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.

Homecoming

 You know it's gotta be an "interesting" storm when the hail makes more noise than the siren in town going off... for the third time in less than an hour. It's been a while now, no new sirens, so maybe they just gave up, knowing we don't pay attention to those any more (and it's their fault!)

Radar colors have been psychedelic for over an hour. The purples and deep blues are striking, quite rare for what we get, usually a ho-hum green - yellow - red  scale of weather badness. There have been friends and family calling, and vice versa, warning and checking on each other.

Our usual channel from the metro for weather has been running a scroll under the program they haven't bothered to interrupt coverage from. Seriously, who cares about pars, eagles, or bogeys when one of your local warnings announces the option of Mother Nature throwing a twister our way just out of boredom? No TV warning beeps to alert viewers of course. At least now that the loud thunder is nonstop most folks will have turned on their TVs and checked what's going on.

There have been a lot of interruptions since I started this post. An hour and a half later and we're down to a severe storm watch, with even that ending soon for the area.. Most of the nearby warnings have ended. But the watch says we need to continue paying attention for another 90 minutes.  That means over 4 hours under the threat of ... something. Good thing I'm not sleepy ... yet. Videos on TV coverage of the weather (NOT the station still trudging through the golf tournament of course)  of various hail storms are interesting, the kind I appreciate more when our hail needs to bounce in the clouds another half hour  in order to show for the camera.

All kind of people have been checking in with us... or rather, mostly me. I'm the only one awake here. Steve is getting some sleep after a long day, starting with OT for a bit, learning how to do stairs now, with the strong side always on the higher ground whichever his direction, up or down, or how to arrange pillows under his knees while he sleeps on his back, and more tips for learning to live with his new hip. He was released to come home just after a light rain over the hospital he was in finally stopped. The forecast was more weather later in the afternoon, but we got him home dry. I'd love to say pain-free. As it was, a second pill which assists the first one to do a better job has been helping. It's a good thing since he doesn't have the option of using a hip or not, like I have with a shoulder. Once I got him inside, fed lunch, and settled with his computer and/or TV, I headed off to his pharmacy to get new prescriptions filled and back home again before anticipated afternoon weather.

We just weren't thinking of this much weather. Having dry steps to climb once-only to get him back in the house was our main goal. After a short learning curve, we got him in and settled. Mostly. There didn't seem to be a fix for his sudden case of hiccups. He'd had those in the hospital, and hours later still had them going strong at home. He thinks it must be a reaction to some drug he was given. If so, he was still reacting until the storm(s) rolled in. Not suggesting cause and effect there. More like exhaustion from lack of another nap finally knocking the hics and the ups out of him.

He did get in a lot of resting once home and settled, if you can call playing computer games "resting". A few friends checked in on him, making sure he was home and reasonably OK, considering. He made a follow up appointment with his surgeon, had a bit of food. (Did I mention he had the forethought to make and frost a cake just before he left for his surgery? It was still sitting there waiting for his return. Interesting lunch. )

Then the sirens went off. Head online to Weather Underground for local maps and the ability to roam, expand, shrink our view. As usual the first (!) siren was for the northern end of our county, heading eastward. A relative or two were in the path but likely safe with a shelter in their apartment building. Just to be sure we connected on the phone, shared information from various sources. A mutual friend who lives between us was sheltering in her basement after seeing a wall cloud in the sky. A tornado was a possible part of the mix. (Later reports say "maybe".) But as usual their weather went on in another direction and we were still clear, so the two of us chatted about how Steve was before hanging up. 

A subtle rumble of thunder and darker sky grew in our awareness, just before the sirens went off the second time. I called my son who lives in the vicinity and was likely home by then from work, just to make sure he was paying attention. Over many years the county policy of sounding sirens in the whole county for anything anywhere in the large county trained us all very well to peek out, see nothing, and go back about our business. (I told you our ignoring the sirens was their fault!) The bad weather never came our way in all the years we lived here. TV and internet radar images today had this system slowly moving in our general direction, about as close as they get to accurate. A more dire vocabulary was being aired in the scrolls along the screen bottom, warnings, map colors, and times became more interesting. It was building, and now a second system to the south, covering much of the metro, was vying for attention. The lists of counties involved grew longer every few minutes. Ours was still being mentioned.

Steve had had enough for his day and went to bed, painfully and with assistance. There was a choice to be made. We live just a walk of a block to a huge new storm shelter with room for all. Or we could stay put. Steve was in no condition to move another inch. I wasn't going to leave him. After informing him of that, I contacted my son and his daughter, inserting into each weather and health exchange the fact we were staying put, together whatever weather did. In worst case, if people had to hunt to find us, home would be the place to start. Whatever, we would face it together. Steve tried to sleep. I worked on finding the best and most weather information available. I jumped around a variety of sources. I kept trying my favorite weather channel  hoping for better information,  but that network was still following that stupid golf tournament, and settled for listing counties needing to pay attention and suggested hours they could stop. The screen scroll was a faint pink over a red banner, all but impossible to read. The warnings on all channels kept stretching out later... and later. What started around 4 was now a probable severe event for us until 8,  with the "where" and "what" in the warnings going on now in all kinds of other locations - according to a news station I never usually watch. Most of their warnings involved street names or neighborhood nicknames, most identifiable only to the few living exactly there. They did show some cool video of hail turning summer white again.  They also mentioned the worst part of "our" impending storm to be located right on top of us, so the sirens went off the third time.  Sure enough we got our hail. (Let's see... right once in how many false alarms....?)

Dark clouds brought louder thunder rumbling nonstop , hail started pinging on any scrap of metal it could find like the top of our grill outside, and once windows had their blinds drawn I peeked out under a porch roof to monitor events in real time. Rain, sure. Yawnnnn, no biggie. Hail for about 10 minutes, as impotent as hail can be that couldn't make it near to pea sized even if it had a threesome going. What hit a neighbor's roof rolled gently down, not enough momentum to roll past the 1/4 inch lip on their gutter. Still rain, still thunder but no visible lightning, no wind to set a tiny wind chime off or flutter neighborhood flags.

Another phone call, another family member heard from, how were we? After about five minutes of bringing each other up to date, I had to cut the call short. I was hearing the weirdest noise from close outside. The only thing my brain could conjure was some kind of electrical sparking going on, something like a crinkling sound with a few Zs every so often. We didn't lose power for a second but I  started going from door to window to window, looking out, expecting to see a fire starting or transformer  spitting. I had no idea what but figured I'd better have my cell handy for a 911 call if I did see something. There was nothing, which was just fine with me, thank you. The noise had ended by then anyway.

Weather was moving on, warnings "till 8PM" became watches ending sooner despite being further out on the storms' paths. Sun peeked between cloud systems, other folks in the path might still need to worry, but Steve could sleep and I could try to recall everything and put together a post... between more phone calls checking in on each other. 

I'm actually considering supper after a bit. I might settle for a few peanuts and crackers. Steve's phone is going off while his people check on him, so he's not getting sleep, even if his hip would consider letting him. His bit of activity getting into bed and getting pillows tucked under his knees have resulted in needing his next dose of pain pills, but he's waiting a couple hours until the clock says it's OK. About posting time after proofing this should be just about perfect.

Waiting...

 It seems to summarize my days right now. I'm waiting... for my shoulder to finishing aching when I use it a little bit. It's not that I do really painful stuff, since those are warning signs, but small motions with little loads are appropriate at this stage. There is a cost however, often delayed. I won't request more oxy, and I have to watch how much Tylenol I take. Tolerating even the minimalist store sling I switched to is getting annoying and irritating, so now mostly I just wear it when I'm trying to sleep, working to keep it in place. It does help... coupled with my bedtime Tylenol. I better plan it about an hour in advance however. There is a sweet spot there for easy sleep. Missing it means frustrations costing needed sleep, sometimes hours.

I'm still waiting for that last stitch to "dissolve" the way it was promised, the way all the others finished doing a week ago. It only bothers me when my fingers roam the area, such as in the shower or when there's an itch nearby, or it catches in a knit shirt, but still. There remains a hard quarter inch poking up, and a gentle tug doesn't dislodge it like it did the last one before this. The others didn't even need that. Worst case is early next month I go back to the surgeon and have it officially snipped.Tug! Ow.

I'm waiting for Steve's surgery tomorrow. A lot of hope goes into that, along with lots of recent awareness of the time it takes for a replaced joint to settle in to usefulness, hopefully with diminishing pain for him. We have agreed, just like for my last two surgeries, that the other of us won't stick around, but head home and mostly wait to hear how it went. I can drive now so no problems there, but he'll either be out of it completely, or busy recovering, paying attention to what the hospital staff says, getting some OT like directions on walking and sitting properly with the new joint or, or learning the tricks of stairs again, just so he can get up the six stairs into home. I expect he'll be inundated by phone calls from family checking in...if he remembers to charge his phone! I'll need to be his list-keeper/nagger before we head out, so there's that too. All of that on top of recovering from anesthesia means he'll be needing all the rest he can get, and ... well, I've been there, and no visitors was a plentiful amount, so long as you're actually conscious when they point out where the call button is hiding. I was ready for my trip home and familiar surroundings. He'll be be waiting for that his second day too, I'm sure. At least he'll be getting his needed ongoing PT afterwards at home, plus he's getting pretty good at ordering groceries delivered to the door, avoiding a long winter full of trying to walk on ice to get from house to car to stores, then back intact with full arms. He navigates the kitchen on wheels both for cooking and traversing the house, so as soon as he's got that "down" again he'll mostly be independent indoors. Any falls will be covered by his necklace which sends an alert. If things change for him dressing himself, I'll be there for him like he's still being for me.

I'm waiting for that last shower before he heads off to the hospital because I still need him to assist with getting my arms into my tops with shoulder number two so new, so whatever I get assisted into that last morning will be what I wear for the next two days. (We trust no major spills, because that shirt will just stay dirty!) Bless whoever invented stretchy fabrics! Good thing pants are so much easier for a single arm. Shoes and socks too, or at least mine are. No crappy pantyhose or heels for me for decades, not anywhere in the house! The store-bought sling I use is one I can get in/out of myself, at least with minimal pain during the "in" part, none for taking it off.

I'm waiting for it to stop raining. I'm not complaining that we got a long slow steady shower since about suppertime last night. We've been needing it and most of what has fallen recently has been in tenths of an inch or hundredths, even measuring with one of those rain gauges with a wide opening to show tiny amounts like they were full inches. But right now both the garbage and recycle bins are sitting out curbside, emptied, and awaiting my hauling them each about 60 feet to where they wait for their next loads. It's not much of an issue even when they are as filled as we usually get them, which isn't much with unpacking from the move long since done. There's always been one arm workable for the job. I just want to be dry for the process.  Picky, picky me! Besides our lawn person will need them moved before she mows tomorrow and they sit on the grass next to the street right now. I plan to be kinda busy then.

I'm waiting for the last of my new iris to be delivered. I know it will be a while, and that's fine, but those open spaces are filling up with weeds I can't quite reach comfortably. Then, a bit of extra research has informed me that the Japanese iris need a wetter location... or perhaps just a couple bends rerouting the downspout  a few feet away. I might even dig them out and bury some kind of catch basin under them to hold water which their roots can dip down into to keep them wet enough. It looks like an interesting engineering project, but my son just put a couple bending gutter pieces in one from the roof and I know it's theoretically easy, just work. Depending on who's doing the work (ahem) I'd say it well worth doing, since those are supposed to be spectacular among iris plants.

Who cares if it means I have to (get to) pull out even more rhubarb from the area? So far the 2nd year density of the lilies the squirrels and rabbits were devouring has been cut to near zero, and they're so thick (lilies, not critters) even the weeds are struggling. Most of the rhubarb is used as critter repellent instead of food, so going from two plants to one final one doesn't seem to be a sacrifice. I still have bags from last year in the freezer. They were bagged without cleaning for food safety, meaning full of dirt and whatnot, so all they are good for is critter repellent and a bit of eventual top dressing for the garden as it decomposes. A good friend who loves rhubarb already got the two plants dug up early this spring. It's been slow establishing, so she may well be in the market for another plant while I work on creating a wet iris bed in a dryer garden. Meanwhile she's still coming over to pick enough for her own baking projects from my plants. And I've still been training her to pull, not cut, so the plants she does have will keep producing. I have other neighbors who have heard I'm willing to share with them too who get the same lesson. The only cutting has been the 9 wannabe seed stalks those two plants  produced this year. Or at least nine is all I've counted so far. The cutting on  those seems to be working.

I was waiting for a phone call while typing this, but just got it. The hospital he's going to has all kinds of doors spread all around, and all but one would be the wrong choice for where to take him, requiting a long painful walk, since they want him with his walker, not just dumped into a wheelchair. So we needed which door to take him to. They just called. We got a couple other questions answered about what his PT and OT covers before they send him home. I have our answers now, and the rain seems to have left the area briefly. So time to quit waiting and get back to doing again.  

For now anyway. Maybe another pill first, eh? It's under 60 out there so this will be a short activity.

Oddball (?) Breakfast

I grew up on boring breakfasts. Waffles were exciting... and quite rare of course. Mom often had what she called "Yankee Pudding" for us: white bread toasted, put on a plate with a bit of white sugar and milk. Cut them into polite pieces however you wished. I was bored enough to cut it (2 across, 2 down) into 9 pieces and eat them in various patterns. Yep, that bored. Cereal was common. A step up was french toast or pancakes, and when she really felt like cooking we got bacon and eggs: over easy, scrambled, sometimes hard boiled. We kids got milk & OJ, our parents coffee, black.

Nineteen years till I was out of the house... ho hum.  We were always fed. Never inspired, at least not by breakfast. Now fresh caught fish, deep fried with beer-batter onion rings....... ahhh. But somebody had to go fishing first. Daddy got the last two sips of beer not needed for the batter in our otherwise teetotaling house. I tried it once... ick!

Fast forward a "few" years. OK, decades then. I'll hit the freezer section for individual meals, ranging from eggs-plus to Pad Thai and much in between. Fast and no work other than the microwave for that and heating water for instant coffee is the rule. "Dishes" are disposable, cups and silverware not, so Steve deals with those when he does his kitchen cleanup. Some days I might involve the toaster for PB&J. I got "wild" and switched to raisin bread in the toaster, plus a dab of cocoa powder in the hot coffee water which instantly became standard.  When the microwaved scrambled eggs got boring I added cut frozen peppers and onions, or jelly, homemade by my youngest and always plentifully distributed to the entire family and friends. Occasionally I'd switch that up to orange marmalade which he doesn't make. Other times I'd pop on a slice of pepperjack cheese, maybe some turmeric for interest or color. 

Whatever it was, it was fast and easy, no pots and pans, no messy stoves. Those were Steve's domain. He loves to cook that way. I just let him clean up as well. My one exception, of course, was the Thanksgiving turkey and my stuffing muffins, enough work over two or three days to discourage me for another year.

This morning I decided on something a little bit different, a new combination of old favorites. The big freezer is still over-full from both of us stocking up on raisin bread. Steve's kind of tired of it, going back to Italian bread or sourdough these days, leaving a plentiful supply for me. I decided to try a new breakfast sandwich. There were two ends from the last loaf, the replacement loaf ready to move to the fridge and start thawing. I'd set out the orange marmalade on the counter, finally tired of how solid it gets when chilled even when trying to stir a spoonful over hot cooked eggs or fresh toast. The label doesn't call for refrigeration.  So it got spread on the two heel ends, thin pre sliced pepperjack cheese on each before plopping a thin slice of ham between, folded together into a sandwich. No cooking needed, toasting totally optional. A paper towel makes an adequate "plate". A little "heat", a lot of flavor, and good nutrition in every bite. I might be hungry again by 2, but likely not sooner. Thirsty maybe. The ham is salty regardless of flavoring. This one happened to be applewood smoked.

OK, call me weird, and don't bother to try it. Or get bored... or brave... and give it a try. You might get hooked... for any meal.

Scammed

Yep, it happened to me. I fell in love with a picture of an iris online and bought it... and then did some research. Company's reputation sucked, colors were... improbable to be polite, not to mention the same photo popped up with several different variety names attached. Further research yielded even different species names! Same photos of course. Oops!  I'd say shame on them, but it seems to point just as well on gullible me.

At least I didn't spend a lot on it. After that I went to reliable sources first before thinking about ordering. Back in the early '90s there was a fairly local farm that specialized in iris and daylilies. With a new house at the time, nothing in the yard, I did some shopping while they were blooming, and most are not just still living but scattered now across several yards. (Ever hear of a daylily aptly named "root beer"?) Unfortunately they went out of business, reasons unknown.

That "first" part this time around included catalog companies I recognized and had ordered from, though interesting varieties were already sold out while other shipping dates were long in the future. I wanted to get starters in the ground earlier than that in hopes of seeing flowers, not just foliage, next year. I already have a lot of foliage that hasn't bloomed and won't yet this year. That's one reason I'm reorganizing flower beds: some things will have to be removed to give others a chance, and I'm aware of plants from last year I'm simply not motivated to keep. As soon as they bloom I can pick them out to dig them out... and hopefully share.  Free of course!

Other sources I found online were local garden centers with impeccable reputations, which often post catalogs of present or future offerings online and/or are within easy driving range. I'd already done some shopping that way on trips to the grocery store. Most of their stock wasn't even in yet, so impatience kicked in. 

Anyway, I'm already looking up various varieties with names from purchases last year, having forgotten what their flowers were supposed to look like, wanting to identify what has bloomed and what showed no sign of it yet. I now have names to go with color patterns... as well as some still complete mysteries. I expect some growers had cross pollination happening in their flower beds. It's how the world works. Most of the surprises have been fun. Who knows what the next years might bring if mine cross-pollinate?

Several tubers with good roots and cropped leaves arrived in today's mail, mostly each containing one kind from each shipper. A happy surprise was one grower which added a bonus in their package, a color I have a single one of already, new this spring in flowering for me, and a second in that color is a happy bonus. There is still one ordered variety to be sent - a frilly pink one -  and this afternoon's plantings left a space for it, as well as my having it marked on my chart for that small garden. I'd forget names by next year. I know because I already did that for most of my iris which bloomed this year. I had to go back and research names for previous orders to figure out what had or hadn't bloomed yet, and name the ones that had. That was the plan anyway, somewhat implemented.

I had tried to carry that name listing practice over to a long narrow bed of asiatic lilies, disappointing last year, due to squirrels and rabbits,  gangbusters in still closed buds this year. Uhhh... names? Who knew which were left uneaten? And oh yeah, there were a lot of multi-variety bag purchases. Oh well. Call it a kaleidoscope bed. Enjoy taking pictures. At least I remember the Forever Susan ones. Maybe the Stargazers survived to bloom this year? I do recall that purchase and I'd recognize those. But anyway....

That scam set of "iris tubers" arrived in today's mail as well. The packaging was really cutesey, but it was the only package with no name identification of its contents. At least there were two solid lumps inside the bubblewrap, though no moisture keeping whatever alive  for shipping.

Turned out it didn't actually need any. Not because iris aren't hardy for somewhat dry shipping under the right conditions. But because the two lumps weren't iris at all. I recognized the species immediately. I grew up with them. Mom planted them in every garden I can remember. These were gladiolas corms, or bulbs if you must. She likely had them because her name was Gladys and these were "glads". (Kind of like my trying to  grow heather once, an epic fail on my part.)  Mostly glads are very easy to grow, at least in any conditions anywhere we lived in Minnesota where she could put in a garden. There might also be tomatos or squash plants, but there were always roses, glads, petunias, and deep blue delphiniums.  I absolutely know the difference between the plantable part of iris and gladiolas. These were NOT iris! I have nowhere any room left for a couple stray glads. There's enough wind off the lake here that they'd need staking just to stand up long enough to bloom.

I set the real iris starters in a small bowl of water for a little soak before planting, and left the little bag of 2 glads on the counter, future TBD. Maybe somebody would like them. A lot of the neighbors have some kind of decorative garden or even just hanging pots of flowers. Worst case was I could drop them in the mail room for anybody to help themselves. We do that with a bookshelf where they come and go, and even catalogs occasionally are dropped for potential customers... or the recycle bin.

Meanwhile, anybody remember those wannabe roofers? They never showed, of course. But another crew was going through the area offering the same service, look at our roofs and suggest needed new shingles. The fellow who rang our bell was pleasant and not pushy, and inspiration struck. Did he know anybody who liked gladiolas and could give two stray bulbs -color unidentified - a new home?  He did. His boss's wife loved them at their home, and she'd be happy to plant them. He didn't make a roofing  sale but he did have something the boss could give his wife! And I didn't have to throw them away or be pissed off at the scam, an even bigger win for me as far as I was concerned. Somebody will enjoy them, even if I never find out who. I don't need to hold onto the bad feelings they arrived with, turning the scam into a gift. The iris from other orders are all planted in time for the evening rain to soak in, and now only one plant is outstanding, due for later shipping in about a month. A spot is waiting for it, the last open one in that garden except for two from my son's garden, also not due for transplant until that time. Those get to bloom this year first.

The next nice day here I'll be out cutting back dead branches from a totally different bush in a different bed, making room for some blooms this fall. It bloomed our first fall here, skipped last year, left lots of dead branches,  and now is greening up well to try again. That, or I get the shovel out before next spring. There are other bushes I like, don't just take care of because they were here before us. After all, I dug out two roses with horrible recurved thorns that snagged everybody within their reach, meaning mostly me! I like roses but they don't have to be vicious! Nothing has replaced them yet either. Rocks work just fine so far. My arms should be in good enough shape for digging and replacing the other bush if it again fails to bloom by fall. I already had signs of improvement in pain levels for that needed iris planting. Of course the soil is still very loose there. But I'm getting better, in multiple ways.