Nature Songs ~~~~
JUNE, 2000
They say wisdom comes as you age-
Now I'm in a real jam-
at sixty I should be a sage-
look what a fool I am!
~~S. Minanel
Have I really forgotten to change my quote for the month, or could it be a lack of that wisdom floating just out of my reach?
June 1, 2000- The boys went to sleep on the couches last night. Both of them are sunburned from a trip to Kool Park Water Park in Hickory Tuesday afternoon and while they were waiting for the lotion to soak into their sore shoulders and upper arms, sleep slipped up on them. I dared not wake them to move. I covered each one and left them as they were. They slept well and I did, too. :o)
Giggles joined us today since she will be out of daycare for the summer months and Mom has school yet today. The three of them went to daycare at Q4L this morning. Luckily, I was nearly dressed after my water workout done to the music of the Congo drum beats when the Fire Alarm sounded and the Lights on the alarms blinked. We had to evacuate the building and the fire trucks came blaring horns and blinking red lights announcing their arrival. It turned out to be a false alarm and the staff looked and looked to find the place where the alarm was turned in. The blinking lights could not be turned off until that one was reset. It must have been down in the end of the area where the x-ray department is. At least, that is where the trucks seemed to end up with the firemen standing around outside the open door. The lights were still blinking when we loaded up and left the parking lot.
It was a busy and tiring day today. I enjoyed the children, but there was little time for rest. BingoKid rode the bus to my house when his school was out for the day. There he came swinging himself along up the drive from the main road on his crutches since his foot has all those stitches in it.
Supper for them this day was Burger King and not long after eating they were on their way to their homes. We are beginning the new month off on our best behavior and vacation-like way it would seem. However, if I keep up many more days as these past few, I may not have money to get me and their appetites through the summer month. On the other hand, that may be a good way for us to loose weight if there are no funds for eating out.
Along with the price hike on sodas now that hot weather has come, the price of gasoline is again floating up like a balloon full of hot air. Strange that this past Sunday I was able to top off my tank in the Explorer with plus gas four cents cheaper on the gallon than the regular gas pumped in here in Lenoir. That half tank of plus did as much good with the way the car runs as a full tank would do. This week the price has floated up more ...
June 2, 2000 - Wendy was by here last night on the search for some supplies to help her with serving refreshments for a bridal shower at her house tonight. She left here with the crock pot and some crystal serving pieces which she thought would be enough to carry her through with what she had planned. While she has the shower, the guys will all be here with me.
I left from Quest this morning so very tired, I was not at all sure I would make it home. I had already planned to stop at the fresh air market to pick up some fresh fruits and veggies. I bought a small bag of Bit o’Honey bites at the checkout aisle to see if it would give me a quick lift. It didn’t. I left everything I bought in the car, came in the house, collapsed on the chair and rested for a while. Then I moved on to the bed and rested until Tbird brought the children to stay a few hours while she got her hair permed. I was lucky to have a very tired Giggles that was more than ready to take a nap. The boys watched cartoons and played games on the computer.
Wendy came by and left BingoKid to play with his cousins. She had come from the Groomer’s and had her Pomeranian, Bingo, with her, too. He enjoyed checking out the place to see if anything had changed since he was last here. I told the boys they would have to all stay in the house since it was so hot outdoors. It was up to 95 degrees today and the ozone level was one of the highest levels ever! It’s hard to imagine how we survived those long hot summer days so many years ago when we had no air conditioners or electric fans to cool off the air around us.
MR. SOMEBODY (Yes, I’m sure it was a “he” since “she” hasn’t been down there; nor can she open doors yet.) paid a visit to my basement once again. We noticed an odor and couldn’t find any reason for it upstairs. That was not the case downstairs. The freezer door on the refrigerator had been left open. Every thing had thawed out and molded. The freezer was packed. Most of it was the deer meat that Allan had stored here at the house. The blood from where it had defrosted had run out on the kitchen floor. I didn’t go down there. I took the word of the Boys and Tbird for the condition of the kitchen and felt very fortunate to have children that jumped in to clean up the mess. Fortunately, it didn’t get the new carpet! Wow! The trashmen will have a surprise when they come on Monday after all that meat has a few hot days to ripen out in the sunshine.
Wes had most of the strong arm work of scrubbing up the floor to remove any evidence of the misdeed. I treated him to a supper of his choice (a combination of Japanese steak and chicken) which I picked up for him when I got the boys the pizza. This treat was for BingoKid and BusyKid, but this time we ordered the cheese and one had extra cheese.
Wes was late getting started on working with the new computer. He attempted to move the zip drive since I have been using it so much instead of floppies. Something somewhere, somehow, sometime during the installation went awry. It was freezing up the new computer. Alas, that is what I wanted to leave behind. He will be back tomorrow to see what he can do. The computer shows that it in slot D. It is relating that it is in F - which it is. We have to figure out how to get the two areas together so all will work with precision. Tomorrow is another day. We shall see what it holds for us.
June 3, 2000 - Tomorrow has arrived. The energy level has lagged back stuck in another era , or so it seems. Allen has been in twice this morning. He was surprised when he returned and I was still on the bed. What better place to rest? Wes will be back today - or at least I H O P E he will be here! He left me without a main computer. My old one is disconnected. The new one is stuck between two different places for the Zip drive. Most of what I am moving into the new computer is on the Zip drive as well.
Ugh! I just found a tick crawling on my neck. I literally hate those pesky things! I know the good Lord put them here on Earth for a reason, but it was not to be in the house, or on me! So far this season I’ve only found one on Oreo. I check both dogs several times a day since this is reported to be a year for an over abundance of fleas, ticks and mosquitoes. Perhaps I am the one that needs to use the repellence. On the same line; there have been ten confirmed cases of rabies in our county this year. There is also a program scheduled in the county for children because of an outbreak of robella measles.
I’ll probably end up hooking the laptop computer online to update my journal today. It has been a while since I’ve done that. I notice that the new computer has a plug on the front of it. I bet I can hook the two computers together which would make things easier for me when I’m using the two of them for a project. In fact the laptop came with the necessary connector to use. I just didn’t have an easy access to the other computer.
Almost midday and no savvy computer son has come running in. Wonder if I should call and prod him along? Maybe I will visit with Mother for a while and then call him if he hasn’t made an appearance. I didn’t get over to see her yesterday. So far she hasn’t called this morning. I need to touch base with her to see if she is out of bed yet.
June 4, 2000 - Could it actually be Sunday -again - so soon? Sunday past was only yesterday; or so it seems to me. However, my mind and body signal me that a full week of weeks has been packed into that short span. It was a much too busy week for one who is supposed to be resting and enduring no stress. Whatever that word stress refers to is oft times lost in this world of life that unfolds for me each day. Days that are not necessarily of my direct making or desirings. Certainly days that leave little or no time for boredom or repetitions. Such a thing as being bored in this household is one not allowed to be even whispered as a joke. Even though I have dwindled down to a household of one technically, at no time does this abode show signs of oneness.
Yesterday, by some quirk of fate, I ended up with three active grandsons - alone- again. That quirk happened to be at my own command - or was it really a request? The three didn’t get together until time for BingoKid to leave since he and Dad had been here since about lunchtime as Dad was working on the new computer. (which ended up having windows reinstalled to keep from having to keep searching for the reason my zip would not be accepted by it; which was after a call to the computer company to find out how to get into safe mode to unfreeze it.) Back to the subject; I offered to take BingoKid home after he played awhile with his cousins.
I may have overstepped my sanity a wee tad when I took the three of them together inside The Subway so each could order his own sub for supper. This trip out was my choice since each of them had already had a choice of where to eat this week. We had to wait for a lady who was ordering for a group and she took forever and ever to get her order, what with the management being on the slow side of working at creating each masterpiece for her. The boys used this time to practice karate-type kicks and moves on each other, plus some other things that any average active boy would be tempted to do when time hangs heavy around. I finally sat down to wait. I thought of loading up and leaving, but we were right beside the nursing home and I planned to take them in to visit Mother as we devoured our subs. They each chose foot-long subs which took no time for them to inhale. My six-inch turkey took much longer as I savored each bite. From there we made a brief stop at BingoKid’s house so they could play for another short while. I got the other two boys home just in time for their parents to pick them up to go home.
This morning I met my aunt at McD’s, where I had an apple bran muffin and decaf coffee. The muffin was fat-free, but also large. It was too large for me to eat it all. So far, it seems that breakfast this morning was probably healthier for me and more in line with what I should be eating than what I had last Sunday morning. Guess we should stick to meeting here each Sunday to start out our day.
Many at church this morning were upset about the death of a young mother, her small child and twins she was carrying. She ran a stop sign, wrecked and her van caught fire. This was the wife of a man whose father died very unexpectedly only six months ago. These things are never easy to accept. I can’t say I understand why. I can only feel the sadness, pray for those left to mourn, and recall some of what my own family experienced June 5, 1975, when we lost a father and husband as he played ball ... no one is ever really ready ... yet, it happens and life goes on for the others ...
This afternoon I took my trusty new nail kit and proceeded over to spend time with Mother and redo her nails. They still look fine, but she needed the uplift. She wants to come home. She wants to sit at the machine and sew. She wants to keep her great granddaughter. She wants to be her old self again. I can only wonder; is it better to leave her to dream and be irritated with me for not bringing her home, or would it be better to bring her home to visit and burst her bubble of dreams of doing things as she used to do? She was in bed this afternoon, again. It was difficult for her to manage to reach the curtain to pull it back to where she could watch for her supper to come. Her supper came, but it had chicken on it. I had to have them fix her some tomato soup to eat. I fed her most of her supper. She eats better if someone is there to help her along. I can’t be there that often. She reminded me that she wants to go home as I walked out the door - - again.
A new week has begun.
June 5, 2000 - Elsie Dawg enjoyed a stint of freedom this afternoon. Her chain was on her and it was not broken or undone. I’m not sure how she got loose, but she ran around some without getting the chain caught on anything as she sniffed for rabbits along the thickets around the back of the house and along the field. Allan caught her before I took him to pick up his truck to bring back to the house.
Life works in mysterious ways at times. Mother had her fair share of phone calls to the house this afternoon. No, she didn’t begin calling until around one. Her final call was around seven. Seems the kitchen failed to send her a tray for supper this evening. She hadn’t bothered to tell anyone at the center, instead she called my brother who told her he was tired and for her to call me since I lived closer. She wanted some pizza because she hadn’t eaten much of her lunch and no supper. I had her to push her button and tell them she didn’t get a tray. Then I thought that I hadn’t been over today and since she was lonely, I would get her a pizza since they are on special on Mondays and made the call to order one. She calls to say that they will bring her something from the kitchen. I tell her I will bring her some pizza anyway.
For years I would not drive on the road that runs in front of the Community Center where my husband was playing softball the evening he died. Lately, I have been making the shortcut through there more and more often. Tonight as I drove by the Community Center, all the outdoor lights were on and all the ball fields were full with games being played. My mind flashed back through all the years and for an instant the fields were dark and silent. There sat the family van, alone, in the parking lot. As I unlocked the driver’s door to climb in and drive it home, I felt under the seat and there was his billfold along with the necklace which may have made a difference in how the day ended. He didn’t wear his Medical ID showing that he was diabetic that evening. In the excitement, the team forgot to mention it to the hospital staff. He was treated for over-exertion and filled with glucose. That was not the proper way to go. I come back to the present time. Yes, today was the date. Some memories never leave. Twenty-five years today and nothing was ever the same.
Mother was glad to get the pizza. Some way, her meal card had been put on the window sill and overlooked when supper was assembled earlier. The tray sitting beside her had a box of cereal, a banana, milk, coffee and she was munching on vanilla wafers. She ate three slices of the pizza and I brought home the rest for BingoKid to eat tomorrow afternoon. (I look for him to come over after school. He was asking if I would be home.) Mother and I sat and talked as I located her ballgame on the TV for her and she downed the pizza slices. She had three cardinals at the birdfeeder I noticed as I was leaving. I wonder if she can watch them anymore, or if her eyesight no longer allows her to see that far. In her mind’s eye she can do a lot of things, but is slow to acknowledge the failures of each day.
June 6, 2000 - All right now, Ma Jeanne! Pull yourself together and get with it. Enough of this slowness and dilly-dallying around. There is much to be done that is not getting accomplished. THAT ROOM which will one day be the crafts/computer center of the house must be worked on. You CAN do it! Perchance a swift kick to get me moving would be a help. Then again, it could prove to slow me down even more if I were to lose my balance. There is a mountain of clothes to be folded as well. How the mountain continues to grow I will never know for sure. This time there is definitely an over abundance of blankets and towels. I’ve dragged my feet getting things back to order since Cotton was here, I suppose.
At least, I have a chance to make all five of my water classes this week. I hope nothing changes to make me miss one again for quite a while. I signed up for a class on Stress this morning. It will be next week. Thursday, I will also be taking Charlie and Oreo to be groomed again.
All right now! Who in the world was it that planted that little seed in my mind earlier today that I should push a little harder? Well, I certainly didn’t mean to go and over do it! How was I to know that I would over extend myself with the pretense of doing better? That was not the intention However, by some quirk of my nature, during my morning water works I extended a little too far while working with the water dumbbells. This day I made them live up to the word dumb by trying to put a little more energy in the push and pull through the water. In so doing, I ended up by pulling the muscle in my left back that is affected by turning my head and by moving my left arm. In a nutshell, I confined myself to a day of not being able to do much of anything that included movement. Evening has come and I feel a little better, but still unable to move about. Tbird called to see if I would keep the kids this afternoon. I was unable to care for Giggles, but I made a pact with the boys that they could spend the night, if they agreed to help me along the way. It’s sort of nice to have them here to take my mind away from myself.
Charlie Dog, Master at escaping through the unlatched storm doors of late, again made himself disappear from the house. He allowed the overgrown puppy from the neighbor’s house to chase him around the yard and house. I thought he was ready to come through the door to safety, but one look at the distance between him and the black puppy ten times his size, and he was off around the house again. All too soon the pup was tired out, but Charlie still had some investigating to take care off. I lured him back inside with some cornbread crumbs after his free spree for the day.
I felt a pain of sadness for yet another neighbor out looking for her lost dog. It was difficult to tell her it was probably the dog we saw beside the road yesterday morning that had been hit by a car. I sent her to talk with Allie, who had stopped and talked with the man who’s car was ran into by the dog, breaking his headlamp with the impact. I would like to think it was not her dog, but the description sounded very much like that one. Only yesterday, Elsie Dawg dragged her own chain around enjoying the freedom for a short spell. Thank goodness we have room for running that is a safe distance from the road, unlike that neighbor who lives between the boulevard and our road..
Tomorrow I plan to get back into the water. I will try to be more cautious as I stretch, reach, pull and push. That mountain of clothes has not diminished in size this day. If anything, a piece or two more was thrown on top of the heap. I only talked with Mother three times today on the phone and that was after lunch.
June 7, 2000 - And if I were counting, I would have to say that I seem to remember having eleven calls from Mother throughout today, but then again, who is counting! Two of the calls were messages waiting for me when I returned from Quest this morning. he was having to dial three and four times, or more to get me for each call because she was either dialing the wrong number or not getting all the numbers dialed. Wonder what the people who got the wrong number calls thought! Surely, she was not getting the same number each time.
NascarKid and DynoKid stayed with me last night. Since they have no cable television at their house, they would intent on watching a cartoon on the cartoon network late last night. Amazingly, they stayed awake to watch it together - on my bed. I traipsed over to Mother’s bed for a better night’s rest on her geriatric mattress. It actually does rest better than my own which is newer. Whiled they took in cartoons and the computer, I watched a little TV myself. There was a segment on the brain and some studies of damage following strokes. It interested me. There were things mentioned that I related to over and over. Yet, today, I am unable to relate what it was that I was relating to. Bottom line; there are reasons for me being and doing some things as I do now. They are things that are common with people who have experienced strokes. They did explain about constriction of blood vessels cutting off the blood supply to areas of the brain which is what happened in my case. There was no clot. Then today, I spoke with a lady who has begun to exercise with us in the water this week. I was encouraging her to keep coming back. She also has been having mini-strokes along with diabetic problems. We were able to relate on many of the same experiences as we visited together after our class. We got a good laugh about how people are always helping us by supplying words when the right one will not come to mind as we have conversations. Surprisingly, I am able to type and think mentally without the hesitations and forgetfulness I endure when communicating verbally. It’s as if there is a moat around a castle and at times the bridge is drawn up unexpectedly cutting off anyone entering the castle. The words are there, just out of reach, yet not close enough to be a part of the rest of the words of a sentence or thought.
Our county is having a campaign for vaccinating for rubella (measles) because of an outbreak within the county. Strangely, Wendy was at the Health Department to get a vaccination for it just last week because it was required for her school enrollment for the summer. They refused to give it to her, now note this: because she was attending a two year college instead of a four year college. What does that have to do with getting rubella? She had the statement from her doctor that she had not had the measles or mumps and was a likely candidate for catching the disease. What does education have to do with it? She went back to a doctor yesterday who called the health department and sent her back to get the shot from them, which they did on the second visit. Then today, they announce an “All-out approach for reaching the people to immunize them again Rubella!” What a difference one day can make.
I made it to the water this morning sporting two very sleepy boys. I was not about to let them keep me from my agenda for the morning. One had breakfast; one did not. One was grumpy; one was not. It was easy to see how eating a little in the morning made a difference. NascarKid was beginning to get hungry before I got him back to the house for his biscuit and bacon I fixed for him early this morning. In fact, he opened some of the sugar packets laying out for those needing it for coffee and ate the sugar while I talked with my new found friend. DynoKid was ready for another bowl of oatmeal by the time we got home. OOPS! I let it slip out which was which.
Dad came about mid afternoon to take them home. They only spent a short time with their cousin who rode the bus from school to my house again today. I took him for some pizza for his supper before stopping to let him buy a six pack of cokes for Mother and running them in to her. I felt too washed out to do the running and waited in the car. I didn’t even get out of the car at his house when I took him home. BusyKid came in the car through the window to visit with me while I spoke with his Dad for a few minutes; a few minutes that will no doubt end up costing me a bunch of money. He took that few minutes to check the transmission fluid in the car for me. It is not the pinkish color it should be, but instead it reminds me of ground up graphite. He’s making an appointment to get it checked out for me. Meanwhile I have decided to drive my truck until it is fixed. I’m tired of the check engine light popping off and on.
Problems seem to breed more problems. Why can’t life move along without the ups and downs turning into seemingly more downs than ups? Then again how would I know it was a good day or occasion, if there was not a downer to relate it to? Least ways, I would hope and pray that my investments find an up to make up for the downs of this past three months! It’s scary to think that those small numbers seen going up and down in the stocks each day are affecting all of us much more than we may realize in many parts of our lives. Than again, that is only an indication of how our lives gyrate through our years on earth.
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©2000 by Stormy Jeanne
