NOT JUST THE LEAVES

We all know that in Autumn the leaves fall from the trees and coat the ground in a multicolored blanket. Sounds lovely doesn't it ?  And it is but like many other things here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan the "Yoopers" do things a bit differently.  

Take for instance Pasties . . . Those little meat filled pies that are so prevalent in this area.  No one else has pasties, just the UP.  You and I make a sandwich with 2 pieces of bread and a slab of meat in between but that is just too boring. The Yoopers have to cook the meat, add all sorts of chopped up carrots, onions and . . . wait for it . . .  RUTABAGAS and wrap it all in a piece of pastry!  If you are like me you are probably asking what is a rutabaga?  Basically it is a turnip.  It belongs in the veggie family with parsnips and neither of them belong in my dinner! Anyway . . .   rutabagas and pasties are not the topic of this blog. 

I told you the other day how Autumn had arrived in the UP and how I am more than ready to return to warm, sunny Florida.  This morning's adventure has reassured me that I better pack faster and get on the road SOON !   

At 8:03 AM this morning I was all snuggly and warm under the covers, (because I had snuck out and turned down the thermostat at about midnight),   when I heard a voice calling my name.  It was not the same voice I had heard several weeks ago asking if I "was ready". Rather it was the voice of The Man and it had a panicked ring to it.   I woke up quickly and sat up into a COLD room with  The Man standing at the foot of the bed, in his underwear, (as usual), saying something that I was not following because most of the time when he speaks I have trouble following his train of thought. (I think it is a man thing . . .  they start in mid sentence with a thought that they have been silently mulling over and just assume you are in their head with them so as they start talking you are supposed to be up to speed on the topic being discussed.  Along with that The Man will start talking about "he" or "she" and I have NO IDEA which "he" or "she" he is referring to. Drives me NUTS! )

So there stood The Man mumbling something about heat, power, oxygen . . .   I quickly ascertained that the electricity had gone out so his concentrator and the heat were both not working.  Heat was no problem but the oxygen concentrator was a BIG issue.  We quickly got him hooked up to the huge tank of oxygen that stands in the corner of the bedroom like a big round torpedo. We have only had to use it once before and then only for about an hour.  (I believe it holds enough oxygen to keep him breathing for about six hours.). After resuming breathing we then called the power company to report the outage. They told us they would get on it immediately. Second we called a neighbor to see if they had power, which they did, so we then knew the problem was here at this property and not some where along the power grid.  Luckily The Man's son is here visiting for 2 weeks and all our phone conversations woke him up. God love that boy, he got dressed and went out into the COLD morning air to check out the house and property,  

It seems that for what ever reason one of the MANY trees that line the driveway decided to fall over right across the electric lines that lead to the house.  It was a rather large tree and it was totally blocking the driveway. The Man was beside himself.  It was as if the tree had purposely fallen down just to make The Man crazy.  This one "minor" event set The Man off for the entire day and it wasn't until about four in the afternoon before he calmed down even though the electric company was here within an hour and the line was fixed and the tree was removed within two hours.  

It's time to leave town !!!

AM I REALLY SO STUPID ??

 Apparently I must be very very dumb and not at all capable of conducting my life on my own.  I didn't think I had dementia yet and I didn't think I was all that dumb but it seems that I cannot survive without the assistance of the telephone telemarketer. 

It appears that if I am left on my own to make any decisions in my life I will crash and burn and die within the week.  This assumption comes from the number of telephone calls I receive each day telling me my warranty on my car is ABOUT to expire.  Judging from the note of panic and impending doom in the voice of the person on the other end of the phone I MUST act immediately or there will be a cataclysmic explosion of such vast proportions that not a single living thing will survive the lapse of my automobile warranty.  I would be more than happy to reassure the voice on the phone that I have not had a warranty contract on my car for the past eight years but the voice never seems to take a breath to let me say anything.  The voice DOES tell me that if I wait until the end of their sales pitch I CAN press one, (or nine or forty seven) and I will be removed from their list and this will be THE VERY LAST phone call I will EVER receive from them.  They actually make it sound as if I should be very sad and upset that I will never hear from them again but no matter how many times I press one, (or nine or forty seven), they continue to call me each and every day. Sometimes they even call me several times a day !  

I have tried blocking the numbers, (each time it is from a different number), but nothing works.  The telemarketer recording knows just how stupid I am and they know I really need to have that warranty on my car even though I sold my car four years ago. (Not really but I bet that wouldn't stop the calls either.)

Now it also seems that the auto warranty people are in touch with the solar energy folks who now insist that I NEED to instal solar panels on the roof of my home.  This can all be done either before, after or in conjunction with the home security system that I NEED to have installed.  They are also working closely with the window company and the roofer both of which are trying to keep me up to date on what I need to do immediately. Once again the voices on the recordings do not care that I do not OWN my home so therefore I will not be making any changes to the operating system of my residence. They just keep calling because they know better than I do exactly what I need to do to make my life safe and secure. 

What would I ever do without these concerned individuals ?  For one thing I would be taking an           UN-INTERRUPTED nap each and every afternoon.  It seems that not only am I too dumb to know how to stay alive without warrantees but I am also not allowed to put my feet up each afternoon for a much needed rest.  Don't they know that people with potential dementia need a nap every day?  Without fail if The Man goes into the bedroom to take a nap one of our phones WILL ring and the voice on the other end of the phone will be a recording with an alarmed voice panicked because the warranty on my eight year old car has expired. 

But this is not the only concern for my mental ability to think on my own.  After four years The Man is beginning to show his true colors and is showing what a "Control Freak" he really is.  (Is it possible for two control freaks to cohabitate? ) My assumption is that having spent his entire life in the military he is used to giving orders.  Because our relationship was "new" he has kept himself under control but this week his son came from Alaska for a two week visit and I am seeing a totally different person in The Man. (Well, to be honest I have seen this side of him but I have just ignored it or "dealt" with it and he has backed down with me.) With his poor son The Man is reverting to his "Drill Sargent" dad personality and his son and his girl June and I are having quite a few good laughs behind The Man's back.  What is it about father's and sons anyway ?  Husband used to drive my youngest son NUTS because Husband thought my son couldn't think for himself.  (My oldest son was super smart and would retreat to his room every night thus avoiding any and all confrontation.). 

But father's apparently think that even though their sons are on the slide toward fifty years old the "boys" still can't do ANYTHING without fatherly direction and advice.  The son is probably not only capable doing a task but can do whatever better than an expert.  In the case of The Man,  his son could probably live in the wilderness for ten years living off nothing but berries and grass. This particular young man will tackle just about anything and not only succeed in completing that task but will do it expertly. But The Man still needs to be in the "boy's" face telling him exactly what he NEEDS to do.  

 I think it must be dads who in their spare time train telemarketers.    

BRILLIANT COLORS

 Today is officially the first day of Autumn but I knew Autumn was arriving about three weeks ago when it started getting a lot cooler and the leaves on the trees surrounding the field started turning colors. 

I LOVE Autumn !  It has always been my favorite season. The smell of burning leaves, the warmth of my moms kitchen after coming in from helping my dad rake the tiny piece of property we had and the anticipation of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all made this such a great time of the year for me. 

I love the colors of Autumn !  My "pallet" of colors has always reflected my love of this season. (Remember about forty years ago when we all had "our colors" done and you were given a little booklet or sheet of paper showing what colors were best for you to wear?  I still have mine in a drawer someplace and occasionally will actually refer to it when choosing something to wear for a special occasion.) My closet was always filled with browns, red, orange and even some yellow, although somewhere along the line someone told me blonds should not wear yellow. But when I moved to Florida I DID get rid of a lot of the darker colors so I could be more "tropical" even though I don't usually lean toward pastel colors.  I was never that kid who liked pink and blue unicorns . . .   I was more the brown and rust rocks and dirt.

A couple of weeks ago my "adopted" Michigan grand daughter was here and she found a bag of yarn that her real grand ma had spun.  There were all sorts of colors! Dani asked me what was this stuff in this huge bag, (she had never seen yarn before?!) so I told her about how her grandma, (who she doesn't remember having been only about two when Freddie died 8 years ago), had owned sheep and how she made yarn from the sheep wool.  Dani's next question was, "What do you do with yarn?".  I told her you could make blankets from it so then she asked if I could make her a blanket.  I can't even come close to the absolutely beautiful wool blankets that her grand mother hand wove from the wool she spun, (People actually DO THAT ????),  but I do know how to crochet some really basic afghans so I told the kid I would do that for her before I left for Florida.  I then asked her to pick out the colors she would like in her blanket and low and behold she chose green, yellow and rust.  My kind of girl !  

Of all of the Autumn colors I love orange the best !  The rust colors always draw me to them like a bowl of chocolate ice cream draws The Man to the kitchen every night around ten o'clock. My all time favorite dress that I bought the first year I was teaching was bright orange with small white eyelet daisies decorating the big sleeves. I remember the store I bought it in and how it called to me when I walked into the little boutique. I probably paid way too much for it but I HAD to have it!  It was the middle of the 60's and I had the heart of a hippie so this dress was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen. I wore it all the time until I got too fat to fit into it any longer. When that happened it hung in my closet for years while I lied to myself about loosing weight and returning to my size 12 days but as we all know that never happens. 

My least favorite color is green . . . Maybe that's why I don't like Spring as much as Autumn.  Being a Girl Scout for most of my life, Ages seven to about fifty seven, I think I over dosed on the color green. I usually can't find a shade of green that suits me with the exception of bright Kelly green but even then I tend to shy away from that color. (The exception is that I do love that Florida is ALWAYS green.)

All this being said I will finally get to the point of this blog . . .   

GREEN POOP !

Yup, you heard me. I said "Green Poop".    Please pardon the following narrative if you are of a delicate nature and things like this offend you.  Just stop reading now and I will understand. 

I came home from mass yesterday and put on my comfy clothes and went into the potty to empty my digestive pipes before getting on with my day.  I'm sure you can imagine what was going through my mind when I realized the contents of the toilet was Green !  (I have peed in the blue water of a toilet and gotten green water but this was a whole new adventure.).   GREEN poop ????   O M G !!!!  Naturally I knew immediately that I was at deaths door and would undoubtedly be belly up six feet under within weeks.  My "Fatty Liver" that my doctor has been telling me I have for the past fifteen years had finally blown a gasket and was leaking green sludge into my system. That was the only explanation for this bizarre event.  It had to be something awful . . .  Doctors always ask you if your stool is red or black but I have never had a single query about Green so it must be something rare and fatal that doctors don't even talk about. 

All these thoughts and more were swirling through my brain for about twenty seconds before I burst out laughing realizing just what was going on.  The day before I had gone to a five year old girls birthday party. Being a typical five year old girl Ainsley LOVES mermaids so her birthday party had a mermaid theme. The large birthday cake was naturally decorated to look like the ocean with seaweed and fish and mermaids and bubbles all in BRIGHT colored icing drawn on a very, very thick, BRIGHT BLUE coating of icing.  IT looked AWESOME and it tasted AWESOME !!  In fact it was sooooo good I had two pieces. (In all fairness I HAD to have two pieces because half the cake was chocolate and half was vanilla so I had to see which one was better. Since it really was the icing I was interested in I really didn't have a preference as to the flavor of the cake. I am the kid at the party who licks the icing off the cupcakes and leaves the cake.  Butter cream icing !!!  YUM !)

Apparently blue icing when mixed with bodily secretions turns stuff Green.  SURPRISE !!!   This whole thing cracked me up and I chuckled to myself for the entire day.  But the best was yet to come.

The Man had not gone to the party because he wasn't feeling great. The hostess of the party sent home some pulled pork and cheesy potatoes for him to enjoy and to top it all off she also sent home some cake. After eating two pieces of cake at the party I sat down with The Man after I got home and kept him company while he ate his dinner.  Naturally he shared the large portion of cake that I had brought home so now my cake consumption count was up to THREE pieces of blue covered cake.  The Man loved the cake as much as I did and we still had two pieces left over for dinner last night.  At about eight o'clock last night I was laying on the bed relaxing while The Man showered and got ready for bed.  When he was done in the bathroom he came into the bedroom with the strangest look on his face . . . puzzlement and a good bit of alarm.  He stopped at the side of the bed and with a very serious expression on his face he asked me if I had ever had green poop.  

I lost it !!  I couldn't stop laughing as the tears rolled down my face and The Man stood there wondering why I found his imminent demise so amusing.  When I was finally able to speak I said "Blue Icing" and being the smart guy that he is he started to laugh right along with me.  It took us about two hours to finally stop giggling. It was just too good not to share .

MY NEW BEST FRIEND JIM

 If you're expecting a warm fuzzy story about how I met a lovely new man who's name is Jim you can stop reading now.  My new best friend lives in a nice big glass bottle and his last name is BEAM . . . That would be Jim Beam with Honey !  (And I'm not the honey)

Yup . . .  this week from hell is just rolling on over me so I have had to bring out the big guns to do battle with Satan and his minions who are out to drive me nuts before I can make it home to Florida. This happens to me every so often when I just get too confident in my self and think that God and I have it under control.  God likes to pull back a bit and let a little crap into my life just as a wake up my smug self.  I am convinced this is what happens just like people are convinced there are aliens and UFO's. (Which I do happen to also believe in.) 

There hasn't been anything major going on here but the little stuff is piling up at my door and I am feeling swamped.  I NEED a grand kid break and a Florida break and a spending time with my friends break.  None of which are going to happen for another month. So in order to hang on I have cracked open the lovely bottle of yummy brown liquid. Up until this point I have been happy to have a frozen "bag" drink or even an occasional beer but we are now getting into the serious drinking stage of this stay in Michigan.

This whole adventure of selling stuff is kicking my butt and I can't say a word about it because guess who has been bugging The Man for the past 3 years to sell some of this shit.  Yours truly is now up to her eyeballs in messages on Facebook going back and forth with an entirely insane group of people.  The questions some of these people ask just blows my mind. I mean, I get it, they're spending their money on this stuff so naturally they want to know everything but honestly, how do you measure the hair on a sheep skin?  I always thought sheep had wool . . . apparently they have hair that can be spun into wool, or at least that's what I'm thinking.  Questions like "How long is the hair?  Did I own the sheep?  Did I sheer the sheep? Did I tan the hide? IF I didn't do all this who did?"  I just want to scream,  "How the "F" DO I know." It's like I should have had a very personal relationship with each of these sheep ?

And as all of this measuring of skins and warping boards, (Don't even ask what the hell a warping board is because I still don't really understand it), and looms and spinning wheels is going on would you like to guess what The Man is doing ????????    I will tell you what The Man is doing . . . if he isn't napping he is asking me forty thousand dumb ass questions about the people who are asking me fifty thousand dumb ass questions about the shit "he" is selling.  

Talk about getting rid of the middle man . . . Me and Jim Beam are off on a delightful little journey to getting sloshed.  I am hanging up my phone and it's camera, putting down my measuring tape and closing myself off in the parlor to commune with the deer. Who, by the way I also do not have a personal relationship with  . . . just in case you were wondering.  

IT IS TIME TO GO HOME !!!!!!!!!

I don't care if it is three hundred degrees in Florida . . .  I WANT/NEED to go home NOW !!

We have a departure date which is exactly one month from tomorrow but I really don't know if I 'm going to make it.  For what ever reason every day is getting harder and harder to get through. I think Satan has his hand in all this just to make me crazy or maybe it is just because I am living with The Man.  What ever the reason I better get drinking more in order to last these next four weeks.

Today was just one of those days that I never should have gotten out of bed.  (Except I really had to pee so I guess I really did have to get up.)  This week is just one of those WEEKS that we have a lot to do and so the pressure is on to hold it together. That seems to be my role in life . . . holding things together. I am really tired of being the glue or duct tape that holds every thing together and as I have mentioned before I have no one to blame but myself.  I just keep telling myself that God has put me here for a reason and I am just doing what ever HE needs me to do.  But I often wonder when it will be my turn to sit back and have someone do everything for me.  

OK . . . Enough of the Pity Party . . .   Here's how this day went down.  Today is Tuesday and that means we drive forty-five minutes East to Manistique so that The Man can spend an hour doing pulmonary rehab. He walks on a tread mill, rides on a stationary bike and exercises his arms with some other machine.  Last I heard he was up to twelve minutes on each machine.  (Twelve times three is thirty six minutes.  Guess it takes his a while to walk from one machine to another to make up the hour.) So,  we drive 45 minutes, I hang out in the car for 60 minutes and then we drive another 45. minutes back home.  Basically three hours spent doing absolutely NOTHING !!!   Oh, I take my crocheting with me or a magazine but it's still three hours of nothing. (I do sometimes walk around the parking lot for a half hour or so but now it is just too darn chilly for that.)  I also must mention that The Man buys me lunch . . . Burger King . . .  ALWAYS Burger King.  He always orders off the "two for $5" menu but today I REALLY wanted a crispy chicken sandwich.  I told him it wasn't part of the $5 deal but he wasn't listening so when he ordered he got totally confused when the girl said it would cost $12.  (I also ordered a medium soda which he never does because he gets a water at rehab.)  I made an attempt to explain the bill but I still don't think he got it.  (He is not cheap, just not used to spending money.)  My attitude at that point was "F" it !  

We returned to the house around two and that was when the house and yard turned into  Grand Central Station.   The Man's brother and nephew showed up to fix the basement window frames that have rotted out over the years.  They were parked at the back of the house and had a table saw set up in the yard.  Next the neighbor kid showed up to do some chores for The Man.  Apparently they had arranged this earlier so The Man had a list of things for the kid to do.   Only problem was that I was given the job of directing the kid as to what needed to be moved out to the garage.  Why did this become my job ?  Because The Man had gone in to take a nap. (He looks like shit these days and rehab really exhausts him so he needs that down time when he comes home.). Once the kid moved all the stuff I was told to have him mow the lawn, which needed cutting because The Man has not been up to going out on his mower.  The kid was out there mowing for maybe a half hour when he stopped in to tell me his sister was there to pick him up. (Found out later he had called his sister to come get him. He had only mowed maybe a third of the property.) 

As all this was going on I also had the job of taking pictures of ten sheep skins that I had brought down from the attic the day before.  The Man wants to sell the skins which means I get to bring them out, photograph them, measure them, write descriptions of them and post it all on Facebook market place.  I was in the middle of all that when I got a message from a woman "we" had sold some weaving item to a couple of days ago.  She and I had been back and forth figuring out how we would ship the stuff to Arizona where she lives.  She was sending me a shipping label over the internet but I wasn't getting it. (I had spent most of Sunday trying to figure out Pay Pal and where her payment was for the item. Finally got that worked out.)  I finally found the shipping label and went to print it out but the printer wasn't working! It kept giving me a message about the ink cartridge, which I had replaced a month or so back because The Man never uses his printer so the ink had dried out.  It took me about twenty minutes of cursing, swearing and poking at the printer to finally get that working.  As I am in the middle of all that The Man gets up from his nap and asks me where the kid is.  I tell him he left and that set off The Man to ranting about the kid.  

It was at this point I came out here to the parlor and started to blog because if I didn't write about this day I would have killed someone.  But we weren't finished yet. Just as things started to calm down the kids dad drives in looking to pick up his kid.  That just got the man all fired up again so I left The Man and the dad men sitting outside drinking beer while discussing this generation of kids.  

All this went on in a span of about four hours and by the time dinner time came around I had nothing planned or even thought of.  Resorting to the old stand by of soup and a sandwich I opened the bag of "fresh" rye bread that I bought at the grocery store bakery on Saturday and naturally it was MOLDY !

Without saying a word I took the freaking bread out into the freaking yard and threw it on the grass for the damn birds.  

I hope they all choke !!!!

THE MEDICINE "CABINET"

I thought all bathrooms came with medicine cabinets but apparently that isn't always the case.  Neither of my bathrooms in my Florida condo have a medicine cabinet. When I had my Florida house none of those bathrooms had medicine cabinets either.  Maybe it's a Florida thing ?  I know when I lived in NY all the bathrooms had medicine cabinets and even our small RV has one.  

My question is . . .  do you keep MEDICINE in your medicine cabinet ?  

I know that here in Michigan the medicine cabinet in the bathroom is just like the rest of the house.  It is filled with an assortment of things, none of which could be considered medicine.  There are tubes of ointment, jars of creams, vials of oils and several old tooth brushes and razors.  Not a single bottle containing medicine of any kind.  

Which leads us to the question . . .  Where does The Man keep his medicine ?

And that is a question that prompts me to write a blog on this very subject.  Because anyone with such severe COPD has GOT to be on a LOT of medications! So if that's the case just where are they hiding?

Every Saturday morning I come out to the kitchen table with my little black bag of pills.  I should not make fun of The Man and his medicine because I am on a bunch of crap myself.  You know that if there is a medicine out there that will relieve a symptom I am going to take it.  Except for Statins.  I will NOT go on medication for my "high" cholesterol because the doctors played that trick on me years ago when they said my Thyroid was not working properly so I needed medication for that. Looking back I really did not need to go on any thyroid medication at that time because the number were borderline but thanks to the drug companies peddling their wares all the doctors jumped on that band wagon and prescribed thyroid medicine for all their patients.  Now it is cholesterol medication if your numbers are just slightly above normal.  

So . . . back to the kitchen table on Saturday morning.   I have one of those wonderful little pill boxes with the days of the week on each compartment.  I sit down at the table, open my bag of pills and one by one fill all the little compartments for the entire week. I can see if I have forgotten to take meds and I can be sure that I will not overdose. Great invention !  It takes me about five minutes to get all the pills done and then I'm on my way to my next adventure.  

THE MAN . . . . . . . .   Holy Crap !  So he is taking maybe five different pills on a daily basis.  That's really not bad in my book but you would think he was climbing Mt. Everest when it comes Saturday morning and time to fill his little weekly pill container.  But then I guess if I had pills stashed ALL over the house it would be a much more difficult task than taking five small bottles out of a bag.   

Yes, he has pills and inhalers in drawers, cabinets, closets and suitcases.  I honestly don't know WHY this is the case because as I have said he only takes five different pills.  I think the fact that he gets all his medications delivered to the house from the VA at a moments notice just makes it too easy. The Man can make an automated phone call on Monday and by Tuesday afternoon his medication will be in the mail box.  (This fact that the government CAN actually do something quickly blows my mind.)  But on the flip side of that there really doesn't ever seem to be an occasion where the VA will say, "Hey Dwayne, you just ordered three hundred Valium four days ago. Do you REALLY need more right now?" In stead he just picks up the phone and orders pills easier than ordering pizza.  So because he can order pills just about any time he has a "stash" of medications "Just in Case".  

In our bedroom there are two dressers.  I have ONE DRAWER in the dresser next to my side of the bed. All the remaining FIVE drawers are filled with pills and inhalers of various types.  In the second bedroom where I DO have a whole dresser to myself, (except for the top drawer that still contains some of his wife's scarves), there is a second dresser were two of the three drawers are filled with oxygen hoses of different lengths.  (If the local fire department ever needs spare hoses we can supply them for a year.)  

We're just getting started.  In the laundry room there is a "linen" closet that contains some linen but one of the shelves in that closet contains boxes of rubber gloves and bandages. (I assume leftover from when his wife was ill.). Moving on into the kitchen two of the five cabinets hold assorted bottles of pills. I think this is the dwelling place of the "active" medications that he is currently taking but since they are scattered amidst coffee cups and drinking glasses I really can't be sure just what is in there.  There are also some pill bottles standing on the small butcher block that is next to where he sits at the kitchen table. He seems to use those bottles the most often although I can't really be sure of that.  I know that these butcher block pills are the ones that sometimes need to be cut in half which causes him all sorts of aggravation. (He has at least three pill cutters that the VA has given him.). 

So come Saturday morning and time to fill the weeks pill holder I bring out my little black bag of pills and The Man ventures off on his weekly scavenger hunt. How he knows where anything is I don't know. There will be weeks where he will have forgotten to take a particular pill because he didn't remember to take it out of the drawer/dresser/closet/cabinet.  I have tried on occasion to suggest that he keep ALL his medications in ONE  place but this idea is met with distain. He knows where everything is ! His "system"  works just fine!   

I can tell you one thing for sure though . . .   There is no medicine in the medicine cabinet !

PICK - UP STIX.

 I grew up playing the game pick-up-stix.   More often than not I was playing alone against myself and most often I lost.   Don't ask !    It's an only child thing which when combined with a mother who was more honest than the Pope it was only natural that I would loose against myself. 

Anyway . . .   along with the game of Clue, my all time favorite game, and The Game of Life, My second most favorite game, pick-up-stix challenged me mentally to figure out which stick was the one that would come out most easily without messing up the entire pile.  I laugh when I see the modern version of this game being sold in stores for ridiculous amounts of money. And people actually buy it !!!!

My adult version of pick-up-sticks is not one that I purchased anywhere, rather it is given to me by good old Mother Nature each and every day up here in Michigan.  There is ALWAYS a "breeze" blowing across this property that in addition to keeping the temperatures cool it whips through the trees and blows down all sorts of branches and twigs.  I expect it will probably bring down an entire tree one of these days, hopefully when I'm not here to experience it. 

When The Man is feeling up to it and it is not too cool for him he will more than likely be found out on his ride on mower going all over the property.  On any given day when the sun is shining and he is feeling energized I encourage him to get out of the house if he doesn't suggest it himself.  Because he is limited in just what he can do mowing the lawn is a great way for him to pass the time in the fresh air.  

On this piece of property there are about a dozen OLD apple trees, scattered here and there, no rhyme or reason. They are  in dire need of pruning but no one has taken care of them in years.  Just after we arrived in Michigan this spring I purchased a small chain saw with the intention of getting out there and cutting down all the dead branches but that has not yet happened. Between my shoulder and my back and my lack of nerve I have yet to turn on the chain saw.   Maybe next spring.  

Anyway . . .  all these OLD trees have old branches that love to snap off when the "breeze" blows.  (Sometimes I think the breeze is more like a typhoon.  I am fully expecting to get killed or at least knocked unconscious some day while sitting under my favorite Maple tree.  That tree has some REALLY big branches that look ready to drop so I avoid that space when its really windy. ).  The smaller apple trees have so many small twigs and branches that fall off each day and these become a challenge to Lawn Mower Man.  Apparently it is not good to ride over large sticks while on your lawn mower.  Something about damaging the blades ?  That makes total sense to me except the lawn mower is a big machine so I really doubt that anything smaller than a tree trunk will harm it but The Man is very meticulous in his mowing so all twigs and branches should be cleared out before he starts to mow.  (The same goes for the driveway that cuts through the woods. He does NOT mow the driveway but heaven forbid there are twigs that will scratch the underside of his car when we travel in and out of the property. The first time he asked me to walk along side him on his mower to pick up sticks as we did our "sweep" of the property I thought he was kidding.  He is dead serious !  It is something akin to detecting land mines in the jungles of Viet Nam.

And so today as The Man took a nap, (which he needs and does every day), I played pick-up-sticks.  I am too old and creaky to bend over to pick up all the twigs and sticks so I have a little rake that I use to scoop them up.  It's great fun trying to pick them on the first try and it entertains me for a while.  I figure I am outside in the fresh air and sunshine and getting some exercise walking around the property so it can't be all bad.  And as dumb as it sounds I am actually making a difference in the up keep of this place. 

THE GREAT CHILI BEAN COUNT-OFF

 Apparently the art of cooking chili is something many folks take VERY seriously.  I know that my oldest son and my son-in-law both make a great chili and both have their very own "secret" recipe with special ingredients that only they know.  I know there are national competitions for THE BEST chili although I have never attended one. To me chili is a mess of chop meat, kidney beans and some sort of tomato sauce with a fistful of chili powder thrown in. I like chili but I do not have my very own recipe and if I am in a restaurant that has chili on the menu I probably will not order it. 

The Man cooks chili . . .   The fact that The Man cooks is one of the reasons I have kept him around for these past four years.  I never knew a man that could and would cook, never mind have his very own special recipe for something.  When I first met The Man he would cook often but over the years his health has deteriorated to a point that even chopping up an onion is exhausting.  (That and the fact that we know I am a "control freak" The Man has been happy to step back out of the kitchen and let me do most of the cooking.  

This week the weather has turned cold and when that happens our desire for a nice bowl of chili starts to peak. ( I personally prefer a good lamb stew on a cold day but The Man doesn't eat lamb. ) So with the cold rain all day Wednesday we got to thinking it was time for The Man to make his "world famous" chili.  He prides himself in this endeavor and thinks his chili is the greatest.  His chili consists of chop meat, (which here in the great north woods is referred to as "hamburger". If you go into the grocery store and ask for chop meat they look at you like you are speaking Swahili. ) , kidney beans and tomato sauce.  Exactly what one would expect to go into chili.  

BUT . . .    first we must chop up the onion, celery and garlic into tiny pieces that are all exactly the same size and shape. The last time WE made chili I told The Man he could sit and just tell me what to do. Apparently I did not do a good job because yesterday, in spite of having to stand in the kitchen and take the chance of blowing himself up because he is wearing oxygen while cooking on a gas stove with an open flame, The Man insisted on making the chili himself.  Once the onion, celery and garlic where chopped I got to light the stove and melt the butter.  (I would have used olive oil but The Man sautés in butter.). He kept a VERY close eye on me that I did not have the flame too high so the butter did not burn. Next he added the "hamburger" to the pan. (If I was cooking the entire wad of chop meat would have been dumped out of its package and into the pan where I would then break it up as it was cooking. ) WRONG ! The Man broke off small chunks of meat and slowly added them to the pot one at a time. I was in charge of keeping it from burning.  He watched me like a hawk !  Once the meat was cooked he then drained off the fat and we were ready to add the beans and sauce. I had opened the cans and drained the beans so all he had to do was dump the contents of the two cans into the meat mixture.  NOT !!

First of all I threw him a curve because instead of adding TWO 8 oz cans of tomato sauce I had bought ONE   16 oz can.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that 2 X 8 equals 16 ?). This caused a major disruption. I watched him as he poured ALMOST the whole can of tomato sauce into the pan. The Man actually left a quarter of an inch of sauce in the bottom of the can telling me it would be TOO MUCH to add the whole can.  (I swear he said this and I swear I tried very very hard not to laugh.). 

But that was only the beginning.  Next it was the beans turn to be thrown into the pot.  The Man left about five  beans in the bottom of the can after he dumped the rest of them into his chili.  I picked up the can and looked in it before throwing it out and said. "Oh look, there are still some beans in the can. Should I throw them into the pot?".  And he said,  "NO.  There are enough beans in the chili already and he didn't want to add any more."  

It was at this point that I said I was going out to feed the deer. Once outside and away from his sight I laughed myself silly and almost peed my pants.  

I did not know that chili was only permitted to have a certain number of beans in it. I will keep this in mind the next time someone makes chili for me and ask them not what their secret ingredient is that makes their chili special BUT how many beans do they use. 

OH MY ACHIN' BONES

I remember my mother and father saying these exact words . . . "OH BOY, my bones sure do ache".  My mom died pretty young so at sixty two her bones probably didn't ache as much as my father's bones did by the time he was ninety seven.  As a young person I had no idea what they were talking about.  How could your bones ache ?  Muscles could ache, joints could ache, head could ache but BONES ?????  Well take my word for it . . .   Bones can ache !!

Here I am today, twenty two years younger than my father was when he died and I can not imagine if my bones ache this much now what were his bones feeling like at ninety seven years old.  The smart thing that my dad did was he moved to Florida for the winters while he was in his eighties and then stayed there full time for the last seven years of his life.  

VERY SMART MAN !!!  As I am coming to realize my dad knew the key to long and happy life with bones that did not ache.  

HEAT AND SUNSHINE !!!!!!

Something that I am sorely lacking right about now in these cold north woods of Michigan. To put it bluntly . . .  It is FREAKING COLD up here in the UP !! And as a result of this chilly, damp weather my bones are aching like never before.  (And no it's not Covid 19. . .  I have no other symptoms but you know that wast he first thing I thought about the I started aching.  Funny how that works . . .  used to be when you got some symptom your brain immediately went to Cancer.  Now everything is probably Covid 19.)

I have been a full time resident of the sunshine state for the past sixteen and a half years with four years of snow "birding" before that.  I was only fifty five years old when we bought our first residence in Florida so at that time my bones didn't do too much aching except when I pushed them too hard, (like that ever happened) or did something stupid, ( that happened often! ) 

At that time of my life Florida was still a warm vacation spot to be enjoyed during the cold NY winters. We would fly down for a couple of weeks, warm our bones and then head back to NY for another month or so of cold only to repeat again and again.  When that got to be a bother we sold in NY and moved South permanently.  I knew Florida was HOT in the summer but after a few years of being there you really do get used to it.  So for the past twenty years my bones have been warming in the Florida sunshine. When I am in Florida I have HAPPY bones.  Sure I get a little achey now and then but I don't live on Tylenol or Aspirin like I've been doing up here.

It was a lovely summer here. I did not miss the HEAT and HUMIDITY that flows into Florida  like a river of lava. Every time I talked to my daughter she would say, "Mom, don't come home ! It's terribly hot this summer! " And I would laugh and tell her how it was seventy two and sunny with a gentle breeze up where I am.  She would curse me and we would laugh. 

I'm not laughing now !  This morning the temperature was 43 degrees !!  At least it had stopped raining. Yesterday it rained ALL day and the temperatures didn't get out of the LOW fifties.  Even I couldn't get warm. Forget The Man trying to be warm.  He had the heat on from the minute he got up, (wearing only his underwear . . . no wonder he is cold . . . DUH ! ) to the time we went to bed.  The eighty degree heat in the house felt GOOD ! Every inch of my body was chilled yesterday and as a result every bone in my body was yelling at me to get my ass back to Florida !  

There is definitely something to this "putting a chill in your bones" theory.  Today the sun is out but it is still cold by my standards so I'm not outside sitting under my favorite tree in the sun.  I think those days are gone for this year and I'm not going to be ache free until I return to Florida in five weeks.  If it were up to me I'd be in the car today but we have to wait until after HUNTING SEASON !  Does The Man hunt any more ? NO !  Do we need the venison to take to Florida to sustain us through the hot winter months ? NO !  Sooooooooooooo . . .  why must we wait until after hunting season ???  I have no idea !  Perhaps we resemble a couple of old deer and if we leave the house before the end of hunting season some one may shoot us ?  Whatever the reason I'm here for another 5 weeks and and seventeen hours. 

But other than my bones, who's counting ?

FOR SALE ! OR IS IT ????

Oh My !   My patience and my brain are being pushed to their limits.  

Once again my failure to understand the male psyche is causing me to get very frustrated with Mr. Man. I am getting whiplash from shaking my head so often and so severely.  Put simply . . . I am SO confused !

My understanding is that The Man wants to get rid of stuff. At least this is what he has said. Often ! His exact words were, "I want to get rid of stuff!"  so I'm pretty sure I have not mis understood his intentions. 

The Man has also said that he wants the parson who takes his stuff to appreciate its value and enjoy using it.  I take this to mean that he does not want the local homeless person to take the spinning wheel and use it for firewood.  (Although it probably would be appreciated because the wood would make a nice warm fire to keep the homeless person warm.). 

I have tried to explain to The Man that a person is only going to purchase an item if it is something they want.  I mean, when was the last time you spent four hundred dollars on a spinning wheel just because you wanted to spend that amount of money on something you had no use for?  This thinking is apparently too complex for The Man because he continues to make the same statement over and over. 

Moving on past this road block I have managed to convince The Man that we can sell some stuff through the internet. We have posted several items on Facebook Marketplace and have sold over a thousand dollars worth of things.  But as much as he says he wants to sell these things it is an ordeal to get him to let them go. 

Today we had a woman and her husband drive an hour to look at and purchase a "spool rack". It was a big, awkward thing that they had to put in the back of their pick up truck in spite of the fact that it was raining. The Man, My Man, had said he wanted twenty dollars for this thing. I think that was a fair price and apparently the woman who bought it thought it was an excellent price to drive an hour to come and get it. Once she and her husband were here she asked if we had some other weaving related item that I had never heard of but My Man knew exactly what she was talking about. Voila ! We had exactly what the woman was looking for and she was SO excited. (Remember the part where My Man said he wants someone who will really appreciate an item to be the one to buy it?). 

It was as if the woman had asked for The Man's kidney !  

This dumb ass little box of a thing has been kicking around the living room for weeks as part of the stuff "we" want to get rid of.  It is so small and inconsequential that we have not bothered to post it on our list of things for sale. It just happened that this woman today has been looking for exactly this thing but has not been able to find one anywhere.  She immediately offered The Man thirty dollars for it. (They are apparently selling new for about forty dollars so I figured this was a good deal and it would mean one more thing gone from the house. ) 

He didn't want to sell it to her !   I have no idea why but he looked like she was trying to sell him some swamp land in Florida.  He is so suspicious of everyone and everything. 

Last I checked no one had a black market for weaving items so when this woman said she wanted to buy this thing it was because she was excited to find something she could USE . 

I talked The Man into selling it to her for the thirty dollars she was offering but I really think he felt he was being "cheated".  

First of all . . .  the thing, what ever the hell it was, was doing us no good sitting in the middle of the living room floor. Secondly, because we hadn't expected to get rid of it I thought it was a win win to find someone right then and there to take the damn thing.  

It's not like we need to sell this stuff for top dollar because our livelihood depends on it.  We will not starve to death if we don't get thirty five dollars in stead of thirty for something.  It's just one less thing his kids will throw out once he is gone. 

As todays couple was leaving and getting ready to put the spool rack into their truck My Man noticed a plastic grocery bag hanging on the spool rack.  My Man stood in the door way to the living room asking me what was in that plastic bag. (It has been hanging there for at least two weeks but he never thought to look in it before now.) I HAD looked in the bag last week and it held empty cardboard spools that would go on the spool rack. I told him this and his next question was, "Are you sure there isn't anything else in there with them?" . . .  

LIKE WHAT ?????   Twenty billion dollars in gold nuggets ??   A map to king Solomons mine ?  Or maybe the Holy Grail is in there !!!!!!!   

WHAT ???????   It's full of EMPTY CARD BOARD SPOOLS !!!!!!!   

OH MY GOD  . . .   Are we selling this crap or what ????  

WHEN IT COUNTS

I grew up in the fifties.  I was born in 1945 and I started kindergarten in 1949.  At that time the NYC cut off for entering school was you had to be five years old by May first.  My birthday was April 28th so I started and spent most of my kindergarten years while I was four years old.  That probably explains a lot !

Back in the forties and fifties parents did not have a say in when or where their kids went to school. If you were going to be five before the cut off . . .  you started school in September.  You didn't get to pick and choose your school because the only choice you had was Catholic school or public school and both of those were within walking distance.  There were no school buses, you walked every day . . . fall, winter and spring. Your parents didn't drive you to school because any family who owned a car used that car for the dad to get to work each day.  If you got sick during school you waited till school was over and then dragged your sorry ass home.  (I remember one time I got sick in school and my mother had to call a cab and spend money to come and get me. She was not a happy camper.)  

All the kids in my neighborhood went to the same two schools.  There was a rivalry between the Catholic school kids and us public school kids.  Basically we thought the Catholic school kids were snobs and wusses. The Catholic school kids thought us public school kids were too dumb to get into their  school so they looked at us like we were inferior.  (I didn't want to go to Catholic school because I didn't want some nun whacking me on my knuckles if I didn't know the answer to her question.) 

Neither Catholic school nor public schools back in the fifties had any special programs for "special" kids.  There were no classes for the "Gifted and Talented" nor were there any classes for kids with learning disabilities. There were classrooms filled with kids . . . some were smarter and some were slower but we were all in the same class and we all learned the same stuff every single day.  

Isn't it amazing how sixty years ago there was no Attention Deficit Disorder, (ADD), or  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Kids were not Hyperactive or Autistic.  No one ever knew anyone with Downs Syndrome or Dyslexia. We just knew that Johnny was a little slow so we would all help him during class and Mary was REALLY smart so we all wanted her on our team for the spelling bee. If Robert couldn't sit still while the teacher was teaching we all worried that he would get sent to the principal who had a "spanking machine" in her office. (Talk about your Urban Legends . . .  there wasn't a kid in my school who didn't know about Miss Schluter's spanking machine that was hidden some where in her office. None of ever saw this mythical machine but we just KNEW it existed. Just the possibility of physical torture was a deterrent for even the most active of us kids. )

Fast forward to 2020 where just about every kid you meet has been diagnosed with something that explains his or her behavior.  It's a good thing that we have all the testing to identify problems in kids so that they can get the help they need BUT just like the fact that I never wore a helmet when I rode my bike or roller skated and am still alive to write about it I also have come to the realization that I probably "suffer" from OCD.  All these years later and I'm just beginning to put the pieces together. 

I looked up Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and the definition says that anxiety is a large component of this affliction.  Check that one off for me . . .  That's been an issue all my life until I went on my "Happy Pills". The fact that I have so generously passed my anxiety on to my children and grand children is just a bonus for us all.  

To be clear, I have never been nor ever will be officially diagnosed with OCD but I know I must have it. And the reason I know I must have it became clear to me today as I was sitting outside crocheting. 

 I like to crochet . . . I learned from my mom years and years ago and when ever I am stressed or bored or just want something to do that doesn't require much thought I pick up some yarn and make an Afghan.  (When I was a kid I made hundreds of pot holders but now that I'm an adult I have moved up to afghans.). My creations are not complex or masterful but I enjoy doing them. What caught my attention today was that I realized I was counting the stitches which is really not necessary when going in a straight line. Not only do I count the stitches but since I'm doing a "double crochet" I count each loop that I make. 

Example . . .

"One one one, two two two, three three three and so on. I do the counting in my head so no one around me knows just how nuts I am but no matter what is going on around me I keep counting.  This realization got me thinking about when I go for a walk . . . I count my steps . . .  ALWAYS ! When I'm in the pool and treading water I find myself counting. As I sit here by the window watching the deer if I'm not blogging I count as I'm rocking in the chair.  

So it's totally official . . .   I am certifiable !!!  All those years that I struggled in school, HATING school, (except for kindergarten and college) it is because I had a "disability".  Go Figure !  Just think if I had been a kid growing up today I could have all sorts of special services to help me learn.

What I can't figure out is how I did manage to survive all these years ? 

I think I'll sit down and count the reasons I've made it this far. 

MOWER MAN

 It is THE PERFECT DAY here in Upper Michigan and I am taking full advantage of this wonderful weather because I know it could be snowing tomorrow. 

The Man and I had decided that today would be devoted to cleaning up the "flower bed" outside the French doors in the kitchen.  When ever we are sitting at the kitchen table, like ALWAYS, our view is of the back field, the barn and this God awful mess that is supposed to be an eighteen inch wide, fifteen feet long bed of flowers.  I've written about it before.  The wild roses have totally taken over the space and are killers for plants and humans who dare try to invade their space.  It is a MESS of vines, underground roots, horrible thorns and spikes the likes of which I have never encountered before.  In the spring there were Peonies blooming here but they have succumbed to the viscous roses.  

Today is bright and sunny,  just about seventy degrees. The perfect day for working in the garden. 

IF YOU ARE TWENTY YEARS OLD !

Sadly The Man and I are well past twenty years old and even though our brains say we can do something our bodies SCREAM NO !!!!!!!   

I am now witting outside with one ice pack on my shoulder and another ice pack on my back. We managed to attack about two thirds of the "garden" before we both fell apart.  I went into the house to take a couple of Bayer Back and Body pills and to grab the ice packs while The Man went to bed !  SMART GUY !  I left him to recharge while I came back outside to sit in my lawn chair and relax in the sun.  It was WONDERFUL !   Every so often I would get up and sweep a little dirt off the patio or walk around and pick up a few sticks from the yard.  After about two hours of this The Man showed up and decided to cut some grass.  

Mower Man LOVES his ride on mower and tractor but it has been quite a few weeks/days since he has been out mowing.  It's been too hot or too cold, either the sun is too hot or the rain is too cold.  But the bottom line is The Man has not been feeling well.  Over the past couple of months I have seen him getting weaker and weaker.  Just subtle changes but his breathing is definitely getting worse so any physical exertion leaves him drained.  He has tried to get one of the neighborhood kids to mow the yard for us but that is just causing The Man more anxiety. As he sits at the kitchen table watching the kid mow The Man becomes more and more agitated because the kid is "Not doing it right!". Who knew there was a right and wrong way to mow grass ! Apparently one must go up and down a certain way, or start on the outside and work your way to the center, or is it start at the center and work your way out?  I'm really not sure exactly what the "proper" way to mow is but how ever the kid does it The Man is pissing and moaning that it's not right.  He never says this to the kid. He just sits at the table getting more and more upset. 

I have thought about having The Man teach me how to drive the mower but then I came to my senses and decided that was NOT a good idea ! And what was that blog I just wrote a few days ago about doing too much ?

You would think that sitting on a ride on lawn mower to cut the grass would be relaxing, if not boring. Mower Man some how manages to make it exhausting.  Even with him pulling a cart behind the mower so he can put an oxygen tank in there in order to have oxygen flowing the entire time he still gets winded.  I keep telling him to raise the oxygen intake from two to three so he would get more oxygen but he has a mental block about doing that.  It is his way of denying that his breathing is getting worse.  I TOTALLY get it but I would think that upping the oxygen is preferable to dropping dead. I'm just saying . . . 

Bottom line is the back yard looks wonderful this evening.  Flower bed is almost all cleaned out, the back lawn is all cut and looking wonderful and the deer are super happy because Lawn Mower Man drove his mower all the way out to the pond and made a nice wide cut in the tall grass so the deer can have a "green carpet" to walk down when they come into the yard tonight for their nightly snack of corn. 

I bet we all sleep well tonight ! 

HOW DO THE TURKEYS CROSS THE ROAD ?

 As we drove down the road this morning on our way out to the "highway" we could see that up ahead there was something in the middle of the road.  It is completely normal to have a deer or two standing in the road but this morning it was turkeys.  Standing smack dab in the center of the road were two large tom turkeys. As we drove closer the two of them started running back and forth presumably trying to decide which side of the road they wanted to be on.  One went right, one went left and then the one on the left changed his mind and ran back across the road to join his friend on the right. As all this was going on and we were sitting at a dead stop I could see, standing in the grass on the left side of the road, mommy turkey and her three teenage chicks. The four of them were standing as still as we were just watching the two idiots in the middle of the road running back and forth.  When the two toms finally made it to the right side of the road mamma turkey and her kids turned around where they were on the left side of the road and walked back into the woods.  

In my mind she was muttering to her kids about their idiot father and uncle who almost got killed in the middle of the road.  

All this got me thinking about Husband when we used to go out to run some errands. (The Man actually exhibits similar behavior but is a little better than Husband ever was.)  On any given day we would go out to the car with a list of maybe five things to get done. The list might include things like a stop at Home Depot, Costco, the gas station, the post office and lunch.  As we got into the car I would have mapped out, in my head,  a route that began at the furthest point and worked our way back without back tracking. Husband would get into the car and just drive.  He might go South, then West, then South, then North, then East, then West, then South, then West . . . .  you get the idea.  There was no plan, no rhyme or reason just a mission to go to the five places in what ever order he thought of at the time.  

It DROVE ME NUTS !!!!  Especially during those years when there was a gas shortage and the price of gas was through the roof.  Didn't matter!   Husband was off and running and he didn't care which direction he was going at the time.  (Just like the turkeys in the road this morning.). And like Mamma turkey I would be sitting next to him muttering to the kids or myself about the lack of planning on the part of Husband. 

It wasn't always like that, or maybe it was but I was just too naive to notice.  When I first met Husband he impressed me with his maturity and intelligence. He was "grounded",  something that I was seriously lacking at the time.  He was perfect for me. He calmed the "wild child" in me and helped me to mature.

Husband was my rock and my anchor. 

Only to realize years later that rocks and anchors weigh you down and can drown you if you're not careful.

So as time went on I began to think for myself and Husband began to pull back and let me be, his words, "A Control Freak".  I did/do have "control issues and I did/do like to be "in charge",   Husband was in charge of going to work and making money and I was in charge of everything else.  And then I would have the audacity to complain that Husband didn't do anything around the house.  He was way smarter than I thought. 

And you would think I would have learned !   

Fast forward to The Man and our relationship.  NO WAY IN HELL did I want to have another man in my life. Yet here I am ! And like my first time around with Husband I am slowly taking over everything as The Man pulls back.  The one difference here is that The Man's health is so crappy that he needs to have someone helping him even when he protests. It's really quite frustrating for both of us.  

We are like the two turkeys in the middle of the road running this way and that trying to keep from getting killed.  

V. I. C.

 Today I need to tell you about The Man and his V I C in the trunk of his car.  In case you aren't familiar with the acronym  V I C   it means "Very Important Crap"  ! 

You see, not only does The Man have an enormous collection of crap IN the house AND the barn AND the attic AND the cellar  the collection also extends to the trunk of his car. 

Now I have seen cars who's interior resemble the city dump on trash day, ( I will not name names but some very close relations of mine who have given birth to my youngest grand children have been know to have DISGUSTING car interiors.   French fries and gummy worms are the least of it.  Although now that. my grand children are older things have improved considerably.)  The Man's car is not any where near that category of pig pen but the trunk of his car is a most interesting place.

For the past couple of weeks The Man has been looking for a particular electric cord that will allow him to charge and run one of his portable concentrators while in the car. He has three portable concentrators and we will travel with all three when we finally head back to Florida in October. Naturally all three have different connections so each one has it's own set of wires. There are two sets of wires for each machine, one that plugs into an outlet and one that can plug into the cigarette lighter in the car. ONE of the cigarette lighter cords is missing.  It has been missing for three months but it is only now that WE are beginning to look toward a departure date that The Man has smartly begun to think about what he will need to travel.  (See . . . He really Does have a brain )

Over the past weekend I searched the entire RV,  his car and the house. NO CORD !  Today, for what ever reason, (Maybe it is the full moon ?) The Man has started to freak out about this cord. I left him looking around in the house while I went first to the RV which I TOTALLY searched in every nook and cranny, and then to his car.  

Backing up a bit to last week when The Man decided this cord MUST be in the console of the car I took EVERYTHING out of the console and the glove compartment but there was no cord in either.  I did look in the trunk and under all the seats but didn't find anything. So today when he once again decided to look for the cord I went back out to the car. 

Under the seats there was the usual assortment of receipts from Burger King, assorted tissues in varying stages of nastiness, a couple of pennies and a lot of crumbs.  NO CORD !  On to the glove box and the console AGAIN !  Still no cord.  So now it is time to get serious and REALLY search the trunk once again. 

The trunk, for the most part is empty. I have put two small cardboard boxes in there in anticipation of our trip south. Other than that there is only ONE other thing. There is a medium sized plastic storage box about a foot high, ten inches wide and a foot and a half long.  It has a lid that locks down so nothing can fall out. It is into this "Dark Hole" that I ventured this afternoon. 

Now please remember that this box was put in the car about two years ago . . .  long after The Man started coming down to Florida for the winter. I don't know if he plans on taking the scenic route through northern Canada and the Rockies but the accumulation of wool hats and gloves could sustain an Eskimo village for three winters.  There is also a portable compressor for inflating tires which is a good idea except there is no way in Hell The Man could do this if we got a flat. That is why I have a Triple A membership and he has On Star. But the compressor is in there just in case.  Maybe he figures he could use it for breathing if the three portable concentrators all malfunction at the same time ?  

There are also a couple of paring knives . . .  in case we want to peel a potato while traveling ? . . .  along with a ratchet strap, (which I have only become familiar with since being with The Man), and a piece of burlap cloth.  Not sure what the cloth is for, (it's not big enough to wrap my body in so I guess I don't have worry about that), but there must have been a reason at some point for The Man to include it in the collection.  But there is NO cord.

The only positive thing that came from today's search is that when we are driving through the Swiss Alps on our way to Florida I'll know where the wool caps and gloves are.