Things To Be Thankful For While Waiting...And Waiting

As you know, I am very careful about checking to make sure my keys are in my purse before I lock the car, and actually have to touch them again when I get out of the car and close the door.  Except when I don't.

I don't know!  I was at a store.  I saw that I had been overcharged.  I grabbed the item.  I grabbed the receipt.  I grabbed my purse. I did not grab my keys.  I clicked the button to lock the car.  I went back in the store.

They were very nice and refunded the difference that I had paid, but when I left the store and reached into my purse for the keys, no keys.  Of course, they were not in my purse, they were in the ignition of the car.  So, as it turned out, I had plenty of time to reflect on my blessings while I waited for the locksmith.  Here are some of the things I am thankful for:

I'm thankful that the store I was at had a sofa display in their entry and I had a comfortable seat to wait where I could see the car, even though the manager did come out and look at me a couple of times but I explained the situation and he said "Don't worry about it, people do it all the time," but then a homeless-looking guy came and sat down and read the paper but he didn't stay as long as I did.

I'm thankful I had my purse with me, which had my phone in it, and that my purse has a long handle which I could wrap around my arm three times and then kind of sit on it, even though the area I was in is very nice and no purse snatchers seemed to be lurking.  Of course they wouldn't look like they were lurking, would they?  They would make themselves look like regular people, then at the last second...SWOOSH!...they've got your purse.

I'm thankful it wasn't freezing outside like it was the day before because that entry way wasn't heated and even though they had some blankets on sale they had not displayed them in the entry way.

I'm thankful my daughter-in-law and sister were home so I could have somebody to talk to on the phone while I waited because the people coming in and out of the store didn't seem to want to chat.

I'm thankful Big Lots has a bathroom right in front of their entryway, even though the person who cleans it probably had not gotten to it yet because he was busy restocking shelves and changing price signs on the shelves because the reason that I got the good deal on the phone charger I bought was that the sign was still up from Black Friday, apparently, but the computer had changed the price although they honored it anyway when I went back inside to tell them I was overcharged.  Without taking my keys with me.

I'm thankful I didn't have a doctor's appointment to go to that I was going to be late for since I was spending my time lounging on the couch in the entryway of Big Lots, and that I had already dropped Dennis off at work instead of stopping at the store on the way because if I had, he would have been wa-a-y late for work and he gets a little testy when we are running late to get him to work.  Sheesh!  It's not like he punches a time clock or anything!

I'm thankful there were no bears loping around the parking lot looking in the windows or walking in front of the invisible beam that lets people in the doors because I have seen some on TV that do that.

I'm thankful we have roadside assistance even if they were very busy and couldn't get to me for an hour and when the guy got there he had to spend more time on the paperwork than he it took him to unlock the car and it was kind of disturbing that someone who knows what they were doing could get into the car that fast.  But he didn't look like he spent his off-time stealing cars.  He looked very nice. Really.  But he may have gotten my address when he was doing the paperwork.

I am NOT thankful for the greedy executives at automobile manufacturers who had the bright idea to make their car keys so that they may not be reproduced under penalty of your car shutting down if you try to insert a made-from-Ace Hardware-key in the key slot so if you want an extra key you have to buy it from them and pay half a month's mortgage payment for it.  I just want one to keep in my wallet to open the door so I can get my real keys from the ignition if I ever lock them in the car.  Which I never do.

The Perfect Guest

Okay, I know Thanksgiving is over and everyone but me has the house cleaned, all their Christmas decorations up and is sitting by the fireplace drinking hot chocolate, but just so you will be ready for next year, I'm going to tell you how to have a relaxing Thanksgiving dinner.

Go to someone else's house and be a guest. You have to be a semi-stranger guest, so that when you say "Is there anything I can do to help?" They say, "Oh, no. Things are almost ready. Just stay seated." Then eat everything till your pants are ready to split and your hostess will feel complimented. The only flaw in this plan is that there are no leftovers for lunch the next day.

The other way is almost as good. Have the dinner at your house but invite someone like my daughter-in-law, Jerilyn, to come early, and let her help. She will wind up doing almost all the work. You just say, "The turkey is always so good at your house. How is it you fix it?" and she will prepare the turkey. Then you say, "Everybody loves your dressing so much. Why don't you just make it here?" and she will.

Then, since she is already in the kitchen, she will probably stir things on the stove, mix up casseroles, make the gravy, (especially when you say "I absolutely love your gravy and you know I can never make it as good as you do!" ) and get things on the table. You can get the dishes down because you know where they are and she is busy. Except the ones that are up too high. She will stop what she's doing and reach the top shelf for you.

If the kids are big enough, you can get them to clear the table when dinner is over, but then when everybody has scattered to watch football or play video games, your special guest will stay in the kitchen with you and help with the dishes. She will scrape the plates and hand them to you to load into the dishwasher since no one else can load your dishwasher the right way and you always move things around anyway if someone else put them in. But she will probably put soap and water in the sink and hand wash the things that are too big for the dishwasher and scrub the really tough ones till she breaks a fingernail. And she'll wipe down the counters.

And then, if you are really lucky, she will whip the cream, get everybody their desserts, cut a piece of pie and hand it to you and say, "Go sit down and put your feet up.  You've been working all day."

You've got eleven months to decide who you are going to invite next year, so get planning.  And, no, you can't have Jerilyn. She's mine!

Mutiny on the...(I was going to say Brownty, but that's too cheesy even for me.)

Just as I was settling down into this calm, empty nest and feeling pretty smug about surviving the Terrible Twos and the Angst-ridden Adolescents, just when I thought I was finished dealing with my share of the rebellion in this world, suddenly, in my twilight years, when things are supposed to be smooth, with no more foot-stomping "I do it by self!", with no more eye-rolling "Whatever!", I am now faced with the most insidious battle of all:  The Belligerent Brows.

What happened?  I look in the mirror and apparently Andy Rooney left me his eyebrows in his will! His white ones! There are some that are three inches long. The ones that are not making little corkscrews are reaching for my earlobes.  

There are black ones too.  I've never had black eyebrows before in my life! To think I wasted all those years trying to perfect little strokes with eyebrow pencils and brush-on eyebrow powder in an attempt to transform my pale blond eyebrows into visible ones.  But are they the nice, silky smooth dark eyebrows I longed for as a girl?  No-o-o.  These are the consistency of a broom straw and just as straight.  They poke horizontally out at the world.

No problem, you say.  Grab those eyebrow tweezers.  But here is another irony of middle, okay past-middle, age.  To see up close enough to pluck my eyebrows I need reading glasses.  If I am wearing reading glasses, I can't reach my eyebrows to pluck them. 

I try a magnifying mirror.  OH MY GOSH!  That is way more than I wanted to see!

So now I'm faced with a dillema:  Do I pluck out all these rebellious eyebrows that will not lie down or smooth out?  Every one?  Because if I do, I will be bald there. There is nothing left but bristle brows. The eyebrows of my youth have disappeared. Well, maybe they have not totally disappeared.  I think they flew south.

I might have I spotted them on my upper lip the other day.

Meet Gus

Gus, the Wonder Yorkie has come to believe that I am the source of all that is good, or at least the source of his food and water, and the daily home-made treat, and occasional chew toy.  He loves me.  If I am sitting, he is in my lap.  He wants to be with me wherever I am, will follow me from room to room, and will dash ahead of me so that he can reach the bathroom before the door is closed, then lie patiently on the bath mat and wait, unless he can talk me into holding him.

He always helps me in the kitchen by hanging around under the cutting board to catch whatever I drop, then runs to the rug (being the aristocratic dog that he is, he prefers to eat in the dining area) where he sometimes eats it, sometimes leaves it till later.  He has even been known to gobble down broccoli or peppers or lettuce.  His favorite place in the kitchen is in front of the open dishwasher door when I am loading it.  If there is a spatula or a spoon still holding remnants of dinner, he does his best to lick it clean.  (Stop  making that face.  The water in the dishwasher is way hot enough to sterilize anything he licks.)

When I leave the house, he makes a big show of sitting obediently on the carpet where I tell him to wait, then, when he hears the car pulling into the gararge, runs back to that same spot, pretending he has been there all along.  But he only stays there for the moment it takes for him to think he has fooled me.  In a nano-second, he is running and jumping and turning in circles till I pick him up, as glad to see me as if I were the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes crew bringing a giant check with a promise of five-thousand dog bones a week for life.

Come bedtime he snuggles into the "nest" I make him by folding our comforter into a big pile, and gently snores for an hour or two, but soon  he  decides to move and tiptoes across the bed to a better spot: against the back of my legs, where my lap would be if I would just stop that silly sleeping thing and sit up so he could curl into in his usual spot.  He makes up for the difference by pushing against me as tightly as he can, like a night time hug.
  
Who couldn't adore such a dog?

He does, however, have just one tiny flaw. When he is confronted with a beautiful woman, er, female dog, he forgets that he was neutered years ago and attempts to impress her by hiking his leg on the nearest wall or piece of furniture, or perhaps any purses he spots on the floor nearby. It does not impress the humans who own the wall or the furniture or the purse.

And so, when Gus goes visiting, he must suffer the humiliation of wearing a diaper.  Not those tiny dog diapers that cost fifty dollars apiece, or thereabouts, and slide off at the slightest wiggle.  No, Gus wears a a real baby diaper that wraps around his middle, covering any offending parts, and then on top of that, to make sure the diaper doesn't come off, because he is a very resourceful Yorkie, a onesie.  Not a silly doggie dress, a real baby onesie, size nine months.  The three tiny snaps at the bottom are perfect for holding it on him and still leaving room for his stump of a tail to hang out.

Here is Gus's picture in his onesie.  If you are ever lucky enough to meet him, don't tell him I showed it to you.  As you can see, he is embarrassed enough when he wears it.

If The Shoe Fits...

Okay, who among you wears those crazy shoes that are as tall as the Eiffel Tower and cost about as much?

My curiosity got the better of me the other day at Marshall's and I pulled out my tape measure right there in the shoe department and checked to see how tall the heels were on a pair of....umm, lets call them...amazing, blue shoes I saw.  The heels were five inches tall and then there was an inch of platform under the toe box.  I guess they had to add that part in front or you would fall forward onto your face every time you tried to take a step.

I know I'm an old lady and I wear old lady shoes, so maybe I just don't get it, but....Why?  Not only are shoes like that impossible to walk in but they are ruining your feet in the long run, killing them in the short....walk. Or, make that stumble.  And here's a newsflash:  some of them make the wearer look like a hooker.  Sorry, but that's my humble, okay, not so humble, opinion.

So I went home and looked online.  I found some so tall that you would have to wear them like ballet point-shoes.  Can you imagine walking around on the tips of your big toes all day?  Do these look attractive to you?  Am I that out of it?

And guess what??  Tonight on the news I saw a report that some women are having surgery, their toes shortened or their pinkie toes REMOVED, to be able to wear their own personal torture chambers.  Are you kidding me???  Where is their self-esteem?  Where is their common sense?

Here is what I think, girls: The Emperor Has No Clothes!  Just because something is in fashion, just because something costs a whole month's pay, just because somebody says something is the latest "must have", does not make it beautiful.

Less than a century ago young Chinese girls were horribly deformed and crippled by foot binding because it was thought to make them beautiful.  Does that ring a bell?

Ladies, please!  Just walk away....if you can.

Just Sittin' There

On Facebook lately there have been several posts from young moms who are celebrating successful potty training, some including pictures.  Yay!  Cue the balloons!  I am so happy for them.  But for every one who's genius child finally "gets it", there are five sets of parents out there in dispare, convinced that their kid is going to have to take his diapers to school in his backpack.

I hear that some people will give an M&M for a successful performance on the potty.  One M&M!  Come on!  No wonder it's taking awhile. When I was baby-sitting one of my grandkids every day and her mother decided it was time to work on potty-training, at Grandma's house she got a whole Hershey bar when she did something extraordinary! (The grandkid, not the mom)

Here's my take on it.  I think every child has a date embedded in his brain.  If the parents start trying to potty-train him or her six months before that day, they will think it takes six months for potty-training and they will believe this is a hard and fast rule for all children.  If, by some miracle, the parents happen to start training their child the day before the pre-ordained date, they will think,  "Wow!  We are great parents.  We potty-trained our kid in only one day!"

Sometimes the little darling just isn't ready.  I am not naming names, since I want to still have access to my grandchildren after this is posted, but I know a child who was so enamored of his potty chair when he was two, that when it was time for his dad to get home from work, he would carry the chair outside with him and sit on it while he waited by the driveway.  And he brought it into the living room when we, I mean, his parents, were having a church Youth Group meeting and sat on it in the middle of the circle.

The other child in that family did not get the message quite as early.  While the mom was not too disturbed by this, his grandmother was mortified.  She said, "Any child who can tell you he wants his diaper changed....and bring you the diaper!!!...is old enough to do it himself."

But, his pediatrician said, "I guarantee you he will not be taking diapers to kindergarten with him.  Leave him alone!"

And the kid said, when pressed by his grandmother, "Jesus doesn't want me to."

Then that special, pre-ordained day came along.  His aunt gave him a package of Spider Man underwear for Christmas.  He laid down his diapers and never looked back.  I'm pretty sure that if they made Spider Man underwear in his size, he'd still be wearing them today.

Take heart.  It will happen when it happens.

Celebrity Sightings

One time in the St. Louis airport I saw the guy who played Mr. Carlin, one of the people in Bob Newhart's therapy group on the Bob Newhart Show, the old one, when he was married to Emily.  I was in a quandary about what to do.  On the one hand, I thought it was cool to see him, but on the other, I didn't want to disturb him, but then again, since he wasn't a big star or anything, maybe he would have enjoyed being recognized, but by the time I thought through all that, he was gone.  You can see how confusing it is.

I hear celebrities complain about the paparazzi and they have no privacy and the guy who was in those Twilight movies was just on the news saying he had been in a depression for three years because he couldn't go anywhere without being recognized.  Excuse me?  Three and a half years ago was he not begging anybody who would talk to him to put him in a movie or something so he could be famous?

When we lived in California I thought we ought to be seeing movie stars right and left, walking down the streets or at the beach, but it didn't happen.  I guess maybe they didn't hang out at the same places we did, although once I saw some guy that looked really familiar----I am sure he played the bad guy in a bunch of movies, but I never figured out his name----at the KFC.  I guess he was a minor player, to be picking up his own bucket of chicken and all.  The big stars have people for that.

Here in Oklahoma, seeing somebody famous is even less likely, even though Christen Chenoweth is from Broken Arrow, where we live, and went to high school here and maybe when our grand kids get up there they can see where her locker was or something, but really, what kind of people go around looking for "stars" and stuff?  People need to get a life, is all I have to say about that!

Of course, when it is foisted upon you, what can you do?  Awhile back Dennis and I were just leaving McDonald's after breakfast when we saw a huge, fancy looking bus filling up at the gas station right across from us.  And on the front, where the destination usually is, on that sign above the front windshield, you know?  There in big letters it said "DEMI  LOVATO".  Really! 

Of course, I wouldn't know Demi Lovato if she looked right at me, (I thought it was the girl from "iCarly" but our granddaughter, Hayley, said that was somebody else)  but I remembered hearing Hayley talk about her.  Anyway, of course I had to turn around and go back and take a picture of the front of the bus.  For our granddaughter, of course. And then, I thought, "What the heck?" and I went around and up the steps and into the bus!!!  Can you believe it?  In case I could get an autograph.  For the grand kids.

There was somebody sitting in the driver's seat and I said "Pardon me.  Is this Demi Lovato's bus?" (like I hadn't just taken a picture of the name on the front)  And he said "No, this is her cousin's bus.  Her cousin isn't here either, but Miss Lovato supplies her with this bus.  You can take pictures if you want."  So, I did!

Imagine! Me!  I was on Demi Lovato's cousin's bus!!!  You can touch my hand next time you see me if you want. I might grace you with an autograph.

Birthday, Umm...Pastry

First, I would like to say that I make very good pies.  People have even been known to request that I bring pies that I have made to holiday meals.  I make my own crust, and while my pies may not be as beautiful as the ones you see in magazines, they are quite tasty.  So in the future, if I am responsible for the dessert on a birthday occasion, you just might be getting a pie instead of the traditional cake. 

Regular readers may be familiar with some of my other forays into cake making, and really, that angel food cake I made for my daughter-in-law's birthday last year tasted perfectly fine, even the parts we scraped off the oven racks when it erupted from the pan and ran all over the oven.  It was the presentation that was a little bit lacking.  I may try something else for her birthday this year, though.

It's just that birthdays are supposed to have cakes, normally.  I had been trying different cakes for our son, Jake's birthday for quite awhile, (He doesn't like chocolate.  I don't know where he came from.) so a few years  ago when I stumbled onto a recipe for pumpkin cake I figured he would like it because he loves pumpkin pie. (See?  That should tell me something.) In the picture it looked pretty impressive because there are four layers with gooey filling.  The first time I made it, it turned out great. 

The last couple of years, maybe not so much.  You have to make the cake in two layers, then you slice those layers into four.  Nobody tells you how to slice them evenly, and it's not like trimming bangs where you can just keep taking more off the sides, so when one side of the layer that you have sliced is about the depth of an envelope and the other side is a couple inches tall, you have to remember which side of the first layer is skinny and which side is fat and try to turn them opposite each other to line them up with the next layer.  Are you with me?  Then you slap the filling on, plop the next layer on that and keep going till there are four layers.  While it is still gooey you might be able to kind of twist the layers to try to even them up, but that doesn't always work. (Don't think I haven't heard some people, who shall remain nameless, calling it the Leaning Tower of  Cake, either.) But it still tastes good.

Which brings us to this year's cake.  Jake's birthday fell on a Tuesday, which is the day Dennis usually only works a couple of hours, so when I take him to work I just wait for him since it's a thirty minute drive.  I got up early, made the cake, (which I took over to my neighbor's to bake in her oven, but that's a whole other story) and figured I could do the slicing into four layers and make the filling in the afternoon when we got home.  Of course!  For the first time since I started just waiting for him, Dennis wound up working all day while I sat outside and totally finished my library book.

By the time he came out we barely had time to get to the restaurant in time to meet Jake and his family for his birthday dinner.  I left them finishing up, in fact, and dashed home, bringing my granddaughter, Hayley with me, to finish up the cake.  I called out directions and Hayley opened Cool Whip and cream cheese and mixed them with the pumpkin while I sliced the layers.  I was just finishing putting the top layer of cake on top of the gooey stuff as Jake and the rest of the family came in the door.

That's when I licked my fingers.  That's also when I realized that I had forgotten to add the sugar.  "Oh, no!" I said, with dismay.

"Oh, yay!"  Hayley said, with great joy. "Another cake disaster!  It's a tradition!"

I definitely am going to start figuring out how to get birthday candles to stand up in a pie crust.

The Square Blue Car

Before there were mini-vans or SUVs, there was the Volkswagen Bus, which was basically a mini-van.  The smaller version was called a Volkswagen Square-back.  It was our first second car.

Dennis and I had just moved to California and you have to have a car in California, if just to appreciate the freeway system.  On our trip to look for a house we rented a car.  Even though we were used to St. Louis traffic, nothing prepares you for driving in Los Angeles.  We had often been in bumper-to-bumper traffic.  Driving seventy miles per hour was no big deal, either.  It was the bumper-to-bumper traffic WHILE driving seventy miles per hour that was terrifying.

Nevertheless, I had to have a car, so after we got settled in our new city we went to the car dealer recommended by people at Dennis's new job and came home with the cutest car they had.  (Well, it was my first car!)  It was not the newest car on the lot, or the biggest, but it was blue and I liked it.

We lived in Fountain Valley, south of Los Angeles and about twenty minutes from Disneyland, and the first year we lived there we went to Disneyland thirteen times.  At first we went to experience it for ourselves but after that we were tour guides for every friend and relative who came to visit and, of course, Disneyland was first on the list of must-sees.  Since Dennis was often working, I got to take everybody in my blue Volkswagen Square-back.

It only had a few little quirks.  First, the headlights didn't work.  As you know, I rarely drive at night since I don't see well in the dark, so that didn't pose a problem.  If we went out at night Dennis drove us in his car.  The other thing was that the windshield wipers didn't work either.  Or rather, they did work.  They just wouldn't turn off once you turned them on.  No matter that any rain might have stopped twenty minutes before, the wipers went back and forth, back and forth ad nauseam until you turned the car off.  And often they went right back to chugging along when you turned the car on again if the time lag was not to their liking.

This usually wasn't a problem because California was in a drought at the time and we didn't even find out about the wiper thing until long after we had the car.  Our friend at church, who was somewhat of a mechanic, said the lack of lights and the wayward wipers were probably part of the same short in the electrical system.  That made sense, but still, I didn't worry about it because neither problem came up often.

And then, the Perfect Storm occurred.  My sister and her two sons, about eight and eleven at the time, came through on their way home from Tokyo.  Of course we had to go to Disneyland.  Dennis had to work, so it was the four of us in the square blue car.  Disneyland was as much fun as usual.  We went on Space Mountain.  We rode the Teacups.  We climbed into the faux rowboat and ducked down to hide from the Pirates of the Caribbean.  It was all rides, all the time, several times.  (Prices were considerably less back then.)  And all of a sudden, we realized the sun was setting.

Like four kinds of Cinderellas (well, it was Disneyland!) we made a dash, not for our pumpkin coach, but for the square blue car, and headed into the dusk.  All around us people were turning on their headlights.  The best I could do was turn on the emergency flashers.  Oh, wait.  In my hurry to find the flashers I hit the windshield wiper knob.  So, off we went, flashers flashing, windshield wipers wiping, and every car we encountered blinking its lights at us to let us know the headlights weren't on.  The twenty minute ride from Anaheim to Fountain Valley seemed like a hundred and twenty.  My sister, ever supportive, scrunched down in the passenger seat with just her eyes showing, trying to help navigate without being seen.  Like anybody from Tokyo was going to recognize her!  I have no idea how we managed to make that drive without being stopped by a police car.  But the boys thought it was the most fun ride they were on all day!

When we moved from Fountain Valley we left the blue car behind and I got a square-ish orange Nissan.  The lights worked and the windshield wipers turned off when ordered to do so.  The only quirk it had was that it backfired like a cannon going off every time I drove it on the freeway.  Hey, you can't have everything.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

     Saturday night was my favorite night of all the year. Make that: Sunday morning was my favorite morning. Well, not counting Christmas morning. It was Time Change Sunday. The Fall Back one, where you get an extra hour of sleep. (The Spring one is my least favorite day.) I always think I am going to lounge around in bed on Time Change Sunday, maybe even have time to eat breakfast before we leave for church, but the night before I kept thinking "Hey, I can finish this chapter, we get an extra hour's sleep tonight." And, "Just a few more minutes on Facebook. We get an extra hour sleep tonight." So by the time I got to bed it was more than an hour later than usual.
     And then there was the changing of the clocks. Who knew we had so many clocks? It turns out we have a clock of some sort in every room including the bathrooms, and sometimes two. There are three in the kitchen when you count the wall clock, the microwave and the oven. The round clocks with hands (there's a word for them, but if I ever get on Jeopardy and it is one of the questions, I'll be losing money,) aren't too bad, although my fingers got kind of numb after turning and turning those little knobs in back. The computers and phones and even my alarm clock change by themselves, which is kind of spooky. Some year I'm going to stay up until---is it one a.m. that they are supposed to change?---and watch to see what happens.
     It's the digital clocks, the ones that are supposed to be so easy, that take me forever. On my husband's alarm clock you have to hold down one button for "hour" and push another button through all the numbers till you get to the right one, but of course I pass it and have to go around again, which is why, especially in the fall when you have to keep going, like, eleven hours, it takes forever. Then you have to do the same thing with the "minute" button.
     The oven and the microwave clock, digital, of course, drive me craziest. That is, if you don't count the fact that I keep thinking about the electronic ones changing by themselves and what other stuff are they doing in there that I don't know about and how much do they know about me anyway and----where was I? Oh, yeah. Trying to get those stupid numbers to match. The microwave is right on top of the oven so you can see both clocks at once, so first I change the one on the oven, but by the time I get the numbers right on it, then go to the microwave and push the "clock" button, hold it down while the numbers change, then push "clock" again. Then push "a.m. or p.m." (Who cares? They are the same numbers!) By then it is a minute later on the oven clock and I have to start over on one of them. They have to match or I can't stand it.
     Don't let me get started on the clock in the dashboard of the car. Every six months I go through the whole house on Saturday night changing all the clocks, then the next morning when we get in the car to go to church, the time is wrong. And stays wrong for about a week. Who can find those teeny-tiny buttons to change that thing anyway? I am always tempted to try to do it while I'm driving which, safety-wise, would make texting and driving seem like being parked. It takes an ink pen, or an ice pick, or a little person with fingers the size of toothpicks.
     By the time I had finished with all the clocks I was exhausted and really needing that extra hour although I had already wasted it resetting clocks. But at least I went to bed knowing I was going to get to sleep till it was daylight.

Except I forgot to tell the dog about the time change.

Living on the Edge

     Years ago I thought it might be really neat to become an Efficiency Expert when I grew up. This was before I figured out that there was probably math involved, so I went another direction.
     The concept still fascinates me, though, and I try to do as many things as I can in the most economical way possible. The way I see it is this: the more time I save on the unimportant, the more time I have for other things. If  I'm going to waste time, I want it to be a really enjoyable waste of time, like sleeping late, or laying around reading a book and watching junk TV.
     I started this program way back in High School, maybe even Junior High (that's what we called it back in the middle of last century. None of this Middle School nonsense.) If I was given an assignment that was due in a week, I never spent time messing with it ahead of time. The night before, I put in an all-out effort, probably spent about half the amount of hours on it as if I had done an hour a day, and, voila!, it was done. I didn't even waste time sleeping much that night.
     These days some people that live in this house don't appreciate my great saving of time and even give it other names, like "Procrastination" or "Deliberately Driving People Crazy." They say things like "When you are supposed to be somewhere at nine o'clock, you can't leave here at nine o'clock and expect to get there on time!" And, I'm ashamed to admit it about someone I love, but this person has even been known to lie about what time a plane is taking off. Can you believe it? How much time is wasted by people arriving early to places and then sitting around waiting for all the other people to get there, anyway?
     And what about things like housework?  I could do it everyday, and it will just have to be done again the next day or so, or I can wait until I know someone is going to come over and all of a sudden, I'm Super-Martha and can get it all done in about an hour. Most of it, anyway. At least what's out in the open. Now which is the best use of time?
     Think of all the time people waste doing things and undoing the same things and then doing them again. Like making the bed. You're just going to get right back in. Or getting dressed. When my boys were little and we had to be someplace early in the morning, I got them dressed the night before, let them sleep in their clothes, then took them right from the bed to the car, handed them a peanut-butter sandwich to eat on the way, and off we went. I don't know why everybody doesn't save time like this.
     And filling the car up with gas. I'm not too fond of doing it, so I do it as infrequently as possible, thus saving aggravation as well as time. Okay, I may cut it a little close sometimes.  Like today, you know that little indicator thing above the rear-view mirror? It said we had five miles more to go before empty, but it was really more efficient to stop and get the bread first, even though it was a couple of miles out of the way because then after we got gas we could head straight home. But that indicator thing kept nagging me and it did say "Zero miles to empty" about a mile before I got to the right gas station. The van has a twenty gallon tank and the pump said I put in twenty and four/tenths gallons, which is the most I've ever put in before, but we got there didn't we? Some people get so nervous!
     I'm really more professional than some people give me credit for. There is a business model called Just In Time that saves manufacturers a pile of money by waiting till the last minute to do things and/or pay for things and they save on storage space too. Sound familiar? It was probably thought up by an Efficiency Expert. Who knew I was so far ahead of my time?

On The Road Again

     In years past I have managed to hit (with the car, silly!) the right side of the garage and the left side of the garage, so today, in the spirit of equal treatment and...with the back gate of my mini-van open...I hit the top of the garage. Or, more precisely, the bottom of the garage door that was raised up to the top of the garage. We will not speak of any basketball goals that we used to have. Our driveway is a hazardous place.
     And not just our driveway. You would think you'd be safe in a church parking lot, but they had to go and put those orange cones all over the place there because, apparently, someone was parking where they weren't supposed to park.  (If you positioned your car just right you can park right on top of that NO PARKING sign they had stencilled on the black top and then nobody even knows it's there. I mean, somebody could do that if they were so inclined. I don't know who would, though.) Anyway, they put out those orange cones and right away one jumped right under my car when we were leaving church one Sunday and got stuck under there, and there was no way it would come out even after I stopped several times and tried to pull on it. It took a couple of miles of driving with this horrible scraping noise before it dislodged itself!
     I don't know how these things happen. I don't even like to drive. When I was seventeen I still had not gotten my driver's license when all around me people were chomping at the bit to rush to the DMV on the day they turned sixteen. I wasn't interested. Dennis finally talked me into taking a stab at it, and although I got a hundred percent on the written test, when I drove with the instructor he said "Have you ever driven a car before?", which I thought was pretty rude, and, surprise! I failed the driving test.
     I finally did pass though, which is a good thing because now, due to Dennis's failing eyesight, I am the primary driver. I'm still not interested, though. It's just not that much fun having to deal with all those other people on the road.They act like such babies. Like, if somebody thinks you pulled in front of them and they had to slow down a little to let you in, they don't have to make that big screeching noise with their brakes. I'm sure they do that just to let me know they are back there. And, sheesh! Coming around and flipping the bird at a little old lady should certainly merit a pretty big Time Out, if not an actual trip to the wood shed. It's not like I do these things on purpose. That's why they call it the Blind Spot, isn't it?
     And just because when I get up to a stop light, and then the turn lane is there, and I think maybe if I turn instead of go straight I will get where I'm going and out of the car sooner, so I kind of get in the other lane but there is a car there, and I have to sit sort of kinky-wampus between the two lanes until the light changes, people get so impatient! Good grief, it's not as though I did that on purpose either. If there wasn't a car in that lane I'd move up. It's like they think they are going to get through the light sooner if I'm out of the way. Well, sometimes the light does change while I'm maneuvering and they have to wait again. Or they zoom right through the yellow light! Can you imagine? I, myself, always stop for yellow lights. Even if it is kind of sudden and people do all that brake-screeching again. I certainly don't want to be the one who goes on through and the light turns red just as I get to the other side.
     Well, "You just do what you have to do," as my friend, Kevin, said yesterday when we were talking about driving. Except if any of my kids are around, I just hand them the keys and get in the back seat. It's more relaxing back there. They don't seem to mind. I think they like it better when someone besides me is driving.

Seating Arrangements

     They have remodeled the sanctuary at our church and it looks very nice but the pews are gone!  There are chairs now. They are softer and they hook together so there is almost a pew-like bench if things get crowded, but the best thing about them is that they can be unhooked and act like regular chairs if they are needed elsewhere. It is very practical. Still, things have changed. (
    When you always sit in the same place and everyone around you sits in their same places, you get to kind of know everybody there.  A couple of weeks ago, when my friend, Valerie, looked back and saw we were two rows behind her family instead of right behind, she looked at me like "What is going on???" and all I could do was shrug. It made it strange when we stood up during the greeting time and we had to shake hands with people we didn't already know. So the next week when we got there before Valerie's family, I stood behind her row and kind of draped my arm across the backs of the chairs when anybody looked like they might want to sit there.
     But this week there was already someone sitting in Valerie's seat when I came in and I met her and her name is Phyllis and she has been married fifty-five years! It's remarkable the things you can learn. I thought she was new to the church because I had never seen her before and I think she thought the same thing was true about me, but apparently she has been going there a long time too. I don't know where she has been sitting.
     We visited a church once and inadvertently sat in some one's regular seat. The people behind us said "You're new here, right?" and we nodded, and they said, "Thought so. You're sitting in the Wilsons' seats." Apparently, the Wilsons were on vacation that week but it was still their pew and we were interlopers, even though they weren't there. And when we first moved to St. Louis we visited (once) a church that we nicknamed "First Church of the Frigidaire" because not a person spoke to us coming or going. Now that I think about it, it was probably because we had sat in a pew without thinking and displaced the usual occupants.
     And now our pastor is saying this week is "Bring a Friend" week. Boy, will that mess things up.  Nobody will get their usual spot if everybody has someone new sitting next to them. It will be like that "Fruit Basket Turnover" game we played as kids. Or when the organ starts playing it might be "Musical Chairs" with somebody left standing, looking for a place to sit.
     I don't know. If people start moving around in church and shaking hands with folks they've never met, and getting to know new people, things might get really weird. Like in the Bible when they met together all the time and all took care of each other and spent all their time listening to the teaching and praising God and "fellowshipping" with each other.
     I don't think they even HAD pews back then!

Fashion Statements

     My teenage granddaughter just got new jeans. They look like they were left in a lion's cage and used by the whole pride on their scratching post. She says they are "pre-shredded", which I think is retail-speak for really, really expensive. I'm glad I saw her wear them first before I found them on the floor in a pile, which I'm sorry to say is where dirty....make that tried on once for three minutes and decided against....clothes go, because I probably would have taken them straight to the rag bag. (Does anybody still have a rag bag anymore in this day of all things disposable?) No chance of that, though, because she loves them and will wear them all the time. And she looks darned cute in them.
     When her dad was little I bought his jeans with special, reinforced knees so he wouldn't get holes in them and sometimes ironed patches inside to keep them from wearing through for as long as possible. Little did I know that if I had let them go and saved them to sell later I might have been rich today.
     For awhile I felt sorry for boys wearing jeans with the crotch around their knees and the waist so big and low that their underwear showed and they had to hold them up just to walk. Heaven forbid they might have to run in them. I wanted to say to them, "Don't worry. Just keep eating your vegetables and maybe you will grow into your clothes some day." I guess the Big and Tall stores are doing a booming business these days, because how many six-foot nine-inch linebackers have garage sales? It's probably a good thing I didn't say anything because I understand now that they might not have taken kindly to that. And I suppose it's also a good thing I resisted the urge to go over and straighten their ball caps for them when they had the bill completely crooked and sticking out the side instead of in front, although you know I was only being a Grandma and worrying about them.
     I just know that when I was a kid, I would have died of embarrassment if I had been forced to appear in public wearing raggedy jeans or clothes too big. And how many little gold safety pins did I use up to keep my bra straps from showing? Or....my goodness!....wear a black bra under a white blouse so that it showed through? You couldn't have paid me to go out like that. And my dad would have locked me in my room anyway.
     But, it's gotten me thinking. What about my favorite "Mom Jeans"? (Okay, Grandma Jeans)  hey are beginning to get some very fashionable holes in them. You can see right through in some places and they are shredded exactly like Hayley's with more holes just on the verge of appearing. What do you think? Should I try to sell them on e-Bay and make a bunch of money, or keep on wearing them and be a really stylin' grandma?

How Smart Is Smart?

     It has happened. The cell phone I have had for a couple of years has always been smarter than me but we had reached an agreement where I only used about half of its features so as not to stress it (or me), and that was working, but yesterday I was coerced into getting an upgrade. The new one is not only smarter than me, it is a member of Mensa and is just sitting here sneering at me. It is so smart it doesn't even deign to communicate with us little people.
     So far, everything it has allowed to happen has been set up by my eleven-year-old granddaughter, Hayley. She's really smart so I guess the phone thinks she's an equal. But now I have to wait for her to come over before I can do anything else. What if somebody calls? I'm not sure if I will be able to figure out how to answer. Or how to call Hayley to tell her I need her to come rescue me.
     Besides that, following the example of the nerd stereotype, it isn't even pretty. I wanted purple; the choice was black or white. Plus it is heavy and won't fit in the back pocket on my pajamas. That may be a good thing. The two times that I dropped my old phone in the toilet it was because it fell out of my pajama pocket.
     This wasn't really in my plans, but Dennis's phone was about to die, our techie son offered to pay,  and I had to go along to keep peace in the family. And stay on the family plan.
     If I ever master this thing....and I'm not holding my breath....apparently I will be able to talk, text, listen to music, surf the web and watch videos all while secretly taking pictures of people who are dressed inappropriately at Wal-Mart, and then send the pictures to Facebook. Oh, and check the stock market for my non-existent stocks and locate myself on a map, which I'll need to do because I was looking at the phone and didn't pay attention to where I was going. The map is of the WHOLE world, you just have to slide your finger to find a country, so that is a little scary. Does this mean I may wind up in Uganda before I know it? And will there be cell service there?
     The good thing is that I will always know the weather in Cupertino.That is the city that permanently appears on the weather screen. (That map may come in handy after all.) Knowing the weather in Broken Arrow, not so much. I guess I can stick my head out the door to find that out anyway.
     Dennis didn't get the same phone I did. His has huge numbers on it so he can see them, and the other one was free so you know which one I chose. It would have been easier if we had the same one, then he could learn half the information and I could learn the other half.  We share one brain most of the time anyway.
     He has been studying his and even watched a video online about it, but when Hayley called him this afternoon he couldn't figure out how to answer before she hung up. While he was saying "Hello! Hello!" and poking at the screen, he got a nice picture of his palm, though. When he finally talked to her she said she would come over this evening and hold a class in iPhone 101. Maybe there's hope, but if you really need to get hold of me, you'd better drive on over, at least for the near future.

The Red-Eye

At three fifty-eight a.m. I was awakened by what sounded like my oldest son, Josh's voice saying "Hello."  That's all I heard.  But then I remembered that he and his family were on a "red-eye" flight right then, on their way back from Hawaii.  Was the plane okay?  Maybe it WAS him!  Instead of hello, maybe he was telling me good-by!  Maybe I needed to pray for that plane!

Should I get up and check online to see if a plane had crashed over the Pacific?  No, they wouldn't have information yet.  Would someone from the airline call us?  Would they know to call us?  All of Josh's family, Jerilyn, David and Emily, were on the plane.  Well, that was a comfort.  They would all go together.  I know they are all Christians, so they will be all right.

I know the code to get in their neighborhood gate, but do I know the alarm code for their house?  What will we do with their dog?  Where is she, anyway?  I think they boarded her, but how will we know?  We could take one of the cats but I don't think we could take both.  And where is their van?  It must be in long-term parking at the airport, but how would we get the keys?  And how would we know where to look for it, anyway?  And would the parking people let us take it without the ticket?  The ticket is floating in the Pacific!!!

I'm sure their pastor, Grif, would do the Memorial Service at their church.  Or would they recover bodies?  How long does that take?  Do you wait to have a funeral till then? Well, it would be closed casket anyway.  We could use the kids' school pictures.  And Josh and Jerilyn just had a really good picture taken recently when their church made directories.  Maybe the Bell Choir that Jerilyn directed could play at the service.  But, oh no!  Who would direct it??

I looked at the clock.  It was five twenty-two.  I needed to get praying.  And then the sun was coming in the window and I heard Dennis turning the shower on.  They haven't mentioned a plane crash on Good Morning America and it isn't on Yahoo.  I guess they would have it on the news by now if there had been one.  I think I'll text them in case they have landed.  But if they didn't crash, maybe they are sleeping because of jet lag so I shouldn't text.

You always hear on television and movies that a good mother would "Just know" if something happened to her child.  But does that work when the child is in his thirties?  And what about spouses?  Pre-cell phone days when Dennis was late getting home from work or a trip I could have his funeral planned, pick out the pall bearers and the music and invest his life insurance before he ever walked in the door.  Except the one time he really did have an accident on the way home I was busy doing something and didn't even notice he was late till he called to tell me.  So much for my ESP, I guess.

You don't think I'm over reacting, do you?  I guess it could have been my bladder that woke me up in the night. 

Arlarming Situation

     My alarm clock has it in for me. Granted, I don't use it every day since we are retired, but it still is making itself known. It sits there and sneers at me because it knows I don't really know how to control it. Like, I don't know how to change the time. I know now that you aren't supposed to have to, but once I tried to set it for Daylight Savings Time, not realizing that it is All Knowing and wanted to do that by itself. So, it moved six minutes and that was all and now it won't go back, so I always have to factor in the extra six minutes and since it involves math I get confused sometimes whether to add or subtract.
     Who knew it was able to do it's own thing even when the government keeps changing the day that the time changes each year? I just go to sleep now on Time Change Day with it one time, and when I wake up it has reset itself to an hour later or earlier, depending on the season.  It is kind of creepy.
     It is supposed to allow you to change the time you want the alarm to go off, of course, but I can't remember how to do that either. It sometimes just comes on randomly, like at three-forty-five IN THE MORNING!!! even though I think I've got it turned off. It's a clock-radio and trust me, some guy shouting about politics all of a sudden in your bedroom in the middle of the night is not conducive to restful slumber. Or it doesn't go off when I need to wake up at a certain time. In fact, now that Gus, the Wonder-Yorkie, who has been our real alarm clock for five years, has gotten older and started sleeping in some, I'm going to have to figure it out. There may be an instruction book around here somewhere. Or my daughter-in-law, Jerilyn, may show up some day. She can stare it down and make it mind. She got it started when I first got it, I think.  (Or that may have been the answering machine, but that's another blog.)
     There's an alarm feature on my cell phone that Jerilyn set up for when I have to take some medicine at the same time each day. I can't work that thing either. It's not for lack of trying. Or, at least I used to try before I got so frustrated I gave up. Okay, I tried once. Actually, a lot of times but all on one day. Or night. It was very critical and I have been so mad at it that I  never want to look at that feature again. Our son, Josh, was leaving on his deployment, so emotions were already running high, and we needed to be up at four a.m. to go to the airport with him. We had stayed at Josh and Jerilyn's house so we could do that. There was no alarm clock in the guest room, but I thought, "No problem.  I've got my cell phone." HA! I tried to set it about six-hundred and fifty times till I gave up and basically stayed awake all night checking the time about every fifteen minutes. Did I mention I'm somewhat technically-challenged?
     There was a day, probably before you were born, when clocks actually had faces and there were  hands that went around and pointed to numbers and told you what time it was. You used a second set of hands to set the alarm for the time you wanted to get up, and they had buttons that you pulled out and you just hit the buttons to turn them off. Even I could do it. Back then, I would set two clocks, one next to the bed, then one across the room for ten minutes later so I actually had to get up to turn it off. It was very efficient. You couldn't hit the snooze button eleven times and still be late for work like you can today.
     The alarm clock I have now has been intruding into my life lately by making strange noises, like static, every time my cell phone is on the night stand with it.  I'm not sure if the two of them are communicating in some strange, secret code, plotting against me, or if the noise is the sound of aliens trying to contact earth and the presence of the cell phone heightens the magnetic field for them. I stopped it for awhile by setting a heavy coaster on top of the clock, but the other night they were back, even with the weight there.
     If I don't show up for something some morning when you were expecting me, come check. It could be that the Evil Alarm Clock has won its battle. Then again, I could just still be snoozing away. The best revenge is a good night's sleep.

Night Noises

     It's too noisy to sleep in our bedroom. Since I've had this cold I'm really tired, so you'd think it would be easy to fall asleep, but I keep hearing this squeaking sound. And kind of a whistling. You know those paper New Year's Eve horns that roll up and down? Like that. Or there is a mouse right under my pillow. But, wait. It's  even closer than that!  It's my nose! Or, more accurately, my sinuses. Holding my breath doesn't work out too well. Neither does holding my nose. How the heck are you supposed to get away from a noise when it is you??
     And then I lay there worrying that I'm keeping Dennis awake with the Sinus's Seventh Symphony. He is asleep pretty soon, though. I can tell by his breathing. You would think that he would be a snorer, but he's really not. Oh, sometimes a little bit, but not like some people that you can hear two houses away. He claims that I am the one who snores, but we know that couldn't be possible from a dainty little (stop smirking!) old lady like me. Okay, I have woken myself up with a snort or two a couple of times, but I would never admit it to Dennis, and you don't need to blab, either.
     Gus, the Wonder Yorkie, is the one who snores the most. He sleeps on the foot of our bed.This is the dog who sits on my lap while I'm watching television at night and I will almost wet my pants to keep from getting up and disturbing him when he's comfortable. He doesn't snore then. Sometimes I kick his pillows to rouse him just a tiny bit so he will turn over. But it takes me a long time to decide to do it. So I just lay there. Listening to my nose. It's probably Gus who Dennis is hearing when he thinks I'm snoring.
     What Dennis does in his sleep that cracks me up is, he chuckles. I wish I knew what was so funny. Sometimes he talks a little bit but not enough to really understand him, even though I try. I guess he's telling himself jokes. It's pretty likely I've heard them all more than few times before, anyway. You probably have too. Come to think of it, maybe some of his really weird jokes are ones he just "dreamed up."  Years ago.
     When we first got married he talked in his sleep and it was loud and clear.  He wasn't used to having anyone else in the bed and he must have felt crowded because we had not been married a week when he said in a very stern voice, "You are going to have to learn to stay out of my armpit!" I looked to see if we were going to have our first fight, but he was sound asleep. Or at least he pretended to be.
     If noise is coming from somewhere else in the house it is at least possible to deal with. When the boys were teen-agers and we went to bed before they did, after the third, "Quiet down out there!", we often turned on the fan even when it wasn't hot so the "white noise" would drown out a lot of the commotion in the living room. 
     And here is my hint if you have a drippy faucet: put a sponge underneath the drip and you won't hear it. I don't know what to tell you about the neighbor's dog who whines all night. When we had that happen I asked my neighbor if she had heard a baby crying in the neighborhood. Turns out it was her dog and they did move it to another place or something. Really. I thought it was a baby. It was a total mystery to me how she assumed it was her dog.
     Until this cold is over I'll just have to keep trying new things. Tonight I'm going to try to breathe in a rhythm. I'm hoping it will at least be kind of a lullaby. Eventually I'm sure I'll fall asleep.  It will be just an hour before it is time to get up.

O. C. D.?

     At what point do little habits, preferences, if you will, qualify for obsessions?
     Is it when we are driving to the post office to drop off some bills and when we get there I go ahead and pull up to the second big mailbox because I know if I stop at the first one I will not be able to wrench the envelopes out of Dennis's hand? They MUST be deposited in the second box. Maybe he was scared by a mailbox when he was a little kid. Who knows?  All I know is he will never, ever use the first box. See, he may have an obsession.
     Or when Dennis has some pills to take. He takes a multitude of pills a day, unfortunately. He takes the pink one. He waits two minutes, at least. He takes the brown one shaped like a football. He waits the same amount of time. He takes the little brown one. He waits. Same thing with the little yellow one and the  red and white capsule. You see where this is going. I have tried to tell him it doesn't matter if he takes them all at once. He disagrees and waits some more.
     When he has an appointment I have asked our doctor, who is a professional and he has seen her at least every three months for eight years and she has never steered us wrong, if it is okay for him to take his pills all at once. She says "Sure." Dennis nods but the next time he goes to take his pills, he takes them at the same interval between each pill. Just think what he could do with that extra hour or so a day.
     I have asked our-son-the-doctor, who has had four years of medical school, five years of residency and has been in practice eight and a half years, to explain it to him. He says, "Dad, don't be ridiculous." Dennis gives him The Look that says,"What do you know?  You're a kid," and continues to take his pills the same way he has for years. This is rooted in his past, I'm sure. I remember his mother doing the same thing, but somebody might say it's a compulsion, or something.
     I, of course, never do such arbitrary things. There are perfectly sane reasons why I do the things I do. Take car keys, for instance. No matter how soon I get out of the car after putting my keys in my purse, I have to reach back into my purse and touch them before I can lock the car. I tell myself while I am doing this "You just put them in your purse. You don't have to touch them." But I know if I don't touch them they will magically jump back into the ignition and I will lock them in the car. I don't have a spare key hidden in my wallet anymore because the car manufacturers kindly killed that option unless you want to pony up another $230 for an extra key. I've only locked the keys in the car once in the last couple of years. But then I sat and waited an hour for the locksmith to come with something that looked like a whoopee cushion and a bent coat hanger and opened the car for me in about thirty seconds. (Which is pretty scary in itself .) So, it's important to be careful about the keys.
     And there's the cell phone. To overcome my fear of leaving home without it I must touch my cell phone in my pocket as I am walking out the door. Except for when I'm talking on it as I am heading for the car, reach in my pocket to see if the phone is there and then.... "Oh! My! Gosh!! Where is my phone?? I have to go back and look for it!" At which point my daughter-in-law, Jerilyn, who is usually the one I'm talking to at these times, waits patiently, thinking, "Check your hand. Are you holding it up to your ear? Is there anything in that hand?" but she's too polite to say it. I figure it out but I'm still uneasy as I get into the car because my pocket is empty.
     Okay, there is that thing where I can't sleep at night until I have decided what I am going to wear the next day. Never mind that the only person who may see me that day is Dennis and he is almost legally blind so who cares, but I need to know. I may even get up out of bed, consult the closet, and only then can I go to sleep. But have you ever had that dream where you are walking down the hall at school and not only have you not studied for the exam you are about to take but you are also naked?  Okay, I have too, but I have never yet actually gone to school or any place else naked because I am prepared by knowing what I am going to wear the next day. See, planning ahead is important.
     I think other people may have the odd obsession here and there.  I'm pretty sure I'm just being careful.

Buying in Bulk

     When I was at Sam's Club earlier today the check-out belt across the aisle from me was piled so high that I couldn't tell what all was there. I saw a double pack of gallon orange juice bottles shrink wrapped together, industrial-sized containers of mayonnaise, big pillow case-sized bags of sugar, four thousand or so paper cups (the Solo kind) in tall stacks that I planned to steer clear of if we got to the door at the same time because the stacks were so long they could put your eye out, and some double cereal boxes the size of a coffee table. And more.
     Sometimes I see people buying so much they have to load it onto big, flat dollies that look like aircraft carriers with handles and drag it through the store with all four wheels going in different directions. I think Sam's should supply something like land-based tug boats to guide those things. Anyway, I guess that if they are buying that much they must have a store or restaurant or something. Or maybe they have seventeen kids and they are just buying supplies for the week-end.  And if that's the case, I want them to talk to me and tell me the logistics of cooking and cleaning and how much laundry they do. I don't know why, but I am always curious about these things.
     My sister shops at Sam's all the time.  Someone watching her might imagine that she is buying for a crew of construction workers, but she actually lives alone these days. It's a habit she can't seem to break, though. If she needs a can of green beans she buys a case. Paper plates come by the thousand and if you want margarine at her house be prepared to dig it out of a tub the size of a kitchen trash can. Last Christmas when she was here I wanted a few pieces of peppermint candy to put in a gift.  She knew exactly what I needed and now I have a huge plastic container in my pantry that holds 290 peppermint balls, less the twenty I used. I'm prepared for many Christmases to come. If you get a gift from me that contains stale peppermints, blame it on her. One time a few years ago she had bought so much from Sam's in one year---I am not making this up!---that they gave her a special pass so she could come in the store at 6:00 a.m. to shop before anybody else was there, even most of the employees.
     I don't know what it is about Sam's, and I hear Costco is the same way, but somehow when you are there you are mesmerized and feel as though you need to buy enough to feed the Third Infantry.  And it's not really your fault. They don't carry the Family size. Their sizes come in Gigantic, Humongous, and Just-Back-Your-Truck-Up-To-The-Loading-Dock.
     The one thing I am most curious about is how much are people paying for all this stuff? (Oh, please! Don't tell me you haven't wondered the same thing yourself.) I try to look, surreptitiously, when the checker rings them up but they always turn that screen away from me. So I think someday I'd like to be one of those people who stands at the door of Sam's and checks off people's receipts when they are leaving, then I could look at the totals and examine all the stuff in their baskets, too. Of course, when I said "Holy Cow! How long does it take you to go through a hundred and fifty-six rolls of toilet paper?" or something, somebody---I don't know who, I wouldn't---might take offense, but think how much I'd find out in the meantime.
     And, just in case you are wondering what I was buying there, I only had two items: a box of Goldfish Crackers that contained three giant bags, a pound-and-a-half each,  and a five pound bag of grated cheese. There's just Dennis and me.  I didn't need to get the big ones.

Plumbing Inequities

     There was a lady on the news last night who, even though she was afraid of heights, got talked into going on a ride at Knott's Berry Farm that went three hundred feet into the air, and then it got stuck up there for four hours.  She said she had a panic attack and now she has overcome her fear of heights.
     Well, I'm glad for her but what I want to know is: how did she manage to hang three hundred feet in the air for four hours without a bathroom? I can't walk around on firm ground for four hours without a bathroom.
     Bathrooms are my friends and I know most of the good ones in the Tulsa area and much of Oklahoma City. I visit them frequently to keep up our acquaintance. Quik Trips, of course, have some of the best and they do win the prize for being on almost every corner. But libraries are good and Reasor's grocery stores. Wal-Mart and Target, for sure. And Sam's. Any McDonald's. Twice I've dashed into Jack in the Box to use their bathroom but I don't buy food there. They may have encountered this beforecause the lights seem to be on an automatic timer and both times I've been there they have gone out when I was inside. Or maybe the manager figured out I wasn't going to buy anything and turned the lights off from a remote location. FYI, you want to avoid most gas stations, especially the ones where the door to the restroom is on the outside of the building. Just keep driving.
     I know you're thinking, "Well these things happen when people age," and that would be true, but in my case it has been this way all my life. When God gave out bladders I got the small, sample size.  Some of my relatives, (and by some I mean one) however, got the Lake Erie model. It is a bit of a problem when we  travel together. I was very happy when that person was pregnant, you know how pregnant people are, and for a few blessed months she didn't feel I was slowing down the trip when I wanted to stop at every rest area on the turnpike.
   We've all seen the commercials for bladder control medicine (and in fact, I think they modeled the whole scenario after me. I should get a royalty.) but when my doctor gave me a sample of one of them the directions had a monthly diary/calendar in it  For medicine to work, you were to chart your behavior changes. And directions: "Drink less fluids, make yourself wait a little longer between times, etc." Well, duh! I don't have to take an expensive medicine to do that stuff. If I wanted to.
     Okay, I drink a lot. No, not that. I start off the morning with a glass of ice water, usually go on to a large Diet Coke by 10:30 or so and the reason I like to go out for breakfast is that I can refill my Coke a couple of times. I have decided against moving to New York City now that they have that law against selling drinks larger than sixteen ounces. The McDonald's in Broken Arrow has half price on all drinks from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. right now---that's fifty cents!--- and it would be un-American not to take advantage of that! But we drive through; I don't refill it. Then water till bedtime again. I usually have a glass near me all evening. And a glass of water on my bed table.
     The most I manage to wait between bathroom breaks is when we are watching television at night and Gus, the Wonder-Yorkie, is asleep on my lap. I don't want to disturb him, so I wait. And wait.  And pray for a squirrel or something  to make a noise outside so he will jump up and run to the window. Speaking of television, one of my favorite things is the pause button on the DVR. You don't have to wait for a commercial any more if you need to make a short trip somewhere down the hall.
 I did pull off about a four hour wait one time a couple of years ago, but let me tell you it was not easy.  At the four hour point I was desperate. And at times like these, sometimes you just have to get inventive. In fact....just turn away here and go read your e-mail if you're squeamish.
     It began when I took Dennis out to Glenpool to interview with a prospective consulting client. I waited in the car. I don't usually mind waiting if I have a good book, but then it got dark. And cold.  And the fifty-four ounce Diet Coke I had consumed on the way out there was...how shall I say this?  Wanting out. Desperately.
     Now, I didn't know if Dennis had told the client I had driven him or not. I didn't want it to appear that Dennis was limited in any way until he got the job so I didn't want to announce my presence by going in and asking for a bathroom. (Turns out he had, but I didn't know that then, now did I?) I had seen signs for a Quik Trip and a McDonald's about a mile back down the road. But there was one more problem: there is a security gate on the driveway to that building and it locks at dark. If I left I couldn't get back in.
     The conference room faces the glass front door and I could see Dennis and the client from where I sat in the parking lot. They seemed to be having quite a grand deliberation. There was gesturing.  There was writing on a white board. There appeared to be deep discussion. There did not appear to be any getting up to leave. We had arrived for the appointment at 4:00. It was pushing 8:30.
     I went through all the options in my mind and there didn't seem to be any. Well, I did have that fifty-four ounce cup. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as my mother-in-law used to say, and I won't go into any more details.
     Dennis came out about 9:00.  He has been consulting with this client ever since that time, which is really kind of a long time for a consulting gig. Sometimes when I go to pick him up he is still in meetings but now I know they have a very nice bathroom in the office.

 

Archeological Dig

     I cleaned off my desk yesterday. Not this one with the computer. I'm here everyday and there's nothing here but the monitor, keyboard and a few essentials, like my Thesaurus for when my head is stuck and my Bible for good quotes for people on Facebook.
     No, the desk in question is a small roll top that is in the living room. When the pile of things on the desk is too tall for the roll top to roll over it , it is time to do something.

Here are a few things I found:
    Mazzio's coupons that expired last December. Now I'm hungry for Mazzio's pizza but I don't have any coupons. We only eat what we have coupons for.
     Old, outdated receipts from Lowes that I saved so I could take their survey and get a $5000 gift card but you only have a week to do it even though I know exactly what I would purchase with that $5000.
     Two self-addressed, stamped envelopes. I guess I never sent me anything.
     A 2011 purse calendar.  I'm trying to learn to use my phone calendar so I suppose I forgot it was in there but it is a very soft leather so I put it in my purse anyway. I love the feel of leather; I will just take it out and run my hands over it sometimes.
     A box of business cards that say "Pat Carey Designs".  t's been about a decade since I did much of that.
     A list of people who brought food and flowers when I had all those surgeries a few years ago.If I still have the list maybe I never wrote the Thank You cards I intended to, so if you didn't get a Thank You from me I guess I owe you a Sorry card. Sorry!
     Enough free return address labels with puppies, flowers and snowmen on them to last longer than I will ever be at this address.
     A box of checks that will last longer than the address labels, even. Can't remember when I last wrote a check. I'm sure you think it is because I'm so up-to-date that I do everything on-line, but no.  I stopped using checks when banks got so smart alec that you couldn't write a check and then run get money from your husband or somebody and deposit it before the check got to the bank. I just use cash. When there is no more cash in my purse I know I am done so I go home.
     A wad of deposit slips because the ones that came with the checks are long gone.  I keep getting a bunch from the bank to keep in my desk but then when I get to the bank I don't have one so I use theirs. I wish they were worth money. Then that running between banks thing never would have had to happen in the first place.
     A Valentine for "A Cute 2 Year Old Boy" with Grover on it.  Sadly, there hasn't been a cute two year old boy around here for fourteen years now. I try not to waste anything but I'm pretty sure my grandson, David, would not appreciate it any more, even though he is still pretty cute. But sixteen.
     A Bas Mitzvah card. Well, when I first found it (not so easy here in the Bible Belt, so I grabbed it while I could) my friend in California had a little girl that I knew would do a Bas Mitzvah someday.  It happens when Jewish girls are thirteen, just like Jewish boys do a Bar Mitzvah, only with more flowers and pink stuff. Anyway, Melinda is about twenty-five now and I don't know any other Jewish girls, but it seems a shame to just toss the card. If you can use it, let me know.
     School pictures of two of my grandkids. I am waiting for the ones from the other two so I can put them in the frames in front of the school pictures from last year. I keep piling each year on top of the last one. I may have to change the frames for shadow boxes by the time they graduate.
     A really cute school picture of Dennis when he was nine.  It is one of those two inch ones so I don't have a frame. He looks kind of ornery in it, as a matter of fact. Wish I knew what he was thinking.
     A Rolodex that had belonged to Dennis's mother and now I use it.  If you don't know what it is, it is like the Contacts section of your phone only on real cards. I probably only use it at Christmas now but it has lots of info in it. I can't bring myself to pull out the cards of the people who have died. The older we get the more of them there are.
     A notebook with a calculator, a tape measurer and graph paper in it so I can come into your house, measure off your rooms and tell you how to arrange your furniture. Or what furniture to buy from me.The last  furniture store that I worked for has been closed for the last few years. I don't know what that says about my salesmanship. Oh, wait. They didn't close until after I was gone. I was probably propping the place up the whole time.
     And last, an engraved name plate that says "Patty Carey" that sat on a cubicle when someone else was the  boss of me, so that people who came by could tell I was a real person. It has an awful lot of dust on it.

Things Under the Bed

I'm not sure what all is under my bed any more. Probably a little, okay, a bunch of dust, of course. There was an old, black and white Jimmy Stewart movie called "Harvey" in which Harvey was a six-foot tall rabbit. I'm kind of thinking what some people call dust bunnies under the bed has most likely grown into Harvey by now. I can't get down there to look.  Well, okay, I could get down there but then I couldn't get up and my days of sleeping on the floor are long past.

When our cats were kittens we were always losing them under the bed.  They had found a hole in the dust protector (you know: that cheesecloth looking thing that is stapled to the bottom of the box springs)   It was just big enough for them to squeeze in and whenever you tried to grab one he ran to the other side, his little feet bouncing like he was on a trampoline.  There was no way that you could get them out even if you poked them with a broom which they thought was a hilarious game.  They waited until we finally gave up, took a little cat-nap till we were sound asleep, then came out and dashed around the bedroom causing us (and by "us" I mean me) to get up and chase them.  Then they ran under the bed and up into the dust cover again.  It was quite fun. For them.

Eighteenth Century reproduction furniture was the most popular style back when I sold furniture and we sold a lot of four-poster beds, some called Rice Beds (sheaves of rice carved into the posts) and others called Tester Beds  (usually straight pencil-shaped posts.)  What those beds had in common was that they were way-way-way! off the floor, usually about sixteen to eighteen inches, and you could see straight through from one side of the room to the other if you bent down and looked. The point being that heat rises and in 1786 or so, with no central heat, it was nice to get a little closer to the ceiling.  Also, you could fit the chamber pot under there but we won't go into that today.  We even sold little sets of steps so you could climb into the high beds. I always thought they were beautiful, but even if I could have afforded one, I wouldn't have gotten it because I need to be able to hide things under the bed. (But not a chamber pot. Or kittens.)

Whenever I get something too big to fit anywhere else, I slide it under the bed. I know there's a big frying pan under there now.  My daughter-in-law was getting rid of hers and it was better than mine so I took it but I don't want to give up my old one yet. I may get the urge to fry up a lot of something. The leaf to the table is under there. (Here's a tip: if you are storing your table leaves standing up in the closet or somewhere, go get them and put them under the bed. They need to lie flat or they will warp. I know this from my furniture selling days) And a great big stainless steel bowl like they have in commercial kitchens. It is twenty-four inches across and won't fit in my kitchen cabinets.  You could wash a baby in it.  Or have a whole lot of salad to go with all that stuff you fried. I've only used it once, but you never know. They make nice containers on wheels to store things under your bed, like shoes, I guess, but I don't have any of those.

There is most likely a whole lot more. There are probably dog toys that the dog has lost, and cat toys that the dog is hiding from the cat.  And I hope there are two or three earrings and a watch that have disappeared because I've searched everywhere else.  But I might not find out till we move or something. When we got as new mattress a few years ago it was pretty scary under there.  You may be surprised, but I am not the type who moves the bed to vacuum underneath. Please! (I know there are some of  you are out there who do and I beg you: seek help!)

I read in Genesis where God says to Man something like "Dust you were and to dust you shall return."  I'm thinking there may be a man under the bed, but I don't know if he's coming or going.  He's next to Harvey.

Movers----A Cautionary Tale

It has come to my attention that we had more than one anniversary a couple of weeks ago.  The first was our forty-sixth wedding anniversary.  The second was the eighth anniversary of being in this house.  What a surprise!  Who knew, starting out, that we would be gypsies, moving in and out of houses, fifteen in all, like we were in the Witness Protection Program?  Well, we did live the longest, sixteen years, in the house our boys grew up in and that was the best, but I'm startled to realize that besides that one, we have been here longer than any others.

I just wrote, and deleted, a whole blog about being moved by professionals. It is exciting all by itself, but today, students, let's talk about what NOT to do if you are arranging for your own movers.  As I said, we have had several moves in the past, two cross-country, two inter-state, and after the turn of this century, there were four local moves in a five-year period.  I thought I was pretty proficient at this.  I thought I spoke "Mover". The downfall came the very, last time we moved, and it was only from Tulsa to Broken Arrow. How hard could that be?

For the first time in all the moves, I was in charge of engaging the movers.  Here is where I made my big mistake: I tried to do it all by phone. Here where I made my biggest mistake: I took the lowest bid. We had pared things down considerably in those last few moves and I knew exactly what we had and what would fit on the truck. For goodness sake, the stickers were still on all the boxes.

The very friendly gentleman, Dan, that I spoke to assured me his crew could do it all in a morning and it would only cost $400.  He was family-owned.  He had been in business for a number of years.  He would take personal care of us.  He knew how stressful even these short moves could be. Not to worry; he would treat me like his own mother. We set up a time for his truck to be at our duplex.  I called the utility companies and arranged for the stop date.

The morning of the move Dennis left for work.  I answered the door to the mover.  He didn't look like he was going to treat me like his own mother.  "Hey." he snarled. " I'm Jack. Dan's truck broke down and he sent me over to move you."  He began to stroll through the house, looking at the boxes already packed in the garage.  He looked me over too.  Here is where he made his big mistake:  "I can get this for you, lady, but it's gonna cost you $700."

I stood there, dumbfounded. "But, Dan told me he could do it for $400. That is the price we agreed on."

"Yeah, well, that's because he has a bigger truck.  I will have to make two trips and it's gonna cost you $700.  We need to get going here. I know you have to get out of here today."  And here is where he made his biggest mistake:  "An Elderly Person, like yourself," he said, "needs to take what help you can get.  You can't do it yourself, can ya?"

I sent him packing, and I don't mean with my furniture.  I realize now that it was a scam from the beginning, a bait and switch, and had I let him get our belongings on his truck, he probably would have kept them there and refused to unload until I had paid him even more than the $700.  My biggest regret is that I didn't call the police on the spot.

And then this Elderly Person got cracking.  I loaded every box and every piece of furniture I could fit into the back of my mini-van and moved it myself.  Bet you didn't know I can carry a wing back chair on my head, did you?  I lifted every end table, the coffee table, all the heavy oak chairs from our dining set, night stands, rocking chairs, boxes and more.  If it fit it into the back of the van, I moved it.  There may have been some adrenaline involved.

It took a whole bunch of trips and we had to stay in a dark house with no electricity that night and brush our teeth with bottled water, but the next day another local mover came and moved the big furniture and the appliances.  I did not pay them $700.

So here are some things to remember:

1. Interview movers at your house and get written bids.

2. Pack one box with toilet paper, bedding, and cleaning supplies and load it last so it can come off the truck first. 

3. If your refrigerator is going to be turned off for more than a day or two, put lumps of charcoal in an old sock and leave it in the refrigerator to absorb odors. (Don't get that charcoal embedded with starter fluid that smells like kerosene. Just sayin.')

4. Don't call me Elderly. 

Smarter and Thinner!

This week Apple came out with yet another, thinner, smarter version of the iPhone.  Everything is thinner than me so I'm not even going to think about that and, sorry, I can't do a phone smarter than I am. I'm barely smart enough to use the phone I have.  In fact, the not-so-smart phone I have has lots of stuff in there that it's keeping to itself because its owner doesn't have a clue about it.

We are not that far removed from the curly cord that stretched across the kitchen so you could stir stuff on the stove while you were talking.  Oh, wait.  I still have one of those.  Nobody calls us on it except telemarketers and people who think we are stupid enough to wait for their recorded message.

It hasn't been too many years ago that I scoffed at people who carried their cell phones with them.  The sight of people holding what looked like a brick to their ears and talking while they walked seemed ridiculous to me, not to speak of pretentious.  Dennis had the first one in our household.  After all, he was a realtor and you know how they are, but when he insisted I get one, I balked.  Okay, he wouldn't let up, so I got one but hid it in my purse and tried to be invisible when I used it.  I wanted something like, maybe, a phone booth or something to stand in. The only time it rang was when Dennis called from his cell phone to see if it was working.

That was then and this is now.  Last night I came back from running (no, not that running, I drove) up to Braum's and saw that my cell phone was here on the table instead of in my pocket. A cold chill went up my back. How could I have gone out without my phone? What if I had had a wreck? Or a flat tire? Or forgot what I was supposed to be getting at Braum's? (French onion dip this time, but it's been known to happen.)

And more importantly, what if Dennis had fallen and tried to call me and then he heard my phone ringing near him as he lay there and he reached up to the table but his fingers just....couldn't....quite....grasp it?  Or remembered that he wanted me to get chips with the dip?

If I had to categorize the kinds of calls made on our cell phones, I'm thinking seventy percent of them are of the "I'm sitting outside.  Are you ready yet?" kind and the "Okay, I'm looking at them.  What kind of batteries am I supposed to get?" kind.  Another twenty percent keep me in touch with my out-of-town daughter-in law and my sisters who only have time to talk to me when they are driving down the road.  (Oh, stop! They have hands-free.  I think.) But about ten percent are "You left the garage door up again.  Do you want me to close it?" or "Grandma, I forgot my lunch.  Can you bring it up to me?" or "I'm stuck in this meeting, can you go let the dog out?"  The kind I am so glad I can get.  How did we handle those things before cell phones?

I saw that a lot of people were saved in Haiti during the earthquake because they were able to contact help by cell phone.  This is why I don't ever want to be without my phone these days.  What if a tornado comes and we are trapped in the bathroom by the entertainment center that has fallen across the door and rescuers don't know where we are?  Or if I am mountain climbing and break my leg falling on a ledge twenty-three thousand feet above a ravine?  Or if I am sky-diving and totally miss the location where they are supposed to pick me up and I'm stuck in a tree?  And lately on the news I've seen that a lot of bears are coming into people's yards! What?? It could happen!

You never know what's out there.  I'm keeping my cell phone charged and in my pocket.....at least when I haven't dropped it in the toilet or something and it's in a bag of rice drying out. I may not be as smart as my phone but I'm smart enough to have a bag of rice waiting in the pantry just in in case.  I'm ready for any possibility.