The Wages of Sin

15 Jan

poison ivyI’ve finished one tub of pictures and have started on the second bin. (It looks as if there may be four of the blessed things.) I found this little gem in one of the shoe boxes.

I think I was about eight here, and my sister would have been three. (Possibly nine and four, but it doesn’t really matter.)  Daddy and a close friend, a fellow we called Uncle Larry, had gone to my grandmother’s house to dig up maple saplings to plant at Uncle Larry’s new house. I was given strict orders to stay on the back porch and play with the dog.

Being the sweet, obedient child I was, I followed them into the field, and found some pretty, shiny leaves, with little white berries, which I collected into a small bouquet.

Poison ivy.

The doctor gave my parents medicine to put in the bathtub, and soaked me twice a day in water as hot as I could tolerate. I had it, literally, from head to foot – on my scalp and between my toes. My nose was swollen and covered with a yellow crust. My mom had to change the bed sheets twice a day, and after the actual poison ivy cleared up, I got boils all over my legs.

And it didn’t help that my sister was so d— smug about it, either.

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I’m Gonna Kill Him

13 Jan

I had a bad night last night, and didn’t come downstairs until almost 10:00. (There are benefits to being retired.) Since I can’t eat for an hour after I take my Synthroid, it was after 11:00 before I was ready to eat.

I asked The Squire what time he had gotten up – 7:00 – and asked if he was hungry. “I need something on my stomach. I can either have a bowl of cereal now, or we can reheat that stew** and have lunch together.”

“I’m not hungry now. Why don’t you go ahead and eat?”

It is noon. I have just returned from placing my bowl and spoon in the dishwasher, and he says to me, “You know, I am feeling a bit hungry. I think I’ll go fix myself some lunch. Do you want something?”

** “That stew”, to his eternal credit, was a recipe he’d seen on Rachael Ray’s show while he was riding the bike at the Y. He’d purchased all the ingredients and put it together himself.

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A New Year’s Resolution…

4 Jan

…or not. You know how these things go.

I have been a member of The Daughters of the British Empire for almost twenty years, but our chapter has decided to disband. I have a ton of stuff to turn over to the District Board, so I had The Squire go out to the barn and get the most nearly empty plastic tub he could find.  Since I am still trying to go through my mom’s stuff, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.

My mom - probably Easter the year she was 16.

My mom – probably Easter the year she was 16.

Well, the box he brought down was full of pictures. Photos of my mom as a teen, pictures of me a baby, shots my dad took at Pearl Harbor, and relatives, relatives, and more relatives.  I made up envelopes addressed to the descendants of most of these relations, and am busy sorting them out. The Squire offered to scan them and email them, but I know myself well enough (and I’ve known myself going on 73 years, now) to realize full-well that as long as those pictures are in the house, I will want to hang on to them, and then we’ll be right back where we started.

Away with you!

And, maybe – just maybe – I’ll be able to get rid of a box a month. Ought to  be through here by, oh…2017 or so.

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Bah, Humbug!

1 Jan

Well, this year is already off to a roaring start.

The woman from our church about whom I wrote several days ago died yesterday morning. She had dementia, and had suffered a stroke, so it was not unexpected, and her husband, while grieving, has expressed relief for her sake. The funeral is Thursday.

Our newly-minted (September, 2014) Suffragan Bishop, Heather Cook, was involved in a hit-and-run accident earlier this week. The official “spin” was that she left the scene of the accident – she returned 20 minutes later – but to me, “leaving the scene of an accident” means you ran over somebody’s mailbox and kept going.  Killing a man is a “hit and run”, make no mistake about it. Reports are now coming out that she was given probation before judgment in 2010 for driving three times over the legal limit, and having marijuana in her car.

Boy! Do we know how to pick ’em, or what? How in God’s name did she make it through the discernment process?

The LED bulbs we ordered for the dining room chandeliers arrived yesterday and are a total waste of money. Each one, which is supposed to be equal to a 30 watt bulb, is barely as bright as the nightlight we have in the bathroom.  If you know anybody in the market for ten 5 watt bulbs, I have a deal for you.

And the bronchitis The Squire and I have been fighting has come back with a vengeance. We may both end up at Patient First before the day is over.

The only bright spot was that our noisy neighbors didn’t have a wild party last night. The Squire and I went to bed around 10:30 and slept straight through without a blip.

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2014 in review

1 Jan

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,700 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 45 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Birdseed Blunder

27 Dec

The way we blow through birdseed around here you’d think they were going to stop packaging it.

We get most of our seed, a blend called Tree Nutty, at a place called “Wild Birds, Unlimited”. It’s a bit pricey, but they give us a nice discount, plus a $10 rebate for every $200 we spend, and I hate to admit how much we’re “earned”.  And then there’s the peanuts…

This is supposed to be a bad winter (although it is nearly the New Year and the temps all week have been in the 40s and 50s during the day) so I purchased a couple of bags of really cheap seed at the grocery store. When it snows we get starlings and grackles; they push everybody else out of the way, and shovel down whatever they can find, so “let ’em eat milo” is my attitude. Not even the blue jays will touch the stuff! (If you don’t know what this is, it resembles miniature dog kibble. I understand pheasants like it, but that is one of the few birds we don’t have here.)

When we went to the Y on Monday, we were running low but we figured we’d be up there again Wednesday morning, and could stock up then. Well, first The Squire and then I came down with bronchitis, and we not only didn’t make it to the Y, we didn’t get to church, or to Christmas Dinner with the in-laws.

Thursday (Christmas Day) I had to break open my stash of emergency birdseed, and let tell you, it was NOT greeted with enthusiasm. We have two feeders on the hook closest to the house, and the squirrels frequently get the square one spinning, so it comes unscrewed and falls on the ground.  I just left it there and filled it with the seed. Rather than eat from the tray at the bottom, the squirrels stood on their hind legs and reached down into the feeder, looking for something fit to eat. One enterprising fellow finally climbed into the feeder and was digging around, wildly throwing seed into the air, all willy-nilly.

This morning, The Squire hauled himself up the road and got Tree Nutty and finch food, so all is forgiven and there is once again peace in the valley.

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Waiting for Charon

25 Dec

The Squire says he is feeling better. Not well, but better. Wish I could say the same. I was hoping that this go-round would not be as bad as what I had last July, but is seems to be well on the way. I was suppose to read last night, and The Squire and I were to usher, but nothing doing. I’m not getting near anybody, especially little kids.

I’ve spent most of today in bed, which is, of course, exactly where I should be. I dragged my aching body downstairs at 3:00, and would probably still be there if the dog hadn’t barked at me. A wet nose and a loud noise in your ear will generally jolt most folks awake.

So, the foxes are fed, and I am going back to bed.

 

 

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It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

23 Dec

Everybody’s getting sick.

An elderly couple at our church are in separate hospitals. He is very unsteady on his feet, and has been sleeping in the recliner, as he finds it easier to get up and down from there, rather than the bed. Monday morning, the caregiver found him sleeping on the floor. He had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and missed the chair when he went to sit back down. Rather than disturb her (she lives in) he just stayed there.

She couldn’t lift him, so she called 911 to have him taken for observation.

Then she went to the bedroom to get the wife out of bed and found her on the floor. She had had a stroke during the night, so there was another call to get an ambulance to take her to another hospital. She has bleeding in the brain, and things look “iffy”. He came back home this morning.

The Squire is continuing his personal tradition of sleeping through major holidays, and has come down with bronchitis.  He is sleeping in the guest room, and confined to quarters for the duration. I picked up bronchitis when I was in the hospital with my most recent stroke, so I am just praying that what he has is not what I had.

Have had to contact any number of folks to tell them we will not be attending Holiday parties, etc. The only bright spot is that he didn’t get this when we had our Open House. That would have been just wonderful.

Or not.

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Well, No Wonder

20 Dec

Local Grandson’s Sweet Wife asked me for some pointers in making up a Christmas gift for her mom.  Her dad died very suddenly only a few months after they got married, and she wanted to mount one of his Coast Guard uniform jackets in a shadow box to hang over the sofa. I told her I knew places such as Michaels and A.C. Moore sold deep frames for military flags and such, and that was the place I would start. Figure out how small you could fold this jacket and look for coupons for custom framing, which usually run 40 to 50%. I also offered some other “artistic” suggestions, but it was her project, and I wasn’t trying to tell her how to do it.

The Squire and I had to go up to Eldest Daughter’s home on Wednesday, and ran into LGSW while we were there. She had a HUGE shadow box and a piece of poster board, and was draping the jacket this way and that over the unopened box.  “I took the jacket to the store and they told me it would be about $400 for them to mount it for me, as it all had to be hand-sewn.” I asked her what she said when she got up off the floor.

“I’ll do it myself!” The clerk suggested the frame and poster board approach and sent her on her way.

After some to-ing and fro-ing, I offered to sew the jacket to the poster board by machine, and the two of them came down this afternoon so we could work on it.

We got it lined up on the poster board and I ran a cut off piece through my sewing machine to make sure the needle could handle it, and we figured we were good to go.

Well, putting a 2 by 3 foot piece of poster board through a domestic sewing machine doesn’t work. We had to do it by hand after all. I sewed around the label at the neckline and she sewed down the center back. We buttoned  the jacket and got it arranged in the frame, and I gave her the extra thread to take home. At this point she only needs to tack the shoulders into place and get the sleeves the way she wants them, so there shouldn’t be too much more to do. She has a Coast Guard Manual and a photo of her dad which she will put in the box, and it will be ready to go.

But we do understand why the store wanted $400 to do it professionally!

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Just Like TV

19 Dec

This afternoon, The Squire had one of those circus acts going on. I was out, and he started dinner for us, and while he was at it, he decided to feed the dog, so he got the dish and put it on the end of the counter. The cat was sitting in the doorway, and as soon as Blazer heard the food rattle into the dish, he came racing in. The cat, of course, thought he was about to be run over and jumped UP out of the way. Directly into the dog dish, which flew into the air and scattered kibbles, like manna, all over the kitchen. Blazer, who acts as if he only gets fed on alternate weekends, started snuffling around the kitchen, gobbling up the food.

In the meantime, the cat was so startled by the dish and the mess that he jumped again – onto the stove. Hit a saucepan and knocked the spoon and the lid onto Blazer’s head. Cat and dog both yelp with pain. Cat hops down and runs into the backroom and Blazer starts running. Anyplace. Doesn’t matter. Except that he can’t get his feet going properly because he’s on the scatter rug.

The Squire was laughing so hard he had to lean against the wall.

 

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