Journal: Kangaroos, Clones, and Cougars

 

I didn’t pick up my grocery order last Tuesday as I had planned, because my right wrist was complaining.  I decided to wait until Wednesday evening after church, when Larry could help me.  According to the webpage where I paid for the groceries, I had four days to pick them up.  And according to the Customer Help page, I had seven days to pick them up.

Nothing is seriously wrong with my wrist; it’s mostly just arthritis.  But I’d overused it with my quilting machine... lifting a heavy roaster out of the oven... trying to keep the wind from blowing the door of the Mercedes open too far... and editing photos.  I have to use the mouse more with photo-editing programs (I use PaintShop Pro); usually I stick to my ergonomic keyboard as much as possible.  My wrist was hurting enough that I decided to give one of those new-fangled ergonomic mice a try.  It has both a USB receiver and Bluetooth.

It arrived in two days, and the mouse pad with the gel support for the wrist came a day later.  Editing pictures is sooo much easier, with this mouse and pad.

That day, I went shopping – online – for clothes for the grandchildren for Christmas.

Time out to send a note to Lydia:  “MMMmmmm, this Pink Chiffon body cream you gave me for my birthday is soooo nice, and smells soooo good.  Thank you!  

“I’m saving the bath scrub and the shower gel as a carrot on a stick in front of my nose, and it will be my reward for using up all the Ivory soap I brought home from Uncle Loren’s house.  Some of that soap is so old, the paper comes off the bars in crumbles; but the soap itself is still fine.  I prefer yummy-smelling gels and soaps, but I’m being all frugal and parsimonious.  😏  We’ve gone through about ten bars so far, and there are about six to go.  I discovered it even works good on stains, scrubbing the bar right on the fabric.  I will use up this soap!  I will use up this soap!  I will use up this soap!  I will use up this soap!  I will use up this soap!”

Here’s another shot taken in the Shoshone Canyon on the west side of Yellowstone National Park.  It was so pretty that night, driving through canyon, with the red rock walls on either side, the bright moon rising and making the Shoshone River glisten and sparkle in the moonlight.

Someone commented under some of the pictures I posted, “Hope you get photos from your phone.” 

Since I rarely use my phone to take pictures, I felt quite blank upon reading that.  Huh?

But she went on to say, “I lost a lot of mine when my phone went dead.” 

Ohhh.  She thought I took the photos with my phone.

“I just back up photos of my husband,” she added.  “I lost over 1000 photos.”

I repeat myself, but, Huh?  She only backs up photos she has taken of her husband?  Eh?

But I have learned not to ask some people (her, in particular) for explanations, lest the explanation muddle the issue even further.  So I sympathized, “I’m sorry you lost your pictures,” and explained that I use my Canon Rebel t5i for photos, and have them backed up on at least three separate hard drives.

She didn’t answer.  Maybe she thought, just like I did upon reading her note, Huh?

Here’s an excerpt from an old journal I found, written back when Victoria was not quite four:

Victoria, sitting on the opposite side of the table from me as I was sewing away, was busily cutting small pieces of material.  

She handed me a rather uneven shape.  “Here you go; this is for you!” she said.  Then, in the next breath, “What is it?”  

I took a good look at it.  “Well, it’s almost a diamond shape,” I replied.  

“Nope!” she responded triumphantly.  “It’s a boat!!”  And it did look like a boat.  She giggled.  “Did you know I was going to make that?” she asked.  

“No,” I answered truthfully.  

She raised her eyebrows.  “Neither did I,” said she.  

Next, she cut out a rectangle with a slightly rounded end.  “What’s this?” she queried.  

“A rectangle,” I answered, thinking I couldn’t go wrong this time.  

“Nope!”  She grinned happily, having fooled me again.  “It’s a mailbox!” she informed me gleefully.  

The next item it seemed, was a perger.  After that, she cut out a purler, and then a surler collar.  And no, I did not guess any of those. 

Before long, I was covered with bits and pieces of fabric that Victoria was cutting and sticking all over my sweater and skirt.  She looked me over critically, and then announced, “I’m having a Decoration Party.”

About the same time, we went to Wendy’s in Central City for supper.  Victoria announced that she wanted Candy Crooper with Cheese.  I informed her that Candy Crooper was bad for her health, and would she like chicken, instead; it was not only good for her, but also quite tasty.  She would, and it was.

Just before her 4^th birthday, we took a trip to Lincoln.  A heavy mist came down, all day.  The temperature was falling slowly.  When we left Lincoln, it was 31°.  The roads were not yet icy, however, and we traveled along nicely until we got to David City, where we made one of our many necessary pit stops. 

I jumped out of the Suburban--and immediately discovered it was slick. 

“Careful!” I cried to the children, who were in various processes of clambering out of the vehicle, “It’s really slippery out here!”

I reached for Victoria, helped her out, and took her hand.  She, not in the least concerned about dicey traction of the foot, took off on a dead run.  Since it was windy and cold, and the snow was swirling down faster every minute, I didn’t complain; I merely loped along with her – until she tried to jump a puddle and her feet suddenly flew out from under her.  I hung onto her hand, and managed, with difficulty, to keep her – and myself – from falling.  I think we probably looked something like a centipede doing an interpretation of a millipede.

“Whewweee!” she gasped, when she was finally safely upright again.  “That was sure a good thing I was holding your hand, or you might have fallen down!”

“Well, it was your fault I ever slipped in the first place, because you were being such a maniac!” I objected, scowling.

“Oh,” said she, only slightly humbled.

I recalled a time when Lydia was a baby, and an ice storm had struck while we were en route somewhere or other.  We stopped at an Interstate rest area.  Since Lydia was asleep, I stayed in the car while the children all prepared to go inside the large tourist center, hurriedly zipping coats and tying hoods.  

Keith, who was eleven, jumped out and fell flat.  He scrambled to his feet and proceeded on with new caution.  Hannah, age ten, concurrently climbing out on the other side, lost her footing and went down.  She got up carefully and walked gingerly toward the building.  Dorcas, who was nine, had seen both her brother and her sister fall…but being the eternal optimist that she was, never dreamed it could happen to her.

She leaped out with neither caution nor prudence.

SPLAT.  Down she went.  She struggled up, grasping the door handle to assist herself, and went slowly toward the tourist’s quarters, a bit wiser about the ways of icy streets and sidewalks.

Joseph, age seven, was next, and he did no better than his siblings before him.  Furthermore, because he had on a pair of bulky boots that seemed to tangle themselves around the other leg at every step, he couldn’t get to his feet without assistance from Larry.  The rest of the way to the building, he not only slipped and slid, but he also tripped and stumbled over those boots with every other step.  

Larry helped Hester, age three, from the vehicle, and started for the tourist center and restrooms.  I don’t believe Hester found her footing the entire distance, and her uncontrolled flailing made it difficult for her father to stay on his feet.  They slipped, skidded, and crisscrossed not only their own feet, but also each other’s pathways.

Teddy was the last one out.  He was eight.  The little scamp had been sitting in the middle of the back seat, funny bone in Full Operational Swing.  

“My turn!” he called out gleefully, as soon as everyone had picked themselves up off the icy earth and gotten themselves out of the way.  And with that, he bounded out of the car.  “Bail out!” he cried.

I craned my neck to peer back at him, expecting the worst – but there he stood beside the car, arms twirling at his sides like a windmill, feet spinning madly, while he pretending to be powerless to go forward.  He grinned impishly at me through my window.  Suddenly taking off like a rocket, he caught up with the rest of the family and commenced with a capering cabaret behind them, twirling and spinning like an accomplished Olympic skater.  An accomplished comedic Olympic skater.  He interspersed that skit with periodic imitations of his father and little sister, crisscrossing his feet, kicking the backs of his own boots, and lurching along better than Andy Capp has ever lurched.

And no, he has not changed, neither in humor nor in balance.

When we departed the convenience store at David City and pulled onto the highway, I pressed a little harder than necessary on the accelerator, just to see how slick it was.  Yes, it was slick.  The Suburban slid sideways one way, and then the other, and I decided it would be prudent to slow down from the 65 mph I’d been traveling.  I kept it slightly under 50, until we got to the main highway, where the sleet and snow were melting on the road, because there were more vehicles traveling on it.

Victoria told the others about our near spill on the way into the store.  ”It’s because I was being such a really maniac!” she reported, giggling and quite proud of herself.

That’s been a description we used for quite a while thereafter:  “You’re being such a really maniac.” 

 

Wednesday I heard on the news that they caught three men who were responsible for stealing several reefers fully loaded with meat from Grand Island’s packing plant.  Sometimes they made off with the entire truck and kaboodle.  Sometimes they drove it to a remote location, unloaded all the meat, and left the truck.

During the summer, we heard that similar heists had occurred in Iowa, South Dakota, and Minnesota; but I learned that they had also occurred in North Dakota and Wisconsin.  The total value of these thefts was around 9 million dollars.  The three men were working out of Miami.

Criminals sure can be brazen!  But they almost always get caught.

That afternoon, a friend wrote to tell me that she had received a ‘friend request’ from me on Facebook, though we are already ‘Facebook friends’.  

“Have you been hacked?” she asked.

“Cloned, probably, but not hacked,” I told her.  “I’ll blow up my computer and burn my house down, and that should solve the problem.  😂”

Before the day ended, Facebook had informed me that my ‘violence-inciting hate speech’ was not tolerated on their platform.  My reply had been removed, and I could neither make new posts nor comment or reply on other posts.

I protested. 

They promptly restored my privileges, whilst sternly warning me that if I didn’t cease and desist with the ‘inciting of violence’, my account could be suspended, disabled, or even removed entirely.

Looks like their AI (Artificial Intelligence) text-analyzing models aren’t as intelligent as they’d like to think they are.

I then reported the cloned account.

Next, to add insult to injury, some Helpful Hattie tried also reporting the cloned account – and accidentally (I hope) reported my legitimate account, instead of the cloned account!  Fortunately, Facebook’s robotic account verifier can somehow tell the difference between cloned and legitimate accounts.  The robo notifier dutifully informed me of these happenings and assured me that my account was still intact.  Robo Noto was so polite and nice, I feel sure it had not been in recent contact with AI Text-Analyzer, and did not know what a felonious criminal it was dealing with.

I checked active logins and logouts, and no one other than me had access to my account.

Here’s the difference between a cloned and a hacked account:

A cloned account is when someone grabs your profile picture and name and sets up an account that looks just like yours.  However, there will be practically no content, and the only persons in the ‘friends’ list will be those few who mistakenly click ‘accept’ to the clone’s friend requests.  The creator of this account will probably attempt to get personal information from these friends.

A hacked account, on the other hand, is when someone takes over your very own account, using your own password, then changing that password to one of their own making, so that you no longer have access to the account.  If you can catch it quickly enough and get your password changed before the hacker changes it, you might retrieve that account.  Facebook techs will sometimes help return a hacked account to its rightful owner.  But not always.  If you don’t know enough of the original information with which you created your account (phone numbers, email addresses, etc.), you just might be out of luck.

Now, if only someone would clone me as a maid, a housecleaner, a cook, and a gardener!

As Larry and I traveled through the mountains, we talked about what it would’ve been like when the pioneers spotted the dark foothills up ahead.  Imagine them thinking, Wow, this is going to be difficult. 

And then, after a long, hard pull, wherein they maybe had to discard of quite a number of heavy belongings, they’d give a sigh of relief as they topped the hill — and look aghast at impossibly high, jagged mountains reaching up, up, up, into the heavens, and stretching as far to the north and as far to the south as the eye could see.   Astonishing that any of them ever made it at all.

I got a notification from Wal-Mart.  I clicked on it.

“Your Wal-Mart order has been canceled, because you didn’t pick it up soon enough,” I was informed.

What in the world?  Even their shortest time frame for pickup is stated to be four days!  It had only been two.

I pulled up Wal-Mart chat and inquired.  Somebody named Muhammed began the online chat after the automated responses were of no use.  “Hello!  I welcome you most warmly, and I do sincerely hope you are having a completely wonderful day!” he wrote.

Well, that’s irritating.  I responded curtly, “Hello”  (No punctuation gives it that curt intonation, don’t you think?)

He answered, “Hello!”  (You already said that, Bub.)  Then, “Before we proceed, I wish to know if you’re having a wonderful day!”

Irritating!!!  But since he just might have the power to reinstate my order, I wrote shortly, “Yes”  (Again, note the lack of punctuation.  I mean something by this!)  (And yes, I realize that it’s probably just like my very ladylike mother’s sarcasm, which was often done so subtly, and in such a courtly and dignified manner, the ignorant slobs to whom she was offering the insult had no idea under the sun that they had just been royally affronted.)  (But now I understand that the feeling of satisfaction simply over having done it is nothing to be sneezed at.)

“Good, good,” Muhammed gushed.  I wonder if he’s ever been kicked in the shins, and then tell myself, He’s only trying to be friendly, and he might be able to help.  Wal-Mart should train their help not to be overly effusive in their online chats, since most customers who make use of said chat are connecting with said help in order to resolve an issue of one sort or another, and we aren’t singing It’s Been A Wonderful Day, All Day Long! whilst we’re a-doing so.

I told him about my order being canceled and asked if it could be reinstated.  Muhammed, after checking with his superior, assured me that he could do absolutely nothing about it.  He apologized profusely, telling me, “I’m so embarrassed, my face is red!”  (Oh, brother.)  “I am certainly making a report about this matter,” he informed me.  If we had’ve been speaking on the phone, he would’ve surely been making indignant ‘tut-tut’ noises on my behalf.

He finished by asking me if I planned to have a delightful rest of the day. 

“I would,” I wrote testily, “if I could have the pie and ice cream I ordered!” 

“I understand, I understand,” he responded soothingly. 

What, did he want pie and ice cream too?

Then, because, after all, it wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t canceled my order (or if he did, he wasn’t admitting it), I wrote, “Thank you!” and added a nice big smiley face.

I signed off and reordered.  I couldn’t just do it all at once, either; I had to reorder each item individually – and it was a big order.  I consoled myself by adding a bunch of those scrumptious little Oui yogurts in the cute glass jars.

Just before church, my cousin emailed me:  “Interesting tidbit!  Apparently there is a mountain lion roaming the west side of Springfield!”  (That’s in Illinois, 60 miles northwest of Shelbyville, where she lives, and where my father and his family used to live.)  “He’s wearing a GPS collar that was placed on him last year by the Nebraska Game and Parks Division.  The article said that our DNR is also coordinating with your biologist in Nebraska on its continued movements.  I thought you would find this interesting.  That lion has traveled a long way.  I just hope some zealot doesn’t try to take it down for a trophy!”

That is interesting.  He’s probably traveled anywhere from 500-550 miles, maybe more, if he came from the Pineridge area in the northwest part of Nebraska.  Must be a young one, looking for new territory.  I wondered where he would find a mate, in Illinois.

A couple of days later I read this in our local news:

“A mountain lion that roamed residential neighborhoods in Springfield, Illinois, was sedated Friday and taken to an Indiana sanctuary that houses big cats, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources said.  The young male was tranquilized by staff with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services branch and sent to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Center Point, Indiana, the state agency said.

“IDNR wildlife experts, Illinois Conservation Police, the USDA, and the Springfield Police Department determined the animal had entered areas of the city where he would be a threat to people or property.  The animal, which was fitted last year with a GPS collar by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, had wandered to Illinois from Nebraska.  It arrived in Springfield on Wednesday, and IDNR warned residents not to disturb it while the agency tracked its movements.  The DNR asked people to leave the mountain lion alone because the animals are a protected species in Illinois and it’s illegal to kill them unless they pose an imminent threat to person or property.

“Its appearance in Springfield marks the second time in recent weeks a mountain lion has been detected in Illinois.  The DNR said last week that a mountain lion was struck and killed on October 16 by a vehicle along Interstate 88 in DeKalb County.”

Dekalb County is about 185 miles north of Springfield.  That’s not all that far, to a mountain lion.  The range of a cougar may cover anywhere from 25 to 785 square miles.  In southern Utah, for example, lions have been known to occupy home ranges as large as 513 square miles.  The size of a mountain lion’s territory depends on the availability of food and habitat quality.

Thursday, the clothes for the grandchildren began arriving.  The mail lady crammed as many packages as she possibly could into our mailbox over on Old Highway 81, and brought the rest to our front porch.  Very sensible.  Eh?

I will soon begin wrapping and bagging them, finding out what all I have saved throughout the year, and what I still need to buy – as in, toys and gadgets.  Kids gotta have toys and gadgets, and not just clothes; or they’ll suppose you think they’ve been bad all year long! 

The new ergonomic mouse arrived.  I tried it first with the USB receiver, then paired it via Bluetooth, freeing up another USB port on my laptop, which I’ve needed at times.  I hadn’t used the mouse for ten minutes before I knew I really, really liked it, and it was really, really going to help my wrist.

“You like the new mouse better than the touchpad on your laptop?” asked a friend.

I like any mouse better than the touchpad on the laptop.  But this new mouse is better than the other ‘normal’ mice I have used.  The touchpad on my last laptop, an HP, was better – and had more functions – than this Acer touchpad.  It’s not bad; but the HP was better.

That evening, Hannah texted me from where she was parked on main street downtown, outside the music store waiting for Levi to finish his horn lesson:  “Downtown is an absolute madhouse with trick-or-treaters.”  She sent a picture, captioning it, “What Chimera looked like as a jack-o-lantern in a witch hat and black outfit went by.”

A minute later, she wrote, “Now both dogs are howling about a wiener dog wearing a hotdog costume.” 

“It probably made them hungry!” I conjectured.  Then, after Hannah described a few more costumed persons, “Poor things are going to have nightmares.”

“Here’s a lady with two girls:  One is an angel; the other is a devil,” wrote Hannah.  “Wonder if they’re in character?”  Then, “Uh-oh, an itty bitty Care Bear fell down.”

Soon she added, “It’s being restrained in a stroller now, against its will.  It’s shrieking loudly.”

Minutes later:  “Ridiculous.  A grown man in an Eeyore onesie, pushing a stroller.  Chimera is rather stunned by a walking dinosaur about seven feet tall.”

“He thinks you took him to Jurassic Park!” I laughed.

That night on the Quilt Talk group, we were discussing the weather, comforters, blankets, and quilts, among other things.

We once had an electric blanket, years ago.  In the middle of winter, it abruptly stopped working right.  I was cold.  I kept turning the control up... up... up... and it kept getting colder... colder... colder.  “This blanket isn’t working right!” I finally exclaimed.

“I know!” agreed Larry.  “I’m boiling hot, and it won’t cool down, no matter how much I turn it down!”

Oh.  Uh...

I got out of bed, turned the light on, pulled the comforter away, and took a good look at that blanket.

Yep.  It had gotten flipped the wrong direction after I washed and dried it earlier that day.  Larry was adjusting my side, and I was adjusting his.

We flipped the blanket the other way, climbed back in bed, and readjusted our respective controls.

Ahhhh.  Much bettah.

A lady from the nursing home called on Friday afternoon to tell me that the nursing home’s doctor will be there November 3^rd to give Covid shots and boosters, and to ask if I wanted Loren to have either or both shots.  I declined.  His immunity is high, after having Covid late last November.

How in the world did we wind up with a nursing home that actually gives us the option?!  I am grateful for that.  Also, she told me that everyone tested negative for Covid a few days ago, so visitation restrictions had been lifted, thankfully.

None of the patients who had tested positive had any symptoms.  This is so ridiculous, that the testing done for Covid is so ‘sensitive’ that you might turn up ‘positive’ if you have so much as a hangnail.

It made me feel so bad to think of Loren being confined to his room and not really understanding why.  Well, they would have told him why, of course, and he would’ve seemed to understand; but two minutes later, he wouldn’t know at all what it was about.  The first nurse I talked to said some of the patients would not stay in their room, and they didn’t force them to, but tried to get them to wear masks if they wouldn’t stay put; I hoped Loren was one of those.

He sure got riled up when he was still at home, last January, when we turned the doorknob to the garage around and locked it from the outside!  (No, it wasn’t a fire hazard; there were plenty of other doors and windows from which to exit.)  Teddy was staying with him one day when he went into a rant about it.  Teddy obligingly went and tried the door (quite as if he wasn’t the very culprit who had done the dastardly deed).  Then, with a bit of a shrug (and I can just see that trying-not-to-smile look on his face), “Huh.  Yep, it’s locked.”  Then, “Oh, well; we don’t need to go out there right now; let’s go eat.”  😄

Loren would often say, “I can’t eat when things like this are going on!”  We ignored him and put food in front of him.  He ate.  🤣

Never once since going to the nursing home has Loren acted like he did while at home, at least to my knowledge.  They all tell me he is always pleasant and helpful and cheerful.  Thank goodness for that!  I suppose a lot of it is the anti-anxiety medication they give him; but I also believe God has been merciful to us, leading us to the right place for him, and causing things to go smoothly.  We very much thank the Lord for this.

I was voicing my opinion about Facebook to a friend that afternoon.  Turns out, she was in the Facebook doghouse, too – for posting recipes for Mexican foods!

“Good grief,” I commiserated.  “Those bots definitely need a bit of reprogramming.”  (...pause...)  “Although, come to think of it, ghost peppers can be rather violent.”

I just saw a newsflash:  The Powerball lottery is over one billion smackeroos.

Speaking of millions/billions/trillions... Here’s a recent quote from President(?) Biden:

“My administration has overseen a billion a trillion 750 million dollars billion dollars off the sidelines of investment on countering climate change!” 

That bit of word soup was spoken whilst he squinted at the teleprompter.  He also said he had been to “all 54 states”.  He can’t even talk sense with a teleprompter going. 

On the other hand, maybe the teleprompter programmer is sabotaging things.  How would we know?  They never show us what it actually says on the thing, now do they?

How would you like to be kayaking down the Bighorn River, just a-mindin’ yer own bizzniss and enjoyin’ the moose and the grizzlies, when all of a sudden this boulder comes crashin’ down the mountainside?!

It doesn’t look too awfully big, in the picture.  For perspective, look at those picnic table shelters, there on the far left.  That rock is bigger than our house.

Saturday, I went to visit Loren.  When I arrived, I saw his friend Roslyn sitting in the main commons area, but no Loren.  She seemed out of it.  She barely glanced up, and didn’t appear to recognize me. 

After looking around and not seeing Loren, I asked a nurse if she might know where he was.  The nurse (a new one, I think, and a bit, uh, ... unrefined) proceeded to bellow at the top of her lungs, “Has anyone seen Loren???”

Several people turned and stared, but Roslyn didn’t even flinch. 

Another nurse replied that Loren was walking in the back halls, last she knew.  I smiled at her.  “Then I’ll walk, too!”  And off I went, quick, before the nurse bawled out anything else.

I found Loren in yet another large room I had never seen before, except in a picture – the room with the pool table in it.  I keep finding rooms I didn’t even know were there!  (Probably Loren does, too, whether he’s really been there or not, haha.)  Not another soul was in the room.  It has a big gas fireplace with a wide stone hearth, a lot of nice recliners and easy chairs, bookcases filled with books and decorations, pretty paintings on the walls, and a big-screen TV, which was playing the Nebraska-Illinois game.  This really is a beautifully-constructed, nicely-kept nursing home with a lot of lovely décor (furniture and wall décor alike).  I’m impressed that it almost always smells nice, too.

Loren was sitting in a nice leather recliner watching the football game with great interest.  As always, he was very happy to see me.  I pulled another recliner up beside him and showed him pictures from Wyoming, in between bouts of watching the game.  Now and then he’d point out some football player running like anything, exclaiming over how fast he could run — and then he’d cringe when the other players would bring him down and pile on top of him.

I asked (though I already knew), “Who’s playing, and what’s the score?” 

Loren didn’t have the foggiest notion.  I figured that was fine; he probably enjoyed the game better NOT knowing.  😂  (Yeah, Nebraska lost.  Again.)

We had a nice visit.  He hadn’t suffered any ill effects from the Covid episode.  I hope whoever administered the tests was gentler than that horrid doctor at Urgent Care in Columbus, back in late November last year.

I commented on how pretty the room was, and Loren readily agreed with me, saying with an encompassing gesture, “Yes, this is a very nice place.”

I really don’t know where Loren thinks he is.  In the beginning, he didn’t understand that he was in Omaha; it was anybody’s guess where he might decide he was at any given moment.  Sometimes he thought he was in Schuyler (a little town 15 miles east of Columbus) – the town where he thought his ‘other house’ was, back when he kept wanting to go there late last year.  But now he seems to know he’s in Omaha.  I don’t know if he realizes he’s in a nursing home or not.

 Loren likes the fireplaces in the nursing home.  He’s had one in most of his homes.  Last winter when Teddy was staying with him, not long after he had the bout with Covid, he suddenly got it into his head that he absolutely had to split some wood and start a fire in his downstairs fireplace.  (The upstairs one ran on gas.)  Teddy, with some difficulty, got him redirected.

So far as I know, he hasn’t thought he had to split wood for the fireplaces in the nursing home! – though he did once tell us a tall tale (which originated from a combination of one of Larry’s stories and one of mine) of a bunny hiding in his woodpile, and when he tried getting it out, it popped up and bit his fingers.

Here’s one of the sitting areas where we often visit.

Today friends and I were discussing those nights when we try and try to sleep – and can’t.  Ah, those sleepless nights!  

A quilting friend recently asked, “Do you sleep well at night, or do you have dreams about troublesome quilting patterns for your quilts?”

I sleep just fine, I told her, except for those nights when I really need to sleep, in order to get up early and do Very Important Things or go to Very Important Places (church, for instance) the next day.  On those nights, I allllmost get comfortable, and then my ankle itches.  I obligingly scratch it.  Then my neck hurts.  I stuff my pillow under it just right.  It will not stay long in this position.

Next, my shoulder is cold.  I pull up the covers and tuck them in tight.  I discover my nightgown (or pajamas, whichever I happen to be wearing) is twisted.  I untwist it.  After that, a toe cramps.  I use my other foot to pull (or push) the wayward toe into whatever position is most conducive for uncramping.

By this time, I’m too hot.  I fling the covers off.  That’s not good enough, so I get out of bed and go adjust the thermostat.  Not too much, or I won’t be able to sleep on account of being cold.  Back in bed and almost comfortable again, whichever side of me that is most inconvenient to reach itches.  I wonder why I gave son-in-law Bobby that back scratcher for Christmas (taping it atop one of his gifts in place of a bow because years ago when he was a teenager, he said bows were for girls, and we’ve been heckling him about it ever since) instead of keeping it myself to actually use.  Next, I need to blow my nose, and can’t reach the Kleenex box.  I scrabble about, manage to snatch a Kleenex from the headboard, blow my nose, heave it in the direction of the trashcan, hear it miss, and remind myself to pick it up next time I get out of bed.

A lilting new melody enters my head.  I hum it through (silently) a time or two, then work my way through it again, adding in alto, tenor, a few trills, and some bass piano runs.  Through the years, I have written down very, very few of these tunes that regularly pop into my head at the drop of a hat.  Someday when I’m bedridden or wheelchair-bound, I’ll do that.

I fiiiiinalllly start to drift off – and Larry’s evil phone flicks itself on – with the screen set to ‘Flashlight mode’, a misnomer if there ever was one.  It should be called ‘Lighthouse mode’.  If all my scrambling about hasn’t awoken him yet, you can be sure a little thing like a brilliant light with a gazillion units of candlepower emission flashing on right before his closed eyes isn’t going to faze him.

I poke him and snarl, “Turn your stupid phone off!”  He rouses enough to accommodate me, and goes immediately back to sleep.  The nerve.  I contemplate smacking him with a pillow.

My kneecap itches.  I turn on the light and check for bedbugs.  No bedbugs, so I turn off the light and get back in bed.  It’s cold.  I get back up, find another blanket, and throw it over my side of the bed.  I try lying on my side.  Wrong side; that makes my hip hurt.  I roll to my back.  

The moon shines through the blinds and hits me square in the eyes.  (I see this, regardless of my eyes being shut.)  I turn over... begin feeling drowsy... and Larry commences snoring.

As for dreaming, I don’t dream about nice things like quilts.  I dream up nightmares, such as skiing (never mind the fact that I’ve never skied in my life, much as I wanted to) full bore down the side of Denali, with an avalanche roaring down immediately behind me, and a bottomless crevice yawning before me.  Or driving our camper off the beaten track and winding up in the Pacific, somehow.  Or flying an airplane somewhere – and finding myself high in the sky, sans airplane.  I dream of not being able to locate my locker in the halls of Jr. High.  Then the scene does one of those transmogrifications (think ‘Calvin & Hobbes’), and I’m in Wal-Mart – only it has become a red-bricked maze with nothing but dead ends every direction I turn, and of course there’s an evil, hatchet-bearing fiend creeping silently along behind me.  (Final scene added on account of it being Halloween today.)

Really, my life is interesting enough without dreaming of stuff like that, for pity’s sake!

My alarm goes off.  I will sleep tomorrow night.  (I hope.)

I posted this picture of a metal silhouette on a high hilltop in Wyoming, along with others, on Facebook.  The backwards-fur-rubbing lady – let’s call her ‘Matilda’ – spotted it and pounced.

“What is it?  Looks like a kangaroo.”

A preacher friend answered, “Jackalope!”

“I’ve never heard of them,” wrote Matilda.  “Are they like jack rabbits?”

I sent her a link:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackalope

Matilda soon replied, “I actually saw something similar but they weren’t antlers but had two sets of ears.”

Two sets of ears.  Huh.

Did she read the Wikipedia article, I wonder?  The first sentence states, “The ‘jackalope’ is a mythical animal of North American folklore.”

“You understand this is just a joke?” I queried.

“I guess but I’ve seen demons like that” she answered. 

Oh, brother.  And good grief.

(I wonder if her lack of punctuation means anything.)  (I think it means she left out the punctuation.)

I have not deleted her oddball comment; I left it there to see if it might garner any interesting answers.  Not from me, though; I don’t wish to answer such folly, and certainly not on my Facebook page. 

It was a pretty day today, getting up to about 75°.  The forecast for tomorrow says it will get up to 77°.  And to think that we have had rip-snortin’ blizzards on Halloween a time or two, with snow piling up in three-foot drifts!

Side note:  You know you’re getting old when you tweak your shoulder turning the calendar to the next page.

 

Sarah Just-Because-I’m-Paranoid-Doesn’t-Mean-They-Aren’t-Out-To-Get-Me Lynn