FIRE IN THE HOLE, FIRE IN THE HOLE

How much more exciting can retirement get? I don’t know because I think if I go back to work the chaos will end and what fun would that be?

About 2 weeks ago, I noticed my clothes dryer was making a bong, bong, bong, noise. I stopped the cycle and shifted the load, bongedy, bongedy, bongedy the sound went instead of bong, bong, bong. Well, it still dried the clothes so I learned to live with the noise. This Monday the sound stopped - - easy listening once again. I thought, “Could it be it fixed itself”? How nice! Lady Luck was smiling on me! Yeah, right. While loading some more clothes in the washer I brushed up against the dryer and it felt like a hot steam iron, so it scared me and I switched it off and unplugged it. However, the clothes were dry and I hung them up and decided perhaps the dryer just needed to cool off from the drying cycle.

Welllllllllllllllll, today I got up, bathed myself and Logan and dressed him. I decided I wanted to wear a pair of pants that were wrinkled and just needed a couple of turns in the dryer! Did I say the dryer? I meant the fire ball. I threw my pants in the dryer and immediately the smell of smoke came drifting into the kitchen were I was having my final cup of morning java. Logan came running through the house, “I smell smoke Memaw”. Dark smoke was billowing out of the laundry room. I ran to the dryer and pulled the plug out of the wall, pulled my wrinkled pants out of the dryer, left the dryer door open and ran for a spray bottle. The only spray bottle I owned was full of Windex. I then grabbed the 21 year old fire extinguisher and read (rather quickly) the instructions for activation. I opened the dryer and there was a fire glow on the dryer drum (coming from deep in the inner workings), smoke was billowing out, the dog was barking, the smoke detectors were detecting, Logan was asking a bazillion questions and I was pulling the lever and spraying the inside of the dryer and inside the filter trap. More smoke billowed out and it was getting choky so I called 911, took Logan out to the van, put the dog on the outside cable and we waited. My neighbor Benny came riding up on his Harley, because Lois (my good neighbor) called him to come over and check on us. He took Logan and carried him around while I took the firemen inside. The police arrived first and then the ambulance. No one was hurt other than my feelings. They had the guy with the heat sensor camera come. He was walking around checking for fire in the walls. The dog was barking. Logan was asking questions, “Are these all good citizens Memaw” and we were about to be late for Micah’s 1st grade awards presentations.

I combed my hair, put on a skirt, combed Logan’s hair, brought the dog in, thanked the neighbor and the “good citizens” and off we drove to the awards. We made it, and on time! Little Micah had no idea what all we did to make this happen, but when he walked in he started looking everywhere to see if anyone showed up for him. And there we were waving at him from the back of the auditorium and him waving back. My heart felt good! Just another Madcap day in the life of retirement! Gee, I’m glad I could be there to see that smile of joy on his face as he waved and waved and waved with a big old happy smile on his face. God, how I love those little boys! The new dryer will arrive on Friday!

Traveling down the highway of life...

I've been gone for a few days to visit my daughter in Mount Pleasant. I had about 2 hours of quiet time on my drive there (Logan of course was in the backseat, but reasonably quiet for Logan). I thought about my life and reflected on what went wrong and what went right. Seems what went wrong totally outnumbered the right by a zillion to one. Anyway, I enjoyed my few days with my daughter, but my observations were about how God gave us all this strange and wacky way of getting rid of waste and it seems to take lots of time to do it and lots of little rooms to do it in. My daughter's dogs were going in and out of the house to "do their thing" while I was there. The cat has a box to do "his thing" in, and birds fly over our heads, "splat" doing their thing. Then it's the fish tank dipping out their little strings of poop after they do "their thing".

Well, on with the story... Angie and I took Logan with us shopping yesterday and today and it was "do you have a public bathroom" question at every other shop while Logan and I studied who had clean bathrooms and who didn't. I think Angie was wearing a catheter or diaper because she never once asked that question or went with us to "do our thing". Take my advice, don't drink a 1/2 pot of coffee before you go shopping! She couldn't believe we had to really go that often, but when nature calls you better answer. Logan got up this morning and told me he was really sweaty because the front of his pajamas was wet. Ummm, seems the sheet was wet and the mattress too. That was some sweating he did. You can see when he asks I find a bathroom or tree for him and quickly!

Our two and a half days in Mount Pleasant went fast and then it was time to take the 2 hour trip back home. Neither one of us took a bottle of water and we tried to dry out so there would be no stops home so we could get home before dark. About midway between Mount Pleasant and Sulphur Springs we encountered numerous and I do mean n u m e r o u s big trucks on the road. Passing, passing, passing them all and going about 80 mph to get home I got behind one that seemed to be losing fluid and it was gathering on my windshield. I turned on my windshield wipers and white muck went all across the windows and I could see nothing but frosted glass. When I got closer to the truck in front of me I noticed lettering that spelled T Y S O N and I don't believe it was Mike. No, it was Tyson Chicken, and I had chicken shit smeared all across the front of my window and it was stuck like glue. I kept pressing the window cleaner button but it only got worse. The window appeared as though we had been in a snow storm and we were in the middle of no where with zilch water bottles. I drove in this fog until I hit the town of Sulphur Springs, pulled into a filling station, but this time not to use the bathroom but to clean the bathroom (my windshield) and it took some hard scrubbing to get it all off. So remember this, the next time you buy Tyson Chickens think about what was inside those creatures - - chicken will stick to your ribs all right! Foul fowl!

Itching for Summer to be over!

Itching for summer to be over !

What is 1/150th of an inch in diameter and makes a 200 pound plus woman miserable?

You got it! It’s a chigger! The chigger brought the whole chigger valley with them when they came to dine on my lower extremities. I have been itching as though Poison Ivy came to live with me.

It all started on Wednesday when I was running through the grass (weeds) to get a kite to fly for Logan and Micah. There was not a stir of wind blowing, but they thought if I could get the kite high enough there might be some currents left over from the breezes available yesterday. I worked until the hot flashes had turned me a bright red and my feet began to throb, and then I called quits.

While out there I prided myself that the bumble bees bobbing close by didn’t sting me, the red wasps already in full flight passed me by, and the fireants were still under ground gearing up for summer battle - - home free! However, Thursday morning Logan had his hand down the front of his shorts scratching, and I was starting to itch in my upper thighs, and above and below my panty line. I took a look and evaluated our situation. We had spots all over us spaced out about every inch and ½. Boy did we itch? We took turns taking hot, soapy bathes. I covered our red bumps with Cortizone. No help! Still itching! I realized we had been attacked by the same summer varmints we had last year - - CHIGGERS! They love me and Logan for some reason. Off I drove to CVS to get a sack full of remedies: a bite pen, bite gel, powder, bath lotion, etc. I’ve tried the home remedies on myself: nail polish, hydrogen peroxide, antibiotic ointment- - still itching!

Please God, let summer zoom by!!!!

Retirement

Monday, May 1, 2006

I’m up! It’s 5:00 a.m. - - something feels not quite right. I am checking the weather to see what I should wear, but hey, wait; I don’t have to wear anything today. I’m, I’m, I’m (I can’t say it) reeeeeeeetiiiiiirrrrrrreeeeddddddd! Huh, could it be so? How could that be? I remember not long ago wondering if I should order a new ashtray for my desk and struggling with my mini skirt as I twirled around in my desk chair to run down to the courthouse to get our supplies for the office. What happened? It’s a time capsule…

Later, still youthful, I was wearing my navy pilgrim shoes with the big buckles and the block heels along with a navy blue jacket and gray slacks (still a size 10) and feeling very proud I no longer needed an ashtray at my desk because I kicked the habit. I was now ordering supplies from the office supply and not having to run to the courthouse to get our supplies. We were really moving up.

Years passed! The styles changed, now we were wearing creased denim jeans and sports jackets with our high heels. I was cute! We had extra starch put in those jeans, but boy did they chaff the inner thighs by the end of the day. Retirement - - who needs it. I’m young and have miles to go before I sleep (retire).

100 pounds later and now wearing a muu muu style dress (but a good fabric) and still dressy, I was wearing wedge heels and thinking about a new job. This old job was 22.5 years at the same job and watching the place dismantle and fall to pieces. We won’t even talk about the employment before that or this would be a long novel - - 10 years at the Penny Saver, and 1 year at the Baptist Church where I mimeographed the church bulletins, wiped noses and butts for the daycare, collected fees for daycare; made deposits for the church and the daycare; took kids to Kindergarten twice a day; played nurse when a scrape occurred, cooked when the regular cook was out, took care of the nursery when the workers were out. You name it - - I did it and was proud to be a multi-tasker. However, I was losing my religion so I had to move on. Working for Collin County Mental Health Mental Retardation taught me lots of things. It taught me everyone has issues of some type.

Well, off to Unicare (a change in jobs) in my jeans, capris, and sandals or Nikes, this was a job where you could look as good as you wanted or do nothing at all because all the customers were on the phone. They could care less what you looked like. They wanted help! They wanted good customer service, and the boss wanted numbers. This was assembly line on the phone, so 7 months of that and I was ready to go once again. Now I began to think about age and retirement, but still, it seemed WAY DOWN THE ROAD! I was fortunate enough to obtain a position with PISD and figured I would be good there until I got old and then retired, but ah oh! Six years down the road, many pounds and wrinkles later --screech!!!!!
IT HAPPENED! RETIREMENT! IT HURTS! IT FEELS FUNNY! IT TAKES GETTING USED TO! I’LL WRITE MORE LATER. I DON’T KNOW IF I LIKE IT. MY SCHEDULE IS OFF! I MISS MY OFFICE BUDS! MORE TO COME….