doll, but she was already nearly $500 and I cannot afford that. The “Song” girls are pretty little Asian dolls. I think they are meant to be Japanese. They will now be sisters. “Peaceful Warrior” is a lovely little ginger with freckles and blue eyes. Her hair is twisted into little buns on either side of her head, held in place with small chopsticks. She has very small buns—not the huge “Princess Leia” type buns. One day, maybe I will find one I can afford. Not today, though. I made an offer on a Mattel Tiff (same size as vintage Skipper) from the early 1980s, but the seller wanted a fortune for her. Again, I cannot afford hundreds of dollars for a doll. Especially not when her hair was not in very good condition.
I haven’t bought anything on Ebay in many years, so this was a real event for me. LOL.
Monday, November 15
I started the day hammering my aching joints with hot water in the shower then did a load of laundry and cleaned LeeLee’s litter box in the laundry room. Then I tidied up the bedroom, gathered some clothes that somehow landed on the floor instead of in the hamper, bagged up and took out the garbage, and hung up a few things.
Lily stopped over and brought me a container of the rice pudding she had made for her Wednesday dinner party last week. It was good. Not great, but good. She also brought me six 6-packs of Diet Coke she had picked up on sale. She stayed long enough for me to help her find Christmas gifts for some of her great-grandchildren. Amadeus is into Dungeons and Dragons, so we got him a nice little carrying case with a set of multi-sided dice and a set of gaming headphones. We ordered two sets of Legos for Atlas. One was an Avengers set, and I don’t remember what the other one was. We got Mila several paperback Baby Sitter’s Club books and Ember got a Noah’s Ark bank. The first three kids have birthdays close to Christmas, so one of their things was for Christmas and the other for the birthday. Mila’s books will be split into two gifts. Now Lily owes me $40+ again. I owed her for the error on the Chewy.com order. It all comes out in the wash.
I bought myself a $500 birthday gift. My shoulders are so messed up that it is hard for me to use my heavy vacuum cleaner, so I bought myself a light weight, heavy duty battery operated vacuum that is especially powerful for sucking up pet hair. That pretty much nixes the idea of decorating my house with Christmas lights. Lily has the same kind of vacuum cleaner except hers is not specifically designed for pet hair. She loves it as it is so light weight. I look forward to using it.
I think my TV remote needs new batteries. It stopped working today. I couldn’t turn the TV off, change the channel or volume, or anything. I don’t have any AAA batteries on hand. I had to leave the TV on all night.
Not much else going on today.
Tuesday, November 16
Today, I cleaned the breezeway litter boxes, used the battery operated broom to sweep the breezeway and kitchen, and dragged the heavy kitchen garbage out to the bin. Getting it in nearly killed me, but I accomplished the mission. I watered my plants in the breezeway and refilled the jug of water. I just set it next to the breezeway door as it hurts my knees to go up and down the step into the breezeway. I don’t go out there unless I need to.
I washed, dried, and folded more laundry. I bagged up a bunch of recycling, put more peanuts in the shell on the deck railing for the birds and squirrels, and worked on my DW journal backlog. I went into the kitchen to make a can of clam chowder and discovered a huge puddle of water around and under the fridge. I soaked it up with towels and called Sorenson’s immediately. The last time this happened, the pipe that supplied water to the ice maker had cracked. No one at Sorenson’s answered, and no one got back to me either. Assholes.
Lily spent the day with Haylie. On her way home she stopped at some store and picked me up a set of AAA batteries so my TV remote is functional again. Yay. She also picked up Neosporin, Vicks Vapor Rub, Vaseline, and a box of raspberry Bismarcks for me. We visited a bit. I gave her one of the raspberry Bismarcks, and she took a bag of recycling to the bin for me.
Wednesday, November 17
Today the UPS delivered the two boxes of Chai Tea Latte I had ordered for Lily and my new battery operated vacuum cleaner. Waylon, my mail man, brought me three packages also. Those packages contained three wonderful books from my friend Godiva for my birthday. Two were sweet cat books, and one was of vintage dolls and the little girls who played with them. I enjoyed looking at them for quite a while.
I gathered up all the towels from yesterday’s water debacle and discovered that the water actually came from the gallon jug I had filled with water for my plants. It apparently sprang a leak. So, I called Sorenson’s and told them to disregard my previous call. They never bothered to return it anyhow, so fuck them.
Mom had a 2:30 appointment with Dr. Skorin to have her macular degeneration evaluation. She wanted to go earlier so she could go to the bank before we went to Albert Lea. That was fine with me as I had two checks that needed to be cashed. She is still weak and has low stamina, so I dropped her off at the door to the clinic, reminded her to have the people at the desk call me when she was done so I could pick her up at the door, and parked down by the helicopter pad on the lake.
It was a very windy day, and the waves on the lake looked big enough to surf on. I spent time texting my friend, taking pictures of the lake and one of the vintage mansions on the shore, and messing around with YouTube on my phone. Usually Mom’s appointments with the eye doctor take about an hour. The hour came and left. No mom. At 4:30 I thought maybe she had forgotten to call me and was sitting in the atrium fuming because I wasn’t there picking her up, so I drove around and parked outside the doors and peered in to see if she was in there. No joy. I went back and parked again. I started to worry that perhaps she had passed out again and had been taken to the ER or something. Being unconscious, she would not have been able to tell them to notify me. So I found Dr. Skorin’s office number on line and called. They had to check to figure out that she was still there. They said she was still waiting to see the doctor. Holy shit! I told them that she was still recovering from Covid and did not have her normal strength and stamina and asked them if they could put her in a wheelchair and take her to the door when they were done with her. The woman said they could tell that she was not her normal self and that she would make sure they did that.
Well, around 5 pm, I got a call saying she was ready to be picked up and was on her way to the door. Those assholes did NOT put her in a wheelchair, but they did send someone to walk with her to be sure she didn’t collapse on the way.
By this time, it was getting dark and was really cold. The sunset was quite impressive. Mom wanted to get a bucket of KFC, so we went through the drive through and got two 8-piece buckets of chicken. One for her and one for me. Now we will have several meals of leftover chicken. All we got was chicken this time. I kinda wish I had gotten coleslaw. I have been craving coleslaw lately.
From there, we went to the Taco John’s right next door. I have been craving beef burrito with sour cream for weeks. Both fast food places had insanely long lines. I suppose everyone in the city was not in the mood to cook.
While waiting in the long lines, we got to watch the full moon rise. It was quite beautiful. I hate driving home in the dark—always paranoid about suicidal deer. But we made it safely home without issues. I dropped mom off at her house. I told her I would not leave until I saw she was safely inside the house since she was exhausted and very weak. She made it up her stairs and into her house. I waited for her to close her garage door, but she never did. I had thrown my phone into my purse and didn’t feel like fishing it out, so I decided to drive home (I had to pee like a race horse) and call her from home.
I had to pee so bad that I thought I would explode by the time I got into the house. I put my chicken in the fridge, dropped my beef burrito in my recliner on the way to the toilet, did what I had to do in the bathroom, then collapsed into my chair. I tried to call my mother but she did not pick up. I figured she was on the phone with someone, so I got on the sibling group text and asked if anyone was on the phone with mom, and if so, could they ask if she had put down the garage door as I waited quite a while and she never put it down.
Pretty shortly, Tammy replied that she was on the phone with Mom. Mom went to check the garage door and it was still up, so she put it down, and now all was well. With the full moon and all, I didn’t want any werewolves getting into the house where Mojo would have to end them.
I was exhausted from sitting in the car all that time. I gobbled up my burrito, watched a little TV, and went to bed.
Thursday, November 18
Somehow my recycling bag got knocked over, so the first thing I did this morning was pick up all that stuff. Then I folded the clothes in the dryer, cleaned the litter box in the laundry room, and sorted and started this week’s laundry. I feel like I am constantly doing laundry.
I looked over the Lerberg’s ad, made a list, and called in this week’s grocery order. I ordered a meat and cheese tray and three boxes of crackers to take to Thanksgiving. I should make the pasta salad that everyone loves so much, but I just do not feel like making anything. Everyone loves crackers, meat, and cheese. I bought two bottles of large fancy green olives too.
I warmed up some chicken for lunch, and while it was heating in the microwave, I washed a large sink full of dishes. After I ate my lunch, I went through my bag of mail, recycling what I could and setting aside the mail that needed to be dealt with further—like bills and catalogs that I wanted to look at.
I got the package of ornaments from Michael’s on line and opened it. There are some really cute things in there. I need to restore my collection of ornaments. I had YEARS worth of ornaments. I used to buy a special ornament every year since 1975. That’s when I was sure I would marry Philip Pennington—we looked at wedding dresses and everything. I kind of suspect that if he had bought me a diamond, we might have done it. I would have felt obligated. Thank God he never did. Ha! But I did establish the tradition of buying one really nice ornament a year. The first one I bought was a Hallmark angel that looked like a frosted sugar cookie. I bought it at a drug store in downtown Winona. I remember it was on the corner of the block opposite of Picadilly Square which was a delightful shop where I spent a lot of time. That’s where I bought my scrimshaw unicorn necklace and some cool mugs.
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Date: 2021-11-28 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-28 06:51 pm (UTC)