May 2nd. We woke up to snow. What the fresh hell IS this????!!
I am not a hardy character like Red who cheerfully deals with nonsense like this.
LATE EDIT: Kate too. She deals with this kind of nonsense too...and is far more complacent about it than I am.
Normal service will resume when and if normal weather resumes.
The clerk interrupted. 'Don't worry about that. We got you a $20 gas card from the station across the street.'
I was flabbergasted. Tim was trying to talk and I was staring at the clerk, and I am embarrassed to say that after the whole stress filled day. I actually got teary.
'Oh gees. You don't have to do that...'
She laughed. 'You have paid us enough that we can afford a gas card!'
True, but...
There was a lot of honking. I love the elderly people who quietly wave and smile at us. One fellow told us he was proud of us. Yeah. We get a few fingers and some shouts of 'go home!' Or 'Trump, Trump!' But that part of things seems to almost be dying down.
We always hear him long before he gets to us. Today, air horn man was about ten minutes early. He came into town blaring his horns. A ripple went through our group. 'Here he comes! Here he comes!' Indeed he was, following a tanker truck. This time was different though. He caught the red light. We had a chance to demonstrate our thanks. We cheered and waved. In return he blared his horns. He tooted the old 'shave and a haircut' and around the corner, another horn answered with the obligatory 'two bits!' We all laughed.
A good day.
We grabbed a burger and ran into people I used to work with, and had a good visit.
We stopped off at a thrift store to make a donation from all that stuff that was mysteriously stuffed into the spare bedroom while I was gone. (Grrrrr!) I ran into a girl I went to school with. More jawjacking. I also got two beautiful blouses and a snuggly sweater for a quarter apiece.
We stopped to check out Albert's garage sale on the way home. I could not believe my eyes to see a folding Rubbermaid two step ladder. Just that very morning I h Asaaddecided I needed something to reach the top shelves in the bathroom and the kitchen. $7.50 brought that home. $5.00 more brought a window fan home too.
So...it was a people-y sort of day, but a good one.
My blister is doing great. I soak my foot in the evening...
That was Saturday.
We went to the gym this morning and I did my 3 miles. I also did this:
It is the biggest blister I have ever given myself. Tim said, "why didn't you stop?" Short answer: I felt the blister on my big toe. I did not realize the rest of it until I took my shoe and sock off.
(I was walking, but you get the idea.)
So I am gimping around. I soaked my foot in hot water with Epsom salts. I put a blister dressing on it. It is pretty painful though.
Today was another one of those storm days. We were under tornado watch for a time, with those eerie strange skies.
Since I was confined to house, I tried to use my time wisely. We pay the water and sewage bills on our rentals. As the property owners, if the tenant defaults on the bill, we are responsible. We decided early on that it is easier to pay those bills monthly ourselves than inheriting a delinquent account, especially since it reflects negatively on our credit.
A $12.99 charge has been added to this account. The original phone call happened in November. Here we were 5 months later still trying to get it resolved. When I called about it 6 weeks ago, I was told that there was no record of the initial call. I went all through it again. Ultimately, I was told that I would be credited for that amount. Yet two bills later, that billing was still there. It was showing as past due, highlighted in red, all caps warning with exclamation points.
The first phone call was very frustrating. A man just kept telling me that he had the transcripts of that conversation. Except what he was telling me was said wasn't what was said. I insisted I did not owe the $12.99. He insisted I did. When he said "is there anything else I can help you with?" I kept my rude remarks to myself and simply said to note my account that the charge was being disputed and I would not pay it.
Meanwhile, Tim was rooting through the old records. He found the information that proved our side of the conversation. So, taking a deep breath, I called back. Once again, I began the whole story. She interrupted me to say that I was calling the wrong customer service, that I needed to be speaking to another department.
Sensing a brush off, I pointed out that I had already called this number and the previous person claimed to be reading the transcript of the conversation. She flatly said he wasn't. He had no access to them.
!!!!
I called the number she gave me, braced for round three. Imagine my surprise to be told that my account was current, that the $12.99 had been refunded. I was told not to pay it, that it would eventually drop from the billing.
!!!!!!!
The rest of the day was spent being very angry at my husband. While I was away, the man brought a bunch of stuff from the old house and stuffed it into the spare bedroom. It required going through. I pointed out that we had an agreement that we were not bringing a bunch of shit to the new house and stuffing it in the attic. We would sort it at the old house and make the decisions about what came and what didn't come here. The new house is just too small for all that clutter. Once the sorting was done, we could move the necessary things into the attic, sorted and organized.
He listed to my frustration and got a stubborn tilt to his jaw. "You were not here!" he shouted
"Then wait until I AM!!!!" I yelled right back.
So I spent the evening going through that stuff , pulling everything out of the bedroom one box at a time. Old tax paperwork was organized by year. 3 years no longer needed and tossed. I kept showing stuff to Tim. He kept saying, "That's nothing, throw it away," which only irked me more, because there was no need to stuff all that shit into the spare bedroom. It literally proved my point.
I am pretty sure Tim and I have an understanding now.
I am back from my little trip. It was a wonderful little getaway. There was a picnic in the park. A dance competition, followed by a dad grilled meal on the back patio. Dad and Mom got a date night. The girls and I used 'little eyes' to see the teeny tiniest wild flowers that are all around us. We planted terrariums in little 5 inch tall jars I brought with me. I introduced them to the Ramona series my kids watched on PBS when they were younger. When the oldest was at school on Monday and my son was at work, we were able to give mom a morning off. The youngest and I spent the morning playing. It is a wonder to watch her. She played independently for the entire morning. All that was required from me was to 'neeeeeeigh' at the appropriate times when she needed her 'oonyhorn' to speak.
So it was an ordinary stretch of time filled with quiet joys, an it could not have been more perfect.
Tuesday saw me headed home. I started out just as soon as the oldest was on the bus. Mama needed to drop the youngest off at preschool. I needed to get my hiney home asap. I needed to be at the lawyer's office to sign important papers. So it was the 5 hour trip. The car was unloaded. We hopped back in and headed to Warren. It just made for a loooong day.
While I was gone, Tim bought a car. Wednesday morning, we got up and headed out to pick that up. It is pretty, black metallic paint, so it sparkles. It is a hybrid, completely new technology to us. Tim drove it while I worked out the computer system. It has Sirius Satellite radio. Not sure how long that goody will last. It is quite the fanciest car we have ever owned. He is pleased with himself.
So that is the recap of life in my corner of the world.
Outside of my bubble, Orban lost the election in Hungary after a 16 year dictatorship. Jd Vance even went there to campaign for him. Why? Well...there's this:
New Hungarian PM says Orban government was using taxpayer money to fund US pro-Trump activist group CPAC | LBC https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/new-hungarian-pm-says-orban-government-was-using-taxpayer-money-to-fund-us-pro-t-5HjdXp8_2/
I am sure that this is a coincidence though.
Trump's messianic visions have taken front stage. He's blasting the pope at this point. Posting AI of him as Jesus. Him with Jesus. MAGA is talking about blasphemy. Such a shock, isn't it? They were completely okay with his blasphemy until he began to mock their God.
Let's just stop right there.
I am heading out tomorrow morning to my son's house for the weekend, me and Flat Stanley. He went to Drake's Well, if you're curious. He has a nice story with pictures and brochures.
My youngest granddaughter called this afternoon to tell me that she helped her mama get my room ready. She did the dusting all by herself and it was perfect. She also wanted me to know that she could hardly wait. I told her I could hardly wait either. We talked about what fun we would have.
I won't be protesting on Saturday, although Tim will. I have a dance competition to attend. I probably won't be online much either, but I will catch you on the flipside, with plans to come back either Monday or Tuesday, depending on whether a plot I am plotting works out.
I told my sister that i had made a chicken pot pie for supper last night. The left overs will make a meal for Tim. I made two quiches today and for good measure made a meatloaf, which he can have with mashed potatoes and gravy one night and use for sandwiches. For good measure, I bought him 5 frozen dinners.
My sister laughed. 'You know he will head for DQ' at the same time I said, 'he will probably just go to Dairy Queen.'
SNAP!
Have a a good weekend everyone and remember this helpful tip of the day.
Saturday was the protest, as usual, and it was a beautiful day for it. 78°, sunny and a warm wind blowing. It was spring.
Tim carried the signs and I carried a little folding table and a plate of 'oatmeal resistance' cookies to share. (Come to the dark side! We have cookies!)
We are getting a lot more support from passersby. Lots of car horns. I also noticed that there are many people who don't toot, but as they sit at the light, they smile, doing the thumbs up, and if you are only waving one digit, that is the digit to wave!
One elderly couple had two large dogs in the back seat. They were sitting at the red light and the dogs stuck their heads out the window to say 'hey! How's it going!' Terry's dog, Carlos yapped back 'Pretty good! Join us, why doncha?' The poor owner looked embarrassed as she tried to stifle her two who were joyously barking their big barks, as Carlos happily yapped back. It made us all laugh, inside and outside of that car.
It used to be that business trucks didn't wave, but we are seeing more participation there, too, which is cool. They have big horns.
'Airhorn guy' comes through blasting his horns enthusiastically. You can pretty much set your watch by him, and we always wondered. Turns out that he drives by multiple protests to show his support. We are part of his route. When gas is $4.39 a gallon, that's commitment to, isn't it?
Of course, there is the flipside. A woman walked over to scream about abortion. Sally answered, 'if you don't believe in them, don't have one.' The woman shrieked that she hoped if Sally had grandchildren, they were aborted. A ripple of shocked murmuring followed. Ain't no hate stronger than Christian love, is there?
When it was cold, people often drove by. You could tell they were not fans, but you could not hear them. Now you can because the windows are down.
'How much are you getting paid?' (Answer: nothing...I hate this for free!)
'Why aren't you working??!!' (Same reason you aren't!)
One woman shouted,'if it weren't for trump, you would not even be here!!!' The guy next to me looked puzzled. 'What does that even mean?' he asked. 'Dunno,' I answered, 'but she's right. If it wasn't for him, we all wouldn't be standing here.' He let loose a laugh and passed the comment down the line.
I talked to the organizer. "We need a busker!"
Wonder what Jesse Welles is up to Saturday?
Last night, Tim woke me up coughing. He coughed and coughed to the point it sounded like he was choking. This cold/plague/evil curse is awful stuff, but what makes it worse is that he will not take anything for it. I found a night time cough suppressant which works on the cough. It doesn't have all the added ingredients for sinus, body aches, fever, etc. Just the cough. I drink ginger tea through the day, just keep adding hot water to my cup. At night I take a dose of the cough suppressant which allows me to get some sleep.
Tim does neither and I don't know why, but he is a bullhead man. (Luckily, I, myself, have not a stubborn bone in my body. 😏) So he hacked himself awake, and on the other side of the bed, I was awake too. Even worse, I began to cough right along with him.
He was fine, he claimed. Didn't want to take anything for it, so I came out to the living room for awhile. Being a companionable sort, Mr Cough-y followed me out, sitting in his rocking chair. We were sitting there in the dark when suddenly there was a loud crack of thunder. Immediately after, it began to pour, the rain pounding down on the tin roof. There were a couple more cracks of thunder, and then as suddenly as it started, the rain began to taper off. While it was an astonishingly brief storm, it was intense.
So what was missing? Lightning. We saw no lightning. I have been puzzling over that. My first thought was that the fast moving storm was accompanied by extreme cloud cover we could not see in the night sky. Maybe the lightning took place above the clouds? But then, wouldn't it have muffled the thunder too? I mean those thunderclaps were sharp and loud.
Reading about it, thunder simply does not occur without lightning. So, I throw it out there for your consideration. What did we witness?
So eventually, Tim wandered down the hall and back to bed. I listened to him coughing in bed.
The sound was a lot more tolerable from the couch than from the bed, so I stayed right where I was, and eventually dozed off.
The motion detector light came on outside and I was jolted awake by the sound of two cats fighting and squalling. I leaped off the couch and went to the sliding doors. I expected to see Phantom, the mysterious new cat who sneaks in at night to finish off the extra cat food left from the two remaining ferals. I expected to see either of them doing battle. Much to my surprise, it was not Tiger or Possum. It was Freddie, who I did not know was outside!
I flung open the door and went flying out in my nightgown. Usually, Phantom runs away at the sight of a person, but not this time. To make it even worse, Houdi tore outside when I opened the door. Now there were three of them squalling. Only two were actually fighting. Houdi was merely stalking around with his tail straight up and three times its normal size. He circled the fight yowling the cat equivalent of 'Yeah! Take that! My brother is going to whip your butt!!' Meanwhile, Phantom and Fred were going at it hammer and tongs.
I had to go back in to put shoes on. The ten tons of gravel we had dropped earlier in the week was too much for my bare feet. When I came back out, Houdi was circling the car growling. I hopped in the driver's seat and started the car thinking Phantom would run back to the old house, and Fred would head to the porch. Instead, Phantom ran for the old house with Freddie hot on his heels, both of them screaming their heads off.
It was a long night, but Fred was waiting on the porch this morning. He had a snack and then arranged himself on the same couch I had spent the night on. He did some stretching and yawning and then tucked his chin on top of his murder mittens.
During trump's 19 minute speech, the price of oil rose $4 a barrel.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260402-oil-prices-rise-after-trump-speech-as-gold-and-silver-fall/
Tim and I went to the gym. Price of gas was $3.99 when we went in. After an hour workout, it was $4.19, which was a shock.
Pam Bondi got fired. Everybody is celebrating that. I am not. The reasons given were two-fold. The first was her handling of the Epstein case. (Personally, I think there is this idea that once she is gone, the focus at next week's hearings will be on her, not on trump.)
The second reason is that trump believed she was not moving fast enough on the prosecution of his 'enemies'.
The thing that gives me pause: from all indications, Republicans are going to get trounced at the midterms. Strongly red areas are voting in democrats during a spate of special elections. 36 Republican House incumbents have chosen not to run for reelection.
I think that Bondi was removed in favor of someone who is willing to create more chaos in the seven months before the midterms. According to Lindsey Graham that is trump's genius: maintaining unpredictability and confusion.
So...I can't really celebrate Bondi's departure. But I am glad she is gone. I will never forget this:
Today, I made two boxes from greeting cards for the gifts for my granddaughter's fairies who live on her windowsill. In just a week and a half, I am headed to my son's house to unselfishly give them a date night or two while selfishly taking granddaughter time.
Two gifts wrapped and four to go.
Two trees came down, aspen. They will be cut into logs and allowed to rest for 2 weeks. When I get back from my time away, it will be time to innocculate the logs for mushroom growing. I want to take a log up, predrilled for Rudy. He has some hand deformities, but I am sure that he can handle the rubber mallet and the pegs and daubing the paraffin. Lion's mane is believed to have medicinal properties and is prized by the Amish. It might be a nice little business of his own.
Everything is starting to green up here. It will also be time to think about begin to plant the garden.
The big stuff needs to be counterbalanced with the small stuff. I am lucky to have plenty of that.
This cold has been a bad one. I thought I got past the worst of it only to discover that I haven't. The cough is horrible.
So...it has been another quiet week.
One thing I discovered is that it is possible to share FB posts to IM without realizing it. I have conservative Christian and Christian Nationalist family members.
We simply don't talk politics, but it gets very tricky. What I have discovered is that very suddenly politics encompass a lot more territory than it used to. For instance, my nephew had some very strong opinions of a religious leader. I countered with how what he was saying did not align with biblical teachings. He got very angry and accused me of arguing my politics. I said that I thought we were discussing a religious figure.
It didn't help that I thought I was 'snoozing' him. I figured we would both benefit from a break. It turned out that I had blocked him, which made things worse. He blocked me back.
Last week, out of the blue, I got a message from my sister about two articles she had received from me via instant message. I was astonished to see that there were two of those highly charged over the top things along the line of 'Trump humiliated when....' and 'GOP demolished after...'.
The thing is I don't even read crap like that myself. When I see all caps and exclamation points in a headline, I assume that it is something that is designed to draw you in emotionally. I am more of a 'just the facts' type of a person. As in, I want to read it and decide how I feel about it, as opposed to getting the emotions decided for me. Those headlines are designed to attract the eye of angry people who read along angrily muttering and angrily share the angry post which is read by other angry people who read it angrily muttering.
That's some bullshit, isn't it?
Anyways, I read my sister's message and she was mad. I didn't blame her either. It was a disrespectful thing to do. The difference was that I knew I had never intentionally sent them. She believed I had.
I began reading. During their last upgrade/change, FB added a feature called 'auto share'. People don't like it. It seems to be something that is easily activated unintentionallywhen you are quickly scrolling through FB. This is something I do when I am looking for a funny picture to go on the blog.
(So it is your faults really)
I sent the information to my sister who luckily believed it. I apologized for the offense. I promised to be mindful. I also noted that emotions are very near the surface everywhere.
My oldest daughter is a person whose emotions are very near the surface. The Epstein stuff has been very triggering for her. In talking about things, she decided that after some very strident posts from a relative, she was not sure about attending the family Easter. After all, she has posted some pretty strident stuff herself.
In the end, she and her husband decided to have their own quiet Easter.
I respect that decision, but it left me in a hard place. In the end, Tim and I decided to celebrate where our grandson will be. I know that decision will be seen as political. It isn't. It is based on emotion, pure emotion. It will cause hurt feelings though.
So that is where I am, right now. I am still sick. I am just weary. I don't sleep well. It is not covid though.
I did not go to the No Kings Protest, which made me very sad. I wanted to be there. Tim went and he carried my sign 'Ain't no faux king way!' What a turn out we had! Estimates of between 320-350, quite a turn out for a town of 9500 people. Tim said that there was huge support from the people passing by, too.
3300 events around the world, drawing an estimated 8 million people. The organizers really stressed that the biggest growth was seen in red, rural areas that had supported trump in the last election. The tide is turning. I was at home on the couch, probably sound asleep.
There was a terrible tragedy here on Friday in our Amish community in Spartansburg. An Amish school was burned to the ground when two girls and their teacher had lit a lantern which had been filled with the wrong fuel. It exploded. The girls were life flighted to burn centers, one to Buffalo, the two others to Pittsburgh. Their burns were described as severe, noting that their clothing had been entirely burnt away.
There have been no updates on them. The community has collected money for the families. One person (English, not Amish) posted that two of the girls were on their way home and exhorted us all to give the glory to God. I will hold my glory. When someone has been burned over that percentage of their body, they are not likely to be released the next day.
I have a cold, so that has sidelined me. Hard to work when you can't breathe through your nose.
Still we have been puttering around here. Tim is cleaning a shed out down at the old house. I worked on plants inside. I have about 4 dozen plants started on a table at a southern window. Such a hopeful thing...especially since it snowed yesterday.
We had ten ton of gravel brought in yesterday. Spring = mud. This should help a lot.
Hung a bat box today.
I am going to take a break from world events. It is just too much tonight.
I do not have much to talk about, unless you want to hear about house cleaning. 3 miles on the treadmill. Signing up for a fitness program. The joy of watching little tomato, pepper, and cucumber plants emerging from the dirt on their table in front of a window.
Nah. I wouldn't want to hear about it either.
You know the story from last post? About walking around the pool with an dear old man, listening to his stories about his friend Johnny Walker? Well, in thinking about it, I began to wonder how a Scotch distiller wound up in the west in the early 1930s. Did he come here to start up an American branch of the family business?
Prohibition ended in 1933. The business would have taken a while to build. Scotch whisky is aged, which would take some years. I have no doubt that it would have been a profitable enterprise but it would have taken a while to be generating the money required to run a ranch of the size that Mike so fondly described all those years later (circa early 1990s).
Down a rabbit hole I went.
Johnny Walker whisky is made only in Scotland was the first thing I discovered.
More reading lead me to learn that there is no records of the distillery decendents trickling in to America. They were doing well in the family business and proud of their heritage.
I was a bit dumbfounded. Mike was an old man, a stroke patient, and sometimes he could get confused and irrational if he was tired. Those moments were the exception to the rule. Or so I thought. 35 years later, I began to wonder.
I typed in Walker Ranch, and up popped a pile of entries. There were several huge operations, but I think it is most likely the Walker ranch that is now an historical site. The business started out in lumber. The ranch grew in physical size and added cattle/beef production which allowed James Walker to pay off his debts and grow the ranch even more. Minerals were discovered, to include gold, and an English company came in to handle that part of the family business.
At that point, I could see how the son of a man who owned a steel mill out east and a ranch owner's son from out west could cross paths in a private boarding school.
But...Mike's comment that 'the boys' would never make fun of how a boy's father made his money was, I guess, a general comment meant to not to say that Johnny (Johnnie) Walker was that Johnnie Walker. More, I guess that those children of privilege did not speak of their fathers' money and where it came from.
So...that was an interesting detour.
We went up to make sausage with Levi and Mattie. That was great fun. We got there at 9:30. A whole hog, split in two halves lay on two large folding banquet tables. There had been a 2 hour school delay, so they'd already processed (and ground) the first hog. Mattie already had 18 jars of pork going on the biggest canner I have ever seen in my life.
Levi separated the sides into three portions, front legs, back legs, and rib cage and everyone grabbed a knife and went to work. The meat cut from the bones was collected by Andy, who took it out to the grinder, and returned for more cuttings when he was done. In this way, we were finished with that part of things in no more than an hour. A neighbor had come over to shoot the breeze and it was a happy time.
280 pounds of meat was brought in and turned into sausage. The sausage stuffer was a hand crank, but it was efficient. As quickly as the basin filled with sausage, Reuben and Andy hung the ropes on six sturdy poles for the smokehouse.
It was a nice way to get a lot of work done in such a way that it did not seem like work at all. It was also amazing to watch 8 and 9 year olds wielding very sharp knives with such expertise.
We had a nice lunch of fresh sausage with fried onions and pie for dessert.
I came home and made cheese. It was something called 'Farmer Cheese'. It was not what I wanted. It is more like a cream cheese. I turned it into an herb cheese, and it is delicious on crackers. It was not a failed experiment, to be sure.
I also saved two legs from the bones to make a good broth. It will make a good soup base. I ended up with 7 quarts.
Shel Silverstein is always good for a laugh.
Live and let live.
The windchimes I bought are put out by a company called Wind River. The particular one is Shenandoah Melody. They are musically tuned g, a, b,d,e, a pentatonic scale. They are created in a way to maximize the reverberation. The sound is so pleasing (to my ear, anyhow) and the best way I describe it is that it reminds me of something I can't quite remember.
I have always loved windchimes, from the time I was a child. My grandmother had some glass ones that tinkled in a small, cheerful way. They hung inside in front of a window.
In looking through Wind River's online catalog I saw they had chimes for over a thousand dollars. That I cannot imagine, and it made me feel quite thrifty.
I have been dreaming strange and vivid dreams. Peculiar things like Tim and I took my youngest granddaughter somewhere. Inexplicably, we came home without her. I woke up from that dream in a panic.
I have also been dreaming of places and people from years back...like 30 years ago. One dream intrigued me. Years ago, I was caring for a stroke patient, a wonderful man who taught me a great deal about birds and human nature. His stroke had been a bad one.
The thing is that this man was rich. Probably the richest man I will ever meet in my life, although I will never be able to put any kind of number to it. He was sent off to boarding school as a 6 year old. He was very frightened and cried himself to sleep at night. The other boys called him 'the ghost' because he was so withdrawn and pale.
After a time, he did make a friend. This friend's father felt so very sorry for this lonely boy that he worked a deal. My friend began to spend his summers out west at the family ranch, riding horses, spending long days in the great outdoors.
He tried to explain to me how life changing that was for him. Johnny Walker was his best friend, and his family treated him like one of their own. I laughed the first time I heard Johnny Walker's name. I was walking with my friend as he did his laps with his walker around the pool.
He stopped to look at me, quizzically. "Why is that funny?"
I said, "Johnny Walker is the name of a whisky."
He looked at me through his shaggy mop of gray hair and said, "the boys would never make fun of a boy for how his father made his money."
I laughed. "Mike, I said, "you and I are from two very different worlds. I forget that sometimes!"
He was never mean about these explanations. He was just as dumbfounded by the fact that my father did not own a boat. His own summer home was on a huge lake and he loved sailing.
Anyways, his daughter popped into one of those vivid dreams. What I remember about the dream the most is that polite distance. She answered when I talked but moved around taking care of things in her big house. She made no effort to initiate conversation with me. Not so different really from how it was all those years ago. She was maybe 10 years older than me.
As laid back as her father was, she and her mother were cut from another piece of cloth. They were very class conscious. All of his kids were, really. So it was an interesting experience, working for them.
Anyways, I dreamed of this daughter. She would be in her late 70s, I figured. So I did a bit of Facebook stalking, and found her. She had died. I looked up her obituary and was a little surprised to see that one of her daughters had died, a few months before. More shocking, of her three brothers, only one was left. She, her daughter and her two brothers had all died within a year of each other. Stalking even further, one of the brothers had been widowed at a young age. His daughter died of a drug overdose at 15.
That is a lot of tragedy, isn't it? There are some things, I suppose, that all the money in the world will not protect you from.
I did a bit more reading about my old friend's now grown grandchildren. It was a bit of a surprise to see that they were quite a class conscious group. They were young and wealthy and nothing else really seemed to matter beyond that.
Isn't is strange that there are people who have so much money that they essentially live in their own bubble? A world within the world that most of us live in.
I am not saying it to be mean. It is just a curiosity to me, just as, all those years ago their grandfather told me stories about his life, and I told him stories about my own. Both of us listened to each other, fascinated by things beyond our own horizons.
Anyways, time for me to hit the hay. Levi and Mattie butchered two pigs. They are making sausage tomorrow. I am going up to help and to learn something new.
The girl was certain she had put it in the folder. She hadn't. She said that it could not be reprinted. We received verification paperwork, but there was nothing about the oldest CD.
So off to the bank we went. A woman walked up to us and asked if she could help us, so I began to explain to her. She was helping another customer she said.
The question begs an answer: why would you offer to help someone if you didn't have time to help them? I mean, we were headed to take a seat to wait. She was the one who asked if she could help us.
Anyway, when she came out and called us into her office, I pulled out the folders and explained the situation. All we needed was something that we could put in this folder so that our executor had all the information. I showed her the previous folder which showed the CD, showed it matured on Feb 1st, but that nothing came in the new paperwork to indicate what we did with it.
To her credit, she agreed that we did have to get that corrected. For whatever reason, the address change was not noted on that. She corrected it. While she could not print out the certificate, she did provide a printout that showed that the CD had been contined for another 7 months, what the interest rate was and when it matured. I stapled that printout to the previous information. That was done.
We went to the Goodwill. I needed a couple plates that I could put in the microwave. We very quickly found what we needed. Tim picked them out.
What happened next was all Tim's fault. He noticed a store he'd never been in. They had a lot of stuff. One thing I saw, I had never seen before...windchimes for $750. I touched the striker and it was so lovely. The deep tone reverberated wonderfully.
$750, though.
I looked at the others. A 59 in set could be had for a bit over half that. Still...it was an awful lot of money. We walked around the store a bit, but I could not get those lovely chimes off my mind. Tim found something that interested him.
At the checkout counter, I made up my mind. I wanted those chimes. Tim was a bit surprised. I said, 'If you want a truck, you buy a truck. If you decide to build on to an already massive garage, you just do it. I want those windchimes. I am making an executive decision here.'
It is the most extravagant thing I have ever done for me.
I have them hanging in the basement right now. The winds are blowing at 30 mph, with gusts of 65 mph. We don't have power. Guess I will just go to bed.
Oh...my great achievement was that I gave Fred a pill. I lived to tell the tale. No blood was shed. However, the cat is shunning me.
Today was such a beautiful day, 73°, wind blowing in a very determined (but warm!) way. It is a sunny day, with quite a bank of dark clouds glowering from the west. Tomorrow is supposed to be a pretty stormy day, waking up to thunderstorms, followed by multiple fronts moving through all day long. They are warning of EF2 tornadoes and damaging hail. Thursday: snow. St Patrick's Day? High of 26°.
Ah, spring!
So I spent today outside. I planted all the seeds that need started indoors. I uncovered all of the raised beds, stirred in some compost and fine sawdust. I was pleased to see that I have thyme, basil, and garlic coming up.
I planted flowers, cleaned winter debris, hauled my tomato cages up.
I helped Tim put tin on a roof. Tricky business hauling 4x8 sheets of tin in a brisk wind, but I managed not to blow away.
PBS News Hour is not available. Anyone else seeing that?
650 ICE agents are still in Minnesota. That is 4x what is expected. They are picking up pregnant women from their scheduled appointments. Women are not keeping appointments and giving birth at home. Medical personnel are mobilized to address this.
Lindsey Graham wants Arab countries to join the fight.
https://share.google/2P2RtEOEVfUPhxoD2
Who would miss a chance to be a part of this?
*eyeroll*
My sister and her husband came for black bean soup and fajitas. I was disappointed with my tortillas. The were passable, but not nearly as nice as my daughter-in-law's are. I will try again.
Two games of scrabble. I won the first by the skin of my teeth. She trounced me on the second game.
I watched Hamnet today. What a remarkable film! So very well done. Cried my head off.
I saw Phantom, stray cat. I also saw him attack Possum. We can't have that.
My smart watch uses an app. It did not adjust the time one hour ahead for daylight savings time. The watch said I needed to sync it to my phone, but my phone would not allow me to access the account without providing a credit card. It is a free app! I was assured that the card would not be charged...that this was for 'verification' only.
I clicked out of it. They had no need for that information. My watch reset itself to the proper time.
Country Joe died today. He was 84.
The mushroom class was fun. I have a log inoculated with lion's mane. Met some neat folks. The 'teacher' fell into the whole thing by accident. He lived in Virginia. There were limestone caves. He started growing mushrooms. It went so well that he wound up growing high specialty mushrooms for high end restaurants. He had a lot of knowledge.
I met a bee keeper. There are bee keeping meetings. A chance to learn something new. So that is an opportunity.
I met a woman who hasn't had a TV since the 1980s. She said, 'I am a weirdo...' A very serene weirdo, I have to say.
We had our first thunderstorm. Short, sweet but it was a doozy. I love thunderstorms.
Our owl is a Great horned owl. He sounds like he is calling from the swamp.
No what else is calling from the swamp? Peepers! That is a sure sign of spring.
Lots of little joys.
But our president is still a lunatic. Stark raving. We have boots on the ground in Ecuador. He is saying that Cuba is going to be attacked. I can't believe that our military is violating the Geneva Convention. Every day brings us to another level of crazy.
This morning, gas prices were $3.79, up 50 cents in just five days. What are you folks seeing?
We have an owl hooting tonight.
Tomorrow I have a mushroom growing class. Looking forward to that. Also looking forward to a 70 degree day.
Of course next week, we are supposed to get 3 inches of snow.
I am starting tomato seeds.
It is the little things.
I was shocked to see a post from a family member today. It basically stated that she always saw 47 as a great man. However now that she has watched him being attacked from all sides, she realizes that to have so many enemies fighting against him, he is undoubtedly the greatest president America has ever had.
WT actual F?
I tried to find a video I saw. The guy was making the point that all cults die. He felt that there are 4 ways they end.
1) the death of the leader.
2) the people inside realize that the promises/prophecies the leader is trumpeting at them are not coming true.
3) divisions/infighting/power struggles within the cult. (The cult is broken from the inside.)
4) people leaving the cult, and speaking the truth about what is happening inside the cult to people outside the cult. (The cult is broken through outside means)
He stresses that this cult will end just as every cult before it has ended. I find this reassuring for no particular reason. I thought you might too.
(I cannot find the video. It is raining cats and dogs and the internet is slooooow tonight. When I find it, I will link it here.)
Kristi Noem got fired today.
https://www.newsweek.com/kristi-noem-mocked-with-jokes-and-memes-after-firing-11630643?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&sfnsn=mo&fbclid=IwdGRjcAQXB39jbGNrBBcG8GV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHvpGnIjqkbtX6j7Fw5fcf-UD6_b4EPoPv_2hR66nCL0HTPF4V-fpgH1_9UWN_aem_Fe_-47Yn9vG7PV4Br-bP1g
Her 'promotion' is a made up position.
I am trying to be cautiously optimistic about her replacement.
My God.
Hegseth:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric
Trump appears to be rotting before our very eyes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/politics/trump-rash-neck.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwdGRjcAQUZ1hleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR4OzIbz3AnD7FOq4ZCyLHTJSFYrJVngUHnRN68CcyF6HysoJzAc-FFv6GTtcQ_aem_NUkYi-7cBz4hR5H7ablarA
Gas went up 20 cents a gallon over night.
I am a bit overwhelmed by the big picture lately. I am sure everyone is.
In local news:
I had a trip planned to spend time with my son and his family. The weekend before I left I got hit with quite an intestinal bug. I will spare you details, but I really, really was afraid that I would have to delay the trip.
I got over myself the day before I was supposed to leave.
I strongly advise any overwhelmed person to borrow some kids to rebalance your soul.
The youngest wanted me to come to her art show. I wanted to see it. She was so proud. She likes to give gifts. A painted rock last time. This time it was a plastic heart on a keychain she'd won at preschool. She brings these things to you in cupped hands as if she is presenting you a treasure, and the only response is to cup your own hands and to receive her offering with all due reverence. I immediately clipped that heart to my purse and assured her that I will love it always. I will, too. Her art show was grand and I loved watching her confidently striding through her preschool showing us around.
The oldest is 7 and we have our own little thing. Our fairy tea parties have become increasingly fancy. Her six fairies gather around a table set with fancy miniature china. They carry on polite fairy conversations as quiet fairy music plays in the background. We sit in the middle of her room and have the most wonderful imaginary adventures. The last evening, the fairies, all six of them, told me how sad they were that I was leaving. I told them that we would have a grand party when I returned and that I would have tiny fairy gifts for all of them. My grand daughter was thrilled at the thought of a party of this caliber. She lined them all up in a row to bid me farewell, and I promised to miss them all until we met once again. Then they went back on her window sill, all in their assigned place.
Such sweetness.
My son and his wife got two date nights in a row.
I hit their Amish store, which is huge. They had, of all things, cranberries. You know, I had to resort to canned cranberry sauce at Christmas. I could not find the bags of berries to save my soul. After Christmas, I usually buy them up when they are heavily discounted. The bags are tossed in the freezer and pulled out one at a time. I like cranberry relish on my toast. I like it stirred into my homemade yogurt. At 35 cents a bag, a dozen of those went into my cart as quick as a wink. Tim likes blueberries and they had pints of organic blueberries for 75 cents. I also love their cheeses. So many different kinds. 5 lbs of cheese made its way into the cart ss well. No meat this time. We really have so much venison, pork and poultry in the freezer. A good problem to have, to be sure.
My daughter in law showed me how to make tortillas. An old dog learned a new trick. We had a beautiful day. We got in a family hike. We tried to fly a kite. We went out for lunch. We did crafts.
It was a beautiful weekend, and I needed that.
Funny story: the morning I was supposed to leave. I could not find my car keys. My oldest granddaughter said 'I hope you don't find them and you can't go home!' It was so fervent that it really touched my heart. It also made me wonder if she had hid them. (She had not. They had fallen out of my coat pocket in their car. )
I am once again home.
It was too cloudy to see the lunar eclipse. We started the day with freezing rain.
My sister is coming over to make tortillas with me Sunday. We are going to have fajitas. One old dog reaching another old dog.
I found a cream colored lurex sweater to deconstruct to make my moon for my planned weaving.
I got a letter from gz, which was exciting.
I got the perfect haircut.
If it wasn't for the fact that we have a lunatic for president, life would be pretty okay.
I am behind in blogs. I will have to catch up.
May 2nd. We woke up to snow. What the fresh hell IS this????!! I am not a hardy character like Red who cheerfully deals with nonsense lik...
