Car Troubles

There are many speed bumps on the road of life, and I just passed over one yesterday.  Oh, the joys of trying to get from Point A to Point B!

I have a former student/friend that I have written about before.  (I called him Bruce.)  Bruce is autistic and lives in government housing in a community about ten miles south of where I live.  He has no driver's license or vehicle.  In fact, he has to rely on social services and friends just to exist "independently" in the world.  He has lived/is living a rather austere life.  I help out when I can.

Yesterday was one of those days.  Bruce has three pairs of jeans that he bought for work.  Somehow, he managed to snag a hole in one of them, so I bought an iron-on Star Wars patch to repair them.  I decided to pick them up yesterday (Sunday).  He also needed a haircut, so while I was there with the car, we would drop in to Great Clips for a new "do", PLUS, he needed to drop some things off at his mother's in another town (about ten miles away)...so we added that to the list.  And, of course, I was going to take him for lunch somewhere while we were out and about.  At least that was the plan.

It was a nice day.  I picked him up at his apartment.  We headed out, but first, we stopped at the Casey's convenience store at the top of the hill maybe a half-block from his apartment to augment the quarter-tank of gas I had left in my buggy.  When we were done at the pump, I turned the car on and stepped on the brake to put the vehicle in gear...and the brake pedal went all the way to the floor.  I'm no mechanic, but I do know my car.  It was instantly obvious that my brakes were shot.  Still, I doubted myself.  The brakes were fine when I pulled up to the gas pump but not when we pulled away from it.  I reached the edge of the fairly busy road and stopped.  There was just enough braking power to do so.  Had I actually pulled out onto the road--or got to the 4-lane highway that we would be on had we continued, God only knows what would have happened to us.  Other cars might have been able to avoid hitting us, but without brakes, I had no way to avoid hitting them!

I announced to Bruce that we wouldn't be going anywhere, turned onto the shoulder of the road in the lane going the opposite direction, and limped back to Bruce's apartment complex...and parked.  Whew!  Another crisis averted!

My brain, however, didn't consider the crisis resolved.  It was spinning.  How will I get back home?  And my car?  What to do with my car?  Obviously, it couldn't be driven.  I have  no local family to rescue me...and it was Sunday.  Bruce was looking things up for me.  I left a message for a former colleague who lives nearby.  Turns out, she was very sick.  Then I thought to call my cleaning gal/friend who dropped everything she was doing to come pick me up.  Then I started calling towing companies.  The first one went to voice mail (and never did get back to me).  The second one said it would take him at least an hour to get someone there.  I made the arrangements to have them tow the buggy to my house, and then my friend showed up to take me home.  An hour or so later, the car showed up.  Towing charge: $131.  (Could have been so much worse.  Still, it's a major hit to the budget.)

What are the morals to this lesson:

1.  Thank God I recognized the brake problem before I pulled out into traffic.  I shudder to think what could have happened had I not been alert to what I felt in the brake pedal.

2.  Always have a charged cell phone!

3.  Never underestimate how emotionally draining an event such as this can be.  I was useless for the entire rest of the day!

4.  Be thankful for the people who still work on the weekends!  I don't know what experiences the on-call tow truck driver was doing when he was called into service, but I sure do appreciate his sacrifice!

As Bruce said, "At least you were able to pick up my pants."  Yeah, Bruce...somehow the hole in your pants and the length of your hair no longer seems quite so important.  I get it.  I hope you do, too.

  

 

Zucchini Recipe

 I'm writing this recipe down to share with my friends who are interested.  If you aren't interested, you have my permission to move along.  

Zucchini squash is quite available this time of year.  It's considered a summer squash, however, so I'm always looking for tasty ways to use it up because it is quite tasteless on it's own.  (My mother always fried it.  Still tasteless to me!)  The recipe below is one that I have developed myself.  I made it yesterday, and when I thought about it, I discovered that it is probably devoid of carbs, so I'm sharing for my diabetic and keto-diet friends.  Hope you like it!

Let's call it PEGZINI.

Ingredients:

3-4 small zucchini squash. sliced in coin shapes.  (Small is all I can find around here.)

1 small/medium onion, diced.

1 tbsp (or more) of minced onion.  (2-3 cloves or more, to taste.)

salt and pepper, to taste.

1-2 tbsp Italian seasoning.

1 15-oz can of tomato sauce.

shredded mozzarella cheese--lots!

meat (optional)  This recipe is fine without any meat at all, but  I like to put in a small can of tiny shrimp.  Yesterday, instead,  I added a 3-oz boneless, skinless chicken breast cut up in tiny pieces that I added with the rest of the ingredients, still frozen  Worked well!  

Directions:

1.  In a large skillet, combine all of the ingredients.  Cover and simmer on medium heat for at least 20 minutes until squash is tender.

2.  Remove cover and reduce heat to allow liquid to bubble and reduce a bit until it doesn't overwhelm the other ingredients.

3.  Keeping the heat low, add shredded cheese and cover the skillet until the cheese is melted and stringy.  

Serve and enjoy!   Modify however your taste leads you!    

Procrastination, Thou Art a Heartless Witch

 Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?  Or later?  Everything in its season, so to speak, but today isn't season enough.  I have other things to do.  Take a nap.  Write an email.  Feed myself.  Phooey on the rest.  I'll do it when I have more energy and/or it becomes necessary.

Then, suddenly, Necessary is days or weeks ago.  Now I'm into Critical, and I have to stop everything to take care of something that would have been enormously easier had I done it earlier.  Yeah...it's that bad.

I'm not a hoarder, but I do have some hoarder mentality.  "Don't throw that away.  I might need it sometime."  Decades later, I have no clue where it came from or why I saved it, but it has taken up space far longer than any purpose for which it might have been useful.

And then there's the whole food thing.  My refrigerator is full of produce and milk that expired and spoiled long ago.  Why is it still there?  Because I'm going to take care of it all at once, when I get to it.  (Truth: some of it has been in there since June when my sister and husband visited.  I'm so ashamed!)  And the dishes, pots, pans, and eating utensils have piled up at the sink for a couple of weeks.  Some of the pots and pans were filled with water to soak before cleaning.  Now there is scum on the water, and as I finally clean them up, I wonder when I had a meal with rice in it?  And then I notice that some of the rice is moving and a mini-cloud of fruit flies are in my space.  (Are you scared yet?)

Why have the dishes and pans piled up?  I have a dishwasher, after all.  Well...the dishwasher hasn't been unloaded since the last load run.  Why?  I'll do it tomorrow.  Sometimes, I empty the dishwasher but don't fill it again right away.  I can do that tomorrow, too.

I mean well.  My intentions are to keep up with daily tasks, etc., but...but...you know how that goes.  Fortunately, I have a helper who tries to keep me on task. I'm really not a slob.  When someone is keeping score, I keep up.  On my own, however, I go with how I am feeling at any given moment.

At this given moment, I am cleaning up the kitchen.  When I am done, I will wear a halo for a day or two.  But don't blink.  The earth doesn't rotate on good intentions.  Time moves on, no matter what I choose to do.

As soon as the dishes are done, I'm going to take a nap.  There is a huge mound of laundry to do, but I have my priorities.  I'll do laundry tomorrow!

  

God Save the Queen

 I'm not a British subject, nor do I clearly understand the dynamics of British government.  (Need to do a deep dive into Google Land to determine when the UK went from absolute monarchy to a parliamentary democracy, with a royal family.)  Still, the long-reigning Queen of England, Elizabeth II, has died, and the rest of the world takes note and mourns with her faithful subjects.

Why?  Why should the rest of us care?   Queen Elizabeth represented an empire, of sorts.  She held a position of honor and grace.  She was the longest reigning monarch of Britain in all of history.  She deserved our respect in the same way that every good leader does.  

When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, other countries grieved with us.  The support was universal.  Heads of state from all over the world gathered in Washington, DC, to walk behind the caisson that carried his body from place to place.  There was no protocol.  No one walked first or last according to status.  No one cared, and it was beautiful...and sad.  Very sad.  The whole United States was shaken for months and months.

I am writing this on September 11, 2022.  On September 11, 2001, our country was attacked by Muslim radicals.  They hijacked airplanes and flew three of them into buildings, and one into the ground when the passengers got wind of what was going on and fought back.  The victims--almost 3,000 of them--were innocent sitting ducks in a drama that caught them unaware.  Our whole country fell into shock, disbelief, and fear.  And anger.  Through the days/weeks/months thereafter, there were expressions of solidarity and understanding from other countries.  And it helped me immensely to know that we were not alone.  

I specifically remember a band at the Queen's castle in London in a normal celebratory moment that was ordered to play another country's anthem for the first time in 600 years:  The Star Spangled Banner.  I cried, of course.  It meant so much to know that even the most noble in circumstance could care about the huge blow that America had endured.  And still endures.

Earth really is a small planet, as planets go, and we are simply fleeting guests on it.  I order to make our brief stays more livable, we need each other.  Where we live or how we look matters not.  How we feel and what we need does.  

The Queen's passing is history now, and we are all a part of it.  May God save Elizabeth II and give her soul rest.  

My Ancient English Lessons

 Building on my last post about how frustratingly confusing the English language can be, I'm here to present more, in terms of teaching America's children in Illinois and Indiana, over the span of 40 years.  Mostly, I taught 8th grade on up through 12th.  Thank God for that!  The littler ones were way too needy for me.  

Although education and America's kids have changed over the course of that many years, some things remain the same.  My students frequently complained about the same things I complained about when I was their age.  Number One on the list is/was, "Why do we have to learn this?"  For awhile, I tried to give them reasoned answers:   "It will give you so much background to understand what you read."  "You will be more well-rounded in your understanding of the world."   Yeah...the kids weren't having any of that.

My next approach was "It's in the school curriculum for the English requirement.  You have to pass this class in order to graduate."  Still not good enough.   Then, I resorted to "I had to learn it when I was a kid, so you have to learn it, too."   And when that didn't suit, I finally brushed it all off with, "We teachers just love to sit around at night thinking of ways to make your lives miserable!"  Aha!  THAT one, they believed!

Each year, with the older students, at least, the question came up in class about what makes words "bad"?  Who decides what is acceptable and what isn't?  They're just words!  When it came up, I usually suspended the rest of my lesson plan in order to address the question to the whole class.  What I covered was:

    *"Bad words" are used as insults and almost always refer to body parts, sexual and/or bodily functions, or parental lineage.  I never used the actual words, but the kids knew exactly what I meant.  And who decides?  Well...YOU do.  And the more they are used, the less effective they are.  Respect makes the difference.  Respect for self or others.

    *Society does judge you by your words.  "If you can't say it to your minister or your grandmother, don't say it at all."  (That was usually followed by a comment from the kids, "You don't know my grandma!")  

    *America has freedom of speech but not freedom from consequences of what is said.  People lose jobs and relationships over words.  

There was also an annual lesson in the "ough" words of our language.  I planted myself in front of the white board and asked students to pronounce the words I wrote:  cough, tough, thought, though, bough, etc.  I was trying to show that our language has no hard and fast rules for pronunciation, or even use.

And then came the lesson in "amelioration" and "pejoration".  Big words!  The meaning of some words gets better over time (amelioration); others get worse (pejoration).  The word "gay" in classic literature does NOT mean homosexual.  It means lighthearted and free.  I left it up to the kids to decide if it was amelioration or pejoration, as long as they were able to notice the nuances of meanings.

Usually, the previous lesson came with another on its heels:  connotation and denotation--the emotions evoked by word choices versus what they actually mean.  I used pairs of words that essentially mean the same but with an emotional twist:  trim/skinny, chubby/fat, killed/slaughtered, upset/devastated, etc.  I hoped the kids would understand that word choice make a huge difference in what they read in the news and elsewhere.  (Never too late, I hope!)    

Maybe this post is more about being an English teacher than our confusing language.  So "sioux" me!

English, The Absolutely 100% Confusing Language

 When did absolutely and 100% replace the word "yes" in the English language?   It seems that people are trying to amplify even the simplicity of an affirmative.  Do you like flowers?  A mere yes no longer suffices.  Do you like flowers?  Absolutely!  How about fake flowers?  One-hundred percent!  See what I mean?  

When I was in college studying English as my major, I was taught that clarity was achieved through an "economy of words".  In other parlance, make your point clearly with forceful simplicity.  Layering modifiers tends to lessen the forcefulness, so keep those down.  The example used was "I love you".  Sweet.  Simple.  Meaningful.  According to this one instructor, however, adding "very" to the mix lessened the message.  "I love you very much" wasn't as impactful.  (Not sure if I agreed with that, but it did give me something to think about back then.  And I still think about it.

 My favorite TV show is Big Bang Theory, now only in reruns.  In one episode, Penny is talking to Leonard when she tells him she'll always have feelings for him, no matter what happens to their relationship.  That convinces Leonard that she's going to break up with him because "always" makes things worse.  "I'll have feelings for you", to him, was more positive than "I'll always have feelings for you."  

I simply can't listen to any of the Kardashian sisters--or any of the Valley Girls--because they cannot speak without using the word "like" every fifth word.  It's ingrained.  I'm not sure it can, like, be beaten out of them if, like, their lives depended on it.  You, like, get the picture.

If nothing else, our language is fluid.  It changes over time in the same way that we do.  Examples: In elementary school, we had spelling lists and tests over how to spell the words on the list each Friday.  I was a lucky kids with a good visual memory.  Once I saw a word, I usually could spell it (for the most part).  There were some tricky ones, however.  For instance, Halloween was spelled with an apostrophe between the two e's.  Hallowe'en.  On the test, if you left out the apostrophe, the word was counted wrong.  Horrors!  Not so now.  (In fact, no one believes me on this one.  Google it.  It's there!)  Also in those days, seasons of the year were capitalized.  Nope.  Not now.  Words that ended in "f" in the singular were pluralized by changing the "f" to "v" and adding "es".  Scarf became scarves.  Dwarf became dwarves.  Knife; knives.  Hoof; hooves.  Roof; rooves, etc.  But wait, there's more!  These days, many of those words have now been accepted without the changes, yet there seem to be no rules, rhyme, or reason to which is which.  Scarf is now scarfs.  Roof is now roofs; hoof is hoofs....but knife is still knives, and dwarf seems to be determined by whatever you are reading at the time.  Ugh!

After college, I saved my three-inch thick handbook Perrin's Guide to English.  For a long time, it was my go-to book to answer my questions about the mechanics of grammar.  I threw it out a few years ago because so much of it no longer applies.  

I can't keep up.  It seems that it is no longer required to have a double space between typewritten sentences.  Blasphemy!

My granddaughter uses terms I've never heard before:  agism, ablism, cis gender. gender fluid...and so it goes.  Things that were once cool, neat, or groovy are now sick, lit, or fire.  Okay...  Not a day goes by that I don't have to look something up to see what it means in today's usage.

Yes, I'm not a kid, but I'm not stupid, either.  I actually try to stay current on important things if for no other reason than not to make a fool of myself.  As a 40-year veteran English teacher, I spent an enormous amount of time harping on things like subject-verb agreement and pronoun-antecedent agreement.  Now the newest generation comes along with its requests for pronouns.  A single person may wish to be called "they".  I do respect calling people what they want to be called, but so much goes against everything I ever learned/taught about pronouns, I usually have to beg for forgiveness when I slip up.  

I am a Baby Boomer in the U.S.  Apparently, "we" have a bad reputation for wanting things to stay the way they were in prehistoric times.  That's not me.  I'm a live-and-let-live person with a huge penchant for fairness.  I try to roll with the punches--and all of those other cliche' things.  I'm running in place as fast as I can.  Does it matter?  Absolutely!  100%!  

Losing Things in Old Age

 True story:  Just two days ago, I had to do the math to remind myself of my age.  For a few moments, I couldn't remember if I was 74 or 75.  The ugly reality is 75.  And therein lies the content of today's post.  When we get older, we lose things.  It seems that memory is first.  This is one of the reasons that I try to write down memories in this venue.  If any of my potential descendants are the least bit interested in me or my life, they won't run into brick walls.  

What else do we lose with age?  Certainly, everyone is different, but the general public seems to follow the same path as I.  In no particular order:

1.  Teeth.  I've already written about mine, and the situation isn't getting better.  I'm facing dentures or implants, although I'm not eager for either.  I've lost many but still have enough that I don't look forward to having them all removed at once.  Trust me: this won't be a quick decision.

2.  At least one sense.  Humans are known to have five senses:  sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste.  (There is current discussion that we have more than those, but that's what I was taught in school.)  Typically, we don't lose any of them completely, but it does happen.  My vision isn't great, nor is my hearing.  Can't smell a thing, unless it is crushed garlic or the alcohol in hand sanitizer, due to long-term sinusitis.  (Smell and taste are supposed to be connected.  Thank God, that hasn't happened in my case!  I can still taste my food even though I can't always smell it!)  Thankfully, my sense of touch isn't affected.  I can still feel things.  In fact, I can feel things crawling on me that aren't there, thanks to circumstances beyond my control.  And so it is.

3.  Bladder/bowel control.  Indeed, this happens occasionally to everybody, no matter their age, but it happens more frequently to those of us who have a few years on us.  Youngsters make fun of it in social media, but their turn will come!  We need to de-shame this, even for men, because it's a fact of life!

4.  Dignity.  HA!  All a woman has to do to lose her dignity is to get pregnant.  Thereafter, she will be poked and prodded in every way possible, with many people witnessing her most private and personal moments.  Now, with state laws all over the USA making it difficult to end a pregnancy, it gets worse.  There are moments for ALL of us that take away our ability to preserve our dignity--the things we don't wish to make public about how life is for us.

As an example, my dear grandmother developed a benign tumor on her spine.  By the time it was discovered and removed, the damage had already been done.  She never walked again, spending the last 15 years of her life in a wheelchair.  She was too heavy for family to lift her out of her chair into bed, so they bought a hydraulic lift  that had her "flying" through the air, with her naked bottom in full view of anyone who happened to be around.  My mother worked and worked on her mother's rear end to prevent pressure sores, which meant that Grandma laid on her side in bed, bare, with a heat lamp aimed at her butt.  This woman...this woman...was the darling of the rural gentry.  She was beautiful.  A leader in the church, directing the choir, etc.  Also directing all that went on with the huge garden and inside the home.  Everyone that I knew respected my grandmother as the matriarch of an honored family.  Of course, they didn't know how hard it was for her behind the scenes to lose her dignity in those moments.

5.  Autonomy.  The older you get and the less you can do for yourself, the more you are at the mercy of others who think they know what is best for you, regardless of what YOU think.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do admit that there are times when I don't tell some people about some of my trials and tribulations because I know that they will begin to supervise my decisions--perhaps before I am mentally prepared to deal with them.  (I am a world-class procrastinator!)

Of course, things I used to do for myself I now have to pay for.  I had to give up yard work first.  Although I love to garden, mowing became a chore that knocked the strength out of me.  In the early days of living in my little house, my Egyptian Muslim neighbor, Abdul, would stop me and say, "You shouldn't be doing this.  This is too hard for you."  I think my sweaty red face gave me away.  I smiled and nodded and thought to myself, "Are you gonna do it for me?  It won't mow itself!"  No...in those days, I did everything I could by myself.  It wasn't/isn't in my nature to ask for help.  Of course, and perhaps because of that, people close to me get passive-aggressive about "hinting" what I should be doing.  Yeah...I'm not ready for "the home" quite yet, but coming, I'm sure!

6.  Hair.  I know I'm not the only woman whose hair has thinned dramatically with age.  It actually started way back in college.  In fact, I'm probably lucky that I still have as much as I do, but it sure irritates me!  Men understandably regret their baldness, but women are supposed to be protected from that by hormones.  Yeah, right!  I never had morning sickness during pregnancy, and never had mood swings or hot flashes in menopause.  Do I even have hormones???

I'm begrudgingly learning to accept the things I can't change.  Focusing now on how to get through the last days with the least amount of regret.  There is no other way!

When It Rains, It Leaks

 (With apologies to the Morton Salt people for messing up their motto.)

I've lived in my little house-on-a-slab for 30 years.  It had a new roof when I moved in.  The new roof was layered over the old roof, so there were at least two layers of shingles up there with very little chance of a leak.  But I DID have a leak.  Why, you may ask?  Because my house was built on a concrete slab.

One might also ask why a leak in the ceiling would be caused by concrete in the floor.  If you're very, very bright, you might figure it out.  There was no central air in the bungalow when I bought it.  The only AC was a window unit in a back bedroom in line with the hallway.  I asked the previous owner to take it with him (which he gladly did) because I didn't have the strength or desire to move it in and out, seasonally, and also didn't want to mesx with covering it on the outside.  It was my intention to install central AC.  Meg and I moved into the house in late March of 1992.  By June, I already had contracted a guy to put in the unit.  Hallelujah!  My home was air conditioned!

Air conditioning not only cools the air; it also removes the moisture from the air.  That moisture becomes "condensate", which means "water".  There is a condensate pump that sends the collected water outside the house, somewhere.  In my house, it can't go through a crawl space because there is no crawl space.  So, where does it have to go?  Up through the attic and outside.  Even though the attic is insulated, it still gets cold up there above the insulation.  (Are you following me so far??)

When the AC was installed, a copper tube drained the condensate up into the attic via a condensate pump, and out through an outlet on the ground in the back yard.  Not long thereafter, a "handy" friend of mine volunteered to install ceiling fans in three bedrooms.  That meant a trip to the attic.  Truth be known, the attic is nasty in temperatures over 70 degrees F.  I wouldn't send my worst enemy up there in warm weather.  It's too hot to sustain life!

Somehow in the process, the copper tube was accidentally kneeled on (since one can't stand up in my attic).  That created a crimp in which water pooled at the end of the air conditioning season, only to freeze and crack the tube in the winter.  The next spring, as the water thawed, I had ceiling leaks that occurred in two rooms.  Called the AC guy who came out, found the problem, and encased the copper tubing in a section of garden hose to solve the problem.  Hooray!

Fast forward MANY years--like all the up to just three years ago.  My house was paid off.  I was switching homeowner's insurance companies.  The company of choice sent out a dude who said they would not insure the house because the roof was covered in moss.  Yes, I knew this.  I had already been talking to my bank and roofing sources to find my cheapest options for getting that little detail taken care of.  I contracted a local company who came two days later to install a new roof.

In the meantime, a ceiling leak developed in a back bedroom.  Since I'm rarely back there, it wasn't noticed for awhile.  And then another leak spot showed up.  It had to be a slow leak because nothing dripped.  It just moistened the drywall, but it was problematic.  One person even suggested that it could be animals in the attic and that the wet spots were critter urine.  Ack!  I called my roofing company.  They sent out a small team to take care of the problem at no charge to me.  We have taken steps to watch the spots to see if they get wetter or bigger.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

I'm chuckling at myself here.  Who would think that a whole wordy blog post could be made out of a roof leak?  You ain't seen nuthin' yet!

No News Is Good News?

 My mother frequently used the expression, "no news is good news", meaning that if nothing bad came up in correspondence or the media, it must mean that all is well.  In some respects, I agree; however, my own experience tells me that silence from any source can mean that things aren't going well enough to talk about.  It's like raising a toddler.  When they get quiet is when you need to get worried.

I've been largely absent from this venue for some weeks.  I've started several posts but never finished them.  What's up with that?  I wish I knew!

Most of the time, I have a burning desire to express myself, like anything I have to say would be mind-bogglingly important to the world.  The truth is, who cares?  What I think and feel is important to me, but the rest of the world sees me as an aging organism, out of touch with the world.  I have to admit that in some respects, that is true, but doesn't experience count for something?  Might I not have something to share that would help someone?  

Should people be worried that I haven't written anything in this blog for awhile?  Maybe.  I am just feeling somewhat invisible...and discounted, perhaps.  There is so much hypocrisy and negativity in the world right now that I have been reluctant to add to it by whining.  Do I need to whine?  Well--doesn't everyone?  Venting can be therapeutic for the complainer, perhaps, but not others who aren't falling into that black hole.  Thus, I've largely been curling up in a corner in silence until I can find something of interest to share.  You're welcome.

My 15th "Aneurversary"

 In my wallet, I carry two cards.  One shows where I have a heart stent and what brand it is.  The other explains that I have a clip in my brain where a ruptured aneurysm once was.  I produce them to radiography technicians when I get scans, etc., so they know I'm safe to have the scans.

I have the heart stent because I had a heart attack on August 1, 2009.  I didn't have common symptoms.  I just knew something was wrong because I couldn't raise my arms.  The "attack" was fairly minor, and, after a short hospital stay to have a stent installed, my ticker went back to normal "sinus rhythm" and hasn't been problematic since.  

I have a clip in my brain because I had a ruptured brain aneurysm on July 21, 2007.  Called a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage, it came on quite suddenly.  So suddenly that I didn't know what hit me.  I was visiting with my sister and family near Springfield, Illinois.  We had been to a dirt track race of some kind to watch my nephew drive in it.  Got home about 11:00 PM.  I poured myself a glass of wine and headed to their basement where their computer was to check my email.  Just at the bottom of the stairs, I flushed hot.  Turned on their fan...but suddenly felt enormous pressure in my head.  Felt like it was being blown up from inside.  At the same time, I became nauseated.  Knew I was going to throw up.  Made it up the stairs to the bathroom.  My sister could hear me being sick so came to inquire if I was okay.  I wasn't!  I thought I had picked up some magical stomach bug that had the ability to make one vomit with very little warning or other symptoms.  And my head/neck hurt.  A lot.  Sister Shari provided me with two ice bags, one for my head and one for my neck, but I continued to vomit painfully every few minutes, all night.  

I have written about all of this before, so I'll just run a timeline now:

July 21, 2007, Saturday:  My brain exploded late in the evening.  I spent the night sick as a dog.

July 22, Sunday:  I had a break in the vomiting long enough to allow my sister to take me to an Immediate Care place in Springfield.  (She had been asking since early in the morning, but I didn't feel well enough to do even that before mid-afternoon.)  The doctor asked me if I had a history of headaches or neck pain.  I said no...so he sent us to Memorial Hospital in Springfield for a CT scan of my head.  Once there, the scan happened quickly.  An Indian woman came to me to announce, "We hav bahd nuuz.  You hav a bleeeeed."  Thereafter, another doctor came in to the room to announce that they were transferring me to St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, IL, via helicopter.  I asked if my sister couldn't just drive me there.  He said, "Not unless she has one of these on her car"...as he twirled his finger over his head like a propeller.  Ack!  There I was, 200 miles from home, with my daughter (who lived with me) unaware of what was going on, and they are taking me away from everything to uncharted territory??  Seconds later, I could hear the helicopter overhead.  For me!

The 'copter EMTs showed up promptly, moved me to a gurney, strapped me in, and off we went.  I felt like a passenger on my own life's journey.  Certainly, I wasn't the pilot!  The pilot in charge of my life was sitting at the controls of the helicopter.  The other EMT was my companion, wearing headphones because of the noise and reassuring me all the way.  I was flat on my back, clutching a little kidney-shaped container since the nausea never left me, even though I wasn't actively emptying my already-empty stomach.  It was dark by now.  The only thing I was acutely aware of was a blood pressure monitor overhead in my view.  I remember seeing 180 as the top number and being incredulous.  It lowered during the flight, and the attending EMT advised me, "You did that all by yourself!"  Well, yeah...yay me! 

July 24, Monday:  Having been plopped and monitored in the ICU at St. Francis, I was put through all kinds of tests this day.  It's all blurry to me now, but it was determined that the aneurysm couldn't be stopped with the installation of a coil.  I needed brain surgery--craniotomy--to put a clip on the aneurysm so it would no longer bleed.  The surgeon said something about how a paper-thin clot was saving me.  I had the surgery late that evening.  I, of course, was oblivious.  Meanwhile, my poor family was playing tag to have someone with me.  My poor daughter was at home in Indiana, trying to find someone to take care of my two grandchildren and getting permission to be absent from work at IUPUI so she could be with me.  My sister was with me whenever she could be.  And, bless her heart, so was my daughter.  

July 25-27, Tuesday thru Thursday:  I was finally moved out of ICU into a private room, but it took some time to find a room.  The hospital provided a roll-away bed so that my sister or my daughter could stay with me, since both were at long distance.  I looked like hell, with staples in my head and two black eyes, but I was alive!   My dear friend, Major Patrick McPherson of The Salvation Army out of the Chicago Metro area showed up, unexpectedly, to visit.  (Because of his pastor status, he got in with no problems.)  I was tested and found to have no mental or physical deficits.  I had all kinds of support from my radio friends and my school friends.  God is good!

July 28, Friday, Fifteen years ago today:  I was released from the hospital to go home.  I'd been referred to a neurologist in Indy for my follow-up care.  He didn't want me to return to teaching until after Labor Day, so I was on a 2-week hiatus from the beginning of the school year!    

My poor daughter had been to hell and back to get me home.  My car was still at my sister's in Springfield.  I don't remember how, but she snagged a friend to drive one car while she drove me in the other.  Once home, I was supposedly not to be left alone due to the potential of vasospasm...for three weeks.  She did her best to find babysitters for me.  

So today, I celebrate my existence!  By every design, I should be dead, but I'm not.  I was granted at least 15 more years.  I am not only grateful for that but for the dedication of my sister and my daughter who moved mountains just to take care of me.  Thankful for my friends and colleagues who not only provided food to the household but also contributed to funds to help defray my challenges.  Thankful for those who babysat me in the weeks after my return home until I decided I no longer needed it.  

Fifteen years of grace, in spite of the horrendous odds.  I am the one out of five ruptured brain aneurysm sufferers who survive with no mental or physical deficits.  I am so very blessed!  

Fixing Things That "Ain't Broke"

 Not sure what's up with corporations that are always looking for gimmicks to make their products more desirable, but usually they totally miss the mark.  

Sometimes, the formula for the product is changed for the worse.  Sometimes, the product is replaced by another product that the company deems is the same, or better.  And sometimes, the product simply disappears, seemingly forever.  

I present to you, Exhibit A.  For years, I used a cosmetic foundation called Moisture Wear, from Cover Girl, I think.  It blended perfectly on my skin and made it easy to shop.  I knew the product and I knew the tint.  Great!  And then it was gone.  The company had flyers recommending the product that had replaced it.  Sorry.  Not the same.  I ended up buying several other (expensive) foundations before I found one that could be used.  The very same thing happened with a "permanent" lipstick that I found.  I fixed them!  I hardly ever wear makeup any more!

Exhibit B.  When I was on a serious diet a number of years ago, I settled on I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, Light as my spread of choice.  Out of nowhere, they announced a new and improved product, made with a "simpler" recipe.  They took out a lot of salt, and the product would no longer melt.  Spreading it was like spreading wax, which was also what it tasted like.  Neither my daughter nor I liked it, which launched us into buying alternatives in order to determine which would give us the taste and the fat content we desired.  She settled on Country Crock.  I settled on Land-o-Lakes Butter Light, with Canola Oil.  My daughter came to see things my way and also changed to my brand.  And now?  Because of the complications from the pandemic, it's nowhere to be found.  UGH!

Exhibit C.  In my country, one is either a Coke (Coca-Cola) fan or a Pepsi-Cola fan, and never the twain shall meet.  The competition between the two brands can be fierce, causing each to provide de-caffeinated varieties, flavored varieties, and (of course) diet varieties.  I am a Pepsi fan...and so is my daughter.  Many years ago, when sugar substitutes were replaced by aspartame, which tasted MUCH better than what was being used, I started drinking only Diet Pepsi as my soft drink of choice.  (I'm not a coffee or tea drinker.)  And then...and then...Pepsi decided to change the sweetener in the formula for Diet Pepsi, which made the "new and improved" drink totally unacceptable to faithful Diet Pepsi drinkers.  They didn't ask us!

This is ONE time when the reaction from the public made a difference.  After a number of months, the company went back to the original formula due to a huge outcry from consumers.  "Bring back the old Diet Pepsi!"  They actually listened!  Amazing!  I can now, once again, drink my one can per day in confidence!

I admit that I am somewhat a creature of habit.  I find products/brands that I like and stay faithful to them.  I have dabbled in off-brand products because they are cheaper.  Most, I like.  Some, I don't.  For example, not all sour creams or cream cheeses are the same in taste.  I've checked them all out and determined my favorites.  So be it! 

Notice that I'm not complaining about "supply chain" glitches.  We live with the backlash from the pandemic on a daily basis.  I get that.  My target, instead, is manufacturers who try to improve on an already-good product in order to pander to the "foodies".  I get that, too.

We have an expression here that comes complete with bad grammar and colloquialisms that totally hit the mark, and I agree:  If it ain't broke, don't fix it! 

       

Fingernails, Kidneys, Teeth, and Boomerism

 It's been awhile since I have made an entry here.  No, I have not been ill.  (Well, mostly not.)  I have, instead, been embroiled in emotional upset about things going on in our country that don't sit well with me, and I'm feeling a bit helpless about it.  If you know me at all, you know that I've always been a "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" kind of person.  I've always tried to give leadership to situations to make a difference; but, now that I am elderly and somewhat disabled, I've had to give up some control.  And I hate it.

I've spent a lot of time in the last 4-6 years avoiding dealing with the personal conflicts.  I've had  to for the sake of my sanity and blood pressure.  Thus, I will follow suit today by not talking about anything too deep.  Humor me.

1.  Fingernails.  When I was younger and more attractive, I spent every Sunday evening giving myself manicures.  I removed old polish, filed my nails into proper shape, and reapplied polish.  I've been blessed with very sturdy fingernails, so I always wore them longish, and kept them up religiously.  Even my students noticed.

After I retired, I was busy with my daughter and grandchildren who were living with me at the time, so the nails got pushed to the back burner.  Days turned into weeks, months, and years.  Changes happened in life.  Instead of polishing my nails, I was only clipping them to keep them short enough to type.  Good enough, yes?

For as long as I can remember, the tip of the nail on the index finger on my right hand was curved down.     Not sure why it is called that, but it means that the tip of the nail curves downward, which pushes the sides up.  I lived with it.  Over the last couple of years, however, five of my nails have curved down quite noticeably.  I Googled it.  Of course, Google claimed it could be anything from nutritional deficiencies to diseases.  One site called it "clubbing", but that meant that the involved fingers were swollen and out of shape, too...which is not the case for me.  It does say that the "clubbed" nails are a sign of lung disease.  Which I have.  So there we are.

All I do now is keep my nails much shorter than I used to.  If I don't clip them often, they are misshapen and ugly.  It hurts my vanity!

2.  Over about the last three years or so, I developed lymphedema (swelling) of my lower legs and feet.  Because of that, I "doctored" more than usual.  I was prescribed diuretics which sent my kidneys into a major tailspin.  Test results were so bad, at one point, that my doctor called and said if I started to feel bad, I should just present myself to the Emergency Room.  I was taken off the diuretics and told to drink lots of water.  The next blood test showed a perfect kidney result, but it was not to last.

My doctor left her practice to move on to the VA, so I established myself with one of her colleagues.  I had my first introductory appointment with the new doc a month or so ago.  We had a long talk in reviewing my test results, etc.  She is a gal of many specialties.  When I inquired about my kidneys, she told me--and I was glad to hear it out loud--that I had Stage 3 Kidney Disease, but had likely had it for a long time, and it was stable.  She explained that many patients with it never progress to Stage 4, which requires dialysis, so I was not to worry.  (Of course, I will anyway.)  I am not to take any NSAID painkillers, even though my cardiologist wants me to take a baby aspirin every day.  I seriously doubt that that little white pill could possibly hurt my kidneys!  I'll keep taking it until I'm told not to.

Oh, dear kidneys!  What did I ever do to you???

3.  And then there are teeth.  Both my brother and I were missing permanent teeth.  One dentist told our mother that we were probably the beginning of the evolution of toothless humans.  (Our sister had all of hers.  Proof again, that she got all of the good family genes!!)  The emergence of permanent teeth somehow dissolves the roots of baby teeth, which causes them to loosen and come out.  Without a permanent tooth coming in, the baby teeth stay, even though they were only designed to last for 5-10 years.

I was missing three regular teeth (two molars and one lateral incisor) and one wisdom tooth.  A canine tooth came in over the lateral incisor and kicked it out, with no permanent tooth to fill in the gap.  The two primary molars stayed and stayed, until one of them broke.  The dentist put a pin in it to give it more time, but eventually, over a many years, they both broke and had to be removed.  They held on probably 35 years longer than designed. 

The wisdom teeth were another story.  One came in somewhat normally, although it didn't emerge at the same level as the molar next to it.  Two others were impacted, which means they were sideways under the gums.  The fourth one didn't exist.  Way back in the 80s, I had the upper impacted wisdom tooth removed because I could taste something weird going on up there.  The other impacted tooth gave me fits when, somehow, it seemed to be pushing sideways out of my gums.  (It eventually stopped, so I didn't do anything about it.)  

Now, in my old age, my teeth are moving which, I'm told, means periodontal disease.  I have already accepted that I will probably end up with dentures or full mouth implants.  I have tooth problems on a regular basis!

My father, God rest his soul, had not one cavity in his teeth, ever, even though he claimed that he didn't even own a toothbrush until he was 19.  He died in 1994, at age 76, with his original choppers still intact.  Why couldn't I have inherited that????           

4.  And now, the piece de resistance <---that's French:  I was born in 1947, which makes me part of a generation known as Baby Boomers.  This refers to a glut of babies born after soldiers and sailors came home from WWII.  Baby Boomers were raised by parents who have come to be known as the Greatest Generation...those who survived the Great Depression, fought in two wars, and worked hard to provide for their families.  In our family, family was first.  We were raised with solid values and expectations, leadership, and always always love.  We weren't spoiled in the least, but we always knew we were protected and cared for by our parents who wanted more for us than what they had.

The "Boomers" grew up in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s.  At the college level, we somehow became the Vietnam War generation, the anti-war protest generation, the drug generation, the "free love" generation, the "Hippie" generation, shaped by the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, Malcomb X, and many, many others who were seeking to eliminate racial segregation.  Politics was divided among the hawks (Republicans) and the doves (Democrats), and things got insane with race riots and political demonstrations that resulted in deaths and more division.  In short, Boomers were rebelling against the "establishment" of the previous generation, and the previous generation was fighting back.

In the middle of it all, I was a silent sympathizer.  I felt what the anti-war protesters felt.  Did I participate?  No.  I had too much respect for all that my parents had gone through in life to betray them with rebellion.  I am both proud of myself for that and ashamed that I didn't have the courage to buck what was wrong with society back then.  They sacrificed a lot for us kids, and I didn't want to reject that just to make a point.     

So now, in my old age, the internet seems to blame my generation for the way things are now.  Apparently Boomers vote Republican.  Apparently Boomers are nasty and unbending.  Apparently Boomers are selfish, entitled, and power-grabbing...and that's where the big question mark appears over my head.  That's not me.  That's not us.  Or, at least, I didn't think it was.  I'm not at all sure when the Boomers became the villains for the current generation.  I would LOVE to have a civil conversation with someone who blames "us" for today's ills, just to get a handle on what went wrong.  I honestly don't get it.  I want to, but I don't.  It isn't part of my experience.

I'm not a risk taker.  I simply don't make waves.  Never have, deliberately.   And so, I will now take my weird fingernails, damaged kidneys, and rotten teeth into my Boomer lair--like Grendel's fen--and hide.  God bless us, every one!

I'm not happy with the way things are going in MY country right now

     

Children and Death

 I am not a child psychologist; however, I was a teacher of children for 40 years, raised a child of my own, and helped to raise my two stepkids from an early age.  I think I have a bit of a grip on how children think.  I actually was one, myself!

I know that there are some tricky topics that parents dread talking about with their children when smaller.  Personal safety  is one; sexuality is another; and finally death.  Religion works into the equation.  What to say or not to say becomes the question.  We don't want to terrify our children with more details than they need, but neither do we want to send them into the world unarmed.  The only one of those three topics that is finite and unchangeable is death.  So many horrible things show up in the news these days that parents need to be prepared with how to talk with their children about it when it pops up in conversation.  

Children (and adults) of every age have one basic emotional need: security.  When something bad happens, 100% of people will think, "What does this mean to me??"  Where will I go?  What will I do?  Who will take care of me now?  Children are particularly vulnerable to this because they know they are flawed by their own immaturity.  ("You can't go on that ride.  You're too little."  "You can't go in the pool if I'm not there.  You're too little."  Etc.)  We can't even promise that we won't let anything bad happen to them.  Sometimes, we aren't even present when the stuff hits the fan.  And it will.  As hard as we try to protect our children from the ugly sides of life, sooner or later, they will see it and start asking questions.

Back in the 50s or later, it was deemed wise for terminal patients not to be informed of their looming mortality.  Doctors and families were trying to keep things upbeat for the patient.  It was a very bad practice.  It robbed patients of making end of life decisions based on the truth.  Fortunately, that quickly changed.  Children, however, are in a different realm.  

I'm not sure there is an age at which young children actually understand death.  Consider these examples:

1.  Before I was born, I had two sisters.  One was 4 (the eldest) and one was 15 months.  My parents were teaching then, so my grandparents were babysitting.  I think the eldest (Shari) was going to pre-school daily (then called "nursery school) while the youngest (Barbara) was in the care of the grandparents during the day.  A tragic home accident involving Venetian blind cords hanging within reach of my toddler sister in her crib.  She got tangled in the cords, lost her footing, and died of strangulation while supposed to be taking a nap. (1945.)  My parents and grandparents were grief stricken...then they had to pick up Shari from pre-school.  Shari instantly noticed that Barbara wasn't with them.  She asked, "Who's caring of Barbie?"  My folks told her that Barbie had gone to Heaven to live with God.  Shari kept asking, "But she didn't die, did she??"  (Or so my mother told me.)  I'm not sure that the dying part of the question was ever sufficiently addressed for Shari, so thereafter, Shari refused to sleep alone for a long time.  Her mind must have thought: Barbie was here in the morning but forever gone by the afternoon.  If she can just disappear like that, I could, too.  I'm not at all sure how my parents could have handled that better.  They were already devastated. 

2.  My daughter's first brush with death came at age three.  We hadn't ever really talked about it, but her great-uncle Mack McKamey died. so it came to the fore.  Mack was the husband of one of Megan's paternal grandmother's sisters, Mary.  We didn't see Mack and Mary often, but Mary was the sweetest woman on the planet, and Megan loved her.  

When Uncle Mack's funeral was set, we trekked to Indiana from Illinois to attend, with all three of "our" children--my two stepchildren and Megan.  I had already coached the children in the car about what to say to Aunt Mary, if they weren't sure.  Something like..."I'm so sorry about Uncle Mack."  Meg must have been listening.  We had decided that we'd take toddler Megan to the funeral home for Mack's visitation, but found a babysitter for her for the actual funeral service.

Meg was an active kid.  She didn't just walk places....she fairly danced.  When we got to the funeral home on the night of Mack's visitation, she was dancing between her father and I, until we got to the viewing room.  She stopped abruptly in view of the casket from a distance.  When she spotted Aunt Mary, she went over to her and was stammering to speak.  I think she wanted to say, "I'm sorry about Uncle Mack", when Mary thwarted the deal.  "Are you hungry, Sweetie?  There are cookies in the back room...."  That broke the spell.  

That night, as I was tucking Megan into bed, I was explaining what she could expect the next day...how we would be taking her to a babysitter, etc.  The conversation went like this:

Meg--What will you be doing?  Me--Going to Uncle Mack's funeral.

Meg--Is that where they will put him in the ground?  Me--Yes, they will put him in the ground.

Meg--(tearing up) Then Aunt Mary will be all alone.  Me--She will still have us.  We can go and visit her whenever you want.

Meg-(brightening and smiling) Yes, she'll still have us!     

I have no idea how she knew about burial or anything else related to death at age three, but she understood aloneness.  We might have visited with Aunt Mary once or so after Uncle Mack's death, but that doesn't matter.  What does matter is that what I told her that night was enough.  It was all her toddler heart needed to be satisfied,  No more, no less.  (Whew!)

3.   When my grandchildren were very young and still lived in the area, my daughter and I would take them on Memorial Day excursions to Putnam County (the next county west of here), to do cemetery runs for Meg's paternal ancestors.  She was big into genealogy and had done a bunch of research.  We toured some nine cemeteries each trip!  We did that  for two or three years or so.  At least one of the children was still in diapers, so we packed up snacks, a blanket, diapers, etc., and headed out to visit their ancestors.  It took all day, and every trip was an adventure.  (I've written about these before.)  

On one of these trips, while we were walking around through the gravestones looking for names, little Ryan, who couldn't have been more than three, gestured toward the stones and casually said, "At least we aren't trapped."  I wasn't sure I heard him right, so I asked him to repeat what he said.  Yep, he really did say "at least we aren't trapped".  I ciphered on that for a bit.  I could only conclude that all of the people whose names we were looking for were, in his mind, trapped in the tombstones.  I was so stunned, I don't remember trying to correct his assumption at all.  He did grow up without being spooked by cemeteries, however, so I guess we didn't warp him too much.

4.  My students were also affected by death in different ways:

Two lost mothers and sisters to separate car accidents at different times, and had to finish growing up without parents because the fathers were not in their lives.

One's mother was shot and killed by her boyfriend while she was holding him as an infant.

One's boyfriend committed suicide in front of her while they were together.

Two kids were killed and one seriously injured in a flaming car collision with a tree.

One went with his dad to visit one of Dad's friends, and found him hanging from the neck on his refrigerator.  

There were others outside of my current memory, but these were CHILDREN, anywhere from 4th grade through high school.  They were, in each instance, subject to seeing things no child should ever have to see.  I don't know many adults that can handle these things well, but you can bet that PTSD follows.  No amount of talking, soothing, counseling can erase those visions from their minds, to follow them for the rest of their lives.  And now, here in the US, we are raising a generation of children whose very lives are at stake when domestic terrorist shooters with a grudge against the world enter schools and take aim.  So...how do we help them?

In the United States, after 9/11/2001, many parents were asking how to talk to their children about the lost lives, inhumanity, fear that it could happen again, and so forth.  First Lady, Laura Bush, was telling parents to talk to them age appropriately.  Fred Rogers, from the children's TV program Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, advised that parents should stay focused on the positive in a nasty situation:  Think about the people who helped.  Both are true and necessary.  

My own little bit of wisdom is that children look to their parents for security.  It's best to stay steady.  Keep things as normal as possible without denying sadness or fear.  If parents fall apart in front of their children--if their whole routine becomes disrupted--the children will be afraid because they will no longer know what to expect.  We can't promise them that everything will be okay because sometimes bad things do happen, but we can promise them that there will always be someone to take care of them.  (Then plan accordingly!)  I strongly believe that how well parents deal with trauma to the child absolutely determines how well the child gets/stays emotionally healthy through life.  I also recommend seeking professional help any time it is needed.  ANY TIME.

My heart breaks when bad things happen that affect children.  I was so very protected from adult things until I was in junior high, but that was long before disgruntled people began to wreak vengeance on the world by killing random targets.  If the news on TV is all bad, turn off the TV.  Try to comprehend what is worrying the kids when they ask questions about death, and only answer to that particular worry.

And good luck!  

     

   

Too Many Choices

 Making decisions about items to purchase has become inordinately complicated by the Internet.  Give me limited choices, and I can make a decision.  Put me on Amazon, and I become overwhelmed with too many choices for a simple purchase.  I find a few things that look like they will work for my needs, then I start to read the customer reviews.  Minutes turn into hours.  In the end, I have made no decision OR purchase.  The next day, I start all over again, ad infinitum.

Example:  I am in need of a couple of new garden hoses.  I want the expandable ones...lightweight and manageable.  The cheaper, the better.  I've been searching for over a week now, online, and don't find any that will fill all of the qualifications.  Something's gotta give.

More serious example:  Last week, I read that Corelle dishware older than 2005--at least in certain patterns--should be retired because of possible lead exposure.  I have a cupboard full of Corelle dishes, circa 1991.  My pattern wasn't specifically listed, but it's very, very similar.  Truth be known, I fell out of love with the pattern years ago, although I still love the quality of Corelle dishware, but I simply couldn't justify replacing my dishes at my age and income.  Could this be my excuse??

So I went to the Internet to see what was out there.  I've looked for hours.  I like Corelle; I don't care for any of their current patterns.  I considered going with all white dishes, but since my good china is also white, I wanted something a little different.  Then, too, the size and shape of bowls is important for dishwasher fit.  I've seen stuff that I sort of like, but it's not Corelle, so I end up reading the consumer reviews.  Here we go again....  Too many choices!  As with the water hoses, the jury is still out on this one.

If money were no object, I could buy whatever I want and not worry about longevity, but it's MY longevity that's on the line, here.  Plus...what to do with the old dishes?  Will Goodwill take dishes that aren't recommended to be used...or am I being overly cautious?  No young children or pregnant women live with me (those that would be the most affected by high lead levels).  I've been eating on those dishes for 30 years, and I'm still kicking.  

Every time I mention a need, someone tells me how I can find a product to fill it.  Just don't give me too many choices, or I'll bog down.  I'm bogged right now.  Too many choices are like quicksand.  Slowly, slowly sinking...

House Quirks

 If someone told me that he/she lived in a house with no little quirks that have to be considered, I would call that person a fibber.  Every home on the planet has at least one little "bug" that needs to be fixed "when I get around to it".  Especially homes with some age on them.  My own home is no different.  In fact, as I age, I have considered composing a little house manual to pass on to the next owner, when that time comes.  I'm just not sure there's enough time in the world to do that...

I live in what I call a little bungalow.  It was built in 1968, on a concrete slab.  It is considered a National Home, which I believe is a pre-fab.  The internal walls are thinner than the norm.  It's all on one level on a corner lot.  I bought this place when my daughter was still in middle school.  She has long since flown the coop, but I'm still here, 30 years later.

Thirty years.  I've never lived ANYWHERE that long in my life.  Although I'm not necessarily in the location I would have chosen for myself, I finally, FINALLY, have some roots.

And speaking of roots, I always wondered why the previous homeowner showed me where the sewer cleanout was on the outside of the house.  I mean, weren't there other things that were important to know?  Well...not so much.  It only took me a couple of years to find out that the mature maple tree at the front of the house sits directly over the sewer line, and tree roots clog the sewer line every couple of years.  Plumber required.  Without sewer rooting, toilet overflows happen!  

So let's count that as Quirk #1 for my home: sewer clogs that don't always give fair warning that they are about to happen.

Quirk #2: probably has to do with electricity.  The home, being small, has only limited electrical service.  I don't understand all of the jargon, but my entire house has 110 service?  Does this make sense?  In any case, breakers don't blow regularly except:  can't have hair dryers going in both bathrooms at the same time; can't run the toaster and the microwave at the same time...  The list goes on...

Quirk #3: some electrical outlets work well, and some don't.  The one right next to the stove would not "hold" the plug for my electric knife or my crockpot, for example.  I decided to have it replaced by my handyman, and in the process, it blinked out taking my refrigerator with it.  Twice.  Had to call an electrician to get it fixed for good.  Some outlets are controlled by a light switch to which lamps are supposed to be connected.  Some aren't.  It is what it is.

Quirk #4:  behind a picture in the main bathroom is an electrical plate where a light switch used to be.  Why is it there?  When the house was built, the back door led in to a very small utility area, which (in turn) had a door to the bathroom.  Thus, one could access the bathroom from the main part of the house or directly from the back door.  (I think the idea was that people could come in from the back yard without having to traipse through the house to use the bathroom.)  It didn't take long at all for me to decide that the second door was a waste of space, so I had it taken out and wallboarded up.

Quirk #5:  There are kitchen light switches just inside from the garage room and just inside the back door, but nothing to turn on the kitchen light from inside the house.  That means that the kitchen light goes on first thing in the morning and stays on all day until time to retire.  Oh...and one of those two switches acts up sometimes...

Quirk #6:  the house is built on a concrete slab.  That means there is no crawl space through which to thread electrical wires, water pipes, or anything else that needs to go from one place to the other invisibly.  All of that has to be done through the attic and down into the living space, and it is a problem.  The main problems is that the attic--accessible only by a pull-down ladder in the garage room--is unbearably hot in the summer and freezing in the winter.  Anything requiring water delivery or passage out of the house (think air conditioner condensate pump) is subject to frozen/cracked/ruptured pipes or tubes, which leads to leaks on the ceiling.  (I know this from experience in this very house.)  

The problem?  The refrigerator has only one place to be in my small kitchen, and that is quite a few feet away from the sink plumbing.  That is complicated by the fact that almost all new refrigerators in stock in major home stores have ice makers.  Ice makers require a water source.  The last time I had to replace my refrigerator, I had to get a color I didn't want and an ice maker I couldn't use because money and time IS an object for me.   (When your refrigerator goes on the fritz, you don't have time to wait for a multi-week ordering process.)

Truth be known, it IS possible to rig up a water source for an ice-making refrigerator in my house, but it would be tricky.  Tubing would have to travel up through the sink, pass through a cabinet, make a 90-degree turn, go through another cabinet, make another 90-degree turn toward the floor, the another 90-degree turn to hook up to the refrigerator...and somehow, all of this would have to be couched in some sort of hollow trim so it couldn't be seen.  Not gonna happen on my watch! 

Quirk #7:  the windows don't stay up.  If you open one and want it to stay open, you need a dowel rod (of which I have several) to prop them up.   And with one or more, the upper window will slide down if the lower window is raised.  The last time that happened, it took two people to hold one up so we could prop up the other.  And cleaning windows?  HA!  The windows all need to be replaced, but I don't have the funds.  

Quirk #8: the heavy wood front door seems to shift.  One week, it's fine.  The next, it won't lock properly.  It gets worked on over and over.  The only thing I can think of that would cause this is some kind of foundation failure, and that scares the wadding out of me!  It's fine now, but for how long?  Same problem with the storm door immediately in front of it.  Suddenly, it sticks.  Never did before.  Ugh!

In spite of all, I love this little house.  It's been my home for 3 decades.  I have fought like hell to keep it through some tough financial times and worked like hell to make it livable for my family.  Yes, it has its quirks, but every home does, and I've learned to live with them.  Be it ever so humble, there's no place like HOME.  Would I ever give it up?  Yes...to be closer to my family...but until/unless that happens, I can be found in my own little hermitage.

       

First, You Just Let Your Heart Break

 There are times in life when we are asked to believe the unbelievable and accept the unacceptable.  This is one of those times for me.  

My former stepdaughter passed away unexpectedly in Tucson, Arizona, on Monday, May 9th.  My brain is still scrambled about that.  There are no details to be shared.  I probably wouldn't share them even if I knew them.  It's not my story to tell.  Still, like so many others faced with situations like this, I want to be able to DO something to fix this, but it can't be fixed.  Stephanie is gone at age 51, and no one yet knows why.

Melinda Gates, wife of Bill Gates of Microsoft fame, was in an interview with Oprah Winfrey a couple of years ago.  Ms. Gates and her husband had been touring in Africa, bringing life-saving vaccinations to children who would not normally have access to them.  After one encounter with an African mother who was trying to entice Gates to take her children in order to give them a better life in the US, Oprah--who has also been met with those occasions in her work with African youth--asked Ms. Gates, "What do you do in times like that?"  Her answer stunned me:  "First, you have to just let your heart break."  What blasphemy is this?  I never considered it an option to allow hurt into one's life.  Most of us run away from it as far and fast as we can, but death is the ultimate hurt destination from which we cannot run.  It's final and unforgiving.  What's left for us to do is learn how to adjust and move on.

I first met Stephanie when she was, perhaps, 2 years old.  She was an adorable toddler.  I couldn't really understand her developing speech, but I liked trying.  Steph was 6 when her father and I married, and 8 when when her half-sibling Megan (my daughter) was born.  Steph seemed to be the only person to make Megan get the "baby giggles".  We became a blended family, of sorts.

Stephanie had a slightly older brother, Eric.  I always loved it when the kids came to visit.  They made me a stepmother before I was even a mother.  I learned so much from them.  Stephanie and I were particularly tight.  She was pretty and talented and bubbly and adventurous, and as she grew, we talked about things in confidence.  She told me things that she didn't feel were "safe" to tell her parents.  As long as she wasn't telling me things that were harmful to her, I kept her confidences.  I don't think ANY of us gave Stephanie credit for the depth of the things she felt.  She was in pain a lot.

Part of the reason for her pain was my divorce from her father.  He did the same thing to me that he did to her mother, and when he tried to involve her in the deception, she blew a gasket.  She was at work when he approached her to lie to me to cover his tracks.  After he left, she called her mother, then cried and cried...and refused to even talk to him for several years.  Although I had divorced him, I had not divorced HER or her brother.  We did what we could to keep things sane...

So, what becomes of blended families that become UNblended?  Although I loved Eric and Steph as my own, after the divorce, I was only Stepmother #1.  After me was Stepmother #2, and then Daddy's Girlfriend.  I didn't have much contact with the kids because they were adults and had moved on in their private lives, and I was just a presence from the past.  I totally understood that.  But when these children die, who am I?  I'm no longer family, although I feel that I am.  The kids never forgot me, and I never abandoned them.  People are expressing their condolences to me, and yet I wonder how I am entitled to their sorrow when I wasn't a part of the lives of my stepkids.  I loved them.  I hope they knew it.

We lost Eric about nine years ago to cholangiocarcinoma.  So very young.  We lost Stephanie this week at age 51.  My heart is broken for her parents--and yes, for me.  My own "child" is also grieving, and yet no one seems to remember her in the grand scheme of things.

So, whether I'm entitled to grieve or not, I will miss the butterfly that was my stepdaughter.  She was beautiful, and tortured.  I am giving myself permission to let my heart break,  Please, God--wrap your arms around all who loved Steph.  

      

Things We Do RIGHT

 Like every other woman of a "certain age", I have often taken my own inventory of the things I've done wrong in life.  I call them mistakes.  I consider something done out of ignorance to be a mistake.  It's one of those legal "you knew or should have known"  things that what you were doing was wrong.  

If I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I did it anyway, it was intentional; therefore, unforgivable.  If I should have known, but didn't, that's just ignorance and forgivable.  But what if BOTH are false?  What if I didn't know.  If I didn't know, how is it that I should have?  As Maya Angelou once said, "When you know better, you do better." 

Every once in awhile, I give myself credit for things I accidentally did right.  I had one child.  All of my pride, joy, frustration, and fear walked around in that one person.  I was a newbie parent, flying blind with help from books and family, as needed.  (Okay...so not blind.  Just visually impaired.)  Through all the years of my daughter's minority, I made a ton of mistakes (although I didn't recognize them at the time), and several after she became an adult (for which I only take SOME responsibility.   And no one told me to do the things that I did that were right.  Thus, I/we deserve to claim some sense of pride for the good things, whether or not the results actually happened because of me/us!

RIGHT THING #1:

I sang to my child.  I sang from the moment she was born until she discovered her own singing voice, which was beautiful.  (I sat in the stands at her 2nd grade school's Christmas concert and blubbered at her solo in The Friendly Beasts.  In my defense, it was less than a month since my own mother had died quite unexpectedly.  I was already an emotional mess.  But that clear, lovely voice told me that all was right in the world.)  When my daughter was in high school, she breached some tough competition to be included in her school's award-winning show choir, Belles et Beaux.  I beamed as a Show Choir Mom.

It wasn't just Megan's talent that I reveled in--it was also her taste in music: eclectic.  She appreciated good music, no matter the genre.  Thank you.  I'll take credit for that.  I tried to expose her to all of it, and I think my own enthusiasm encouraged her taste.  She never made excuses for it, which is extra special to me.  Loving music of every type is freeing!

One of my favorite memories of my daughter as a child was when she was maybe 5 years old.  She was taking a bath with my supervision when she asked me to sing Fill It With Glue.  I confessed that I didn't know that one, but she was not to be deterred.  She got more and more demanding:  "SING 'FILL IT WITH GLUE', MOM!  SING 'FILL IT WITH GLUE'!"  I could not, for the life of me, comprehend what song she wanted to hear.  Obviously, it was something I had sung to her before, but what??  It took quite awhile for it to sink in to my thick head.  She was referring to the children's song, Let the Sunshine In; to wit:

"Mommy told me something a little girl should know./  It is all about the devil and I've learned to hate him so./  She said he causes trouble if you let him in the room./  He will never, ever leave you if your heart is filled with gloom./  So let the sunshine in./  Face it with a grin./ Smilers never lose,/ And frowners never win...etc."

https://www.considerable.com/entertainment/songs/open-up-your-heart/

Yes!  Of course!  How could I have been confused!

RIGHT THING #2:

I read to my child.  Well...I suppose in the beginning, it wasn't exactly reading.  After she got past the infant stage--maybe 8 months or so--it was mostly just showing pictures and saying words.  In a waiting room, I would pick up a magazine and point to pictures she could recognize, and say the word for the picture over and over again.  And then I bought fabric books...and had a nursery rhyme/fairy tale anthology that we would sing-song.  (I didn't care if she didn't understand them because most of the time, I didn't either.)  By the time she was a pre-school toddler, we had a healthy collection of Little Golden Books, many of which were favorites from my own childhood.  I wasn't making any effort to teach her to read.  I was just giving her words and letting her hear proper grammar.  (Thank God, that worked!  I never had to correct Megan's grammar!)

By the time Megan was in middle school, she was already an avid reader.  Many times, she had a book going in her bedroom, another in the bathroom, and a third going in the living room. Before she outgrew them, Megan had a pretty substantial collection of The Baby Sitters series.  Those were just pot-boilers, but she began to gravitate toward quality literature.  Actually, she put me to shame with her reading habits.

When my grandchildren were born, my daughter and I--and their daddy and his parents--all read to those babies all the time.  Both of them grew up with excellent grammar skills and huge vocabularies.  I'd been teaching English for many decades by that time, but since my influence was secondary, I could sit back, relax, and watch their developing language skills with utter fascination.  I've come to understand that learning language is simply magic, and it starts early.  The learning curve in those early years is enormous.  I have intelligent grandchildren, but I'm going to take some credit for giving them a healthy start in the language/literature world.

RIGHT THING #3:

I breastfed my child.  

PLEASE don't anyone take this as a condemnation of those who can't/don't/won't.  I was just in a position to do it in the early months, so I did.  Aside from being what the "experts" said was best for babies, I was happy for the convenience.  Of course, it is limiting.  For it to work, mom has to be where the kid is when the kid gets hungry; but to provide food didn't require a refrigerator or a stove...or sterilized nipples, bottles, etc.  I could bring the baby into bed with me, lean on my side, and let her nurse on that side while I dozed and she fell back to sleep.  Easy-peasy.  Out in public?  Find a place to sit, throw a baby blanket lightly over the shoulder on the side to be nursed and no one is the wiser.  

Why do I think that experience was "right"?  Well....I'll tell you: I don't know!  I nursed until Megan was 11 months old.  At that point, I'm not sure she was getting much milk from me, nor needing it.  When I stopped, my breasts did not engorge in anticipation.  Guess that meant it was time to wean.  Besides, my child was at the top of the growth charts at the pediatrician's office.  Time to move on!  (We already had moved to spoon/finger food, but I was still just topping off her tank with a shot or two from Mom before we gave up entirely.) 

There is scientific evidence that nursing mothers are somewhat protected from breast cancer later in life.  That's a plus.  I just considered that breastfeeding was a cheaper and more bonding way to feed my baby. and because I was in a position to do it, I just did.  And you know what?  She hasn't missed a meal since!

It remains to be seen if I ever did anything else right.  I still seek absolution...and credit!    

It's Alive!

 I haven't posted any ramblings for a couple of weeks now, largely because my technology failed me.  There I was, minding my own business, when I arbitrarily decided to reboot my computer.  It was moving too slowly to suit me, and we all know that rebooting is the silver bullet that scares the demons away.  I shut it down, but when I tried to start it back up again, I got an error message.  So I did it all again, and again got the error message.  I'm so proud of myself that I didn't panic.  The ONLY reason that I didn't was that I had my Kindle Fire and my cell phone that I could use as temporary communicators.

I immediately texted my first line of defense with computer problems: my daughter who lives in Washington State--a half-continent away from where I live in Indiana.  She is always my Level I tech support.  She's good at figuring things out.  Her husband is Level II.  (He is a Senior Program Engineer for Microsoft.)  For two days, we traded Google how-to's to try to break into the computer's BIOS page.  It was only on the second day that I actually got that achieved.  Thereafter, Level II was advising me by telephone, remotely.  He was patient.  I was patient.  In spite of that, both Levels declared that my friendly laptop had breathed its last.  It is likely fixable, if one has the money for shipping or an expensive geek squad, but we all agreed that those levels of funds would be better spent on a new computer, since the Lenovo was already seven years old.  (That's a long time in Computer Years!)

Knowing my reticence to make decisions about a new computer, Level I took the reins.  She asked me for a budget amount and my computer needs.  I gave her my budget amount but said I have no clue what my computing needs are.  Basically, I need it to work when I turn it on.  Is that specific enough?  Level II recommended one within my budget, and in the span of one mouse click, my new computer was on the way from Costco.  It was estimated for delivery on Wednesday, then changed to Tuesday before 7:00 PM.  

All day on Tuesday, I watched out the window and/or checked the front stoop for the delivery.  I've never had a Porch Pirate theft (yet), but I sure didn't want the first one to be my new computer!  Finally, it arrived--at 7:19 PM--so I could relax for the rest of the day.

Level I stood by most of the next day, waiting for me to get the computer out of the shipping box and set up, etc...but there were other things to do.  Behind the Lenovo, the computer desk was filthy.  I had to clean out all of those dust bunnies..  It took at least 15 minutes to break the computer out of the shipping box,  Then I had to study the diagram of the new HP in order to know what port does what, and to determine what port requires the dongle for the mouse and wireless keyboard.  I did my best not to allow myself to get frustrated with the whole set-up thing.  Then I had to stand on my head to unplug the old and plug in the new.  Puff, puff.  Finally, I pressed the START button, and the computer lit up.  It's alive!!

Level I stuck with me while I got through the whole Microsoft setup thing, even though she and Level II were planning to be gone over the weekend.  THIS weekend.  My insecurities had already convinced me that I would need a lot of hand-holding to get things that I needed on my computer:  AOL, Blogger, my banking site, billing sources, etc...  My old computer had icon shortcuts to take me to those places, and I was convinced that I couldn't do that by myself.  And then Level I said, "Those are just websites."  (Translate:  "Listen, dummy, you can already do websites on the new computer.  You don't need the shortcuts to get you there in a pinch.")  My totally innocent response was, "Oh...."

There is still a bunch of tweaking that needs to be done for which I will continue to need assistance.  I get by with a little help from my friends.

 I'm going to name the new 'puter either Lazarus or Phoenix.  Or maybe the Last Leaf because it will likely be the last computer I will ever own....        

  

PSA: The Freezer Post Is Back!

 In reference to a previous blog post explaining that the Google Blogger Admin(s) had "unpublished" my post about my dad's food freezer as spam, I am happily here to report that the post has been re-instated...and I hadn't even been able to request a review.  I simply got an email saying the admins had re-evaluated the post and republished it.  There was no other explanation; however, that's okay with me.  

Far from indignant, which I was at first, I'm more relieved that I didn't even have to defend myself for what was obviously an error to be corrected.  Sometimes, the systems DO work! 

Waste Not, Want Not?

 For a number of years, I have belonged to a grocery shopping service called Shipt.  It never was really important to me until the pandemic hit, and then it became crucial to keeping me out of stores.  Now, I use it almost exclusively, largely because the local Shipt service shops at my favorite store, Meijer.  

In the beginning, Shipt had a membership fee of $99 per year which renewed itself in my bank account unless I told it not to.  During the pandemic, I didn't see any renewals show up, but they still shop for me.  And this is how it goes:

1.  Log in to their site.  2.  Search for and click on the items that are requested.  3.  List substitutions for items that might be out of stock (and there have been many).  4.  Select a delivery time window.  5.  Stay by the phone in case the shopper--whoever it is--calls to ask questions.  6.  Wait for delivery.

Because it is sometimes exhausting for me just to bring the bags in the house, I usually try to catch my shopper.  Instead of their leaving the bags on my front stoop, I hold the door and ask him/her to bring them just inside the door and put them in front of my fake fireplace.  (It might be ten feet.)  They are always kind enough to do that.

(Here, I should insert that Shipt is not a cheap option.  Aside from the yearly membership fee (that I think has been waived),  the order placed has to be a minimum of $35 to avoid a $7.99 delivery fee, plus the Shipt prices are a tad higher than if I went to the store and shopped for myself.  Then, of course, I believe in tipping the shopper through the website.  The end result is that I am paying dearly for the privilege of not having to do it all myself, which really helps me.)  One nice thing:  I can select preferred shoppers.  Over time, they come to know me, which helps!

This is NOT an ad for Shipt!  I know there are other grocery services that the pandemic created.  This is just one that I had before the pandemic. 

Back to the real topic of this post.  Once the groceries are in the house, I go through the bags to take out the frozen foods and/or foods that need to be refrigerated immediately.  The rest--cans, boxes, etc.--stay in the bags until I take them out, a few at a time.  (I'm the only one who lives here, and I rarely have company, so who cares if I have to walk around a couple of bags for a few days?)  Most of the time, my shoppers bag refrigerated food and frozen foods together so that I don't have to dig too much to find them.  Within a few days, the groceries have all been put away, and no one is the wiser.

Every once in a while, however, I miss some perishables in the bags.  So far, I have caught them just in time.  Until last week.  Somehow, my shopper hadn't packed all of the cold things together.  Two days after I got the groceries, I found a pound of hamburger that I hadn't accounted for, still unrefrigerated.  Darn!  I immediately put it into the freezer.   And two days after that, my housekeeper found a pack of Kraft Singles (cheese) unrefrigerated at the bottom of a bag as she put the rest of the bag contents away.  She inquired if she should throw them away.  I said she should just put them in the refrigerator until I made up my mind.  And so it was.

I came from a farming family.  My parents grew up during the Great Depression.  They didn't have money, but they had food, and food was not to be wasted.  My daughter laughs at me because I will take wrinkled old potatoes with small sprouts, knock off the sprouts, and cook the potatoes to eat.  Every time I went to visit, she would Grandma-proof her refrigerator and pantry to remove foods that she thought I would be tempted to use past the expiration date or flawed appearance.  (I never, ever, offered my family or guests food that could have been tainted.  I just knew what still could be used, with help.)

So...that hamburger and those cheese slices were risky.  They weighed on my brain.  They were likely still okay.  (My mother would likely have used them.)  To keep or not to keep?  To use or not to use?  Since I have no sense of smell, I wouldn't be able to tell by sniffing if they had gone bad or not.  (The sniff test isn't always accurate, anyway.)  We're talking about $12 worth of groceries.  There wasn't anyone to ask because no one in their right mind would recommend eating food that was outside of normal health guidelines, as these were.  

I considered the options:  Use and everything is fine, OR use and be sick as a dog for days with food poisoning.  OR, throw away and be out $12, with no hamburger or sliced cheese to replace it.  

The verdict?  I bit on the bullet and threw it away, then bought new with my next grocery order.  I reasoned that the risks outweighed the money.  It's not as though I can do that often.  Money IS an object, but so is my health.  

It's not often that I have these hard decisions to make, thank God.  My readers may think it's funny to worry about things that might seem that easy, but we are all driven by our raising.  I think my daughter is proud of me!  <wink>       

Am I a Spammer?

 After 20+ years of writing in this weblog, I hit a snag last week.  Someone, somehow, flagged my latest entry called "The Freezer" as spam.  Google, who is the blog supplier, unpublished the entry and sent me an email about it.  The post was about how my father kept a huge freezer full of food long after my mother and grandparents had passed.  Why?  He was doing it for his kids.  Every time we departed from a visit, he would say, "Take what you want from the freezer."  The conclusion that I made was that I do the same thing, even though my family is rarely here.  Like father; like daughter.  

It's obvious to me that no one at Google Blogger actually read the post.  There was no profanity.  No hate speech.  No politics.  No selling anything.  No fraud.  Nothing that could in the least bit be considered spam.  Yet here we are...

All things considered, it wasn't a significant post.  I was just reminiscing and trying to explain why I am the way I am, in case anybody was interested to read it.  It's certainly not worth a fight OR my blood pressure, but I do think if something is going to be censored, there needs to be an explanation that, at the very least, the admins actually read the post before they "unpublished" it.  My efforts to ask for a review have been met with broken links without much recourse.  It's the principle of the thing.

We'll see how things go.  Wish me luck!  

The Freezer

 My grandparents had a huge chest-type freezer in their garage.  It was enormous, holding everything from meat to frozen veggies from their farm garden.  When my grandmother died and my parents retired to the farm in order to take care of my grandfather, they brought with them an upright freezer, also put in the garage.  One was to the right of the house door; the other was to the left.  Both were always full.

Mom was pretty good about keeping foods rotated so that not so that stuff got used up before it got unusable.  After Mom passed, Dad would continue to fill up the larder, usually just so there would be good foods for us to serve when the rest of the family was there.  When we departed, he would always say, "Take what you want out of the freezer."  He meant it, and we did.  Never mind that we had to literally stand on our heads to reach the bottom of the chest freezer!  One time, I realized that the stuff at the bottom had been there for YEARS, unreached.  I dug out a ton of food but hardly made a dent in what was there.  

My dad grew up hungry.  He was the last living kid of ten that were raised with him.  There wasn't enough food to help him feel full.  He never really talked about it, but all the signs were there.  For one thing, he and Mom never wasted food.  For another, Dad had a vegetable garden virtually everywhere we lived, with few exceptions.  The garden at the farm was HUGE.  Thus, two freezers in his old age.  He was supplying his family with food LONG after he had retired.  

I think I picked up some of this from Dad.  My daughter and family have been 2,000 miles away for many years, but I still find myself buying/saving foods just in case they show up here.  (For the record, only my grandchildren have been here to visit since they all moved to Seattle quite a few years ago...and then only because I keep bedrooms for them, and it puts them closer to their father and paternal grandparents.  It's crazy.  I guess I'm still in denial that my daughter will ever come home to see me.  I have to go there, but the pandemic and their circumstances have prevented that for over two years now.  It stings a lot.  At least I have been able to see the grandkids.  I adore them both!

So...what is a freezer?  It's a way to preserve things past their usefulness.  "Frozen in time" isn't a joke.  My own freezer is quite full.  A single woman, living alone, shouldn't have so much food around, but I am my father's daughter.  I'm not a food hoarder, but the pandemic has taught me to strike while the iron is hot.  If everything were to shut down, I have enough food to keep me for quite some time.  (Unless the power fails.  Then I'm in trouble!)  

I need to pare down in my food expectations.  I keep ingredients for my favored dishes, but when I make my favored dishes, they are huge enough that I have to eat them for days.  Or maybe freeze the leftovers?  Making smaller portions is out of the question.  I love food too much.  Maybe just get a bigger freezer?