Day 34 of Sheltering In

Friday.

I did a porch drop at my daughter’s group home. I forgot her prescription so I’ll have to run it over there on Sunday. She also failed to tell me to get her cheese. She had me get all the ingredients she needs to make pita pizzas. We’ve made these since the kids were little. No messy dough, and the crust comes out perfect. Levash bread, or Lebanese bread both work well for a thin cracker like crust...if you can find it. We used to live off Devon Ave in Chicago and could easily find both at the little grocers there. If you like super thin crust like Mod Pizza, just use a thin flour tortilla.

Picking up Chinese food for lunch was a fail. They were closed, even though they were supposed to be open for curbside pickup. So I had to pick up Mexican food. Never again at the place we ordered from. $18 for 2 large guacamole? Rip-off! Then they dumped one of them in the bag. I went back and returned it, then drove to the location where we order from near my house. Same price, $9 for one, but it was much larger. I’m still craving Chinese food. Maybe Sunday I can pull together some of my go to Chinese take-out recipes.

Anywho, pizza making tips completed. Both kids had meltdowns Friday night. My son because he misses his sister. They were always very close, so this is hard. My daughter’s boyfriend has a serious medical condition. Not exactly clear on what that is because he may not be able to describe it. We know he had bloodwork Friday that needs to be done again on Saturday because his kidney tests were very bad. 🙏🏻 It’s not serious, or it was a testing error. I consulted Dr Google and what I found was concerning.

I need to figure out how to do Zoom. Maybe we can play a game or something over Zoom. 

Contemplating a very early trip to the laundromat on Sunday. Gah!

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Day 33 of Sheltering In

Thursday.

My daughter’s staffing conference call was this morning at 9am. 😑 I paid for that all day. I have that no sleep “burnt” feeling...and a migraine. The meeting went well. Praise for my daughter all around from all the staff. I almost like this better than “in-person” staffing meetings. My wife and I don’t have to see the looky lews who feel the need to stare at lesbians. (Yes, it’s happened at quite a few of these meetings that my wife has attended.) Instead of trying to stealthily pass notes to my daughter when I wanted her to expand on what she was saying or tell her to not to forget something, I just texted her! She texted back. Worked very well. Of course there was apartment talk at the end. We were told my daughter definitely meets the income criteria. Apparently the office is getting everything setup. My daughter got her work transportation paperwork in the mail today. I’m thinking the apartments would be ready September at the earliest. I’m 🙏🏻 there aren’t any issues with her getting in. My daughter really has her heart set on getting into those apartments and it will be so nice for her to get away from the nutjob and be very close to us. She can’t wait to have her first dinner party. When she’s all set up she said she’s inviting us for dinner and she’s cooking from scratch!

Turns out her work “friend” lied about being fired. Why would someone do that? The young man is, well, let’s just say he’s special needs because I don’t really know what his issues are. I’ve had many conversations with him, so I can tell something isn’t quite right. He has always been very polite to me. Maybe he doesn’t understand that to lie about getting fired isn’t a joke? Hopefully she will still have her job after the lockdown is lifted and it’s lifted for group homes. They may or may not have the same date, after all, they went on lockdown before the entire state went on lockdown.  

We have another month of lockdown. I’m actually happy with the decision, especially after watching the interviews with that whack a doodle Mayor from Las Vegas yesterday! The news went around my daughter’s group home like wildfire. No one saw the press conference, but someone heard, then I confirmed it when my daughter asked. No point in delaying telling them. Someone would have turned on the nightly news and they would have found out that way.

We were at Meijer today. Not many sale items In the ad, but whatever was on sale was gone. They did have quite a bit of paper towels and a few packs of tp, but I didn’t get any. I still haven’t been able to find hand sanitizer. They were putting some pretty droopy looking plants down the main aisle. I couldn’t tell what they were. The garden center doors were locked, but they did have more annuals. When the garden centers finally do open they will be a zoo. We usually don’t plant until after Mother’s Day, so hopefully things will have calmed down. I usually get petunias to put in the planter boxes on the porch, and Rosemary in small planters on the table. (They keep the mosquitoes away.) One of the planters got smashed, so unless I can work magic with glue, or find the exact planter, I will be 1 short.

I bought fabric covered ponytails. I need to modify the masks I got. At least the ones I wear. I can’t raise my arms to tie or untie them myself. My son still hasn’t mastered how to tie a bow tightly, like a shoelace. He has issues with manual dexterity and were he to attempt to help me the mask would not be tight enough for proper coverage. My right shoulder pain was just becoming tolerable. Not any longer! My reach to untie my mask aggravated it. Then I pulled the wrong tie and knotted it. Of course! Right? I’m icing my shoulder and my back. I’ll medicate later and hopefully I’ll be able to get some sleep tonight.

Apparently one of my in-laws has discovered the perfect way to shop and have first crack at a supposedly recently sanitized store that’s been restocked.  They bring a camping chair and arrive an hour before opening and sit at the entrance. Definitely not as exciting as waiting in line for concert tickets or the latest iPhone! I do not need anything that badly that I’m gonna get up at 4:30am shower, get dressed, have breakfast (COFFEE!), then drive to the store and sit in a camping chair at the entrance.

I will get to see my daughter Friday...from a distance. We’ll do a porch drop and drop off Chinese food. There is a place by her group home. The Chinese restaurant by my house has been closed since the coronavirus first started. My wife knows the owner so when they re-open I’m sure she’ll find out whether she asks or not. Apparently the owners were threatened, at both locations. I don’t understand how people can be so racist. Where I live now is much more white bread than where I grew up, so having typed that I can totally see it. Those things weren’t on my radar growing up.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Day 32 of Sheltering In

Wednesday.

Looks like resolution to financial issue. I need to get out the laptop and crunch the numbers. 

My daughter has her staffing meeting via conference call Thursday at 9am. Might as well be 6 am. Not sleeping well. Meeting should go well. This is 6 month review, not the apartment meeting, but I know my daughter will bring it up. She wrote up a page of bullet points that she wanted to make sure they were talked about. It was mostly brags, but that’s ok, the more the better! I was impressed! Of course talking about the apartments was on the list.

My seeds have sprouted! 👏 Most, not all. I have limited window space so I need to rotate them more often.

I think I mentioned we were at Walmart Monday. They had no vegetable plants, only some really sad looking annuals down the aisle to the garden center. It was open, just the part with patio stuff, fertilizer, seed

(🤦🏻 A lot less expensive than Meijer), and yard tools. 

My daughter misses me. 😢 I don’t think I’ll be able to stretch out the porch drops further apart than a week.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Day 31 of Sheltering In

Tuesday.

Spent nearly all day on the phone. Talking to agencies or leaving messages and getting callbacks from agencies. Zero help with my questions. I got a revised document this morning. I still need to crunch the numbers to see if it’s correct. Going to have to be later or tomorrow afternoon. I have a migraine and my back is screaming from yesterday Tomorrow morning my daughter has a staffing conference call. (Can’t meet in person so it will be by phone.) 

Yesterday my daughter spoke with a coworker. It’s a little fuzzy, and doesn’t make sense, but it seems like baggers are virtually eliminated. The guy said he was the only bagger on his shift. Unclear as to why. Is it because the others called off, quit? My daughter has been trying to get a transfer to the meat department. (Weighing and packaging meat. Whole meat like chops, roasts, etc. No slicing of meats.) Hopefully she can transfer if there is any truth to baggers being eliminated. She has yet to find out why she hasn’t gotten her vacation check. (She took vacation for her birthday, which was prior to the group home lockdown.)

My wife had a nasty fall last night, and I nearly had one rushing downstairs to find out what happened. She’s ok, scared herself more than anything else. I bet she’s sore today. How exactly does one fall asleep, sitting up, leaning on a TV tray, then crash, boom, boom? I dunno, but clearly it takes talent. She sleeps very poorly due to pain and her asshat cat. That damn cat starts at 5am jumping on her and crying ‘feed me, FEED ME’. I keep telling her to pick her happy little ass up and lock her in the bathroom, but she says she can’t because then the cat will cry loudly. HEADPHONES! Who is in charge? It’s the cat, and that’s not the way it should be, especially when the cat is jumping on her when she’s sound asleep, and has pain. Her cat has done that to me a couple of times during daytime naps and I shoo’d her ass out of the bedroom. It’s very startling to get woken up by a cat jumping on your head, chest, or abdomen (kitty don’t care where she lands, she wants you awake!). Not only that, when you have back, knee, (and shoulder pain-me) you jerk and it HURTS. I don’t think my solution is cruel. It’s more cruel for the cat to keep doing that. How does the cat learn not to do that? My wife rarely, if ever, uses the water bottle spray, so how is she going to stop this? Telling that darn cat anything just gets you a shoulder shrug.

I just got a callback from the Dept of Insurance. Very helpful woman called me back. She told me how to file a complaint (if it comes to that) and to be sure to ask she’s assigned to my case cuz she wants to have at them! For right now I think the situation is mostly resolved, it’s a matter of crunching the new numbers. If a new situation arises, then it may be necessary to file a complaint. I hope not. It seems at every turn some place has their hands in my pockets and I’m getting less and less money to live on. 

I need to have Medicare Part B explained to me. I don’t really know anyone who has it. Possibly my wife’s friend who had a dog attack her and caused permanent damage to her arm. I think I’m going to checkout the AARP website and see if they have any info. Because all agencies have staff working from home you can’t just go to DHS, or wherever and sit down and have it explained to you and answer questions. I’m going to start with AARP, and then talk to my wife’s friend if I still have questions.

Is anyone else concerned that the rush to open the economy is going to have dire consequences? More infections, more deaths? It’s just heartbreaking the stories about the elderly, doctors and nurses too. Praying for a common sense approach. It does no good to open the economy and remove the lockdown, if infections haven’t peaked, and states don’t have enough test kits to properly access the situation.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Day 30 of Sheltering In

Monday.

In-law already cancelled for Wednesday. I knew they would. I don’t think I can wait much longer. I’m going to need to plan a trip to the laundromat. Gah!

So...grocery shopping. I was doing once a week. I wanted to get to once every 2 weeks. I’m going to have to go. Need cat litter and milk. My spouse and I went to Walmart today. Got something for dinner and my wife toured the cookware. I still don’t have a complete answer on what to order from Kohl’s.🤷🏻‍♀️ My son apparently thinks I can read his mind. I’m so tired of this. It happens every week. So guess what? Whatever it was, we went without until the next weekly shopping trip. Can’t go without cat litter. 🤬 And then there’s the text message or call while I’m in the checkout lane, or checking out, or walking to the car. To bad, so sad. It usually takes me 2 hours to get through the store. I’m not browsing! The store keeps moving stuff around, or I forget something because I can’t refer to the list in my phone and forgot to write a paper list. They especially move around the hoarded items. They won’t be in their regular aisle, no, they could be on a pallet in the main aisle, or something like hand sanitizer would be in an end cap at the back of the aisle.

Now to find something to watch on tv.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020

Day 29 of Sheltering In

Sunday. I have to look at my last “sheltering in” post to figure out what day this is. Also have to think back, was yesterday Saturday? My wife thought today was Friday. I said I thought that was yesterday. But it’s actually Sunday.

I keep telling myself it’s just talk...My daughter is actually thinking...’small wedding, not a lot of people, I don’t like crowds’. Back the fork up...WAY BACK! 

(4 scary words swimming in my head. Mother of the bride. It’s not time!) My daughter’s boyfriend’s grandma passed away from Coronavirus. She was 93, I think. I don’t know because this was still floating above her head, ‘Kevin has 7 brothers, I have 1 and the girls, I don’t know who I would pick for bridesmaids’. I had my reply, but I didn’t want my son to hear. I’m sure my daughter will call me tomorrow. So Kevin is having a hard time, losing his grandma. He brought up wedding because I’m sure he was thinking, relatives, family, etc. That’s all I got. And I will repeat what I told her when she mentioned getting married and having a baby. I had a long, slow, very calm chat. Do you know how old I was when I had you? No. I was 33. Do you know how old your Grandma was when she had me? No. She was also 33. How old are you? 27. Don’t you think my Mom and I were a lot more mature when we had our first baby? Yes. Do you think you’re that mature? Long pause. No. Don’t you think that means you can wait? Yes. There was a little chat in between the questions, it wasn’t quick, one question after the other. I really think my daughter needs to get into one of those apartments, and live on her own for a bit. Also, it’s a great opportunity to get into those apartments. I’m pretty sure couples are allowed to live in them, married couples. I’m sure my daughter will ask at her staffing conference call on Thursday. It’s not the apartment call, it’s a meeting she has every 6 months to talk about her progress, and how she’s doing. She has asked about moving to an apartment at least 3 staffing meeting. (Conference call because of the coronavirus lockdown.)

Supposedly we have help coming Wednesday to take out the ruined appliances from the basement and to the recycling center. I confirmed everyone will have masks and gloves. I think it’s gonna be a no show. 

I just want to be able to wash my clothes in my own house!

Sunday is usually my chill day. Pre-Corona I would be staying home all day, just veggin in front of a tv. No errand running. My wife even took my daughter to work if my daughter was on a home visit. 

I’M SO BORED.

I have crap I should be doing, <whine> but I don’t wanna. It’s all paperwork, research, and phone calls.

My wife wants new cookware, specifically, frying pans with maybe a chicken fryer size. I have a set of Wolfgang Puck that includes a nice chicken fryer. They are not non-stick. Whether that means ceramic non-stick, or Calphalon, no idea.

Me: Ok, should I order them from Kohl’s, I have Kohl’s Cash? 

Wife: <sigh> Noooooooh. 

Me: What about Meijer, we get points? 

Wife: <sigh> Noooooooh. <sigh> I want to feel it...how heavy it is.

She wants to go to Walmart tomorrow to “hold” frying pans. 😂

Our DirecTV contract is up. Dang bill went up $35! So I’ll have my wife call. (She makes always these type of calls). I warned her they will give her a number for “Customer Retention”. I really don’t think anything they offer is going to make me not cut the cord. I hear Hulu Live is good. I dunno...more research. We really need a new internet provider, but can’t switch to Comcast. In our area it’s worse than AT&T. I don’t know what else there is.

So. Tomorrow is 04/20.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2020