This Side of Death

[cineater]

But I had the flu shot!  Not that bad just tired, achy and scratchy throat.  The baby tested for type B so I assume that's what I have.  I'm equipped this time with a bottle of Coke and dry cereal.

I haven't blogged in a while so I'll catch you up on life since it's either computer chair or the couch.

It's plant sale time.  They dumped extra pansies on me for the parks.  So far I've transplanted 668 and have about 72 to go.  The plant room is full.  The greenhouse is open and we're busy filling it up.  I did get a new garden map, after two years.  You can see it here:  https://www.canva.com/design/DAGdmV-lKyU/F3NCo4v-0DZwN1RP8SS0zA/view?utm_content=DAGdmV-lKyU&utm_campaign=share_your_design&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=shareyourdesignpanel#1  Go to the bottom left and click page 2 for the actual map.

Something is going on with Sandy again.  Just waiting find out why she is so hyper.  Susan doing okay, still buying.  The Republican next door decided over the weekend he wasn't going back to work any more and retired on the spot.  Asking me all these questions.  It's been 8 years for me.  I had all that worked out before I went out the door, ask google!  The siding guys are here, taking the day off because it is raining, but it should be done by the end of the week.

I got sort of diagnosed with PAD, directly related to smoking, so I'm taking another half hearted attempt at quitting.  Haven't run out of cigarettes on hand so I hold out before I smoke.  Her equipment wasn't working right so it could have been the machine and not me but it should be me so I'm going with the diagnosis until I get my physical in April and the doctor says otherwise.

[cineater]

I have you heard about people throwing slices of cheese at their kids to get them to stop?  I hadn't either until I saw a routine by comedian Leslie Liao on the Tonight Show talking about it.     Check it out.  Guarantee it will make you feel better.  And it works!

[cineater]

Okay, I'm still laughing about the cheese.     Here's the youtube of it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf61lvLK4KI

Keep Yourself Alive works just as well as coffee first thing in the morning.  

[cineater]

In dreamland, I'm following someone to the car.  She climbs into the driverseat, turns and it's Marsha!  I was so surprised, the smile on my face still hurts.  She had hair, not in a style I would have put her in but styled in a bob.  We laughed at seeing each other.  "You're not taking this well."  Not something I can respond to even in the real world but we moved on, mostly just giggling at how happy we were.  She looked good.

Normally today I would have jumped out of bed with the alarm for a meeting that would have included Marsha.  As it was, I had turned off the alarm and was going in and out.  Tried to get the dream back but it was gone.  Still it's on my joy list.  I have a couple of things on there for this year which is better then when I hadn't added anything since last May.

[cineater]

If you're going to go up on the roof, you're asking for it.  At least that's what people tell me.  Haven't fallen off yet.  Pics out there of them shoveling snow off Axl's roof.  Assume that one guy is Axl.  Somehow I can see him enjoying that but I remember he fell off a table too.  

In my neighborhood, it's always the 60, 70 and one 80 year old out there shoveling the snow or using the blower.  We gang up and help each other.  The younger folks are paying somebody to do it and they can't seem to find a teenager who wants to earn a few bucks.  They wait on professionals.

[cineater]

There is no death before Girl Scout cookies.   

[cineater]

Does it mean you're dead if Facebook doesn't allow you?  First attempt at making a Facebook account and they suspend me.  I had to submit a video of my face.  Is that normal?  They must think I'm a business from my pictures.

Okay, they unsuspend me.  Maybe it's because I didn't give them my phone number and they wanted a second way to identify me.

[cineater]

My daughter and I are, can we kill him now?  My son has gone back to Ohio to move his girlfriend here.  He's done nothing but complain about her since he got here.  Wondered why he was avoiding me.  Not my problem but it's kind of hard to hide what my face is saying.   

[cineater]

We probably can't save the monarch butterfly but I'm trying to help them stay around until after I'm gone.  

I've grown and transplanted 841 Butterfly Milkweed and still transplanting.    They are all going to the parks department.  I ran out of containers to plant them in some where after 500.  I'm making newspaper containers.  And I ran out of flats to put them in so I got some of those aluminum baking pans.  Those hold about 50 plants but still, I have plants under the lights, on the potting table and on the floor.  

The parks department picks up their 600 pansies on Wednesday.  Get them out of the garage and the Milkweed can go out there on Friday.  Good thing because I need to start working on the nectar plans the butterfly needs for food.  The milkweed is for the caterpillars.

I keep telling the parks they don't have to accept all of what I'm growing.  It's going to take a lot of manpower to get these in the ground.  They keep saying they have lots of room and send the truck over to pick them up.    And then give me back the containers so I can grow more for the following year.



Did that work?  It's from my new facebook page.  Got a friend request from some old guy I have no clue who he is but not bad looking, wearing military camouflage and standing with a horse.  Yeah, I'd like to get to know you.

[cineater]

So I ask Mr. interesting looking old guy how he knows me.  He was looking for an old friend and made a mistake but he still wants to be friends.  Oh really?  How long before this guy asks for a gift card to feed his horse?   

[cineater]

Faster Pussycat Singer's Fiancée Posted Final Instagram Post Before She Allegedly Fell Off Cruise Ship

https://www.aol.com/lifestyle/faster-pussycat-singers-fianc-e-163145719.html

[cineater]

Call my 91 year old mother.  She tells me she had a meltdown today.  Yeah ya did.  Why I'm calling.  My sister had texted me needing emotional support.  Basically it all comes down to she doesn't feel like she can do anything any more.  You can't lie to her because that is pretty close to the truth and it's only going to get worse.  I remind my sister, it's what we have to look forward to.  But we talk about things she's looking forward to, new grandbaby next month and she's feeling better now.  I wonder does she know I'm watching her to learn what to do when I'm that old?  I still need my mother to be my role model.

[cineater]

Is there any sympathy out there for the online scammer?  I always think of them as somebody in a third world country with no employment opportunities.  Maybe trying to avoid a life in a drug cartel or under the control of some kind of bastard in the Asian arena.  Somebody who has no choice but to do this.  It's the same sympathy I have when one has to shoot Old Yeller.     Sorry bullet to the brain for you. 

Yeah, I'll have to block the Facebook horse guy.  He hasn't got to the gift card yet.  Posing as military serving in Yemen, cool looking place, but he can't respond to what branch of the military he's in.  And another old guy I don't know wants to be my friend.  Look I'm not interested in facebook messenger.  I don't have time to chat and you're just annoying me.  Kind of hard to get a scam going if you're just annoying me to begin with.     I knew I didn't want Facebook.

[cineater]

I was giving my cart to the cart boy at the store.  If I was 16 I would have been all over him.  As it is, I'm thinking, who's your daddy baby?  Wait, who's your grandpa?   

[cineater]

Being a parent really rocked but being a grandparent is the icing on the cake.  He thinks I rock.     Grandma's are cool!

[cineater]

So my son got the girlfriend and her son moved back here.  The kid blew through a stop sign on his bike and hit a car.  He's been in intensive care for 4 days.  The MRI show traumatic brain injury.  Happen the same day my son started his new job.  It happen at 8 at night.  She didn't know about it until midnight when she called the police to report he had missed his curfew.  They drove her an hour away to the children's hospital.  My son was spending the night with me so he could get to work easier the next day.  He got about 45 minutes of sleep.  The kid is only 14 and was making a good adjustment to his new home.  They are keeping him pretty sedated but he was able to move his foot when told to.  He may still not make it through this.  Has blood clots on his brain.

[cineater]

They've issued us severe to extreme for tornados tonight.  It was this time last year I got the hail damage to the house.  Feel like I had my turn already.   

[cineater]

I know it's gravity or lack of but does this woman in space look like the bride of Frankenstein?  I have to smile every time I see her hair.    Yeah that's a bad hair day.

[cineater]

Happy Spring!     The 1400 milkweed are coming along.  The wind and the sun have been a little hard on them.  They've had to stay in the garage a lot for their own protection.  It's haircut week for them.  Cut them back so they can bush out.  They are going to have to be tough to survive planting in the parks.  They get no after care once they get planted. They will stay with me until the end of April. 

[cineater]

It's gardening and plant sale season.  How many times a day now do I have something to say to Marsha?  Who do I say that stuff to?  Her husband recently brought me more of her stuff.  There's just nothing you can say.  He misses all the garden stuff too, really he means Marsha.  Come up and play with us but you won't find her here.  Believe me I look, everyday.

[cineater]

Funny out of all the things my son has bought and lost in this whirlwind of a midlife crisis, he still has his Zippo lighter collection.  I started him on that when he was 17, maybe 16.  The kid wasn't born to me but sometimes he is so like me.  I'd just like to say, when I turned him over to his wife, he had no criminal record, no babies out of wedlock and made a lot more money than me.  His girlfriend's son still hasn't regained consciousness.  He stretches like he is about to wake up but goes back under.  Anyway, he has a birthday coming up.  It's fun to shop for Zippo lighters again.  I got him this one:

[cineater]

I was driving through the valley today.  It's a place that inspired a lot of my writing a while back.  It was just open fields then, many large hunting birds and a coyote I favored.  Today it's wall to wall warehouses.  No open space left.  I saw one of the hunting birds killed in the middle of the road and a dead deer on the side.  Both left there to rot.  I'm not going back there any more.

My place use to be pretty protected but it's grown up around me.  It's ideal for me but because of the growth around me I've been thinking about moving on.  That old woman comes to mind.

I had one of the kids at their psychiatric evaluation and stepped outside for a smoke.  This old woman asked me for a light as I was finishing up.  I didn't pay much attention to her but she said, "I live further out now, I've been depressed my whole life".   At the time I thought it was strange.  Didn't recognize her as a former client but I was also moving to get back inside and she was turning to walk away.  Later though, when I had a minute to reflect back, I thought that was me.  That old woman was me.  Is depression my whole life the reason?

So a couple takeaways from that.  I do move out to a more remote area.    But she caught up to me at a psychiatric clinic.  Depressed her whole life the diagnosis and still smoking?     Fuck!

[cineater]

Funny out of all the things my son has bought and lost in this whirlwind of a midlife crisis, he still has his Zippo lighter collection.  I started him on that when he was 17, maybe 16.  The kid wasn't born to me but sometimes he is so like me.  I'd just like to say, when I turned him over to his wife, he had no criminal record, no babies out of wedlock and made a lot more money than me.  His girlfriend's son still hasn't regained consciousness.  He stretches like he is about to wake up but goes back under.  Anyway, he has a birthday coming up.  It's fun to shop for Zippo lighters again.  I got him this one:

Does that look like a red back gorund to you/!     That's the way it came, totally dulls out the colors of the mask.

[cineater]

I sent an email to my news channel suggesting they do a piece on how being a mother had changed with the women's liberation movement from the 70's.  We have the 3 generations, the mom's at that time, the daughters who went forward with the idea and the children who were raised from it, now raising their own families.  I know my mother is always surprised by how different her granddaughters' family life is from how hers was, the husband is more involved in raising the kids.  I was told I could "bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan", you know, fuck you, I'm burning the candle at both ends.  And then my daughter who is the primary breadwinner and the husband is the stay at home parent.  Thought it would make a good piece but I don't want to be on TV.   

[cineater]

April 1, 2018 my official retirement date.     7 years, I'm pretty lucky.

[cineater]

Grandma said she wanted me to have her wedding rings.  Somehow the wedding band ended up on my mother's finger for the last 50 years.  I've been waiting all this time to get the set together again.  Mom turned it over to me today.  She has gotten too skinny to wear it any more due to her age.  Now it means something different to me.  I'm not feeling very comfortable wearing it.

[cineater]

And now I feel naked.    Dropped the rings off at the jeweler.  One ring to be resized, both dipped and appraisals.  Funny how you don't know your rings are there but add another one or take them off and it just feels strange.

Hang on, I looked up dipping and platinum rings don't need that for protection.  That was big bucks too.  I like the look of platinum.  Really hate when the band of a ring out shines the stone in it.  I'm cancelling that.

[cineater]

I am losing my fucking mind.  Somehow last night I went from retipping the rings which is what I wanted and paid for, to thinking I paid for them to be dipped.  I'm not even sure how I did that.   

Really, am I at the beginning stages of one of those brain diseases?  Talk to people about it and they give me all kinds of explanations for no I'm not, I've got something else going on, could be.  Okay, admittedly I have been a space case all my life, if it doesn't really interest me, I'm not paying that close of attention, just getting the task done.  And I have always been a multitasker.  The shit I can accomplish when I'm moving even I'm surprised later when I stop and think about it.  You know, I've got through the lightning round.     And it is allergy season, my eyes are swollen all the time and I'm in a fog.  I know I'm moving pretty fast with all I have going on so I'm double checking everything at the end of the day while trying to finish shit up, catching all the little mistakes or things I've forgot, each one of those hitting hard on the question of am I losing my fucking brain.  I'm making myself crazy.   

[cineater]

Fuck!     People at the garden are already saying they don't know how I do it.  They are talking about multitasking.  Shhh, don't let the two girls I'm training to take my place hear you.     One of them is already saying I can't do some of it.  She needs to learn the fine art of coordinating and delegating.  They're volunteers they love to help.     We're mid plant sale and getting the gardens up.  There's a lot going on and I have my fingers in all of it.  It will be fine by the end of May.

Maybe I shouldn't give it up.  The more shit I have to get done, the more I've got all the details being checked off in my head.  Maybe my problem is when I'm not kicking my own ass, I let go of my full attention?

So the rings, god do they shine.  Too clean for me to wear at the moment.  They look good together but I'm going to check, since I downsized the one mom was wearing if she can wear it now.  I know how weird I felt when the one I had was at the jeweler.  She must be feeling the same about the one she was wearing.  She wore it for 50 years.  I can wait to get the set back together.  Then it would be a reminder of my mom instead of a reminder now she is very old.  I already signed for it out of the estate but I can sign it back in.

[cineater]

When one is offered the gift of time, one should probably do something.  But it's a rainy day, the couch looks so comfy and my eyelids are so heavy.  Just until the pain pill kicks in and then I'll get moving.  I can always create more time by staying up late.   

[cineater]

Happy Easter.   

Not really doing much here.  I got the grandbaby a sandbox for Easter.  My last day for watering in the greenhouse.  Got the milkweed ready for the parks to pick up on Tuesday.  Getting ready to kick out the marigolds, zinnias and sunflowers to get harden off so they can come get them next week.  Their Brown Eyed Susans are about ready to be transplanted.

Marsha and I always spent Easter working in the garden.  Missing her today.

[cineater]

The parks department had to bring two trucks to pick up the milkweed.     I think I'll make that mistake again next year.   

It's hell week with gardening.  Public plant sale is this weekend.  Gardens have to be show ready, we're renovating the herb garden and I'm caring for all the bedding plants until they start going in next week.  Where don't I hurt?  But I lost 5 pounds and my mood is greatly improved.

So I go hobbling into my doctor's office for the yearly physical.  He says I'm good.  Doesn't know what was with that other test, I'm at 97 percent.  You know, she had trouble with her machine when she was here.  He wants me to stop my cholesterol medicine for a week and see if that improves my tolerance to the sun.  I never considered it might be a med issue.  I've had the same symptoms probably since I started taking that med.  It would be nice if I didn't view the sun as my enemy.  Again clarified, let me die if it's going to send me to a nursing home.  And don't date the colonoscopy doctor even if your mother thinks he's the poster boy for doctor's you should marry.     Ocean, desk and tractor, passed the memory test.