Pharmacy Phrustrations

 Once upon a time, I didn't take any medications on a regular basis.  In fact, I prided myself on that.  I understood that I was fortunate, compared to others.  Even after the ruptured brain aneurysm in 2007, I wasn't given any prescription medications.  The most potent med I was allowed to take was Tylenol.  (It bothered my daughter to think I'd had a craniotomy but wasn't allowed to take much by way of pain meds.  Truth be known, except for a slight headache that lasted about two weeks, I really didn't have any pain.  Anything stronger might have masked symptoms of vasospasm, which was the biggest post-surgery risk for about three weeks.)  I got through it.

In 2009, the bottom fell out.  I had a mild-to-moderate heart attack.  I was given a stent in my ticker, and medications thereafter:  blood pressure meds, heart meds, a statin to reduce cholesterol, and a big-time blood thinner to protect the stent from forming clots.  Since they were all prescribed at the same time by the same doctor, the prescriptions all needed to be refilled at the same time.  It was easy.  My cardiologist advised that I could get the statin for free at the Meijer pharmacy instead of Walgreen's, which was my usual pharmacy, so I went there for just that one drug.

Somewhere in the past five years out of the 12 since my heart problem, the refill schedule got messed up.  One drug expired before another.  The pharmacy wasn't automatically refilling drugs they used to do automatically.  My insurance was inquiring why I wasn't taking a statin drug.  (I was.  It was just coming from a different pharmacy.)

I established with a PCP.  She advised vitamin D and B12 supplements.  I added those to my list of "take daily" meds.  Then I started getting edema in my lower legs and feet.  I was given diuretics.  My kidney function took a nosedive.  I was taken OFF the diuretics, including my BP meds.  My blood pressure went through the roof.  I was put back on the BP meds plus diuretics every other day.  I have to weigh myself every day and keep a daily diary to remind myself when to take the diuretic and what not to.  Ugh!!

Twice, I got a call from Walgreen's to tell me that my prescriptions were ready...in Lakeland, Florida.  Whoa!  I've never been in Lakeland, Florida...and probably never will be.  I called my local pharmacy after the first call.  We figured we'd fixed it until the next time when it happened again.  There IS a Peggy McNary in Lakeland, but my pharmacy knows me as Margaret.  We THINK things are sorted out now.

I take a once-a-day inhaler called Anoro Ellipta.  It's expensive.  Most of the year, my share of the bill is $45/month, until I reach the "coverage gap" for the last two months of the year when my share becomes slightly over $100.  It used to be refilled automatically.  Now, for reasons known only to God, I have to call to get it refilled.  The past two months, the pharmacy has had to order it before I could get it refilled.  Surely I'm not the only person in the Plainfield area to use that!  Note to self:  don't wait until the last minute to call for a refill.

Truly, I understand that there are advantages to keeping a national chain of pharmacies for my prescriptions.  Once, when I was visiting in Washington, I could get a refill through the Walgreen's network.  Yeah, I probably pay a little bit more, but convenience means something to me.  

What upsets me is that I often get calls telling me that my prescription is ready when I have no idea what prescription.  Sometimes, it is something I no longer take.  Other times, it's something I still have plenty of.  I end up having to call the pharmacy to inquire, and the pharmacy drive-thru is on auto-pilot in my car.  Every couple of weeks, when I refill my pill dispenser, I have to check bottles to see how many refills are left and which doctor prescribed them.  Walgreen's used to be in charge; now I am an independent agent, hoping to keep everything straight.  It's crazy-making!

I'm not upset with the pharmacy...just the system, because I don't always understand it.  I realize that I've been spoiled.  Life goes on--with major help from the pharmacy!  

  

Grandma Peg and the Telephone

 When Dr. Frankenstein created a man that he could no longer control from parts, the concept of "What have we created??" was born.  

Modern technology is a wonderful thing.  I haven't even tapped into one-third of the possibilities in my life that have to do with computers.  Some I don't even try because I'm on my own.  When things go awry, I feel frustrated, helpless, and angry.  You don't want to see an angry disabled woman!

Quite a few years ago, I signed up for U-Verse, a product of AT&T, bundled to include cable, phone, and internet services  Among the phone features were Caller ID, Call Waiting, and Voice Mail.  I'm okay with the first two features, but it didn't take long for me to get behind on voice mail.  My voice mail box has been full for YEARS, and I haven't done anything about it.  Why?  I forgot how and couldn't remember my PIN, etc.  I had a doctor appointment today.  I was complaining that I hadn't heard the results of the last blood test and was told that they called but had to send a letter because my voice mailbox was full.  Well, phooey!  I figured it was time to fix the situation.  

Let me preface this with the fact that I hate calling ATT&T.  Every time I do, they start throwing terms at me that I don't understand, so I decide to be a helpless, aging, Baby Boomer.  Called today.  Got through to a real human fairly quickly, and between the two of us, we figgered things out.  Yay!  I spent the next 30 minutes or so deleting messages that have been on my voice mail since, as near as I can determine, since we had a nasty hailstorm back when I was still teaching.  I retired at the end of 2009, if that helps you understand how bad it is...

I feel empowered!  Maybe now I won't miss any messages, although not a single message that I deleted was important.  I saved one.  It came from my granddaughter Robin, sounding very young, announcing that she had earned her first phone and wanted to add me as a contact.  How long ago was that?  My baby Robin...one of the greatest loves of my life.  

Yeah...so laugh at me all you want about something as simple as voice mail, but I'll just laugh back.  I'm not ashamed to be ignorant of so many things...just happy that my life is still somewhat uncomplicated!

"Food Insecurity" and the Pandemic

 The United States has coined a new phrase about hunger.  It's called "food insecurity".  I think of that as meaning that families are not always sure where their next meal will come from, and it bothers me that people in this abundant country should have to endure that.  Although I'm aware that it isn't a matter of levity for many, I'd like to wisecrack that I, most obviously, haven't missed any meals.  

Throughout this whole pandemic, where people have lost jobs because the workplaces have shut down due to the Coronavirus, there have been changes in availability of foods and necessary products, tied up with the ability to pay for what one needs.  For quite awhile, as an example, toilet paper was hard to find.  (Toilet paper, for God's sake!)   

Here is the progression of how I was affected by food insecurity and the COVID-19 pandemic:

1.  In March of 2019, I was preparing to fly to the Seattle area where my daughter and family lived.  They were going on a vacation to Canada, but my teenaged grandson and their cat would stay behind.  I was being flown in to be Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, and Cat Sitter.  The pandemic, which had been building for awhile, hit like a hurricane along about the same time, with the Seattle area being the actual entrance place of the virus in the US.  In short, I would be flying right into a hotbed of contagion.  I was/am considered "high risk" due to my age and underlying conditions, so I was preparing for the worst.  My daughter sent me a couple of N95 masks and some gloves to wear on the flight.  I purchased some Clorox wipes to stash in my handbag.  And all the while, Megan (my daughter) was advising me that it wasn't too late to back out.  

I worried about that.  Virtually everything I was reading in the media was screaming at me not to go.  I mean, if I went and caught COVID anywhere along the way, it would be my own fault...but...if I didn't go, my family would have to cancel their trip, and that was more than I could bear because--you guessed it--I would feel that also to be my fault.  (Guilt: The Gift That Keeps On Giving!)  Finally, I applied Murphy's Law to the proposed trip:  suppose I was exposed to the virus somewhere in the airports or flight?  The kids would leave on their trip, and I'd come down with the virus thereafter.  Suppose I needed medical attention?  Although Ryan and I would have a car available to us, he didn't have a driver's license, and I had no clue where to go.  What if I had to call 911 for transport to a medical facility, leaving Ryan home alone with the cat until his parents could get home, which could have taken days.  What if?  What if?  What if?  Worse yet was the thought that I could bring the disease into their house and infect my family.  (That would also be my fault.)  Finally, with only a week left before my flight to Sea-Tac, I regretfully cancelled.  My family ultimately cancelled their vacation, never blaming me once.  (I think reality had also hit them.)  And the rest is history.  Much of the social world shut down, and so did I.  Thus, I haven't seen my beloved family since Christmas of 2019, and it kills me.

2.  What does all of this have to do with food insecurity?  Quite a bit!  With only "essential services" still up and running, schools closed, churches closed, etc., people were all at home wondering how to manage.  Grocery stores were inundated, which ran them out of food staples in no time.  Food processing companies were scrambling to keep up with demand, in spite of employees getting sick, etc.  MANY companies stopped making their variety offerings and focused on just the basics to keep their product out there.  Shelves were bare of the basics.  If people couldn't find bread, they would make their own, so flour and sugar disappeared.  Sanitation products became scarce.  Canned food shelves were empty.  Paper products were non-existent.  

My parents were raised in the Great Depression.  Both of them knew how to make food stretch.  That is my legacy.  I know how to make a meal out of scraps, but the meals still require basics: eggs, butter, flour, sugar, etc., and when those things are hard to find, things get tricky even for someone who is resourceful.  I was thankful that I had people--mostly former students--who were looking out for me and would ask if I needed anything.  At one point, I remember my GS Cookie dealer asking that, since she would be in Plainfield regularly, and I mentioned that I was out of Bisquick.  So were the stores, but she and her mom went all around and came up with a substitute pancake mix that worked for what I needed.  

What happened during the thin times was that I came to know that I could prepare anything I wanted if I just had the ingredients.  Thus, I began to collect ingredients.  Sometimes, it took weeks to find the ingredients I needed for my favorite dishes, and many fresh vegetable items rotted before I could get everything together to make them.  I kept trying.

I am not a rich person.  My retirement annual income is quite a bit lower than $30k, but my house is paid off and I'm scraping by so much better than I once did.  At this juncture, I pay more for groceries because A) I buy items from Schwan, and B) I have Shipt do my grocery shopping and delivery for me to keep me out of stores and other public places.  Every once in awhile, I actually go into a store.  

3.  There are so many people so much worse off than I am.  I do everything I can to support them...some personal friends...and some people I don't even know.  There is a fellow out of Bothell, WA, on the west side of the Cascades near Seattle, who discovered that farmer friends in his home town east of the Cascades were getting ready to plow under their potato crops because their restaurant buyers had dried up.  This guy borrowed a truck and asked for volunteers to help on a local Facebook website.  They drove to ONE potato farm to collect a few hundred pounds of potatoes to take to the west side of the Cascades for food banks.  In VERY short order, The EastWest Food Rescue was born, and expanded into a huge project as a non-profit organization.  People are being fed because of one man's vision.  I'm not hungry, thank God, but I want everyone to have the blessings that I have.  Any chance I get, I financially support the means to get food to people who need it more than I do!  

Jesus was clear on the topic:  "If you love me, feed my sheep."  It shouldn't take a pandemic for those of us who are fed to help those who aren't.  We are quick to collect and distribute food during the holidays, but hunger doesn't stop with one meal.  It takes commitment to help folks.  There should be no hunger in the United States of America.  

A Broken Heart From Gun Violence

 My little house-on-a-slab is located at the southeast end of Plainfield, Indiana, maybe 1.5 miles just northeast of Interstate 70.  I'm within spitting distance of Indianapolis International Airport.  Seriously, it only takes about 12 minutes from my front door to the terminal.  The airport is actually just one major exit east of the Pfield exit on the interstate.  Much of the land on the far east side of Plainfield has been purchased by the airport, and all around the outskirts of Plainfield are warehouses that are there due to airport proximity.  

FedEx, an American shipping company, has a terminal at the airport that you can see from I-70 to the north.  Just short of that, on the south side of the interstate, in Pfield territory, is another FedEx facility called FedEx Ground--Plainfield Operations.  It was at the latter last night, at 11:00 PM, that a very young man (19) drove into the parking lot and started shooting.  He killed four and wounded others, then went inside and killed four more and injured more.  And then, he killed himself.

The story behind the shooter is a sad one.  His family had alerted authorities last year that he was armed, suicidal, and thinking about committing "suicide by cop".  (For those readers out of the country, this means behaving dangerously in order to force law enforcement to shoot to kill.)  Apparently, this shooter didn't wait for the police to arrive.  He did himself in before they got there.  I think someone said that whole thing was over in 2-3 minutes...

When the news hit the media, many people with family that worked there didn't hear from their loved ones that they were okay because FedEx has a rule that employees cannot have their cell phones on them.  The survivors were bussed to a local Holiday Inn to wait for relatives, and relatives were instructed to go to that same place to reunite.  Employees were NOT allowed to go back for their phones or even their cars since the entire facility, including the parking lot, was one huge crime scene.  Veteran police said it was the biggest investigation they have ever seen.  

I went to bed with the news last night and got up to it again this morning.  Not much had changed since bedtime.  (At least not much that was made public.)  The dead hadn't all been identified or even removed from the facility.  The media was interviewing anyone they could grab, although for the first time in awhile, I was pleased to see they kept their distance.

Here is where my heart broke:  One older woman had gathered at that Holiday Inn to try to get information about her husband who hadn't come home from his job at FedEx last night.  She was masked and wasn't hysterical or even seemingly emotional.  She was very concerned and hopeful.  She carried a picture of her 74-year-old spouse.  She didn't talk much.  She was just worried about her husband of 50 years...and she wasn't getting any quick answers.  At the end of the day, she was still waiting for news and growing more upset.  And then, finally, all of the victims were identified and the names released.  Her husband was one of them.  His name is John Weisert.  

I have no idea who John Weisert is or why he was still working at his age.  I only know that he was married to the same woman for 50 years.  He was surely a father and grandfather.  Maybe even a great-grandfather.  He went to work and never came home.  Work all your life and get taken out in an instant by a baby-faced kid who wanted to commit suicide?  He didn't deserve this end to his life.  

I'm his age.  I can't/don't work any more.  I'm not married but I sure admire couples that stay together through thick and thin.  I pray for Mrs. Weisert and for all of the families of the victims as well as the shooter's parents who wanted so much to get help for their son.  My heart is broken for all of them, but even more for the rest of us that these things continue to happen in the "land of the free and the home of the brave".  Something is really, really wrong.  I hope I die before the USA implodes.  It's all so sad.      

Another Day; Another Crisis Averted

 Awhile back, my housekeeper gave me a navy blue throw.  It is the softest, most comfortable thing, even after washing.  What I like about it is that it is big enough to cover my whole body, top to bottom, when watching TV.  I used it all winter.  If I felt cold, but it was too early to go to bed, I sat on the couch  wrapped in it to warm up.  What I don't like about it, however, is that 100% of the time, I get so toasty and snug that I fall asleep.  Sitting up.  On the couch.  Every.  Single.  Time.  I call those my "accidental naps".  They are grand, since I am usually sleep deprived; however, they also tend to interfere with my ability to sleep at bedtime.  After an accidental nap, I frequently stay up into the wee hours as I wait to feel sleepy again.

That's what happened last night.  I had an accidental nap and didn't wake up until after 11:00 PM.  I puttered around on the internet for awhile until I felt I could probably sleep, then prepared to shut down for the night.  It was probably 2:00 AM.  I did my routines, then went to check the thermostat because it felt chilly in the house, and the furnace hadn't come on in awhile.  My thermostat shows the house temp on the left and the temp setting on the right.  When I looked, there was no readout at all.  Nothing on the screen.  Nada.  Nope.  I couldn't tell what the temp was in the house, although I knew the setting was for 74 degrees.  Hmmm...

The batteries for the thermostat were changed earlier in the month when I got my regularly scheduled tune-up, but...you know...batteries aren't perfect...so I changed the batteries again.  No change.  Still no readout.  I started blindly pushing buttons to see if I could confuse the thermostat into behaving, and voila!  The furnace came on!  The house began to warm up.  Yay!  But then it got warmer and warmer.  In fact it was getting HOT in the house.  The furnace wouldn't shut off.  As the temperature climbed to almost 80 degrees, I decided I couldn't go to bed with a runaway furnace.  I feared that it would actually damage the furnace.  I figured my best bet was to find the furnace switch and just shut it down for the rest of the night and worry about it in the morning.  There is a panel that covers what I thought was the shut-off switch, held on by nut screws.  (Not even sure if that is the right term for them!)  I didn't have the right size nut driver, so I tried pliers.  Nothing budged those screws.  

By this time, I was ready to throw in the towel.  I called the 24-hour emergency number for my HVAC company at 2:39 AM.  The answering service took my info and said someone would call me.  I waited over an hour, and no one called.  Meanwhile, the furnace magically shut off.  At 3:45 AM, I went to bed and took the phone with me.  I think I finally fell asleep somewhere close to 4:00.  Maybe 4:15.

At 6:39 AM, the phone rang, waking me up.  It was the on-call technician, saying he had just come from an overnight call, and did I still need them before normal office hours?  No.  Furnace was off.  I could wait.  

When I came out of my garage bedroom, I expected the house to feel chilly since it was only in the low 40s outside...but it wasn't.  It felt normal.  Then the furnace came on...and went off again, as normal.  I checked the thermostat.  Perfectly normal readout.  As if nothing at all had happened.  Of course!  The sore throat gets better the day of the doctor appointment.  The car mechanic can't make the car misbehave so he can troubleshoot.  And now, the delinquent furnace system is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, now that the repair folks have been called.  Gotta love Murphy's Law!

Even though the furnace was now working normally, I had the technician come anyway.  He and I decided that it was likely a thermostat problem.  It might never malfunction again, or--more like my luck--it could happen again tonight.  After some thought, I decided to have him replace it.  It wasn't an expense I had budgeted for this month--$370--but I will have the peace of mind knowing that the new thermostat has a lifetime warranty.  Couple that with the technician teaching me more than I ever knew about my HVAC system, and I felt like a winner.  

My inside climate control is important to me.  I determined a zillion years ago that I didn't want to be uncomfortable in my own home.  I lived much of my younger life without air conditioning and with a coal furnace.  We couldn't go anywhere overnight without finding someone to come in and stoke the furnace.  I didn't want that for me or for my daughter.

I don't take risks with the plumbing, the electricity, or the heat.  All I want out of life is to live the rest of my days in whatever comfort I can provide for myself.  So far, so good!  

Still More Leg News

 In early September of 2020, I made a post about my legs/feet.  They were swollen maybe twice normal size and were red.  Had been that way for awhile, and I was getting panicked.  It wasn't just the swelling that bothered me.  It was uncomfortable, of course, but along with that comes a skin condition that feels even worse.  The skin, particularly around the ankles, becomes dry, coarse, thick and hide-like.  Even when my legs were naked, they felt like I was wearing something restrictive because of the skin.  

I was referred to a podiatrist.  She took x-rays, ordered a Peripheral Artery Disease test, prescribed antibiotics for potential cellulitis, and recommended that I purchase compression socks.  Test results were normal.  Antibiotics did nothing.  Legs stayed swollen, plus I couldn't get the compression socks on, no matter how much I tried.  And I did try!

Next order of business was for my Primary Care Physician to send me for an echocardiogram, looking for heart failure.  Normal.  Later, my cardiologist ordered a blood test to confirm the ECG results.  Also normal.  

I was put on a diuretic.  I piddled just a little more than usual, but my weight stayed mainly the same, and my legs stayed swollen.  Through it all, I was getting blood tests about once a week to check on my kidneys.  At one point, my kidney function took a nose dive into the "Stage 3 Kidney Disease" stage.  My PCP called, taking me off all diuretics, and advising me to go to the ER if I began to feel "bad".  I was given the weekend of flushing my kidneys with fluids before another test.  Then my cardiologist's office (in the same network) called to take me off my blood pressure meds because, apparently, they also contained diuretics.  I was a good girl and did everything they said to do.  Three days later, I had a "perfect" kidney score.  Yay!  But my blood pressure shot up sky high.  And...you guessed it...my legs were still swollen.  No difference at all.

Okay...so...back to the BP meds, including diuretics, but the latter was only to be taken every other day.  I'm due for another blood test, which I will take on Tuesday.  None of any of this medicinal merry-go-round has done a thing but mess me up...but right now, my legs/feet aren't nearly as swollen.  WHY??

My cardiologist ordered Physical Therapy for me...for leg wraps.  I had no idea what he was talking about and was reluctant because of potential expense and distance.  The last time I did PT was after arthroscopic surgery on my knee in another health network, but it was just down the road from me.  This network required twice-weekly trips to another facility quite a bit farther away.  But, again, I was a good girl.  I went. Had no clue what to expect.

I was assigned to an absolutely delightful therapist named Natalie.  She measured the circumference of my legs and feet, then put something called a Pneumatic Compression Device on my legs.  For 30 minutes, the device inflated and deflated.  Felt kind of good, actually.  Like a leg massage.  At the end of the 30 minutes and the device came off, my legs were normal size!  It was the first time in a year that I could look down at them and smile.  My deflated toes were wrinkled.  Can you imagine being happy about wrinkles??

After that, Natalie put a compression wrap on my legs--this was a Tuesday--and advised me to leave it on until my Friday appointment.  She asked me to bring my purchased compression socks at the next visit, which I did.  Although the wrap was a tiny bit annoying, it was not nearly as annoying as the neuropathy of the swollen legs!

Next PT visit, my legs had responded well to the wrap.  The swelling was still down.  We did the PCD treatment again and devised a less-effective answer to compression sock...but one that I could actually do on my own.  The purchased ones I simply couldn't do on my own.

So where do we go from here?  My physical therapist is taking me in the direction of having a PCD in my own home, which involves some Medicare hoops through which to jump.  We'll see how that works out.  It's not as if I haven't been working on the problem.  To this day, no one knows exactly why my legs started to swell.  I do live a very sedentary life due to my back problems.  Compression is the answer AND the problem.  When one can't adequately reach one's feet to put on socks, one suffers.  I am "One"! 

In spite of all, I do have some common sense when it comes to health.  "One" doesn't live to be 74 without some clues.  I'm not an idiot, but I am not a doctor, and I use the grain-of-salt approach to Dr. Google.  I'm so thankful for the God-given technology that helps the likes of me!

  

    

My Car Alarm

 I've had a lot of cars through the years, even considering that I didn't get my driver's license until I was 21 (in the late-1960s).  Thinking back on the lot of them, I'm not sure I even remember them all.  I do remember, however, that only two of them were brand new when I bought them.  Back in those days, vehicles were actually affordable, and money went further.  (My first buggy was a beige Volkswagen bug.  Monthly payment: $50.)  The early ones didn't have seat belts, then seat belts came along.  The early ones didn't have electric windows, then electric windows came along.  In fact, many things that once were optional, such as air conditioning, now come as standard.   Another of those features is the car alarm.  If ANY of my vehicles had a car alarm, I didn't know it.  I never once had one go off.

There have been a few family chuckles over car alarms.  When my granddaughter was a relatively new driver and had custody of the family minivan for an evening, her mother got a phone call: " Mom?  beep...beep...beep...how do you beep...beep...beep...turn off  beep...beep...beep... the car alarm?"

Another time, I was visiting my family when they lived in Lake County, IL, north of Chicago.  We had all been on some adventure and decided to stop at a mega-store just over the border into Wisconsin that had cheeses and other lovelies.  There was something the family wanted that would come from that place.  I decided to stay in the car and wait.  Since it was after dark, my daughter locked me in and took the keys with her.  At one point, I decided to step out of the car, and that's when the beep...beep...beep started, and I had no means nor any clue how to stop it.  I was attracting attention in the parking lot!!!  I started frantically texting my daughter for help.  I mean, it was a big store.  I didn't even know where she was in that store or how long it would take for her to rescue me from the alarm.  Finally, she made her way to the store front and pushed the magic button on the key fob to stop the beeping.  Whew!  The silence was beautiful.  Never did that again!

I've had my current vehicle for, I'm guessing, seven years or so.  It's a 2007 Saturn VUE SUV.  I got the silly thing because my previous car was aging, and so was I.  I wanted something that would take me to the end of my driving days.  When I was visiting my sister and then-bro-in-law in Illinois, Shari and I went to their favorite car dealership to look over whatever used buggies they had in their lot.  We talked to Joe, their salesman of choice, because Shari felt that he would really try to steer me right.  Why?  They had purchased a number of Corvettes and at least one loaded Tahoe from Joe.  He wouldn't dare blast me with a lemon!  Long story short, I purchased the Saturn at over $2k more than I wanted to spend.  Why?  The silly thing only had 52,000 miles on it.  (All these years later, it still has less than 73,000 miles on the odometer, and yet it is 14 years old!)  

So...the other day, I needed to get something out of my car.  I have three keys for it.  Two have fobs.  One with fob, I use every day.  The second one with fob stays buried in my purse as a spare.  The third key with no fob hangs on the back of my front door as an emergency spare.  As luck would have it, I couldn't find my primary key, so I took the easy way out and took the non-fobbed key on the back of the door.  It got me in the car just fine, but then the car alarm started beeping.  Whaaaat??  I waddled back to the house as fast as I could and started rifling through my purse to find the other fobbed key.  At that moment, Good Neighbor Fred came roaring in the house.  "Are you okay???"  All the while, the car alarm is beeping.  Fred had been eating his supper with his wife across the street but heard the alarm and somehow thought it meant I'd had a heart attack or something.  (Never thought of setting off the car alarm as a signal for help.  Hmmmm...)  I finally found the second fobbed key, the horn button was pressed, and precious silence prevailed.  I apologized to Fred, and he went home to finish his dinner.  Of course, I felt like an idiot.

The original key-with-fob turned out to be in my jacket pocket.  This is what comes of not putting things were they belong.  Guilty!  Have I learned anything from this?  Maybe! 

    

Ant Season!!

 I have lived in my little house-on-a-slab for almost 30 years.  Every house has its quirks.  You have to live in it to figure out what the signs and signals mean.  When the bathtub gurgles as the washing machine drains, there is a problem.  If it isn't taken care of instantly, the toilets will overflow, creating bigger problems.  The plumbers and I are on a first-name basis!

I don't live on the prairie, so I don't have problems with rodents.  Did have a ground squirrel in the house, once.  He had been hanging around the front door for awhile, scooting through a hole behind the bricks in the front.  He must have dashed between our legs when the door was open.  Suddenly, there was something furry scurrying under furniture in the living room.  At the time, we had two resident cats.  One was alerted instantly to the critter in the house.  She sat for a long time by the upholstered rocker, swiping her paw under the chair in an effort to catch the squirrel.  The squirrel had long since scampered behind my TV cabinet, and the cat hadn't figured it out.  (The other cat never had a clue.) 

Megan chocked the front door open while I took a broom to the area around the TV cabinet, and the cat was still pawing and reaching for a critter that was no longer where she thought it was.  Within a minute or two, the ground squirrel made a dash for the door and was gone.  I think the stupid cat continued to search for it after that!  Puddy wasn't all that smart...

For many years, I never had insect problems.  One year, I had invasions of earwigs.  That was in the days when there was too much yard trash up near the house.  Once I got rid of that, the earwigs disappeared, thank God.   In the last three years, I have had an infestation of what most of us non-entomologists call "sugar ants".  They are tiny little buggers.  I don't see them at all unless a tiny crumb of food is dropped on the floor.  Then, suddenly, they appear out of nowhere and disappear into nowhere.  I have bought the little ant bait thingies to put where I see them the most, but they don't seem the least bit attracted to them.  At present, they seem to be absent.  I think that's because they have called on their brothers, the big black carpenter-ish ants to come on in!  

I like the big black ants because they are easy to see, not because they are in my house.  I've learned that merely stepping on them doesn't always result in death.  Sometimes you have to step and twist.  (Ewwww!)  That strong exoskeleton works wonders for them.   Again, I have no idea where their entrance point is.  They show up in the house when the weather warms up.  This has been going on for at least the last six years.  I usually find them around the front door area, which is also where my computer is.  I must smell like food to them because I often find them crawling up my leg, which is not my idea of fun. 

My bugs are a minor annoyance.  They aren't in my food supply, nor do they bite or threaten me.  I just don't like them in my house.  I don't know what the answer is.  I could call an extermination company that would cost me big bucks to get rid of a few 6-legged critters.  And that company would want me to sign a contract to come back.  Yeah....no.  I've lived this long with the insect world.  I can probably make it to the end of my life by just squishing my unwelcome guests with my feet!       

Our Daily Routines

 Some of the best discussions I ever had with students when we had the time had to do with personal daily routines.  (They also led to some of the best theme assignments because they were personal for the kids, requiring no research, and more interesting for me to read, because they helped me see my students from their own perspective.)  The very word "routine" denotes something that is done the same way every time until it becomes...well...routine.  It is my belief that many, maybe even most, of these rituals are established when we are very young.  Once they begin for one reason, they continue our entire lives with few modifications.  They become unconscious behaviors that we don't question or even think about.  I mean, doesn't everybody do [this] the same as I do?  No, they don't!

I'm not talking about obsessive-compulsive rituals here.  This is just everyday stuff.  Our routines are usually based in fundamentals of executive functioning:  eating, sleeping, hygiene...even toilet use.  Ponder it for a few moments.  Ever think about this?

1.  You have come to eat corn on the cob the same way every time.  Admit it!  You hold the big end in the same hand, eat either around the cob or rows at a time.  Or maybe you are like my late brother-in-law who ate corn ONE row at a time, leaving no shred of corn on the cob for that row.  (That always fascinated me.  Never, ever, have I met one other person that could do that.)

2.  Are you one of those who can't stand to have foods on your plate touch each other?  Do you mix your flavors, or do you eat one thing at a time?  (I'm one of the latter.  I eat the vegetables first because I know they are good for me, and save the stuff I really like for last.  Guess that makes me a purist, so I can enjoy each item without it being tainted by the taste of something else?)

3.  How about your potty routines?  Is the TP put on the roll over, or under?  Are you a "folder" or a "wadder" when it comes to TP use?  Do you look at the TP after you've wiped?  (Come on....everybody does.  You can't pretend that you don't!)  Do you wash your hands every time you go to the potty?  Sometimes?  Rarely?  When you flush, do you watch to make sure everything goes down properly?

4.  Dressing routines are interesting.  I always bathed in the evenings and washed/coiffed my hair in the mornings.  Thus, I usually had my clothes for the next day picked out before I went to bed the night before and needed to be fully dressed in the morning before I did my hair, lest I should mess it up in the dressing process.  And once my hair was wet, I needed to head straight to the bathroom to dry and style it because, since my hair is very fine and thin, it would dry too fast if I didn't!

Do you put on one sock and one shoe at a time, or both socks and then both shoes?  Better yet, do you do the same foot first every time?

5.  Bedroom routines...OMG, this is the biggie!  Do you have to have a fan on, summer or winter, for the noise and the soothing air motion?  (I do.)  Do you sleep with the TV on?  (I do.)  Do you need every glimmer of light, including electronic charging lights, covered up?  (I don't.  My daughter does.)  Do the covers on your beds need to be untucked at the bottom?  Do you need a weighted blanket, or do you do okay with a regular one?  Do you need to be covered when you sleep even if it's hot?  (I do.)  Do you need a night light on?  Do you need a glass of water on your nightstand?  Do you sleep with your bedroom door open or closed?  

True story: As a young bride in the early 70s, I spent the night with one of our friends because our husbands had gone somewhere overnight.  We had a grand time.  We also shared a bed that night.  Just before lights-out when we first went to bed, the other gal said, "My ends!  My ends!  I have to have my ends!"  I had no clue.  Turned out, her "ends" were the satin borders on the top and bottom of the blanket (not found so much these days).  Apparently, she slept every night with the satin blanket borders between her toes.  She didn't think she could sleep without them.  Whatever floats your boat!

I am not suggesting that our daily rituals are wrong or even strange...only that they are personal.  People don't feel the need to talk about them until, like this blog, they are encouraged to think about them.  Whatever your routines, you have your reasons.  Thank God I can indulge mine without anyone to object!!           

  

How to Make Deviled Eggs, the Peggy Way

1. First, you have to boil some eggs.  The freshness of the eggs will be obvious when you put them in the pan to boil.  Old eggs will float.  Fresher ones will stay under the water.  Both will likely taste the same, but the older ones will be embarrassing because one end of the egg will be all air, resulting in a flat-ended egg.  I have served way too many flat-ended eggs over the years! 

2.  Be careful that you don't boil the eggs too long.  As a young bride, I boiled eggs for 20 minutes and couldn't understand why the edges of the boiled yolks were green.  Learned very late in life that a 10-minute boil was enough to keep yolks yellow.  Yay!  Deviled egg filling isn't supposed to be green!  Too bad it took me most of my life to figure that out.

3.  Once the ten minute boil is up, run cold water over the eggs.  Many sources say ice water.  I'm not that conscientious.  I just run cold water over them and hope for the best...but I do keep checking to make sure the water is cold enough even after the hot eggs are in there.  See how sharp I am??

4.  Peeling fresh eggs can be an issue.  Old eggs peel easily; fresh ones like to hold the shell close to the egg.  You have to get underneath the membrane to get it all properly peeled.  Good luck!  One time, it took me two hours just to peel a dozen eggs so that the egg white didn't come off with the shell.  I learned from that.  I usually peel them the day before they are needed, just so I don't come up short on time.  Thank God for thumbnails that help me burrow under the membrane to get those shells off cleanly! 

5.  Rinse off the peeled eggs.  If you don't, you will likely bite into something crunchy when the eggs are deviled.  Surprises aren't always welcome!

6.  Prepare an area in which to do the deviling.  You will need a place to discard the shell pieces, a place to put the peeled eggs, a place to put the egg halves (whites) when they are sliced, a place to put the yolk halves when they are removed from the whites, and a place to mix the dressing.  Try not to dirty up every bowl in the house.  

7.  Use a fork to crumble up the cooked egg yolks.  The smaller the crumbles, the better.  Of course, the process of crumbling also causes the yolks to stick together, so say a little prayer.  

8.  Prepare the dressing.  What's your pleasure?  You want garlic?  Add garlic!  You want onion?  Add onion!  Maybe shredded cheese?  Go for it!  I use minced onion, light Miracle Whip, and a touch of mustard.  Mix it all up and add it to the yolks to make a paste.  (Seasoning according to MY taste, of course.  My sister and her crew don't like the onions.  No accounting for tastes!)  

9.  The tricky part is how to get the yolk paste into the egg white shells.  My daughter puts the paste into a plastic bag, cuts a corner, and adds the filling by squeezing the bag as if it were a pastry tube.  It looks and works great!  I, however, usually end up using my pinky finger as a spoon scooper to put a tablespoon of filling in each shell.  It's messy, but so is the rest of the process, so who cares? 

10.  Make those eggs pretty!  I usually just sprinkle a little paprika on top for color, but I've seen dill weed, sliced black olives, etc.  Voila!  Eggs a la Diablo!

11.  The trickiest part of all?  Finding a way to transport deviled eggs!  Unless you are eating at home, there has to be a safe way to take the eggs to the host house...and I usually end up being the one to bring the eggs.  (Lucky me!)  The silly things are rounded on the bottom, so simply putting them on a pretty plate won't work if you don't want a major dump in the car.  Thus, I have invested in several forms of deviled egg presentations.  One is a cute deviled egg plate in the shape of a bunny for Easter.  He's cute, but he only holds 10 or 12 eggs.  Another is an expensive Tupperware carrier (MANY years old), but it only holds 16 deviled eggs.  I have invested in several round clear plastic plates from Dollar Tree.  They look nice on the table, but are a nightmare to transport, needing plastic wrap that may or may not cling to itself, and finding a way to keep them upright in the car.  And then I found a double-stacked set of plastic that will hold a dozen eggs on each level.  They all click together, and a lid with a handle clicks onto the rest.  (It's still not foolproof.  If you don't get the layers properly clicked together, the layers can still come off and hit the floor.  It has happened!) 

Know why I'm not more persnickety about my deviled eggs?  They don't last long!  IF you can keep people out of them before the meal is served, you will note that they disappear quickly as they are passed around the table.  I always try to fix extra, but who knows?  Each deviled egg is maybe two bites, and I don't know a single person that doesn't love them.  Here they are....there they go!

The Peggy Way is lots of mess, lots of time, and a lot of patience.  Ooohs and Aaahs, are appreciated!