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!

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.

Here is the continuation of the whole Ike debacle.

Oh, I never did get the photos from John and he still has them on his jump drive.  In his pocket.  I am just not working out!  I will really try hard to remember to get them tonight, I promise!

Tuesday, September 16- Today I saw two hummingbirds and a housefly. Please God, don’t let anyone tell the mosquitoes how to get back…

There is candle wax ALL OVER MY HOUSE.

SO. FREAKING. BORED.

I can’t believe how awfully bad my carpet needs vacuuming.

I have decided I am not going to boil another pot of water for dishwashing. I have been inconvenienced enough already and if some sort of plague gets its start here, in my house… well, I’m sorry.

We are probably all going to die of dysentery. My next door neighbor said she never did boil the water for washing the dishes. I don’t feel I know her well enough to ask about her bowels…

Keelan went to meet the vet out at the barn as our horse and pony show now necessitates a visit. Dandy, (her mare), has a bad cut on the back of one of her ankles from… barbed wire(?). She got there and discovered, yet, another snake in her tack room. A couple of her friends were there with her, DJ and Victor and they, being boys, quickly and joyfully beat said snake to death with shovels. Eww.

Wednesday Morning, September 17- We got last Friday’s newspaper delivered to us. The first bit of outside news since last Thursday. The editor had a notation on the front page saying they are going to try to get the past issues caught up in the near future.

Our good friend, Roger, brought us over a generator and I hooked up the washer and dryer to it after I ran the fridge for about 6 hours. I then proceeded to do rapid fire laundry. Frantically.

As I was slowly rolling the refrigerator forward to reach behind it and unplug it from the useless hole in the wall, my grandmother’s 70 year old Kitchen Aid mixer fell off of the top of the fridge and landed squarely on top of my head. Dead center. I cried. That sucker must weigh 15 pounds and has a motor that could run a riding lawnmower. Keelan was frantic and I ended up feeling sorrier for her than me. It really did scare her to death.

Crap. I am watching a mosquito, (among the first of many to return), searching on the outside of the window. It’s the one window that is just cracked open a tiny bit because that particular screen was never found after the wind died down. Plus, the little dog keeps making her escape through that window every time she see’s someone walking their dog, so it isn’t open very much. I’m going to have to shut it because the mosquito is being persistent and will get in eventually.

OK, I’m back.

When I was done with the laundry I unplugged the washer and dryer and left the fridge hooked up while I plugged the TV and DVD player into the generator, also. (The cable was out well before they cut the power…probably as soon as the sun was behind a little white cloud. By way of explanation I say to you this one word…Comcast.) So we watched movies and sat and wondered what was happening on the news. What the surrounding areas looked like, death toll, what the evacuation looked like, etc.

The cicada’s are back… it’s gonna be a scorcher.

Thursday, September 18- No paper today.

Friday, September 19- THE ELECTRICITY CAME BACK ON!

Today is Monday, September 22, and they STILL don’t have everything completely full at the stores. At least they have opened the major highways back up leading into Houston. John’s store is getting as many trucks as they can spare to send him. He has worked 14 hour days EVERY day since the hurricane, and he is running out of steam.

My friends, a few neighborhoods away from us still don’t have electricity. Lisa is out of town, evacuated, and Roger is practically living at work. He is bringing over his clothes, which I wash and I’m cooking for him. Poor guy, I hope and pray they get their power back on soon.

Needless to say the Comcast services still aren’t working and I am betting another week at least. We will see. It would be fun to take bets.

We were really stupid when we signed up with them because we got a bundled service thing where our cable TV, internet, and digital phone, (whatever that is) are provided by them. Or not, whatever. So we have been without a landline this entire time and my cell bill is going to be exorbitant. My smart neighbors across the street never lost their phone service because THEY DON’T USE COMCAST.

Have I mentioned my loathing for Comcast?

Thursday, September 25- My friend, Lisa, was on her way home yesterday from evacuating to San Antonio and John was off work during the early part of the day. As we drove by her house on the way home I saw that her porch light was on! I called her immediately and told her that her electricity was back! What timing! Lucky dog never went without it the entire time.

Hi intertubes people!  How’s it hangin?  We’re fine here and intend to be right up until we are washed away by Ike.  No, not really.  I don’t think he’s going to stray this far north, we’re just going to get a good deal of rain.  Oh well, we were behind in that department anyway.  I just hate getting caught up all at once…*sigh*

A few strange things happened today.  Firstly, my 17 year old girl child has gone to a City Council meeting with a friend of hers that is in a  US Government class.  Her friend says she needs, “moral support”.  Yeeeah.  Sure.  Keelan says she is going to have US Government next semester so why not?

John and I are taking bets on how long they are allowed to stay before being thrown out.  Their odds are not good.  Contact your bookie.

I have been sitting here watching The Weather Channel and I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a good solid reason for wanting to live in Cuba, year round, except for that pesky Castro not letting anyone leave…  I mean these people get totally flayed by multiple hurricanes every single year.  They wind up to cat 4 and 5 and go tearing across the island, sometimes twice per storm.  These people, for the most part, live in a near poverty situation and are flattened over and over.  Hundreds and hundreds die every year.  And they couldn’t leave if they wanted to.  Not even just for Hurricane season.  And that just seems wrong.  They should all be allowed to leave during the season for, oh, Europe or something…  God knows I wish I could.

Someone should complain.

H has a new caregiver provider person.  YES!  Again!  I know, I know.  I have reported this several times already, and no, I wasn’t lying.  The latest is “Tiffany”.  So far so good.  Please, everybody cross your fingers. She stayed here with H today while we ran frantically around for our allotted three hours.  Got back and she had done all the things I had verbally laid out for her to do.  And for those of you wondering, no, she won’t do taxes or windows.  Henrietta got a “bed bath” and put in the chair and her sheets changed.  Plus she cooked her breakfast and washed and figured out where to put all the dishes up.  All this was amidst her being visited by the nurse and then a very nice little lady from the church that comes by to give her communion.  I didn’t ask her to clean H’s bathroom or clean her room or anything cause we were having such a hard time getting out of here and she’s new, so I would have had to take more time than I already had when I showed her what to cook for her breakfast and how and where it all was.

I swear.  If she starts not showing up, I will scream.  She is very nice and H really likes her and each time she has left, Henrietta says, “Oh thank you so much for everything you did and please come back!”  How sad is that?  I will talk to her about trying to muster up a tear next time…

So far the contest has been hotly debated.  I have given up clues in the comments section, but, I swear, it’s something that is unusual to any mans dress shirt and is the reason John refuses to wear it.  It is an obvious thing at first glance and we should have noticed it except that it’s not that obvious.  Obviously.  I can feel all the obvious evil thoughts you people are sending me, now…  Oh!  There has been one winner so far!  And she’s not even a regular commenter.  I erased her comment immediately as soon as I got it and wondered, just as quickly, why I had set it up this way.  I should have said the first person to get the correct answer.  But I didn’t so if you can figure out what is such an obvious problem with the shirt that John won’t wear it you get a shot at the lovely prize also.

More tomorrow.

What’s wrong with the men’s dress shirt in this picture?

John and I bought this dress shirt for him recently and while I love the color and the soft, cotton damask fabric, we both neglected to notice one very important problem.  No, it’s not the size.  It looks great on him and fits perfectly.  I didn’t button it all the way, but it’s not the buttons or the placket.  The shirt will never do.   He will never wear it to work.  He says he’ll wear it on days where he has all day meetings.  I know better.  I am betting he will never put in on except to maybe go out to eat, occasionally when it’s very cold.

Click on it to make it bigger if you want to.

Can you figure out what’s so wrong with this men’s dress shirt that would make him not want to wear it, yet it never occurred to us to look for the, (quite obvious), particular problem it has?

Here’s the booty prize, er, no! not “booty”, just prize!  Eh… yeah! That’s what I meant…

This is Burt’s Bee’s Foot Care Kit.

Foot Care Kit

Completely pamper your feet.

How it Works

Treat your feet to a pedicure in the comfort of your own home. All the natural foot care tools you need are right here. A pumice stone will help smooth rough skin. Then moisturize with Coconut Foot Creme and our comfy Bee socks.

I will mail this to you promptly, after you’ve been chosen as the winner of this contest that ends on, oh…let’s say Friday September 12.  Multiple right answers will be numbered and tossed, then served to one of my rather undiscerning teenage daughters to select a winner.  Believe me when I say that the number selector’s general lack of concern for which right answer wins could not be more left to fate if I was to use a random number generator.  There will even be a guaranteed gratuitous eye roll accompanying the selection.

Last night I informed john that we would need to make something exciting happen tomorrow in order for me to have some sort of reasonable blog fodder.  He immediately responded, “Have sex?”.  I then told him,  1) I don’t usually write about our sex life on my blog and 2) My mother reads this.  His swift, cocky comeback was reduced to, “Ooooh…”.

Today has been a bust.  The caregiver provider was supposed to show up at 1:00 and let John and I run out and madly dash about doing things together willy-nilly until we had exhausted our three hours and had to return to take care of H.  She never showed up.  Now remember, this is the “new” provider that is, not the same one that had trouble showing up a while back.  So I called the number we had for her cell phone and, surprise, surprise, no answer.  I next tried calling the company that was sending her out here.  The lady told me that she had called her and told her that she didn’t feel well and that she had called us and left a message for us telling us that she wasn’t showing up.  Left a message?  Why on earth would she lie and say that?  That makes it sound as if I WAS ABLE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE AND NOT ANSWER THE DAMNED PHONE.  Ahem…  Anyway, there was no message on the answering machine and we had been here all day.  Waiting.  I was not a happy camper.  I told the lady so and she said that maybe I should call the… “provider’s” home number and she gave it to me and, of course, no one answered.  I called the company back and told her I want someone else and it’s not that she was feeling poorly, it’s that she’s a terrible liar and that really chaps me arse.  So tomorrow afternoon some new chick named Maria is supposed to show up and we will see.  John works a half day tomorrow and so we should get to do something.  I have an exciting list, too.  Let’s see… post office, Lowe’s, grocery….oh gawd…

The exciting thing that happened today is that my wonderful husband has figured out how to get the pics in the memory of my camera onto the memory card and onto the pooter.  Actually, I got them onto the pooter, but he did the rest.  He may get some booty tonight…

On Sunday, August 21st, the same day Henrietta came home from the hospital, Kes came running in to get John and I early in the morning.  I mean DAYBREAK.  She had gone out to the garage to investigate what on earth our little dog, Kissy, had been barking at.  It was a stray cat.  Don’t know why the cat decided it wanted in our garage.  There is no food in there or anything like that.  While she was looking at it something flew across the garage and landed, spooking her no end.  It was this little bitty owl.

Now I have quite a history with owls and I will update you on all that in my next post, given something earth shattering doesn’t happen in my life to supersede it, i.e. H has a blowout that completly dissolves a diaper or the provider care person shows up and John and I have sex for three hours in some seedy motel.  Don’t hold your breath, cause H is finished with her antibiotics and is no longer suffering with diarrhea.

I just read this to John and his first response was, “Are you sure your mom can read all that?”  I said, “She knows how to read…anything. “  He looked a bit desperate and responded, “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!”

Is it a baby or just a small breed?  I dunno.  But now that I have the pics on the pooter I will try to look it up.  Tomorrow.  John wants my attention now and I have to go…..

Today, while shopping for bread in the Mrs. Baird’s Thrift Store, John and I were discussing the merits of different loaves of breads.  Which kind to get?  Hmmm.  I casually remarked to him, “So, what’s the difference between 7 grain and 12 grain?”  The guy behind the counter just COULD NOT let it go by.  Slow drawl,  “That’d be ’bout 5 grains…”.

Sometimes you can escape the smartasses at home, let your guard down, and still find yourself not entirely safe.

Hi all!

The other day, Monday in fact, John and I spent the better part of the day on a not so fun project.  For a while now every time I opened the flatware drawer there seemed to be a fine coating of flour or powdered sugar or Bisquick, something of that nature, on the utensils.  I just thought one of the girls spilled some in there and not much more of it.  After several times, though, I became suspicious.  I reached inside the drawer and wiped my fingers along the underside of the counter top.  Upon the removal of my hand I promptly threw up.   No, not really, but I wanted to.  White, powdery mold.  I grabbed a flashlight and looked in at the backs of the cabinets.  Nothing.  No water stains or mold or even cobwebs.  Very clean.  HOWEVER, when I shined my light up at the underside of the Formica it was all covered in the white mold.  So when John got home and after a little inter net research we went out and got some bleach a spray bottle and some sponges.  We removed the drawers and all of the contents of the cabinets before I spent about 5 minutes on my hands and knees with my head stuck in the cabinets spraying that bleach all over the underneath of the counter top.  Man!  That stuff burns the eyes!  We waited a while and repeated the process.  Or, I should say I repeated the process!  John has “bad knees” that bother him every time there is the need to crawl around on the tile floor.  Whatever.

The neat thing is that the mold had disappeared immediately after I sprayed the first time.  I mean not a trace of it anywhere.  Poof!  Disappeared in a cloud of… well, not mold.  Has anything like this happened to anyone else.  There was no moisture under there and never had been, and it was only on that side of the sink, not the other side.  Weird.

Would you believe me if I said that I’ve been cooking, baking, and cleaning non-stop for the past few days?  No?  Well, that makes you a smart little cookie, doesn’t it?  If I had a gun to my head and some yo-yo telling me he’d shoot if I didn’t account for my time, I’d be a dead, domestic failure…rather than just a domestic failure.  I guess I’m saying things could always be worse.

I did manage to get a few things done today.  Sweeping the kitchen, breakfast area and utility room and doing my version of mopping to all of those freshly swept areas.  This entails walking around with a spray bottle of one sort of cleaner or another and a handy wipe, bending over spots, squirting, wiping, and moving on to the next spot.  Hey, don’t laugh.  My floor is clean…er.  I put things away left and right that have been slowly piling up for ages and cleaned the kitchen, and did several loads of laundry.

Got H on the bedpan not once, but two times for a grand total of two poos.  This normally throws her into a tailspin.  As I have discussed here before an unscheduled poo, or U. P. is a force of nature to contend with in this house.  She was reciting some panicky sounding prayers the second time I put her on, but other than that she handled it well.

John worked a “close” today and will be home about 11:00 or midnight.  He is enjoying his new boss and things are going smoothly so far.

Yesterday I asked him if he had chased any shoplifters through the parking lot lately and he replied, “No, I’m too fat and old for that.”  To which I immediately responded, “Your not fat.”  He groaned at me.  Seriously though, he’s getting older everyday, but he has lost a lot of weight lately.  He says he’s getting down to his “fighting weight”.  heh, heh, heh.

Pop is going into the hospital next Tuesday to have a defibrillator implanted just under the skin in his chest.  It is a battery operated thing that has two little wires that will be attached to his heart and if it stops beating or falters it will shock it into rhythm.  I don’t know much more than that about it.  Mom will ask more questions, I am sure.  I am wondering how long the batteries last and what changing them entails.

I guess that is all I’ve got to report at the moment.  I haven’t been doing much of anything or feeling like doing anything.  Very blah.  I haven’t even been Plurking.  I have also been neglecting reading the blogs!  And that is very bad of me, for shame and all that stuff!

I’m gonna try to get my shit together and get back here sooner!  Promise.  And I’ll try to have something to say.

Greetings all.  I am up early this morning with many things on my mind and I am quite sure that it will be this evening before I can make sense of it all enough to get it down in a post.  Then I will re-read it and think, “So why was that so hard to say and why did I think I had so much to say?”  I suppose just because it’s been a while since I was good about keeping up here.  I’m not apologizing, cause shit’s been happening.  And I don’t even meant he bedpan variety.  No.  Real, documented and undocumented, shizzle.

Where to start….?

Pop is in the hospital and, actually, is scheduled to get out today.  He told me on the phone yesterday that they told him he could leave this morning so he said he was going to get up at about 3:00am and go.  I told my mom he said that and she laughed and said she hoped he had a ride cause she wasn’t going to get him at 3:00am. He is such a character.

He has emphysema and COPD problems that got a bit of fluid in his lung.  “Pneumonia”, I thought.  “No”, the doctors said, “just some fluid in his lung”.  Huh?  Oh well, my understanding is not pivotal to his outcome, anyway, thank you God.

John got a new boss to work with and it is a vast improvement over the last one.  Oops, he isn’t supposed to be there until Monday, so I suppose that’s jumping the gun.  No it isn’t, cause anything would be an improvement.  Plus he’s worked with this guy before and he’s a pretty good one.  So that’s all good.

Henrietta is getting a new caregiver provider and she starts Tuesday.  They called and asked me if we would mind someone who mostly speaks Spanish and I said no, I didn’t mind and so did H so that’s a go.  As far as I know the hand gestures for indicating you have to poo are a fairly universal thing.  Well, that and H throws in some really good facial expressions leaving no doubt as to the amount of urgency/amount of poo ratio.

Got the first semester bill for older child’s college tuition and that was a nasty little shock.  It was something like $2400.  OK.  Well that sucks.  And that is after her scholarship was deducted.  Shit.  Then a day or two later we got an email saying that there had been an error and everyone had been charged $345. for a…something, can’t remember what they called it, but anyway that was an error and they were going to remove it.  So, OK great.  We looked at her bill and they had deducted the $345. for each of her 4 classes  so that just about halved her bill.  Yea.  Can you say “good news”?  We are college tuition bill virgins, (in this millennium) and had no idea what to expect so we were really anticipating having to spend about two and a half thou on it twice a year.  Next, text books.

And then there is the discussion of the younger daughter moving to Decatur, Texas to live with Nana and Pop for her last year in high school.  Strangely, she wants to do this.  She is disillusioned with her friends right now and hates her job and is worried about Pop and Nana both, mostly because they just plain need help.  Young, limber, strong backed help.  Family help.  Adorable, beloved, grandchild help.  The only thing keeping her from jumping at the first chance of going?  New school.  I really can’t say that I blame her.  I was always adamant that she and her sister never have to change schools if there was anyway we could help it and they never did.  K-12, same school.  I guess I wanted this so badly for them because I have attended 6 different schools in my life.  I didn’t know I was crippling them with an inability to flex and change.   No, I can’t blame her for not wanting to do it.  Very scary stuff, walking into a new school for the first time and trying to find your way around feeling like everyone is staring at you.  The New Kid.

Of course one of the friends she is disillusioned with is out with her right now and they are getting spray tans, eyebrow waxing and manicures.  How really bad could it possible be?

Besides, I am pretty sure she would miss me too much to stay gone for months at a time from me.  Yeah.  That’s the way I am hoping thinking it would go down.

We’re trying to die in this heat.  And not because it’s hot, but because we refuse to be and our light bill is run up to a whopping $600 last month.  NOW we’re being hot because that thermostat is turned way up.  This house is like an oven in the rooms Henrietta is in without the ceiling fans on.  When we are all in the living room and we are getting hot I stand up and turn it on and she looks a bit frantic for a second, (she’s convinced the, “wind will make me sick”), but she doesn’t say anything cause I am fanning my shirt and saying how hot it is.  If I get her a light throw or something to wrap up in she says no, it’s too hot for that, so I know she’s not cold.  Just weird and full of old wives tales.  What can I say, she’s an old wife.

I haven’t been to a movie in years and then about a month or so ago John and I saw the Indiana Jones movie.  Really neat.  Then again, when he was on vacation last week we went to see the new Batman.  Well, Wednesday a good friend of mine came over and we watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants #1 on DVD, and made plans to go and see #2 at theater yesterday.  We really enjoyed it, also.  So I have seen three movies in the past couple of months and before that I bet I hadn’t been in 4 or 5 years.  How weird is that?

While John was on vacation, my brother was home from Italy to visit and finalize the adoption of my brand spanking new nephew.  Older child had to work and could not attend the family reunion, as it were, but younger girl, John and I met up with Nana, Pop and Cam in in a park in the small town of Buffalo, Texas.  We hung out and ate at a near by resturant.  It was good to see him and I never know how long it will be until I can see him again.

Here he is with Keelan.