FOOTSTOOL IN SHOWER

I took the water saver out of the shower nozzle today.  I placed a rush seat stool in the shower and climbed on.  (I knew I’d find a use for those grab bars eventually!) 

Meanwhile, Cat Mojo, who was sleeping in this morning, woke, did his stretching routine, heard the bathroom activity and stepped in to say “Hi.” 

Right about that time, I finished the installation and pushed through the shower door holding the stool in front of me.  Mojo went air-born.  He hissed, shot down the hall and burned rubber through the house - terrified! 

Poor Mojo.  The only thing he had ever seen come out of that shower was a gentle person who loves him.  Never in his wildest imagination did he expect to see anything like that. 

He didn’t show up for a long time.  I guess the horrifying ordeal, with a backdrop of my histerical laughter, was too much for him.

NOT MUCH SLEEP

George slept through the end of the US Open.  When we crawled into bed at 11:30, he said he wasn’t sleepy yet and could he sit up and watch TV?  Sure. 

He was asleep when I awoke at 12:15, so I turned off the TV and went back to sleep.  Then he got up to go to the bathroom at 1:15.  Around 2:15 he woke me up coughing.  I don’t remember what the occasions were at 3:15, 4:15, and 5:15, but I got out of bed at 6:15.  He slept soundly after that until 10:00. 

If I murder him today, do you think I’ll have just cause?

COMPUTER REPAIR

My computer wouldn’t turn on and my son Fred told me I needed to install a new power supply.  He said I could simply take one from an old computer and install it.  Really? 

I happened to have two on death row.  After Fred told me what a power supply looked like (I thought it was a plug in the wall), I took it out of my computer, photographing every plug and wire in the thing as I went so that I could put another one in. 

Then I took the power supply out of one of the doomed computers and began installing it in the good one. (I say that loosely - both “installing” and “good.”)  It went well until I got to the last wire, which was TOO SHORT.  I stepped back to scream, then saw the obvious.  The computer itself was shorter.  Duh.  No wonder that wire was shorter.

Being pretty wired myself, I threw the power supply on the floor and snatched the other computer off death row.  I opened it up.  OMG!  It was packed with wires.  Fred had installed a second hard drive in it once upon a time. 

Perhaps it wouldn’t matter if I plugged in half the wires and left the others hanging?  . . .

Can you believe it?  It worked!  I’m a bona fide geek now! 

DIGGY AND DADDY

Diggy was a stray, dirty, grouchy but smart mongrel.  He found the one vulnerable spot in our neighborhood - my husband.

George might have felt sorry for this skinny dog who was scared of brooms, feet, and people.  Who wouldn’t?  But the real reason he took him in on that rainy evening when the mutt huddled shivering against the sliding glass door, gazing at us at the dinner table, was that George admired perseverance – and that little guy didn’t know the meaning of the word “quit.”  His life depended on finding a human who would care for him. 

“Digweed,” as he was called by the neighborhood kids, snapped at everyone who came near him – except George.  He greeted George every day, wagging his tail gleefully at any kind word from the one person who had the final say about his future.  It was his one shot, and he put everything into it.

We adopted Diggy on that rainy evening.  Diggy had terrible manners, barking and biting feet.  In an attempt to calm him down, we neutered him.  (He didn’t know that was coming when he was buddying up to George.) 

Diggy’s manners never improved, but he maintained his nice warm home with us for thirteen years.  He was one determined little critter!

GARDEN PLANS

OK, I got all my gardens figured out.  Ready to roll.  Of course, I don’t go at such things without a complicated plan.  I spent hours out in the yard making notes.  Then a couple hours in my easy chair “relaxing” and consolidating my notes into what to buy, what to do before I hire help, what I want my big strong muscular helper to do (Egads! No, not that!), what I’ll do to finish up after he leaves, and what I can do anytime later on this summer.  Then I spent a couple of hours typing it up and scanning my drawing, which I will give my helper and he will be totally confused.

My husband says “uh huh” to all of it.  He is wondering how many times I will change this plan.  So am I.  I’ll fill you in later, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise – or as my beloved Annie used to say, “If I lives.”

OWNING A BOAT

I got a letter from a friend saying they had bought a boat.  She lives miles from any water, but her husband and three sons are learning to ski.

We lived a mile from a lake one time.  We considered buying a boat.  My husband wanted a sailboat – a big one, with a cabin on it.  I kept telling him you have to know how to sail one of those things before you buy it.

I said I preferred a motor boat (as long as we were talking lunacy, anyway) so the kids could learn to ski.  The kids overheard the discussion and informed us that they did not want to learn to ski (boring) or sail (too much work), but they would like a pontoon for fishing and swimming.

We did go as far as checking out the price of boats.  When we added the cost of upkeep and storage and divided by the number of days we were likely to use a boat, the whole idea began to look about as smart as buying a paper shredder for our cash.  We decided we would rent a pontoon boat the next time we got this urge again.

BUDGETS ARE A SUGGESTION

A budget is only a suggestion.  Kind of like a stop sign.

One month I decided to move my budgeted “discretionary money” (what a joke!) to my savings account, then move some back to checking when I needed it, predicting that if I had to go through this acrobatic stunt before the purchase of any “extras,” I would think twice about it.  Result?  Think twice, but move forward.  Deplete savings account.

Then I thought maybe if I opened a separate checking account instead of using my savings account for the discretionary money, I couldn’t possibly spend more than I had budgeted for the month.  When it’s gone, it’s gone.  Too bad I can go online and move money from savings to checking so easily.

Next month I am going to try something else.  I don’t know what, though.

WHAT TIMER?

How, pray tell, can that timer go off and I don’t hear it!  I’m sitting in the kitchen.  I’m cooking a pie crust.  I set the timer.  I smell the pie crust burning.  The timer has gone off while I’m sitting here!

Am I nuts?  I used to hear the timer just fine, then it stopped.  After about ten misses, I updated my internal motor that lies deep in my psyche – you know, that part of the mountain that is under the water and only the top shows - so that it would hear the darn thing and blast a cannon that could be heard at that tiny mountaintop of a brain I have.  It worked for a while.  Now I’m missing the timer again!

Why did I start ignoring the timer?  If I’m going to tune something out, why not my husband?  Why not the telephone?  Why not the snooze alarm?  Maybe because those things will follow up, whereas a timer won’t.  Is this a silent wish that those other things would shut up?

FRESH FROZEN PLASMA

Surgery’s gross enough, but when (in my hearing range) the nurses started talking about “fresh frozen plasma” and “expiration dates,” I freaked out.  And I wasn’t even the patient!  Was this a cooking show or something?  Now every time I buy anything fresh frozen I think of blood plasma.  Yuck!

Once when I was in a hospital waiting room, I actually heard a nurse tell an anxious woman that her husband’s operation was going well.  She said they had his heart on a tray and . . . .  I didn’t hear the rest of it.  That’s just too much information.

If I were a nurse, I might say it differently. “Ma’am, we’re almost done with your husband’s ticker.”  That might not be too helpful, either. 

AGING

Not fair!  I looked up from my book and saw a familiar actor on “The Young and the Restless.”  I was in a waiting room.  I don’t watch soaps.  I’m a recovering addict.  (With the exception of “Desperate Housewives.”)  As I was saying, I used to watch this guy on “All My Children,” and he hasn’t aged in forty years! 

What’s up?  While movie stars are turning into plastic, the rest of us are turning into Shar Peis.  Even my doctors who used to look like babies are showing wrinkles.  And that face in the mirror – well, all I will say about that is my makeup has gone sour.

Someone told my sister and me that we look like twins.  She’s nine years older than me!  Of course, she looks extremely young for her age.

Does anybody remember Jack Benny?  I’ll bet he’s still 39 in heaven.  My mom was 39 until she died 46 years later.  Thirty-nine is the threshold.  Cross over it, and you start tumbling downhill.  However, I’m adopting the words of the old guy on the golf course who said, “Every day above ground’s a good one!”

LOST IN WISCONSIN

The Wisconsin state slogan is “Escape to Wisconsin,” but I would change it to “Get Lost in Wisconsin” because when I lived there I stayed lost.  The good news is that there is not a prettier place to get lost.  The bad news is that the Marquis de Sade laid out the road system.  I discovered this one day when, on an unplanned shortcut, the road took a 90-degree right turn.  Not a curve.  Not a T-intersection.  A right angle, to go around a field.  After a few more miles, there was another 90-degree turn, and another and another. I didn’t have a clue where I ended up, but it sure wasn’t where I was going. 

The next time I had to drive to some place off the beaten path, I bought a county map.  That helped until I got to a crossroad with no signs.  At least it was daytime.  That makes it easier to see the end of the road when the STOP sign is missing.

(PS – Wisconsin is a wonderful, beautiful, friendly state – and I’m sure the road system is OK by now.  I wrote this in 1985.)

WHAT SIGN?

Between Knightdale, NC, and Bassett, VA, there’s a sign (probably) to turn right to stay on 86 bypass around Yanceyville.  Missed it.  And there’s a sign for the 58 bypass around Danville.  Missed it.  And there’s a sign to go to 220 North in Martinsville.  Missed it. 

I did see the sign for 57 North.  Yay!  Got one right!  Took it.  Got lost.  Several miles past nowhere, I stopped and called the funeral home, which was my destination.  Got good directions, but drove right past the funeral home, whose sign I missed. 

I stopped and called again and told the guy that I was at the Bassett High School.  He said, “Oh no!  I misunderstood where you were.  Take a left out of there and….miles and…..over river and….on left.”  Several miles later I stopped at a gas station and they said, “You passed it a few miles back. Take a left at the first light and it’s on your left.”  I think he said left. 

I passed Bassett High School again, then slowed down where I thought the funeral home should be, looking carefully at every sign on the left and swearing at myself for forgetting to use my Garmin.   Exasperated, I whipped into a parking lot on my right to put the address into my Garmin.  There was someone dressed in a suit in the parking lot.  Hey, this was the funeral home I was looking for!  And it was only two blocks from Bassett High School!  The dressed up man asked if I was the lady who had been calling him.  I said I was and didn’t he know Bassett High School was right there (pointing)?  He looked puzzled, then said, “Oh no! I thought you were at the new Bassett High School.”

I was there for a funeral, and I was sure ready for mine!

PIGGYBACK TV

The TV in our bedroom got laryngitis.  Try listening to American Idol with the sound going off and on.  That TV is just worn out, like me.  I guess 20 years in a TV’s life is like 63 in a human’s.  – er, Mouse’s.

I don’t want to buy a TV just now.  I’d rather have a mattress or a vacation.  We have another TV that’s so old it has a built-in VCR player.  It’s heavy, so when my son was here the other day I said, “Fred, will you bring that old television downstairs for me?”

“That TV?  What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to put it in the bedroom on top of my other TV.”

His girlfriend Amy laughed and said her aunt had owned a TV that was so old it was in a cabinet, like a piece of furniture.  So what’s weird about that?  I said, “Mine’s in a cabinet, and I’m going to put the other TV on top of it.”

Fred just shook his head and said, “You might be a redneck.”

EAR MITES!  NOT AGAIN! 

Cat-Mojo was rubbing his paws across his ears constantly and frantically.  I had postponed the inevitable as long as he could stand it.

He knows when I’m thinking something evil.  It took one day to catch him, and two days to catch and keep him.  I squirted what I hoped was five drops of earmite medicine into one ear before he rocketed away.

On the third day, I grabbed him, then apologized and cooed to him while reaching for the miticide.  I sincerely felt sorry for him.  However, I held him by the nape of his neck – and maybe a leg or two – and squirted both ears.

Mojo stayed away from me several hours.  When he finally showed up, it was torture time again.  (His and mine.)   I successfully treated both ears, wondering why he acted calmer this time.  But he was plotting.

At the next treatment time, we stood at the bedroom door in a face-down.  He didn’t bolt past me, although he could have.  His eyes said, “I’ve got the hang of it now, you idiot!”  I lunged for him and could almost hear him screaming “nanny-nanny-boo-boo” as he whizzed past.  CatMojo might just get to keep his ear mites!