May chitchat

[agate]

The merry month of May is arriving or maybe it has arrived where you are. Happy May Day!

I can look out my windows and see trees bursting into bloom. Pink ones, white ones.

A neighbor gave me some tulips in a pot and they have already almost finished blooming. Spring goes fast.

This place seems very empty nowadays without Howie.

And mentioning Howie reminds me of cats for some reason. A black and white cat has been hovering around my patio. Sometimes we just stare at each other.

There was Seven, there was T'pol, and there were other cats of Howie's whose names I don't remember. He gave a home to quite a few cats over the years.

What's going on with people here? I hope you're remembering to check the New Posts section and look for threads in the other forums where you might want to say a few words. Just to let people know that this place is still alive.

[Ikoiko]

Hi, Agate. I remember Sam and Seven, but not T’pol. Howie left us too soon, what a tragedy.

In better thoughts, Happy May Day!

[Virginia]

Hi Agate and ikoiko, Happy May Day to both of you. It is a pretty Spring day here, but too cool for me to go out. Actually, I don't care to go out anyway. I have everything I need for at least a week. However, I can sit in my living room and look out my windows and see how green everything is and how fresh things look.

Howie use to say he was in for a week or sometimes he would say until payday. Ikoiko was absolutely right when she said he left us too soon. I too miss him and his one liners. He had a sense of humor. I think we all miss hearing about Sam and I even miss him talking about going to do his bank and pharmacy and store run. I will always wish he had not been so alone. Many of us on here live alone, but we have people we can talk to. I am not sure Howie had that, and that hurts.

I need to get back to looking at all the green bushes and trees. I get too sad thinking of things we can never change.

I hope everyone has a really good month. Maybe we will hear from Sunshine and Linda. It's time to hear from Snuggles and Jingle also.

[Snuggles]

I'm here!

Virginia, The bushes your brother planted look pretty and seem to be unique. I cannot plant arborvitaes here because the deer will eat them. I call them 'deer food'. I hope they grow undisturbed where you are. Let us know how they do.

Agate, How nice that your neighbor gave you a pot of tulips. They are a sure sign of spring to me. What color are/were they? It is a shame that they do not bloom for a longer period.

I am hanging in here. Rainy, cloudy day and rinse and repeat for Tuesday and Wednesday. I am reheating my last container of frozen chili for dinner tonight. A nice hot meal for a cold day.

Tomorrow my BIL and SIL are coming for dinner to celebrate their birthdays that were a few months ago but we weren't able to get together then. We try to get together and celebrate our birthdays each year.

We are ordering takeout food from a local restaurant that we/they like. They have family takeout meals. We are getting a spots family meal and a chicken romano family meal. Each meal feeds about 4 people so we will have leftovers for us and for them to take home. Each family meal comes with the entrée, quart of soup or pan of salad, half pan of pasta and 6 rolls. I will bake a pan of brownies for dessert. I like doing takeout so that we can linger and not worry about taking up a table for too long plus we save some money on the dinners and drinks (even though the restaurant is BYOB).

My house is still relatively clean since 'card night' the other week. So I just ran the robotic vacuum and lightly dusted the wood furniture today. Tomorrow I will just set the table and bake the brownies. I will send hubby to the store for ice cream. Looking forward to the dinner.

I miss Howie too. I wasn't active for long while he was here but I did lurk for years.

Happy May Day back at you!

[agate]

Hi, Ikoiko and Snuggles!

Snuggles, that sounds like a nice combined-birthday celebration! I hope it will go well.

The tulips have been a very deep red, almost a burgundy color. There may be one still going to bloom but the others have drooped.

I'm getting ready for my annual visit to the eye doctor this week, and next week there will be a followup visit to the PCP, to review the recent lab test results. There's nothing to review as it happens because the potassium is back up to normal. That was the reason for this lab work and this office visit. I was going to just see if I could get out of the office visit but remembered that I probably should have that second COVID booster and just might be able to get it at that time.

Has anyone else had that second COVID booster, the one that was announced only recently?

I'm still waiting for my diabetic shoes. I saw the podiatrist months ago and the shoes were ordered many weeks ago. They told me there would be a 3-week wait but after those 3 weeks, I was told there would be another 3-week wait. I have just the one pair of shoes now and it has holes in it. Also, they've been slipping off, and I'm not always aware when I've lost a shoe. I'm hoping that the new shoes will work better.

I hope the deer won't find your euonymus, Virginia. I keep hearing about deer eating things. They must like to eat just about everything that grows.

Ikoiko, we had a few days of pretty hot weather (nearly 90') but now it's back in the 50s-60s. Time to whip out the rx sunglasses but I found that those glasses have a broken frame. I'll need to take that up with the optical department when I go to the eye doctor. I may or may not be getting new regular glasses.

[Virginia]

Agate, I have not had the very latest booster. I had planned to ask my PCP about it last Thursday, but he had to cancel my appointment. I was supposed to make another one, but so far I have not done so.

Snuggles, I love the way you and your hubby entertain. That would be my way if I was still doing any entertaining. I think when something like that is done it is not only easier on who's hosting it, but it is very relaxing for the guest. I hope it turned out to be a fun time for the four of you. I am sure the food was good since all of you like the restaurant.

Well, back to reading for me.

[agate]

I won't be going to the May appointment with the PCP because she's not providing the latest COVID booster just now. The office doesn't know when or if they will be offering it. They directed me to a pharmacy for it.

[Snuggles]

Our birthday celebration dinner went great. I made a salad in addition to the takeout food and there were plenty of leftovers. My hubby and I ate the leftover soup for lunch the next day and had 2 meals each of the fish and chicken with the pasta. We froze the leftover pasta and had enough for 5 main course meals for sometime in the future. The only thing that might go to waste is the rolls. They gave us 12 rolls and my BIL and SIL didn't eat any. We had some of them 2 days later and they were kind of dry.

I have not had the latest bivalent booster yet. I have had the 2 course vaccination and 2 boosters. I am debating on when to get the bivalent booster.

We had a windy storm last month that blew some of the shingles off of our roof. We made a claim to our homeowners insurance and they are giving us money for the front half of the roof so we are thinking about replacing the whole roof. We are in the process of getting estimates now. A major expense but the roof we had put on 16 years ago was not done properly. We have had 5 or 6 leaks in it during the time it has been on our house. The roofing company did come out once and did some repair work and stopped 3 of the roof leaks that were happening not long after it was installed. I will feel so much better knowing we have a good roof over our heads! I will not let the former roofing company near our house again. Since hubby and I are in our 60's I hope this will be the last roof we ever have to have installed. We have not gotten the estimates back but I am preparing for sticker shock.

We went for a walk in the nearby park this morning and I will make our pizza for dinner tonight. Not much more going on here.

Have a great weekend!

[Virginia]

Snuggles, you are probably correct about the roof costing a lot. They are trying to get a special assessment passed in the town home community where I live, for new roofs. It is a lot of money and some people are saying they cannot afford it. I am not looking forward to paying it but I think it would be better to go ahead and get it over with. So far I haven't had any problem, but the HOA says they are spending all our money on fixing roofs. My house is 30 years old. I bought it new in April 1993. Another new roof was put on since then, so including that one and the one when it was new this one will make my 3rd. I would like to see them get some guarantees on this one. I do not want to average a new roof every 10 years.

I am so glad your birthday celebrations turned out so well. It sounds like the food was really good and there was a lot of it. You had so much left over, plus I assume your BIL and SIL carried some home with them. I like that kind of entertaining.

Our weather here looks beautiful from where I am sitting. It is in the 70s. However, it seems cooler in the house than it is outside. Usually it heats up in here in the late afternoon. I haven't been outside since a week ago this past Thursday. There are a number of things I need to do, but I just haven't felt like doing any of them.

Snuggles good for you for going for a walk in the park this morning. I am sure it was invigorating.

[agate]

Snuggles, I hope the new roof project will turn out well. It sounds as if it's needed, and roofs just don't last forever. A new roof was put on this apartment building a couple of years ago--and it was a major project with scaffolding, noise, and debris on the ground, but this is a building with 58 units. It's a pitched roof, which probably made it trickier too.

You'll be glad not to have to chase after leaks by placing buckets around in your house. I recall having to do that in a couple of places I lived in years ago.

Congratulations on going for a walk in the park too. That sounds like a great idea for a springtime activity. I've been enjoying all of the flowering trees and shrubs lately--their colors are quite spectacular. The rhody outside my window is blooming just now, a beautiful pale pink.

[Virginia]

Eric came over today and planted two more plants like the last one he put out. He also worked to find out why one of the outdoor faucets was not coming on. Turns out the timer was no longer working. So happens I had another timer, so he got that all set up. Then he came in and put more safeguards on my computer. When he got through with that he did my tablet which is an Amazon Fire. What he was using said it worked on Amazon Fire tablets, but it didn't so he downloaded what he wanted from another site.

It was hot here today and I was really concerned about him. I could tell it was taking its toll on him. I tried to get him to stop but he wanted to get through with it. I knew he would not take any money or a check from me, so I had put some money in an envelope with his name on it. He would not take it. I told him it was just to cover the plants and the new hoses but he refused to take the envelope. I just hope he didn't hurt himself working out in the heat.

I talked on the phone to a neighbor this afternoon and did a couple of loads of wash and my exercise this afternoon and that was pretty much my day.

For anyone who hasn't seen it Jingle posted a real cute cartoon on the What are you Reading thread!

[agate]

Virginia, it sounds as if your brother insisted on helping you or at least it was completely voluntary on his part. I know how it is to feel sorry for people who are trying to help me. It's very hard to deal with that situation but I'm glad he was there helping out.

People over a certain age are finding it very hard to keep up with all of this new technology, and it keeps changing. Is an Amazon Fire tablet a bit like a Kindle? Ralph (Tom Cat) has been having a bad time with the Kindle he uses but I know so little about these devices that I probably wasn't much help at all. Maybe you will be able to say something useful. I believe he knows someone he can ask but he has to travel some distance to connect with that person. Part of his recent message wasn't clear, probably because he was having the Kindle problems, but I think that's what he was trying to say.

I'm catching up on some tasks this week but at the end of the week I'll have another outing--a trip to the optician to see about new glasses.

The rhododendron just outside my windows is in full bloom and it is a mass of beautiful pale pink blossoms.

[Virginia]

I had a terrible shock this evening. My middle brother Fred called me and it didn't sound like him. I knew it was his phone number that showed up, but he kept saying he's dead, he died this afternoon. When I tried to find out who he would say Fred, (his name). His son is named after him, but Eric and I have always called him Freddy. After he kept saying Fred I thought he meant Eric and I really was freaking out. I screamed who is this calling. He then told me it was Fred and his Fred had been found dead this afternoon. My brother is in very poor health and was in the car alone driving to get to his Granddaughter, his son's daughter. I tried to calm him down, but that is pretty much impossible under those circumstances. His son was 52 years old. We don't know anymore other than he was found laying on the bed. I called Eric and he was going to try to get up with Fred, but found out he had gone to Greenville, NC to his son's other daughter's to tell her that her Dad had died. Later, Eric's wife called and said since they had gone to Greenville he was not going to do anything - actually there wasn't anything he could do at that point. Fred, Jr's daughter who lives here has just turned 19 and is very close to her Dad. Actually, both of the girls are, but the other one in Greenville is engaged to be married, so he thinks she will be alright. This is my brother's only child. This will be a tough one.

He kept saying he just wanted to talk to me and I kept trying to calm him by saying that if the girl's Dad was gone it would be more important than ever for him to take care of himself to be here for them. He talked all the time he was on his way to his Granddaughter's, at least 30 minutes. He was blaming himself for not knowing his son was that sick and on and on. I did the best I could to calm him, but I am aware that the worse is yet to come.

[jingle]

Virginia -- I am so very sorry. I'm keeping you and your family in my prayers.

[agate]

Virginia, what terrible news! I am so sorry for you and your family. It gets harder and harder to take shockingly bad news as a person gets older, and yet the shockingly bad news doesn't stop coming, does it? I hope you can weather this storm. It sounds as if you're staying on an even keel and helping others to do so too.