August 15 through 19

[chochiyo_sama]

Monday, August 15

 Today I had an appointment for a blood pressure check at the clinic, so I took a shower to make sure I smelled fresh and lovely then packed the stuff I need to take with me into my purse.  They wanted me to bring my home blood pressure monitor so they could make sure it matched up with their blood pressure implements.  Lily gave me a ride to the Clinic, and I didn’t have to wait long to get into the nurse’s office.  She was much older than the majority of the nurses.  She had long white hair which was really pretty.  It was that shiny silver kind of gray.  Sadly, she was not very personable. 

She asked if I had brought my blood pressure monitor, sneering, “Did you get it off the internet?” 

I said, “I bought it in the hospital pharmacy HERE.”

Then she proceeded to tell me that the readings from it were not dependable, and that I would have to get a different one.  This did not please me as my insurance will not cover it, and I paid $47 for this one (including tax).  And if this brand is not reliable, then why are they carrying it in the hospital pharmacy??

My blood pressure was still dangerously high but not as high as it was before.  Also, my home monitor was testing it as higher than the official blood pressure machine.  Usually, they say that the home ones measure it as too low.  Anyhow, she photocopied and sent the records I kept from monitoring at home to my primary. 

Her personality was pretty dour and judgy.  I did not feel comfortable with her. 

I was in there far longer than I thought I would be.  I left feeling depressed and frustrated. 

Lily wanted me to go home with her and have strawberry pie, but I told her no.  First, trips to the clinic always leave me feeling down and depressed.  Second, I am avoiding sugar in hopes to get my blood sugar back to where it was before I stopped taking metformin.  I refuse to go back on it as it is great not to be having four hours of explosive diarrhea every morning and not to be crapping my pants repeatedly.    

The lisinopril has had the side affect of making me cough, so Lily stopped at Lerbergs and picked me up a couple of bags of hard candy to suck on to ease the tickle in my throat.  I hope that will end this annoying coughing.

Lily told me that her son Roger got a lot of work done for her—both physical labor like mowing the yard and filling up her gas cans for the mower, repairing the screens Finn has torn, and doing some other work like that AND helping her figure out some of her paperwork and going to see her financial planner with her.  His nasty wife kept calling to bug him about coming home as early as possible.  She wanted him home by noon today, which was impossible as Lily’s appointment with the financial planner was this morning and it takes five hours for him to drive back to their home in Wisconsin.  The get there by noon, he would have had to leave at 7 am.  She is a miserable, selfish, vindictive bitch.  I don’t know why he stays with such a nasty witch.  I would certainly never allow anyone to treat my mother the way she treats Lily.  And she would RUE the day if she ever treated Lily bad when I was there.

Lily has said, “You don’t know how awful she is when someone crosses her.  She just SCREAMS.” 

I have responded, “I taught junior and senior high for over 30 years.  I’ve seen lots and lots of tantrums and I am not impressed by or scared of them.  There is no doubt that if we ever tangled, one of us will walk away crying, but I can guarantee that it WON’T BE ME.”  She’s a big fucking bully, and like all bullies, she will crumble just as soon as someone stands up to her. 

Tomorrow, Gail, my cousin Gene’s wife, is coming up from Iowa to help Lily work with her flower gardens and yard to clean up the yard.  She and Gene are so good about helping Lily do stuff—really much more helpful than either of Lily’s kids.  Sigh.  Lily has such a loving heart and is so good to people.  It really bothers me that neither of her kids treat her right.

 

Tuesday, August 16

Jason came today to paint.  He had gone to Owatonna to buy the paint at Sherwin Williams.  While he was there, he stopped at the Salvation Army store to pick up a cool vintage sofa that he had seen last week.  He called me from there, really upset as his car wouldn’t start.  He figured the battery had died and went in to ask if anyone had jumper cables and could give him a jump.  Some weird old man verbally attacked him when a woman offered to help him.  Apparently this old dude thought he was going to try to kidnap her or something and was yelling at him and swearing at him. 

Jason is a quiet, introverted man who hates conflict, so this really affected him negatively.  He finally snapped and yelled at the old guy and told him to get over himself and shove his nonsense accusation up his ass.  I have never seen him even irritated before.  Poor guy. 

He ended up dealing with this situation for 3 hours before getting a tow truck to pull his truck home.  The tow truck driver let him ride in the truck with him, for which he was very grateful.  He came over later in the afternoon and worked on my office.  The color is amazing on the walls.  I love it.  I have decided to paint the whole area—office, hallway, and living room the Bonsai Tint color.  It’s such a soothing, peaceful, light color.  It’s close to mint green but has a bit of a yellowish tint.

I was somewhat productive today myself.  I cleaned the litterboxes in the breezeway, moved some books, binders, and notebooks into the bookshelf in the breezeway, and sorted through some of the stuff in the cupboard my students (Tony and Todd Yankoviak) made for me in shop class.  Todd, the older one, started it when he was in 9^th grade but did not finish it.  When Tony got into 9^th grade, he finished it.  I love that cupboard. Right now it is in my living room under my wall mounted TV.  Mostly what was in it was binders and blank books along with some office supplies. It is pretty old, so some of the braces that hold the shelves in place have come loose and fallen down.  Two of the shelves need to have that repaired—I think the glue just dried out and gave out.  That has to be repaired before I can utilize it.  I am sure Jason will be able and willing  to fix it for me.  I found all kinds of interesting stuff stored in there.  A couple of things were units I had made for my classes.  I wish I had kind the Science Fiction Units I had created while I was at ROC.  I had subunits of apocalyptic fiction/artificial intelligence fiction/dystopian fiction/time travel fiction and others that are not coming to mind right now.  I also had a kick ass children’s literature class. 

I left most of my hard work at ROC.  I’m sure it probably got tossed out after I left.  I worked hard on all that stuff. Most of it is in my old computer, but I had it so nicely organized in binders with page protectors.  Sigh.  Even though it is unlikely I will ever teach again, I want that stuff to survive.  I spent so many hours creating it.

 

Wednesday, August 17

This morning I worked on food prep.  I butchered and cut up my cantaloupe, cleaned and cut up my box of strawberries, and cleaned and cooked my 2 lbs of asparagus.  As soon as it was cooked, I ate a large bowl of asparagus with butter.  I LOVE asparagus.  After I finished those tasks, I cleaned up my mess, washed my dishes, unboxed my new blender and washed it, and threw some old stuff out of the refrigerator. 

When Jason arrived at about 11:30 am, he moved a bunch of stuff out of the way and taped the rest of the office to continue painting it.  I swept up the floor that was under the stuff he moved—there was a lot of cat hair and dust.  He was impressed by how well my little battery operated sweeper worked.  I sorted through a bunch of stuff that was in my cupboard and my file cabinet while he worked on the taping and painting.  When he had finished that, he decided to go ahead and prep and paint the small hallway that leads to the bathroom, bed room, and laundry/craft/sewing room.  Again, I swept up the cat hair and other debris when he moved the book shelf and DVD shelves in  the hallway.  There were an incredible number of cat toys under the book shelf.  Also under there was also my tiny Totoro stuffy (about half the size of my thumb) which I bought to be a toy for one of my small dolls.  It is just darling.  I saw it was gone off my dresser and figured that it had been stolen by one of the orange monsters who share my house.  My “Lark” Chrysallys doll had been holding it. 

There were probably close to a dozen cat toys under there.  I had to clean all the dust and cat hair off them before tossing them to the cats.  Some of them were probably under there from the time of Stewie.  God, how I miss my Stewie.  Best cat ever. Anyhow, the boys were delighted with the “new” toys and spent the rest of the day “killing” them.  Cats love “new” toys.  And if something has been “disappeared” for a few weeks, when it comes back, it is again “new.”

Jason did such a beautiful job on the painting.  He was so careful and tidy that there was not a single wayward drop of paint anywhere.  He had worked so hard that I gave him twice what he asked for as payment.  He asked for $200 (which included the $80 gallon of paint).  I just could not write out a check for that amount.  He had spent several hours just getting materials and prepping—which entailed a lot of moving of heavy furniture and boxes and boxes and BOXES of books.  I wrote him a check for $400 and still figure I got off cheap.  I am sure I would have paid a professional painter a LOT more than that.

After he left, I made a box of PastaRoni and sauteed some fake crab in butter and had that for supper.  I was really hunger since all I had eaten prior to that was a couple of strawberries, a few chunks of cantaloupe, and a bowl of asparagus.  Sawyer had to eat a few chunks of the fake crab before I cooked it.  He thought it was pretty tasty.

It seems that my body has finally completed the detoxification process as my headache has pretty much disappeared.  I haven’t been eating much sugar/carbs, and  I have not ingested any caffeine at all. 

In the evening, I watched the movie San Andreas with DeWayne Johnson AKA “The Rock.” I just love him.  And I love disaster movies. 

 

Thursday, August 18

I had a very quiet day.  I talked to my mother and Lily on the phone.  David Lassahn mowed the yard.  When he mows again next week, I will pay him for the month.  While Jason was here, he offered to mow my yard for less than I pay David.  David is a teacher and also a new daddy of a baby girl, so he might be glad to surrender mowing duties now that school is about to start again.  If I still taught at ROC, I would have had my first week of school already.  They always started the week before the Steele County Fair which is going on right now. 

It rained later in the afternoon.  We need all the rain we can get.  I was hoping for more thunder and lightning, but it is what it is.

Tonight, I heard some scuffling and scampering behind me.  Sawyer and William were within my range of vision, and they were not causing the noises.  I was beginning to think I had a mouse in my house when little Peaches shot out of the office area, chasing a mouse toy.  Then she had a serious attack of the zoomies and raced from the office  to the far side of the living room, back to  the bedroom, and across the living room again.  It was so good to see her feeling frisky and playing again.  She hasn’t really done that since the boys moved in. 

Of course they had to ruin it by chasing her and being too rough with her.  They are just so much bigger than her and, of course, there are two of them.  When they tag team her, it is very panic inducing for her. Poor little Peach.

 

Friday, August 19

When I woke up this morning, I discovered that my right foot was messed up.  It felt like I had turned my ankle, though I do not remember doing anything to it.  I could barely hobble to the bathroom.  It continued to hurt throughout the day, even after I took Tylenol.  It feels much better tonight, so I hope whatever it was has mended itself.

I found a puddle of dried up cat puke on my vintage bookshelf in front of the picture window this morning with a little hair ball in the middle of it.  It was so disgusting as it took a long time to scrub it off.  It was like scrubbing off dried up concrete.  Yuk.

I bagged up the bedroom and living room garbage, bagged up the living room and kitchen recycling, dragged those bags to the breezeway, cleaned some old stuff out of the refrigerator, washed the dishes, and wiped down the counters.  When I finished that, I warmed up the leftover PastaRoni and a bowl of asparagus for lunch. 

I spent the bulk of the day after that messing around with my computer, watching some stuff from my DVR, and dozing in my chair.  Lily came over in the evening, bringing my mail with her.  Nothing too exciting in the mail.  She came to pick up a bag of cat food for Finn as he was almost out and I had a bag that Stewie LOVED but my current cats do not care for it.  I gave it to her in hopes that Finn would like it and it would not go to waste.  I also had to show her how to get to her voice mails on her phone and how to delete those voice mails and her text messages.

I was horrified by how much Republican propaganda she was getting in her text messages.  Next time I get ahold of her phone, I am going to respond to all of those types of messages to remove her from their list.  She doesn’t read them (and to be honest, she doesn’t understand them either), so there is no reason for her to be upset about them filling up her phone with their ugly, ignorant, conspiracy theory bullshit.

For supper, I burned my toast and undercooked my eggs.  I like a runny egg, but I do not like undercooked whites of eggs.  Yuck.  So supper was less than delightful.  I ate what I could.  Then to get the nastiness out of my taste buds, I had a peanut butter granola bar.  I may yet eat an orange before I go to bed.  I am so happy that I have caught up my entries again.  It is pretty annoying to get behind like I always do.  Sigh.

Comments

[the_godiva]

Lily should leave Gene and Gail something big ing the will. Roger too but NOT the bitch and she should spell it out.

Well, good for Jason. The old bastard needed a good dressing down. Likely figured was weak and an easy target.

Wait until those Greek blues and Tiffany blues get on the kitchen and bedroom walls and the lavender in the bathroom. You are going to dance around the house in joy. Then go out and by all new towels and curtains.

I think I would have taken all of those units in their binders as you're right, someone likely tossed them. That is the kind of stuff you sell on Teachers pay Teachers. Some teachers pay for lesson plans and units like those. You probably could have made good money on those selling PDF downloads. No mailing, no burning CDs and no printing reams of anything. You make a PDF and then you sell it over and over. And you can revise and add to it. I would fire up that old computer and either print it out or burn it on a CD to save it before the computer dies. You could make money off of all of that hard work. In page protectors? Hell, yeah I would have taken it all if just for the page protectors. I've been buying boxes of them for recipes.

I'm so glad you found your Totoro and miscellaneous cat toys. The only way to keep it from happening again is to put something over the bottoms of those units to prevent things from sliding underneath. Either that or get an extendable back scratcher that has a "claw' on the end and use it for fishing things out.

We rotate the dog toys for the same reason. It keeps them "new" and thus you don't have to constantly buy them new things. Although I did just buy four new toys off of Chewy on special. Buy 2 get one free.

I did the same when I had my house painted the first time. I hired Glen, the fiancé of a teacher at school. He had just moved out and had studied painting, although I think interior painting. At any rate he and his helper spent 3 weeks prepping my house. They sanded it down practically to the bare wood and then primed it all. It was only the last week they put on the paint and Glen did a faux marble finish on the two columns on the front porch. They did an excellent job and that paint job lasted 15 years. I think he had only quoted me $1,500 but I gave him $3,000 because the next estimate I got was $4,000 and I'm sure he spent more time and did better work than anyone else I would have hired.

Glad to hear the boys have revived an urge to play and zoom in Peaches. Sad that they still haven't learned how to play nice with her. Hopefully it will come. They are young yet.

Is there any sort of dietary supplement you can give them to help with the hair ball puking?

If she's got an iPhone you can stop those texts by replying "stop" or there is a feature where you can "leave the group" if they are group texts. You can also put them on mute so they don't appear any more and also block the texter.

I am no longer trying to do an entry each day. That stopped when my Mom had her accident. Probably shouldn't have as it would have been good documentation over what has been going on with The Bitch and Shit for Brains. But I think I have enough as I'm sure my sister has not documented anything and ShitForBrains can't remember to tie his shoes without writing a note to remind him.

[cmcmck]

I'm also a huge fan of asparagus!

As kids, we used to all it 'sparrow's guts'! :o)

[chochiyo_sama]

LOL. I love asparagus.