Archive for October, 2008

Here's a weird little dog.

Author: Krissa

Oct 13

We took Baby to have her groomed the other day and I must say that I still find myself breaking out into a snorting laugh when I look at her.

Let me preface this photo by saying that when you cross a peek-a-poo, (pekingese and poodle mixture), with a Pomeranian you get a… noteworthy dog.  I am going to be very careful with my adjectives here.  She really is quite cute in person, just because she is so gregarious and smart… maybe not so much because of looks.  The truly hysterical thing was losing all that body hair, and there was a LOT of it, made her ears even huger, if that’s possible.

Ears up with her trademark smile.

Ears up with her trademark smile.

Ears down and caught with mouth open while reciting a line of poetry...mid-sentence.

Ears down and caught with mouth open while reciting a line of poetry...mid-sentence.

Is it just me or does that first pic of her look a lot like the little critters in the movie, Gremlins?

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Filed under: Blather, Pets, Strange, Wondering...

House stuff.

Author: Krissa

Oct 11

Hello there peoples!  Peoples?  There is more than one of you… right?

Whatever.

As the common expression in my family goes, “Do you want the good news or the bad news”? Well, the good news is, there is no bad news.

John is still on vacation and we are, in general, having a really fairly good time of it.  We have now added to the list of things accomplished to include:

*Called Verizon to get them to set us up with land line service.

Hopefully it will be every bit as dynamite as the cell service.  It was awesome during the hurricane.  They never even lost a tower, I guess.  All the circuits were busy a few times, but we always had service.  They are supposed to call us back… sometime.  My guess is that they were inundated with calls for service after Ike, from Comcast customers that lost service before the hurricane ever got anywhere near us and didn’t get it back until at least 2 weeks later.  Oh hell, some still don’t have it.  One month later.

* I caulked the edge of the shingles on the back of the house and the garage Thursday.  I did the front of the house yesterday evening.  I rock.

Here you can see how the shingles don’t stick out far enough past the flashing in places and this is where we are having signs of water…well, not yet damage, but the paint is beginning to bubble so rot is not far way, under the eaves.  And this is happening only where we were “short shingled”.  Coincidence?  I think not!  I went ahead and caulked the entire house and garage anyway, just to make sure we got it all.

Now here’s my dilemma:

I want to paint our front door.   It is an oak door and it weighs a gazillion pounds.  Yeah, yeah, I know!  Every guy out there is going to try to die at the thought of painting it, but it needs refinishing or painting really badly and if I am going to go to that much trouble I want it to be a pretty color.

Ideally I would like red, HOWEVER, the damn neighbors across the street, (really very sweet people), beat me to it and their door is so pretty! Especially when her geraniums are in bloom.

See their pictures below?  Don’t they have a beautiful yard?  Even with the recycle bin still out?

So, I was wondering about, maybe, green?  I would really like to know what everyone thinks of this.  My house needs some color as it is shades of beige and brown with pasty white brick.

Oh, please note the attractive piece of cardboard in the lower right side of the window in the door.  Yeah, gotta get that fixed, too. And I don’t usually have a ladder in the front yard but I was doing the caulking when I stopped and took these pictures. Also, the shutter that is standing on the ground by the post with the house numbers has been replaced on the right side of the window.  It blew off during Ike and I ran out during the eye and retrieved before it blew away.

See how dark it is in the itty bitty porch?  I am thinking a sagey (this may not be an actual word, yet you know what I mean…), green.  So what do YOU think?

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Filed under: Camera, Housekeeping, Wondering...

Is it Wednesday already?

Author: Krissa

Oct 8

As I said in the last post, John is on vacation this week.  We have managed to get a few things knocked off the list of “Stuffs to Do”.

*Make a new Financial Plan.

That, right there, just makes me want to giggle when I consider how misleading the whole statement looks.  But, yeah.  It’s done.

*Track down and attack the person in charge of getting H a new wheelchair.

Done.  It’s all shiny new and she’s got her bony ass in it right now.  I was somewhat disappointed, but there was no bloodshed.  The lady seemed fully cooperative and got on the ball as I indicated she needed to.  The wheelchair was delivered within 24 hours of hanging up the phone with her.  If only everything were that easy…

In addition to these things there were some others that never got put on the list that we did and I wish we had put them on there just so they could be crossed off.  We:

*Cleaned the garage

We threw away a butt-load of old crap that was, mostly…OK, entirely Henrietta’s.  She was safely ensconced inside or none of it would have gone to the curb and actually, the boxes o’crap would have spontaneously reproduced themselves and made more to clean up.  This is a phenomenon particular only to H as far as I can tell.  She cannot be turned loose with any amount of stuff to “Go through it and throw away the trash, Henrietta.”.  The pile o’shit will grow and grow and I swear she has a wicked kind of black magic that she uses and produces more old greeting cards, plastic plants, (complete with plastic flowers), broken jewelry boxes and picture frames, (with and without torn pictures that don’t fit the frame), glued together coffee cups, moth eaten clothes that she hasn’t worn since 1958, thousands of ancient books on Catholicism, (I mean we’re talking copyrighted in the 50′s and 60′s), and an assortment of shit that defies description.

*Got John a new bluetooth that will work with his new phone.

Tomorrow we compare insurance rates and caulk the shingles.  Or, rather, I should say, I will caulk the shingles.  While John’s not scared of heights, it just goes without saying that any work being done on a ladder is going to be done by me.  I don’t know why this is, it just is.  DO NOT FEEL SORRY FOR ME.  Any grocery shopping that gets done, is done by him.  Well, almost all.  I feel like this is a fair trade, and what I think is what’s important.

We had fajita papas tonight, (beef fajita meat with cheese, salsa, chives, sour cream, etc. piled into a baked potato),  and the SIL and her guy friend were here and they stayed and ate.  They were very good and I highly recommend that everyone show up at our house the next time we have them and partake.  I guess I really should give a heads up when we are about to do them again.  I will.

OH!  Tomorrow I hope to have the garage finished, also!

Free toes, everyone!

7 Comments
Filed under: Blather, Cooking, Henrietta, Housekeeping, John

Wads bean hapnin…

Author: Krissa

Oct 4

Hello again, people.

A few days ago Keelan was sitting in living room on the couch reading her book  I was talking to Henrietta about something and I forget what we were discussing but it became necessary for me to use the word Fritos.  Well, let me preface this by explaining that the only thing worse than H’s hearing is her comprehension.  Her little mind races and she… tries too hard(?) and over thinks what you are saying and totally gets the words screwed up.  It’s like playing Password with a hyper, narcissistic, mental patient.

Anyway, as I was saying, I don’t remember what we were talking about but I used the word “Fritos”.   Only when I said it to H it was broken into two distinct syllables and enunciated very clearly.  FREE TOES! (Imagine me shouting into her ear…)   Well, Keelan tried to die.  First I heard her snort and then she said, “Did I just hear you say ‘free toes’?”  and she was gone.  Dissolved into a fit of giggles that wouldn’t stop.

Did not matter how hard I tried to explain to her why I had said it that way, she would. not. stop. laughing.

I finally just said “OK!  I’m from Texas AND SO ARE YOU!  Is it really so hard to figure out why I went “there” with the word?”

Now every time I want to make her smile, I just say “Free toes”.  And sometimes I text her, “Free toes”.

John is going to be on vacation next week, starting tomorrow and we have a list of things to do.  (oh yea)  He is going to need some time to recuperate from the hurricane schedule they have had to adhere to at work and truly I feel for him about this because I know he is truly tired.

But here’s the list anyway:

*Caulk the shingles

*Change phone companies

*Compare insurance rates, USAA and Allstate

*Make a new financial plan

*Track down and attack the person in charge of getting Medicare to give H a new wheelchair.

And this is just the beginning.

Thursday “they” came by and picked up all the brush piled on our curb since the hurricane.  Things are beginning to look a bit more normal around here.  At least our street is.  Except for all the sawed off trees and huge holes in the ground where they just pulled up, root ball and all.

I called Housecall Doctors today and asked them to tell me how the x-ray came out that they did on H on Thursday.  The Dr on call called me back and told me that, (surprise, surprise), she has a dislocated hip.  I said I already knew that and explained the problem to him and told him her history and what I was worried about.

He told me to take her to see a orthopedist.

This lady is an orthopedist’s wet dream.  I wonder where he’ll start?  I figure that’s one of the things that will go on John’s vacation list after I talk to Darnell, her PA.

Well, I really need to toss this post up and see what happens.  Will the pooter spit it back out?  It should.

Free Toes, everybody!

7 Comments
Filed under: Blather, crazy shit, Free Toes!, Henrietta, Keelan

All about H's ass, but NO POOP!

Author: Krissa

Oct 1

Hello!  Today, boys and girls, I have been busy talking to Henrietta’s P. A. (physician’s assistant), home health care nurse, and the x-ray technician who came out to snap some glamor shots of her.

She’s got a totally bizarre and perplexing problem residing in her… (are you ready for this… go ahead and take a wild guess…) ass.

To make a long story short, (Yes.  I am aware nobody thinks I can do this. *sigh* Now I am going to have to prove myself…) She broke her hip a couple of years ago and while she was still in the hospital recovering from the hip surgery, they called me and said it was dislocated.  Doc said her muscles “contracted” and pulled her leg out of socket.  She would need surgery again to fix it cause it would just pull out again if he manipulated it back in.  Strangely enough, the old woman that makes the princess and the pea gal look insensitive wasn’t in any pain so she elected not to have the surgery.  I believe it was one of her cuter moments, she looked at me when I explained her options and said, “I don’t want to have surgery again, Krissa.  I’m old, already!”.  She was 84 and I didn’t argue with her.  So all this time she’s had a dislocated hip.  Or, actually, I don’t know why it’s called that because really her femur is dislocated from her hip.  Well, all of the sudden her leg bone has started… migrating around in her, butt.  Her hip is all wonky crooked seeming and the head of the femur is poking out in the thickest part of her gluteus maximus.  This makes it very painful to sit on for any length of time.  Her butt is bruised from the inside.

At this point I would like to point out that this was promised to be a short story not a normal one.

Anyway, the P.A. and I sat there by her bed poking around and talking about what’s up with her bones and placing bets on what the x-ray will show and what we think the different odd bits poking out here and there are going to turn out to be.

I do know one thing.  I see an operation in her future.  Before long that bone is going to start a bedsore that I won’t be able to cure because anytime she is sitting or lying on her back she is pressing against it.  Constant pressure.

John called while I was in there talking to the P.A. and asked what I was doing.  I said, “Looking at your mom’s ass with Darnell.  Do you want me to tell you about it?”  “No!  I gotta go, they’re paging me.”

The pansy-ass.

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Filed under: Blather, Henrietta, John, just plain weird, Strange, Wondering...
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