Tink's Birthday

Tink had been on a countdown to her birthday for quite a while. As the amount of days until her birthday dropped under a week, she started getting a bit stressed about it; she wasn't seeing preparations for it, I guess. She had spotted a CD that was supposed to be for her birthday about 2 weeks before but she hadn't seen anything else. The day before her birthday, Sunday, I wrapped her presents and put them in a visible, but out of the way and hard to reach, place. She calmed down. And she didn't touch the presents that day.

So, Happy Tinker's birthday. She told both me and her dad "Happy Birthday," I assume she told Morg that too. We did our morning chores and where having a little sit-down time before I got up to make her a no-bake cheesecake, which is the only kind of "cake" she will eat. The next thing I know, Morg is saying, "Did you know Tink has some of her presents open?" That is what we get for turning our back for a minute. She had 3 out of 4 DVDs opened. She decided it was her birthday and she wanted her presents. I had to go get the remaining gifts and protect them while we got everything else ready.

I got the cheesecake ready and we sand "Happy Birthday" which Tink can't stand. She blew out her candles and then opened her last DVD. She wasn't as interested in the other 3 packages because they were not the right shape for a CD or DVD but we coaxed her into opening them. They were shirts, one with Alice in Wonderland, one with Pocahontas, and one with Scooby Doo. She did like them and even held them up in front of her to "model" them of sorts.

A little while later we headed into town for a movie. We still owed Morg a movie for her birthday but a chance for us to go did not correspond with a movie we/she wanted. But there is a movie playing right now that Morg did want to see and not one Tink has mentioned but she does like going to the movies. So we all went to see the Thor movie. It was entertaining and Tink did real good. There is a movie coming out very soon she does want to see, "Frozen" is the name. But this time we are hitting the matinee like we usually do. I could believe the cost for the 4 of us, and it isn't a pricey place.

We got home after the movie and Tink immediately started her Christmas countdown figuring her birthday was over.

Today has been a hard day for her but I am not real sure why. She seems angry. We have had some internet issues today, very slow connections and at least twice it just stopped working but came back before I could call about it. That might be the cause of the mood.

Oh, and the cow is recovering nicely.

A.W.O.L.

The milk cow we have had for years, the matriarch if you will, had her calf on Friday the 15th, in the mid-afternoon. This was unusual because she has always caved on a holiday of some sort. I was really expecting the calf on Veteran's Day. And as it turns out the calf was a little over-cooked--it really should have been born a few days before--right about Veteran's Day. It is a bull calf and we decided to call it A.W.O.L. because it didn't "report for duty" on time. And he had to be retrieved, he wasn't coming on his own. He was a bit big with a big head and his front feet were not in the right position. He got stuck and we had to pull him. It wasn't easy, between the cow and Ron both giving everything they had, that calf still almost didn't make it out. It was taking so long we both thought the calf was probably dead. Ron is not a little guy. We only managed to get one foot forward of the nose so the rope was only on that one leg, and he was using all his weight and strength pulling. I wouldn't have made a dent, I am half his size and am still coming back from a few years of malnutrition. Ron was pulling so hard I thought he was going to pull the calf's leg off, but at this point we didn't have hope for the calf. And then the little guy, with just his head and one foot sticking out, opened up his eyes and looked right at me. So the calf was still alive but still stuck and now we were afraid of killing it but the cow was the primary concern. I really do not know how to explain all this well, a stuck calf is something that kind of needs to be experienced first hand to really understand, it goes beyond just the standard "cow needs a little help so we gotta pull the calf." This guy was *stuck.* Sometimes when it is this bad, in order to try to save the cow, someone goes in and cuts the calf up to take it out in pieces. Either that or the cow will most certainly be lost. But that did not prove to be necessary. And since I already told you we named it I am sure you deduced that calf is still alive. He was a bit slow coming to his feet but that was a very traumatic birth soo…

But now the cow. Even once the calf is out, the trauma of the birth is still an issue for the cow. A pinched nerve during birth is common anytime a calf needs pulled, let alone one this stuck; heck every once in a while it happens on an normal birth. The pinched nerve issue will put a cow down because she can't feel one or both back legs. If they stay down, they will get worse because their own weight will start shutting off blood flow to the legs and you loose them. If you can keep them up, sometimes the feeling returns and everything is fine. Getting an animal that weighs roughly 1000 lbs. from a laying to a standing position is not really something that a person can do without the help of machines. And sometimes it injures the cow.

But Lily, though unsteady, stayed on her feet after the birth. Heck, she is a tough Irish gal. Everything seemed fine until Saturday midday when she was laying down more and not getting up easy when coaxed. Then a few hours later she lay down by the fence next to the creek bed and after getting a little time to rest was coaxed to get up, she tried and couldn't. This is a problem. A bit later her rump started to slide under the fence. Ron started calling around for help, we had to get her out from under the fence and we had to get her up. While this was going on she managed to get herself out from under the fence. What a good girl she is. She was in stage 2 of milk fever, we should have noticed the signs in stage 1, she drug it out longer than that stage usually lasts, she was dragging out stage 2 pretty long too, thankfully. By the time a cow hits stage 3 the chance of saving them drops significantly. Ron found someone with the stuff we needed but it was most of the way to town to go get the stuff, treatment for milk fever and these things called hip huggers that are used with a tractor to lift a down cow. We also had a neighbor at ready with a tractor to use. But since lifting an animal that size often does damage in itself the best thing to do is give the med for milk fever and hope they get up on their own. We were ready to cut the fence but we couldn't let her slide down the slope into the creek. She made that unnecessary; she never was good at respecting fences anyway. It did take two doses of the med but about 45 -50 min. after the first dose she could be coaxed up. She looked around for just a moment and didn't see her calf so she headed right to the calf pen, which she knew had to be where he was if she couldn't see him, unsteady but with purpose she made her way there. Of course he was there, she knows that where the calves are put for safety at night, and by this time it was night. She started nosing the hay and started eating. A bit later when Ron went out he gave her some grain in the calf pen but she followed him out, took a big drink of water and walked right into the milking stall -- where she believes she should eat.

Today she is a little off her feed but is standing. We will give her another dose of the treatment today if Ron can find a place on Sunday that sells it. If not I guess a another special trip to town tomorrow and we will hope some molasses on her feed, both making it more palatable and adding calcium, will get her going.

She is 12, we have had her since she was under 6 months old. For the last 9 or 10 years this gal has been giving us milk and meat (by way of offspring), she really does a lot for our family, is part of it, and her loss would be horrible.

On another note, hunting season, firearm, started this weekend (one of the reasons the cow wasn't up on the hill when she went into labor and would have made the situation deadly). But it is almost 70 degrees out, not good for hunting deer. I am in a t-shirt. And good golly is it windy today. When I let the chickens out this morning a gust hit that actually blew some of them up against the fence. Sitting way down here in the holler means we don't usually get much wind at all so to have gusts like that is incredible. I am glad I don't live on the ridge.

Some Things About My Tinker

Just some little things that probably seem like nothing to most people. Tink is soon to be 17 and she has been counting down to her birthday for, gosh, over two months now. We had been wondering if she could keep more than one countdown at a time; earlier this year we found out she could, at least she could do a long and short count. A short count is under a week, a long count is, obviously, longer. We found out just this last month she can keep two long counts as we approached Halloween and she had her birthday countdown. So that is pretty cool. I wonder how many counts she can keep.

Today there was something that stood out that really put me to writing this. She has had a DVD, for quite a few years, of "An American Tail." If you don't know the movie it doesn't matter, it is an animated kids movie. There is an "Extra" on the DVD that is a counting game that is about the level of a 5 - 6 year old. A bunch of coins drop that are different colors and have different symbols on them and then it asks for  "How many  ______?" and list the numbers 1 - 10, or something, and the kid has to choose the right amount to move on. Tink always did great with the first two levels, well, once we actually got her to listen to what was being asked for, but the third level asked for combinations; instead of "How many hearts?" or, "How many blue ones?" it would be "How many blue hearts?" Tink was not real keen on the combo questions. Today she is wearing a Halloween t-shirt with a big owl on it along with a few ghosts and a handful of bats. I asked her what was on her shirt, she told me "owl." I asked her what "that" was as I pointed to a ghost and she said "ghost." I asked her how many ghosts and she counted them for me, (there are three). Then I asked about the bats; she told me what they were and I asked how many and she told me six, there are six. I then asked how many black bats and she counted them and said four. I am standing ther just amazed but don't want to get too excited and freak her out. I asked "How many orange bats?" And she counted the two orange ones. Pretty durn good for a kid diagnosed as so low functioning we were never supposed to be able to potty train her.

And not to be indelicate, but she is able to handle her monthly period herself with the use of adult diapers instead of pads or tampons; and she does not potty in the diapers, they are for her period and she knows it.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that our internet went out for for a little bit and how Tink did. The day after I wrote that our power was knocked out. The power Co. said someone knocked a tree down on the line. It was out for a few hours. That was not as easy for her as just the internet, there was no movies she could play or anything. Ron pulled out an old Littlest Pet Shop game that hasn't seen the light of day in eight years and three of us played, Morg was too busy being a teen. It took one game for us to remember how to play, a second game went pretty weel, and you have to understand the whole time Tink is playing she is angry and crying. Towards the end of the second game every time she moves her piece she kind of grinds it into the space it landed on. By the third game she is in quite a state and between her turns is running into the other room and throwing herself on the floor, amongst other things. About halfway through this third game the power comes back on. Tink starts crying differently and saying, "I missed you" and "I love You" and started hugging me. It wasn't me she was talking to though, it was electricity that she loves and missed. That is okay, she tells me she loves me all the time. Okay, so the power is back on and she runs around the house turning on all the TVs and setting up the movies, and gets her computer up and running --- then she sits back down to finish the game, happy as could be. Ron and I were both surprised to no end; we didn't expect her back to finish the game.

She has been getting very good at answering yes or no, or similar, questions without being prompted for an answer. That is good because now we are sure if it is one or the other and not that she is just repeating the last word we say: "yes or no?" "no," or "no or yes" "yes." Aside from being much easier on us it shows a new level of understanding for her.

She knows the days of the week, maybe by name, maybe not, I used to make her say them but haven't in a while, but she gets dressed herself on every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday now. That means she is going to town for french fries in her head. I am not sure why she got the Tuesday and Sunday but I do know where Thursday came from. On any other day she chooses "home" over "town." if asked, she will get dressed to go to town on an off day if she has to.

She can also find November, her birth month on a calendar.

She absolutly will not allow me to sing, hum, dance, or anything of the like, nor will she tolerate whistling; I think the whistling hurts her ears but that doesn't account for the other stuff, not that I am the only one she doesn't want to sing.

Children are raised, and disciplined, very different now than they used to be. I was sort of in the mid-transition period, now we are sort of in the latter-transition period. Right now even yelling at a child is easily construed as abuse. When Tink goes into a full-blown meltdown -- otherwise unreachable -- If I get into her face and yell her name, she will focus on me and I have a chance, right then, to reach her. I have shocked many a person, even Ron initially because of the force of my voice, to the point of where I could see in their faces that it might be abuse. But if I can catch it, her attention for a split second, I can then talk to her and start calming her. If a good meaning person who is so sure I am doing the wrong thing interferes, and it has happened, the chance is lost. And it is usually the person tells me a child tunes out yelling but will listen to a whisper. Yeah, she can't hear the flippin' whisper while she is in meltdown. I am not totally against spanking, obviously there is an "age out" time and Tink doesn't fit anymore but that isn't why I brought this up. Before we left Colorado, Ron had some appt. in a hospital, Tink was right around 3 years, Morg was under 6 months. Ron was in with the doc, or tech, or whoever, and Tink was starting to stress. She laid down on the floor and started making swimming motions. I thought that was very cool and resourceful of her to come up with such a mild stress release compared to some of the other things she had done or could do. Two elderly women were sitting in the chairs that backed the ones I was in with tiny Morg, unaware that I was the mother of the girl swimming on the floor. One said to the other something about how a good spanking would make that child behave more appropriately in public. I turned my head and politely asked the woman, me with a new babe in arms, if she was spanked as a child. She proudly stated she was. I told her, "In that case, it doesn't work, because what you just said was one of the most inappropriate things I had ever heard." I did take a moment to tell her about Tink being autistic and how people always seem to know how to raise other people's children. Then, speaking about fears of false abuse reports, just a few minutes later, Ron comes back and we have to walk a little ways to a different area of the hospital, Tink walking with us easily until she realizes we are not leaving yet, she stops in the hall, people all around us. I have Morg in my arms and gently give a directional push to Tink's shoulder--she would not hold hands at that time, and calling on every scrap of theatrics she had, and it was a good amount, she threw herself into the air and onto the ground 4 foot away from where she had been, slowly picks her head up and turns it to look at me with a confused and scared expression. As I said, the hallway had many people and I am now standing there looking very much like I just threw my child, forcibly, to the ground.  I heaved a big sigh, stuck my hand down to help her up and calmly asked her not to do that anymore as people do not realize that she is pretending. It worked, for both her (for that visit) and the people in the hospital.

I am not sure she would technically qualify as autistic anymore. If the diagnosis is anything like it was when she was first diagnosed, four things from three separate categories of symptoms, she might not. She would still be what is commonly called PDD-NOS, which is pervasive developmental disorder - not otherwise specified, and is an "almost autism;" three things from three categories or seven things from only two categories instead of the four from three. She is mid-functioning, instead of the low-functioning she was initially diagnosed; still a long ways from self-responsible but not as hard for a care-taker. Aside from food issues, understanding the spoken word has always been Tink's biggest problem. That is getting better and in a way almost contrary to what "studies" say about learning languages. It is almost like her language learning is in slow motion and given another 50 years, or so, she might have the spoken language skills of a 10 year old. Thank goodness other things go quicker. The kid is far from stupid. And her "acting" is not autistic in nature. Repeating lines from movies, over and over, is very autistic; to understand the interplay of acting is not; she has always done her acting.

I used to read to her all the time. I can't remember when, specifically, she decided I was not going to do that anymore but she was quite adamant about it. Years went by and we would occasionally try to read to her to no avail. Then, one time, she let Ron read to her to get her ready for bed, he kept it up. Then he kind of needed a break so I tried, nope, had to be dad. So for a bout 3 1/2  to 4 years Ron has read a story to her, first time he really could not, I don't recall why, she got mad and would not let me. The next time she put up with me doing it, now if he can’t I have to (I have no problem with it) but if he can, I cannot.

And she handled Ron being gone okay but she is glad he is back. He didn't get to see Lake Erie but he did get to add two more states, Indiana and Ohio. I have travelled more in one year, more than once, than he has in his life. I wonder sometimes if we should have opted for the RV life instead of homestead life; it was an option at the time.    

All Hallow's Day aka The Day after Halloween

Everyone is a little burnt out from yesterday but poor Ron agreed to go with the neighbor to Ohio tomorrow and had to run to town and do some other last min ute things. The neighbor bought a half-built two-seater airplane he wants to go pick up. He had been asking Ron for days to take a trip hear or there for him to go look at a plane he wanted to buy; I don't remember all the places but one was Florida. Then he called Ron up yesterday morning to ask if he would go to Ohio with him today (Friday). Ron said he couldn't do it today but probably could arrange going tomorrow (Saturday). The guy told him he would think about postponing it for a day but he would probably just go alone; he would call back by evening with his decision. I guess his wife put her foot down and said if he didn't have another person he wasn't going. We got a call last night from her thanking Ron for going, I guess he was a little too embarrassed to call. Ron has mixed feelings about going, and I really don't want him to go, but he hasn't traveled as much as I have and it'll be good for him. He will be just shy of an hour from Lake Erie and I told him to make sure they take the time to go see it; that will be his second Great Lake. He has never seen an ocean. So, he will be gone a few days.

Tink dressed as a witch yesterday, and Morg was sort of zombie-ish. Both to old for trick or treating but Tink was insistent we do something for Halloween. So we piled in the car and stopped at the country store at the curve in the highway and they had candy and hot dogs to roast and marshmallows too, and people we knew. We hung out there for about 45 min. and piled n the car again to stop at the little store just a ways up the highway, just to show the girls off to the owner as she didn't have anything Halloweeny going on, and got some homemade cookies. Back in the car to stop at a church at the highway intersection that had a "trunk or treat" thing. Then we stopped at some friends house that we traditionally stop at every Halloween even if we do nothing else; they are the folks we bought this place from. I don't understand why we stopped there before doing the stuff in town we planned but Ron had pulled in and they had already seen us before I realized he was stopping. We were there for a little while--really should have done it last thing like usual. When we got back in the car it was already too late to do a couple of the other trunk or treats in town but we went to the radio station which was one open a little later and  Tink was totally ignoring this clown that was trying to engage her until I told her to follow him "right over there" and he was going to show the girls a trick She followed him and took his candy offering and giggled when he said something--completely appropriate giggling. Then his trick was grabbing this pig heart out of bloodyish looking water claiming it was his heart and then he made it "beat." Tink screamed, she was smiling but she screamed like Fay Wray. The clown guy got a little concerned he flipped her out, the look on his face… I started laughing, Tink stopped screaming, giggled a bit, then screamed again, then the clown laughed realizing she was just playing along. Then we went to the one house in town that is always massively Halloweened out where Tink practiced her acting skills again. Then to McDonald's fro some fries. Which if we had done the town thing first, we would have had a couple more stops and then could have done the fries and then our yearly Halloween visit, Tink would have been happy to be there instead of throwing a tantrum almost the whole time we were there. Oh well.

The pumpkin carving was funny. Morg didn't want to but Brianna did, untill she found out she had to stick her hand in the pumpkin to clean it. Ron couldn't get her to stick her hand in that mess for anything; he did try. She wound up grabbing a spoon on her own and doing a little but then just bolted from the room and wouldn't come back in until the pumpkin was empty.

There is this guy, we have known for about 7 or 8 years, who bow hunts and it is bow season right now. He is a single guy with a bit of land; that land allows him to take quite a few deer every year, way more than he can use but he like to bowhunt. A few months ago, Ron was talking to a neighbor (not the one he is going on the road trip with) about a mutual friend who died a few years back that always gave us his extra venison and he mentioned this in the conversation. This bow hunter guy was there at the time. All of the sudden, in the last week, this guy has stopped by with the meaty parts of 3 deer he has killed. Nice. Even nicer is this guy field cleans and de-bones the meat, the other guy gave us the critter and we cleaned it. Most of the meat is from older animals and is only good for grinding or jerky, but that is fine. Regular firearm season will be starting soon and we usually get a nice critter for letting the deer camp folks hang their meat in our feed room. Most people won't hang carcasses by their cattle, especially milkers, because it makes them act uh, stupid is what most people say, I call it angry. It does not seem to phase our milk cow and in turn it doesn't phase her daughter, our other milker. So we go ahead and hang them, right there next to the milking stall to the disbelief of most folks.

No Mushrooms, No Internet

10/21/2013

So I went mushroom hunting today. It seemed like a good time, the weather has been cool and we have had enough moisture. However, that was not the case; there were almost no mushrooms let alone the kind I was looking for. I was looking for Blewits, not that I would turn my nose up at Oysters or Puffballs, Not even Coral mushrooms. But I saw almost no mushrooms at all. There were a few of a type I am unsure of and they looked like they had been picked over by turkeys. There were a handful of a kind that are not edibles. I did find a couple of bunches of white Coral, they looked good but when I picked them the bottom was all purpley and the stems were hollow--never seen it and not gonna eat it. We are supposed to be getting a frost tomorrow night, maybe that will bring on the Blewits.

I got back from the failed mushroom hunt to find our internet out. I reset the modem and this, that, and the other thing that are always the first steps tech support has one do all to no avail and so I called tech support. After about an hour on the phone I get informed the problem is on their side and the problem has been "escalated," meaning a rush order to fix I assume, and I should have the internet back within 24 - 48 hours. Cool. So, this will be posted/sent when my internet comes back. Tink does not handle internet outages very well.

We have been wondering if Tink can handle two countdowns. She can. She is counting down until her birthday and she added a countdown to Halloween; she is keeping track of both. I still have no clue what she expects out of Halloween. We get no trick or treaters, the kids are too old to trick or treat themselves--not that it was very good the last couple of years they did; one house on this block, go a couple blocks, oh, there's a house, another block or so…

We went to the Decedents of the Pioneers Days the first weekend of October. It is a local celebration that has been going on for about the same length of time we have lived here. It has gotten bigger each year except the 2012 one really had a low turn out. This year we planned on going Saturday and probably Sunday but that Saturday was rainy and cold and somebody didn't feel good so we didn't go. We did go Sunday and it was nice; sunny and warm with long sleeves or a light jacket. And because of the rain the day before, the long drive in on the dirt 'n chert road that some people have the nerve to call gravel, they aren't gravel, anyway, the dirt 'n chert road is usually extremely dusty when we go down it and the rain made it not dusty. That was nice. We saw the usual stuff at the festival, molasses and soap making, a blacksmith and knife maker, people spinning and weaving, lots of little handcrafts for sale and some antique stuff. And they have free wagon rides around the grounds. We didn't see many locals there this year but we are starting to know some of the vendors and they recognize us from previous years. Come to think of it there were two vendors not there this year that usually are. One of the vendors there is always at the Renaissance Festival too.

10/22/13

Well the internet came back on late last night. And we are supposed to frost tonight so I have to go see if there is anything worth bringing in from the garden.

Fall Forecast: Snakey With Chance of Rodents

Tuesday evening:

I have seen some snakes this year, no surprise, look at where I live. But the last couple weeks they have been attempting to come inside the house--well, at least one succeeded making it into the den. We are not sure if it was a small Black or a medium Cottonmouth; we are hoping it is a Black snake; either will kill rodents but the Black is not poisonous. Unfortunately, we both think we saw markings that a Black snake does not have. I never got a good look at its head but after the mild confusion of trying to get it back outside (we failed) Ron said he thought it was a young Copperhead. I told him it wasn't, it was too dark, he mentioned the markings he saw and he thought Copperheads were darker when young. Nope. I mentioned that if it had markings it was probably a Cottonmouth. He had a sick look so I dropped it and haven't mentioned it again. He has issues with snakes, they scare him. He has gotten much better since we moved here, doesn't totally freak out, just a little freaked out and so instead of running from them he will actually go toward them--to attempt to kill, but not always by the best method or with clear head. He was going to break my nest box all to pieces to get that one big Black in the coop a couple months ago. This one that got into the den he went to stomp it, did stomp it. Oh good, piss it off and scare it. It started back behind some things near the door and I grabbed its tail, pulled it out but the door wasn't opened far enough so I had to let go so as not to gget bit, reached for the door and He pulled me back almost hard enough to land on my butt and started stomping again. There went the snake into the mess of tool boxes, folding chairs, air compressor, garden stuff, essentially into a place that we have no chance of finding it. Ron swore he didn't freak out, sure he didn't. To be fair, a few hours later he did admit to being a little freaked. That was about 5 days ago. Last evening, Mac, my cat alerted me to a snake at the door, this time it was a Copperhead, no doubt about it. The door was only opened about 6 inches when Mac pointed out I needed to look out the door. We have a beaded curtain covering that door too so we can leave the door open without hummingbirds coming in; when I pulled the door open it made the bead curtain move and the Copperhead struck at it. This put me in an awkward position of having a mad snake between me and a good tool to get it. There was a big sledge hammer right in the doorway so I grabbed it and whacked that snake as it was making a second draw. I broke its back about 8 inches behind its head. It tried to go away at that point but couldn't get its back part to help propel it. Since it was now faced away from me I could step past it and get a shovel. I separated its head from body at that point and took it to the fire pit (after waking Ron from his nap to brag a bit).

Time to close the coop and take care of that huge walkingstick that has just come in…

I'm back. The walkingstick is on the oak tree and I saw no snakes in the coop, need to check nightly at this time of year. I bet there are a lot of mice about this year and they will all be headed for the indoors for what feels like is going to be a cold winter for here. But the weather has been a bit whacky so there is no telling. The amount of water we got in August was incredible--no one has seen an August like this in memory. Now Colorado has been getting hit bad; some places have had a years worth of water in a matter of a week. The Ozarks are capable of handling a lot more water than the Rockies. Their years worth is only a few months worth here. I think I heard today New Mexico has flooding also. When our rain stopped, it stopped. We had rain on Aug. 10th and then yesterday we finally got a little, 36 days with no rain. That is as odd as a bunch in August.

The garden is not great but not horrid either. I am just happy we have something as with my surgery happening at planting time and the floods taking out some of it.

I have rediscovered a band from my youth, The Scorpions. And it is not just listening to their old music, they have been putting out albums all along, I just let life get in the way of listening to new music. Well, it is not like we get radio reception her very well, a couple stations and neither are good in my opinion. Ron used to talk about hooking the stereo to the TV antenna but we have not yet gotten around to it. Anyway, Morg has been experimenting with music some and a couple of her favorites claimed inspiration from some of the groups I listened to at her age, such as The Boomtown Rats, and The Beatles, of course, but she has been listening to Beatles her whole life. For last Christmas I got her a few CDs I used to have as vinyl. She loved them. I had to make her promise not to let her dad hear her playing one of them as he wouldn't understand it; it was The Dead Kennedys if you have interest in knowing. A couple months later he busted me playing it in the car, he didn't understand it. Morg got a good laugh. But, now she has complete faith in music I say is good. I had her listen to one of the newer Scorpions albums, from 2007, that I had just found on YouTube. It is called Humanity: Hour 1. She fell in love with it. She is a little rebel at heart. There is another album they had done a few years before that one, it has a song on it called Priscilla. I was listening to it for the first time, headphones on. Ron asks me "What's the matter?" I guess I had a funny expression on my face. I told him that I had listened to over two decades of Scorpions music ('72-'95), I grew up listening to them. For all there very heavy metal sound The Scorpions never sang in favor of violence; it was always a message of love, universal love of humanity and the world -- (okay, their music had a lot of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll themes too but that was the times) -- and the guy just was singing to Priscilla that tonight he was going to kill her. I found that a little confusing and listened to the rest of it. Toward the end he tells us that Priscilla is a cockroach. It put a whole new light on the song. I can't ever remember laughing at a  Scorpions song before, they are not generally funny. That one is. I can just see a handful of half-drunk middle aged men trying to kill a big fat cockroach in the kitchen.

Ron came in a few minutes ago and said there is a big ol' pile of snake poop on the front step. I don't know what to say. It is a snakey autumn. I can't say it has been this bad before.

I took another break from writing a bit ago to play our night game of dice. You didn't even notice I bet, it was during the Priscilla story. But now it is getting late and I have to go, probably rambled too much anyway.

The Trip to Chicagoland

Today is Wednesday. Late last Friday I got an email from my sister, who lives a bit south of me, telling me she decided to make a whirlwind trip to go see our dad and asked if I wanted to go. She wanted to leave on Sunday and come back Tuesday. I declined. I have had an issue with this sister that is not a resolvable one. Also, traveling in a car might be do-able now but it is hardly heaven. Not to mention, with my current intestinal design requires I do not wander too far from "facilities." My father called early Saturday morning requesting I come. What was I supposed to do?  I went. It was probably a good thing too, I am not sure my sister would have arrived alive.

My sister showed up on Sunday and we headed out with me driving because I am much more familiar with my local roads and highways and, admittedly, they are a trial if one is not familiar with them. She said she could drive when we got to Illinois. I cannot recall exactly where or when she did drive but it was about a half an hour before she said she was getting drowsy so we switched again. She did not do anymore driving. It was a good thing I was driving when the tire threw it's tread on the interstate between Sullivan and St. Clair MO. It was a very scary situation when it happened, 75-80 MPH on a busy/crowded interstate, chunks of rubber and other things flying at the windshield and hitting the bottom of the vehicle, steering wheel trying to pull me into the left lane. At the time I thought the tire had blown, thankfully, for the rim, it was just the tread that blew. I got the rig pulled over to the side, I honestly do not think my sister could have managed this without an accident. (I have been known to be a good driver even if I have hardly gotten into a vehicle in the last couple years and a bit longer doing any driving.) The mud flap had gotten twisted around and was rubbing on the rim causing the sound that made me think we were on the rim; that was a relief and I was able to pull the rig even further off the road so we stood less of a chance of dying from all the high-speed traffic. Aside from the damage to the tire and the mud-flap, the entire lens assembly for the turn signal/running light on the driver side was shattered and just gone, the drivers side of the grill was a bit broken and had pieces of tread in it, the front of the driver's side running board got messed up, and one of the oddest things--somehow the tread had caught the cable for popping the hood open and pulled it out from where it connects to the inside of the where a person pulls it to pop the hood; the plastic puller lever broke and had hit me in the leg when it all happened and I thought something was coming up through the floorboard--it happens and it can kill, but it didn't this time. Now, I can change a tire, done it hundreds of times, not an exaggeration, I really have; they were not all mine. But with my somewhat recent surgery and my seeming refusal to let it heal completely from the last time I did something stupid before I do something stupid again, I was a bit concerned with heaving the large tire around. A couple of guys stopped and were willing to help but then it turned out my sister did not have the crank handle to get the tire lowered from under the vehicle (I hate that design of spare carrier.) But, we discovered her spare was not in fact any good anyway. They didn't want to leave us on the side of the road even thought we did, by now, have a tow truck coming. Very nice guys. We did manage to send them on their way and waited by the side of the road  for about 45 more minutes when the tow guy showed up.

The trip continues with four new tires and a spare tire that is actually a spare tire and not a hunk of bad rubber. The episode set us back about 2 hours.

Oh, I forgot to mention she did not have an atlas, or even a simple map, with her and I did not find out until a half hour after we had left when she asked if I knew how to get there. Crap! I can get us to Chicago but I didn't know how to get to the house (our other sister's house, whom Dad lives with). She said she could get us to the house if we were in the area. I lived up to my half she had to call the sister to when we got to the neighborhood. But, we are not there yet.

We cross the Mississippi and I'll tell you, no matter how much I have driven and been driven and places where I have lived and visited that bridges are an everyday, multiple times daily, occurrence, I hate crossing bridges, and so does my sister. We were both born along the Mississippi; bridge accidents are the worst. At least I knew our tires were good, hoped everyone else's were.

We stop for gas about a half hour into Illinois and I go in the store while she gasses up. They were playing a song from the 80's. So when my sister walks in I say loud enough for the guy behind the counter to hear, "You know, I haven't been to Illinois in years and I thought all sorts of things would have changed, but they haven't even changed the record." I got a good chuckle out of both of them. But then the next few places we stopped were all playing 80's rock too.

This might have been when she took over driving. She was driving kind of slow, especially considering we already were going to be getting to our destination kind of late before the tire issue, let alone after the tire. She was driving within the legal limits, not below the minimum, but not always the posted limit either, and on I-55 most people do 10 to 15 above said upper limit. I took over driving again at the next stop which I asked for to go potty even though it was not a true necessity. By the time we got to Springfield it was obvious that we would not get to the Chicago area until probably 1:00 in the morning and that is way late for my Chicagoland sister's family so we opted for a motel rather than disturb them in the middle of their night. So we drove around in a town both of us knew very well, at a different point in our lives, looking for a motel, totally lost because of the changes. The odd thing is I noticed that Springfield IL had not grown all that much since I last lived there based on the population figure posted on the city sign but it sure did sprawl out. When I finally found an intersection I knew (it would have been easier to find myself if we had gone downtown but the motels there are not anyplace we would want to stay and the hotels there are way out of price range) I decided we needed to stop and ask someone because the last time I had been at that intersection is was corn fields on 3 sides and a large vacant lot on the forth; now it was in the middle of a small city. We got the directions to a inexpensive hotel and a grocery store and settled in for the night.

The next day, we are on the road and it is starting to get hot already even though it is just around 9 am. I switch lanes and as I am signaling the lane change the turn signal stops working. The driver's side only worked in the back since the tire incident but now there was nothing. At the same time my sister is noticing that the AC blower is not working--then we discovered that the GDMF power windows would not go down. I have always hated having power windows--ALWAYS hated them. Why? Because if they do not have electricity going to them they will not work. I have over the years come up with gobs of scenarios that one would need to get their window down and yet there is no power to do that. I like crank windows. I might have mentioned this in a previous blog when I got my last vehicle-it has power windows and good luck finding a non-antique car with a window crank. So anyway, we are in the middle of nowhere with no AC and not able to get the windows down, it is already 90 degrees out and I was stupid enough to wear a black t-shirt that day. The next couple of exits had no services, a nice way of saying the little town that the exit led to had a grain elevator and a couple of residences. A bit later we got to Bloomington and pulled into a parts store. I start to check the fuses and could not get them out, my hands were too wet from being soaked in sweat. I decide I am just going to go in the store and play dumb female. The guy hem-hawed a bit and told me they are not supposed to pull fuses--which seemed strange to me for a place that advertises on the window that it will check electrical systems, and I have seen employees of the same company doing just that for customers elsewhere even though I think technically they mean the battery, alternator, and regulator. He does however give me a pair of needle-nose pliers to pull the fuses. All of the associated fuses to the things that had failed were fine. I pulled a couple relays that might have been the problem and my sister took them in to be tested, they were fine. The only thing the part store guys were helpful on was suggesting a place that did electrical work and gave us directions to find it. We get there and the place is closed, no one there. She starts calling around to find another place to keep me from breaking out her windows out--seriously, people and animals die in closed up cars in that kind of heat. But just as she finds another place the guy shows up. He is a bit slow about getting his test light but when he does he finds the problem almost immediately. It was the fuse for the brake lights according to the fuse legend. The brake lights were working, we checked, the legend on the fuse box was wrong. He replaced that fuse with one of my sisters fuses and everything worked fine. The phone in his office rang, he left us in the driveway with his nice Snap-On test light still on the floorboard for 15 minutes--he sure was trusting. When he came back out he said we were good to go. I commented that he sure was nice to give us his Snap-On test light. "Oh no! I better get that" he said. He didn't charge any money because it only took him 20 seconds to find it and it wasn't even his fuse that fixed it. He also had four rescued cats at his shop. My sister gave him $10 for him and the cats she said. And we were on our way again.

We finally made it to the Chicagoland twn we needed but she could not remember how to get to the house so we pulled into the library and called other sister. I told the one to tell the other to give us directions from the library but instead she gave the streets, she got instructions that made no sense because of a misunderstanding of where on said streets we were; we were to cross over/go past the street we were driving and go a couple more blocks--meaning I had to turn off that street obviously but didn't know which direction--we did find the right street eventually.

We had a short but pleasant visit with Dad and sister and sister's kids but bro-in-law was out of town. I was assigned my neice's bed which is about 8 to 10 inches higher than mine. I was afraid I would forget in the middle of the night and fall out of it when I get up to go to the bathroom. I only had to get up once and I remembered. The next morning however I almost landed on my face because I forgot. We visited with Dad and sister a bit more and left.

The trip home for me was a lot less eventful. About 20-25 minutes before getting to the Mississippi, just as I was thinking of asking her to drive because I feeling a tad dozy, she tells me she is going to kick her seat back and nap. Okay, I would be fine until the other side of St. Louis where we would gas up. Then I missed the 270 by-pass around the city and wound up going through downtown St. Louis. I didn't want to do that. I have done that, there used to be no choice but to do that. Driving around St. Louis is bad enough, driving through if you don't have to is crazy. I have driven in a few big cities, St. Louis has been the worst. I have not driven in NY, NY it is probably similar but I have heard other drivers bemoan St. Louis over other cities. I do not know how my sister slept through it but she did. I had such a burst of adrenaline I was no longer anywhere close to dozy. So, even after stopping I continued to drive since she wanted to get home before dark and by the time I would get dropped off she would barely be making it and she drives slower. Uneventful for me from here on out. But after checking her directions home and pulling out of my driveway she got lost. About an hour and a half later, just about the time she should be getting home, she calls and has no clue where she is and wants me to find her and direct her home. By asking a few questions she didn't understand why I was asking her, she was a bit stressed, I did indeed find where she was and gave her new directions to get home. She called again an hour or so later and thanked me, she had stopped at the store but was in her neighborhood and almost home.

One of my step-daughters called me once to find her once after her GPS got her totally lost. I don't remember what state she was in but I found her and got her back on track. She told me that she called me because she knew if anyone could do it it was me. Gosh. Maps are my friends.

I am exhausted, a little sore, behind in chores, and have had digestive tract upset since Sunday. But I did get to see my dad one last time. He is not dying per se but he will not last much longer. But then the last 5 times I saw him I figured it would be the last time. Especially the last time when I thanked my aunt for bringing him to see me because I figured I wouldn't see him again. She hugged me and told me it wouldn't be the last time, she would bring him back; but then she died a few months later. Didn't expect that. And I should have had this finished hours ago but kept getting interrupted. Oh well, it is done now.