Big jobs, little jobs

Months ago Kathleen, my counselor, suggested I call Area Agency on Ageing to see if any programs applied to my needs. After a short, useless argument I said I would. Kathleen takes exquisite notes on my family and friends, my likes and dislikes, but has never bothered to write down I have been evaluated two or more times by this AAA. I am "in their books".

My particular need is someone to clean my floors; run the vacuum and sweep the vast expanse of linoleum. I had two girls from the park do it once this summer, but they're back in school. Laura came and did it once. I've vacuumed a couple of times in the year plus I've been here, but my back isn't compatible.

As I knew, this AAA has no program to vacuum my rugs. I can get in and out of bed, shower, toilet and brush my teeth. That covers their authority. We had the usual chat, and then the counselor told me of a new program they knew of that might be of interest. It was a volunteer shopping program; groceries to my door. 

I called the number given me and left a my contact information after an introductory recording. This was several months ago. I did have the satisfaction of telling Kathleen I was once again turned away by AAA, and the volunteer shopping program hadn't called me, either.

She asked me again this week and I reported the same, adding it's been six months; I'm long gone from the voice mail.

Not ten minutes later, I had a call from a nice person whose name I did not write down, so let's call her Jane. First we established I might be interested in whatever they were offering, then I helped her unburden herself of her feeling about the man previously in charge who had dropped so many balls the strings would never untangle.

This shopping program is funded by an agency Jane sort of avoided telling me the name of, but I will get it if this happens. The program funds volunteers who grocery shop and deliver to clients for no additional charge beyond the grocery receipt.

I told her I was not interested in a grocery shopper so much as a deliverer, who would carry the goods up seven steps and put them on my kitchen counter. If necessary, I would be happy to go shopping with them, and pay for the groceries, if that person also returned to my home and carried groceries up the steps.

This was a very novel idea and Jane would have her supervisor discuss it with me.

Which her supervisor did. It is such a novel idea the supervisor must discuss it with the agency that funds them, and get back to me. That hasn't happened yet.

In the meantime, the Christmas Cactus cutting I started rooting in January was overdue to leave its jelly jar home. It's in the new pot, but consigned to the deck rail, at least while overnight temps hold.

The potting soil, when I went to the shed and opened the bag, exploded with tiny little sugar ants, as my mother called them. Bazillions of them, running up my hands and down the bag. I filled another pot with soil to bring back to the deck, and left the bag wide open...like the little devils would look to the wide world in preference to a handy bag of fine potting mix.

I potted up the cactus, shooing away a lot of ants. Alright, I smooshed a few, too. Right now I'm torn between observing for a lack of ants (and I've seen none the last two days), a dip in an incredibly mild solution of detergent in water, or a trip to the hardware store for the final solution. Advice welcome.