September 17 through 20

[chochiyo_sama]

Saturday, September 17

 I filled my pill caddy and took the Trulicity syringe out of the fridge to warm up.  I am not supposed to inject it until it is room temperature, but it has to be stored in the fridge between one Saturday and the next.  It is a once a week injection.  Today will be the second injection.  The damned things cost me $240 for a month’s worth of them.  They better work or I will refuse to buy another month’s worth.  Too expensive.

I rewashed the bathroom rugs that Sawyer puked on.  I didn’t get them in the dryer after washing them the first time, so they smelled stale.  I shelved a few more of my books.  I am amazed at how many books I have.  Remarkably, I will still have some empty space in my new bookshelves—but they are seven feet tall and very wide, so there is a lot of room.  I polished the marble topped end table that used to belong to Tammy’s mother in law Leatrice.  It is a beautiful piece of furniture.  I moved it to the north side of the sofa where it will be more visible and I will be able to admire and appreciate it more.  I polished the globe lamp and set it on that end table.  I will have Hope move the other and lesser end table into the garage for the winter.  In the spring, I will put it on Lily’s garage sale. 

I also polished the antique dresser I bought from the Stitt family before they moved to Japan.  That Orange Glow really makes wood furniture shine.  I polished up the two smaller globe lamps with the yellow roses on them as well.  I had hoped to give my Wellie Wishers a bit of a wash-up—their faces and hair could use a little grooming—and then put them in different outfits—maybe something more suited to fall.  Or, I could put their “fairy” costumes on for Halloween.  October isn’t that far away.  I polished the front and sides of the antique sideboard that I have had for years as well.  I need to ask Jason again about replacing the warped board in the bottom of it so I can use it for storage.  I did not get the top part polished yet.  That is where I display my four “Chatty” dolls—I have a blonde Chatty Cathy and a brunette Chatty Cathy as well as a blonde and a brunette Chatty Baby. 

The blonde Chatty Baby is my only childhood doll of that group.  All the others I have bought fairly recently—since I moved into this house.  I am hoping to get a Charmin’ Chatty eventually.  Also a Chatty Boy Baby in each hair color.  I don’t know if the Charmin’ Chatty came with a variety of hair colors.  I haven’t done much research on her.  The Cathy and Baby dolls are almost exactly the same size and can wear the American Girl outfits.  Not long ago, I bought four Halloween outfits for them.  One I comb their hair and wash their faces and hands, I will display them through the month of October in their Halloween clothes. 

Right now, I am too busy getting my office put to rights to work on the dolls.  It takes a bit of time to wipe down each and every book—but they are dusty and have cat hair on them.  I didn’t want to put “dirty” books on my nice clean and shiny bookshelves.  I tried to get books by the same author grouped together and non-fiction books on the same topics grouped together.  They are not totally alphabetized, but I might work on that at another time.  Or probably not.

I polished a few knick knacks and set them out on shelves. 

The local restaurant has opened up again.  Lily and her friend/cousin Karen had breakfast there this morning and she brought me a cinnamon roll.  The cinnamon roll wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was better than nothing.  I enjoyed it. 

Nothing too exciting happened today.  Tomorrow, DeAnn is coming to visit me.  We have not been together in person since I was in the hospital back in 2019.  She is going to stop on the way down and pick up Chinese food for our lunch.  You know I love Chinese  food.

 

Sunday, September 18

I got up early enough today to take a shower and get a few things done before DeAnn arrived.  She estimated she would be here between 1 and 2 pm as she and Josh were going to go to an open house.  She is in the market or a different house that will meet their needs better. 

I bagged up all the garbage and cleaned all four litter boxes.  Then I swept and scrubbed all the floors except the office as it has too much junk piled all over it.  I put away the clean dishes and tidied up a few things.  I saw a giant cricket in the kitchen next to the cat bowls.  I tried to catch it and throw it outside, but it escaped.  Damn thing.

DeAnn got here a little after 2 pm.  We had a nice visit and enjoyed our Chinese feast.  She brought shrimp egg fu yung and steamed dumplings for me and beef egg fu yung and mei fun for herself.  Also, she brought crab rangoons for us to share.  It was so good to see her again.  In person, that is.  We do see each other on Zoom almost every Sunday.  She gave me a tutorial on using my IPAD which I have had for nearly a year and could not get to work.  Duh.  I guess I am stupid because it wasn’t that hard once she explained it to me.

She brought me the most wonderful doll chair that she found in a second hand store.  It is the perfect size for one of my larger dolls.  I will be polishing it up with the Orange Glow.  One lucky little dolly will get to sit in it like a little queen.  Ha.

DeAnn liked the new color of my living room/office/hallway.  It is fresh and light.  That brown/copper and avocado color it used to be was so heavy and dark and oppressive.  We talked a lot about what she is looking for in her next house and my plans for future improvements in my house.  She stayed until about 5 pm. 

Jack and Caleb stopped on their way back from Northfield where they had gone to take Cora out for lunch.  They hauled my garbage to the curb for me.  This was the first time Jack and Caleb had seen my new paint and the bookshelves since they were polished and filled with books.  They thought it looked nice.  I was a little hurt that Kari didn’t come in and look—but I suppose she was tired and felt that if she came in, they’d be stuck in here chatting for a long time.  If she stayed in the car, they’d hurry up and come back out so she could get home. 

I watched TV in the evening after DeAnn left.  I don’t really remember what I watched.  Some movie. 

 

Monday, September 19

One of the cats, probably Sawyer as he is a gluttonous little shit who stuffs himself, puked in the doorway to the laundry/craft/sewing room.  I cleaned it up and scrubbed that area of the floor first thing.  I am thankful it wasn’t on the bathroom rugs again. 

Yesterday, I discovered that I had about $200 overdraft in my checking account—probably due to all the extra expenses I have had this month.  Sigh.  I have so many things that are automatically withdrawn, and I had already transferred money from my savings to checking so I only had about $100 left in my savings—not enough to cover it.  My account has some sort of “privilege” thing that allows them to cover everything up to $1,000 in overdrafts—but they charge $30 per check covered.  So, I called the credit union and took out a $1,000 signature loan to get me through the rest of the month.  I get my Social Security deposited on  the 28^th and my TRA on the 1^st.  This should get me through.  I kind of wish I had taken out $1,500 instead, but too late now.  Damn expensive world.

Jason called and asked if he could come over and hang my new light fixture/ceiling fan in the office.  I was glad to have that done, so I said come whenever you like.  I warmed up the rest of the shrimp egg fu yung and had that for lunch.  Jason got here just as I was finishing my lunch. 

Sadly, upon opening the box, he discovered that some asshole had returned the light fixture AFTER BREAKING IT and resealing it.  So, it could not be installed.  And of course, I cannot find the receipt, so I am probably just out $37.  Sigh.  Of course, he had already taken down the old one, so he had to fix that back up again.  While he was working on all that, I broke down all of the cardboard boxes that the books had been in.  It was hard, but I managed to do it all myself.  Jason had a bunch of stuff he was going to take over to the recycling place by the railroad tracks, so he offered to take all my cardboard there too.  I was glad to let him.

When he came, he had brought me a bunch of tomatoes from his garden.  He is so sweet.  He is pretty sure Walmart will let me return the ceiling fan and give me my money back.  I hope so. If not, oh well.

I went through the stuff in the end table that is going to go out in the garage.  My house abstract was in there, so I moved that into the drawer in the bottom of the marble top end table.  There was a bunch of crap in there from my insurance company and also from when I bought the house and had the “welcome” packets from the utilities.  I recycled that crap.  I have been brutal about disposing of stuff that is useless to me.  I don’t have the space to store anything that isn’t relevant or beautiful to me.

 

Tuesday, September 20

Last night I dreamed I was roaming around in my old high school.  It has been torn down for many years already, but in my dream it was just like it was when I was a kid in high school.  In the dream, I was a trespasser.  People were looking for me.  I think I was homeless and living there, in the forgotten bowels of the building where the old locker rooms and ancient gym were.  There were around six people hunting for me, and I was evading them with my knowledge of all the hidden places and old hallways and passages in the building.  The weird thing was that I was smoking a cigarette—even though I was aware that my pursuers could smell that smoke.

I was bizarrely proud that I was able to inhale the smoke without choking on it.  (Weird)  I smoked the cigarette right down to the filter and then threw it on the floor and ground it out.  Even though I knew that my pursuers would find the cigarette butt and realize I was in the area. 

It seems like there was some sort of apocalyptic event occurring.  The school was pretty much empty except for me and the guys pursuing me.  There may have been others tucked away in the administrative offices, but I didn’t know for sure about anything. 

I always have such bizarre, detailed dreams.  When I woke up, I actually kind of appreciated seeing the old building in all its glory and archaicness. 

Except for any books that are piled up on the desk which I cannot totally access yet, all the books (that I know of) are shelved.  I have a few saved out that will be kept on the desk as they are my often used reference materials. 

I had a ton of dirty dishes which I washed this morning.  I put away a bunch of clean dishes which I had piled on the counter.  When I opened the cupboard door, a mug that I bought when I was in college flew out of the cupboard and smashed.  I was very angry as I have probably had that mug (and loved it) since 1974.  I have no idea why it flew out like that.  I have plenty of mugs, but this one was special to me.  It was hand thrown and decorated.  It was just a grayish green mug with a stylized flower on it.  But it was a part of my youth—the best part of my youth.  Dammit. 

I sliced up three of the small tomatoes Jason brought me yesterday and ate them on buttered toast with mayo.  They were delicious.  I worked on my office all afternoon while watching and deleting stuff from the DVR.  All this scrubbing and polishing has made my shoulders and arms ache again tonight.  I can barely lift my left arm.  It really sucks to be old.

I retreated to my chair at about 6:30 pm.  I warmed up the Mei Fun that DeAnn had left and had that for supper.  I have never eaten that before.  It is basically just rice noodles with some shreds of vegetables and small shrimp.  I added a chunk of butter when I heated it up in the microwave because it had dried up a bit.  I think the butter improved it quite a bit.

I got a text from Hope saying that she could come and clean tomorrow.  I told her that would be great.  She can help me get the last of the stuff in the office organized, cleaned, and put away.  Also, she can give the house a good going over and put that old end table in the garage.  Maybe I can have her take the stuff I’ve been putting aside for the garage sale to Lily’s garage where she has been putting her own garage sale stuff.  I’d like to get it out of the house. 

I watched Man of Steel tonight while I was working on this entry.  It takes so much time to type all this stuff.  Anyhow, the movie is one of the lesser Superman movies, in my opinion.  I think it was 3-D when it was released, so there was a lot of unnecessary building destruction that did not advance the plot at all and was just annoying after a while.  The thing I liked most about this movie is that Superman’s biological dad was Russell Crowe and his adopted dad was Kevin Costner.  Win win in the dad department.  And for a little more eye candy—Christopher Meloni played a soldier who sacrificed himself saving the planet.  Oh, Christopher Meloni.  He could eat crackers or spaghetti or anything he wanted to in my bed!!  LOL.

Comments

[the_godiva]

It's good you should have some room on the bookshelves still. I have several pair of lovely bookends I use rather than packing the books from one side to another. A bit of room is also nice to display something. A doll or other object you love that is purely decorative. Picture frames are good too.

I just saw some patterns for Chatty Cathy, I think in Etsy.

Does anyone have the recipe for those fabulous cinnamon rolls you used to get from the lady that has died? If you can get that recipe from anyone, that would be an awesome thing for you to make and give away every once in a while.

I am finding more and more that stuff I get from Amazon has been returned and is broken or damaged in some way but being sold as new. I read a lot of complaints in the reviews too. I bought an "as new" DIG timer and when it finally arrived it was not only filthy but inside the battery compartment it was rusted and corroded so that no battery could attach, let alone the timer work. It looked like someone had bought a new one and then returned their old one they'd had for years. The only new part was the cover to the battery compartment which had a barcode sticker on it. Fucking cheating thieves. But at least I could return it to get my money back. Look for that receipt just in case Walmart tries to screw you over. And inspect it the minute you get out to the parking lot so you can return it immediately if it is broken or missing parts.

Aside from watering plants most of my accomplishments were at my parent's house. I got all of the current irrigation set up the way I want. I redid the stuff on the fountain planters by adding a splitter to the 45 degree I already added to the faucet that is the wrong one but they couldn't wait for me to get it done with the stuff I bought at Home Depot about 5 years ago. So it's been stupid and annoying ever since. Well, not any more. I reattached the yellow Flexihose with the garden nozzle to one of the splitters and the new battery operated hose timer to the other. Then I attached another splitter to the timer. On one side I reattached the hose that goes to the sprinkler and on the other I put a 90 degree angle and then I attached a length of new DIG dripper hose to go around that side of the fountains to the other side. That is were I will eventually plant the rose geraniums I am planting and maybe even replace the Calla lilies and iris that were there before the spawn neglected the yard to death. I took the twist timer I removed from the fountain planter and I moved it over to the grapevine and tree setup I did last week. I put the timer on and then connected the 4-way splitter to that and set it for an hour. I set the fruit trees for two hours. The pear, nectarine and orange tree are liking they are finally getting some water. Each has at least a few blossoms. The peach has leafed out and the pear tree has little pears that seem to be getting bigger. It has one of those twist timers too. Set it and forget it. The grapevines are looking better. Hopefully we'll have lemons and whatever that other tree is.

I made muffins Thursday for breakfast. I did plenty of fetching and carrying and wherever my Mother went, I had to follow close behind her in case she got dizzy and passed out. She apparently hit her head on Sunday or Saturday and she says she gets dizzy when she bends over. I told her I'm wondering if she fell because she was dizzy, not she is dizzy because she fell. Her nose runs a lot so it could be she picked up a flu bug that is effecting her inner ear. It could also just be low blood pressure. I didn't get a chance to look at the journal I'm having Letty keep on her.

I watered everything on Thursday. I had TV dinners both nights as they now have their Meals on Wheels. My Mom was complaining every meal has carrots and she doesn't like cooked carrots. So I called Wed and told them to switch to one Latin entree and one lunch from now on. I told my Mom it would happen probably on Saturday as it takes two days for them to switch. That should offer enough variety. She still complains about Letty not cooking. I told her she isn't going to be able to hire anyone that can make our family recipes right away. They would take time to learn. I'm the only one that can cook them as my sister doesn't cook any of them. She's talking about doing exercises to get stronger so she can cook again. That isn't going to happen. She makes these plans that she's going to cook something or show Letty how to cook something but it doesn't happen. I find the stuff sitting in the refrigerator for a week or more untouched. She complains that all Letty does is microwave the Meals on Wheels and she can do that. I said I bought a bunch of microwave meals and they're all sitting in the freezer still. That's what I've been eating. Hopefully this menu switch will help. Now Alma not only could do exercises with her but also learn to cook the family recipes. But she didn't drive. Letty drives but rarely takes my Mom anywhere, but my Mom wants to get out of the house.

All of the fabric I bought for my Mom is washed and ironed ready to cut. I also transferred some of the sun dress pattern to pattern paper so I could figure out which yoke size for my Mom. She complains the dress she made is too wide. I still have the front, back and sleeve ruffle to do, then I can use those pieces to cut the pattern. If I can manage to avoid cutting the pattern I can likely resell it for what I paid for it. I will be making a larger version of the pattern for me.

I went grocery shopping because I couldn't find the nutmeg and needed it for the apple pie. Also some lemons. So I ended up getting quite a lot. Then I went over to Home Depot to get eye bolts, hook screws and chains to rehang the staghorn fern that fell down. ShitForBrains "fixed" it with zip ties. Asshole. Dennis their neighbor came over on Thursday after work with his cordless drill and he helped me to rehang it and make it more secure. And of course Wednesday night after I got home and started to pull everything out to make muffins the next morning I find there is no baking powder. WTF? So after I went to bed I googled substitutes for baking powder and the next morning mixed up a batch of baking soda and cream of tartar and that worked fine. But now we need cream of tartar.

I didn't peel one apple but I did get some stuff done. I lost an entire day Tuesday because ShitForBrains came down for a visit. That's what Letty says. But I suspect he came to take her to her doctor's appointment which isn't until next week. He got the dates wrong. Because he has shit for brains.

So she has a dentist appointment at 12:30 next week on Tuesday and I'm sure he'll come and take her. I've asked Letty to text me when he leaves so maybe I won't lose an entire day again, but since she doesn't get there until 3:45 it will still be a lot.

Meanwhile I can't stand not being able to take a shower after working over there so I've started the process of fixing the shower. I bought a valve and controller. I have a shower head. I watched a YouTube video. I'll need to get a cold chisel and a ceramic drill bit. The shower is unusable so I can work on chipping away the tile and possibly having to cut a hole in the drywall in the hallway to access the back. But I can sweat copper and if I'm going to do that adaptor in Grandpa's Corner I can certainly do the shower. I just don't know where to shut off the water to the house. Maybe Dennis knows.