This picture was taken enroute to Fremont a
couple of weeks ago. It’s one of the
flattest areas in the state.
I posted it on Facebook, and a friend (who
does indeed know where I live, and where I took the picture) wrote, “Big Sky
Country!”
Knowledgeable Knollie immediately informed
her, “That’s not Montana; that’s Nebraska!”
Yes, yes.
But that’s still a big sky!
That evening, I sent this to Victoria,
asking, “Do I
send you this picture every single time it scrolls through on my screensaver?”
“Nope, I don’t think you ever have!”
she answered, and then added, “Violet said it looks like both of my girls.”
She soon followed that with this
picture, captioning it, “Little Violet.”
Maybe not so much in these two shots, but
there are many where Victoria’s little girls do indeed look a lot like their
Mama.
“Sometimes a picture scrolls past on
my screensaver, and I truly have absolutely no idea if it’s Arnold, or his
daddy Kurt when he was little!” I remarked.
“My phone can’t tell the difference
between Kurt and Arnold,” Victoria replied. “They are both labeled for both people no
matter how many times I go through and try to fix it.”
Here’s Teddy, age 2, having just learned to
curl his tongue. Hannah thought her
little brother was sooo funny.
The beeping of the stove woke me up at 5:30
a.m. Tuesday morning. I couldn’t get it
to quit except momentarily. Larry
(grumpily) got up (he couldn’t hear it, so it wasn’t bothering him) and
got it to stop by holding the ‘Off’ button for several seconds. {He thought this ‘fixed’ it; but, as we shall
later see, it did not.} I think that
oven is about at the end of its lifespan.
My quilt frame arrived that afternoon. I have not gotten it out of the box yet; I only
carried it into the house; but I can say that it’s lightweight enough
that I can carry it just fine.
As I sewed that afternoon, I went on
listening to The Civil War: A
Narrative.
Franklin Buchanan, a former US Navy officer,
became the highest-ranking admiral in the Confederate navy during the Civil
War. He is known for his service on both sides of the conflict, first as
a US Navy officer for over 45 years, and later as a Confederate admiral. He
commanded the ironclad CSS Virginia in the Battle of Hampton Roads,
and later led Confederate naval forces at Mobile Bay.
Here’s an excerpt, wherein he delivered a
speech on his ship after being informed that enemy ships were approaching:
“He hurried on deck in his drawers for a look
at the Yankee vessels, iron and wood, and
while he dressed, passed orders for the ram
and three attendant gunboats to move westward and take up position. Balding, clean-shaven, bright blue eyes, and
a hawk nose, the Marylander assembled his officers on the gundeck and made them
a speech that managed at once to be brief, and rambling.”
That’s just the sort of writing that kept me
entirely enrapt with this book series for the last several weeks. Though author Shelby Foote leaned
Confederate, he nonetheless wrote quite a well-balanced book. Though there may have been a few other clues,
I particularly began realizing his leanings when comparing the way he wrote of President
Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln’s son, William ‘Willie’ Wallace Lincoln dying
from typhoid fever on February 20, 1862, at the age of eleven to how he
described southern President Jefferson Davis and Varina Howell Davis’ son,
Joseph Emory Davis, dying in 1864 due to an accidental fall from the portico of
the Confederate White House at age five.
The latter story reduced me to tears; the former, not so much – not
because one was sadder than the other, but because of the more emotional
writing.
Wondering why, I typed into Google, “Was
Shelby Foote a Southern sympathizer?” and found that he had indeed admitted to
identifying with the South, even stating that he would have fought for the
Confederacy had he lived during the war.
Despite that, as I said, his over-3,000-page
book series is well-written and factual, though some of those Big Important
Reviewer-type personages have complained that he doesn’t cite enough
documentary proof. Ugh. That’s probably why I like it – the story
flows along nicely, often leaving one on the edge of one’s seat, sometimes
horrified, sometimes struck funny, often saddened, but always completely
interested and involved. Cited
documentary proof is generally off-putting, if you ask me. (You did ask me, didn’t you?) He does name those from whose diaries
he reads, and mentions the officers who wrote the notes he quotes. He does not ‘glorify slavery’, as some have
accused.
The project was a massive undertaking, taking
him twenty years to complete, which tells you right there the extensive
research and writing involved.
Having made
a new gallon of cold brew Monday – this one, Apple Cinnamon French Toast flavor
– and after letting it steep for about 20 hours, I took a big mugful with me to
my quilting studio that day. Mmmmm,
that’s good stuff.
Our supper
that evening was Panera Bread’s loaded potato soup, yams baked in the Instant
Pot, cottage cheese, and apple turnovers purchased frozen and baked in the oven, risking making the house hot (though
it was somewhat comfortable at the moment). We had peach-apple juice with our meal.
As I popped the turnovers in the oven,
I hoped it would work, after all that beeping in the early morning hours. It’s about 35 years old. It’s a convection oven, but the convection
part smells like burning electrical wires when I turn it on, so I don’t use
that part anymore. It’s one thing when
your oven burns your food. It’s another,
when it burns down the house!
Soon the timer went off; the turnovers
were done. I baked four – two for that
day, and two for the next. They were
yummy, despite being a little browner on one side than the other. I put frozen, extra-creamy Cool Whip on mine.
I tried my new tea from Christopher
Bean Coffee & Tea Company that night. It was the same flavor as the cold brew: Apple Cinnamon French Toast, and it came in
pyramid tea sachets in a pretty little tin. I used two sachets (not both at the same time)
– and both broke open and poured tea leaves and apple bits into the hot water! I fished them out and put them in a teacup
strainer, and tossed it back into the cup. The tea was good, but I think I’ll tell the
Christopher Bean Company about those faulty tea sachets.
Wednesday morning found me getting ready to
meet a
young man at the new local library regarding signing up for Medicare. There was a light rain falling, but it would
stop soon, thankfully. Good thing,
because it would’ve been even more uncomfortably warm in the car than it
already was, if I couldn’t roll the windows down.
After canceling the appointment with
the lady I had originally planned to meet in David City, 40 miles to the
southeast, on account of the air conditioner on the Mercedes going kaput, I was
glad enough to find someone else to meet right in town. He works out of Omaha, but grew up in
Columbus. I looked him up online after
talking with him on the phone (because I’m a skeptical and nosy person), and
was quite surprised to learn he’s only 23 years old. Anyway, he’s a nice young man from a nice
family, and I recognize some of the names of his family and friends.
He would later mention some information
regarding what program not to go with on account of what the local
hospital and its doctors accept. The
lady didn’t know that, which tells me this is the better person to talk with.
When I got home, I signed up for Social
Security and (hopefully, not sure if the Internet lost connection or not) for
Part A of Medicare. My stupidphone
refused to take pictures of both front and back of my driver’s license, as the
site requested, without locking up; and the webpage did not allow taking a shot
with a camera and then loading it onto the site. Even though it stated, “Must use phone,”
after 30 minutes of trying and failing, I grabbed my newest tablet and used it,
and it worked just fine. The site
did not protest; it apparently could not discern the difference between tablet
and phone.
But wait!
I wasn’t done! I had to take a
selfie to show that I am Me, and that I match my driver’s license photo. {Does anybody match their driver’s
license photo?!!}
“Do not wear your glasses!” I was instructed.
Therefore, first I had to determine where the
‘shutter’ button was, and remember this (as opposed to actually being able to see
it) after I took my glasses off.
I tapped the button, put my glasses back on, and
clicked ‘Submit.’
The submission was rejected.
Twice.
Okay, this is stupid, I thought. How will the bot on this site ever
think I am Me, when the driver’s license shot has glasses on, but I am supposed
to leave them off for this shot?!!
I put my glasses on, left them on, and
repeated the procedure. I tapped
‘Submit.’
The photo was accepted.
See, you just can’t always follow
instructions! Sometimes they are too
utterly stupid for words, defying all logic.
Once this was done, I was at the end of the
page. There wasn’t anything else to
do. Had I finished Part A? Where was Part B?
I hunted around... found a Part B
somewhere... started filling it out – and was informed, “You must have
completed Part A before filling out Part B.”
Right.
But how do I know if I completed Part A?!
Bigger question: Are all government websites set up by
imbeciles and idiots, or do they purposely leave things out just to foil those
who use said websites?
I did get the following email (one of those
that says, “Don’t you dare reply to this email, or we’ll ship you straight off
to Sing-Sing!”):
Thank you for filing your Social Security
application online. Our Social Security
Office in KANSAS CITY, MO (must you shout?!) received your claim and will be
working with you to process it. Our goal
is to process all applications efficiently.
(Yes, of course it is.) A
representative may call you for more information at the phone number you
provided on your application. Please be
aware that our representative may call you outside normal business hours, such
as on a weekend or during the evening. If
we are unable to reach you by phone, we may also contact you by e-mail or U.S.
mail. You should receive a letter in the
mail within 30 days with a decision or to request additional information. If you have a future month of entitlement (I always
feel entitled; don’t you?), you should receive a letter in the mail
approximately thirty days before your benefits should start. Also, you can check the status of your
application at ‘Status of your application’ (that’s sensible) or you may call
us at (877) 772-4309 with questions. Please
wait five days from the time that you filed before checking the status online. If you have not done so already, please log
onto my Social Security for quick and easy
access to many of our services.
There’s stuff like this on the webpage. I’m supposed to choose a notification
preference – text, email, or both – but the only thing available to click on is
‘Email only’.
Anybody who has anything to do with the
function or setup of this website at all should be forced to continue filling
out these pages day after day for the rest of his or her life, with no
resolution, ever.
Let’s get back to quilting! And listening to The Civil War. Here’s an excerpt on various political campaigners: “And then there was the stout-lunged New
Orleans orator, who, when he got warmed up, one listener declared, spoke so
loud, it was impossible to hear him.
“Even Ben Wade and Henry Davis, whose early
August manifesto had sought to check what they called his (Lincoln’s) ‘encroachments’,
took to the stump in support of the very monster they had spent the past two
months attacking, though they maintained a measure of consistency by spending
so much of their time excoriating the Democratic nominee that they had little
left for praise in the other direction.”
Then as now, then as now!
I worked
on Emma’s quilt until time for church. Since the part Larry ordered for
the Mercedes did not fix the air conditioner, we drove to church in the heat
again, unable to roll the windows all the way down until afterwards, so that we
didn’t mess ourselves all up before we got there, and hoping we got there
before we were dripping wet from said heat.
Maybe it’s best to be utterly windblown than wringing wet!
We got sandwiches at Arby’s after
church. There are a few entrées at
Arby’s that are perfectly healthful. The
one I chose was not one of them.
By the time I got it down the hatch, I felt
decidedly like I had just consumed a large quantity of junk food. 😜
I decided to add to the feeling by eating an
apple turnover. I opened the
refrigerator – and found no apple turnovers.
Not so much as a crumb.
The culprit had the audacity to complain that
they ‘weren’t all that tasty, because they had no frosting’! Aaauuuggghhh.
I prefer them with no frosting; too much sugar gives me a
stomachache.
I repeat myself, but ‘Aaauuuggghhh.’
I decided to have a few FlipSide Pretzel
crackers instead.
They were soggy from the heat and humidity in
the house.
AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!
At midnight, the stove started beeping
again. I pressed buttons, flipped the
lock handle this way and that, and whistled ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ backwards, but
nothing stopped that infernal beeping.
Larry, who was napping in his recliner (the
recliner he had told me half an hour earlier was too uncomfortable to sleep in),
was not pleased when I interrupted his nap.
“Well, you’re not comfortable anyway,” I said
in my soothing wifely way. “Besides, the
water buckets need to be emptied.”
He said, and I quote, “Grum grum grum grum
grum.” Then, a bit more eloquently, “I
was sleeping!”
“But not comfortably!” I said
cheerfully, which did nothing to cheer him up.
Along with the beeping, the stove says
‘Error’ on the display, and sometimes ‘Door Latch’, and an FC code (I don’t
know what that means; should look it up).
I decided to have an egg over-easy on toast
for breakfast Thursday morning. I
cracked an egg into the pan... turned the stove on... tried to salt it (the
egg, not the stove) — but humidity in the house had crystalized the salt, and
it wouldn’t come through the holes in the shaker. I couldn’t get the lid off; it was stuck
tight. I pulled the cardboard salt
container (what are those things called?
Canisters?) out of the cupboard (with difficulty; the cupboard is too
high for me), poured a wee bit into my hand, and then tried to sprinkle a pinch
of salt on the egg. The entire ‘pinch’
wound up in one spot. 😖
I sprinkled pepper on it and called it
good. I got the bread out of the
refrigerator, stuck a slice in the toaster, went back to check the egg – but
nothing was happening. I belatedly
realized that the stove was totally off. Larry had either scooted it out and unplugged
it, or tripped the breaker the previous night when it wouldn’t quit beeping.
I poured the egg onto a saucer and (over)cooked
it in the microwave for one minute. (I
made a Fisher Price toy rubber egg, that’s what I did.)
To add insult to injury, there was dried mud
on the floor, and I was barefoot.
We now had no air conditioner in house
or car, and no oven or stove. And mud on
the floor.
I decided to leave it there and tell
Larry the broom was broken.
By noon, it was 83°, feeling like 94°, on its
way up to 88°. When I went out to refill
and rehang the bird feeders earlier that morning, the fat little whistle pig (I
like that name better than woodchuck 😄) was on the back
deck, cleaning up spilt sunflower seeds. He refuses to hang around and have a
conversation. (’Course, I did
startle him by quickly sliding open the screen before I noticed him.) It wasn’t long before a squirrel had taken his
place and was chowing down on the bird seed.
Here’s a whistle pig carrying her
three little chucklings on her back.
Isn’t that the perfect name for them?
Much better than the simple ‘kit’ or ‘pup’ they are otherwise
known as. A whistle pig and her
chucklings.
(Photo by W. Perry Conway for National
Geographic.)
Since my rib was still hurting, and now and
then seemed in fact to be getting worse and was noticeably sticking out farther
than its fellow ribs, I hunted around online for an explanation and something
that might possibly alleviate the pain.
It seems I have an ailment called ‘rib flare’
associated with inflammation, probably from an injury either old or new,
worsened by arthritis and osteoporosis.
I found a video on YouTube where a doctor demonstrates an
exercise that helps a lot of
people with this problem.
I proceeded to give it a try. I did this exercise verrrry carefully, afraid
it would hurt. It didn’t.
Everyone in the comment section, it seemed, was
helped in nanoseconds. I am not everyone
else. But I continued the exercise at
intervals through the next several days.
I got a little too carried away the first day
I tried it, though (imagine me, getting ‘too carried away’ with
anything, heh), and made a corresponding vertebra sore.
I finished the 18 Triple Irish Chain blocks
for Emma’s quilt, and was soon sewing them into rows with the cross-stitched
flower blocks.
That afternoon, I dumped an entire
drawer of socks and tights and leggings into the washing machine, because I
didn’t like how they smelled. Sometimes
in this old farmhouse, things don’t smell good in the hot summer days. Old pine wood smells... and animal smells,
too. Ugh. I am very sensitive to bad smells. I added Mox detergent, Downy liquid softener,
and an entire cup of Downy scent beads to the washer.
I put a jar of scented wax on a coffee
mug warmer on the main floor, lit a candle upstairs where I was sewing, set off
a Rain Fresh odor bomb in one of the cubbyholes that’s open to some of the
rafters, and sprayed Mrs. Meyer’s room freshener in Compassion-Flower scent
here and there.
Everything would either smell better,
or blow up, one or the other!
Finding myself hungry by midafternoon,
I trotted downstairs to get a slice of Pepper Jack cheese.
There was none left!
I poked around the half-empty
refrigerator and a few half-empty shelves, and came up with some baby carrots. They were good, but a poor substitute for
Pepper Jack cheese. They would have to
do.
By
suppertime, the eighteen 18” Triple Irish Chain blocks were done. They’d
make a pretty quilt by themselves, wouldn’t they? But it would be even
better with the eighteen 18” cross-stitched blocks.
There are
97 patches in each block. That makes a total of 1,746 patches. The
squares are 1½”, finished. No wonder it took so long to make these
blocks! – 34½ hours, counting cutting, to be exact. Now to sew them into rows!
I launched
into that as soon as we finished eating.
By 11:30 p.m., the blocks were all sewn into
rows. I would sew the rows together the
next day. I retired to my recliner to do
battle with a pesky mosquito.
Question:
How does the very same mosquito extract a pint of blood from a person,
and remain the same size he was when he started his feast???
By 11:30
a.m. Friday morning, it was 84°. A heat
advisory was issued, to be in effect from 1:00 – 8:00 p.m., with an expected heat
index reaching 109°.
I posted
this picture on my Quilt Talk group, wishing everyone a good morning – and then
took a closer look at it.
The lady has six fingers on one hand (maybe even 7) while the man’s little finger is extra
long, and then the fingers get steadily shorter right up to that stub of an
index finger — BUT!!! Worst of all, the man has three arms!!! I did not see that
until I was nearly done with my AI assessment. 🙄😖😂😆 I guess that’s why they need three mugs of
coffee?
Levi sent me an audio clip that morning. He had put together five French horn
tracks, and then done a voiceover. The
song? Anchors Aweigh. I’m pretty sure he had adjusted the key so
that the first note was the very lowest note he could sing. Further, he sang it with full gusto.
I don’t
know why it made me laugh so hard (aaaa, my sore rib); probably because it wasn’t
at all what I expected. Levi usually
sings tenor. He has sometimes sent
recordings of himself on multiple tracks, singing soprano, tenor, alto, and
bass, sometimes a cappella and sometimes with an instrument of one sort or
another. These are generally our favorite old hymns. So I was not prepared for Anchors Aweigh. 😆
That
afternoon, I went to look at the water buckets collecting water from the
portable air conditioner units – and discovered that the hose on the ac in our
bedroom must’ve gotten knocked off when Larry last emptied the bucket. There was a bit of water on the floor, but
most of it drained right down the air conditioner vent.
If I
didn’t go downstairs and find a small pond, it wasn’t there, right?
I went into the kitchen to console myself
with a mug of Celsius. I make it with
powdered packets. I reached into the
cupboard for one of the little boxes containing the packets – and got sticky
goo all over my hand.
Now, I have known that something – a
relatively small something – was stuck to the cupboard floor, probably
by some spilt and hardened corn syrup. I
had tried in vain to pull it loose. I
figured I’d resort to whacking it out of there with Larry’s ulu, one of these
days soon. But... out of sight, out of
mind.
It was out of sight and mind no more! It was all over my hand.
Turns out, the humidity and the heat in the
kitchen since the air conditioner went kaput rehydrated the corn syrup. I don’t know how it went from a small
spot on the base of the cupboard to a coating of syrup on every last item in
the cupboard.
I took everything out, washed them, threw out
a few things that had expired, and scrubbed and wiped the cupboard out.
It was 89° by that time, and felt like 101°. Outside, that is. But it wasn’t a whole lot cooler inside. The portable air conditioner units can’t keep
up, when it’s that hot. Too hot to be
scrubbing out cupboards!
I grumbled
when I found that mess; but it is nice to have a clean cupboard. I should clean out a cupboard each day. A week and a half later, I would have all
clean cupboards!
If corn
syrup gets spilled in them, I’ll do that.
😉 I never once saw
the bottle tipped over. It was glass. Could there have been a crack
in it, I wonder? I threw it in the
trash. With fervor, I did.
Before and
during and after all those interruptions, I sewed together the rows for Emma’s
Embroidered Flower Garden quilt, then added a narrow border.
I pulled
out the leftover pieces of Quilters’ Dream wool batting to see if I had enough
to sew together for this quilt. I did,
and so I did.
While I sewed, I went on listening to the Civil
War: A Narrative. Here’s another tidbit: “The southern confederates were seizing
people’s personal horses for their cavalry, including those from a traveling
circus, whose bareback riders were left poised in midair, so to speak.”
Next, I
put the backing together for Emma’s quilt.
Everything was ready to load on the quilting frame. But it was time for bed.
Saturday, I swept, mopped, vacuumed (gingerly)
and dusted before heading upstairs to my quilting studio.
Another line from Civil War, this one describing the rigors of wading through bogs and swamps in the south: “We were slowed by unexpected semi-amphibious marches.”
It took
an hour to get the quilt loaded on the frame, and then I was quilting. I’m doing a pantograph called ‘Lollipop
Roses’ on it.
I was
still going strong when I suddenly realized why my stomach was growling: it was past 7:30 p.m.! Time flies when you’re having fun. 😂
I
quilted a little longer after supper, and stopped after completing the third
row.
And then
something dreadful happened: I got to
the end of Volume 3, Part 6, in Civil War — and there was no Part 7 and
8!!! waa waa waa Now I don’t know how the story ends!
Well, I do,
of course; just not according to Shelby Foote. Bother.
Bother! I’ve invested many weeks
in this series!
Sunday
morning I awoke at 5:30 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. Trying to sleep with a portable AC noisemaker
in the room is not easy (or particularly comfortable). It chugs away, SWOOSHRUMBLECHUG, and
then with a THUMP and a GLUB-BUMP-WHOMP!, it switches from high fan to
low. In a few seconds, water that the
unit has extracted from the air drains into the water bucket: BLORP DRIPPITY-DRIP-DRIP SPLASHSHSHSH
DRIPPITY GLORP.
All is
then quiet for a minute or two, and I start to drift off to sleep, when I
abruptly realize, I’m hot! I
shove the quilt away, leaving only the thin fleece blanket and the sheet.
Half a
minute later, I’m still hot! I
throw the fleece blanket off. This is
soon followed by the sheet.
I think, Ahhhhh...
and the AC unit comes to life.
CLOMPBANGFWOOSHROAR!!
It doesn’t
take long before I’m thinking, Brrrr, that breeze is cool! and I
start pulling first the sheet, then the blanket, and finally the quilt back
over me.
I fluff
and thump my pillow back into shape. I
scratch the top of my head, and wiggle a shoulder to try scratching the itch in
the dead center of my back. AAAAAAAaaa! That hurt my rib! Now I need to turn over. This is hard work, with a sore rib.
All this
scrambling about makes me hot. I pitch
the quilt to the foot of the bed.
The
louvres on the portable AC pause while blowing directly at me.
I pull the
quilt back up.
A few
cycles of this, and my alarm goes off.
It’s time to get up and get ready for church.
Sunday
afternoon, I made a fresh gallon of Vanilla Nut Butter Cookie cold brew. I’m sipping some now, after letting it steep
overnight. It’s good, but the Apple
Cinnamon French Toast was better.
My
Logitech ergonomic keyboard lost its last marble. After trying numerous fixes, I looked online
to see if anyone knew something I didn’t know.
Nope; I know everything there is to know. >>...snerk...<<
I’ll
betcha anything the hot, humid house messed it up. Hope this doesn’t happen to any other
electronics.
I ordered
a new one; it’s scheduled to arrive tomorrow.
Last night after church, Bobby loaned me
Volume 3 of his Civil War books.
Just look how big this book is!
Parts 7 and 8 are comprised of 258 pages.
Upon
learning that Bobby doesn’t have Volume 2, as he was unable to find it (at
least not at an affordable price, or the same print year [covers changed by different
print years]), I hunted it up when we got home, found one half price at
American Book Warehouse, and ordered it.
I’ll give
it to Bobby as soon as it arrives and say, “Here’s your book,” and watch his
eyebrows fly up, surprised I read so fast.
hee hee
We picked
up an order of groceries at Walmart, then came home and had a late supper: yummy sandwiches with two kinds of thin-sliced meat,
two kinds of cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce on croissant rolls with seeds all
over the top, sliced and toasted, buttered and mayonnaised. We had apple turnovers with creamy vanilla
ice cream for dessert.
Earlier today, I deposited Larry’s
check and dropped off some things at the Goodwill. My rib is enough better that it’s no longer a
trial by fire just getting out of the Mercedes.
I had an afternoon snack of fresh
strawberries. I was enjoying the last
one, when a delivery truck pulled up.
Once
again, it was a girl delivering my two 40-lb. bags of birdseed, poor
thing. She looked big and hefty, but it
was obviously almost more than she could cope with – and she had to walk down part
of the drive and then all the way along the front walk to the porch, twice, in
this hot weather.
I scurried
to the refrigerator, grabbed a cold bottle of Alō Aloe Vera juice, and hurried
to the door to give it to her, poor dear.
She didn’t hesitate; she took it and thanked me profusely.
As she
walked back down the sidewalk, holding up the bottle to look at it, then
unscrewing the lid and taking a drink (I’ll bet she was really thirsty!), it
occurred to me that I should tell her about the aloe vera pieces in the juice,
so I went back out and called to her – and discovered she didn’t speak
English. She came back to the porch,
tried to set her phone to ‘translate’ – but couldn’t get a signal, which
happens fairly often out here in the boonies.
She gave
up after a bit, explained the problem to me in Spanish, pointing at the sky and
circling her finger. I, not knowing
Spanish, understood that just fine! I
nodded, laughed, and rolled my eyes.
Then, pointing at the bottle she’d already opened, I said, “Shake it!”
while pantomiming just that.
“Oh!” said
she nodding, grinning, and repeating, “Shake it!” She put the lid back on and gave it a good
shake.
Yep, we
understood each other! 😅
She will
now know what ‘Shake it’ means. I,
however, not catching what she said when she pointed at the sky, still don’t
know how to say ‘can’t connect to the Internet’ in Española. Mr. Google tells me it’s “No puedo conectarme a
internet,” but, after listening to it, I
sure can’t say it. (And now, Larry Page
and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, have decided that since I am now writing
in Spanish, all the English words I write are actually misspelt Spanish, and
they will therefore underline them with red wavy lines.)
Sigghhhh... Inglesa or Española, the pretty young girl
who delivered the birdseed is now hydrated.
Switch
me back to English, Mr. Page and/or Mr. Brin!
Hey! I just realized that I dragged both of those
40-lb. bags (one at a time) into the laundry room without my rib even hurting much
at all! Yay, it’s getting better.
It’s been
so hot in this house that my gum (I like Rain’s Spearmint) is melting. Have you ever tried to chew melted gum?! Doesn’t work.
I tell you, it doesn’t work!
Pondering things I might like for
supper, and considering the recalcitrant stove, I just looked up ‘FC Error’. Here’s the explanation: “The error ‘FC’ indicates a failed
communication between the display control board and the relay control board. First, try flipping the circuit breaker off
for the oven or unplugging it for 5 minutes to see if the electronics reset.”
The breaker has been flipped since last
Wednesday night. I believe I’ll trot
downstairs and flip it back on, and see what happens. Here I go...
...
...
...
Eeeek!
I touched the wrong thing (wires attached to the side of the panel) and
got shocked!
I quit touching them, really fast.
Annnnd... there goes the stove, beeping
again. Down the stairs I go to flip the
breaker off again. Do I remember which
one it was? (I do remember what
not to touch.)
...
...
...
All righty, I’m back again, unshocked, and
the stove is off, so I got the right breaker.
So now the air conditioner in the house, the air
conditioner in the Mercedes, and the oven are all on the fritz, done gone
kaput.
We will have chef salad for supper, and we
will not have soft-boiled eggs with our salads, more’s the pity. What’s a chef salad without soft-boiled
eggs?! (We love soft-boiled eggs.)
Larry got
home from work, and I attempted to sign him up for Social Security. I made his account... then, with the website
periodically protesting, took pictures front and back of his driver’s
license. Next, he had to take a selfie.
Multiple
attempts resulted in nothing but rejected submissions. According to the website, he is NOT the
person on his own driver’s license.
Eventually, the site was locked down, and we were informed, “You may try
again in 5 hours and 59 minutes.”
Oh, thank
you kindly. Maybe Larry will look
different by then.
Meanwhile,
Larry is perplexed. “I didn’t have a hat
on in the driver’s license photo, and I don’t have one on now!” he said.
I looked
at him. “By that logic, anybody
should be able to take a selfie, and, so long as they don’t have a hat on,
they should match your driver’s license!”
“No,” he
said in a pondering tone. “But I didn’t
have glasses on then or now, either.”
Ah. So it’s the combination of hat and glasses
that makes one match or not.
I removed
my glasses. “There. Now I’m your twin. Right?”
Traumatized
by both Social Security and his wife, Larry went away to have a nap.
Finally we
have a fairly cool night; it’s just 69° at 10:00 p.m. I accordingly turned off air conditioner
units and fans, opened doors and windows, and am now listening to katydids and
crickets.
Because
wood in the house has swollen on account of the humidity, doors and windows are
tight and hard to open and close. I
couldn’t get the window next to my chair at the table open, so Larry opened it
for me – all the way to the top of the frame.
Then he went off to have his before-bedtime nap in the tub downstairs.
It wasn’t
long before it was too chilly, with the breeze blowing right in on me. By 10:20, it was 68°, on its way down to 61°
in the early morning hours.
I tugged
on the window. It didn’t budge.
I climbed
up on my chair, grasped the top of the window, and pulled it shut.
And now my
rib hurts. Bah, humbug.
But the
house is cool! I shall have myself a cup
of Apple Cinnamon tea to celebrate.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.