Ayn's Multiple World

Saturday for the long stretch

Good morning … or almost afternoon … We were up earlier, but went back to bed. It’s now 11:22. We were up only as long as to drink a cup of coffee, finish up on the last post and write an email to Dr. Marvin. I think part of the sleepiness was because we’d been feeling bad, but too we had trouble going to sleep last night so had stayed up later than normal. We had turned on the football game – Vikings and NY and watched about the second half, and then we watched after the game in a daze.

We think we saw the news and then I remember an infomercial about some kind of shoe. That’s about it … don’t think I would want to give you a fuller picture even if I wanted to.

This was the note we wrote Dr. Marvin

Dear Dr. Marvin,

This is me. We were feeling pretty bad over the past few days. Thursday, we went home early and went straight to bed and except for bathroom and a little time with Rich after about 10, we slept for 15 hours. Rich made us some chicken soup, but he was going fishing for the weekend and he left on Friday. About that time we went to see Dr. Albright she said we had 101 point something fever. The same thing was happening as the day we were supposed to see you. It almost made us cry to climb the stairs, cuz we were so achy. Dr. Allbright said I thought she said at least that we had a kidney infection and a urinary infection ... I think we are supposed to take some more tests, but she gave us some 800 something tylenol to bring down the fever and some anti-biodics, umm levaquin? Yes ... that's right, but only 250 She said she was worried because I was by myself and she said she was going to call and check up on us. But we feel ok now just a little cold. We asked her how serious it was and she said it was very serious because of the diabetis. She said that if it something something ... i should go to the hospital. We talked to Rich after the visit on the phone and he called later before we went to bed. We had been sweaty for a long time, but had forgotten to take our medicine. We just forgot. He always seems to know the right time to ask. We also left a call with Maury because Rich is out of town. I'm feeling sleepy now so I think we're going to bed again.

Maybe when you get back to the office you can tell us from her notes if there is something important we missed. We never know the right perspective on these things.

me

I don’t suppose he will read it until Monday, but we left a note in his weekend email just in case. We were having a hard time remembering stuff and still feel a bit spacey about the whole thing. I don’t know maybe I’m pretty pathetic. Though that would make me feel bad, so we’ll try not to go that direction.

Rich had called about 10 pm and he was in his taking care of Ann space. I don’t know what I did in life to deserve him, but it makes my eyes water just to think of it. One of the first questions he’d asked is if I forgot to take our medicine. We hadn’t even thought of it. He walked us into the kitchen also to read the instructions on the bottles of new medicine. And, he only hung up when he was assured that we were going to hang up only cuz we needed our hands to open the bottles. I suppose after all this time Rich knows our parts well enough so that he only has to hear our voice and he knows where to step in. He said he was going to call again later this afternoon … sometimes he has a minute between after the day’s fishing, taking a shower and going to eat. I don’t want him to have to call even when he’s gone, because he’s going there to relax, but there is something very nice about thinking that I’m having help being ok.

There was a time on the way to the doctor’s that I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I had been so spacey and weak crossing the street and then there weren’t any chairs in the lobby – small icky space, and we were to exhausted to stand in line … we had to sit down and we asked later after we saw how many people were going in front of us to let them know we couldn’t stand in line. They were nice about coming over to have us sign stuff. Ugh, that is just one of the bad haunting memories that’s dogging us now … best probably not to go that direction any further. Point is I suppose is that we were sick. That’s all to that story. We are feeling better now, but should probably take another Tylenol. Rich said that we were to have one when we got up and at lunch and when we went to bed. Oh, and we’re supposed to remember not to take our vitamin until a couple of hours after we take the other and that we should be taking it on a two-hour empty stomach. We did some reading this morning and last night.

The pill stuff was pretty normal, but we scared ourselves pretty bad about thinking of the kidney stuff. Our thoughts went from infection to kidney disease to the thoughts we were going to be put on dialysis. We hadn’t thought of it, but we remembered a deep forgotten memory that our father was on dialysis before he died.

Apparently, diabetics are much more prone to that sort of thing. They had talked about reoccurring infection from the urinary tract. I think that every time I go to the doctor I have an infection so that makes me think I’ve endangered that are so often I don’t even know when something is wrong and when it isn’t. I think they were saying that it backs up into the system into the kidney and if that isn’t working because of the infection then it spreads in through unclean blood into other parts of the body. When we were writing to Dr. Marvin we were thinking that we’d left those test papers down in the car thinking … well probably not doing much thinking at all except we didn’t need them. She said something now I recall about a 12 hour fast. Of course that isn’t happening … I think she probably knew that too.

We’ll have to wait and probably go to the U on Monday morning. I think it is pushing our luck to think that Dr. Marvin is going to make another make-up date with us, or we could have done it then. Besides we’re feeling better now so there doesn’t seem to be the same urgency. *Sigh* I know we’re just like that. I know that fasting trick has something to do with testing how good we’ve been for the last 3 months of our sugar reading. I really dislike that one … it’s like our body is turning us in. As if it and the Dr. we’re in charge of things. Hmpf!

Ok, ok … that’s enough of it … we’re 3 pages in and we’re still on medical … we’ve probably worn your ear red of all this. Besides, we’re feeling better.

So, what’s else? Hmm, one more thing … we got a response back from Sr. this morning. She said drink lots of liquids, so that reminded us to bring in one of the two big bottles of 7-up that Rich got for us. She said that we’ll be better soon and that infections come and go, but that we should keep in touch. She was also glad that we’d contacted our son. I don’t think she was as sure that he would keep in touch, but then I know our boys aren’t ever really contacted when there is a medical emergency … they really don’t know how to handle it and aren’t in as good of shape as Rich to be helping. It’s always been that they don’t ask about my life much. I don’t want to run them down, because I know now they are interested, but I think there is a sense of them not wanting us to be helpless and maybe even a little that they feel helpless concerning my health. I think in their mind and especially in Thom’s mind that I’m going to be dying sooner than their children maturing.

Maury and Joe would at least say that they want me to be around. Thom’s point of view was that he didn’t want to invest his emotions on someone who wasn’t going to be there. He’s right of course that we can’t take care of ourselves very good.

We’re still dependent on Rich’s help. But, I think he misses the effort that we make given the condition of illness physical and mental. Maybe it is something that just intimidates or overwhelms him. Since I don’t want to push that I know I have to let him be … just wish I could be there to help somehow in at least giving him a motherly ear who would be able to help him with his emotional and security needs. I think everyone deserves a mother who loves them no matter what. I’m still here even though he’s had several loves that have come and gone.

Ok, ok … we’re back into Thom issues again… that probably isn’t a good sign. Maybe we are feeling a little down. I think it is then the most that we think of Thom. I know he hears some stuff from the brothers like I hear stuff of him. He’s around them too much not to pick up on stuff. But, maybe just the bigger stuff like Rich now living with us.

Hmm. It’s been pretty long now … about 4 months I think … so far so good. It seems like we can barely remember the time that he wasn’t here. That’s kind of a funny feeling. I do recall something about getting up on a Saturday and wishing that he would at least IM me for a 10-15 minute space of time. Hehehe … I don’t miss at all that he’s got to go because he’s folding socks! I also never liked the part where he was saying that he didn’t do what he was set up to do because he had dragged on through watching TV too much. I think he’s pretty much clear of that now day.

Periodically, like if he were home on a Saturday or Sunday and not going anywhere … about 3 times in the last 4 months, he would watch the morning news hours. And, if he’d catch the time, he might watch a game, but again that’s only happened a few times. I don’t know where he fit in the time before to watch TV, but it really doesn’t happen too much anymore. I don’t even think he’s home enough to get sufficient back-rubs. We’ll Hmpf that for the time being too.

Ok, let’s tame it down a bit. I think we went from one subject to the next pretty quickly and am getting ourselves still entwined with a bit of feeling sorry for ourselves. It seems to be that we’re in a place where we’re thinking of being sick and having others take care of us. Where does that come from anyway? Hmm, probably mixed up with our childhood in that we were never allowed to be sick or miss school or anything … with the one exception of having chicken pox. Otherwise we must have been the healthiest kids, because like Maury Pat we got attendance awards. That kid is very faithful to his schedules. It’s a funny thing, because I grew up thinking how well we’d always been and that we’d never been sick of anything, especially when compared to our sister. I think that was the case up until the nineties. I don’t know … Probably started earlier … it was 1984-5 that we’d started having trouble with the depression, excess anger, and what they thought was bi-polar. The depression was what was diagnosed and I think it was after Cooper ended in 1986-87 that we were diagnosed bi-polar. I don’t think the first hospitalization came until 1989. I know we met Dr. Woollcott in 1990. But we had been hospitalized 4 times that year. We had two 2 month stays and a couple of two week stays. Because the last stay was December to January, when we met him, I don’t know … well I don’t recall whether 1990 was December or January. *Sigh* I THINK it was that we usually say in 1990 we were hospitalized 4 times.

Hmm, maybe it is a good thing that we forget about all that? We’ve done pretty good and we’re about to surpass our record in that we haven’t been back to the hospital in 4 years now almost exactly. I remember spending July and August in some hospital in the suburbs during July and August it was just after Dad and Sandy died. Oh shoot shoot … we’re still writing about being sick! It’s still bothering us that if we we’re going to have a kidney infection that would lead to kidney disease and then we’d have to have dialysis. We’re going to have to have a complete change of venue here if we are going to get over feeling sorry for ourselves. Lordy, why would Rich choose to step into all this muck in the first place!?? Was he so crazy about finding someone nutty to love?

Ahh, now I remember last night he said he loved me. Those are the *sighing* moments that people like us live for … and we almost missed it. We’d started to pull the phone away from our ear, but then we pulled it back … what did you say? He repeated. Then I think I wanted to cry some more. But, Rich does that a lot … Thursday night when he came home about 10 to make four frozen dinners for us and the chicken soup, well when he got done, we sat together at the table and he cut strawberries in half for us to eat and dip in whip cream. One for him and one for us. Of course there was the chatter. Before a trip its more of what he needs to do. He didn’t say so much while cooking, because he needs to focus on what he’s doing then. We sat at the corner of the island and leaning our chin on folded elbows watched him work quickly and efficiently … cuz that’s the way he is. When we worried about running out of whip cream for the second tray of strawberries he bought for us to eat today, he said ahh, he remembered that is probably what we’d think and why he thought we should remember there is sugar-free pudding for dipping. See that’s what we’re getting too here. Could anybody ever love anybody more than that? One strawberry for him, and one for us. He be my lover bird.

Ok, you know that much about us too. We went into the kitchen to get the strawberries. Ahh that’s the ticket … sometimes they spoil if left in the fridge too long  We’re trying two dips … one is chocolate mint, and the other is vanilla caramel. Woo HOO!! Ahh that was good … very good. We ate about 8 oz of strawberries AND put the other half back AND finished up the dips with a spoon. I think we always like the dips more than the fruit, but left on its own the dips are pretty blasé. Yup yup that’s what we’re thinking. Let me tell you that whatever it is we’ve had … it hasn’t affected our appétit. Hmm, better get some more to drink … there’s still some coffee left and another bottle of pop. I think our sweetie got us all these good things so we could not feel sorry for ourselves. I’m pretty sure this is what love is about … it just makes you dizzy silly.

Hmm, seems like we’ve been joined by a kitty … maybe she was waiting until we felt better. Let’s see if we can get ourselves out of the doldrums? Hmm?

Let’s see … where can we go that’s different? Are there any happy moments to remember? You know sorta like when we were eating rhubarb sauce sister had cooked that tasted like strawberry-rhubarb pie … before she caught us eating a second helping where she thought any amount with the measure of sugar she put in it would be too much. No sister, you cannot trust us. We’re a lousy diabetic. Well, anyway there was those few moments ahead of all that where the room was dark and quiet.

Margarita and her daughter had come in just before that too, so all of a sudden it
was a party and I was in it so thick spoon caught in mouth that there was no place left to hide. HMPF!!

Good Missy … she knows how to keep a body warm! Like having mink wrist pads. Good girl. How is it that they can fit so perfectly in the spot and not even get overly aggravated that we’re still typing? If something were to happen to me, they would have to go to someone else that spent their time during the day just writing. Hmm, I guess I spoke too soon … she got up and stretched her leg and then left me … sigh. It was a pretty leg though; I’m glad that she showed it off.

Ok that was a little off the mopey side where next? Ahh there is Bob hugging Rich again. Rich is so funny with that males don’t touch males look. He’s like sometimes when we sneak up on him for a neck kiss and his shoulders crinkle. It was funny I think it was during that weekend we went with him that he said something about a game he and his friends Doug and Bob have played where they sorta smack each others chest and say something silly. I think that even the guys at the fishying club have seen this kind of silly behavior, but it is rather enduring. People just have to envy relationships that are this good. Though I wouldn’t want a friend that is snapping pictures of me being mostly undressed in my sleep, or when the other one sleeps, he ends up with slimy worms on him. Frankly, I don’t know how they sleep knowing that the other is around. Sheesh!

Ahh, there is a good thought. Rich said we could look at our pictures of the lake they are at this weekend and then we would remember good things. Ahh that was quite the show … I know we hadn’t shown all the pictures the last time. This time we were very taken in with some of the tree shots, especially this first one and then the next two … see what I mean aren’t they so cool?







Ok, now we’re being sillier, but here are just a few more shots the first is a picture of the silliest apple tree we ever saw. Then there is one of the sitting part of our room and then there is one, well maybe two of the fishyman ;)









He has the biggest fishy-heart as I’d ever seen. It was a funny apple tree wasn’t it? I thought the extra red support leash was funny too, because you can tell the tree is actually doing fine though disabled and what bounty can it give even though it might have a little mental problem  Just needs a little extra lovin.

Hmm, didn’t realize it at first … but now looking at that apple tree again … I realize I’ve probably caught a picture of an outhouse. *Gigglin* How can somebody miss that!? There’s this one more shot that Rich found first that I thought was funny … here this will be the last picture of the trip though …



Somebody in Wisconsin has a pretty good sense of humor. Hehehe They sure must love their outbuildings in Steven’s Point. If someday I make this writing important … I want to thank someone in town for making us giggle. How powerful a feeling it must be for the owner of the building to walk into it’s realm. I sure hope he has some pretty big power tools in there!

I should have taken a picture of this one other place. We passed by it twice but it startled me the same both times. It was a house on about ½ an acre and unlike all the other views we looked at that weekend, it had a very dark enclosed Chicago gang impression. They had built a tall 10 foot wall with barbed wire across the top that encircled the property and made it look like a prison. The house was only about 15-20 feet from the road. It was very terrible. The people that live there must be very sick. Maybe they thought they were protecting themselves, but I’m sure it has a reputation for being an unfriendly place or people to meet. Who in this world would think wilderness and 10 foot barb-wired fence?

Hmm, I wonder too if that outhouse is used. Looking now at it’s cement base and brick climbing into it. Maybe it’s for the extra flow of people visitors? Yeeks!

Really looks like there’d be some pretty old poops in their by the looks of the old paint. OHHHHk … that’s enough of that. Let’s be moving on.

Just sayin …

I know what your saying, but let’s not be saying it so much.

Funny, I just remembered one of our piggy banks when we were a kid. We used to save up the dollars and change in a one and a half foot snoopy doll with an equally plastic painted blue sash. He had a black rubber cork type gizmo on the bottom for getting out the change and of course the obligatory cut in the top to be easily inserting the dough. We thought of that because we were thinking of bribing one of us with a silver dollar. Just remember how important collecting cash was even though we’d take in sometimes like 18 cents. We had a little cash ledger and marked in everything and purpose from which it came. I don’t know … it was probably around going into high school that we remembered really learning to spend the money. I remember also having a red pouch that business would use to transport money to the bank. I was so proud of that and the little diaries inside it. I was livid at this one point because my brother had stolen it. Well actually, he had confessed eventually to having thrown it down the clothes chute where it got buried.

Man … did that beast have a horrid heart. How can anyone knowingly inflict that much pain on anyone? Beside once when I helped my brother cut a hole in one of my sister’s dolls, I never did anything mean to someone. I wouldn’t have been a part of even that, but we must have had something really bad in our brain. Well except the one time my friend Becky and us were killing ants with the water guns. That was pretty mean too. Once our friend Vicky who used to be part of us thought we sprayed paint on her garage, but that didn’t come from us. We just never did mean things.

AHA August 18th we went to save this document because she seemed to be bogging down, But we couldn’t even figure if the date was in the tens or twenties. I guess that’s enough of going back in time. Maybe that is part of us still being a little sick.

I don’t want to be remembering of all the tortuous things my brother did or would engage our sister in doing against us. I don’t know how we turned out to be so different in heart. Then later my sister would develop also meanly, especially to her husband and my dad’s wife. Ok, ok gotta get past all that.

Hmm, that was Dr. Allbright on the phone. She did call us back and said to get back to us later during the week. I guess we’ll give her a call when the lab tests get done … just remember we gotta fast Monday morning. She said she was glad we didn’t have anymore fever and that we should drink plenty of water. Maybe before the medicine we were pretty sick. We figure too that she’s either a old mother, or most likely a grandmother. The call came in as private, but the phone quality was bad and her voice taken over by kids sounds in the background. Yeeks. As much as I love my grandchildren I will never be their caretaker. I know part of it was decided due to my mental imbalance, but I’d like to think more was due to I couldn’t really pick them up or carry them. That’s not a real safe deal.

This is me not feeling real good about that.



Hmm, that caused us another banana, but I don’t think that was too bad. We had one banana left that had started to get spots. And, it is almost 2:30, which is time for our snack.

Well maybe we were outdoing ourselves back with the strawberries not so long ago.

But Rich said we could eat as many bananas as we want along with sleeping in extra.

See how crazy can that be to have found someone as wonderful as him. Well, the him that doesn’t sneak off to the library and worry us to pieces.



Rich doesn’t think we’re too crazy. Although I’m pretty sure I’m on the strange level. Hmm, why are we going back here again? Let’s stay positive and see what else our brain is going to think of k? Who knows maybe we’ll go somewhere interesting! No wondering if the apple tree is crazier than us is not going to cut it. Let’s try a little harder.

Sooo what’s next? Hmm, we haven’t colored in our coloring books real often lately.

Maybe we can do a little of that later? We could set up a meeting for … well at least before we go back to bed.

That’s a partially interesting thought to think something of school. But, I don’t really want to go there either. It makes us feel bad. Has to do with that whole thing of whether we are smart or not. If you cannot access the smart part that keeps you moving forward then are you really smart. Sort of the tree making a sound in the forest if nobody were there sorta thing.

Ok, that’s enough of that thinking.

We could go more into books if we weren’t afraid of leaving the computer. It’s like the thoughts we have without writing them down don’t really count. Unless of course if you were doing something interesting enough to write about. Yup yup that’s how are mind goes. I sorta wonder if its not much different for people who write real books. Is it the same as me where there mind and fingers make much more sense working as a team? I don’t think I have the creativity to be thinking of stories, because a lot of time when we’re away from the writing our mind isn’t fantasying things in our head … it comes the same way as with TV. I’m not really interested in the stories. Every once in a while I’ll want to see a movie, but I wouldn’t look for one that wasn’t brought in. We did go through that little stage of getting movies delivered, but then time would go on where we didn’t even want to watch the movies that had been delivered. I think we must have run into money problems too, because I knew we canceled our subscription. Hmm, you’d have to read back a while to figure out that whole thing.

Moving ahead … ok, so we’re crawling ahead. I’m pretty sure a real writer might have some kind of end they would like to meet. We did see something when we were in that spending mood last time. We couldn’t afford it, but it was a writing program for about $150. It was like for putting together stories. It was pretty cool. On the right side they had space for the dialogue of the hmm, must have been for screen writers, because there was blocking like which character was talking and his situation like getting off an elevator or something. Then it had on the left side columns where you would pen out “blocks” of the story. In a sense it must then be like outlining. Hmm, that’s an interesting thought I just remembered that someone I knew was writing so we started to write too, but didn’t get very far. I wonder where I put that?

Oh man oh man. That’s funny … I went looking for something not knowing where it was and I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I found a blog of ours I had forgotten about … several actually, but the first one I opened was called “Life Telling Words.” It doesn’t have a date, but I could figure it out, because the first post seems to have been written as we were posting our 500th post on this blog. It starts with pictures of the xB and camera and wheelchair and timer and stuff. We’d nearly forgotten that world where we go off and do walking. I wonder if Rich is planning to do anything next weekend. Maybe we would be well enough to try it again? Back then we were taking pictures of the zoo and woods. It’s kinda funny because we put the pictures in frames with each other … that looks like a fun thing to do, but we’ve missed so many pictures in between to make sense of that all. I love them though … here Ill show you what we’re talking about.





Do you remember these too? I think it must have come about since we got this flashy new Word 2007. I’m thinking at that point the wheelchair was new, and we were just starting to use the camera we’d had for so long without nerve enough to try it.

Now, we love our camera!

Hmm, we’re bogging down here again, but we found this one too … I liked it.



We found one blog called Ann at work, but there was just one sentence in it. Ahh and I sort of remember that blog too … it’s called diary of quite frankly Ann …
Hmm, just watched that again … hadn’t seen it for a while. It only has one entry that I’m kinda afraid to look at now, but it has a 10 minute movie of the center. I couldn’t get it in directly, but I video’d it in by filming the movie. This is a copy of that if you want to remember with me.

We're just going to park this video over here for a few people ... Just V and Dr. M. That's all.




Well on my screen at the moment it doesn’t look right, but it will by the time you look at is

Wow … looking at that one entry now. We’d gotten past the first sentence when we realized the date was January 7, 2006 … That’s over a year and a half ago, but it seems like yesterday. It’s title is “I am.”

Hmm, actually it’s an interesting little blurb. I think the part I held dearest was the part at conclusion who said, “I yearn to be in deep thought, mostly of self and self-acceptance. And, then we need to multiply this by our many.”

It seems like stuff maybe has gone on that we’ve forgotten about … Hmm, now where is that story?

Shoot we’re into boggy again … but I think I know where it is now. Wow … do you know we’ve written in this blog for 22 months? That’s almost 2 years already! HOLY SCHMOLEY … I guess it was back in December of ’04 that I’d tried to do that … what funny memories. This is how that all went.

I’ll give you the first page or two. It turned out that there were 8 chapters all together, but I would not like to go into that at this moment … Please don’t laugh when you read it … by the way … the other journal the old aol where this story was kept went 29 months deep … so now it looks like we are four and a quarter years exact into the story of our life. Quite a lot of people have come and gone through our life in that time span, but a few golden one’s have stayed. For that of my boss, Rich and the boys … I feel very fortunate, but we’ll work to get out of this sappy mindset soon.

Rembrandt Street

Freud said, "The only constructive defense that we have against our problems, our personality difficulties that does not restrict our existence is sublimation (engaging our energy in creativity)

It was a sunny Friday afternoon and the girls had met for a game of jump rope. They were hedged in by tall stone two flat buildings. The block contained about 20 of them. Most had black wrought iron fences and most of the fences had been swept clear of fall leaves. The year was 1965.

The rope belonged to Cathy. She was leader of the group and was 10 years old. The other girls were aged 8-10. The little sister Cathy was watching was six years old.

Cathy’s sister was named Megan. Cathy liked to include her in her activities and Megan looked up to her sister Cathy. Cathy accepted the role of one of the "all-the-time twirlers" and was matched by Sarah who was her best friend on the block and best friend in the whole wide world. Megan stood in line waiting for her turn. She tried to be patient. Megan found herself playing small games. She was practicing to be a ballerina or a Cha-cha dancer. Megan had a hard time staying still. She was not a good jump roper, but the other girls encouraged her to keep trying by doing "lows" for her and counting how many times Megan jumped without missing or falling down.

Megan soon tired of the jump rope game. The other girls had long turns and she’d left duties unattended over by the stone steps. Just past the stone steps was Megan’s and Cathy’s home on the second floor. Megan had spotted her doll’s carriage.

She had thought her Dolly could air in the autumn breeze. She now worried that the doll might be chilled. She found Dolly’s blanket fallen on the sidewalk. Megan cooed, "Poor baby. You’ll catch your death of cold!" She chattered, "Are you hungry?

Do you need diapers changed?"

The Baby started to cry. Megan placed her carefully back in carriage and rocked the doll. At first, Megan failed to notice the strange new girl who had come out of the building and sat on the top step opposite to where Megan sat. After a few minutes, Megan caught the new girl out of the corner of her eye. She felt curious. She knew that the new girl lived in Mrs. Gentry’s old first floor apartment. Mrs. Gentry had a son and daughter-in-law in Florida. They had talked her into moving south to avoid the cold weather and be closer to family. Megan knew like most others on the block that the new family had moved in a couple of weeks ago and they came during the middle of the night. Megan’s mother was worried because she thought four girls living upstairs might cause too much noise on the new people’s ceiling and become too invasive on the other family’s privacy.

Mrs. Johnston was the new girls mother and she kept to herself. She apparently worked a different shift from her husband. From 5 am until 2 pm, the mother worked
at Gronsky’s Bakery. From 4 pm until 2 am the husband worked at the watch factory.

There was an older couple in the household. These folks were presumed to be grandparents. They seemed to stay inside except when the older man helped the older woman bringing wet clothes to hang on the backyard clothes line or when the older woman and the mother shopped for groceries after the mother’s work hours.

There that’s it for now … I hear you begging for mercy. This just goes to show, I do have some imagination, but some people like that shouldn’t be real story writers. To think of doing something dramatic like The hunt for Red October, or Schindler’s List … just blows me away. We’re really not up to writing adult stories. I think our mind is really to childlike to be concerned with how grown up people live their lives. We hear stories of peoples life, but in actuality even as a psychology type person we don’t listen to anything other than a general life’s turning and burning to be. I think the only people that really matter to me how things turn up are Rich and the boys and Sr. Theresa. When I’m around other people I’m just as interested in their life as anyone I could ever meet, but still there is this feeling of being able to let go. Well to be truthful there are one or two other people I’d like to have more life with, but sometimes it seems other people don’t want to be cared about and then you just gotta let go. But, all the time that’s happening we’re still here thinking that in part we’re alive and need to be doing things like writing, or as fish open and close their mouth gulping in air.

Did you ever watch that show where people had gills in their neck?

Ok, no I really didn’t want to go there either, but it was an interesting concept!

Did we go to the bathroom today? Hmm, just remembering Dr. Allbright saying drink water. Maybe 7 up will do and I finally should open that bottle. If something is going to go wrong with our kidneys let’s hope it not be done today. K?

Hmm, I’m thinking I must be this cold-legged person, but not the one that reads silly grant books or keeps the house. I’m like a cave-dwelling part of Ann whose not all the way grownup

I think the Ann your thinking of is still recovering and I was sent out to entertain the troops, but I don’t sing NOR dance! I just have to keep being my silly way.

Hmm, next thought is of my Barbie Dolls, but then that might be a little too much on you. We should say a thousand apologies that we’re as unusual as we are, but truthfully, haven’t you met people who just startle you to pieces? Like how do they get to be that way? I think the new person at work is sort of like that … she makes me see spots. So you want to be a QMRP? Well fine, but you bring your own wits, because I don’t have enough to share!

Ok, that’s enough of work stuff I hate that subject, but I know I still have to water the plant. Hmm, I should be thinking of Rich’s plants. Maybe if I get dressed at all this weekend I’ll go out and water them, but as up to now, I don’t want anything more of this day than the sliver of light behind me. And, then I think that is too bright. Ok, so being a part that doesn’t write everyday … what kind of things do I think about. Well, I remember writing or helping to right school papers. Not the most of them, but a few. I think it was those times are psych teachers were pretty sure we were crazy. Like I know I wrote the paper on creativity and another on something like outlining, but not quite. I think it was like 7 steps to problem solving. But, I don’t think we wrote very much afterward, because my writing always makes me feel silly.

Hmm, do you notice that FlyLady is still writing to us? But, I finally look and this seems to be a Flymessage that I’ve already read before. She states.

Dear Friends,

Clutter has a way of taking over our lives. Clutter becomes that
unwanted houseguest that you can't get rid of. It robs us of peace
while we are home and it also steals any bit of joy when we leave
home; the dread of returning to that mess. What about those of you
that will not even go anywhere because of the chaotic state of your
home. When a home is filled with clutter, it takes on a life of its own.

Your whole day is spent giving it attention, instead of your family
and yourself.

Hmm, we don’t pay much attention to our clutter even when it is sitting on the left side of our elbow pretending to be a banana peel. Hmm, that makes me think of those vacuum tight bags. I wonder if given enough time Rich will let us keep them. I would think he’d be happy we’d want to do something to improve our home life. He seems not to be bothered that several boxes have moved into his bedroom, that don’t appear particularly sexual. He’s just using them for extra now there’s more room to put things on top of stuff. What would the Flylady say about that?

We’re not blaming just Rich though, because we have so much clutter it is us not giving HIM room to breathe. HA! That’s the kind of person we are … we like to think of our mushmellow. How are we improving our lover’s life? Seems to me that we could be making some use of being here at the house without him. I wonder what kind of stuff I could do without moving around so much. I get to feeling like anything past the edge of my double screens is too much to look at. Hmm, noticed the coloring pencils … we noticed them before … I wonder where the coloring books are.

Shoot a mind is a terrible place to waste. NOOOO I didn’t say coloring was wasteful, but I have a much more well not that it’s not intelligent to color, its just that we have many talents and interests remember?

I could see getting into a project of going through our things and arranging things differently. I keep seeing those same 3 stacks of blankets and pillows that are taking up Rich’s breathing space. And, if I were really smart I would figure out how to hang his pictures of the maps. Hmm, I haven’t even taken a look at them, but he’s invited, so we’re thinking maybe he wants us to look … Ok, maybe if I hold my breath, I can put down my blankey and look? Ok, but it might not make me happy!

HMPF!
Wow that was weird. It was very strange being in his room. We left the lights on in case we wanted to go back there. You know another funny thing? We figured out where the cats go when they are not here. I’d seen it a couple times before, but I guess now it’s a regular thing. Rich left two of his shirts – one’s that he’s worn on his bed, and the cats – two of them are not only lying on Rich’s bed, they are both cuddled down on his shirt. We’ll have to tell Rich that I think they are now HIS cats. Couple of traitors … I leave clothes all over the place for them, but they choose Rich. Double HMPF! Ya know if it had been one cat, one shirt, or one time, it may have been missed, but this is a bit one too much.

Maybe they want to wait til Rich comes home to be fed by someone. Well no he never feeds the cats, but I think they are mancats now.

Ok, shhhh … we can get over this too. The pictures were kinda neat but we couldn’t read them and the cats were giving us dirty looks. They weren’t even friendly, nor did they pretend to just have passed by, nor were they leaving! Triple HMPF!

Next?

Hmm, except for the 15-16 pictures, it seems like we’re writing a lot today … AND we specialize still in nothing important. But, the fact of the matter is that we’re up to page 25, which means my fingers are probably starting to hurt with some purpose.

Someone might say … another one of your short posts. BUT, it’s only 4:16 and we figure we might stay on for awhile. I’m not sure if there is a football or baseball game on, but we might want to try that too. Hmm, that’s good enough … we turned on the cubs game that will last for another hour and a half. Haven’t watched much baseball this year.

Still boggy … we’re waiting for it to turn the page to tell us what’s on at 7 pm.

AHA! That’s what we were looking for … San diego Chargers are playing at the St. Louis Rams place AT 7 pm … perfect! We’re still into preseason game, but it is as good as anything to me. It sure is cool here though. I suppose we could turn off the air conditioner, but that might be dangerous, because its so high. I don’t want to open the door exactly. Well maybe I could, but it’s a little scary. Now I feel like I have a headache. Hmm, is there a game between 6 and 7 … Hmm, there we go … more bog. I guess sox are on tonight at 9 so we could go to that if the football game ended too soon. At 6? O man that’s terrible. Not even news. Gymnastics is kinda interesting too, but then I’d have to watch. Sometimes I just want to listen.

WooHOOO!!! Rich just called. It’s about 4:30. He’s sounding pretty crabby though. He said he spent a half a day in the rain, but that he took a nice warm shower. He did by the new rain pants, but he only spent $25 in them. Boo booo!

Now that I know pants can go $200 and higher, $25 doesn’t seem sufficient. He reminded us of the football game, but he thought the bears were playing so I’m guessing they are on ESPN. Lucky thing we were looking! I told him about the maps and the cats too. He says they aren’t his cats they are just trying to prove that they are showing him who’se in charge when he’s not here. He asked me how we were doing and we told him fine because we have no temperature, but underneath were probably still sick. He reminded us to take our medicine. We had to ask him why he sounded so grouchy and he said that

Hmm Chicago just got a home run and now the score is 5-0 … I think it might have been a grand slam. Daryl Ward. I don’t know anybody by that name but … hmm, yup Grand slam! It makes me feel good just to say the term.

Hmm, we took advantage of that pleasant mental slip to climb the chair to turn off the air conditioning. I think our knee is givin us a break … OHHH I remember cuz we’re taking the extra Tylenol. Well that works for me! One of my cats finally got out of bed and raced to the door that we opened because my fingers are so cold even with the blanket over my legs. We opened one of the curtains too, but am now getting bombarded with someone’s barbeque. Hmm, now the other team got a home run … but just one point. And, did you know that it was raining?

Hmm, I’m doing a bilateral thing. I’m thinking on the one hand of sweeties message we left half said, and on the other hand our nose is twitching thinking how good that barbeque smells. I wonder if we FINALLY took our shower if we could go out and get ribs in that hour between games? You know we were just noting no games at 6?

There’s a couple more things in favor of that score. One because our fingers are probably deserving a break, plus giving any reader a chance to have some time left in the day to do something, and the second … Rich has been leaving us a $20 just in case something comes up. Hmm, there is one more possibility. What happens if we just ordered out. Maybe we couldn’t get ribs delivered, but maybe we could get a deep dish pizza! Our pizza restaurant shares its space with a restaurant that just changed over, so I’m not sure if its still there. But, it is around 5 pm and time to start thinking of such things. Maybe we could do that and then not have to worry about finding the rib place? Hmm, let’s try that. There is another possibility that we could order Chinese, but then pizza sounds much more appropriate on a wet cold day. Oh man looking at two menus it seems tomato pizza would be better, but would Chinese give me more?

Ahh we set it in stone. We ordered a medium stuffed cheese pizza and added an order of breaded mushrooms and we got a free pop coming. Pretty good deal? They said it came to $21.something and would be here in a little over an hour. It’s 5:18 now.

We picked up the couple of dirty clothes in the living room, changed into something less formal and raided the change jar. We came up with $4 in quarters!!! Woohoo … figure that’s between a 15-20% tip for the pizza guy. I didn’t think this would be the appropriate time to break into Rich’s real emergency money. I hope I don’t ever go that far. But, stretching a $20 yah I can do that as well as anyone. So proud we still have a change jar – though nothing left in it but under .25 things.

I feel pretty adventuresome ordering a deep dish in only cheese. I’ve always had vegetables thrown in, but decided I’d rather to the straight pizza and have the breaded mushrooms on the side. Last time I made the mistake of ordering the stuffed kind. Hmm, that’ was a bad idea. Hmm, just recounted to make sure we had enough.

There was one quarter we were giving up that was 33 years old. Heaven knows what people will do for fried mushrooms! Had to resanitize my hands to get that change smell off of them. Maybe my pizza will come before the football game starts, but at least we’ll have a full tummy. Yup yup feeling much better.

I’m so glad we turned off the air … we’re starting to get feeling back in our fingers and we can here the rain outside. Don’t want to think of our fishyman out in it though. I’d forgotten what it look like out our front door.

Hmm forgot too the fishyman called. Who talked to him?

Anyway I was saying that we asked why he sounded so grouchy, but I guess that fishing in the rain is only good if you are catching stuff. The only thing better than his fishing so low on the totem pole was that Bob was dead last … Woo HOO that’s our boy … sorry Bob! Too it was before he got a chance to get some dinner.

He said they were going out somewhere but it hadn’t been decided yet. I think he was going to figure out the game plan and maybe catch a little nap … he was tired because he went to bed late and woke up at 4:30 am. I don’t think he is ever happy either about the boat owner partner always gets his choice of fishing spots and the others don’t get an opinion. That may be more than any reason why Rich is in a grumbly mood and thinking that he needs to get a boat. I think he’d be much nicer to HIS partner though. What else did fishyman say. I think there might be other grumpy ol men there too … not that he complained that, but when I asked if anyone was making him happy, he mumbled something, but it didn’t leave me to a good conclusion. He did say that his partner chuckled when they drove past the man shed. Hehehe.

Hmm, I better come up with a backup plan for what to do when my fingers fall off. I can see now that reading in a corner might be nice. But, I’m pretty sure I’m not the grant writer. I would rather read a text book. So maybe we could go there? What’s up on the board. Hmm, we haven’t done anything for a while on those books on eating or shame. But, those might put us back in poorer moods … and for the record they are really not text books, hmm do you really need that?

Hmm, we watered Rich’s plants, but it might be too late the branch things seem to be drooping over. This is not a good thing, but maybe more because too it is going to get cold? That might be a reason too, right? Hmm, we are thinking that we might be in the mood to read a National Geographic. That is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time, but never seem to have enough focused energy … we can do that and listen to the ball games at the same time, right? Ok, for now then … we’ll be over there...

posted by Ann Marie @ 8/19/2007 11:38:00 AM Comments: 1