T-Shirt Contretemps

Mother has a t-shirt from her old job.  A comfy, tan, heavy cotton t-shirt with a slogan from some past customer service-oriented advertising campaign.  She likes it .  She likes to wear it.  She likes to wear it often.  She likes to wear it repeatedly.  She does not, however, like to do laundry.  So, her favorite comfy shirt gets worn several times before I realize that I've seen it many more times than I've seen her do laundry (more on that later), and I feel compelled to comment.

"Mom, you've worn that shirt four or five times already.  It needs to be washed," I point out.

"It's fine," she replies.

"Mom, you've worn it the last three times you've gone to the senior center.  They'll think you don't have any other clothes. Also, you need to wash it before you wear it again."  I stop short of ordering her to go change.  She wouldn't anyway, not without what I anticipate would be a really big battle - I'm not sure because I haven't pushed that hard yet.

"Okay," she says, in that voice and tone that I recognize immediately as meaning, 'I'm agreeing with you so you will stop talking at me about this.'  So that's where I get it.  Hmmm.

Yesterday morning was at least the third time we've had this conversation.  My husband overhears and says I should make her change, or tell her the shirt will go away, but I'm not ready to be that much of an authoritarian for anyone, especially not my mother.  I do have to agree with him on his point that it is not only a matter of esthetics, but also a health issue.  *sigh*

So, I phone the senior center and have a chat with the social worker.  She says to take the shirt and put it in the laundry, telling Mother it is no longer available as it needs washing and is in the laundry.  Great plan - except that that still makes me the de facto laundress because Mother doesn't do laundry unless/until I go into her closet and pull out all the clothing that she has already worn and rehung and announce that it is Mom's Laundry Day.  I don't want to do this.  I am still trying to figure out how to get out of doing my own laundry.  (No luck so far on that one, either.)  *sigh*

I do have a Plan B, though.  It won't get me out of my laundry duties, but it might reduce their frequency a little.  I call Mom's old job.  I speak to the manager.  I explain to him a little bit of the situation, and how I attribute her fondness for the shirt to a combination of its inherent comfiness and the fond memories Mom has of working there for twenty-plus years.  Is there any way, I ask him, I can get a couple more employee t-shirts for her.  He transfers me back to the office manager, instructing me to tell her what size and how many I want.  Hooray!  The office manager also remembers Mom, and in addition to the three new t-shirts - one yellow, one orange, and one green - she will be including notes from current employees who also remember Mom from her time there.  She starts to address the package to me, but I suggest addressing it directly to Mom so she will open it immediately and have a nice surprise.

I hope it arrives today.

Albino Tree Frog!

We came home the other night to find an albino tree frog sitting on the ledge under our porch light.  The gnats flying all around him, alighting on him off and on, didn't seem to bother him in the least.  I gently prodded him with my finger, just to confirm he was alive. He moved a little bit, but this didn't seem to bother him, either.  So, I got my camera and took a few photos.

He was completely underwhelmed by the whole encounter, but I am quite excited about having him (her?) living somewhere in my garden.

Sunflowers!

Several weeks ago, I bought sunflower seed packets from our local gardening center.  "Giant" sunflowers, which the package said will grow up to 16 feet tall, "Mammoth" - 8-12' tall, and then two varieties that should get to be about 4 feet tall, one red and the other a "Moonflower" - with petals a paler yellow than other sunflowers.  I got some edging that's been on the side of the house since we moved in, and made a flower bed especially for the sunflowers.

Then I took out my garden book and sketched out plant placement based on potential flower height and how the bed is angled toward the lanai.

I planted the seeds in little starter pots and waited for them to sprout. The "Giant" ones sprouted very quickly, the others took a few days longer.

The pictures above were taken on May 4th.  I finally got the poor, neglected, perhaps even abused, seedlings into the ground this afternoon.  I forgot to look at my notebook, with my carefully-planned planting sketch, because I just wanted to get them into the ground before they completely expired.

 

If you zoom in, you can see the twisted, stunted seedlings trying to stand up, now that they have space to stretch their roots and find some stability and balance.  I also gave them plant food and a thorough watering, in an attempt to assuage some of my guilt from having ignored them for so long.  I do feel a little better, and they look like they feel better as well.  I hope so.

Today's Happy Moments (so far)

Mother had her appointment at the USF Alzheimer's Center this morning.  Everything looks fine; pretty much the same as when we did the baseline neuro-cog eval about three years ago.  Perhaps some very minimal decline, but really everything is great.

Afterward, we went to the Village Inn restaurant for lunch, where I ordered the Grown-Up Grilled Cheese (made with tomatoes and bacon).  When it arrived, I was very pleasantly surprised to see their unique way of keeping that nasty pickle juice from getting on my sandwich and making the bread soggy.  It made me very happy.

Then, even better, when I got home, I was able to successfully transfer the photo I took from my cell phone to my computer via some clever chip adapters so I could share with y'all! 

I love living in the future!

Summer Reading Club

When I was in grade school, the school library had special summer hours for students to check out books over the long summer break.  This was wonderful for me because the school was only three blocks from my house, while the city library was over three miles and many busy intersections away.

When the kids were little, we always participated in the local library's summer reading club.  They had weekly story time for the little ones who weren't reading yet, and then different age levels and prizes for the older kids.  We went to the library every week, and after we got home, we would all sit down at the dining table with our books, so I could write down all the titles each of us had checked out.  We then posted it on the fridge, so that the following week, we would know how many and which books we needed to search for so we wouldn't have to pay past-due fines.

I knew our local Oldsmar library had a summer reading club, but it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I realized it included an Adult level!  I got to be in the Summer Reading Club again!!

Yesterday, I got a phone call.  I had won a weekly prize in the Summer Reading Club!  Wooohoooo!  As you can see by the photo above, there is a substantial amount of loot here: a coffee mug with the Reading Club theme on it, several book marks, all of which contain flower seeds that will grow when you plant the bookmark in your flowerbed; a very pretty peacock picture frame, and a little gold butterfly bookmark that doesn't get planted in the ground.  Oh!  And coupons for McDonald's cheeseburgers. 

Sweet.

My Dog, Bella

(This is the text for my 2nd Toastmasters speech, which I will be giving in less than 8 hours.  I should be sleeping, but I have to practice now.)


I mentioned a few weeks ago that I am a storyteller, and today I would like to tell you the story of my dog, Bella.

Bella is a very happy, slightly spoiled, fifty-pound, black lab mutt.  She keeps close watch out the front windows and alerts us to all passing pedestrians, the FedEx guy, the UPS guy, and, of course, the mailman.  She sounds big and fierce and very scary, and we appreciate that.  We believe that were any of us in actual danger, she would rush in to save us.  At least, we hope that she would.  Usually once an intruder/visitor gets past the threshold, she hides behind whomever is handiest.  But we still have hopes.

Bella came into my life several years ago when an on-line friend mentioned the skinny, half-grown pup that was haunting her alleyway. She yearned to play with the children in the backyard, but was so scared of men that she wouldn’t let the dad take the trash out.  I lived alone in a small duplex and had been telling myself that when it was time for me to have a dog, I would know.  When I saw the internet posting, and that the family lived nearby, I decided this must be the sign I had been waiting for.

I picked up dog food, and a couple of doggie bowls at the grocery, and drove over to their house. The mother and I managed to coax/push/pull/carry the nervous, skinny pup into the back of my mini-van.  I took her home, gave her a bath, and then belatedly decided to check the integrity of my back yard fence, as I didn’t want to leave her alone in the house the next day while I was at work, since I had no idea how housetrained she might or might not be.

She was very nervous about being left alone for even a short time, and barked and jumped against the door all the time I was outside.  Bark. Jump. Bark. Jump.  I decided the backyard would probably hold her, and headed back inside, only to find that with all her jumping, she had flipped the deadbolt locked.  It was a French door, so I resigned myself to breaking one of the panes and paying for its replacement.  That’s when I found out that those little windows don’t break nearly as easily as in the movies.  After several unsuccessful attempts, I went to a neighbor’s house and called a locksmith.  Bella was very happy once I was back inside with her.  The locksmith was very happy with his after-hours fee.

Several months later, I moved into an apartment and Bella went to live with my daughter, Janette, where she had a doggie door, a large backyard, and two barking buddies.  It was, indeed, doggie heaven.  And that was where we found out that Bella was not just a barking machine, but a fierce huntress.  Unfortunately for Janette’s peace of mind, this included Bella sharing her trophies with the pack leader, who was, of course, Janette.  She always knew when to expect to find her share of the kill, because Bella would be very excited upon the pack leader’s arrival home, and run back-and-forth, back-and-forth between the front door and wherever the trophy was waiting.  This was usually some lesser portion of a squirrel, and Janette was very glad that the possums and raccoons seemed to be too much trouble for Bella to carry inside.  The animal control number was pinned up on the refrigerator door for when those unfortunate critters needed removal from Bella’s hunting grounds.

Janette taught Bella to sit and patiently wait for doggie treats.  Bella learned on her own to talk in order to be rescued from my granddaughter’s affectionate attentions.  Bella knew that Eva, small as she was, still had higher pack status and so could not be directly corrected.  So, Bella would vocalize her need for rescue when her floor-lounging was interrupted by a toddler using her for a pillow or handy seat.

When I moved to Florida, Bella stayed behind in Texas, but last year she finally made the trip, too.  I worried that she would feel lonely being the only dog, but she seems to think that this is a fine turn of events.  She doesn’t have to eat her food all at once to keep it from going missing later.  She has her own bed that she is never displaced from.  She gets a doggie biscuit every morning.  She never has to jockey for position in the “don’t pet him, pet me” competition.  She has learned how to shake and sit up on her back legs in order to get leather doggie chews.  And she has several big windows across the front of the house to help her monitor all sidewalk trespassers.

She doesn’t seem to miss the doggie door too much, either.  When she wants to go out, she’ll let one of us know.  If her need to go out is dire (official doggie business, bark at encroachers, sit on the lanai and watch the rain), she will use her conversation skills to tell us that it’s very important.  She also has different barks for different applications.  There is the “intruders in adjoining backyards” bark, the “trashmen are taking our stuff away” bark, the “neighborhood doggie gossip update” bark, and then, of course, the “let me in, please” bark.  And when Mother is the only one home, Bella knows to go to the sliding door off the living room to announce herself, because Mother is a bit hard of hearing and can’t hear her from the back of the house.

In the past, Mother has been nervous around larger dogs, but she is quite taken with our Bella.  Bella keeps Mother company during the day, gives a good bluff to passing strangers, and has doubled or tripled Mother’s daily physical activity.  She has also increased my level of activity, as my formerly irregular vacuuming is now a near-daily event in order to keep my home as fur-free as possible, and weekly doggie baths have also been added to my routine.

That’s OK, though, because we love our Bella, and it’s really nice to have a dog around the house again.

Rampage Of Appreciation

This comes from listening to the audio book without having the actual book at hand.