Last week I said that I was finally catching up a bit. I should not have said so “out loud”. Fate had more in store for us.
Thursday morning my mom - 90 years old, still living alone, and having problems recently - telephoned me. She needed something she had in her garage and could not carry it into the house as it was too heavy. Could we stop by later in the day and bring it in for her. “Sure.” Oh, and could we bring her a burger to eat as she did not have food (which I took to mean in her house). “Sure”. We went to Wendys for our usual lunch and planned to buy a burger for her before leaving and bring it to her. I told husband I was going to pick up some groceries on the way to her house to hold her over. I knew that on Saturday she was going to my sister’s house for the weekend to go have and have her hearing tested and for Mother’s Day. I telephoned her and said that we would also bring some deli turkey, what kind of bread would she like and what else could we bring. “I have plenty of food in the refrigerator.” Huh? “Mom you said that you had no food!” “Oh, that is up here in my bedroom. I am too frightened to walk down the stairs.” OH BOY! We bought the burger and drove to her house.
Mom was upstairs. I went up and walked down her down the stairs step by step. She sat in the kitchen and talked to my husband while she ate the burger. She thought it was wonderful. (She had never been to Wendys before she went there with us a couple of months ago and had been surprised at how good their burgers were - this is not an ad for Wendys.) I looked around her kitchen. We had been there on Monday and while her house always has stuff around - don’t we all - the kitchen had been clean and neat. This time - only 3 days later - there were dirty dishes and the like all over and food out and rotting. I washed the dishes, etc and tossed the garbage.
I then suggested to her that she go to my sister’s house early (based on conversations with my sister I knew this was okay) and she would mostly not have to deal any stairs while she was there. She agreed. We then started packing clothing for her - she told me which drawer to get clothes to pack - “why are you bringing so much, I am only going for 2 days?’ “No mom, it is at least 4 days.” She has started sending her laundry out to be done and there was a sealed package of it which had been returned clean to her. I took that package also - despite the towels and bed linens also in it - the more the better. We took her medications - complete bottles and weekly box. We took both of her walkers and her cane - none of which she has been using, but has started to. All was thrown in plastic bags.
My sister met us and we got mom in. Our thoughts were that she can no longer live alone and we would keep her at sister’s house bit by bit until we managed to get her to agree to stay. That night we had call from my sister. Mom could not get up the sofa - even with help - and kept falling asleep so they were at the hospital near my sister. Mom was there for at least the weekend. There was a decision that one of her meds was too large a dosage and it was cut back - it was making her too groggy. She had been scheduled to go to a psychiatrist on this past Monday to deal with the meds, I called and canceled it as the hospital had dealt with them and if she was going to be living a county away, she should have a doctor out there. I also called her regular doctor and canceled an upcoming appointment, explaining the situation and saying that we would tell the doctor handling it out there to call him about it.
We spent Mother’s Day at the hospital. (All three of us daughters, our husbands, and her grandchildren were there at varying times - even without planning it.) I joked to someone yesterday - maybe this was her way of making sure everyone visited her for Mother’s Day. She was transferred to a rehab facility on Monday and they are working with getting her walking better. We still have to figure out where she will be going on a permanent basis. We have not talked to her about it. (No, she doesn’t even know I have a blog - so she does not read it so she will not know about any of this.)
Yesterday I had to go my client in NYC - what a mess - somehow she had bounced checks - from customers and then as a resort her checks which had paid bills - and had several situations with customers credit card payments and cancellations. (Client is not much younger than mom.) I was ready to scream between what had gone on with mom and what was happening at client. I work at client on a desk maybe 2 feet wide and 18 inches deep and it filled with all sorts of stuff around the edges - so I couldn’t spread stuff out to work. Her vault is behind the chair I sit and she seemed to need to open it - and open the door more fully than normal and was constantly hitting the back of my chair. Oh, and I had left earlier in the morning to go to her to deal better with the overcrowded parking garage - and it still took almost 2 hours after I got there to get a space (and I really had to go to the bathroom when I pulled into the garage and had to wait) so I had about an hour less than I planned and needed to do all of this. I actually took photocopies of many things to go over them again here at home.
In the middle of all of this, I heard husband’s ring on my cell phone - in my brief case on the floor in a plastic bag (concerned about bed bugs in the place) beside me. I was about to scream, but knew if he was contacting me it was IMPORTANT. He had gone out for lunch in our van and after lunch at (yes) Wendys, it would not start. He called the auto club and they got it started and he drove to our mechanic to be looked at. Our RV was already at our mechanic for the annual state inspection. The RV was finished so he drove it home and left the van. He had texted me to bitch about all this. My response “Much the same here.” I got an apology from him.
I have made arrangements to forward her mail to my sister. In the interim until that starts we are going to her house and picking up her mail. Today I said to husband that the weather was nice (rain tomorrow as it is most days lately) so I wanted to drive to mom’s house and pick up the mail and make sure that there were no packages of stuff she had ordered before all of this there. He was not happy about the time it would take, but agreed. Only junk mail of course, but lots of it. I think my mom gets more mail in a week than we get in a month - lots of catalogs and strange magazine offers. On the way home we stopped to gas up the car as I had used up a lot yesterday and we are thinking of a day trip to PA on Friday.
As we drove home from the gas station (closer to mom than us), which we have used before, the car started acting funny when we were stopped at lights. Sooooo, we picked up the van and left the car! There is a new fellow working for our mechanic (I met him once, husband met him twice as he was there yesterday) and we went in and explained. I also told him that we do not normally have serial car work done. :-) So far the costs for the vehicles have not been bad, hope this one is not expensive.
In between all of this I have managed to catch up a bit more - the “to do” pile is getting noticeably shorter. The “to scan” has gotten slightly taller though. I have managed to get an email out to a friend who husband told me had posted on FB that she needed a source for food trucks for an event - told her about a large event in that area and they must know who comes to their event. I also scanned in the “who is bringing what to the June luncheon meeting” of my embroidery chapter - both because I intended to send it to the membership and because one of the members who had not been at the last meeting to sign up had asked. Scanned and emailed out to the members. Hopefully there are more of us coming and I am not the only one bringing something other than some sort of salad.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
We never know what is going to come our way. Unfortunately it tends to be problems more than solutions. Each item has to be dealt with - to overlook it will make bigger problems down the road. When I am ready to scream about everything I think about all of those with much larger problems. Mom is aging and needs more help - but she is still with us. My client is driving me crazy, but she is a nice person and I do like working for her - most of the time (and we need the money). The vehicles are driving us crazy at this particular point in time - but they normally run fine and don’t end up costing a lot of money for repairs. New rule - van will be driven at least every Wednesday as if it had been driven more often than twice a month or so, it might not be having problems lately. I am not a “Mary Sunshine” but I know that the problems we are having are not as bad as others have and we can deal with them. And they give me something to write about. What do you think are the chances we will go to PA this Friday?
Showing posts with label Manhattan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manhattan. Show all posts
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Thursday, January 31, 2019
ANOTHER STORM COMING
Well, another week of not getting anything done easily. My client’s payroll taxes are filed - and I only needed to open one of the kinds of forms I bought - it had the second one I needed included. Now we need to make a trip to the store to return the other ones.
I went to the client this past Monday. She is located in Manhattan. I drive to Queens and park in a municipal parking garage near a subway stop that is one stop from Manhattan - I only have to travel 3 stops total to the client. (For those who might not know both Manhattan and Queens are boroughs of New York City. Manhattan is what most people think of as New York City - it located on Manhattan Island. Queens is a more suburban part of New York City and is one of the two boroughs of New York City on Long Island (which also has Nassau and Suffolk Counties which are not part of New York City). Parking in Manhattan is prohibitive. Not only is the per hour rate charged by the garages and the few lots left high, but there is something like a 16% tax on parking in garages/lots. The lot in Queens costs me less than $10 for the several hours I am parked - less than an hour would cost in Manhattan. The other alternative I have is to take the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan from my home community and then switch (at additional cost) to the LIRR in Manhattan to complete my trip. This is not cheap even with the fact that I generally would be traveling off peak (cheaper than on peak) and am entitled to a senior discount (from both trains). In addition neither of these trains companies have been having a lot of luck lately - breakdowns, etc. and I can walk from the client to my car if I had to - it might take awhile, I might have to stop, I might have to leave my laptop at the client - but I would get home if for some reason (to put it politely and in a way not to scare anyone if you think about things which have happened in Manhattan in the past 20 years) something happened and the trains - both types) were not running. So I drive to Queens, park, and take the subway. It is normal for me to arrive at the garage and have to wait in a line to get in - maybe 3 or 4 cars might be waiting ahead of me. The garage is located next to a court house and normally people will leave after their business at same is finished and it is not a long wait (shorter than writing this post will be). This time when I arrived there I got on the end of a longer line than I have seen there - at least 7 cars ahead of me - and there is a second entrance which had 2 more cars waiting to squeeze into the line. It took an HOUR before I drove in. (I did let one of the two cars in the other entrance ahead of me - the other had left and, well, he was there before me.) I had arrived there on the early side - but due to this arrived at the client late.
To save time at the client - the weather was to turn bad on Tuesday and I wanted to make some stops on the way home - I not only had the forms client needed to sign, finished and printed, but had also printed out envelopes to mail them in (as opposed to printing them at the client). This was not to be. She had a form I had forgotten about for disability insurance for employees (her) and our state has added a family leave policy to this. The form was 2 weeks late (it arrived while the business was closed as she was away), there were no instructions for the new family leave premium - instructions said to go online for same - no Internet connection there. I tried calling the number on the form for help, was on hold for about 20 minutes - finally when the call was answered the person had no idea what I was talking about - he had not even heard about the type of policy I was talking about. He went away, came back and said he was transferring me to the right department. Another 15 minutes on hold - the woman was very nice, but she also was the wrong department. She also transferred me - after another 10 minutes on hold, I gave up! I filled in the form as well as I could. I told the client about this and that if there was a problem, I would straighten it out. Not only did I want to get out of there and home to my husband who was having a breakdown over the coming weather this week, but the client has a car service which picks her up at 3:30 and it was close to same. I had her sign the forms and the checks I had prepared and made my goodbyes as she packed to leave also.
I made a stop at a bank (they would all be closed by the time I was in my car). I remembered hearing a ring in my cell phone from my husband who was suppose to be running a couple of errands and buying some food items in case we were stuck in the house the rest of the week and had figured he had a question on what to buy - plus at that time I could not get to my phone as the I could was on the wrong side of the desk I use and was blocked from it by the client packing. So I checked my phone. He had not gone anywhere - when he went to leave - there were no brakes in his car! So I texted him back - almost crying over what had gone on - it was that messed up a day and asked if I should come home before running errands - he agreed.
The drive home was not too bad - about 2 hours. We got in the car I had been driving and went out to run errands. I suddenly remembered that the items I had to mail out - bill payments for us and the forms for client - were still in my brief case ... in the house. So we had to drive home to get it and then drive to the post office to mail them out (and I checked our box - still no forms from IRS). I then made the best suggestion of the day - “Wendys for dinner?” Neither of us had defrosted anything for dinner, plus we figured to be in the house most of the week, so we went.
Yesterday I filed the clients New York State forms online. I gave a deep breathe - all of the clients payroll taxes filed on time - with 2 days to spare. Then I remembered - it had never asked me for her bank account information to debit the payment. I went back in to the site - it does not seem to have anything else to do? I have an email out to the state asking about this - nothing seems to get finished on the first try any longer?
We had been able to go out yesterday - rain started late in the day and it was horribly heavy rain with much flooding around. We had the other car towed to our mechanic - about 4 - 5 blocks away. We told the tow company when we called it had to go on a flat bed - it has all wheel drive - and was glad to see that they had listened and sent same. Fellow who was towing insisted it was not needed “I HAVE been doing this for 10 years and know when a flat bed tow is needed - see the wheels are in the air in the front, no problem.” Glad he has done this for 10 years - we have had the car for 20+ years and it was not our first all or 4 wheel drive. He had to turn around (he was facing opposite to where the mechanic is) and told us to drive there and he would meet us. This mechanic (and another before him) has been at this location well over the 40 years I have lived in this area and is generally known in the area - I was surprised that the fellow did not know which mechanic and where we were talking about. We drove over and waited and waited and waited. (I could have walked there in less than half the time it took him to drive there). Our mechanic and another customer there were shocked that the driver did not know where he was. The fellow finally showed up - the wheels had locked and he - HAD TO PUT IT ON THE FLAT BED!!!
The rain was the leading edge of the weather to the west of us across the U.S. - this is that freezing temperatures and huge storm that you had first. Today we managed to get out for lunch just ahead of a “snow squall” which is apparently like a thunderstorm with snow instead of rain. Our area was lucky as it was quickly and we only got about 2 inches of snow - we went out and pushed it off the driveway and then husband salted around as it was in the teens and heading colder until late next weekend.
It is now 6F outside and still dropping. Not as bad as the -40sF I have heard about to the west of us across the country, but cold enough for husband to be in a major panic. We now have the cabinets under the kitchen and bathroom sinks open and the faucets are set to drip, as is the basement to keep the water from freezing - just in case.
I did the laundry Monday night so we would not have to worry about doing same tonight and tomorrow. I sent out my embroidery chapter’s newsletter by email tonight - and in searching for textile related exhibitions to list for them, found one of interest to some of our reenacting group members and sent it out to them also. I thought I was doing better - then my dinner (not husband’s - we had different dinners) was refrigerator cold from sitting after it was cooked and I reheated it - of course part of it then was so HOT that I burned the inside of my mouth.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Well, in 2 days there is a new month - maybe it will be better. There is an old adage - “Man makes plans, God laughs”. I sort of feel like that right now.
One has to look at the good in one’s life as even as all heck seems to be breaking loose. We are both okay. We have a place to be in the cold and food to eat. The cold will end over the weekend (even if it will be raining then).
Everything works out - some way, even if not as one planned. Hopefully I will get some work done in the house while we are keeping warm inside. Oh, and hopefully the weather will be nice enough next week for a bunch of us “old ladies” to go out to our embroidery meeting.
I went to the client this past Monday. She is located in Manhattan. I drive to Queens and park in a municipal parking garage near a subway stop that is one stop from Manhattan - I only have to travel 3 stops total to the client. (For those who might not know both Manhattan and Queens are boroughs of New York City. Manhattan is what most people think of as New York City - it located on Manhattan Island. Queens is a more suburban part of New York City and is one of the two boroughs of New York City on Long Island (which also has Nassau and Suffolk Counties which are not part of New York City). Parking in Manhattan is prohibitive. Not only is the per hour rate charged by the garages and the few lots left high, but there is something like a 16% tax on parking in garages/lots. The lot in Queens costs me less than $10 for the several hours I am parked - less than an hour would cost in Manhattan. The other alternative I have is to take the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan from my home community and then switch (at additional cost) to the LIRR in Manhattan to complete my trip. This is not cheap even with the fact that I generally would be traveling off peak (cheaper than on peak) and am entitled to a senior discount (from both trains). In addition neither of these trains companies have been having a lot of luck lately - breakdowns, etc. and I can walk from the client to my car if I had to - it might take awhile, I might have to stop, I might have to leave my laptop at the client - but I would get home if for some reason (to put it politely and in a way not to scare anyone if you think about things which have happened in Manhattan in the past 20 years) something happened and the trains - both types) were not running. So I drive to Queens, park, and take the subway. It is normal for me to arrive at the garage and have to wait in a line to get in - maybe 3 or 4 cars might be waiting ahead of me. The garage is located next to a court house and normally people will leave after their business at same is finished and it is not a long wait (shorter than writing this post will be). This time when I arrived there I got on the end of a longer line than I have seen there - at least 7 cars ahead of me - and there is a second entrance which had 2 more cars waiting to squeeze into the line. It took an HOUR before I drove in. (I did let one of the two cars in the other entrance ahead of me - the other had left and, well, he was there before me.) I had arrived there on the early side - but due to this arrived at the client late.
To save time at the client - the weather was to turn bad on Tuesday and I wanted to make some stops on the way home - I not only had the forms client needed to sign, finished and printed, but had also printed out envelopes to mail them in (as opposed to printing them at the client). This was not to be. She had a form I had forgotten about for disability insurance for employees (her) and our state has added a family leave policy to this. The form was 2 weeks late (it arrived while the business was closed as she was away), there were no instructions for the new family leave premium - instructions said to go online for same - no Internet connection there. I tried calling the number on the form for help, was on hold for about 20 minutes - finally when the call was answered the person had no idea what I was talking about - he had not even heard about the type of policy I was talking about. He went away, came back and said he was transferring me to the right department. Another 15 minutes on hold - the woman was very nice, but she also was the wrong department. She also transferred me - after another 10 minutes on hold, I gave up! I filled in the form as well as I could. I told the client about this and that if there was a problem, I would straighten it out. Not only did I want to get out of there and home to my husband who was having a breakdown over the coming weather this week, but the client has a car service which picks her up at 3:30 and it was close to same. I had her sign the forms and the checks I had prepared and made my goodbyes as she packed to leave also.
I made a stop at a bank (they would all be closed by the time I was in my car). I remembered hearing a ring in my cell phone from my husband who was suppose to be running a couple of errands and buying some food items in case we were stuck in the house the rest of the week and had figured he had a question on what to buy - plus at that time I could not get to my phone as the I could was on the wrong side of the desk I use and was blocked from it by the client packing. So I checked my phone. He had not gone anywhere - when he went to leave - there were no brakes in his car! So I texted him back - almost crying over what had gone on - it was that messed up a day and asked if I should come home before running errands - he agreed.
The drive home was not too bad - about 2 hours. We got in the car I had been driving and went out to run errands. I suddenly remembered that the items I had to mail out - bill payments for us and the forms for client - were still in my brief case ... in the house. So we had to drive home to get it and then drive to the post office to mail them out (and I checked our box - still no forms from IRS). I then made the best suggestion of the day - “Wendys for dinner?” Neither of us had defrosted anything for dinner, plus we figured to be in the house most of the week, so we went.
Yesterday I filed the clients New York State forms online. I gave a deep breathe - all of the clients payroll taxes filed on time - with 2 days to spare. Then I remembered - it had never asked me for her bank account information to debit the payment. I went back in to the site - it does not seem to have anything else to do? I have an email out to the state asking about this - nothing seems to get finished on the first try any longer?
We had been able to go out yesterday - rain started late in the day and it was horribly heavy rain with much flooding around. We had the other car towed to our mechanic - about 4 - 5 blocks away. We told the tow company when we called it had to go on a flat bed - it has all wheel drive - and was glad to see that they had listened and sent same. Fellow who was towing insisted it was not needed “I HAVE been doing this for 10 years and know when a flat bed tow is needed - see the wheels are in the air in the front, no problem.” Glad he has done this for 10 years - we have had the car for 20+ years and it was not our first all or 4 wheel drive. He had to turn around (he was facing opposite to where the mechanic is) and told us to drive there and he would meet us. This mechanic (and another before him) has been at this location well over the 40 years I have lived in this area and is generally known in the area - I was surprised that the fellow did not know which mechanic and where we were talking about. We drove over and waited and waited and waited. (I could have walked there in less than half the time it took him to drive there). Our mechanic and another customer there were shocked that the driver did not know where he was. The fellow finally showed up - the wheels had locked and he - HAD TO PUT IT ON THE FLAT BED!!!
The rain was the leading edge of the weather to the west of us across the U.S. - this is that freezing temperatures and huge storm that you had first. Today we managed to get out for lunch just ahead of a “snow squall” which is apparently like a thunderstorm with snow instead of rain. Our area was lucky as it was quickly and we only got about 2 inches of snow - we went out and pushed it off the driveway and then husband salted around as it was in the teens and heading colder until late next weekend.
It is now 6F outside and still dropping. Not as bad as the -40sF I have heard about to the west of us across the country, but cold enough for husband to be in a major panic. We now have the cabinets under the kitchen and bathroom sinks open and the faucets are set to drip, as is the basement to keep the water from freezing - just in case.
I did the laundry Monday night so we would not have to worry about doing same tonight and tomorrow. I sent out my embroidery chapter’s newsletter by email tonight - and in searching for textile related exhibitions to list for them, found one of interest to some of our reenacting group members and sent it out to them also. I thought I was doing better - then my dinner (not husband’s - we had different dinners) was refrigerator cold from sitting after it was cooked and I reheated it - of course part of it then was so HOT that I burned the inside of my mouth.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Well, in 2 days there is a new month - maybe it will be better. There is an old adage - “Man makes plans, God laughs”. I sort of feel like that right now.
One has to look at the good in one’s life as even as all heck seems to be breaking loose. We are both okay. We have a place to be in the cold and food to eat. The cold will end over the weekend (even if it will be raining then).
Everything works out - some way, even if not as one planned. Hopefully I will get some work done in the house while we are keeping warm inside. Oh, and hopefully the weather will be nice enough next week for a bunch of us “old ladies” to go out to our embroidery meeting.
Thursday, August 9, 2018
ACHOO!
Achoo! Last week I was feeling fine. Then it happened. You know, you wake up with a scratchy throat and wonder - is it a cold or did I just sleep on my back with my mouth open and annoy my throat. Then the coughing starts - and you still hope it is a just a scratchy throat from sleeping on your back, but you are pretty sure it is not. Once the sneezing starts and your nose is clogged... My husband lives in fear of me having a cold. He is a bit of a hypochondriac so he won’t let me do anything if I might “spread the germs” to him. But he doesn’t want to do what he is not letting me do either. Everything takes longer to do as a result and wastes time. Don’t worry - you can’t catch the cold.
He doesn’t want to cook (although he used to love to cook and is the better cook). He doesn’t want to do the dishes. but he doesn’t want me to do either as I will get him sick. The first night he made dinner - ham steak that we shared and a packaged macaroni with mushrooms - add to boiling water and let cook - and canned soup. I did the dishes afterwards with disposable plastic gloves on. One night he was on the computer with a client and I asked if I should make dinner or wait for him and he told me he was busy - so I made dinner and he ate it, but not happily. Then the weekend came and cooking was resolved as we eat out Friday through Sunday nights. This week he cooked dinner on Monday. Last night as we were trying to figure out what to have for dinner a rain storm hit. I mean A RAIN STORM HIT. He received a warning on his cell phone - I did not, although my, no cell service for over a year as it was not working for Internet or phone service and I had to switch, Blackberry received a notice. (I keep it charged for it games and camera.) We had major lightning and thunder for about 2 hours - remember I have fired a reproduction 18th century cannon - the thunder was like cannon fire. We lost our electricity - one of husband’s other great fears. We stood/sat with the front door open watching “the show” . We live on a main road. A UPS truck went past to the right, then to the left, then two of them passed our house, then another one and so on. Assorted emergency vehicles passed the house in both directions with lights flashing - police, ambulances, fire trucks, a couple of electric utility trucks... Cars kept driving in the mess, some would pull over a few minutes and then go on. I am a pretty fearless driver (scared husband the few times he had to drive with me as the driver) and I would have pulled over. Sooo, what will we eat? I was thinking - we have rolls, peanut butter - crunchy and smooth, jelly - strawberry and Ikea ligonberry, American cheese, mozzarella cheese - no problem. I suggested this to him. NO! We cannot open the fridge or his insulin would go bad. (Well, technically if it got too warm it would still be good for 42 days, but I was not going to argue.) Luckily the rain let up around 10:30 pm. We got in the car and drove to a nearby supermarket and bought more rolls and cold cuts for dinner. On the corner passed a 7-11 shut down do to lack of electricity, employees seemed to be sitting in cars in the parking lot. We got home and were getting ready to eat and - the lights came back on. Apparently we were in the largest outage area so we were put back quickly. I honestly do not remember a thunderstorm with so much or such loud thunder with rain that heavy for so long.
Tonight we took in Chinese food - simple right? Not really. The place we took out from for decades (while I was waiting for the gas company to come and turn on the gas in our first apartment I went and took out from this place for lunch - I did not even have tableware, dishes, glasses, etc in the apartment - I did have a borrowed bridge table and 2 borrowed bridge chairs) has changed. The original owners ran it for a long time - we knew their children, I remember hearing a car stop short in front of our apartment and the father coming running to the corner because his younger daughter had been riding her bicycle and just missed being hit by the car. When he died his older daughter would come home from college on weekends to help her mom. Then the son took over for awhile - even though he really wanted to be fishing - and the place often had fresh fish due to same. Eventually the place was sold - to the son’s sister in law and her husband. They were also nice and the food was the same and we kept going there. Earlier this year we went there and the husband was not there and an older woman (I presume one of their moms) was cooking. The food was not good. We tried another place and were not happy with them. We went back to them figuring maybe it was the change in cook. But the last time we took out the soup was too salty to eat and all the dishes were wrong. We don’t know what happened. This is the place we called on our way back from our 5 hour trip in July, 2017 to get dinner made before they closed - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/07/treading-water-5-hour-trip-to-nowhere.html So, we never know where to take out from and as a result we don’t. We receive an assortment of fliers from take out places and I keep them. One recently caught husband’s eye and he had been planning to try it - so tonight we did. Very nice people and food. Three street parking spaces in front of the 4 stores was the only parking. Then, since I was sick, husband did not hand me the food to hold on the trip home, he put it in a plastic laundry basket we keep in the back in the car, he did not put anything against the bag to hold it. Yes, the bag went on an angle and was soaked when he took it out of the car. After dinner we had to wash the vinyl cover I keep in the car, the basket, and back of the car. We will go back again - and I will hold the bag.
In the middle of all this I had to go to Manhattan to a client for work - I should have gone last month, but she had a cold (could I have caught this cold over the telephone :-) ). So I went yesterday. I packed a zip lock bag with sucking candy, lots of tissues, and an old prescription bottle with one dose of the cough medicine I am taking. In another zip lock bag I had a small bottle I filled with water. Did I mention the temperature yesterday was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit? Luckily I did not need any of the items.
As a result of this normal housework and keeping things in order are only done if absolutely needed. Instead of changing the bedding, I changed only my pillowcases. I suggested he change his, but he said it was okay to just leave them until next week. I had to talk him through changing the hand towels. We were in the downstairs bathroom - “Where are they?” “In the cabinet under the sink - see those 2 whiteish towels? Take them and the green dish towel below them.” (I put out a green dish towel each week in that bathroom to use for quick clean ups of water around the sink - it matches the bathroom.) Upstairs? “Which towels?” “The yellow ones.” (I figured yellow was bright and he would easily see them.) “You mean these yellow ones?” They are the only yellow ones we have.
Last week I had washed and dried the clothes the night before I got the cold. A load of jeans were in the dryer drying overnight. So we had clothes for the week. I did not wash the towels or the bed linens. Good thing I have 2 weeks of towels plus one extra set for up and down. I was trying to figure out how to mention to him about the laundry when he brought it up. I put the clothes in to wash. He will put them in the dryer - with me talking him through it - and then bring them upstairs afterwards. He brought up last week jeans load when I put in the load to wash. He says he will fold the laundry. I normally pull out his shirts as I put the clean, dry laundry in the basket to take upstairs so that they do not need to be ironed, as I put them over the top of the other clothes and if he does that, and sorts mine from his, I can deal with my clothes and he can deal with his or leave them in the basket and pull them out as he needs them.
Hopefully either this cold will be definitely over with or he will give up by Monday so life can return to normal.
On the other hand, I had some extra time in the office as we came home quicker in the afternoons. I managed to shred all of my 2008 records - other than few I kept such as the checks written that year for our income taxes - 3 tall kitchen bags plus, worth of shredding. I then packed my 2017 records into the same box, relabeled it, and put it back in the closet - ah, room to fit papers in file folders again.
I also had time to transfer my 2017 computer files to my archive file and make 2 DVD copies of the revised archive files. I still have to change my back up files so that the old files are gone from them, but that will happen as I make backup files.
I went through an assortment of old computer instruction manuals sitting on a shelf in the office - why? I needed space for 2 magazine holders. I pulled a number of the manuals - mostly from programs or hardware that I had - and I will put them out over a couple of weeks with the recycling. I still have a stack for husband to go through - understand this are DOS or pre Windows XP software and hardware that I cannot figure out what or where it is. The magazine holders fit nicely in the shelf now with room for the manuals for computer things we are actively using.
The office floor is a mess due to my cheapness in not wanting to waste extra garbage bags when doing shredding and pouring from one to another - as well as throwing handfuls of shreds from one bag to another. I had planned to vacuum up the shreds - but then caught this cold - maybe tomorrow I will get to vacuuming.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One gets ill. It happens. I am glad that it only a cold so all it has been is inconvenient. In the larger world it is nothing, just an inconvenience. I am happy that is not serious and by next week either I will be better or he will give up trying to do things for me so he does not catch the cold. (I have never pointed out to him that I touch the light switches and so does he.)
Try to do as much as one can without overtaxing one’s self - this will vary based on what is wrong with one.
I leave you with a final achoo! If I rambled too much - will, hey! I have a cold! :-)
He doesn’t want to cook (although he used to love to cook and is the better cook). He doesn’t want to do the dishes. but he doesn’t want me to do either as I will get him sick. The first night he made dinner - ham steak that we shared and a packaged macaroni with mushrooms - add to boiling water and let cook - and canned soup. I did the dishes afterwards with disposable plastic gloves on. One night he was on the computer with a client and I asked if I should make dinner or wait for him and he told me he was busy - so I made dinner and he ate it, but not happily. Then the weekend came and cooking was resolved as we eat out Friday through Sunday nights. This week he cooked dinner on Monday. Last night as we were trying to figure out what to have for dinner a rain storm hit. I mean A RAIN STORM HIT. He received a warning on his cell phone - I did not, although my, no cell service for over a year as it was not working for Internet or phone service and I had to switch, Blackberry received a notice. (I keep it charged for it games and camera.) We had major lightning and thunder for about 2 hours - remember I have fired a reproduction 18th century cannon - the thunder was like cannon fire. We lost our electricity - one of husband’s other great fears. We stood/sat with the front door open watching “the show” . We live on a main road. A UPS truck went past to the right, then to the left, then two of them passed our house, then another one and so on. Assorted emergency vehicles passed the house in both directions with lights flashing - police, ambulances, fire trucks, a couple of electric utility trucks... Cars kept driving in the mess, some would pull over a few minutes and then go on. I am a pretty fearless driver (scared husband the few times he had to drive with me as the driver) and I would have pulled over. Sooo, what will we eat? I was thinking - we have rolls, peanut butter - crunchy and smooth, jelly - strawberry and Ikea ligonberry, American cheese, mozzarella cheese - no problem. I suggested this to him. NO! We cannot open the fridge or his insulin would go bad. (Well, technically if it got too warm it would still be good for 42 days, but I was not going to argue.) Luckily the rain let up around 10:30 pm. We got in the car and drove to a nearby supermarket and bought more rolls and cold cuts for dinner. On the corner passed a 7-11 shut down do to lack of electricity, employees seemed to be sitting in cars in the parking lot. We got home and were getting ready to eat and - the lights came back on. Apparently we were in the largest outage area so we were put back quickly. I honestly do not remember a thunderstorm with so much or such loud thunder with rain that heavy for so long.
Tonight we took in Chinese food - simple right? Not really. The place we took out from for decades (while I was waiting for the gas company to come and turn on the gas in our first apartment I went and took out from this place for lunch - I did not even have tableware, dishes, glasses, etc in the apartment - I did have a borrowed bridge table and 2 borrowed bridge chairs) has changed. The original owners ran it for a long time - we knew their children, I remember hearing a car stop short in front of our apartment and the father coming running to the corner because his younger daughter had been riding her bicycle and just missed being hit by the car. When he died his older daughter would come home from college on weekends to help her mom. Then the son took over for awhile - even though he really wanted to be fishing - and the place often had fresh fish due to same. Eventually the place was sold - to the son’s sister in law and her husband. They were also nice and the food was the same and we kept going there. Earlier this year we went there and the husband was not there and an older woman (I presume one of their moms) was cooking. The food was not good. We tried another place and were not happy with them. We went back to them figuring maybe it was the change in cook. But the last time we took out the soup was too salty to eat and all the dishes were wrong. We don’t know what happened. This is the place we called on our way back from our 5 hour trip in July, 2017 to get dinner made before they closed - http://wheredidileavethat.blogspot.com/2017/07/treading-water-5-hour-trip-to-nowhere.html So, we never know where to take out from and as a result we don’t. We receive an assortment of fliers from take out places and I keep them. One recently caught husband’s eye and he had been planning to try it - so tonight we did. Very nice people and food. Three street parking spaces in front of the 4 stores was the only parking. Then, since I was sick, husband did not hand me the food to hold on the trip home, he put it in a plastic laundry basket we keep in the back in the car, he did not put anything against the bag to hold it. Yes, the bag went on an angle and was soaked when he took it out of the car. After dinner we had to wash the vinyl cover I keep in the car, the basket, and back of the car. We will go back again - and I will hold the bag.
In the middle of all this I had to go to Manhattan to a client for work - I should have gone last month, but she had a cold (could I have caught this cold over the telephone :-) ). So I went yesterday. I packed a zip lock bag with sucking candy, lots of tissues, and an old prescription bottle with one dose of the cough medicine I am taking. In another zip lock bag I had a small bottle I filled with water. Did I mention the temperature yesterday was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit? Luckily I did not need any of the items.
As a result of this normal housework and keeping things in order are only done if absolutely needed. Instead of changing the bedding, I changed only my pillowcases. I suggested he change his, but he said it was okay to just leave them until next week. I had to talk him through changing the hand towels. We were in the downstairs bathroom - “Where are they?” “In the cabinet under the sink - see those 2 whiteish towels? Take them and the green dish towel below them.” (I put out a green dish towel each week in that bathroom to use for quick clean ups of water around the sink - it matches the bathroom.) Upstairs? “Which towels?” “The yellow ones.” (I figured yellow was bright and he would easily see them.) “You mean these yellow ones?” They are the only yellow ones we have.
Last week I had washed and dried the clothes the night before I got the cold. A load of jeans were in the dryer drying overnight. So we had clothes for the week. I did not wash the towels or the bed linens. Good thing I have 2 weeks of towels plus one extra set for up and down. I was trying to figure out how to mention to him about the laundry when he brought it up. I put the clothes in to wash. He will put them in the dryer - with me talking him through it - and then bring them upstairs afterwards. He brought up last week jeans load when I put in the load to wash. He says he will fold the laundry. I normally pull out his shirts as I put the clean, dry laundry in the basket to take upstairs so that they do not need to be ironed, as I put them over the top of the other clothes and if he does that, and sorts mine from his, I can deal with my clothes and he can deal with his or leave them in the basket and pull them out as he needs them.
Hopefully either this cold will be definitely over with or he will give up by Monday so life can return to normal.
On the other hand, I had some extra time in the office as we came home quicker in the afternoons. I managed to shred all of my 2008 records - other than few I kept such as the checks written that year for our income taxes - 3 tall kitchen bags plus, worth of shredding. I then packed my 2017 records into the same box, relabeled it, and put it back in the closet - ah, room to fit papers in file folders again.
I also had time to transfer my 2017 computer files to my archive file and make 2 DVD copies of the revised archive files. I still have to change my back up files so that the old files are gone from them, but that will happen as I make backup files.
I went through an assortment of old computer instruction manuals sitting on a shelf in the office - why? I needed space for 2 magazine holders. I pulled a number of the manuals - mostly from programs or hardware that I had - and I will put them out over a couple of weeks with the recycling. I still have a stack for husband to go through - understand this are DOS or pre Windows XP software and hardware that I cannot figure out what or where it is. The magazine holders fit nicely in the shelf now with room for the manuals for computer things we are actively using.
The office floor is a mess due to my cheapness in not wanting to waste extra garbage bags when doing shredding and pouring from one to another - as well as throwing handfuls of shreds from one bag to another. I had planned to vacuum up the shreds - but then caught this cold - maybe tomorrow I will get to vacuuming.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One gets ill. It happens. I am glad that it only a cold so all it has been is inconvenient. In the larger world it is nothing, just an inconvenience. I am happy that is not serious and by next week either I will be better or he will give up trying to do things for me so he does not catch the cold. (I have never pointed out to him that I touch the light switches and so does he.)
Try to do as much as one can without overtaxing one’s self - this will vary based on what is wrong with one.
I leave you with a final achoo! If I rambled too much - will, hey! I have a cold! :-)
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