Day 332-335 of Sheltering In

Tuesday-Thursday. The snow just keeps coming! It’s beautiful...no doubt, but enough already! 

This is from January 31st. There is more snow out there now. I haven’t been able to get out of the house. Nothing like waking up, trying to get out of bed and terrible in pain. I’ve been having terrible sciatica pain, and pain on the outside of my left calf. Everything is super tight and feels like an unending charley horse. It’s not like I’ve over done walking, or anything for that matter. I just know that I’m tired of this and I don’t like taking a muscle relaxant because it ends up letting the tightness lessen...but also puts me to sleep.

As if we don’t have enough issues, we have plumbing issues on the 2nd floor. After dinner my wife will come up and use the plunger on the toilet, while I cover the sink drain with a towel or something. If that doesn’t fix it, that means the plumbing stack on the roof is blocked. We can wait for the snow to melt or call a plumber which will be well over $600. Even if we wait for the snow to melt that may not fix it. I had to have it done at the house in Chicago in the late ‘90’s for $570.

In other news, my daughter’s boyfriend may be moving either to live with his mom in a posh NW suburb, or with his dad in Maryland, but he may move into the apartments for awhile. It’s all not very clear and it’s like a kid’s game of telephone with the cans and string. Her boyfriend’s parents tell him, he tells my daughter, and my daughter tells me. Needless to say she is upset and looks very depressed. With this news and the news that her friend on the 2nd floor is not moving into an apartment, she’s depressed. The good thing is that my daughter makes friends quickly and will have a bestie pretty quickly after moving in and we will be 5 minutes away. 

Got off FaceTime with my daughter a bit ago. No new info on the boyfriend situation, but I do give her a lot of credit for saying she will NOT be moving to Maryland. She told him that before she told me about his move. She had a pulmonologist televisit today. Her doctor is not allowing her to resume day program or go out in the community until her asthma is under control. Her asthma symptoms got much worse after the 2nd COVID-19 shot. I hadn’t read anything about that online, I will have to research it. She could come on a home visit, but we need to find out the rules from the group home. Yes, my daughter did go out to stores with us when she was home for the holidays, but we are more vigilant about how to properly wear a mask, and we require her to wear gloves that we provide her with. The staff does not insure the clients properly wear masks, and lately it’s been a revolving door, and they have days where there is no day staff when there isn’t day program (1/2 week). Staff just doesn’t show up. Every time I talk to my daughter she mentions new names. Anastasia’s wife is still off work due to the car accident she had a couple months ago. According to my kids conversations with them, she had great difficulty walking.

FYI-The day count of each post is based upon my daughter’s group home going on lockdown March 23rd, with her last day of work being March 22nd. I think everyone is basing their counts on different days depending on when shutdown events happened near them, or affected them.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2021

Day 329-331 of Sheltering In

Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Our Saturday trip to my father-in-law’s was canceled due to the weather. It wasn’t too bad by us, but by him there was a lot of accumulated snow.

Sunday. Valentines Day. We had a nice dinner. 

Monday we had snow again. My daughter was getting more impatient and I just felt we had to drop off her meds, Valentines treat, cough drops, a few snack items, and her blender that I fixed. ✋  Don’t send over your broken appliances. Lol! All I did was take apart the jar base and clean it and put it back together. I think someone took it apart, but didn’t put it back together quite right. After I did that I tried all the speeds and they all worked fine. It snowed and snowed and snowed more. It was good that we made the trip Monday because we’re getting more snow overnight.

It was a very time consuming trip for a 5 minute hello and drop off. But I did get quality time with my son for the drive and what little shopping needed to be done. Yes, it was like a trip in the Way Back Machine, like in the “Sherman & Mr. Peabody” cartoons from 1959. Most of today’s trips were ones I hadn’t heard of before. He told a story I hadn’t heard before about his friend that passed away a little over a year ago. What a great young man. So polite, and talkative. I really wished that they would have kept in touch more after my son and I had him as our waiter at Chili’s about 6 months before he passed away from a heart condition he had since birth. I digress. It was a pleasant car ride in terrible weather 

I need to either stifle my habit of trying to buy or make the best gifts, or better manage when the reciprocation isn’t quite of the same caliber. If that makes any sense. 

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2021

Sunday Stealing-Valentines Day

Valentine's Day

Hi! Our host is Bev Sykes of the blog "Funny the World". . Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

Taken from ESL Conversations

  

1. What is the meaning of Valentine’s Day in your country/area? 

I’m in the United States, so here we do something nice for our sweetheart.

About St Valentine

What happens on this day?

We give a card and chocolates and/or flowers, and/or a gift to our sweetheart.

2. Is Valentine’s Day more for men or women? Explain your answer.

I would say it’s definitely for women, however, it can be a good way to get in the Mrs. good graces by taking the day to show how much you care for them.

3. Do you have any special plans for Valentine’s Day? What will you do?

My wife and I agreed early in our relationship no flowers on the 2 holidays where flowers are 50% or more, expensive than the rest of the year. The other holiday being Sweetest Day in October. We usually have a nice lunch or dinner out. Due to the pandemic we will be cooking at home something we don’t usually have, to celebrate.

4. Which traditional gift would you rather receive: chocolates, flowers, or a card with a personal message?

A personal message.  We skip the flowers and opt to buy flowers we can plant and enjoy in the Spring.

5. Is Valentine’s Day only about romantic love? Or is it a good occasion to celebrate friendship as well?

I don’t believe it’s only about romantic love. I get my kids something. In grade school we got a cigar box from our Dad and decorated it for Valentines Day and exchanged cards with our entire class. (Unless you were me in the 4th grade. My fabulously decorated cigar box contained one card with a special note from my teacher because all of my classmates were ashhats. I was a chubby kid, I really don’t know if that was why the kids in my class didn’t give me any cards. I don’t really care. Perhaps one of the ashhats removed cards from my box. Again, don’t care. That note from my teacher meant more to me than any stupid card from a classmate. I’ve always remembered her as my favorite teacher. She paid attention to what happened in her class. I can’t say any of my other teachers over the years would have done so.

6. Do you like romantic movies? What is your favorite romantic movie?

I have 2 favorite romantic movies. The classic 

“Casablanca”, and “When Harry Met Sally”.

7. Have you ever received a Valentine’s Day card or gift from a secret admirer? How did it make you feel?

Nope.

8. Is Valentine’s Day the most romantic day of the year? If not, what day is?

Nope. I think it’s our wedding day. Being gay and being able to get married, all the thought and planning that we put into every detail of our wedding. All the flowers! The bagpiper! The DJ! The friends! The family! (my wife’s family, now my only family because my sister, aunts, uncles are asshats because they couldn’t find a way to attend.)

9. What is the most romantic thing you have done for another person?

I don’t think I could pick just one. 

10. Valentine’s Day is promoted by companies whose only interest is making money. Discuss whether you agree or disagree.

Of course they are interested in making money. That’s what businesses do...or they go out of business.

11. Describe your perfect Valentine’s Day date.

It’s with my wife of course.

12. How should a single person spend Valentine’s Day? What do you suggest?

Make a date with someone you know, maybe you’re already dating. If you don’t have someone that you’re dating you could do 1 of 2 things. 

1. Find a someone you think you’d be interested in on a dating website. Match.Com, PlentyOfFish.Com, OkCupid.Com. (I won’t recommend the one that starts with an “e” because I don’t like how they treated lgbtq people in the early 2000’s.) Make a date. Casual. Maybe lunch instead of dinner. For heaven’s sake don’t bring flowers! That is the absolute kiss of death on any first date. (At least in my experience.)

2. Make a date with YOURSELF! Do something nice for yourself. Get a new outfit, or maybe something you’ve been wanting. Get takeout from your favorite restaurant. Find a good movie to stream. Or a favorite movie. It doesn’t have to be, or maybe shouldn’t be a romantic movie, depending on how you feel.

13. Do you enjoy playing cupid? Do you try to introduce people in the hope they will make a love match?

It just now occurred to me that I have played Cupid. I set up my ex best friend with my future sister-in-law. They are still together.

 

14. Some restaurants charge higher prices on Valentine’s Day. Are you willing to pay more to dine out on this day?

I think it’s only ok to charge more on Valentines Day if they have a special menu. Otherwise, no. No, I would rather dine out on a day the week before or after Valentines Day. I won’t necessarily save money, but I may be able to afford a more expensive “special” dinner. Besides, restaurants are much too crowded ON Valentines Day. 

15. Is a romantic gesture more powerful on Valentine’s Day or on another day of the year?

I would say no because romantic gestures can be any day. In fact I think they are more powerful and meaningful if it’s just any regular day of the year. You have to get creative to do a romantic gesture on any other day of the year.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2021

Day 328 of Sheltering In

Friday. Went shopping briefly today. I got a Meijer pack of heat packs and a Meijer heating pad that were on sale. I also picked up a few other groceries and some Valentines Day stuff.

I had to wait for my wife to come home with the Buick. Can I say how much I dislike sharing it? It means I’m trapped at home. She had to shop for her Mom’s friend and shovel in front of her restaurant property. I took my son over there earlier in the week to shovel, so I wasn’t too keen on going along for the ride. Since we had time to kill I had my son help me prep some country ribs to make Char Siu. It is that delicious barbecued pork appetizer you get from Chinese restaurants. I have perfected my recipe. It has to marinate for a minimum of 3 hours. It was a good thing I made it, and it was quite a bit. I was going to freeze the extra. We ended up having that and pot stickers from the freezer section. I had bought Beef & Broccoli from the freezer section. We have never had anything taste so vile and disgusting. None of us ate it, and we all were thankful for paper napkins. We threw it all in the trash. I usually make it in the Instant Pot from scratch, but thought that might be a bit too much to do. What I should do is make a large batch of Char Siu and divide it up to freeze. That way I can make the main dish from scratch...Beef & Broccoli, or Kung Pao Chicken, or Egg Foo Young and not overdue it. We ordered takeout Chinese food once during the pandemic when my daughter was on a home visit.

Due to my wife getting back late and me getting back late from the store we had a late dinner. My daughter called at her usual time to FaceTime, but I had to call her back after dinner. There was no day program today for their house. They go 1/2 week to keep the number of people down. (My daughter does not attend. Next week she sees her Pulmonologist for a video appointment and she’s going to ask how long after the 2nd shot before she can return to day program and have less rules for home visits. I’m thinking it’s going to be quite awhile due to there now being several variants of the coronavirus.) Nutjob sprung for pizza. Not sure why, but everyone enjoyed it. Something happened between ordering the pizza and it’s delivery. Nutjob decided to take a dive off the top of the stairs, 2nd floor, face first. No one was around, but everyone ran out the 1st floor when they heard it to see what happened. Staff called an ambulance. She was taken to the ER and returned a few hours later. My daughter says that Nutjob does stuff like that once in awhile, which makes me wonder why she wasn’t held for a 5150 (psych eval). You would think that would be automatic when someone deliberately takes a dive off the 2nd floor face first. But nope. My daughter said everyone was pretty shaken by it. Apparently Nutjob’s face was quite bloody. That girl doesn’t belong in that house, she belongs in a facility with very close supervision. I will be very happy when my daughter moves into her apartment, so she gets away from Nutjob. It’s not safe for my daughter and the other housemate. 

Is this snow going to stop, or what? We are supposed to go to my father-in-law’s tomorrow. 

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2021

Day 323-327 of Sheltering In

Sunday-Thursday. My daughter got her 2nd shot of the COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday, as did virtually all the staff and group home residents. Seems like it hit everyone hard. The first shot they just had injection site pain. The second shot they’ve got bad headaches, body aches. It hit them all so bad that day program was canceled Thursday. When my daughter FaceTimed me Thursday night she looked awful. You could tell she didn’t feel well. Hopefully all the symptoms will lessen quickly. Every little ache and pain gets blown up into the worst whatever she has ever had. 

I went grocery shopping late today. It was a waste of time because I forgot to get a heating pad and ThermaCare Heatwraps. Also, a lot of shelves were empty. I keep asking myself why I bother to go to the Meijer in the next village because I nearly always end up going to the one that’s a half hour drive away. Their shelves are always well stocked. They do run out of an item here or there, but never even close  to the extent as the one close to home. Jewel and Berkot’s never seem to have issues, at least not since everyone stopped stocking up on tp and paper towels. 

After dinner I checked Walgreens online thinking if they had a decent heating pad in stock at a nearby store I’d get dressed (I’m not, not dressed, I’m in my pj’s) and go get one. All had terrible reviews. So I thought...Amazon...I could have it by Saturday. Even the 4+ star reviewed items had awful current reviews. From not working, barely getting warm, to 🔥! Even well known brands. I may just get some ThermaCare Heat Wraps even though they are wasteful and disposable. I’ll do that and then when I’m feeling a bit better do more research. I can’t do ice packs because my feet are too cold at night. I have thick warm socks, but because my left ankle is swollen I can’t wear them. 

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2021

Tuesday 4-Valentines Day

Valentine's Day

Welcome to Tuesday 4. I am sure  Toni would be so pleased you are here. Let's talk about St. Valentine's Day.

1. St Valentine paid for the weddings of poor girls. Today weddings can cost a fortune. What do you think about wedding expenses? 

I never heard that about St. Valentine. I think wedding costs are outrageous. I’ve been married twice. I paid for the first wedding...florist, professional photographer, we used a store that specialized in wedding cakes, rented a wishing well for cards. I cut costs where I could and we had the reception at a bowling alley banquet room in my hometown. I will never live that one down. I was razzed for years about the venue. My 2nd wedding I paid for everything but the dinner. My father-in-law surprised us and paid the bill. Having learned from my previous mistake, I found other ways to cut costs. No real flowers, silk. My wife’s cousin made beautiful bouquets, boutonnières, table arrangements, and flower arrangements for the gazebo. She worked at a craft store and used her discount. She also gave us a DJ referral who gave us a discount. The bagpiper, that was my surprise for my wife, wedding party, and guests wasn’t as expensive as you would think. I had my sister-in-law (professional photographer, who didn’t do weddings but did ours as a favor) and my ex-partner were our photographers. My sister-in-law’s son was videographer. The ceremony was outdoors at a Park Conservatory with beautiful grounds and a gazebo. The reception was in the banquet hall of a local restaurant. I made a very retro secure card holder from a vintage suitcase. Our wedding cake was made by the mother of my wife’s friend who retired from making wedding cakes. The 2nd wedding was better than the 1st where I basically hired all professionals. People don’t need to spend over $20,000 for a wedding. It doesn’t make you any more or less married because of the amount of money you spend on a wedding.

2. Do you or did you send Valentines to people?

Send...no. I usually make a Valentines card for my wife and sometimes for my kids.

3. Do you find Valentine's day to be romantic?

Usually. One year on Valentines Day I had a date from hell. My date brought her girlfriend (friend) and my date talked about her ex and cried through the entire dinner. I don’t need a specific day to be romantic, I don’t think anyone does.

4. Do you do anything special for Valentine's Day with partners or family?

Of course. Every year it’s something a little different. In the past we have had an early dinner at a nice restaurant, or I’ve cooked something delicious that we don’t usually have the rest of the year. This year, due to the pandemic, we will be cooking something delicious at home. Not sure yet what the menu will be. I usually make my son dinner and have him eat first so my wife and I can dine alone while he goes upstairs and watches tv or plays video games. With the pandemic now, that’s the only way to safely have a romantic dinner for two. Hopefully I won’t have a horrible pain day like I did Saturday. I was getting out of bed and moved my injured leg wrong. (Torn meniscus, sprained LCL.) I tweaked something in my back and flared my sciatica, which went all the way to my ankle. Pain like the most intense charley horse you could ever have, that is constant and only relieved by a muscle relaxant and ice and time.

Happy Valentine's Day folks.

Sunday Stealing-January Part 2

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This feature originated and published on WTIT: The Blog. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. (Past hosts include: Our first - Judd Corizan, Mr. L, Kwizgiver and Bud) Cheers to all of us thieves!

1 .Can you eat with chopsticks?

Yes. 

2. Could you tell real money from counterfeit?

I don’t think I could tell unless it was obvious.

3. What do you think about school uniforms?

I am all for them. My kids wore them in grade school. White or burgundy polo shirt, navy blue pants, jumper, or skirt. Love them for 3 reasons:

   1.  No worries about kids feeling bad because their parents can’t afford expensive designer clothing.

   2.  The cost was reasonable compared to regular clothing.

   3.  No arguing about what to wear.

4. What ancient civilization would you most like to visit?

I had to research this. Most ancient civilizations treated homosexuals badly, some considered it a capital offense. However, Ancient Greek culture celebrated homosexuality in its history, literature, and art. Homosexuality and Civilization

5. What would make a great new Crayola color?

Interesting question. Is there really any color in nature and life that hasn’t been done? My favorite color was Midnight Blue and I heard quite a few years ago that they pulled it and no longer put it in their larger boxes. I’d say bring back Midnight Blue.

6.If an art project is created with the intent of getting rich and famous, does that cast doubt over its significance as a work of art?

I don’t think so. The intent doesn’t matter. What matters is the process and the end result.

7. What do you get in trouble for the most?

Interrupting other people talking. I’m working on it, but it’s hard when you rarely get to have a conversation and you have short term memory issues.  

8. Do you blow your nose in public?

I don’t think I would now because of the pandemic. If a person did, there could be serious repercussions. Look at the news and the lengths people go to just about people not wearing a mask, or not wearing it properly. I’m certainly not saying that would be ok, but personally, I would go use the restroom or maybe go outside, away from people. I’ve gotten death stares when I’ve sneezed wearing a mask, and I also pull my shirt over my mask as an extra layer in an effort to lessen the chance of anything escaping.

9. If all the nations in the world are in debt, where did all the money go?

Corporations and rich people have all the money. 

10. Is it as easy to make you happy now as it was when you were a child?

Probably. Growing up we didn’t have much, and money is very tight now for my family, so the littlest things make me happy.

11. Who knows more...you, or your parents?

Pass.

12.What instrument would you like to be famous for playing?

I'd love to be able to play the guitar. I wouldn’t need to be famous for it, I’d just like to learn how to play. It would be so cool to go camping and play songs around the campfire. I was camping in Galena once and a group of people nearby had a guitar and a banjo. They played for hours. It was like our own personal concert.

13.Would you have sex with a stranger for one million dollars?

Firstly, is the stranger male or female? If they are male, no amount of money would get me to do it. And it also depends on the female stranger...

14.Are you completely in control of your body?

I don’t think anyone is completely in control of their body. If they were, I’m certain they wouldn’t allow themselves to get gray hair, diseases, conditions, or cancers. 

15.What is the coolest web site you know of?

Google. It’s a good starting point to find other cool websites.

Lola’s Diner cc.  2008-2021