Preparing For The Next Storm

The forecasts changed from "not gonna get here" to "it will likely rain" to watching the radar images slide our way. Tornadoes were possible... just not here, at least. Morning news showed damage from elsewhere in the state. But lightning was steady and strong through the system, which I verified for myself from the Real Time Lightning Map which remains bookmarked among all the other reliable weather sites bookmarked on my laptop, up to and including Space Weather.com.

(OK, that last one mostly never affects what happens here but it does indicate interesting things in the sky should we ever get cloud free night skies.  Dream on! It was useful in Arizona though.)

Anyway, I had to get busy before hitting the sack. My son had just been over, despite still having 80-plus degree temperatures and high humidity until sunset, at a level a local TV forecaster refers to as "air you can wear." He was demolishing the rotting porch/stairs combo outside the door facing the street. No, we never liked it, now won't use it, having declared it totally unsafe since the old furnace was removed and the new one installed through that door. He's been putting its replacement together and will be ready to bring segments over for installation as weather permits. The house door was dead-bolted so nobody can use the entrance, and with the old framework now gone there is no temptation to injury in that spot.

There was, however, a huge mess. First, an unexpected pile of last year's dead leaves had managed to find the right winds to slide them through between gaps in the wood and pile up unmolested. Not our leaves, of course, but maple and oak leaves, none of which come from our lot. I had also inspected the area covered by the concrete slab which supported the former porch, visible once the large crap was gone. It was additionally loaded with piles of collected dust and dirt, decorated with abundant, somewhat painted chips and chunks from the former wood so badly maintained by former residents. My son kept mentioning their lack of using proper screws for the construction. Good thing he's a perfectionist! I know we can trust the safety of its replacement. And yes, it will get repainted regularly.

My original plan was to be out bright and early in cool morning air to clean it up. The amended weather forecast pushed that plan forward to after dark but before bed. That turns out to be local mosquito time. I'd turned on the outside light so I could see to clean up properly. They noticed. I'm tasty. Amazingly they were my first mosquito bites of this year, as the steady lake breezes keep them at bay, but my back is busy reacting with a heavy dose of itch. SOMEBODY forgot to buy OFF! this year.

Oops. I'm making a shopping list for later today.

Meanwhile with a broom and dustpan I managed to tightly pack a wastebasket to the brim three times, each load dumped into the garbage bin which goes curbside tonight. No, mea culpa, I didn't take the extra time to treat the mosquitoes to a feast by stopping to bag the stuff. I just hurried to get rid of it all before the rain showed up, though mostly to remove myself from the evening menu. 

Yep, selfish me! Hey, you feed them all you want!

The can goes curbside tonight. With the next round of storms expected later today/tonight, maybe or maybe not here again, there's enough ballast in it to withstand normal storm wind gusts. There was a lot of detritus on that concrete pad which had chipped off over the years. I still think "wood hamburger" is an appropriate reference. It might be heavy enough that I'll ask Paul to wheel it out for me, since I still shouldn't be handling heavy stuff, and my limitations are pretty wimpy with titanium screws holding my shoulders and arms together. I'm officially approved for PT now, and I'm counting last night as part of it!

The storm rolled in on schedule, most of its power spent by then. I'd been watching, both through slightly opened blinds and TV/laptop reports, and clearly clocked one lightning strike one second away. But I'd taken the time to air gap certain electronics, and delayed what would have been a much welcomed shower for my salty/itchy back. I'd always been warned not to be in water, indoors or out, during interesting weather. It didn't pass until 2AM, and my late activity kept me awake through it, coupled with mosquito bites. 

There was one incidental benefit. Since my back stopped me from relaxing enough to sleep in my recliner, and my shoulders won't let me sleep on my bed (I swear that mattress is harder than the one I selected in the store!) I decided to stack pillows on the couch and give that a try. Almost instant zonk!

At least I slept till 7:30. After morning duties, I opened the front door to see what might have been left on the concrete pad. No wood chips or chinks, no hardware. Whatever the dust had been composed of, the storm arranged it into piles of small black pebbles. Weird! After breakfast I'll head out and clear it off, checking what it might be and hoping it isn't cemented together. But maybe a nap first, eh? Or at least, coffee for sure.

Fifth Of July

The little fireworks as always started days ahead of the official celebration on the 4th. As somebody with a series of small dogs over the years who reacted badly to the loud noises,  it never was the most pleasant of times. Now with no pets other than a "few well-behaved houseplants" I'd hoped for something more peaceful, the way last year was.

Fine, call me a fool!

Mother Nature started it off with a thunderstorm, which defied the reputation of storms in this area  for going around in every other direction by hitting us directly this time in mid-late afternoon, bringing both noise and lots of rain with it. Luckily we didn't lose power, though lots of places in the state did, per this morning's news. I'd had warning of possible weather, and headed out to relocate a couple plants which needed a deeper location before it all arrived so they'd get well settled without my needing to drag out the hose, but just emptying a rain bucket instead over their new location. It had the added benefit of not giving mosquitoes a chance to hatch out in its wet bottom. I'll dump it again this afternoon.

I'll also head out to check our rain gauge. I wasn't in the mood at the time, since once the storm stopped making booms the neighbors began. It had been happening in small bits for days, as it does every year in the general area. It's a great time to stay indoors even without disturbed pets. Too many stupid, careless people setting them off. While our state has fairly strict laws on personal fireworks, it's a very short hop across the border into Wisconsin which has much more liberal laws and doesn't bother to check which side of the border they'd be lit in. Apparently inflation and gas prices didn't make an impact this summer for the personal budgets set aside for noise and light shows.

In the decades I've lived  - or at least summered - in the general area I've seldom noticed parents supervising kids in setting them off, nor policing their trash afterwards. (Your fireworks from the middle of the street or your backyard bonfire land in the neighbors yard? Not your problem!) I'd hoped that being in a seniors area, we could escape all that. (When living in Sun City, the sheer size of that senior community meant we escaped local fireworks and kid events like trick-or-treating. Oh horrors, the penalty of eating your own bowl of candy!)  Normally we could, but too many people acquired the big boomers this year. From where the sounds originated, every person living on any of the lakes in the area had their own hour's worth of illegal ones to set off out over their own piece of lakeshore. If I had drones and energy I'd be curious how many fish are floating on the lakes' surfaces as a result. I had visions of Crocodile Dundee fishing with dynamite sticks in one of his movies.

Am I overreacting? This cluster of communities doesn't normally set off their own shows. One has to drive  a dozen miles to large central displays, find parking, bring your own blanket or folding chairs, bug spray, and beverages , settle in on the beach and watch the show, stick around afterwards to let the drunks have a chance to get off the roads before you go on them. It loses its charm. Our town has its own fireworks at a different annual celebration a week or two later, and one can look down our street and see the high ones over the tops of the trees. Just sit or stand on the front porch for a few minutes or as long as you want. You can still get all the noise you want - and then some - over about 20 minutes. No long drives, all the amenities of home without the lines and inconvenience.

Last night the noise started early. Typical formal displays start at ten, when it's dark enough to see them all clearly. For neighborhood displays though,  many people not only neglect safety, they don't care what you wanted to listen to or when, or how terrified your pets are. Last night once the rain stopped, the man-made booms began, everything from little pops to industrial-level BOOMS! I could have sworn I was living in the middle of 18 different towns, not 500 scattered pyrotechnic neighbors. Not only did it start days ahead on the small home scale, once it started last night it simply didn't stop. 

I told myself things would simmer down around eleven, the way it does every other year. There were times it was so loud and incessant I stuck my head out to see if despite lack of announcements our town was in fact setting them off nearby, or the next one over in any direction. Nope, dark. So local yokels with big pocketbooks and a need to out-compete the world. Got it.

I tried to sleep after that, already past my usual time. I figured it had to stop soon, right? An hour's worth is good enough for everybody, right? Two hours later it hadn't slowed. And yes, the huge boomers were still going off. Would anybody have noticed if somebody shot their domestic partner? Or had a drive-by shooting? Ignore it folks, just another firecracker, enjoy! 

But did they all have to keep going until 2AM on the 5th?  Seriously?

It's such an "interesting" combination of being wired and sleep deprived. I'm having my morning mug of coffee. At this point it ought to relax me enough to get some decent sleep. OK, maybe an hour nap. Perhaps by midnight.

Third Life... And Counting

Another problem fixed!

I was sorting laundry, checking pockets and so forth, in the front area of our home this morning. Suddenly I heard the giggles, the kind only happy children under a certain age can produce. A quick peek out the window showed their source, a neighbor diagonally across the street. Or more accurately, a couple of their granddaughters. I presumed a holiday weekend visit, enjoying early morning mild weather on their large covered porch without threat of imminent rain for a change.

Laundry could wait! I headed out for a chat with the family, describing the box, its former uses for furnace and kids' playground/tunnel, its designation for recycling eventually, and my hopes for more children to have some fun without any financing needed on the part of their families, my lack of a car large enough to relocate it in its current state. The children turned out to be granddaughters, the littlest one walking well and giggling better, the older one either about to enter or just leaving kindergarten.

Perfect!

Grandpa was volunteered by the family to head over and take the box back to their home to get acquainted with its second wannabe demolition squad. All adults agreed its ultimate home would be recycling, in much smaller pieces. I did point out an overlooked sticky tag still attached, much as I'd tried to remove all of them, visible once the box was angled for heading out our door, over the porch railing, out over the grass between gardens, across the street, and... gone to another happy home.

Wow! The living room is really that big again? How did I forget... Oh wait. 

Now I have no excuse to put off getting my printer up and running again, now that I can actually see it and reach it. I have the replacement toner cartridge, but sadly am down to two pieces of suitable paper. I see a stop on my way home from my shoulder surgeon later today. Then a bit of an assist with the cartridge swap from my son on his next visit, and another thing fixed.

Fair Swap

I'm doing a fairly good of of shoulder #2  healing, despite  certain uses still making it ache. I'm way down on tylenol most days, or even off if it's been an easy day. Of course with ferrying things for Steve back and forth it has become a useful part of my pill regimen again. Tomorrow is supposed to be my final appointment with my surgeon, where he puts in orders for my PT to start. But well as it's doing, there are still things I can't/won't accomplish.

I realized with the driving all around I've been doing lately that I likely needed oil in the car, or at least to get it checked. I keep one spare bottle in the back just for top-ups. The problem is that these days I can't  open the hood. Besides, somehow every time I buy another vice grip needed to open the cap after the mechanics have finished with the oil, the next time I go to find one, it's managed to "walk away".  

Mind you, I'm not pointing any fingers. I don't have any suspects like we did in Arizona when beads I know I dropped got lost forever, I could blame the cockroaches there for coming out to play soccer with them while we were sleeping. Not only do we never see cockroaches here the way we did there, but I simply cannot imagine them even as a troupe towing away a vice grip. Not claiming here I know everything about them, but just saying they're unlikely to be responsible.

The point is I still can no longer do some things I'd do regularly a couple years back.

It occurred to me this morning, in the middle of errands with several more coming up in the next few days  before the holiday that I likely needed to top up the oil before putting a bunch of miles on the car. With no time for an oil change and no likely openings for what requires an appointment these days to even get one in the shortened week, I'd better go for plan B,

I drove the few miles to my son's house after supper, asked him to please open the hood, check the levels, and put the last full can in before letting me know how low I might still be. I still needed a bit more, so there was a drive to pick up more than I needed just then to top it, in order to have some for next time. 

In exchange, I did one of the things I still can do with a single shoulder in good shape, pull weeds out of his garden. It's a job he'd prefer to ignore, but he happens to have a large section of already tall ones which I know from years of experience are easily persuaded to release their grip on the soil... most of the time. Parts of his garden are now emerging into view.  I left him a couple nice piles of them before I drove off the final time for both of us to do whatever for ourselves in what remained of the evening in our own homes. 

Steve as expected is still in the rehab facility, recovering from the day's strenuous PT and OT, perhaps with energy left to read a few pages in one of the several books he asked me to bring, or possibly to look for any watchable TV leading up to a holiday weekend. He was really tired and in pain as I'd left earlier, working as hard as he is to get himself out of there and home again. Yesterday was easier on him, leaving him time to join the blackjack table, where all play for fun, not money. I don't think he's played more than a couple times since he retired as a dealer. 

At least today when he wasn't up for much of anything, one of the staff handed him an alternate menu where he can order ala carte foods instead of the same three meals every day. He was saying something about a BLT when I left after dropping off his laptop earlier. He was happy for the change, but we both knew he'd really have preferred BATs, where instead of lettuce there is fresh mashed avocado, not just tastier but providing the occasional shocked reaction to the uninitiated along with a chance to let them know what they've been missing in their sandwiches all their lives. Hey, some days fun is where you can make it.

Quiet House

Steve went from hospital to a rehab facility. We're hopeful that he will improve as quickly as possible so he can return home and function here. It was no kindness in sending him home where within just hours he was a prisoner to wherever he happened to be. I tried to do what I could, but with a healing shoulder I still carry the reminders that it was a bad idea for both of us. I'm thinking it's a good thing that I only needed to go back on Tylenol, but damn! I'd been totally off all painkillers for a few entire days!

I'm here and he's almost 5 miles away. I'm used to him calling out, once I start moving in the morning, asking if I'm up. It's not a redundant question, in case you think hearing something means I'm awake for the day. It really means am I planning to be awake for a while? Or was this just one of those wee hours pit stops with a return to bed planned? It doesn't always mean he wishes to come join me if I plan to be up for a while. He might be busy with his laptop in his room, or reading a really good book. It's a reminder that he cares. I miss hearing it.

There's the sound of his walker as he emerges from his room. It has four wheels, not two wheels plus two legs with tennis balls. It makes its own special noise as he uses it, which changes as he goes from carpet to hard kitchen flooring and back to carpet, so I can always tell his progress. I miss hearing that too.

There's the noise of his favorite TV shows, mostly a wide variety of cooking contests, but it includes every Jeopardy episode, and  when he's in the mood, bass fishing tournaments. It will include certain Olympic events when it's the season, with a special fondness for figure skating any time and anywhere those are held including the four years  leading up to the big event. There is always a pause button one of us uses so we can read the name of the music the skaters will be using, and often is the only classical music we hear for long periods. I can hear that alone in the car too, with a good MPR station, but we enjoy doing it together while watching skaters. The car is more a time for talking and observing.  I miss those times as well.

There's the reminder as I leave the house to drive anywhere to drive safe, watch out for all the idiots and the Minnesota attack deer. He could shorten it to "I love you" but that says it perfectly well.

He listens to my telling him how the garden is doing, sharing family news either of us has to share, even rehashing old memories together. Shortly I'll get dressed to be out in public, drive over to the facility he's in, share progress reports. His will be about the food, the PT, perhaps a particularly helpful staff member, or  just how bad the pain is -  at the moment or for the last hours. I'll probably stay an hour because I'm also busy planning the details of the birthday party that's being moved to where he is instead of here in the house. There's still cleaning and shopping to be done, from ordinary messes to checking to be sure medications are up out of the reach of the great-grands who will come early to the house to play in the monster box before we head to the party. One already is telling his mom about his plans to demolish the box, which is fine, though I hope to persuade him that his siblings should get a chance to play in it for a while with him first. The house won't be quiet for an hour or two then, and it will be wonderful, even if they are squabbling. Their parents can deal with that quite well. I have already remembered to tape a certain display cabinet door shut, since the youngest is fascinated by its contents and will open it any chance he gets, in the firm belief that whatever he can see is his to touch. If he's still fascinated in a few years, we can have a supervised "explore" of things like southwest pottery storytellers. I can certainly understand the appeal, especially when so many of the artists were so creative, using animals, or even corn people.

Until then there will be the sounds of dishes getting washed - by hand since Steve is the one who loves the dishwasher - and likely occasional vocalizations over the amount of food grease and "stickeys" on the stove and counters because the person who loves to cook in this house doesn't get a dishpan of soapy water in the sink with a dishrag to wipe the counters clean. It won't be a quiet house then. It just won't be his noises filling empty spaces, not for a while. It will be me grumping, but at least knowing those spaces will stay clean because for at least a short time nobody will be frying bacon in a pan without a lid at high temperatures. OK, sometimes a lid, lately, but baby steps.

I'm not altogether sure I miss that particular sound. But his happy noises while he cooks and eats the cause of those messes....

You guessed it. I love and miss those too. It's so quiet here I might have to start singing again. I haven't done that for years, so I'm sure he wouldn't miss hearing any of the warm-up attempts Yikes!

Stressed!

You should know that I have healed both shoulders to the point now where I can put most shirts on myself by myself, even if a few things still need an assist. I needed a clean one this morning and managed it myself, once I dealt with the sling by myself, both times. Why both? The first time after I tucked all the bits into their locations and got them smoothed around the lumpy parts of me, finally ready -I thought- to head out in public, I passed my bathroom mirror and happened to notice it was on backwards! There is a pretty printed design on the front, but now it showed on the back.  Hard to miss, you say? Sighhh... OK, off and redo. No further problem, with that at least. Who knows what other overlooked nonsense will pop up?

So why so late to figure out how much stress I was under? I was changing to go drive over to the local hospital, following with some delay the ambulance taking Steve back there. His ability to walk has rapidly been declining, he was feeling literally sick, and finally asked me to put in a 911 call. Not the "I've fallen" call, but "send me an ambulance" call. After much discussion of his circumstances, off they took him. I sorted the house as needed, like checking what food sat out, which clothes of his went in the "dirty" hamper, and returning pill bottles from where the paramedics were examining them to where they sit in a bag until the day-of-the-week holder gets restocked. Then off I went, though I did decide I'd better have something in me besides coffee and morning pills, and grabbed some graham crackers to crumb up the car. OK, in honesty, the front of that shirt too, but I brushed off what I couldn't collect and eat from a clean shirt first.

I sat with him in the ER for several hours, until they formally admitted him. Until then, he had several IVs pumping fluids, pain meds, and antibiotics into him, took a trip to X-ray and back while I hunted down the closest restroom, chatted with staff as they came and went giving my memories of what had been going on with him as opposed to his recollections, and so forth. I suspect it's why wives go to hospitals with their husbands. It's not for entertainment value, despite the need to crack the tension with something silly occasionally. No, I'm not sharing that comment with you though it did change one of the nurses' minds about how far to dim the lights on her way out. 

It didn't help that last night was not one of the nights I remembered to plug in my phone. Luckily I have a car charger for the unused lighter port that works when the car runs. By the time I parked at the hospital it had one full bar of charge. I could turn it on again. Calls were at a premium. We agreed to call Steve's daughter who is great at contacting everybody in the family as to what's going on. Most families I know seem to have one of those. Three short calls at different stages of information and decisions were managed, and I charged the phone again on my drive home mid afternoon. That was after he was admitted, finally promised a sandwich three hours after lunch was skipped, had his surgeon's input and recommendations, lined him up for OT and PT evaluations under his current status which had left him barely able to walk a single step on one leg. Right, so now we hear about how his surgery was extra technically difficult, which means it often leaves the patient much worst the next few days than when they were discharged. Somebody gave us the wrong bingo cards that didn't have that row of options on it! We are both used to at least slow improvements as days go by from healing. 

Oh well, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition either! What are we complaining about? He came home to walking with minimal assist from his walker, a good way to get up the stairs to the front door, and expectations of a more normal life than he'd just been having with that bad hip. Maybe next time he comes home? Will that be from the hospital again or from a few days in some care center? (Does Medicare still require three CONSECUTIVE days in the hospital before they start to pay for that? Daddy went through those hoops a few times in his last years.)

Tonight I'll be doing some cleaning, some laundry (his), a bit of TV watching, and hoping shoulder #2 which had been doing extra duty these last few days will settle down and quit griping without my needing to reach for my own unused Oxy. I'd recently found that wearing the soft sling to bed at night helped me sleep by minimizing pain to the point of no pills for it. I'd even quit Tylenol... till today. No choice. We had unreal expectations. 

Among those are a planned family party here for the weekend. We're telling people to stand by, don't cancel yet, we might have changes but cancelling is a last resort. We've got two phone trees going now. At least mine is the short one.

Oops, the washer is done with the first load. Hey, did I remember to check his pockets?????

Why You Lost Your Tip

We have no idea who you were. But you had reason to know some things about us.  We frequently order groceries and sundries from Walmart. That should at least hint that the long hikes through the store are to be avoided, not a fitness routine. Our delivery address is a senior community. By your second delivery here that should be apparent because 99% of the faces you'll see have the requisite amount of wrinkles, many entrances have ramps, and frankly, we're actually asking and paying you to deliver our orders here when we could just as easily drive to you, wait in our car, drive our stuff home and walk it inside ourselves... but we don't, at least recently. I suspect the store knows everything about us and you could easily find out there's a reason we're paying for the extra help. It's not because we just won the lottery! Trust me on that one! If we had, you'd likely be delivering to a McMansion somewhere, complete with a mountain view if Steve had his way, plus a lake or river if I did. The tip would be HUGE then as well!

It's because we need the extra assist. Sure, it could be done... over a long time, a small few items at a time, with rests between going up and down the stairs, hauling in to the kitchen or pantry to put them away, and perhaps still have energy and even the desire to fix and eat some of what we just ordered. 

Or perhaps you were just in a hurry to finish a couple of last deliveries so you could go home or on that date or whatever your end-of-day me-first goal was. You didn't stop to read our standing orders for all deliveries, the covered porch and on which side, significantly larger than a second set of stairs under repair at the moment, with a smooth paved path from the parking spot, and as you would find, a very well reinforced railing along the stairs.  That information is all written down in our delivery information, just like somebody else would warn of a dog, or request a basement or garage entry. It also tells you we need you to ring our doorbell when you arrive. Once you are on the porch there's even a sign"BELL" with an arrow to the button in case a black button in a sea of white is too subtle. (We're helpers!)

Other delivery drivers, whether Fed Ex or whoever while we were still furnishing the new abode,  though mostly from this Walmart store manage to get it right. The occasional one, upon seeing us face-to-face and noticing various mobility aids or impediments, even offer to bring the food inside, even though we are happy enough even on our worst days to bring it in from the correct porch. Some get extra tips for the extra "mile".

What you didn't know, nor should you have needed to know had you bothered to read the instructions, is that currently we are both recovering from hospitalizations which have great promise but need recovery time to regain the hoped-for mobility. For various reasons including medications, we both had dozed off for a bit through the very start of our delivery window. Once awake and noting the time, the app was checked and we found the delivery supposedly had been made. NO doorbell courtesy as requested, which gives a loud version of Big Ben which nobody can ignore.  Soon as we got the information, I went straight to the requested porch and looked for the usual collection of bags and boxes. It was so empty it was pristine from a recent rain.

OK, locate shoes, head out  and around to the rickety porch, and yep, there they sat, mostly frozen boxes or bags... sitting in the hot sun! My first order of business was to try to figure out their temperature to decide if we had issues with food safety. Lucky for us, we woke up in time. Everything was at least refrigerator cool, if thawing around the edges. Knowing the contents, safe enough! (We'd made a note not to order ice cream delivered except in winter long ago.)

Next issue was going up those stairs where they sat. Winter wasn't kind, wood was splitting and crumbling, railings wobbling. Just what I needed! There's a reason the replacement is under construction, just in a different location, partly for weather protection since it's been rainy, not good for unpainted wood, and partly to eliminate the temptation for parts and tools to "walk away" since that is right next to the road with no obvious observation point from indoors. We warn repair men who've been doing internal work on HVAC to be careful, but that's by far the logical access point for those systems. Otherwise we'd have a sign there, but just last week the AC needed a part on the first hot day of the year, of course. It's been busy since with other needed work.

Right now Steve is not walking, to the point we had to call a couple of helpful local cops to assist him move from bed to chair the previous night just out of the hospital, a distance of about 30 feet. He walked fine in the hospital and even from the car to inside via the stairs, but they don't send those meds home with anybody, apparently.  Their meds had just worn off and he hadn't thought to start on his home supply yet, which will never be as good as what they administered.  The next day three steps was his limit. Today it's a bit more but with stops. So it's all me right now for work around the place. A quick look showed the driver left us over a dozen bags and three boxes to be relocated. Multiple trips, in other words, since that's how I move these days. First priority was a quick sort to get the most heat vulnerable foods out of the sun. I can manage one handful of bag handles at a time, leaving the other for the stair railing for safety. I can't do a heavy armful of bags, though the hand strength is just fine. The relevant shoulder is still in its sling with load restrictions, and I'm trying to work myself off even Tylenol these days. I'll never be up to lifting another human again past the age of a couple weeks, per my surgeon. In addition I'm not used to the muggy heat yet this season, so I was taking short breaks as I sorted the loads.

The last bit was the boxes. The railing system on that tiny porch leaves a space between porch floor and bottom support for vertical rails, one I can fit my hand under. The boxes were snug up to the horizontal rail, an actual benefit to getting the job done. I can stand on the grass, slip my hand in the gap, and using a series of small pushes scoot the two heaviest boxes across the porch floor to the stairs. Then I can tilt the end of each box slowly up until it slides down a step  and settles there.  That's how I met Dennis. He offered help.

He doesn't actually live here, but in the town homes across the county road. Our area is much safer, once one can cross the busy road, for a person to walk for some leisurely exercise, notice how each resident is decorating their yard with plants or ornaments, hail folks out on their porches, and on the downhill end pause to see what's happening on the lake, from boats to ice houses to critters to weather to sky, depending on season and time. Dennis introduced himself and offered to assist me getting the boxes to the other porch or even into the house if I preferred.  I gratefully accepted and we started chatting. His first hike in the area brought out a cranky neighbor who referred to him with a nasty name and tried to claim he had no right to walk our streets. At that point Dennis introduced himself to our manager for clarification, and was informed he was very welcome to walk on our streets. In the ensuing years the two have become friends. In the course of our discussion I pointed out the paved path between our street and the next between the homes, clarifying for him it was a public path for anybody, and welcomed him to use it any time without fear of somebody thinking he was trespassing. Being me, of course I also pointed out the flowers he might enjoy along the way, and extended his absolute welcome to step off the path for a closer look if he wished. It wouldn't be an intrusion - no windows to snoop through between height and privacy coverings - and if he enjoyed the flowers I'd consider it a compliment. (The Asiatic lilies in their 28 foot row are starting to open, and the daylily buds are beginning to pop up above their leaves.) I also invite neighbors to pick rhubarb if they want - but pull, don't cut - as long as the plants are still there. Come this fall the last of those plants will be finding new homes to make room to separate all the iris from daylilies, room both need. Somebody (ahem) got carried away with an abundance of varieties and enriched dirt! The iris are getting too shaded to bloom properly. )

When all the groceries were put where they needed to go. Steve informed me he took back the tip on the order form Walmart has, which strongly suggests a certain amount tip for the delivery. On occasion he has added to it after a driver has been extra helpful. Just in case you wonder why you lost your tip, the above should explain it ... assuming you are capable of learning what your fellow drivers know, the basic way to do your job. A dozen local deliveries a day plus wages should put a nice bulge in your pockets.  If you follow simple instructions, plainly written with the order, you'll get your tip next time. We have no clue who you were, and can't hold a grudge even if we felt like being mean. Eventually we'll be driving again to the store pick-up area and doing that work ourselves, so your window for learning, so far as we are concerned, is narrowing.  I would hope before that happens that your boss notices why your tip was pulled back and has a chat with you so you can do better- for the store, for us, for yourself - because when customers do that they give explanations of what went wrong.