Chronicles of Nani - This Week In My History

This vlog is about things I've been doing to catch up in my world. It includes how one gets a weight when they're in a wheelchair and can't stand on a scale, Covid booster shots, my emotional support cat celebrating his birthday and my sheer joy in seeing and listening to the nearby carnival.

Chronicles of Nani - The Cutting Room Floor

Along with my cohost, Marco, this is a journey through clips that start with my deciding whether or not Chronicles of Nani was even going to happen all the way through some things from actual episodes that didn't quite fit but are still nonetheless interesting. 

(Yes, my co-host slept through the entire thing, but it was shot during kitty siesta time.) 

Join me on YouTube every Friday at 8am to chat with me during the premier! 

 Or visit the cyber coffee shop anytime, open 24/7! 

#MultipleSclerosis #cats

 

A Carnival Fights Blog-Block

I’ve been in a writing funk lately. I'm going to try write my way out of it. We’ll see if it works.

Today's been a pretty good day. It's Carnival weekend at the church kitty corner from us. I asked my aide to crack open the window on the side of the house so I can hear the carnival. I hope that doesn't sound pathetic, it shouldn’t. I'm not disabled and hearing the sounds of fun I can't have. The truth is I find this sounds to be inspiring. I've always loved listening to the rides and people laughing and having fun. When I used to go to the park and walk every day the absolute greatest day was when it was just warm enough for moms to bring out their kids to play in the playground. It made me even more relaxed and happy to hear the sound of the kids outside having fun. This carnival weekend has been awesome for that reason ever since I moved into this house, 10 years ago. I've never actually been to that carnival. I’ve never really been a carnival goer as an adult. But I love the sounds of crowds of people having fun. So right now the setting sun is shining in my window and over me, I'm toggling the TV remote between three baseball games, and the fresh smell of outside with the sound of two crazy rides that I can see through the window make it a pretty great evening.

The Reds game tonight against Atlanta, is the first game since the off-season trade that Brandon Phillips has been back in Cincinnati. In the top of the first inning, his first at bat, Reds fans gave him a standing ovation. Bronson Arroyo stepped off the pitching mound to allow Phillips an opportunity to step back from the plate, take off his hat and salute the crowd. After 11 years with the Reds, Phillips’ contract gave him the right to say “no” to any trade the team considered. He used that right a couple of times, but the only team I'm sure he would've said ”yes” to would've been Atlanta, to go home. I admitted I choked up a little watching the whole thing; the welcoming ovation, Arroyo’s gesture, Brandon acknowledging the crowd and the fact that both pitcher and hitter we're visibly moved.


Maybe the carnival is helpful. The biggest problem that I've had when I've been writing lately is that when I start writing and I think I'm writing for the blog, I start getting very negative and very hostile, so it just ends up being writing that I put my personal journal. Remember that I write to get negative feelings out and put away. So I have enough things that are bugging me right now that everything I write turns into a page or two of grumbling and ranting. Even my scrapbooked daily blurbs have sometimes turned into a page long growling sessions that I've had to cut and paste into the personal journal, and write my daily comment shorter or about something else entirely. So I've had some demons that I've been dealing with. I won't say anything more about that lest this turn into another attempted blog that ends up going into the file that will only be opened after I'm gone.

I hope somebody does read it. It's not all negative stuff, though I do think, especially for those that know me, that seeing, understanding, the things that really got under my skin and how I dealt with them is a good thing. But there are fun things too. I put the text from my blogs, comments that I make in different forums, and even silly one liners. I also occasionally address the reader in the things that I write. What's the point in doing that if there's not going to be a reader someday? My scrapbooks and the complete and uncensored Chronicles of Nani will be my legacy. I'd like to be remembered for a generation or two after I'm gone. (smiles)


We celebrated Marco's fourth birthday yesterday. He's the only one of our cats whose birthday we are sure of. Marco and his litter siblings were born in our friend's garage on June 1, 2013. The girls’ birthdays are educated guesses. I'll do a scrapbook page for his birthday and maybe a "Christmas in June" page or two. I'm scrapping June for 2017 but December for every other year right now. Yes, that means I'm finishing books now! More details on that soon.

Brrr...This is June?

Good morning friends! It’s 7AM and 46 degrees outside. If this were March I’d be ecstatic about the balmy temperature and sunny day. However, being June and all I’m ready to panic! I mean, we really didn’t have summer last year and after the deep freeze just a few months ago, I’d just hate to think I missed the warm weather already. I didn’t go outside every day just because the high temp was in the 80s because I figured it was only the beginning, ya know? This morning I have R2D2 running steady to heat up the room and it has nothing to do with a chill from the air conditioning. I even gave thought to passing on making a cup of morning coffee to get back into the room with my diligent space heater. But you know me well enough to know I stayed in the chill of the kitchen long enough to get a cup of my morning elixir!

Yesterday was Marco’s birthday! Our little boy cat-dog is 2! The kids all shared Savory Salmon Feast birthday cake at Marco’s party last night and David and I sang Happy Birthday. All three of the kitty-kids were so affectionate with the party spirit and even Marco joined in the singing as we held the plates of salmon feast and serenaded him.

My allergies seem to finally be calming down. It was especially bad this year, but I’ve read it just was especially bad; not just for me. I think the storms we had last weekend must have tamped the pollen down so it’s not flying all over. The rain made everything a robust green and made the trees full and healthy looking. The main drawback to last weekend’s rain is it was the festival weekend at the church across the street and the usual carnival sounds I enjoy hearing that weekend were too often interrupted by the sound of rain and thunder! The festival goers came back when the sun did, but it still hurts the church/school's fundraising when rain interrupts the carnival.

I never went to a carnival that I didn’t ride the Tilt-a-Whirl at least once when I was in my teens/20s. Usually I’d ride it a few times! Nowadays I really don’t go to carnivals; they set-it-up-for-a-week rides really aren’t wheelchair-friendly. It’s still great to listen to the carnival sounds and the happy screeching people on a warm summer weekend. But I’ve found that I can turn the speed up a little on the power chair if I have a smooth and a little open space and spin for some fun. I call that tilt-a-whirling! I can go around about 3 times and then I have the same feeling I used to enjoy at carnivals too! What is/was your favorite carnival ride or game?

My New Personal Trainer?

 Yummy lunch salad only one weekly point on "Simply Filling"

Thursday is the first day of the week for my Weight Watchers tracker. That means that Thursday is, ideally , weigh-in day and the day my 49 points a week for treats or to add to days I have the munchies reset. I’ve been having troubles with fluctuating losses and gains battling with steroids, depression and lately just sheer frustration and the wintertime blues. When I said “diet program,” when I was in counseling the doctor asked me which “diet plan?” She smiled when I said Weight Watchers and told me it was the only answer that would have been acceptable. Weight Watchers is paying attention to and balancing the real food you eat anyway, adding or subtracting to obtaining that balance. Diets with prepackaged food or regimens that leave out your favorites are recipes for defeats that risk mental health as well.

Weight Watchers points system is customizable. There is no food that is considered an “off limits” food and exercise routine is required. One of the program styles that’s a little more strict is called “Simply Filling. With Simply Filling you eat until you are full, but from a list of “power foods;” fat free dairy, fresh vegetables and fruits and lean meats without added fat. You still get 49 bonus points a week, but those points are used for low fat instead of fat-free cheese, the required healthy oils for balance or shake and bake coating on a pork chop. (planned dinner for David and me this weekend) So, it’s a little more strict on food choices, but some have found it very successful and it is very similar to the way I eat anyway, minus the chocolate. So I’ve decided to kick-restart myself using the Simply Filling plan for 2 weeks. After that initial 2 weeks, I’m going to alternate between a week on the Simply Filling plan and a week on the regular points plan. That means I’ll get my double scoop waffle cone every other week instead of every week. By alternating weeks on the different plans I should be mixing it up enough to confuse my metabolism into working harder. We’ll see how it works.

Now the personal trainer I was talking about? Well, remember that it’s not a WW requirement to have an activity routine, but it is encouraged through extra point that can be earned, “activity points,” to add extra food points to your food budget. Well, how much exercise am I able to get in a power chair? Marco to the rescue!

We often joke about Marco being part lots of other animals, including part dog in that he eats everything he finds on the floor and he also plays fetch! He has purple and green jingly balls like that one in the picture. When he wants to play he brings David the ball and David tosses it for him. He keeps bringing it back, just like a dog playing fetch! As long as Daddy throws it, he keeps bringing it back. Well just this morning, he brought the ball to me. It didn’t take him too long to figure out just where he needs to put the ball so I can bend over, reach for it and pick it up to throw it for him. I don’t know if it’s worth any activity points, but after a few times I can feel the end, reach, throw, repeat. Even a little movement from a wheelchair is a good thing, right?

First World Problem?

Tonight it’s quiet. Oh, there is the sound of lots of rain outside and a little thunder rumble here and there, but inside is the sound of the poker game on David’s computer and me clicking on the keyboard. The Reds and Pirates are in a rain delay but the Reds are ahead 9-2 in the 7th. I know this because Buddy Bat, my iPad, tells me so on the mlb app and he’s been making the sound that there is news every time the Reds score. But there is no sound in the room that would give any idea that there had been a ball game of interest going on in Pittsburgh. For the average American home, this is a quiet house.

There is a home in Toledo where there is no television to make the sounds of announcers telling of the rain delay. I happen to live in that home. Let me go back a few days to tell the tale.

On June 14, David taped and I posted on Facebook this video:

Post by Davonna Lividini Patch.

Marco has been going insane when the chipmunk is right on the window ledge! You notice that the TV is on the chest and he is jumping behind it like a madcat. We’d been chuckling at this behavior for a couple of days. It was in the area where the cat stands, hammocks and scratching posts are. What harm could he do?

Well Monday I turned on the TV to watch Investigation Discovery at lunch. The television showed snow. My first thought is to make sure the set is on channel 3. It was. Then I checked for a loose cable and lo and behold I found the cord for the cable wasn’t connected to the TV. Marco’s shenanigans from the morning must have knocked it out. I turned the TV and moved the cable to the area where the connector for it sticks out of the back. I pulled the metal ended cable back quick when there was a spark! Marco didn’t knock the cable out; he broke the entire connector off! I was moving toward putting the cable into an open socket in the back of the TV.

Now it is a very old TV. We just don’t watch enough TV to have ever made replacing it a priority. We’ve talked about it but since we’ve talked about a new TV we’ve had the basement waterproofed, a new roof and we’ve both gotten new computers. I’ve gotten 2 eReaders and a tablet in that time too.

David moved the TV Tuesday morning to try to find the connector that broke off in case it can be put back on. See our TV really is NOT a priority; if a little duct tape could have put it back in place… But the connector was nowhere to be found. During the searching process the old fat-designed television was put on the love seat so it wouldn’t get knocked off the chest David was searching under. We’re not totally sure what happened to the loveseat, but it got jarred and the TV tumbled onto the floor. David saw a broken plastic frame on the front and I’m sure I heard a muffled tingle of broken internal glass. The time for TV talking is over.

So I took myself to school that morning to find out what we needed to look for in one of those new-fangled TVs. It was actually fun research. I hadn’t looked for a TV in a very long time. I remember when….let me pull the gray hairs to the front so I look the part that statement fits. I remember when I worked at the production house that produced the very first commercial in HDTV. Serious, the first TV ad ever produced in high definition was edited at the production house where I worked. Now most of the TVs in stores have high definition capability.

I learned about the fact that my antiquated notion that the lines of resolution are important is no more. All TVs have greater resolution than they did the last time I shopped for an analog TV or monitor. The refresh rate is the thing now. How many times does the picture completely rebuild itself in a second? The basic-quality ones do it 60 times in a second! I wrote down all my technical notes and how many inputs of what kinds we might need. With as often as we watch DVDs, we could get a TV with the connector to watch a DVD in one of our computers and not have to buy a new DVD player. We have the information we need to ask the right questions when we shop for our new TV.

Before we get the TV we have to have an electrician come in to bring our 1950s house up to safe grounded 3-prong outlets. We’ll also need to reorganize the living room so I can have a desk there instead of the dining room so I can see the TV where we’ll put it. It’ll be flat but a bigger screen than Old Broken and besides, we want to have it away from the ledge outside the big window where the chipmunk plays! Then once the TV is selected and placed, we’ll need to switch to the fancy cable stuff, so the cable guys will need to come in and set us up.

It’s going to be a few weeks, months, before we have TV again. But when we do have it again we’ll be part of the American 21st century! We’ll have been without it for long enough that we might just sit and watch a show or two. Nah, I want to see a Reds or Tigers game on the fancy schamcy new TV first. Or maybe I’ll just watch an episode of Blood Relatives on ID.

Back to the cold?

Brrrrr! I had to make an executive decision Friday morning. It was an easy one though. Wake up temperature was 63° IN THE HOUSE! It was 39° outside and the expected high was 55. I turn on the heat. I didn’t get any grumbles from David. That’s good; I needed to not be chilled like a fine ice wine.

It’s been pretty much highs in the high 50s/low 60s all weekend. Today, it’s a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning, but still chilly. We expect a high of 66, so the heat will still be on and doing its thing. After today it’ll be back in the 70s and I’d like to think that this time the furnace gets its long break until fall. I’m keeping my fingers crossed! There is one good thing I can say about the chilly past few days; they’ve given me the chance to try out my present from last week.


Edna (Miss Edna’s Place) had been teasing about an Afghan that she'd been working on in green. She wasn't showing pictures or giving lots of detail because it was a gift and she didn't want the person for whom she was making it to see it or know too much about it before was finished. I was thinking what a super gift that would be for the person receiving it! Then again green is my favorite color so something handmade in green would be an awesome gift for anyone, right? Well, a week ago Friday afternoon I went to get the mail and there was a box on the steps at the side door. It was addressed to me from Edna. The gift-Afghan she’d been teasing about was for me!

I just love it! It's a beautiful shade of green, thick and warm, and gorgeous! And the contrast stripes match half of my wardrobe. It was a perfect match for the pink shirt that I was wearing when I got the box and another perfect match for the orange MS T-shirt that I wore Saturday morning when David took the photos. Thank you so much, Edna. When I cuddle close to my afghan I can feel the warmth and love a wonderful friend.

Thank you, Edna; I love it!!

While I'm talking about blanket things, I might've mentioned some time ago my white fleece blanket with the multicolored polka dots. That blanket stays on the loveseat downstairs because Carla adopted it and it became known as the Carla-blanket. I think maybe she heard me mention it’s difficult to get great photos of Carla because of her dark fur. She must've figured that white blanket/black cat perfect photo op.

Carla and the Carla Blanket

Credits: Old School by the Designers at Digital Scrapbooking Studio

Earlier this week the blanket came upstairs with laundry from the dryer and was sitting on top of one of the baskets to eventually go back downstairs. I was sitting on the bed reading and out of the corner of my eye I saw the blanket move. My first thought was maybe the Carla was complaining about her blanket being upstairs instead of downstairs. But I saw Marco pushing the blanket with his head and trying to pull it with his claws, finally grabbing it with his mouth and moving. It made me laugh but then the three cats got together to play chase and left the room. I didn't really think too much of it until a couple nights ago when the blanket was missing and David found it. Marco had drug it under the bed where he often likes to play. Kaline and Carla share the kitty-afghans that Grandma made for Kaline and Azzie. But Marco's not so good at sharing and Carla is too passive so I think we may need to find Marco a blanket of his own.


In other good news, we officially have a meeting place for our MS Support Group! There was a senior center on my list of places I was going to call last week, but just before the weekend I got a call from an interested new member who suggested the same senior center and made the introduction for me. Talk about great karma pulling everything together! I met with a rep there earlier this week and by the time I left I had signed a contract for the monthly donated space. YAY! By mid-week I’d gotten that information to the chapter office and sent out an email to our existing members. I can’t wait until we all get together again next month! Now, I’m working on finding a pizza place that delivers to our new location and is in budget! I can’t pick up $5 pizzas and bring them in on the bus!


Well, I need to refill my coffee mug since I need scrapbooking fuel and I’ve declared this a scrapbook-day. There are so many “Christmas in July” events, how about Thanksgiving in June and Halloween in May? Most of the folders I have in my catchup files now are from September on with the exception of the June Vacation from 2012 and our August honeymoon in 2009. I’ve been working on the June Vacation this week, but maybe some September stuff today; fits the temperature! We’ll see what the coffee cup tells me after it’s full again.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Don't Eat That!!

Happy Hump Day! Okay, really it’s gray and dreary hump day in Toledo today, but the key to making it through gray and dreary days is the inner sunshine, right? We had a nice challenge to start the day today, courtesy of our sweet Marco.

Marco turned 11 months old on May 1. It is our sincere hope that he’ll be a year old on June 1. This morning David took out his ONE pill he takes in the morning; yes I’m a little jealous of the “only one” part. He opened the bottle, took out a pill and set it on the couch arm while he closed the bottle. Even I can take a pill out and put the cap back on the bottle in less than a minute. In that brief period of time Marco jumped up on the couch and ate the pill! I was on the phone to the vet in pretty quick order.

The medication, Prilosec, is sometimes prescribed for cats and dogs but not in the amount for an adult human. The vet said we needed to ether give him a capful of hydrogen peroxide right down his throat to induce vomiting or bring him in to the hospital so they could induce vomiting. The medication wasn’t dangerous in a dosage right for his weight, but the pill he ate was about 4 or 5 times more than he’d be prescribed by his vet and we needed to get the medication out of him. (I do kinda wonder what a cat eats that gives them heartburn, but Marco will eat anything that he thinks might be edible.)

David fed him the peroxide and put him on the enclosed porch so we could monitor him and when he did throw up it would be someplace easier to clean and we’d be able to inspect to see if indeed he threw up the pill. It didn’t take long for him to throw up after swallowing the peroxide and he threw up his breakfast and green goo that was the partially dissolved pill.

I wish there was some way to get him to relate unpleasant experiences with eating things that aren’t food. He spent some time at the vet a while back and had to be given medicine and a laxative he didn’t like because he found, and ate, a piece of Styrofoam.


In the word of more pleasant news, last weekend was SEMMantics, the regional Mensa gathering that was responsible for David and me getting together in the first place! This year David was the Carnelli, a word association game, champion and I won the first place award for the cribbage tournament. I play cribbage once a year and always have to relearn the game, but having learned it before I guess I relearn well! On Sunday after nine years of meaning to but never doing it we made it for Mimosas this year. David hadn’t had a mimosa before but I recalled the first time I’d had one. It was in Toronto and I was at Sunday brunch with my parents at the CN Tower’s revolving restaurant. The waitress asked if I’d like a Mimosa when drink orders were being taken. I was 20 years old and we were in Canada; heck yeah I wanted champagne with my orange juice! Alcohol to drink with breakfast is not a common thing for me, but it’s a neat once in a while pretentious start to the day.

Since we were back in my ”old stomping grounds” we met Scotty for lunch and David indulged me with a stop at the Dunkin Donuts where I met all 3 of my closest friends to get a cup of coffee for the road and a couple donuts for us Monday morning.

Monday we had a late lunch/early dinner at Pop’s. I hadn’t seen my dad since Christmas so I was really looking forward to seeing him and Aunt Judy. Pop grilled marinated chicken and pork with zucchini, tomatoes and peppers, some with and some without Italian breadcrumb stuffing. David and I stopped at Sofo on the way out of Toledo to bring Pop a couple of his favorite baguettes and he roasted garlic on the grill to spread on it; SO GOOD!

After dinner we drove to Lansing, because Pop lives so close, and caught our first baseball game of the season. The Lansing Lugnuts beat the Fort Wayne Tin Caps 4-2 in a fairly quick game for David, me and 5 other people. There were more than 7 people in attendance, but on a chilly Monday night in the beginning of the second month of the season it was far from a packed house.

Yesterday was rest and recuperate time for me. The good news about that is as achy as I was by the time Monday night came around after spending three days in my less comfortable and less support manual chair I was less tired and achy than usual! I guess the stretching exercises and once a week therapy is doing more good than it seems like it should. Add to that back on the diet wagon and eating better again and I recover better.

Nani’s Avatar & Siggie at Gotta Pixel

Credits: Defining Me by Aprilisa Designs, coffee mugs from I Love You A Latte by 

Double Dutch Designs, signature challenge template by Aprilisa Designs

I scrapped for the first time since May1. I did my avatar and signature for May at Gotta Pixel, which is where I do most of my challenges during the month and put the squares in place for last week’s Random 2014. The folder on my desktop says “2014: That’s So Random.” It’s essentially a scrapbook diary.

Week 16

Credits: What Happened Today- 2014 by Kitten Scraps, A Work In Progress by Inspired Designs, Cat’s Love by Friendly Scrap, Beautiful On The Inside by Aprilisa Designs, I Love Donuts by Aprilisa Designs, Afternoon Tea by Booklady Designs, Everybody Talks by Wendy Tunison Designs, My Tunes by Simple Girl, word art by TLC Creations, Jelly Beans by Harper Finch, Easter Freebie by cajoline-Scrap designs,

When the year is done and I’m ready to make a cover, I’ll decide what the random title will be!

Now I need to catch up my book reviews with the book I finished while Joey was visiting the Geek Squad and get my cheer-voice ready for the game tonight. Sorry to my Red Sox fan readers, but you know there are two teams you can’t depend on me to give support on your side when Boston faces them; GO REDS!

Sharing

Flair from Rainy Days by Ginger Bread Ladies

Can anyone use some rain water? I can start by sharing that; I can wring a gallon out of my coat!

I had an appointment this afternoon and it was raining, I mean it was RAINING. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been in rain that hard. And it was a cold rain too. Imagine if you will that you are in a wheelchair in rain that heavy. Think about the difference between sitting and standing and how much of you is exposed to the rain. When it’s raining that hard an umbrella doesn’t do much either. Your entire front is basically collecting the rain and when you lean forward to close the door, well when it’s raining that heavily it doesn’t take long for your entire back side to catch-up in the wetness.

After a wet afternoon at my appointment and then waiting for the bus I’m home now, bundled up and I had some soup and the rest of the sleeve of crackers David left out for lunch. But the sniffles from my cold that were almost gone this morning are back. So if anyone would like a cold to go with the rainwater I’ll throw it in for free!

All right, all right, enough of cranky Nani, right? How about I share something better?

This morning I finished a scrapbook page that’s my first Ginger Scraps challenge this month. It’s for the Mini Kit Challenge. Cherekaye Designs shared a sweet mini kit called Okay Doaky:

I shared Marco’s morning with the cable guys when they came in to replace the box and fix up some connections so we’d be good to go for Opening Day. Well, sure there are other things on TV, Information Discovery for instance; Nani needs her real-crime shows. But the timing that made it important to get it done last month was all about baseball. Marco loves it when people visit to deliver or fix things so he was all over checking out everything they were doing and even if they couldn’t play, he did get a visit before they left.

Credits: Okay Dokay by Cherekaye Designs, Template by Digitalegacies Designs

And now the BEST sharing! If I share a layout on my blog made with a Digitalegacies Designs template, you know it because I’m sharing the template!

Click on image to download

Of course if you use this template, I’d love it if you share your creation too!

Now I think it’s time to share some time with the Keurig maker to make a cup of cocoa to take the rainy chill down a notch. You don’t have to share the icky stuff, but enjoy the template!

No Pranks Here

Instead of a prank, a little humor

From Common Sense Evaluation.

I’m really not a great fan of April Fool’s Day. Harmless jokes or pranks are fun once in a while, but having a day for it really does take the element of surprise out of it and people try too hard on April First. I look at morning radio shows as proof that trying too hard takes the humor out of being funny and too often it results in someone getting hurt. Jokes and surprises work best when they truly aren’t expected and done for fun, not because of some perceived obligation.

I’ve been fighting a chest cold for the better part of a week and yesterday was really the high point for the cold. It started as a buzz in my chest last week and slipped up into my head Saturday. I was good on Sunday for Walk, but I sounded nasal. After the chest congestion started last Wednesday afternoon, I woke up earlier than usual Thursday because the noise of my own breathing kept me up! Thursday night was worse because I used expectorant cough syrup and it loosened up my chest to the point of NOI-SY! Laying down was the noise just echoing in my ears, but sitting up was okay. Yeesh. I quit taking the cough syrup before bed and it fixed that. While yesterday was stuffy and hard breathing, today is a dramatic improvement. I still have to type by hand because Puff doesn’t recognize me!

So, being sick on the holiday wasn’t fun. Only one of our three house teams won yesterday on Opening Day, but that’s just one game, right? I watched the Tigers win in wonderful walk-off fashion but The Reds and Red Sox both lost. What’s worse in Cincinnati we dropped a game to the only Cardinals pitcher we really handle well! Usually I watch baseball until the last ESPN game on the West Coast is done on Opening Day, but yesterday was an up by 10:00 night. It paid off with feeling better this morning, but the scores didn’t change.

It’s bright and sunny today but crazy windy!! Poor little Marco is going nuts. We wonder if his vision isn’t as sharp as, say Carla’s is. Carla watches bunnies at night out the front window. Marco seems to get as riled up for blowing leaves as her does for the chipmunks. In early spring the remaining leaves from fall come back and windy days like this blow them around. Marco seems to think it must be an invasion.

Well, there’s today’s update. My chilly fumble-hands are done typing for now. Maybe tomorrow Puff will understand me again.

A Very Merry Unvalentine

I’m glad we don’t find it necessary to celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14 anymore. February 14 was not at all even remotely romantic. It still hasn’t been a romantic weekend either. Whew; lemme splain.

I usually shower in the evening or just before bed. It’s the MS thing; even mildly warm water knocks me out. After showering I take about an hour break to rest and regain strength and relax on the bed with my current book. If I fall asleep I read less but I love the fact that with an ereader I seldom lose my place! So Wednesday night before bed I showered and read until David came upstairs, brushed his teeth and joined me. Lights out, end of Wednesday.

Thursday morning I got up and turned on the faucet to fill a cup with water to take my morning pills. Faucet on, water not. I told David and he checked the sink in the kitchen; also no water. A little more Internet and phone calling and we discovered the main road several yards away from us was closed due to a water main break. Well, that explains the water problem. Only it didn’t.

At the end of the day when the main was fixed it was also mentioned that no residential customers suffered any interruptions associated with the break. What? Hey now, we’re residential customers! It seems that our water stopping overnight and the main break was a coincidence. A phone call to the water department revealed that there were over 80 customers who called in trouble (and the list keeps growing) and they’d call back to file my problem.

Just a note; if you’re married to the homeowner and the homeowner asks you to call the water department, just say you’re the homeowner. The woman who took my call asked where the meter is. I told her I didn’t know but I’m disabled so I really can’t physically search for it. She asked if I was the homeowner. I answered truthfully. I told her I wasn’t the homeowner but my husband was. He’s not here but is it possible for someone to come check it. She told me to call my husband if we’re on speaking terms and ask him if he’d come over and see if the meter needs warmed. She was setting up a call to have it checked but it would help if we warned the meter. If my husband and I aren’t on good terms don’t call him; it would just take a little longer to get the water running once someone comes out. All I could wonder was how many women get that upset with their husbands over problems they don't have any control over with water service? As it turns out when I said my husband was the homeowner she assumed he didn’t live here. I never imagined that if you separated from the person who owns the home you’d be the one who stayed if someone moved out.

We stayed in a hotel Friday night so we could take showers and the Water Department was here this morning to assess the situation. The freezing is not on our part of the line, but the city part. Seems the stone irrigation under the new pavement they put in our street a couple summers ago conducts rather than insulates when the ground freezes deeply. This is the first winter it’s really frozen this deep since the new road was put in and most of the many frozen pipe problems are homes on those new roads. We’re in the queue and they’ll service us in the next few days. I’m sure there’s another hotel night in the future for shower, shave, brush teeth etc. Right now David brings in snow by the bucketful to keep us able to flush the toilet a couple times a day. I’m trying not to use a lot of dishes as the sink and counters pile up. I’m really seeing how much water we use in a day!

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I had a sweetheart of a cat that I found as a kitten at Noni’s when I was 17 and he died in my arms before I was 21. Ritchie loved eating popcorn that was left in the bowl from movie nights the next morning when it was stale and kinda tasteless, but was salty and had a decent crunch. He found a box of packing peanuts in the basement and ate a bunch of them, probably thinking it was popcorn. When I found him down there he’d already thrown up once and lots of pieces of Styrofoam were in the clear liquid. He was trying to hide from me, which cats do when they’re dying. His breathing was labored and he threw up again. I picked him up and held him because I knew what was happening. It was only a few minutes before he took his last breath. I was shattered. That was when I searched for all the Styrofoam in the house and threw it all away vowing that no Styrofoam would ever be left anywhere a pet could get it. It was sort of like the king in sleeping beauty banishing all spinning wheels after the princess was cursed. But just like a spinning wheel appeared (By evil magic in that story, but it still happened) so there would be a day that a Styrofoam peanut did not get packed away.

In the midst of the frozen pipes saga, Friday started with me doing the phone calling because David and Marco had to get the vet right away. As much as we try to keep any Styrofoam out of the house, Marco found a Styrofoam packing peanut. I shrieked trying to get him to put it down, David followed him into kitchen with it and he chewed it and it was a mess as David was fishing what he could get out of his mouth. He said it looked like about half of it; he must have swallowed the rest. I got on the phone with the vet to see if we should induce vomiting. They said to bring him in and they’d see him immediately. When they came back, Marco had a laxative and special diet food and instructions to watch for lethargy or vomiting. Thankfully 2 days later and he never had any symptoms of trauma. We remain ever vigilant in getting Styrofoam out of the house as soon as we can when something packed in it comes in!

That was our exciting weekend, one I’m glad to see end! Now it would just be nice to get the water back before the 3-5 inches additional snow we’re scheduled to get Monday night.