Oops

Oh, dear.
It's Thursday again.
Didn't we just
have one
the other day?


http://newthursday13.blogspot.com/

Time flies like a banana

Somewhere between Friday and today I lost track of  my internal calendar.  My husband made a comment yesterday and I said, what day IS it?  (He should be used to this, he's old too) and he said, "it's Monday".  oh.  "Are you SURE?"   big sigh.  "yes, I'm sure'.

There was a time, when I was a church goer  (fifty years ago) and Sunday sort of stitched the week together for me.  And when he was working I had to keep track, because on weekends he slept half the morning away and I so did not have to get up at 4 AM to get him off for work. But now, we get to drift.

Last winter when I was in the hospital, every time someone entered my room they would bombard me with questions (who are you/how old are you/ how tall are you/what day is it) and I got sick of it; one day I said, you know, you get to be my age, and retired, days don't matter.  how the hell do I know or care what day it is?" I knew better than to give them snarky answers to the other questions, since, as one terribly young fella said, 'A lot of times people come in here, and they--um--sorta lose it, and forget who they are..."   I realized then they were waiting for me to go all fuddly and start wearing my shoes on my head.  To them, I was OLD.  I've seen the very old do just that;  years ago I was in another hospital and woke in the middle of the night to an old woman screaming, using the most amazing epithets, and the sound of running nurses.   In the morning, someone said she had been brought in the day before with a broken hip, and apparently she woke to a strange bed in a strange place and her mind just shut down.   At least I had the sense to not give them funny names (but I wanted to) or silly answers  about height and weight (but I came close) because I knew I'd end up being on a Watch This One list.

I don't know if it's because we have so much time behind us, or just 'because', but our sense of time as we age begins to shift.  Christmas now comes once a week.  Birthdays, almost daily.  As kids, can't you remember the last day of school in June, and that amazing long stretch of summer waiting for you?  And Christmas?  Oh, the times I spent wondering if it would ever get here!   Next week? That's forever... 

Box Cats and other adventurers (for Liz)

Albert, at nineteen;  he spent the last year of his life sleeping mostly outside on this box, with his catnip sack (shown) nearby.  He had grown deaf, and no longer had night vision, so we brought him in at night.   I found him as a small unhappy cat under a neighbor's porch in the pouring rain.  He had a serious respiratory infection and when I finally got him out he looked at me very seriously and sneezed on my glasses.  Aha, I thought. A keeper.  He became my husband's cat, and spent most of his life sleeping under my husband's beard at night, drooling happily. 

Cuffy was a rarity.  I got  him from a friend in Concord, found out that he had FIV, which is kitty Aids.  We decided he deserved to live, and well, for as long as he could.  I've never regretted it. He had to be kept separate from the other cats, because he didn't want them around. Most aggressive. He was a guy cat, open the hood of the truck  and he was right there with you, peering in.   He liked tools, motors, outdoor activity.

He could sleep on anything, and often did.  He could fit the contours of an old cushion, a chair, or a carton.  He was his own cat, and took nothing from anyone, including us. 

Cuffy at his dinner bag.  He was hungry, and I was busy so he yanked the bag over and climbed inside.  It always tastes better from the source.

Jiggs. She came to us as a 10 week old kitten,with her mother, and lived 18 years. This was one of her last winters, and she wasn't peeing in the plant pot,. she was sitting in the sun-warmed dirt, quite content.

Those are catnip sacks she's sleeping with. Now and then she'd gather them up and use them as pillows.  She was a big cat, but like many big women she had trouble realizing just how big. (see below.  Jiggs on her Tiny Pillow.)

This is Levi.  Sweet cat, but his previous owners had him declawed, neglecting to tell me about it.  By the time we lost him he had broken three antique pitchers and skidded across every table I owned.  People who value their furniture more than their cats should not have cats. 

Ah yes. Deep mountain pool time. Nothing like tire water, freshly driven through, to put a spring in your step.  Toby at the bottom (we still have him), Albert on the right, and Sammy,  Toby's bonded friend at the top.  They would do this every day it rained, swurp swurp swurp.  But if they found a bug in the water dish inside they'd boycott it.

Sammy andToby.  Never could get close to either of them.  They are the only shelter cats I ever had, and all the woman would tell me at the shelter was 'they had been brought back' which says it all.  Toby is now ten, still not sure about humans, but he tolerates us. Barely.  and he and Charlie are buds.  thank goodness.

Charlie is now about 5, he tolerates us, hates fans of any sort,  mistrusts boxes and any place that has more than three sides.  He's claustrophobic. Yes, Vet Day is a trauma all around.  He's about 14 pounds, sheds endlessly and joyously and has discovered that he isn't a lap cat, but will settle for being a shoulder cat.  Men with boots are not to be trusted.

And as long as Toby has a friend,  I'm cool with that.  He's ☺come a very long way,  by his standards.  I may never be able to pick him up, but at least he's safe and warm. I think he understands  that part, somehow.

pepper pepper T13

peppersass

salt and pepper

peter pepper

jump rope ( red  hot PEPPER!)

pepperoni

white pepper

red pepper

pepper grinder

peppercorn

hot peppers

chili pepper

pepper spray

pepper steak


Thursday13

Observations for a cold June morning

Yesterday it was 39 when I got up.
This morning it was 45.
It's JUNE, people.
I refuse to mow grass wearing winter gloves and boots
I refuse to garden in a heavy jacket and a wooly hat
(Don't you just hate it when you get garden dirt in your good wool gloves?)
We even had an overnight fire in the kitchen (in the stove...)
With luck, we may get the sheet blankets off by July.
Last year we had morning fires half way across June
and it looks like we may be doing that again this year

The one interesting phenom I've found: when it's 60 outside
and 65 inside, I'm cold, put on a sweater,  add some wood to
the stove because. the house is chilly.  When it's 39
outside and 63 inside, I think, not bad. I might start the fire later.

sometimes

sometimes he'd get drunk
and remember her name
and wonder where she went

sometimes he'd drive 100 miles to see
if she was home
he'd sit in the car in the dark and drink
and wait for her lights to go on
and then out

sometimes
if he drank enough
he'd forget why he was there
and drive home again

"But what do you DO up there all day...aren't you BORED?"

This summer we are having  radiators installed in places never intended for them (you can tell I'm just thrilled about this).  It means rearranging every wall, finding new homes for old furniture, and discovering that yes, you can carry a bureau upstairs without killing each other or dropping it on someone's toes.

The cats have gone into deep hiding.

Today we went to Home Depot to get two sheets of wallboard. 
He bought me my own sheetrock  carrier.

We carried the bureau that had been downstairs (where one of the radiators will be going) up to the bedroom to fill in the space created when I moved the bureau already there (now he tells me he has hated it all these years) into the front room into the space created when we took apart the oak bookcase/writing desk.  That is now kindling.   It's really getting to be like one of those slider puzzles where you have to line up letters or parts of images....

Soon enough I will be taking the loom apart up there and if someone wants it, they have to come get it. It's one of those old barn looms: throw a piece of plywood on top, and you could live in it.

Boredom. I've heard of that.  It sounds wonderful.

This is the kind of project that suggests/forces/inspires slightly not-quite-finished other projects, like finally getting the demolished piano out the door, taking the last of the plaster off the wall behind where the piano is not any longer, putting up wallboard on the last wall in the kitchen, not to mention naps and eating.  We are now eating in the dining room because the kitchen table is covered with paint cans and wallboard tools.  At least we are eating posh, if nothing else.

weasel words

would should could

"I would love to help you but my back's gone out. Maybe you could ask Frank?"

"You know, you really should get someone to help you with that painting..I would, but my back's gone out, and the fumes really bother me..."

"I should (lose some weight/do the dishes/invite mother over for dinner/start exercise classes again)"

My mother was still mowing her own extensive lawn (by choice) well into her 80s. Nothing aggravated her more than to have a neighbor stop and wave at her (turn off the mower, interrupt what she was doing) and say, "Irene, you shouldnt have to do that at your age, why can't you get your daughter to come over and help?" I count three killable offenses in that sentence, possibly four.   As she put it, "my daughter has her own yard to mow, and besides, I like doing it..."  pregnant pause while the helpful neighbor realized what the next sentence was about to be, and off she went, waving out the window.

Why I Hate Spell Check

I was just reading an article, well written, by a man who obviously relies on spell check totally. His spelling skills have been turned off, totally.  When he came to the phrase, "I'll gotten gains"  I stopped reading.  It's too bad, because those apparently ('well  you KNOW what I meant") kind of errors hurt.
It also gives someone a false sense of self, because, hey, if  spell check  says it's okay then it is.

Not a bad place to be, after all

In all of my growing up years, from the time I was about ten until just a few years ago, I always had at least one much older woman as a kind of mentor/friend.  I think I was right when I told  my mother why, I said "she reminds me of Nana." who had died that very year. 

Most of them were in their seventies, or late sixties, or  a few even over 80.  One by one they moved away, or I did, or they died.  But nearly all of them were a match for me: creative, spunky,  funny, word lovers, readers or writers, and game players. 

And then one day not too long ago I realized two things: 1)   I have run out of older  ladies to 'adopt', mostly because I  am the old lady at this clambake now,  and  2), I have grown into the women I knew and admired for all of those years.  They were who I wanted to become, and I think I've made it.

Basically, I've had to become them and I don't mind a bit.