Journal: Floods and Fires

 

Tuesday, I went to Loren’s bank with the papers from the lawyer giving me Personal Representative status (I’m Very Important now (dumber’n all get out about all this stuff, but Very Important, nonetheless), in order to have them set up an Estate account.  

The lady’s computer ‘wouldn’t cooperate’, or so she said.  I wanted to say, “Let me at it!  I can make computers behave, just see if I can’t!” – but I felt my Mama pinching me from the grave, so I kept me big mouth shut.  Since the lady couldn’t complete the setup, I would have to go back and sign my name as soon as someone could pummel the ’puter into subjection.  But at least she was able to put my name into the original checking account as PR.

Next, I went to the firm where Loren had some small investments.  They copied my PR papers, and I signed more papers so they could set up an Estate account there.  I could’ve signed away my firstborn, for all I know about these things.  (He’s old enough to refuse to go, though; so there’s that reassurance, at least.)

When I got home, I was able to pay two last bills of Loren’s, which was a relief.  I dislike unpaid bills.

My lawyer asked me to write a list of Loren’s assets.  This was pretty much it:  “One pair of mismatched socks, which may or may not have belonged to the guy in the next room.”

Everything of value, we sold in 2022 and put the money in Loren’s account to cover nursing home costs.

Having done as much as I could with all this monkey business – uh, money business, that is, I headed up the stairs to my quilting studio, where I have a little better idea of what in the world I’m doing.  (Have you ever noticed that ‘monkey’ and ‘money’ are only one letter from being identical words?) 

Late that afternoon, I took the photo at the top of this journal from my north-facing window.

A quilting friend told the following story:  A dear older friend of hers had moved to an assisted-living home.  Many of her clothes were going missing, while she wound up with someone else’s clothes that didn’t fit her well at all.

One day while eating lunch in the dining hall, she saw a little elderly lady coming along with her walker – and she was wearing the friend’s pants.  They were too big for her, and she had a belt cinched around the waist to keep them from falling.

The friend said, “Hey, those are my pants you’re wearing!”

The little old lady responded politely, “Thank you.”

hee hee

I managed to get six hours of quilting done that day, despite the monkey-money business.

Do you ever hesitate to pray about what surely must be inconsequential things, in the scheme of life?  I do, but then I remember the dear old verse that says even a little sparrow does not fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father taking note.  Here’s a lively little song, Surely He Will Care for You, that I learned when I was very young.  I still love it, and enjoy playing it on the piano.  (If you play it, make it a toe-tapper, please!)

Wednesday, I had a headache that worsened throughout the afternoon.  I took some Extra-Strength Tylenol, started getting ready to go to church – but wound up staying home, as the Tylenol didn’t help much, and I was feeling sick, besides.

By the time Larry got home from church, he didn’t feel so great, either.  Whatever it was, it was short-lived, as we both felt all right by the next morning.

Larry stopped at the grocery store before coming home, and got, among other things, several cartons of Panera Bread soup.  We had a late supper of the potato soup.  Yummy, it was good.

“Wow, Larry brought home a lot of groceries,” I commented to one of Larry’s cousins, to which she replied, “A person isn’t supposed to go to the grocery store when they are hungry!”

I take an opposing viewpoint.  I think it’s way better to go to the grocery store when we’re hungry, because we wind up with a whole lot more yummy things!  😄

Here’s a picture from several years ago of Teensy kitty watching squirrels on my laptop.  When one squirrel flushed a bird, Teensy jerked and whirled his head around in the direction the bird had taken flight.  Then, immediately realizing his error, he looked at the ceiling for a moment or two (‘I meant to do that’) before sloooowly turning his head back toward the screen, and then stealthily giving me a side-wise, squinty-eyed look.  (‘You didn’t see me do that, did you?’)

Thursday afternoon, I had to return to Loren’s bank and the investment company to sign the papers for the Estate accounts they had set up.  Annnd... a lady at the bank could not then transfer funds into the new Estate account from the checking account, because her ‘computer was malfunctioning.’  Again. 

Maybe it’s the ladies who are malfunctioning, and not the computers?  Judging by the lady’s surprise when a form she was filling out showed up on her secondary screen rather than the bigger main screen, I’d guess a few fundamental computer courses might be in order, to teach them to, oh, say, minimize, restore, and maximize, and other deep, involved stuff like that.

While I was in town, I took some things to the cleaners and to the Goodwill.

After some extremely cold weather during the previous two weeks, we had several days of unusually warm temperatures last week, with the expected results:  ice jams on local rivers.

Hannah sent me some pictures she and others in her family took.  Here’s the Loup River at the railroad trestle bridge, with ice all around it.  That bridge is usually many feet above the water; we used to ride our bikes on sandbars under it, when I was young.  Once I had a birthday party there, and Loren built us a big campfire on the sand where we roasted marshmallows and made S'mores.

My niece Christine’s land, where we have our annual Fourth-of-July church picnics, is flooding.  The men got all the Walker Foundations equipment out, along with most of the animals (goats, sheep, turkeys, and chickens) some of Christine’s family keeps there; but her youngest son, Joshua, lost seven sheep.  They were able to recover and butcher four of them; the other three were missing.

Joshua’s dog – I think it’s a big Anatolian shepherd like Teddy’s dogs – was found safe.

The water is above the slab at the pavilion, and it carried off the children’s smaller playset.  The pavilion is quite new, but Bobby thinks the foundation should hold.  See it in the distance, in this photo?

Ice jams can create flooding a whole lot faster than rain can.  It’s amazing how fast it can happen.

Despite the flooding, it has been dry and windy, and we were issued an extreme fire warning.  There have been at least eight wildfires nearby, and some of them merged.

A firetruck responding to one of the fires 120 miles to our west rolled into a canyon.  One firefighter was flown to a trauma center; the other was taken by ambulance to a local hospital.

I finished quilting Josiah’s ‘Mane Event’ quilt that night and cut it from the frame.  It’ll be a few days before I put on the binding and the label, as I have other quilts I must quilt first.

Friday, someone from Loren’s bank called to tell me they had ‘finally figured out’ (the banker’s words) how to transfer the money from Loren’s checking into the Estate account.  (Shouldn’t they know this?!)  So... off I went to town again to sign the checking withdrawal form.

It was Hannah’s 44^th birthday, so I dropped off her gift while I was in town.

When I got home, I loaded a quilt for a friend on my frame.  It’s done with squares of various John Deere prints, and is for her little boy, whose fifth birthday is Wednesday.  I needed to hurry and get it quilted and back to her, so she’d have time to put the binding on.  It was fairly large, 93” x 93”.  She chose a meander for the quilting design.  I got it a little more than half done that day.

Saturday morning, I cleaned the bathroom, filled the bird feeders, and made a pot of Caramel Pecan coffee.  While I blow-dried and curled my hair, I listened to the Chicago news station and laughed at the meteorologist, who can’t say that word to save his life.  He tries various pronunciations (metra-low-jist, meet-or-low-geez, met-rawl-jist) before just giving up.  Maybe meteorology school should first teach students how to say it, before progressing into the intricacies of the weather?  hee hee

I multitask (definition:  doing multiple things at once, all of them poorly) by reading the news on my laptop while listening to it on my tablet.

Here’s a comment someone made on a news article:  “This corruption is running rapid!”  So is illiteracy.  (Reckon he means ‘rampant’?)  There are so many ‘seen him when he done its’, I eventually can bear it no longer and close out of the entire page.

After eating breakfast, I went upstairs to my quilting studio to work on the John Deere quilt.  It was done by suppertime.  

I trimmed it from the frame and then loaded another friend’s quilt, Irish Heart, which she made for her little granddaughter.  It’s ready and waiting for me to begin, just as soon as I sign my name on this journal.

Teddy told me yesterday that they took four of their Anatolian puppies out to someone who lives near North Platte.  That’s about 215 miles to our west.

Ranchers love those big dogs out there, especially if they are raising goats or sheep, because the dogs will protect their livestock from mountain lions.  The dogs are roughly the same size as the lions.  They’re gentle with domestic animals, and fierce with predators.

After church last night, we had Panera Bread’s broccoli-cheddar soup, applesauce, and rice pudding.

Today at noon, it was 51° and sunny, but hazy on account of wildfires in the area.  Tomorrow, we are expecting first rain, then snow – and 50-55 mph sustained winds with gusts up to and possibly surpassing 70 mph.  They’re telling everyone to secure anything that’s not glued down.  The snow and the wind together are likely to produce blizzard conditions.

In other news, an animal permit for a kangaroo has been issued in Falls City, Nebraska.  I knew you’d want to know.

Off I go to the quilting studio!

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,