September 29 through October 3

[chochiyo_sama]

Thursday, September 29

I cleaned the breezeway litterboxes and did a sink full of dishes in the kitchen.  I met with the guys from Stair Lift.  They called and asked if they could come early since they got done with the other people sooner than they expected.  Two men came—both were very pleasant.  They thought it would be no problem to install a chair lift on my basement stairs and agreed that it would make the basement much more accessible for me.  The chair lift will hold up to 400 lbs, so it will  be plenty strong enough for me and whatever items I might want to carry up and down with me.  The total cost will be $6,250.  There is an 18 month interest free payment plan available.  I would like to save at least half of that amount before taking out a loan.  I hate to burden myself with a lot of debt.  But I really, REALLY want to get down in that basement and start utilizing that space. 

One of the guys spotted my children’s book collection and saw the book The Wonky Donkey.  He got really excited about it and told me it was his little daughter’s favorite book.  So we had to get it out and the other guy read it, and the first guy asked if I had heard the wonky donkey song.  (no)  So, he played it on his phone.  It was kind of fun.  I miss some of that socializing with people who are fun and interesting.

After they left, Lily called and asked if I would fill out a form for her—she hates filling out forms as she fears misspelling a word and not having neat printing. So, she came over and I helped her fill out her form for getting meals on wheels.  She nagged me the whole time to sign up for meals on wheels too.  Sigh. 

I then helped her put some information into her phone contacts.

I have to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, so I am heading to bed at 8 pm, hoping I can sleep. 

 

Friday, September 30

I went to bed early last night—around 8 pm—as I needed to get up at 5:45 in order to get ready to go to the clinic for the Echocardiogram at 7:15. Lily picked me up around 6:30 and we drove to Owatonna.  I got into the room pretty quickly.  This echocardiography did not take as long as the one I had a few years ago.  The guy was very pleasant and friendly.  Of course, I was horribly disappointed to discover that once again, my blood pressure was insanely high.  It was getting better.  This time it was something like 220/125.   Stroke territory again.  The technician did say that he suspected that the automatic blood pressure machine was inaccurate as I am experiencing no symptoms of any kind—no pain.  No dizziness.  No headache.  Nothing.  Of course, I developed a headache afterwards—probably from the stress of worrying that a stroke is imminent. 

Lily had a physical therapy appointment an hour after my appointment ended, so we went to McDonalds and got egg McMuffins.  I got an orange juice and Lily got a cappuccino.  We ate our food in the Walmart parking lot then went into Walmart.  Lily needed some cat food and other stuff which she quickly got and then went on to her physical therapy appointment.  I stayed in Walmart and roamed around looking at stuff.  I bought 200 page protectors so I can finish going through my stack of paper stuff and file some of the information I gathered for some of my fictional writing projects.  I bought two 3 ring binders to hold the research once it is in the page protectors too. 

I bought some cat treats and cans of soft cat food and another cat toy because my babies NEVER have enough toys.  I looked at picture frames as two of the wedding pictures from my siblings’ weddings are in ugly frames that need to be replaced with something pretty so they look nice with the other wedding pictures that are in very pretty frames.  There was nothing there that appealed to me.  I will have to try to get to Target one of these days.  They always have pretty frames.

I looked at the dolls in the toy aisle, but nothing appealed to me.  Not the dolls themselves nor any of the accessories.  I looked at the DVDs available and picked up the Return to Hogwarts DVD.  I was tempted by the first four seasons of Yellowstone collection, but it was over $60 so I passed.  I have to save up $6,000 for my new stair life chair so I can access my basement.  There were a couple of other complete DVD collections of shows I used to watch, but I didn’t get anything else there.  I bought some lettuce and grape tomatoes, some Werther’s hard candies, Hershey’s “Hugs,” Hershey’s dark chocolate kisses, and a box of peanut butter granola bars.  There were also fat quarters of a minion print fabric that was really cute, so I bought all four of the quarters that were available.  

I bought a few other odds and ends, but I don’t really remember what all it was.  I was bored after shopping for about 45 minutes—I really am not much of a browsing shopper.  After I look at fabric, dolls, and cat toys, I lose interest.  So, I paid for my stuff and drove my little disability scooter to the entrance to wait for Lily.  I had the book I am currently reading in my purse, so I sat out there and read.  Sadly, It was absolutely freezing out there.  A cold rain was falling and an even colder wind was sweeping through the entry every time the automatic door opened, and it opened constantly.  My current book is The Hole in the Moon by Margaret St. Clair.  She is an author my former student Jessica recommended to me.  I had never heard of her before, but she has an interesting autobiographical note in the beginning of the book.  It sounds like she was quite a powerful force opening doors for women writing science fiction in the early days of the genre.

I had to wait for nearly half an hour in the freezing cold before Lily called and said she was on her way.  I had a couple of nice chats with random strangers in the entry way.  That is part of my weird personality.  I am always having random chats with random people.  One was a heavier lady who had come in to buy red hair dye as she had just lost 40 pounds and wanted to upgrade her appearance.  She had also bought eye shadow, fingernail polish and fake nails, and mascara.  She was so excited. I felt both fond and protective of her.  I hope no one is mean to her or nags her about how she still has about 80 pounds to go.  That is just crushing to the soul.  Let her be happy and celebrate her victory.

Someone yelled my name—it was my cousin Kari.  She had brought one of her clients to Walmart.  He had also had an echocardiogram this morning.  She said she would help me get my purchases into Lily’s car, and he gave her a grumpy/pouty face about that.  She scolded him to lighten up and that it would only take a couple of minutes.  At this time, Lily had already called and told me she was almost to Walmart and would be there in less than five minutes.

Kari and I had a nice chat while her client pouted.  Then she helped me get my junk into the car, gave me a big hug, and headed off, promising to call me soon.

When we got back to Ellendale, Lily helped me get my stuff into the house.  She didn’t stay long.  We were both tired.  Shortly after that, I got a phone call from Jason.  Lily had already contacted him about the ceiling fan and hounded him about when he would come and hang it up.  Arg.  I told him that I had told her to leave him alone—that I knew he was busy and was having problems with his body being arthritic after the car accident now that the weather was cold and damp again.  He just laughed and said it was okay.  That she meant well.

Then he came over and worked for at least an hour getting the ceiling fan up.  Now I just need to finish sorting and filing that last pile of stuff, and the office will be done.  It looks so nice in there already.

When he left, I was tired, so I just sat in my recliner and watched and deleted a bunch of stuff off my DVR.  Lily called and wanted to talk about the possibility of having Ed and Amy come over on Sunday to watch the movie Dog too—so it would be me, Mom, Lily, Nola, Ed, and Amy. She also asked me if I would make a pan of pumpkin bars to serve as a snack since she has to work on her yard all day tomorrow as my cousin Gene and his wife Gail are coming up from Iowa to help her.  She said she would make the popcorn.

The last thing I feel like doing is baking pumpkin bars, but they are not hard to make and it won’t kill me to do it.

 

Saturday, October 1

Well, September is done and October has begun.  I filled my pill caddy, called in a refill for one of my prescriptions, and took the Trulicity injection.  This is the first time it hasn’t made me feel queasy.  Maybe my system is getting adjusted to it.  I have not filled out the form yet to try to get it for a lower cost, and this was my last dose.  I will have to pay $240 for a month’s supply again.  Sigh.  Pretty fucking expensive for four shots.

After that, I went into the kitchen, washed the dishes, and baked a pan of pumpkin bars.  They take very little time to make and only need to bake for 25 minutes.  I will frost them tomorrow morning when they are totally cool.  Lily will pick them up on her way home from church as I don’t walk very well, and I don’t think I could get the pan out to the car.  I’d probably drop them.  Or turn them upside down on the seat of my car.

Other than cleaning up three piles of cat puke, I didn’t accomplish much today.  Two of the piles were on the bathroom rugs—yes.  BOTH rugs.  Yes. The rugs that I just washed on Wednesday.  Sigh.  The other pile was in the living room. Gross.

I had a very weird dream last night. 

I was in an apartment very much like the apartment I lived in on Rose Street in Owatonna when I was teaching in Claremont.  But in this apartment, the wall in the hallway outside the kitchen was a gigantic white board.  The spawn of my sister Kim must have been living with me as they had drawn strange little alien heads all over that wall in blue and black marker—and they had put stickers all over it as well.  The stickers were large, round, and half red and half blue.   

I was really pissed that they had drawn that crap all over the wall and stuck those stickers on there as stickers are very hard to scrape off the wall.  My sister Joni was in the kitchen with me, and she asked if I knew what those stickers symbolized.  I said I did not.  I had never seen anything like them before.  Apparently it was some kind of racist/misogynistic symbol. 

So, I grabbed a spray bottle of Clorox Clean Up and sprayed the wall so I could clean up all that crap. Just then, my sister Kim, mother of the spawn, came out of the living room, all pissed off as she thought their “art” was “cute,” and she wanted to take a picture of it.  I kept scrubbing it off and scraping  the stickers off. 

She grabbed the bottle out of my hand and started spraying a bulletin board that I had on the opposite wall, saying, “No art allowed?  Then this art has to be destroyed too.”  What was pinned to the bulletin board looked like art made by small children.  None of it was familiar to me but in the dream it was precious to me.

“What is wrong with you?” I said, trying to get the spray bottle away from her.  She then pushed me backwards and started spraying the Clorox Clean Up in my face.  Even though it was just a dream, I could smell that bleach smell, and I was choking on the fumes, unable to breathe.  I kept yelling that I couldn’t breathe, and she kept spraying that shit in my face.  I could not get the spray bottle away from her, but I got ahold of her hair which she was wearing up on a bun like a top knot on top of her head and started jerking on her hair.  She kept spraying that shit in my face, and I was yanking on her hair so hard that I was actually pulling out clumps of her hair.  Didn’t seem to faze her at all. 

I was aghast as I felt like she was literally trying to kill me.  And deep inside me, I felt so sad that she hated me so much over her rotten spawn that she actually wanted to kill me.

I have no idea what spawned that dream, but it was very disturbing, and I felt like crying when I woke up. 

 

Sunday, October 2

As soon as I was up and dressed, I went into the kitchen and frosted the pumpkin bars.  The frosting turned out really nice.  I hoped the pumpkin bars would be tasty—and they were.  They went over quite well.

Lily stopped and picked them up on her way home from church.  I watched and deleted a couple episodes of Resident Alien and ended up falling asleep.  I was supposed to be at Lily’s by 1 pm, and I woke up at 1:06.  Lily called—and instantly told me she was so worried I had fallen and was unconscious.  I told her I HAD fallen—asleep.  Ha!  I had to go pick up my mother before coming to her house.

Just as I got out to the garage, David Lassahn who mows my yard showed up and was mowing.  So I quickly wrote him out a check for the last five times he has mowed my yard and gave it to him.  Hopefully there will not be too many more mowing times now that we are in October.

Dog turned out to be a very good movie and the dog did NOT DIE.  Everyone enjoyed it.  Everyone also enjoyed the pumpkin bars and I was able to send some home with each person.  When I went past Jason’s house, he was messing around with his truck in the driveway.  I went around the block and gave him one of the pumpkin bars and chatted with him a bit. He is a talker.

 

When I took Mom home, I went to my house first so she could carry the bar pan into the house and get the Maple Nut ice cream I had bought for her from the Schwan’s man.  While she was in the house, she looked at the office and thought it looked really nice.  She especially commented on the book shelves and how nice they look. Yay me.

I really wanted to go to Dairy Queen in Blooming and get a hamburger for supper after I dropped Mom off at her house, but I had to pee very badly, so I just went home.  Also, I somehow hurt my left arm really bad—possibly while carrying my purse which was very heavy. It felt like the muscle and flesh had been torn away from the bone.  It hurt so bad that I felt like crying. 

I watched more Resident Alien until it was time for the Walking Dead.  Then I watched two episodes of that, the very disturbing new series Interview with the Vampire, and Talking Dead.  Then I went to bed. 

 

Monday, October 3

Mostly my left arm, but also the right arm to a lesser extent, hurt all night. I could not find a good position to sleep in, and I had to get up to pee at least five times in the night.  It was after 11 when I finally got up.  I didn’t want to.  I wanted to continue to be unconscious.  But Lily called and told me she was in my driveway with the meals on wheels meals she had picked up for us.  I told her I wasn’t dressed yet and needed about ten minutes.  She said she had to run home and get something which worked out good for me as I could then get dressed, test my blood, read my devotional book, and take my meds before she got back.  While waiting for her, the Fed Ex truck stopped and delivered my Chewy.com order.  That was weird as I had a dream last night that someone was telling me that my Chewy order had been delivered. 

Lily also brought me a form to fill out so I could get the meals on wheels, the month’s menu, and my mail.  She is just bound that I am going to get meals on wheels too.  Sigh.  The meal wasn’t bad. It had a big spoonful of cucumber salad (mine is better), a clump of yellow beans that had a big stem in it, and some kind of beef steak chunks with peppers, onions, celery, and tomatoes over rice.  There was also a little carton of 1% milk, a chunk of cake that was sort of like a coffee cake with peaches in it, and a slice of unbuttered bread.  It was filling and adequate.  Depending on what it costs, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have.  It is only available on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I have the form to fill out.  I will see. 

My shoulder/arm hurt all morning.  I didn’t do anything because it hurt to move.  I could not lift my arm very high.  I watched a lot of stuff off the DVR and deleted it.  I am almost caught up with Resident Alien.  At some point in the afternoon, I moved my head and neck just slightly, and heard a loud POP! Suddenly, the pain in my arm was gone.  It is slightly sore, but the overwhelming pain is gone.  Something must have gotten pulled out of place on Sunday.  Now it is back in its proper place and there is no more overwhelming urge to sob.

Hopefully it stays this way. 

Lily came over and wanted me to find an email on her phone that is supposed to contain a link to a video about a tour to Greece that she is considering going on with the lady she went to Israel with.  It will cost her over $4,000, but I think she should do it if she wants to.  Why leave money to her kids who do not give her much attention or compassion?  Spend it on herself and do fun stuff while she still can.

I found the email, but the link took me to a calendar with upcoming weather information.  That was weird.  I tried to find the tour company on line and look at the Greece trip that she is interested in.  You’d think the video would be available on there, but there was no video and very few pictures.  I emailed the person who sent it to her and asked them to send the link to me.

Then she wanted information about my eye clinic, which just happens to be open till 7 pm on Mondays and Thursdays.  So we called and got her set up with an appointment with the eye doctor I see now.  Dr. Eric Dillinger.  LOL.  I don’t know if he is related the gangster Dillinger. 

Anyhow.  She has an appointment with him at 2:10 pm on Halloween.

While she was here, a couple of kids stopped with a fund raiser for school.  I bought two things of frozen cookie dough—one of white chocolate and macadamia nuts and one of oatmeal and raisin—and a box of cherry cordial candies which will probably be gross.  But oh well.

I have spent the evening watching and deleting Resident Alien shows. I only have four more left to watch.  Then I will be caught up.  I am looking forward to going to bed in hopes of having a wonderful pain free sleep.

Comments

[the_godiva]

$35 a month for insulin staring Jan 1, 2023 per Medicare and the new Federal legislation. Just to keep it in mind.

I'll bet you had something out of place that was pinching a nerve. When it "popped" back into place it also released the nerve, hence the instant relief and absence of pain.

My parents are getting Meals on Wheels but my Mother complains about them and always wants something cooked. I have them on one lunch and one Latin dinner now as the Latin menu has more variety than the regular one. The lunch sometimes has soup and my Dad likes soup. My Mom likes salad. This way between the two there will always be something to eat. But she wants to cook and wants her own recipes and Letty doesn't cook. She complains she can microwave stuff but I have bought her microwave meals and she never makes them. Last week I made veal and then picked up Marie Callendar's. That's two meals in the freezer. This week it was soup and pizza so two more meals in the freezer. I have been bringing the uneaten lunches home. I think we will eventually be canceling the Meals on Wheels as they are just not eating them. But I cannot be their cook. She is unable to cook and Letty just can't cook. She has no aptitude for it and I cannot teach her. She can't even remember where to put the flatware after being told numerous times. Now my Mom is complaining that she makes the bed and she doesn't want it made and has told her before not to make it. I think Letty may have a mild learning disability. They need someone with them and I cannot be there five days a week. I really don't want to be there three days every week but don't have any choice right now as stuff needs to get done and I can't rely on Rejeanne the Bitch or ShitForBrains as if I did the cupboards would still be full of moths, there would be duplicate and triplicate shit all over, they'd still be buying gigantic economy sizes, there would still be rats and the yard would be dead.

I need to get my parent's papers together and make an appointment for them to go to the DMV to get their Real IDs as that is another ball my sister dropped. I've been maintaining the pond as she and my brother bought a filter for the pond but no one has maintained it since Christmas. So I've been buying filters and changing them about once a month when I put dechlorinated water in the pond. I've also been replanting the yard and setting up irrigation. I called the exterminator for the rat infestation. I called the glazier to replace the broken window the rats are using to get into the garage, I spent two days taking my Mom to furniture places to look at couches as hers is broken. She needs an automatic recliner. We found a really nice one. I'm trying to talk her into a new chair for my Dad that also lifts him up to a standing position. He needs it. Additionally I want her to buy that Queen Sofabed for my brother's room so that ShitForBrains has no excuse to sleep in my room ever again.

And I want my fucking King sized pillow back!