September 11 through16

[chochiyo_sama]

Sunday, September 11

DeAnn and I had a pleasant Zoom meeting today—the best thing from it was her saying that she would like to come down and visit me in person next Sunday.  That would be awesome.  She said she’d stop on the way down and pick up some Chinese food.  I love my Chinese food.  I am excited for her to see my home improvements—especially the siding, deck, gorgeous new oak bookshelves, and the lovely new paint in my living room, office, and hallway.  Perhaps by then, I will have all my books transferred from boxes into my new shelves. 

Lily stopped in to pick up a can of Pledge (she ran out and did not want to drive all the way to Owatonna to buy more) and a bowl of my homemade potato salad which, if I do say so myself, turned out especially good this time.  My neighbor Sharon stopped by to tell me that her husband had run into my garden shed and knocked a strip of wood off it.  She was worried I would be angry—but the thing is ancient and really about ready to fall down.  I don’t use it and probably never will. 

I got caught up with my DW entries up to today—that always takes a while.  I ate the other piece of my ribeye steak, a little of the meatloaf, and a nice helping of my delicious potato salad for lunch/supper. 

The cats are loving their new cat tree.  All three of them have been in it, enjoying looking out the window at the birds and squirrels.  I got the breezeway cat boxes cleaned and took the scoopings out to the bin along with the living room garbage.  As long as I was in the breezeway, I watered my snake plant and my spider plant.  The snake plant desperately needs to be separated and repotted in fresh dirt.  Next time I get into a store, I will buy another pot and some potting soil and repot it.  The spider plant is doing fantastic since I repotted it a while ago. 

Tomorrow I have an appointment at the clinic.  Lily will take me.  It will be a very short appointment as it is just to have my blood pressure checked.  Lily will drop me off then go on to her water aerobics.  I will bring my book and just read until she arrives to pick me up.

 

Monday, September 12

Lily took me to the clinic this morning.  My appointment did not last very long.  The nurse who did my blood pressure check was a former student—Jenny Skalicky.  Well, that was her maiden name.  I did not recognize her married name.  It’s hard to believe that she has a son old enough to play football already.  She really does not look that much different than she did as a ninth grader.  She must have good genes.

When I got home, I worked on my bookshelves, polished the handmade bookshelf I bought years ago at Myrtle Randall’s auction.  She was my dad’s aunt and also my Sunday School teacher back in the day.  A very sweet lady.  I love this bookshelf so much as it reminds me of her.  She has been dead for many years now.  I started shelving some of my paperback books in that bookshelf.  A lot of those, I have had since I was in high school. 

Sawyer puked all over the place—it took a while to clean up all his nasty puke.  He puked right in front of my new bookshelves.  Fortunately, none of it hit the shelves.  He is such a glutton.  He eats his food as fast as he can, then horns in on William’s food and eats all that.  Then, he eats Peaches’ food too.  All as fast as he can.  Pig.  Then his belly revolts and he spews it all out again.  And I have to clean it up.  Yuck.

 

Tuesday, September 13

Today was a bright, sunny fall day.  About as beautiful and perfect a day as you could ever find. I finished reading Emerald Green—the book written by my friend Julie Granger.  It’s a historical/romance/Christian book.  It isn’t my usual taste in books, but it was good for its genre. I am proud of her for having the grit to write and publish her books.  Two have been published (and read by me) and she has three more waiting for publication.  Good for her!

Today, the kitty boys went eyeball to eyeball with a squirrel eating nuts on the deck. They were inside, of course, while Mr. or Miss Squirrel was on the deck.  The boys were very excited by the confrontation, but the squirrel basically ignored them.  LOL. 

I put out peanuts in the shell for the squirrels ever day or two.  My mother gave me about have a jar of stale mixed nuts that I put out for them too.  They seem to love them.  It’s fun to watch them stick their little paws into the open jar and select JUST the right nut that they are going to eat.  Funny little critters.

 

Wednesday, September 14

Today, I drove my mother to Albert Lea for her appointment with her eye doctor in Albert Lea.  Every six weeks she has to get a shot in her eyeball to keep her macular degeneration under control.  I started a new book today—The Girl Who Drank the Moon.  It is a fantasy novel by Kelly Barnhill.  This is much more my style of novel.  I think it is actually a young adult fantasy, but I often really love those young adult books best. It must be my never ending immaturity.  Ha.

I had to wait for an hour or more for my mother to be done at the clinic. I read 88 pages while waiting.  When she got out, we went to the China Restaurant where I had shrimp egg foo yung, egg drop soup, and crab rangoons for lunch.  All of it was delicious.  This was the first time I have eaten in an actual restaurant since the onslaught of Covid began.  It was nice. 

I ate about 1/3 of the shrimp egg foo yung and brought the rest home to eat later. 

Mom bought my lunch since I was her chauffer.  On the way home, we stopped at Casey’s as she wanted to fill her lawn mower’s gas cans.  She insisted on filling my car as well, for which I was grateful as I am terribly low on cash this month.  I can’t even afford to pay attention this month.  Ha.  I won’t be buying any groceries till the end of the month and probably will not be hiring Hope to clean for me the rest of this month either.  Too many excessive expenses.  I had to transfer a chunk of cash from my savings to my checking or I would have bounced a check.  It’s been a long time since I have been this low on cash.

After Casey’s, I took her to the post office to mail her stuff from her old cable provider back to them and then to the bank as she wanted to cash a check.  Jason called me while I was dropping her off and wanted to know if he could come over and put up my new ceiling fan in the office.  I told him he could if he wanted to but it would be a few minutes before I was actually home.  So, he said he would come tomorrow or on the weekend. I hope he delays a few days. I think I have enough cash on hand to pay him for putting it up—but I’d like to keep that cash on hand for an emergency. 

Whatever happens, I will survive and be okay.  It’s just a little stressful.  I am looking forward to having the office done.  The ceiling fan/light will complete it.  Well, I also have to finish shelving all the books, scrub the floor, roll out the area rug again and vacuum it, and straighten up the desk and the stuff on it.  I can hardly wait to make that area usable again.

I stopped and picked up my own mail at my mailbox on my way home.  I was tired then, so I went through my mail while watching a movie called Mandy about a cyborg who was being raised with gentleness and love instead of discipline and control.  Things did not work out well for anyone.  I called the “mystery” within the first 20 minutes of the movie.  I am smart that way.  While working on the books later, I watched Rampage which starred the Rock (DeWayne Johnson) and had Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who plays Negan in The Walking Dead) in a supporting role.  I love that man.  He is not the most handsome man I have ever seen, but that smile is something special.  My favorite of his lines in this movie, delivered with that shit-eating grin was “Us assholes have to stick together.”  Haha. 

 

Thursday, September 15

I had a very productive day today.  I sorted and started my laundry the first thing.  I got all three loads washed and two loads dried and folded.  The third load has to wait till tomorrow.  While I was in the laundry room, I cleaned the laundry room litterbox, bagged up the garbage, carried it out to the living room, and added it to the living room garbage which was also pretty full.  I took that garbage can out to the breezeway, cleaned the three breezeway litterboxes, added those scoopings to that garbage, tied off the bag, and dumped it into the outside bin.  I swept the breezeway as the feline overlords had kicked litter all over the place.  Monsters.

Then I went into the kitchen where I unloaded the dish drainer, filled the sink with hot water and dish soap to soak the several dirty dishes which had been piling up in there, cleaned out the fridge, dumping all the old, expired food into the trash, and washed the dishes.  Once I finished that task, I put my leftover egg foo yung and rice in the microwave and heated it up for my lunch.  I ate it in the living room while reading more of The Girl Who Drank the Moon.  I found it hard to put that book down, I loved it so much.  I finished reading it in the afternoon.  I will be buying every book that author has written—but not until next month or the month after.

I got most of the rest of the books on the table Hope lent me shelved.  There are four more boxes in my closet in the bedroom—but I was too tired to deal with them today.  I watched On Golden Pond in the evening.  I had recorded it on DVR from TCM.  They were having a Henry Fonda marathon one day.  The last time I saw that movie was many years ago when I was much younger.  Old age was far from my consideration then.  I cried over that movie then—now that I am experiencing old age myself, I cried a little more.  Then I cried for my aging grandmothers.  Tonight, I cried for myself and the slow, inexorable march to the grave we all experience as our bodies start to betray us in every conceivable way.  So far, my mind has not betrayed me too badly.  I dread that day more than anything else.  My mind has always been my only attractive attribute.  I hate to think of losing it.

 

Friday, September 16

I started today cleaning several nasty piles of cat puke up in the bathroom and just outside the bathroom door.  Of course, 5 piles were on the bathroom rug, so I had to wipe the gunk off it before throwing it and the other one which had NOT been puked on into the washing machine.  I figured I might as well wash both of them.  The puke on the floor had dried up, so I had to scrub it hard to get it off.  Disgusting.  As long as I was at it, I scrubbed the toilet.  It wasn’t too dirty, but might as well freshen it up as long as I was scrubbing in there.

I dragged the four boxes of books out of the closet in the bedroom and wiped the dust and cat hair off them before shelving them in the bookshelves.  I rearranged a couple of my shelves to better fit the books.  I am missing quite a few of my books.  I should have most of the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet mystery books, but I only found F is for Fugitive.  I should also have more of the John Grisham mysteries as well. I only found three of his.  I am sure none of them are in the basement as the basement has been damp since I moved into this house.  I would not put books in a damp basement.  There is always the possibility that my mother may have disposed of some of my books like she did to my doll houses. 

I took a break after putting away the first two boxes of books and called my brother.  We had not spoken for a while, so we caught up.  After talking to him for half an hour or so, I went into the kitchen and heated up the three pork ribs Lily had given me yesterday for lunch.  I also cut up one of my tomatoes and had tomatoes on toast.  The ribs were okay but they were over seasoned—Lily has a tendency to over season all her foods.  I think her tastebuds are out of whack.  The tomatoes on toast were delicious.

I got all the books dusted and put on shelves. Tomorrow I will fold up that big table so I can get at the desk.  There are a few books piled up on the desk.  I am hoping I can get all of them shelved and organize my desk and wipe it down.  I will be so happy to get my office into usable condition.  

I made a pod of microwavable mac-n-cheese and a plain bagel with strawberry cream cheese for my supper. Neither was especially fabulous, but they filled my belly.  Then I worked on catching up with my DW entries again.  While doing that, I watched The Postman which I had recorded on DVR some time ago.  I am a big fan of postapocalyptic books and movies. 

Now I am pretty tired and ready to go to bed.  It is already after 1 am.  Ugh.  I have to get up reasonably early tomorrow as Jason may be coming to hang my ceiling fan/light tomorrow.  I have a lot of work to do tomorrow to get ready for DeAnn to visit on Sunday.  I need to sweep and scrub all the floors and break down the huge pile of cardboard boxes which used to contain my books.  Lily said she would like a couple, so I called her earlier tonight and asked her to come and take what she wants so I can destroy the rest and put them in the recycling bin. 

Not much else going on today.  It rained a bit today and was gloomy and dark all day. 

Comments

[the_godiva]

William needs one of those maze bowls for slow eating. In the mean time if you have a large rock or even a large paperweight, put that in the middle of his bowl and make him eat around it. If it's kibble it will work fine. If it doesn't he gets fed in a crate with the door closed and he doesn't come out until Sawyer and Peaches have finished their food.

Wow. With all those boxes of books out of your bedroom closet, what will you do with all that extra space? Buy more shoes? Perhaps a ball gown and a mink coat?

I am reading tonight and sleeping in tomorrow. Then I'll feed the dogs and myself and go out front and start going through all of my mail that got delivered this week. More fabric and piping, plus some garden stuff. The timer for the fountain planter at last. Then I can move the current timer over to the trees and grapevine, set up one more hose for the front orange tree and everything is taken care of except Grandpa's corner. I'll need to run DIG irrigation, solder than copper coupling to convert to PVC, then start installing all of the new battery operated controllers. Then at least what I've done won't die.

I did get my Mom to agree to let me transfer Dolly's vet records to my vet. When I do, I will be the owner of record. Then let my sister try to take her away from me.