A Little More Confusion

When I wrote the part of my odds and ends entry earlier about my mother I knew there was something else that I wanted to add but couldn't remember what it was.  Well, it just now came to mind, and I had to get out of bed and boot up the old computer before I forgot about it!

After Mom told me about the sweet potato/pumpkin pie thing, she said, "And yesterday Lois came in from work and got a Hershey's chocolate bar with almonds out of the refrigerator, and I thought 'Now that looks good.  I'm going to have one of those.'  I went to the refrigerator, got one out, sat down, opened it and took a bite, and I thought, 'That's not right!'  And it was a Reece's Cup!"

I could hear my sister, Lois, laughing in the background.  She told me later that she heard Mom say, "Aww, shoot!"  And when Lois looked up, Mom was sitting there frowning at a Reece's Cup.  She said, "I meant to eat a Hershey bar, and now I've already taken a bite out of this thing."  My sister, Barbara, grandly offered to finish it for her so she could have her Hershey's with almond.

Poor Mom!  We love her to pieces!  I still say she is remarkable for someone her age, and I think that the seven of us are secretly to blame for her more amusing moments of confusion.

Goodnight!  I think I can go to sleep now.

Revisiting January 2007 Again

I have one last trip of nostalgia for January -- and that is an entry I made last year about getting stopped in my tracks by a question from Eler Beth.  I think it turned into rather a nice essay on the value of working moms versus stay-at-home-moms.

All I Ever Needed To Know . . . .

In case you've never read this and wondered (if you read the "Mrs. Emily" entry I linked to a couple posts back) what it was, here is the link to the text, "All I Ever Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum.

Tags: Robert Fulghum

Susan Juby

I mentioned Susan Juby and ALICE, I THINK two entries ago and wondered if she had written any other books.  Apparently she did, and now I need to find them!  Check out this link to get a good since of who the lady is, and this link to see all her books.  I think I've found another favorite author.  I did a little review in my other journal.

Tags: Susan Juby

Revisiting January 2006 Again

I like to go back and re-read old entries, and I started doing this at the beginning of the month.  Then I forgot and didn't keep up with it.  But here are a few good ones, in my opinion, from January of 2006 if you missed them the first time:

Eler Beth did a little bit of Private Eye work on this day, and it wasn't the first time for her, either!

Then I was reminded that she comes by it naturally, as Thomas has also been known to catch a crook or two.

And I missed a very important anniversary on the 14th; the death of Andrew's and Eler Beth's elementary school principal.  I really thought a lot of the lady and wrote a little tribute to her.

(Mostly Odd) Odds and Ends

I think I need to get out more . . .

I went to a laundramat yesterday.  I have some comforters, pillows, and quilts that require a larger washing machine than mine, so when I feel it's time for them to be cleaned I take them to a local laundramat to use the big triple load washers.  I usually go to a large, quiet, clean laundramat on 10th Street.

But there is one closer to my house, and yesterday I decided I'd just run them down there.  I took a book along with me to keep me occupied.  When I pulled into the parking lot I noticed there were no other cars there, which I thought might be a nice sign.  I parked right in front of one of the doors, and I noticed this interesting sign:  No Shoes, No Shirt, No Pets, No Service.  Okaaay.  Did that mean that if I didn't have a pet with me I would get no service? 

When I went inside I realized that no vehicles in the parking lot didn't necessarily mean no customers inside.  There was a lady at one end with about a week's (or two) worth of laundry that she was sorting in the middle of the floor.  She would pick a few items out of her pile, drop them into one washer or another, and then go back for more.  This didn't bother me personally until I discovered I didn't have enough quarters for the machine and had to change a couple of bills in the bill changer.  Her sorting was taking place right in front of the bill changer.  I said excuse me, I need to get to the bill changer, and she never even looked up at me, so I just stepped over her things.  There was no attendant, by the way.  There used to be a counter in the front where an attendant would take in clothes for drop-off service, but that is gone now. 

There was also a little girl seated at a round plastic table, having a tea party with several stuffed toys, with whom she kept up a conversation the whole time I was there.  Very cute.  Her brother, about 11 years old, was emptying washers.  There was a man with them, apparently the boy's step-dad or mother's significant other from the way they spoke with one another.  The boy used unusual words like "extract", as in, "This machine didn't extract all the water."  The man, who honestly did look like he fell off a turnip truck, said, "What??"  And the boy kept saying, "This machine didn't extract all the water."  After repeating this about three times the man said, "What the h--- does THAT mean?"  And the boy said, "It didn't get all the water out!"  At other times the man would announce his feelings in a very loud voice, while looking around to make sure that sorting-lady and I were paying attention, about having to be there doing laundry.  He couldn't BELIEVE he was spending his afternoon doing laundry!  When their mother got back, HE was going out for a smoke!  He couldn't imagine where she was, anyway!  She should have been back by now!  Next time SHE was going to stay there and do the laundry!  It looked to me like the boy was doing it all, anyway.

Then there was the older couple who came in while my things were drying.  The older man couldn't hear anything the woman was saying, so she repeated everything she said, but not any louder or more clearly than she'd said them the first time.  And her voice!  I have no idea how to describe it.  Several months ago Scalzi featured a video of some cop show where the woman arrested had a very screeching, country-accented, hoarse-from-smoking-all-her-life voice that was practically unintelligible, and that is what this woman sounded like.

I never did read any of my book.

When I left, sorting-lady still had four dryers and three washers going, and there was still a big quilt on the floor in front of the change machine.

Next time I'm going to the big laundramat.

 

Ever Have That Feeling?

I talked with my mother by phone yesterday.  About halfway through her first sentence she paused and demanded, "Am I talking into this thing right??"

She said for some reason, all of a sudden as she was talking she just had this feeling that she had the phone upside down or something.  It just didn't feel right.  She said, "I've been really feeling old lately."  I said, "Well, you ARE  84 years old, although I've always felt that we (the kids) were aging faster than you."  And she said, "No, I've REALLY been aging lately.  I do the dumbest things!  This morning I said I was in the mood for a sweet potato pie, so I went and dug out the recipe.  Then when I was getting the ingredients together I glanced at the recipe and thought, 'well, that's not for sweet potato pie, that's a pumpkin pie!'.  I was starting to put it back when I glanced at it again, and sure enough it said 'sweet potato pie'.  I don't know why I thought it was pumpkin for a second!"  I say, she's 84 years old, was married for 55 years, and raised seven kids.  If she gets a bit confused now and then, well, she's due.  I still say she's in better shape physically and mentally than most of us!

 

Dig a little deeper . . .

Gas, as of this afternoon, is now $3.06 a gallon!

 

A Good Book . . .

I just finished the funniest book.  It is called ALICE, I THINK and was published in 2003, written by a lady named Susan Juby.  She writes with wit and wry humour.  This was her first novel, so I'm off to look her up to see if she did any more.  If you look for it in your library you'll find it in the Young Adult section.

 

 

Tags: Alice I Think, Susan Juby

Catching Up (Because I Can't Think Of Any Better Title)

We had a very pretty day here, weatherwise, for most of the day.  It was very sunny this morning, but clouded up in the afternoon.  Now it is trying to sprinkle, and we are expecting showers overnight and through the day tomorrow.

We had a busy weekend.  Eler Beth hosted (or would that be hostessed) a slumber party Friday night.  She and two of her cousins, M and H, had planned on getting together to watch a new Disney Channel movie, Minute Men, premiering that night.  What started as the three of them watching a movie, with perhaps pizza and popcorn, turned into a slumber party with five other girls invited.  Oh my!

They had a blast,though.  We ordered pizzas, had plenty of chips, dip, and popcorn, and went through gallons of non-caffienated and sugar-free drinks!  Two of the girls made it to 2 a.m., Eler Beth konked out about 4 a.m., and the other girls were still awake at 6:00!  She had gotten little gifts for each of them, too, and presented each with a very carefully selected gift bag full of little goodies.  I think they enjoyed that as much as anything else.  The movie was cute, and the girls' conversations were priceless!  They are already planning on doing this again at L's house in June when another Disney Channel original is premiering.

Eler Beth's cousin, H, confided in Eler Beth Saturday morning that some kids at her school make fun of her hair.  So Eler Beth got out her comb, brush, some hair oil, and some gel and went to work on it, and the result was very pretty.  H and M are bi-racial, also.  M's hair is pretty easy to care for, but H's hair is a big mass of beautiful, natural curl, that stands out from her head most of the time.  She is eight years old and doesn't like anyone to mess with it, doesn't let her mother do much with it, and I guess her mother doesn't feel it's a battle worth fighting.  But I guess it's different if you're an older cousin.  When Eler Beth was finished H had a head full of controlled, beautiful, long curls.  Eler Beth told her that if she just "worked with it every day" it would look nice and no one would tease her about it anymore.   Later she and another girl got busy braiding M's hair. 

M is the one who is diabetic.  She's two years older than Eler Beth, but maturity-wise, they're about the same age.  They've been spending a lot of time together lately, and it is nice to see Eler Beth paying attention to M's physical clues as to whether she's having a tough day, physically, if her sugar is too high or low, etc.  I think it's good that she is astute enough to notice.  If, when they are older, they go places together, like the mall or the movies, she'll be able to tell if M's in trouble.

Saturday afternoon Eler Beth fell asleep for a couple of hours on the sofa, and I would have taken a nap too, except I had so much cleaning to do!  I made up for it Sunday, though.

Andrew went to see "Meet the Spartans" on Saturday night and came home saying that he was sorry to have wasted $8.50 on it.  It is a parody of the movie "300".  I commented that some of the previews seemed kind of funny, and he said that they were the only funny parts of the whole movie.  He saw "Cloverfield" last week and liked it, but I don't think it's one that I want to see.

Sunday I was just bone-tired all day.  My brain was dragging, my butt was dragging, everything was dragging!  I took a nice three-hour nap, and that seemed to help a lot.  Today I felt pretty spry.  I made homemade chicken and rice for dinner, and that went over very well.   I had it early because Andrew was looking forward to it, and he was leaving around 5 to go to Jason's.  They are finally recording a CD of their music, and they're holding a practice session tonight in preparation for it.

Well, that was my weekend and my Monday, part of it, anyway.  I hope that everyone is having a good start to the week.  If I could think of something witty to leave you with, I would, but I can't, so I'll just say "take care" and "see you soon".

The beautiful graphic by Donna