WINDING DOWN

 How is it possible that October first is at the end of this week ???   Didn't we just arrive at "The Farm" to spend our summer here ?   Where did the past 5 months go ????????

I have had such an amazingly wonderful summer here in the UP.  The weather was perfect, the days were filled with such peace and beauty that I really don't know if I am ready to head south.  I love my family that I left in Florida and Georgia but honestly, this self inflicted isolation up here in with wilds of Michigan is really quite nice.  I haven't had to babysit anyone, (other than The Man),  I haven't had to deal with neighbors or anyone else demanding my time or attention.   

The only "down side" to living up here for several months at a time is I miss having MY doctors so close at hand.  Being the hypochondriac that I am I miss being able to pick up the phone and know that if I need to see someone I can probably get an appointment within days, if not hours.  And all those appointments are no further than ten minutes away.  

But it is now the last week in September, leaves are turning color and starting to fall from the trees.  The temperatures have cooled down to the mid 40's at night and most days don't warm up any higher than the mid 60's.  My bones are starting to ache and my joints are beginning to freeze up and scream for warmer temperatures.  (It is amazing how a persons body reacts to weather changes. I always thought the old folks were crazy when they said they could tell when the weather was getting ready to change but they actually know what they're talking about.)

And so this week is "Pack It Up" week.  The tractor has been put to sleep in the lean-to, the ride-on lawn mower is in the garage, the patio furniture has been put away in the shed, thanks to Tanner and his brother Trevor, and the apples are ready to be picked.  The trunk of the car is 3/4's packed only waiting for the last minute clothes and whatevers that will get thrown in there just before we leave.  

I am hoping to bring some of the 12 Gazillion apples down south with me.  This year the apple trees have exploded and the deer and I are enjoying their bounty. (I was very careful NOT to eat green apples this year !)  I don't want to pick them today and have them sitting around for another 3 days so I'm hoping that Wednesday will be a nice enough day to go out around the yard and pick a couple of dozen to take with us.  Because I want only the BEST apples to take home I have been walking around the yard today picking one apple from each tree to see which ones are the tastiest.  The majority of them will get made into apple sauce but I want some nice ones to munch on during the trip and to give to my friends back home.  The biggest problem in picking the apples is that the deer have eaten all the ones on the lowest branches so I need someone to get up on a ladder to pick the good ones that are high in the trees.  I think one of the neighbor boys is coming over Wednesday afternoon to give me a hand as long as it's not snowing.  

As I walked around the yard today checking on the apples I found myself in tears at the thought of leaving here.  I was taken totally by surprise by this reaction.  I guess that just proves what a wonderful summer it was.  

WHO IS SHE ??????

 Today I had my picture taken for my church directory.  At least I thought I had MY picture taken but when the lady showed me the 3 different shots I had no idea who the woman in the pictures was.  She looked a lot like my mother but my mom's hair was not that white. And my mom surely was not that large or old.  

So who can that person be ???????

Each morning when I get up and look in the mirror I see me.  Some days I look better than others but the me that I see is a much younger version of the woman in the church photo.  I DON'T have all those wrinkles.  I DON'T have a quadruple chin, (DOUBLE chin would be a blessing compared to the saggy, baggy flesh hanging around that strange woman's neck. ) And I am certainly NOT THAT OLD !!!!!

SO . . . who is she ?

I HATE having my picture taken.  I NEVER look good in photographs no matter what I wear or how I smile.  I know so many people who can roll out of bed with no make-up on and no preparation and still look fabulous.   I am NOT one of those folks.   Today I spent a half hour putting on make-up and fixing my hair.  (The make-up takes much much longer than the hair but you would never know it.). I had chosen my wardrobe for the photo, going with the basic black top that BFF Jeanne says you can never go wrong with.  I even put on a small gold necklace and gold earrings. I left the house thinking I was looking pretty good.

And then they showed me the photos they had taken.   Who is that woman in the photo ????

I love this parish here in Gladstone, MI.  I have been going to mass at All Saints church for the past 4 summers when ever I am in town.  Last year when I spent the whole summer up here I really got to feel like I was a member of this wonderful group of people.  This year I made it official and added my name to the parish register.  (I still have my Florida church which I love but Father Jamie and his parish are my favorites.) So a couple of months ago when Father Jamie announced they would be taking pictures of all the parish members for a church directory I felt that I wanted to be part of it.  I signed up knowing I would look horrid but at least with the picture they could now put a face and a name to the signature on the checks. 

Little did I realize the photographer would take pictures of some old lady who I don't know.  It's a puzzle to me how I know in my head just how good I look yet when my picture is taken this God awful ugly old hag shows up.  It must be a trick camera.

Naturally the photographer tries to sell each person a package of photos for you to give to your family as gifts. I can not imagine why my family would ever want a picture of this strange old woman so I refused any and all offers that were made.  I will get one FREE photo that I will probably hang on the refrigerator just to dissuade me from eating that extra piece of cake or dish of ice cream.  

I just hope I don't get too depressed looking at that strange old woman and thinking that some day I may actually start to look like her.  

SMELLS LIKE DOG FOOD

 Growing up in the late 40's and early 50's life was pretty basic and simple.  I was born at the end of WWII and my parents survived The Great Depression.  We didn't have a lot but we lived a great life.  My parents bought a tiny little house in the "country".  The part of Queens that we moved to was on the very edge of the "city line". Two blocks away was the end of New York City and the beginning of Nassau County. (Nassau County was beyond the country, it was practically the wilderness.I think there may even have been sightings of Big Foot in Nassau County back in the 50's.)  My dad owned a car and we even owned a TV set.  We were living like kings !

But food was a different story.  Because we had my 2 grandfathers living with us my mom had to stretch her food budget to accommodate four adults and one child.  She was a master at creating wonderful meals from practically nothing.  Back in those days she would buy chicken wings, ox tails and tongue because they were all cheap cuts of meat that no one else wanted.  (Remember that the next time you are paying a $1.25 for one chicken wing.). She made the best ox tail stew that I absolutely loved.  (I wish I had her recipe although I doubt I could afford to buy ox tails these days. ). My dad would go fishing in the summer so we always had fresh fish to supplement what my mom could buy at the store.  

Every Sunday we would have a "fancy" dinner with some sort of roast or "good" meat and potatoes and vegetables that we had grown in our tiny garden during the summer.  Because meat was so expensive we often had stews, soups and the most horrid meal of all . . .  HASH !!!   

I HATE HASH !!!!  Say the word "hash" and I break out into a cold sweat and run to my room screaming, "I'm NOT hungry!!!!!"   

Hash was one of those things that I could count on my mother making at least once every two weeks.  I would see her take out the old meat grinder that clamped on the edge of the kitchen table and I knew what was coming.  All of the left overs from the previous week would get mashed into the meat grinder and get ground up into a most disgusting mess that my mom would then fry up with some potatoes and present it to us for dinner.  My dad and grand fathers LOVED hash.  I would gag and slide under the table with hopes of escape before I was forced to put any of that nasty mess into my mouth.  To me hash smells and looks like dog food.  You can put gobs of catchup on it, mix it up with eggs and serve it on a silver platter but I still will NOT eat it.  

Enter into my adult life these two men . . .  Husband and The Man.  Guess what their favorite food is ???  YUP!  Both these guys love hash.  (Gag me with a spoon!).  Husband would always get hash and eggs when ever we went out for breakfast.  The Man does the exact same thing.  

When hash is served in a restaurant it ALMOST smells and looks like something eatable but when I buy a can of it for The Man . . .  THAT is a whole other ball game.  Being the good person that I am I DO purchase small cans of the nasty stuff as a special treat for the poor guy but as soon as I open that can and I get a look at the clotted mess of stuff in the can and smell that God awful smell all I can think of is,              "DOG FOOD".  (Along that same line I will not eat "chunk light tuna" because THAT looks and smells like cat food. My BFF Jeanne will back me up on that one. It's solid white Albacore tuna or nothing for us!)

Call me a snob or what ever but I stand firm on these two food items.  I will eat just about anything including octopus, squid, moose and venison but if you hack up any one of those things and grind it up with what ever else goes into the making of hash I will not go anywhere near it. 

The strange thing is I LOVE corned beef, which most canned hash is made from. The Man HATES corned beef but loves hash.  Go figure !

WHY BUY IT ???????

 I have often wondered why people buy certain things.  Like when you are sitting in a parking lot watching some poor fool trying to park their big car or pick up truck and they can't get the damn thing into the parking space.  I usually ask myself why the dope bought such a huge vehicle if they can't drive it. If you know you are a lousy driver get yourself something small that you can handle without looking like a complete idiot when you try to` drive it or park it.  

Likewise,  why do people buy HUGE houses and then complain constantly about how hard it is to keep up with the cleaning and maintenance of it?  Unless you can afford a full time house keeper why do you need such a big house? 

 If you need the big house because you have so much stuff then maybe you should question why you bought so much stuff.  Along those lines I have to question why people rent storage units.  This is a burning question up here this summer because storage buildings are popping up on every road.  This is a "farm" community but for what ever reason the people of the UP seem to need space to store who knows what.  Just this summer there were three (3) new multi unit storage buildings built in a 5 mile radius of where we are.  Why?   What are people storing in these places ?  Maybe I don't want to know.

But I digress from my original question of  "Why buy it?"  This is a direct question I would like to ask The Man each and every day. Why is there SO much stuff here ?   I know we have discussed this before but today when The Man got himself all wound up over my doing a load of laundry I just had to ask myself yet again "WTF ?"  Or "WBI ?"

I average 3 loads of laundry a week.  One day a week I wash sheets and towels.  The other two days I am washing clothes.  I do not think this is an excessive amount of laundry for two people but apparently The Man does not agree.  Thus his comment today,  "This new washer is going to die if  "WE"  keep doing so much wash !"  (I would like to have asked him when was the last time HE did a load of wash but I kept that one to myself.). 

Firstly I would like to point out that the washer and dryer are a small stackable unit.  Neither is full size because . . .  we needed to save space?  Or because . . . that is what he had before.  The room that houses the washer and dryer is a large room that contains a butcher block, a drain sink and a set of metal shelves .  There is so much wasted space in this room but that is a battle I am not willing to fight or even discuss.  Could the room hold a full size washer and dryer?  Of course . . . but WE bought the small stackable unit.  So given that I can only do mid size loads of laundry it stands to reason that I need to do MORE loads.  Also the fact that there are 2 people living in this house and not just one MAN there is double the wash that needs to be done.  Factor in that we had two weeks of house guests and multiple bed sheets and towels to launder the number of loads of wash tripled over the past month. 

Thus the question, "WHY BUY IT" if you are going to complain every time I do the laundry ???   

It is just The Man being a man and I know that but it doesn't keep me from wanting to hit him with the bottle of detergent.  

PERPLEXING PILLS

As part of the aging process we get to experience all sorts of interesting ailments.  If you go to see a doctor about these ailments I can almost guarantee you will be prescribed some sort of medication.  (I do know some Senior Citizens who manage to avoid all medications but those folks are few and far between.)  Most of us old folks have a list of medications as long as the Gettysburg Address.  

This is true of both The Man and myself.  And because we are both going to doctors on a regular basis,(usually two or three times a month), we need to have that list of medications with us at all times. Being the Type "A" personality that I am I have put these lists into my computer where I can up-date them regularly. I carry with me a print out of both his and my medication list so that any time we see a doctor I can just hand them the list and they can make a copy.  So much easier than trying to remember them all.  

My list of medications has five (5) items on it.  I consider that a lot but hey, if they keep me alive and relatively healthy I'll take what ever the doctor tells me.  (Except for Statins for cholesterol medication.  I REFUSE to take that because of all the side effects.)  

The Man's list of medications is considerably longer . . . Because he has heart and lung issues he takes many pills and has many inhalers.  

And here lies the problem.  The Man gets all his medications from the Veterans Administration. (VA) When he starts running low he makes a call and within days pills show up in the mail box.  But because he has VA doctors in both Michigan AND Florida there are pills crossing back and forth in the mail when ever we change location.  Then there are the times when The Man forgets to call when he is running low so he has to make a "panic" phone call to have pills Fed-Ex over night.  With all these pill bottles coming and going he has a difficult time keeping track of his medicine. 

Now, I have mentioned, on occasion, that The Man has problems getting rid of things he no longer needs. Not only does this apply to furniture and stuff but it also goes for his medications.  He may have not fewer than twenty-seven bottles of the same pill stashed throughout the house.  (Well, maybe 3)  Open any cabinet in the kitchen or any drawer in the 2 dressers in the bedroom and you will find bottles of pills. They could be pills that he was prescribed forty-seven years ago or they could be pills that were his wife's. (She died 10 years ago). As far as I can tell there is no rhyme or reason for any given pill to be located where it is.  He just seems to stuff the pill bottles in the nearest open space and then panics when he can't find them.  I have tried to get him to organize the pills but that is a loosing battle. The Man insists that he knows EXACTLY what pill is where.  I have my doubts.

Anyway . . .  today we sat at the kitchen table because it is Tuesday and Tuesday for The Man is pill day.  I DID get him to start using one of those pill organizers that have a compartment for each day of the week.  Once a week he sits down and sets up his daily pill intake for the coming week. This way he only has to search for the pill bottles once a week rather than daily.  As he started his filling of the holder he decided to count pills to make sure he would have enough of all of them until we got back to Florida. All was going well until he realized he had THREE bottles of the same medication and each bottle contained a different dosage pill. One was for 40 MG pills, one was for 20 MG pills and one was for 10 MG pills. This totally threw the poor guy into a panic. "Which bottle has he been taking pills from?"  "What dose should he be taking each day?"  It was a major crisis !!!

Thankfully we had his medication list stating that he should be taking 20 MG each day. BUT . . . he had cut some of the pills from each bottle in half.  Why ? Because they are large pills and hard to swallow.  Just to make sure we had this dosage right I got out THE BOOK which I take to all his appointments so I can take notes.  I learned early on that twenty minutes after seeing a doctor The Man will not remember a single thing he was told. This way we have it in writing as proof that I am not making up anything.  Upon checking THE BOOK I found where it said, (I had highlighted this),   "take 20 MG DAILY AT BEDTIME!!!"   You would think that would be the end of it but NO . . .   The Man then decided he could combine all the pills.  NOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!   I "gently" explained that because they were different amounts he had to keep them all separate.  I took a black magic marker and wrote across the front of each bottle exactly how many pills to take each day. Then to be sure he didn't "F" it up I put the two bottles that were 40 and 10 MG doses away in a bag in a drawer in the dresser. I went so far as to write on the bag, "DO NOT TAKE !"  

Would it have been easier to throw out the 2 bottles . . . of course . . .  BUT . . .   Well you know we can't throw anything away.  

When The Man kicks the bucket who ever moves into this house better have it zoned for "business" because there will be enough pills here to open a pharmacy.

Move over CVS and Walgreens !!

" LEFT BRAIN"

Have you ever heard of Jeanne Robertson ?   She is a motivational speaker and humorist.   She is a VERY funny lady . . .  funny as in "HA HA", not funny as in " peculiar".  I love watching her on Youtube, you really must check her out if you don't know who she is. 

Ms Robertson is married. She refers to her husband as, "Left Brain".  No need on my part to ask why she does this. I personally think she is being very kind when she calls her husband by this name because you all know I think the male species have NO brains. Ms Robertson at least gives her man credit for having a brain.  I can identify with this very funny lady on so many levels. I mention all this to set the foundation for today's exchange with The Man.

My latest encounter with my dear, sweet but often confused man occurred yesterday as we were driving our biweekly trip to pulmonary therapy in Manistique.  When you make a round trip twice a week for five months each year for five years you can pretty much memorize each and every landmark. For instance I know that once we drive through Rapid river we don't pass another town until we get to Manistique.  Thankfully there are two rest areas between these two little towns so if we need a potty stop we are literally, "good to go".  

"Markers" along the way to let us know where we are in the ride include the storage units, the falling down barn, the "nesting pole" with or without what we think are falcons, the old winery that is now being converted into a mini brewery, the "doggy resort", (which is an old motel converted into a kennel), several small motels and the "junk pile". (There is a billboard a few hundred feet before the "junk pile" that advertises another "antique" sale place in Manistique called Christophers so we have named this junk spot the same name. I have no idea if it has a name of it's own because there are no signs anywhere so for us it is" Christophers".)  

This road that we drive twice a week runs along the northern shore of Lake Michigan so it is a main thoroughfare for getting from one side of the lake to the other.  In most places it is only 2 lanes but there  are occasionally areas that widen out to 4 lanes to allow the trucks and tourists who are in a hurry to pass the slower moving locals. It's a very pretty drive that really doesn't get boring because there are always some small changes to the scenery each time we pass.  Sometimes these changes are a subtle as a deer standing in a field or as bothersome as road construction. Which ever it is it keeps the ride interesting. 

About ten miles before we arrive at Manistique and shortly after the turn off for "Big Springs" there is a very old, what used to be, motel.  I use the term "motel" very loosely because it looks more like the movie set for the Bates Motel, aka a dump.  It's a one story building with about eight units that have seen MUCH better days.  The parking lot is all torn up and the building itself looks as if it may collapse any day if it doesn't burn down first.  There are three or four OLD and rusted pick-up trucks and cars scattered in front of the building which makes us think that maybe there are some less than reputable characters inhabiting the building but we have yet to EVER see a live human being any where on the property.  There are two signs, one at either end of the parking lot that state, "NO TURN AROUND".  I personally would drive the extra twenty miles to find a better/safer spot to turn around in but I guess it must be a problem for the inhabitants of the motel.

Adjacent to this motel there is a small run down little house which may or may not have been the residence for the original motel owner. The parking lots are connected and up until this past year there has been a HUGE amount of "junk" (aka "antiques"?) scattered across about thirty feet in front of the little house and overflowing into the "motel" parking lot.  It appears that someone has taken it upon themselves to organize and contain the mess in order to turn the "junk" into a business.  (Think Flea Market that has been sitting out in the weather for several years and actually has FLEAS. It looks as if someone went to the dump, collected trash and set it out in the parking lot for sale. "One mans garbage is another mans treasure" ?) This is what we call "Christophers". 

Anyway . . .  each time we pass this mess we laugh and make comments about the crap that is "For Sale". I imagine you could pretty much find anything here if you wanted to take the time to search. The inventory runs the gamut from kitchen appliances to bicycles to baby seats to clothes.  (Ewwwwwww!)   One of our jokes is about who would EVER stop there to look at this stuff. We have only seen people "shopping" there once or twice so I don't think it is a booming business.

And now to the point of this long story . . .   Yesterday as we drove past Christophers The Man said, " I wonder where all that stuff comes from." I asked what he meant so he went on to ponder further.  The Man couldn't imagine where this "crap", (my word not his) came from. "Who keeps all that stuff around? Where does the owner of "Christophers" get all that 'JUNK' ?" (HIS word not mine.). As I sat there wondering if he was actually being serious in not knowing where "crap" comes from I realized he was indeed puzzled. The Man who has three garages, a cellar and an attic FILLED with stuff couldn't understand where "Christopher" found his treasures to sell. There was ZERO realization that he himself was a major potential supplier to the Christopher's of the world. 

As I sat there in the car next to The Man I tried to think of a nice way of telling him that he had as much, if not more, inventory than Christopher.  I realized there was no point in even trying to approach that topic.  The Man would not and could not ever imagine in his "Left Brain" that he was the U.P "Antique" dealer equivalent of a Mexican Cartel .  

THE FIFTH SEASON

 The big issue these days about Climate Change seems quite silly to me.  I agree our planet needs some nurturing but if you go back a couple of hundred years you will see that the climate was just about a wacky back in the 1400's as it is today.  

Basically it is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Leaves fall off the trees in Autumn and plants pop up out of the ground in the Spring.   All the other stuff in between is just hit or miss depending on the whim of the God's and good old Mother Nature. One year you can have thirty feet of snow in the winter and the next year there is none.  It's just the way the world works. It is pretty standard that there are four seasons each year and each season has its own unique events that occur.  

UNLESS YOU LIVE IN THE U.P. 

Up here in God's country we have FIVE seasons.  I came to this realization today as I drove into town. 

Our first season is Autumn which usually arrives around October first and lasts until October second.  Some years it may last an entire week but that doesn't happen often.          

 The next season to arrive is Winter.  This is the primary season of the U.P. because it lasts the longest. Winter begins somewhere around the second week in October and lasts until the first week in June.  I kid you not !!!  There may be tons of snow or there may be only a few feet but what ever the snow accumulation is I can guarantee you it is COLD !!!!!!!  When folks up here tell you it was a "MILD" winter that means that the temperatures only dipped slightly below zero.  A "COLD" winter means temperatures went down well below minus 20.

 Moving along after the   LLLLL  OOOOOOOO NNNNNNNNNN GGGGGGGGGGGG winter months and months we finally arrive at Spring.  Spring may show up around the middle of June and last a full two weeks until the beginning of July. It is often hard to distinguish between winter and spring because the temperatures only warm up slightly.  The one sure sign that it is actually spring and not winter is the fact that when you step out of your house you are probably standing in mud up to your hips.  When the winter temperatures melt into spring the ground also melts and the resulting quagmire of wet ground is your sign that Spring has arrived. 

 After the two or three weeks of Spring it is finally Summer !!!!  You will know when summer arrives by the amount of RV's and tourists driving through town.  The temperatures may still be in the 60's but once the tourists arrive it is officially summer.  That and the fact that the Dairy Flo ice cream store on Main Street in town finally opens up for its very short season.   If you are lucky you may actually get to enjoy warm temperatures for a full SIX weeks. That is not guaranteed but usually summer makes it to at least the middle of August.  

Which now brings us to our fifth and last season of the year . . .  FLANNEL SEASON !!

As I drove into town today I noted not less than ten of the fifteen people that I passed, men and women AND children, all wearing some sort of flannel attire.  Shirts were the most common but there were a few flannel jackets and even one flannel hat.  Flannel seems to be the official "go to" article of clothing as soon as the temperature dips below 65 degrees. Today we woke up to 53 degrees with the high only being 65. Thus the huge display of flannel on the citizens of Gladstone.  

I believe Flannel season lasts until all the leaves on the trees have fully changed color.   This color change begins some time in mid August, (This is a true fact. I have my colorful collection for this year already started.) and continues for about two months until mid October when the trees are pretty close to being naked.  By mid October the world has turned grey, the hummingbirds and many other species of animal and snow birds have left town or settled in for the long winter season. The flannel has been replaced with muckalucks, parkas and snow shoes.