Tag Archives: Eldest Daughter

I Gots To Get Organzized!

14 Aug

When my sister was about four years old, she looked at the wall-to-wall chaos that was our play room, put her hands on her hips and uttered the above sentence, which has gone down in family history.

And this past week was one of those times.

I worked all last week, and have decided, once and for all, that I am too bloody old for this nonsense. Getting up at 6AM and staying up all day without a nap gets really old, really fast.  It’s not just the physical exhaustion, it’s the mental strain of trying to keep all of the pieces together. Within the space of five days, I managed to miss the turn into Loveton Circle twice, once turning too early (No big deal; it IS a circle, after all.), and once going past the light and having to drive a half mile to the next place to turn. I also forgot my teeth one morning. Mind you, I’ve had dentures since I was twenty-two, so there was no excuse for this particular trick. Thank Heaven, The Squire was home and willing to bring them to me. Willing, and more than a little concerned.

The Squire has been wanting to see the meteor shower for decades, but every August, it has been rainy or cloudy. Thursday night promised to be clear and cloudless, if a tad on the warm side. Friday morning, he came staggering downstairs just as I was getting ready to leave the house. “How was the ‘show’ last night?” “Dunno”, he grumped. He’d been reading a “really good book” and had finished it up at 2AM. Rather than disturb my rest, he’d slept in the guest room, but now he had to get pulled together to run to Panera and collect the “Dough-nation” for the food pantry at St. George’s. Normally, this is done around 9:30 on Thursday night, but he’d been in outer space and hadn’t gotten back in time to make the pickup.

Yesterday morning, The Squire  crawled out of bed at 7AM and went over to the shopping center to sell raffle tickets with Mac for a church fund raiser, beginning at 8AM. He called here at 8:30 to ask if I’d heard from Mac – I had not – as he had called both the cell and the landline, and couldn’t get hold of him. “I’m going to run by his house to see if the place burned down overnight or something, and then I’ll swing by the church.”

I don’t know where they finally got together, but Mac had been looking for the vendor’s license, without which they could not legally sell the tickets. At that point, “it was to hell with it, and either go home or to the movies.” They both went home. (The license, BTW, was in the treasurer’s top desk drawer.)

In the afternoon, I went to a baby shower for our grandson and his wife, and had a marvelous time. Matthew is a clown and loves being the center of attraction. He struck “model” poses with the diaper bag, swinging this way and that. Somebody gave the baby a tiny camo suit, with the last name on the hat. (It’s a long one, and I doubt it would have fit on the shirt pocket.) M sat the hat on top of his head and insisted upon “wearing” it for quite a while, in spite of his wife’s playful attempts to remove it.

One of the games they played was to try to guess, on smell and taste, five different types of baby food. The string beans were easy, but carrots, squash, and peaches all seem to taste exactly the same. Of course, M had to be the final taste-tester, and really did “gag it up”. “We are not feeding our son this slop!” was how he put it.

And then the fun started. I was not – still am not – recovered from my week at work, and it was almost 100F, with a heat index even higher. When I went out to my car, I couldn’t find my keys. I don’t normally put my keys in my purse, but the dress I was wearing didn’t have any pockets, so they had to be in my purse, but I just couldn’t locate the fool things. I went back inside to see if they had fallen into the chair, but no luck. By this time, I was so tired and hot I was ready to sit on the floor and cry. Eldest Daughter went out to check my purse again (yes, I’d left it in the car!) and not only found the keys, but started the car and the a/c.

And locked the car behind her.

Fortunately, there is a “secret” way to get into the car, because I think being rescued by The Squire twice in one week would not have gone well.

I came home and went to bed.

Next week, I gots to get organzized.

 

 

 

 

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Carma

27 May

Eldest Daughter treated me to the last two days in Ocean City. We walked the boardwalk (also known as Wal-Mart East), dined at a lovely tea shop, and watched somebody get just exactly what he deserved.

On the way home, we fetched up behind a little old lady doing 40 in a 50 mile zone. Maddening, but bearable. After several minutes, the car in front of us reached a spot in the road where it was possible to pass, and did so. Apparently, the little old lady realized she was blocking traffic (there were fifteen cars piled up behind her), and pulled onto the shoulder.  At the same time, a black BMW pulled out and passed the car behind us, and us, on a double solid line, and kept on going as if he’d just put a down payment on the road.

About five miles up the road, we passed a Delaware State Trouper and a black BMW on the side of the road. “Where’s the fire, bub?”

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Happy Thanksgiving!

27 Nov

This has been quite a week.

Monday, I went to the doctor and convinced her that iron supplements are NOT the answer to my problems. The mail is still moving down south, so to speak, and that’s only on half the dosage she prescribed.  Yes, I’m still anemic. Yes, I still resemble a light bulb in a wig, and No, iron isn’t going to help.  Now we’re going to try Vitamin D – 2,000 units a day. Go away and leave me alone.

Eldest Daughter had invited BFF and me to go to the Amish markets in Shrewsbury on Tuesday, just to get out of the house for a while. Local Granddaughter and her baby girl were going along, and I don’t get a chance to see them very often, so I was looking forward to the trip. BFF had a doctor’s appointment at 10:00, so we were to meet at Eldest Daughter’s house at 10:30 or so.

The Squire always gets up earlier than I do, and he popped into the bedroom to ask what time I had to be in Forest Hill. I mumbled an answer and he said he was going over to church and left the room; I rolled over and looked at the clock, and it was almost 9! I hit the floor at a dead run, as it takes about a half an hour to get up the road. Getting dressed takes longer than it should, as I am still essentially one-handed, but I managed to make myself presentable, if not beautiful, and left the house at 9:45.  Just as I got into the car, I remembered I needed to return something I had borrowed from Eldest Daughter, and had to go back inside. Couldn’t find it. After much frantic searching I located it – in my purse, where I had put it so I wouldn’t forget it.

Now I was really running at a dead clip. There is a large tree about halfway up the hill which sticks out into the drive and you have to go around it, or hit it. I was in such a rush that I over-steered and managed to throw myself across the drive and propelled my car over the wall that goes along that side. I called BFF and told her to go on to Eldest Daughter’s without me. Fortunately, her doctor’s appointment had just ended and she offered to come get me. I called The Squire at church, told him what had happened, and left my AAA card on the counter for him.  What with one thing and another we managed to get away from Forest Hill a little after 11:00.

He did not, by the way, have too much to say about this stunt, because he has backed into that tree himself – twice. Once in each direction.  Tail lights are expensive to replace.

I get so tickled at all of the “rules” Local Granddaughter tells me you should or shouldn’t do with new babies.  Don’t put them in snowsuits, because the suits don’t compress enough to buckle the child securely into the car seat.  Don’t do this, you must do that. Yeesh. Of course, today’s truth is tomorrow’s lie, and vice versa, and it’s her baby, so I just do as she says. When her mom and the Middle Daughter were babies, I got conflicting advice from everybody, which made me very insecure, so I just nod and let her do it her way.

We really had a good time in Shrewsbury.  I don’t think any of us spend much money. I splurged on an ice cream cone and a dish of rice pudding with raisins (Hey, I’m a cheap date.) but I was actually looking for a roasting chicken, as Thanksgiving dinner would be only The Squire, my brother-in-law and myself, so I didn’t want a turkey. All the market had was parts, so I ended up at the local super market after all.

Both The Squire and I worked very hard around the house yesterday, playing pick-up-and-put-away, doing laundry, getting veggies and such prepped for today, and then went to the Ecumenical Thanksgiving service in the evening.  As a result, I was on my feet far too long. Last night, my back decided to give me a fit, and I was tossing and turning like a rowboat in a storm. I finally came downstairs and took a heavy duty pain pill, and whipped up a batch of bread while I waited for it to kick in. What with one thing and another, it was after 2 AM before I managed to get to sleep.

It was nice to have BIL here today. He is a really great guy, and I know he is lonely in that house. He is getting ready to move into a continuing care community – the same one my parents were in – and is trying to parcel out things to the kids and grandkids, trying to decide what to take and what to keep, making difficult decisions about disposing of things, and he really needed a break.  I think he is well suited to living at Charlestown, as there are lots of activities and it is close to where he currently lives so he can keep in touch with old friends. And he won’t be missing my sister everywhere he looks.

I really enjoyed the chance to fix a real meal and set a fine table. When I first retired from Blue Cross, The Squire was still working, and I had a nice meal ready for him every night – the sterling, the good dishes, the whole nine yards. Now, with both of us home, we are on such wacky schedules that we can’t seem to get organized enough to have a decent meal.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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Winterthur

6 Aug

Eldest Daughter took me to Winterthur today to see the Downton Abbey costumes as a belated birthday treat.

We decided to have lunch first, and I had a Devonshire, cauliflower and Stilton bisque than was almost thick enough to spread on toast, and tasted heavenly! That and a veggie and fresh mozzarella wrap kept me going for the rest of the day.

The costumes truly are lovely, and for the most part, look much better on the actors and actresses than they do “in person”. I’ve never seen a single episode of the show, so she was explaining things to me as we went along. Between her explanations and my insistence upon reading every single sign (Oh, mother!) it took us a while, but it was worth it. Afterward, we toured part of the house; only one floor is open to the public because of a massive remodeling project, but what we did see was impressive. I simply cannot grasp the idea of living that way.

The guide said that the cleaning must be done by museum-trained professionals, although she had never actually seen any of them. “I think they come in like pixies and clean in the middle of the night.”  This made me chuckle, as we have a fellow at our church who refuses to use the ribbon bookmarks in the hymnals, because “they are never in the right place.” I once asked him if he thought we had a team of pixies who go through the church at night marking the books.

However, I digress.

A tram tour of the gardens, and then a decadent dessert and coffee topped off a wonderful day. I came home and took a nap!

Thank you, dear!

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