I don’t mean did you meet a sibling or a cousin on the street or someplace that you didn’t know was in town. What I mean is have you ever looked into the face of someone and said, “you’re the person people tell me I look like.”
It’s happened to me twice. Once when I was still in high school, I was on the bus, which was unusual for me as I normally walked to save money to buy books. i was on the bus and happened to look up and across from me was a face so similar to mine, I could only stare. She stared back and we both said to each other that people kept saying they knew someone that looked like me.
We went to separate high schools that were down the street from each other. She went to the Catholic school and I attended the public high school. She was a grade behind. The second strange thing was, when we talked about our siblings, one of her brothers knew my youngest brother, but they didn’t look alike.
The third weird thing was she lived around the corner. The street I lived on backed onto the neighbors’ yards, which in turn edged a nature area. The side of the street my parent’s house was on, spanned the length of three blocks because of that undeveloped land. So around the corner wasn’t in close proximity, but her parents’ property also edged up to part of that land around the corner.
We never became friends, but we did talk when we’d meet on the bus which wasn’t often. The only time I rode was when there was heavy rain or snow. We’d talk about classes we had – I had French and German; she had Italian. I was active in Theater and she did other things. I can’t even remember her name.
The second time I saw my face was today. I was on YouTube and a video was in my feed from someone I didn’t follow. When the video loaded, it was like looking in a mirror. I took a screenshot and sent to two friends with the caption “I just saw my face.” They agreed the woman looks a lot like me. I wonder if she’s the girl from the bus from 60 years ago.
Wednesday evening, my youngest granddaughter and her father joined me on a road trip to Pennsylvania for the wedding of my oldest granddaughter. We left in the evening on a 14 hour journey to the wilderness of Pennsylvania. Just kidding about the wilderness, but it is a small town.
We left in the evening because I wanted the youngest to only miss two days of school as the wedding was Friday. When she was little, I used to write about her as “Babycakes.” As she got older, I called her “Tilly the Toddler.” I haven’t written about her in years. Once she started school, I would get her on the occasional Saturday and in posts, she would be referred to by her initials.
Now AJ is a Senior in high school and a licensed driver with her own set of wheels, paid for out of her savings. She planned her life years ago and she is on track. She’s worked since she was 14, first working as a clerk for a clothing reseller. Now she works in the deli department of a food co-op.
AJ doing her first cross-country drive
We spent a few hours sleeping in an old motel off the highway in Ohio. The room was okay. We had to wake the clerk up at 2:30 am to rent the room. AJ and I shared a bed which meant I didn’t sleep well. She’s still a restless sleeper, but at least I didn’t have to hang on to an arm or leg to keep her from falling out of bed like I did when she was a toddler. I probably didn’t sleep well because I was half-remembering the toddler and not the poised young woman.
After we left the motel, the day went downhill. First, we had to drive 25 miles back to the motel because my son forget his shoulder bag. He called the motel and they told him to just get the key back from the deposit box so he could retrieve the bag since no one was there. On my personal ratings scale of 1 to 10, I was able to bump them up to a 7 from a 5.
The 5 was because, while the room was apparently clean, there was some mold in the bathroom and I didn’t feel like I wanted to shower or even wash in the bathroom. They earned the two extra points for letting us wake them a second time.
We slept for about 4 hours and left and as I said above, had to backtrack to get my son’s bag. At this point, I was already fidgety. When I used to drive alone, I usually made the trip straight through and could say exactly when I would be at my daughter’s house.
With the two extra drivers, it actually took longer because every time we switched drivers, my son had to set up his music to play through the car speakers with bluetooth before we could drive off. And he had to do Google Maps, even though I knew the way, having driven solo for many years and had given him verbal directions to the hotel which was right off the exit ramp into the town.
This is an on-going problem between us —he has to double-check any directions or suggestions I give him. I’m not certain if he has some type of learning disability where he has to check spoken instructions against written ones to be able to complete tasks, or what the problem is.
But if there are too many items on a list, he has trouble. He used to complain my lists had too many steps if I broke a task down so he wouldn’t forget to do some of the steps. I’m totally confused about this and have been for most of his 44 years.
Back to the subject, we arrived at the hotel much later than expected and had to rush to get to the rehearsal dinner, such as it was. When we arrived, most of the group were almost done eating, even though we arrived only 5 minutes after the time given to me by my daughter. She had given the same time to the bride’s dad so he was late as well.
Mother of the Bride
We were all glad he could make it, as he has an incurable cancer that will take him much too soon. He did look good for someone we didn’t expect to have live this long. I expect to hear soon that he has passed, but his wish was to be able to walk his daughter down the aisle. And so he did. He was on one side of her and her step-father was on her other side most of the way down the aisle. Her step-father stepped away so her Dad could walk her the rest of the way.
The dads walk the bride in. The man on her right is her father; the one on her left is her step-father.
The ceremony and the reception went well. There are now pictures/videos out there of me dancing like a crazy person. Sorry – not. The DJ was playing lively dance music from the “olden days” — the eighties. My dancing music. Yes, I love any music with a fast dance beat. The funny part is I need to use a cane for ordinary walking or I’ll fall down, but can dance non-stop with no balance problems.
The bride and groom doing a ceremony at the end with colored sand to signify the joining of their lives.
The next morning, we gathered for brunch at my daughter’s house and watched the newlyweds open gifts. They received mostly monetary gifts as they would like to save up for a house. I had had a camping tent from their registry sent to my daughter’s house, but I also contributed to the house fund with money in a card, as well as a plaque with their initials and last name and the phrase “Est. 2024.” They liked that.
We drove straight back home by switching off drivers every 4 hours. When we got to my house, I set my my son up on the couch with bedding and sent AJ up to her bed and we all slept. I woke up first, after about 4 hours sleep, and have been up ever since. After we were all up, we unloaded my car and loaded up AJ’s car so she could drive her dad home and then get herself back home on the other side of town.
My dog watching days may come to an end soon. Sir Farts-a-Lot seems to be losing steam. He barely wants to go out in the yard. His last walk was to the end if the driveway. His owner picked him up for a vet appointment but she doesn’t have the results yet.
He didn’t eat most of his breakfast. I even tried sticking some cat food in the dish, but that didn’t work. I did get him to take his pills by making a ball of peanut butter and cat food. I wasn’t certain that he wouldn’t somehow manage to spit out the pills. But apparently, they made it to his stomach.
Sir Farts-a-lot, dangerously near his nemesis, the deadly Gingersnap.
I should be repotting my geraniums while the dog naps. The squirrels nearly killed both plants this summer by digging in the pots. I’m going to put the surviving remnants into smaller pots and they and the other potted plants I’m saving from the weather are going in the basement on top of the washer with a grow light on a timer.
I’ll bring in my outdoor ceramic cats for the winter and give them touch-ups with paint and new ribbons for their necks. They sit on the porches to guard my plants from everything except the squirrels and chipmunks. I guess the green and yellow Packer cat wasn’t scary enough for the little buggers. So maybe the pink one and the white one will join him out front next spring.
What a fall! I keep expecting an early snow, but the weather is still ridiculously warm. I know a freeze warning is coming up in the next week or so. By that time the plants should be in the basement, my filters will be down by the furnace and I’ll be good for the winter.
I sincerely hope we don’t become the new Nazi nation. I don’t know why a convicted felon is allowed to run for president. I don’t understand how his followers don’t see what a con man and grifter the guy is. The polls fluctuate so much, I try not to pay much attention to them. My philosophy has always been if I can’t find someone to vote for, find someone to vote against. There are definitely a lot to vote against.
I killed another mini chainsaw. I had gotten one that only lasted me one battery charge so I sent it back to Amazon and received a replacement. That one is now dead, but I’m just going to replace the little motor. It won’t be subject to intense cutting from now on, so it should last.
Meanwhile, the 14” electric chainsaw I used for the trunks is still going strong. I did get the chain changed and properly seated after putting it on with the teeth in the wrong direction. There was a lot of deadwood among the three lilacs. The heartwood in several pieces was totally gone. A couple of sections were like giant drinking straws, hollow all the way up.
Most of the wood is at the street awaiting next week’s pick-up, and I’ll haul the rest down later today. I could have kept some sections for firewood. They would have gone to the bottom of the pile to sit and dry for a few years. But since I still have most of a maple in the back, there’s no need for additional wood.
When I moved in 18 years ago, there were sections of what was left of a huge maple stacked behind the garage. I’ve either burned or shared about half of that wood. Some of it still needs to be split. I’ve cut back on fires for two reasons – global warming, and worse, I can’t drink.
Sitting around the fire in my back yard was when I’d drink alcohol – a bottle or two of some flavor of Mike’s Hard Lemonade or what I would call a rum slushy – rum and Bacardi mixers served in a mason jar and stored in the freezer in jars since I’d only sip on one before letting the fire die out after a couple of hours and toddling off to bed.
I’m not the sort to mix medications and alcohol and it seems that after every doctor visit, I get a new prescription for something going wrong. So no alcohol. So it’s the mixers and fizzy water until the last ones are gone from the freezer. Not the same, but I don’t have to worry that I won’t wake up. Besides, I’ve never been that much of a drinker.
I used to have some firm rules about my drinking – I didn’t participate in buying rounds, I had a 3 drink maximum depending on how long I was staying and if I wasn’t the driver. I’d only bring enough money for my own drinks including three cokes if I was going to drive myself home. I didn’t allow anyone to buy me a drink.
I personally have never been arrested for drunk driving. I admit I did once drive home drunk in a snowstorm. It was terrifying and I never did that again. There was no traffic and a couple of times I was going sideways. That memory is still so firmly in my mind, I haven’t forgotten the feeling in 30 years.
My son and my ex-husband have both been arrested and have even served jail time for drunk driving multiple times. My son rear-ended an off-duty cop. My ex took out a phone pole. My ex was even pulled over a few weeks after one stop for driving without his license after it was pulled for too many stops. It was the same officer who had had his license pulled for a prior offense and he had no idea.
Today, I danced and played air guitar. I can’t play a real guitar. Arthritis sucks. For some reason only my middle fingers are weirdly crooked. I can’t make a decent fist with either hand. I have trouble holding knitting needles and crochet hooks. So I’m left with the world’s almost largest yarn stash.
There’s yarn in two closets, in bins under my bed, in baskets on a bookcase, bins in the basement, and in a box in the garage. I swear yarn breeds if you keep odd balls of it in bins and such. You toss the odd ends of skeins into a storage bin and the next time you look, the bin is full of half-grown skeins.
Put a few of them in yet another bin and that one fills up. I keep giving yarn away and yet there’s always more. I gave away two large boxes of yarn from my stash. By large, I mean two boxes of the size that would hold a two-drawer file cabinet. There’s a guy that belongs to the same maker space as me whose partner works as a social worker for the Corrections Department. Once a year, I fill up a box with yarn and give it to him and his partner takes it to be used by inmates in the system as occupational therapy.
I have reduced the stash somewhat. A friend died a few years back and left me all her yarn and unfinished projects in 15 plastic bins, each the size of four shoeboxes, and a floor loom. I have two bins left in the basement from her. There’s an under-bed box of yarn still in the garage and four bins still under my bed.
I’ve kept the best of the yarn for weaving shawls, table runners, and towels. Last year, I sent handwoven placemats to my daughter and oldest granddaughter for Christmas. I currently have what will be hand towels on the big loom.
Weaving is rather relaxing. I’m using variegated yarn for both the warp and the weft with white also as weft thread. For those of you unfamiliar with weaving, the warp is the threads tied onto the loom and the weft is the threads that go over and under the warp threads. Think of the warp as running north and south and the weft as running east and west. I should have 4 towels done by Christmas.
I’ve been watching various videos about the ongoing kerfuffle known as political campaigning. It’s both interesting and disturbing. This country needs to find a viable third party to give us better choices – or not. Different choices then. I’ll vote. I have to. There’s too much at stake not to. Maybe it will make a difference.
This is Stretchen DeTruth of CSX News. We have finally been given the go-ahead to reveal that Presidential Candidate, Donald J Trump and billionaire mogol, Elon Musk are on a mission in space to meet with a race of aliens called Stav-Ings. The aliens sent a message to Earth requesting to meet with our important people. The two ego-maniacs. Sorry. Strike that. The two self-important men…
…Hold on. Whoops. Can’t say that either.
The two men departed Earth under the cover of setting up a new type of communications satellite to communicate with the aliens. The alien ship has begun moving toward them. We eagerly await…
What’s that?
This just in….
Translators from NASA have decoded the aliens’ message. What? Can you repeat that?
Oh My God!!!
THE REAL MESSAGE FROM THE ALIENS SAYS “WE ARE STARVING. SEND MEAT!”
So now, my son has fallen and hurt his back. so he can’t help assemble my shed – yet again. There’s always an excuse. I don’t doubt he fell or that he hurt his back. However, he’s one of the biggest drama queens other than his father, that I have ever known. Where did I go wrong? Or is it just him?
I guess that I just naturally work through whatever pain. When I was in college, I had to finish a hike with not one, but two sprained ankles. This was way before any type of battery operated phone. No one knew where I was. I was alone and wasn’t anywhere that I could hobble to a phone.
I was in pain for days after that, but I made it across campus to class. People asked why I was limping and I didn’t want to admit that I had jumped a creek and landed with both feet in a hole. The hole wasn’t big enough for one foot, let alone two. I was just glad I hadn’t broken one or both of them.
If I hadn’t been able to hobble out, my bones would probably still be in that ravine and I would have my own episode of Unexplained Disappearances. “She was a quiet girl, but we really didn’t know her that well. She just up and disappeared one day. We thought she left for her parents’ home in Connecticut. It was odd that she left her stuff.”
Other painful episodes involved the usual female problems, a bad gallbladder, and assorted blood clots – DVTs – not congealed owies. Not to mention childbirth. Twice. And a bunch of misfires – not too many know about those, but the aftereffects were not great.
So anyway, back to the shed. It’s been two months since I bought it and two weeks since I took it out of the box because “I’ll be there Friday at noon. That should be enough time before I go to work.” So he said, except he didn’t show up because he was called into work and the next day, he was scheduled early. And he has this excuse and that one, and he made plans, and there was a concert, and…and…
Enough. so now, his back is hurt and he’s off work. I don’t know how he survives himself. He quit the job with the retirement, the holiday pay, paid time off, and the comprehensive medical plan to go back to working for pennies and tips and no insurance. Alcohol has seriously damaged his brain.
Alcohol dependence is not the complete issue. There’s a good chance his brain is doing an A-type misfire, but he’s never been diagnosed with any of the big A’s – Autism, ADHD. I can’t diagnosis him. My medical knowledge is bits and pieces gleaned from copying medical articles to send to doctors. That doesn’t qualify me to even say someone has a cold.
Some of the articles changed my perception of human intelligence, especially considering the recent pandemic. And don’t get me started on politics. The only thing I have to say is that when the Founding Fathers added a minimum age to be President, they should have added a minimum and maximum age as well, with term limits, for each of the branches of government. No one should be able to hold a public office for as long as their grandchildren are alive. End rant!
I was on a road trip with two of my sisters. We’ve been across the top of the country and have visited several National Parks. We visited friends of mine in Oregon and our brother and his family in Southern California. The car was fine all the way across the country from Florida to Ohio to Wisconsin to Oregon.
Nobody seemed to be able to fix the problem the damned 2017 Hyundai Sonata was having that my sister was driving us in. The problem started with either bad gas or a vapor lock and stranded us on a highway just outside of Medford OR. Since the car is under warranty, we went to the closest Hyundai dealer. We used up two of my AAA tows for that one because the car had to be stored at the tow yard overnight and then towed to the dealership in the morning. The tow driver dropped up off at a La Quinta after determining that they had a room available. The dealership got us on the road that day, but they failed to replace the dipstick they removed to check the oil.
The car had worked fine while we were in California and we headed out for Las Vegas. We spent five days at our brother’s but since two of us are allergic to dogs and he has four big ones, we had to leave earlier than we planned. California was a lot cloudier and colder than we expected with temperatures in the mid-60’s. We had packed for warm, sunny California.
Once in Las Vegas, the car seemed to work fine. We saw sights, took in a show and decided to head for home via Salt Lake City where our sister wanted to show us around. The second time the car failed happened right after we stopped for gas before leaving Las Vegas.
The car started sputtering and shaking. We barely made it onto the shoulder before the car died. We had to call the state cops who blocked the right hand lane because otherwise we might’ve gotten side-swiped by a semi, we were that close to the road. It cost me another tow. All this time my sister was claiming her roadside assistance as accidentally canceled.
The car was towed to a Hyundai dealership. The second dealership had to keep the car overnight. We got towed there late in the day and they couldn’t get to it until the next day. They called a Lyft to take us to Enterprise car rental so we’d have transportation. We made arrangements for a room at a casino in Downtown Las Vegas. We got a cheap rate for a Monday night.
The next day, we vacated the hotel room and drove to the dealership. They had not figured out what the problem was. The diagnostic computer couldn’t find the problem. One of their techs took the car out and drove it, but no problems showed up. They told us it was probably just a vapor lock and not to overfill the gas.
So we transferred our luggage and stuff from the rental to the care and went to turn in the rental. After that, we stopped to get some water and prepared to get on the road.
And the car died 100 yards away, while we were crossing the parking lot. We waited in the nice hot Vegas heat for two hours for the new tow. Mostly listening to my sister rant on the phone to Hyundai Customer Care and the second dealer did not replace the dipstick either because they were out. While my sister was talking to Hyundai Customer Service – big guts, not the locals, she found out she did have towing. Thanks a lot, because I’m out and if I need a tow before my next renewal in March, I’ll have to pay. She said she would reimburse me, but I honestly have no hope of that happening.
So there I was with my sisters in the third hotel we’ve been in, in Las Vegas, living in a bizarre remake of “Groundhog Day” minus Bill Murray, with the hotels changing every second time I wake up. Luckily we extended our stay another day because the car still is not ready. Maybe tomorrow. I kept hoping that I’ll wake up in my own bed having dreamed this entire road trip.
Home now. Finally. I decided to drive the car after the GPS took my sister off the highway and routed her 30 miles off-course because of construction on a section of the highway to my house. I hadn’t been paying attention and looked up from my book to find her driving around some small town.
My sisters have been planning a road trip for months to go to visit relatives out west. I’ve been fighting the idea for months. There are my health issues to contend with. (Did I just end a sentence with a preposition? Shades of fifth grade English! Or whenever. I have the stone tablet somewhere.)
Back to the subject at hand (such highfalutin language. I had to look that up.) Must be 4am or so. Asides aside, I’m not fond of the idea of leaving my safe zone. Sitting in a car for days at a time with people I barely like is not my idea of fun. The offspring thinks it’s a good idea. He’ll be around to watch things and get the mail.
At any rate, the sisters are here since I’m a logical stop on the way.
However, I was looking for my cash box which I wrongly remembered as being in the basement. When I didn’t find it there, I went up to the closet in the main room of the half-story. Big mistake. It was like finding a pirate’s hoard, except it was just stuff. I have three air mattresses up there. I found boxes and bins of forgotten yarn.
I already have too many bins of yarn under my bed, and in small bins stashed on shelves of one of three bookcases in the living room. Plus there was a big box of yarn upstairs that was not hidden away. Fortunately, I only have to hold on to the yarn upstairs until the next prison yarn drive. There’s a program that teaches inmates to knit and crochet. I’ve donated lots of yarn for three years. I swear it multiplies in the bins.
I found many treasures up there. Handmade dolls and toys including a couple of dolls I made for my son when he was a toddler. There were dolls I made my youngest granddaughter. And all kinds of art projects from both of them that are carefully put away. I found an entire bin of my granddaughter’s art work that she made on our Saturday afternoons together. I plan to bind them into several books – there are a lot of drawings and paintings.
I did not find my cash box which was the entire reason for the treasure hunt. I did get everything put away and a bit better organized. The yarn got moved to the front so I don’t forget it. I searched a different part of the basement, but didn’t find the cash box there either.
So off to the garage again. I had moved the bins that I previously thought were missing. If I had labelled them, they would not have been missing since they were clearly visible as storage containers, but not as craft show containers. I found the cash box.
I’m making a list for what I need for set-up on Friday, double-checking that everything is priced and in the app for the card reader so I don’t have to use a calculator. It took a couple of hours to verify everything and get additional labels made. There are still a few things to do tomorrow like getting the display items gathered, but for the most part, I am done.
I used the weed whacker to clean out cracks in the concrete part of the driveway and started edging the asphalt and prepping for crack filler. I also used critter repellant in my flower pots because the chipmunks and squirrels were digging in them. Then I mowed the backyard and arranged the furniture.
Now I need to set things up to get an idea of how my displays will look and to swap out containers and supports as needed. I have two days.
Sillytoes Crafts 