IT'S ONLY A CARD !

 I am loosing it !!!  It amazes me that I can screw up so many things in the span of ONE DAY 

Yesterday I FINALLY got to go to lunch with 2 friends from NY who are wintering in FL. We have been trying to get together for weeks but still had not found the time when all 3 of us were free. Yesterday was the day and it was LOVELY !!!!  Out door seating on the water, sunny, warm day, good friends and lots of laughs. (None of us were drinking because at our age I do not need a DWI.  And besides, our brains are so rotted at this point we don't need to get drunk to get stupid.)  I am the oldest of this group by 5 & 10 years. I am NOT a roll model for mature women but I am the perfect example of brains gone rotten.  

We met at the restaurant and I proceeded to tell them that our fourth NY buddy, who is still in NY, was celebrating her 80th birthday that day.  We decided to call her but no one was answering.  Then we decided to try face time so she could see us.  Again, no one answered.  (Not answering a phone at our age only means one thing . . .   we are NOT dead on the floor, we just can't find our phone.)  I decided I would try calling her from my car on my trip home but then decided to wait until I got home because I need to completely focus on my driving.  Just before I reached home I received a text message from "The Birthday Girl". I figured she had seen that we had tried to call and was texting to tell me why she didn't answer.  I waited till I got home to read her text.    This is want it said. . .  "HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING?    MY BIRTHDAY IS IN APRIL !"     OMG !!!!!!!  I knew that. We both have April birthdays.  This is only FEBRUARY !!!!!   For days I have been looking at the calendar and saying to myself that I MUST send Sharon a card.  I have no idea why I was thinking that her birthday is this month. 

I AM LOOSING IT !!!

Going back two days I had another incident where I questioned my ability to be a rational, functioning human being.  Tuesday night is trash night. Trash can go out to the trash "bin" after 6 PM. Everyone living on our cul-de-sac brings their trash and recycling out on Tuesday night to be picked up on Wednesday morning.  Garbage must be in tied garbage bags and recycling is sorted into paper in one box and glass and plastic in another box, Everyone has their own recycle boxes to cart out to the street.  I have a wagon just for this purpose.  I loaded up my wagon with the 2 recycling containers and my bag of garbage.  By 6:00 it was still light out so I first pulled my wagon over to the mail box to get my mail.  I had 4 pieces of mail. Three were junk and the fourth was a pink envelope addressed to me with the return sticker from a women I met in Alaska several years ago.  She is an old friend of Dwaynes who we stopped to see on one of our trips through Anchorage.  She was delightful and I really enjoyed meeting her.  We have exchanged Christmas cards over the past several years so it was a bit of a surprise to get a card from her.  I put the 3  pieces of junk mail in my recycle bin and I swear that I. put Ruth's card in my wagon.  From the mailbox I went to the garbage drop area, put down my paper bin, the glass and plastic barrel and my garbage bag.  As I walked back to my condo I realized that the little pink card was not in the wagon.  I turned around and went back to the garbage "bin" where I looked through my paper box to see if I stupidly had put the card in there.  NO CARD!  Then I checked the glass and plastic barrel.  NO CARD IN THERE.  By now it is dark so I brought the wagon back to the house and got a flashlight. Returning to the street I checked my mailbox, (did I put the card back in there?). NO CARD !  I checked the grass and walks, I rechecked the recycle container, NO CARD !!!   It had vanished into thin air !!!!!!!!!!

I returned home and told The Man what had happened and his response was, "IT'S ONLY A CARD !"  

No !!!  . . .  It was a card from a lady that I really liked. And it was a card that appeared out of the blue. (Not for any holiday)  AND it was addressed to ME !!!  This person had sent me a card. There had to have been a reason it was sent to me and not to The Man.  Maybe she died and her husband sent the card. Maybe she wanted to know how The Man was doing but didn't want to upset him by talking to him.  Maybe, Maybe, Maybe ???????????????

This has really got me wondering if I am fit to be a part of the human race.  Maybe I should check myself in at the local Psych ward or memory care facility.  Or MAYBE it is a sign that I can not take much more worrying about everyone else. Maybe I need to erase my brain and just focus on ME.  

But who am I kidding.  That will never happen. I will continue on until I am found wandering along the highway not knowing who or where I am.  Maybe I need to be injected with a chip like they do for dogs and cats.  The question is . . .  DO I REALLY WANT TO BE FOUND !!!!???? 

THE BURNING BUTT

 Lately life around here has been quite interesting.  More so than usual, if that is possible.  The Man has been in and out of the hospital with his COPD and he is in need of a lot more help that he used to be. This is hard on both of us physically and mentally.  He has lost a lot of weight but he is still heavy enough that my old bones can't manage pushing him around in a wheel chair and lifting the chair in and out of the car. (And yet in spite of all this he still insists that he drive!   Good thing my guardian angel is used to taking care of me.) 

But enough about The Man.  All my blogs seem to revolve around him. Which is not that strange because he provides me with endless sources of material. Today I thought it only fair that I share my latest misadventure with you so you will be reminded that, (I know this will be hard to believe), I am NOT perfect !  (I try to keep that fact to myself but every so often I do something so stupid that it's just too good not to share,

It all started with The Man's latest trip to the hospital for 4 days.  We went to the ER by ambulance because neither he nor I was up to the challenge of getting him out of the house, into the car and into the hospital.  (And if you arrive by ambulance you are seen a LOT quicker.)  Once we were in a room in the ER our job was to sit and wait until someone decided if The Man was going to be kept there or sent home.  It takes as myriad of tests and hours of sitting waiting until a decision is made. In this case it only took 6 hours.  Because the ER is such a busy place they frown on visitors walking around outside of the patients room. No problem there, I am a lazy lump who delights in sitting around while The Man sleeps.  Finally he was sent up to a room and I got to go home to an empty house where I promptly got some snacks and planted myself on the couch to catch up on some serious TV time watching something I wanted to watch. Several hours later I got a few hours sleep and then headed up to the hospital where I proceeded to sit on my butt for the next 3 days. By the time The Man was released my back was in pain.  Hauling the wheel chair and The Man did not help matters.  

So now you have the background story . . .   About 3 days ago my back was really sending me distress signals that it was NOT HAPPY !  I made an emergency visit to the chiropractor but even that wasn't enough to quiet down my muscles. Now it was time to take matters into my own hands.  I know the different "twinges" that occur when my back is in crisis and these were the ones that required ice rather than heat.  I dug an ice pack from the freezer, wrapped it in a towel and stuck it into my underwear where it rode around for the day until it melted.  Having made my back feel better I did the same the following day . . .  with one minor change.   I was in a hurry and didn't wrap the ice pack in a towel, I just went COLD turkey and stuck the damn thing in my underwear and proceeded to sit on the lanai and visit with a friend for an hour or so.  The cold pack felt good sitting and my back felt good also. Later in the day I removed the ice pack that was now melted, stuck it back in the freezer and went to get ready for bed.  

SURPRISE !!!!

I have an 4X6 inch patch of freezer burn on my butt !!!   IT HURTS LIKE HELL !!!!  Frost bite is no joke folks. That patch of skin is as sore as any sunburn I have ever gotten at the beach.  Luckily it is in a place that the world will never see so no one can see what a dumb ass I am.  

The Aloe is working well at calming things down but it will be quite a while before I put another ice pack on my body. 

MORE FUN AND GAMES.

 Some people have fun by jumping out of a plane.  Others might climb onto a raft and race down a raging river.  I just deal with crazy old people to stay entertained each day.  God has placed not one but TWO old folks in my life to entertain me.  I guess taking care of Cousin Lu Lu wasn't enough for me to do penance with, God felt the need to add The Man to my life to fill in the quiet times when Lu Lu isn't driving me nuts.   God was very tricky when he sucked me into sharing my life with The Man.  God gave us several years of travel, cruises and trips to Alaska so that I would get totally immersed in my new life with The Man.  Stupid me fell for it !!  Hook line and sinker.  

Apparently now it is pay back time.  

I firmly believe that God puts us where we are supposed to be. I guess The Man was in need of someone to help him through this COPD adventure. So here I am, once again, sitting in a hospital room staring at my man who is in the hospital bed breathing through a mask that's pumping Oxygen into his lungs.  Funny joke God !

COPD is a crappy way to live.  We go for months/weeks living what's a normal life for us and then WHAM !!!  The Man's breathing goes to shit and we are back in the hospital.  There is nothing I love more than sitting in a hospital room staring at The Man. It'a like going to school . . .   I have to be here but I really do not like it !  But if I am honest maybe I do "enjoy" this just a little?  Being here at the hospital I get to do all the things that I don't usually get to do when I am home.  I can sit and be a lazy lump for the entire day.  I have my computer so I have time to blog.  I get to read the entire newspaper each morning. I have a good book that I don't take enough time to sit and read so now I can read all day while The Man naps or watches TV.  It really isn't such a bad deal.  

Of course there is a down side to all this.  When The Man is sick he gets VERY stubborn.  This is a side of him that I share. Two stubborn people living together can be a disaster.  Usually we do very well together but when he is sick he also gets STUPID !!  Well, now that I think about it he does a LOT of dumb things which is usually what puts him in the hospital.  He doesn't drink enough water.  A quarter of a cup of water a day is NOT enough. If you ask him is he has had a lot of water today he will get pissed and tell you "Of course!"  In his little brain he thinks he is drinking a lot but I know better.  Not drinking gets his kidneys in a tizzy so his feet start to swell. When his feet start to swell it puts pressure on his heart. Add to that his lousy lungs and we have a recipe for disaster.  Not using his breathing machine causes him to retain CO2 in his lungs which then cause his organs to become starved of oxygen and start failing to work properly.  Between the CO2 poisoning and the failing kidneys The Man becomes SO STUBBORN that he won't listen to anyone, (Doctors included) so we end up in the ER where we have to wait for hours and hours. ( I think we are on a first name basis with most of the ER staff. )

Our latest adventure was even more exciting because The Man was so weak we had to call 911 to get the firemen to come take him to the ER.  Luckily I watch enough stupid TV that I know I need to keep a "To Go Bag" for when these emergency trips occur.  (I'm getting so smart) 

We are now situated in a comfy room. The man is enjoying being waited on and I am enjoying not having to wait on him. Except for the twelve thousand things that he needs every two seconds. At 5 or 6 o'clock when I leave here I smile thinking "I'm Free". I wish the nurses "GOOD LUCK" as I merrily skip out to my car.   

            

NIGHT IS FOR SLEEPING

 Night is for sleeping, unless you are a new born baby or a crazy old person.  I have been known to wander around the house at night on those occasions when I can't sleep. If I can't get to sleep or if I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep I will QUIETLY get out of bed and leave the bedroom to wander or sit in my favorite chair to read.  I do NOT start talking to my partner about what I am going to do in the morning, what I will cook for dinner the next day or any other STUPID thing I can think of.  The Man and I will spend ALL day together and not speak.  If The Man speaks to me it is to tell me that his hockey team has a game that night or to ask what's for dinner.  I in turn will attempt to talk to The Man but that is a futile task.  He hears NOTHING that I may be saying and if he does hear me he will go off on one of his tirades where he complains about all the stupid people in the world.  This is not a win-win conversation so I usually just don't talk.  Then after 12 hours of being attached at the hip and saying nothing we will crawl into bed at midnight and he is start talking !!!!  It could be about anything under the sun.  It seems that the bed is the trigger that his brain needs to start working.  I on the other hand climb into bed and totally shut down my brain. (Not that it's ever in high gear but what little thoughts I ever have I quiet them down so I can sleep.). Not easy to do when The Man is sitting up chatting away.  

This condition of night time ramblings is not exclusive to The Man.  Cousin Lu Lu has now decided to call me several times a day AND evening.  If I go to visit her during the day I become #1 on her radar and her phone. I always call her before going to visit so my name and number pop up on her phone screen.  They will remain there until she gets another call. Unfortunately she does not get many phone calls so every time she looks at her phone she sees my name. That's when I get the "Cathie?  Did you just call me?"call. This can occur several times a day. Before she hangs up she always says, "You know you can visit me any time!"   If I don't talk to her for a while she forgets I exist. I love it when that happens.  But I'm still not free and clear.  

The other night I went to bed around 11:30 PM. The Man was still talking but I didn't care. I was tired!!  I had visited Cousin Lu Lu for almost 3 hours that day and I was at the end of my rope.  I told The Man I was going to sleep now so he should save his important thoughts until the morning. (I know full well that he will have totally forgotten what ever it was that NEEDED to be discussed at midnight.). As is typical I turned off the ringer on my phone so I would not be interrupted during the night.  It is bad enough I have Clarabell the clown sleeping next to me, waking me up several times during the night with his bells and whistles on his sleep machine. I do NOT need phone calls from Loopy Lu waking me up at 3 AM.  Good thing I did turn off my phone because when I woke up the next morning I checked my phone and I had 4 messages from calls that came in at 12:45 AM.  The first voice mail was from Lu Lu.   "Cathie,  I can't find Ed". (Ed is her dead husband). Call #2 was from her adult residence. "Lucille is very confused and can't find her husband. Can you come and settle her down." (She apparently woke up looking for Ed and started SCREAMING so that her neighbors called the front desk.). Call #3 was the Jupiter Police.  "Lucille is very upset and threatening to kill herself. Would I please come settle her down." (She did NOT actually say she was going to kill herself, What she said was that she couldn't find her husband, she missed him so much that she want to die to be with him.). The last phone message was from the residence saying they called her aide who got out of bed and went over to the residence in the middle of the night to settle Loopy Lu. She gave her a sedative and that was that.  The aide is a saint!  She is getting paid big bucks for this but she is still a saint. There is no way in Hell I would be getting up and driving all the way over to where Lu Lu lives at 12:30 in the morning.  That is something that I would only do for my children !

The following day I checked in with the aide who is not the least bit fazed by the midnight phone calls.  She says it is part of her job.  God love her.   If that was part of my job I would quit first day in. No amount of money gets me up in the middle of the night to have a discussion with my cousin who is slowly loosing it.  She makes no sense when she is having a good day.  Add a martini at bedtime and she is out in space looking for her dead husband.  The strange thing about all this is that Lu Lu never forgets my phone number. She can't tell you how old she is or what she had for breakfast but she knows who to call when she wants anything.  Last night I took a shower and when I came out at 11:30 PM I had a phone message from you know who.  She left a voice mail.  She was in the "hospital" at her residence and no one would answer her calls. She needed help.  At first I was going to ignore the call but then my conscience got the best of me and I called her back.  The phone rang and rang and rang.  NO answer.  So now my brain gets going, Maybe she IS in the hospital. Maybe she is laying on the floor. Should I get dressed and drive over there? I quickly came to my senses, turned off my phone and went to bed so that The Man could start talking about who knows what.  It is at this point that I excuse myself, grab my iPad and head for my new recliner in the living room where I will sit in the dark playing solitaire until I calm down.  

And I wonder why I'm tired all the time !

CHRISTMAS FUN

There is something about Christmas that makes me realize my mortality. Unlike Thanksgiving I find that at ChristmasI am thinking more and more of people who are no longer with us. ( I guess the fact that The Man's daughter died 2 weeks ago might be the reason for this. ).  I am thinking more of Christmas' past and the joy that I remember as a child. When I was in my late teens and 20's Christmas lost its sparkle. I was no l longer a child and there weren't any children in my life. (Although I was teaching Kindergarten so that did help keep some of the spirit alive.)  Once I had my own children the magic returned full force. That was the BEST !  Even if I was totally exhausted preparing and wrapping, cooking and cleaning, decorating the yard and house, it was magical !!!  Christmas morning was as exciting to me as it was to the kids.  

Then the kids grew up and went away to college to start their own lives.  Suddenly Christmas fell flat once again.  That didn't last long before we entered into the greatest Christmas' of all.  Christmas with GRAND KIDS !!!!  I now have the best of all worlds.  Shopping WITH my grand kids is the best fun ever.  I have been blessed to have had the opportunity the last couple of years to shop with my 3 grand kids who live in Pompano. Sadly this year we didn't get to do this.  Time and age got in the way.  Not only my age but the kids are getting older and have so many things on their calendars. 

 This year I DID get to take my grandson, Finn shopping for gifts for his family. We were set to go last week but he came down with some sort of bug so we put it off till 2 days before Christmas.  The traffic was horrific but we weren't going far.  No driving on highways and no crazy parking lots.  Finn decided we would go to our local Walmart which I expected to be a circus. Luckily I think every one decided to shop at Target so Walmart wasn't too bad at all.   We got a great parking spot, a cart that had all 4 wheels working and checkout lines that weren't three miles long.   Finn brought his list and we hit the store with a mission . .. . I can not tell you how many times we walked from one end of the store to the other.  Every time we got to one end for something the next thing on his list was at the other end of the store.  I think I have qualified for running a half marathon. We bought everything on the list and then some.  As we were cutting across the store for the five thousandth time we cut through an aisle full of suitcases.  Finn came to a screeching halt and announced that a suitcase was the PERFECT gift for his mom.   (My daughter has apparently been using an old suitcase that embarrasses the entire family every time they travel. ) So we started looking at the selection before us.  Do you know HOW MUCH a freaking suitcase costs ?    Holy cow !!   But we found one that we both fell in love with because we knew his mom would love it.  Finn was concerned that he only had $20 so we agreed that he would give me his twenty and I would pay for the rest. (I definitely do not come out ahead on these shopping trips.)  We found gifts for the rest of the family, checked out in record time and headed back to my house with one stop at Mc Donalds to re fuel the boy so he would have the energy to wrap. 

Have you ever tried to wrap a suitcase ?   Finn and I decided that this was a job for a large garbage bag with a bow.  Only I didn't have any large garbage bags so I ended up sitting on the floor wrapping the suitcase while he wrapped all his other gifts. On the way home to his house his mom called to ask if I wanted her to stop at my house to pick up Finn on her way home.  We told her we were almost at her home and would meet her there.  Finn now was able to sneak his gifts into the house and hide them before anyone returned home.  

Christmas Day arrived and my daughter LOVED her gift from Finn.  As did his sister and his dad.  They hosted a Christmas feast for me and Uncle Kent and his kids.  It was a wonderful day!  I brought leftovers home to The Man and all was well with the world.  (The Man did not want to be around the kids for fear of picking up any germs.) 

As I crawled into bed Christmas night I tried to figure out why I was so tired.  Then I remembered all those Christmas' when I was a kid and my mom went all out cooking, wrapping gifts AND baking all sorts wonderful cookies. (This is the first year I did not bake cookies.)  I thought of when my family was growing up and Husband and I hosted Aunts, Uncles and cousins for the holidays.  Good times ! 

But today I am still tired.  Guess I'm getting old. 

LU LU "ISIMS"

 Do you happen to remember my cousin Lu Lu ?  She is my cross to bare but she also provides so many good laughs.  To refresh your memory, Lu Lu is 94 years old. She cannot remember that and asks me every time I see her, "How old am I?"  When I tell her she is 94 she either starts planning her 95th birthday party or she starts listing all her ailments. "I never had pain in my legs before! Why do I have it now?"  We then discuss the fact that being her age comes with a lot of aches and pains which are all normal.  She also wonders why she can't remember things. Again I explain that she has 94 years worth of "stuff" in her head. It is not surprising she can't remember much.   Of course the few memories that she does have are shared with me EVERY time I see her.  Things like "When I was a Girl Scout I walked all over the neighborhood knocking on doors.  Cookies were fifty cents a box . . .."  There are so many things that I have heard a thousand times but it makes her happy to talk about them.

And then there are the REALLY crazy things that she comes up with.  Two weeks ago I got a phone call from her at 2:48 in the morning.  Thankfully I had my phone turned off. When I did get up I called her to see if everything was OK.  She had no idea that she had called me. She often mistakes the phone for the TV remote so anything can happen.  When she does call me I can expect the same introduction to the call.           My phone rings, having caller ID I know who it is,  I answer by saying, "Hello Lucile, how are you doing?"   And the answer EVERY time is, " Cathie ??? Did you call me?"   I play along and say, "Sure".  (It's just easier).  And then we get down to the reason for the call.  The call from 2 weeks ago was to tell me she is having an operation to take the bone out of her hip.  She has a lot of pain so the doctor is going to take out her hip bone because it is pressing on her bladder.  My response is, "Really!"  We continue to discuss her up coming surgery. As soon as I can get off the phone I call Lu Lu's aide to ask what is going on?  After the aide stopped laughing she told me she had taken Lu to the DENTIST because she wanted him to pull a tooth that was bothering her. Somehow or other a pulled tooth became the removal of her hip bone.   

Then today I got a call . . . "Cathie ???  Did. you call me?"     That call was to tell me she is having her toe cut off.  The doctor said it was no good so he was going to cut it off !!!  OK,  we entertain the toe surgery for a while and then she hangs up.   Once again I call the aide who is now rolling on the floor.  Lucille has a hang nail on her big toe.  The doctor told her he will fix the toe nail as soon as the infection is taken care of. He prescribed an antibiotic and will see her again next week.  

I swear to you I am not making any of this stuff up.  Every phone call is an adventure and I never know what the crisis of the day will be.  I do keep laughing and PRAYING that I do not become a cousin LuLu  when I get really old.  At this rate I'll probably die before Lu. 

I NEED TO BUY A RAKE. !

 Of all the things I hated about owning a house the thing at the top of the list was raking leaves.  I HATED to rake all those miserable leaves each autumn.  Our yard was full of big, tall oak trees so each year, come September the acorns and leaves started to fall.  Add to that the pine trees dropping needles and you can only imagine what a chore it was to clean up the front yard.  (I never raked the back yard because the leaves would cover the dirt so the yard looked better with leaves on it.)  The reason we had bought our house back in 1970 was because it had all those wonderful trees on the property.  Little did we think about raking leaves.  Having been raised in NYC neither husband nor I gave a thought to the work that would await us each fall.  

Once we moved to Florida I said good bye to raking leaves and shoveling snow. Shoveling snow was probably the second thing I hated about owning a home.  Now in Florida we have landscapers to rake and blow palm fronds and any leaves that might be found.  The closest I ever came to raking was when we had our Florida house with a pool in the back yard.  The pool was not covered so anything that fell from the sky landed in the pool and I had to skim it off each day.  NO Problem !  A very small price to pay for living in Paradise.  Husband's nemesis was the palm tree just outside our back yard fence.  Every year it would grow these huge bunches of seeds. (Think of a bunch of tiny grapes on their vine.) That's what would grow from the palm tree. We would watch these pods grow bigger and bigger until they would explode and drop into the pool.  It was a daily chore to get them off the surface of the pool.   Because I had done 90 % of the leaf raking in NY because husband worked 2 jobs the pod collecting fell to him. He would curse that damn tree every day!

But now husband and the big house are gone and so is the chore of raking.  Or so I thought.  We have LOTS of trees around our condo but they are all taken care of by the landscapers.  We are responsible for anything inside our screened in lanai, the gardeners take care of everything outside the lanai.  I do happen to have 2 plants in the lanai that drop their flowers all year round.  If I leave those flowers on the ground they stain the floor of the lanai so each week I wash them off with my hose.  That's it for my gardening!

Life is good.  I live in Florida and don't have any fights with Mother Nature.  

Except . . .    Our community is filled with oak trees.  All the streets are named after different oak trees. These oak trees do not have the leaves and acorns like the oak trees up north.  These oak trees have small slender leaves that fall ALL YEAR LONG !!! I'm serious . . .  there is no season with these trees. They don't loose all their leaves at once but instead they shed and grow at the same time.  It is the strangest thing I have ever seen.  The trees aren't tall and slender but rather shorter and fuller than a normal oak.  Thankfully we do have a great landscaping service in the community and they keep the grass trimmed and the leaves swept.  

In our community we also have assigned parking spots.  As fate would have it The Man has the spot on one side of a large "oak" tree and I have the spot on the other side of the tree.  Our cars a constantly covered in leaves and bird droppings.  We spend a lot of money at the car wash.  

This week The Man was in the hospital for 4 days because his lungs were filling with Co2, (A normal person breathes in air and the our body takes the oxygen out of the air to fuel our blood and organs. We then breathe out the Co2 so that we don'e asphyxiate ourselves. The Man has terrible COPD so his lungs don't work well at getting rid of the Co2.  Instead it collects inches lungs and slowly asphyxiates him.)  Luckily I realized something was very wrong and got him to the ER on Saturday.  He got great care and came home on Wednesday afternoon like a new man.  (He was put on a non-invasive ventilator for 2 days so his lungs got cleaned out.).  

Anyway . . .  It was a busy couple of days running back and forth to the hospital so when I got home on Thursday from running some chores I parked my car, locked it up and didn't get into it again until this afternoon when I went out to go to 4:00 mass.  I opened my car door and out blew and ton of leaves. There were leaves on the seats, floor and dashboard. I stood there looking at the mess and thought to myself someone must be playing a prank on me.  But who?  And how would they get into my car which was locked?  And then I looked UP .   Dumb ass me had left the sun roof OPEN.   I had been such a beautiful day on Thursday I had opened the windows and sun roof open to enjoy the balmy breezes.  When I got home I shut the windows but never thought about the sun roof.   So there my car sat for 2 days, UNDER THE TREE that happily dropped leaves right down into my car.  

Freaking tree !!!  I need to buy a rake.