Cards, concerts and cold, or, normal in the Midwest

Cards yesterday, as I certainly mentioned. Only three of us; Peter took the opportunity to accompany his wife's business trip to Chicago. Today was colder in Chicago than at the South Pole. Peter's remarks next week surely will be reportable.

Setting up. That's my place, in front of the card holder Greg made for me. I don't shuffle or deal, either. My fine motor skills just drifted away.

This weather has made the usual even more apparent to me. I was very concerned about navigating this winter's weather. But a few weeks in, I find common sense and common concern master most situations.

Greg got me over the snowplow's ridge of snow at the curb and then he went out and walked in Nancy from the parking lot. I kept an appointment today, and a friend I met in the lobby walked me to my car. 

School was cancelled for today and tomorrow. Laura took advantage to continue her denim quilt. I found her laying out the colors she assembled from the jeans she cut up.

It won't even be 7x9, she sadly remarked when I looked in. We made hundreds of baby quilt tops for my sister to quilt by assembling 6" blocks in 7 blocks wide, 9 rows long.

I surrendered two pair of jeans to the cause. Size 8. If I ever regain the fifteen pounds to get back in size 8, I'll treat myself to a new pair, or two.

She cut twenty odd more blocks and thinks it will be the perfect size. She had the whole garment this time, not just legs. I'll have to see if pockets show up.

This is something I would have been doing as a teenager. No phone, and she's putting her time to good use. Just saying.

Tonight Laura is going to a "Panic! at the Disco" concert with her old high school friend, Lexi. The one who has remained non-judgmental through the "troubles".

On the way to Lexi's house I ran through some basic Arctic survival, in case of trouble. First, I sent her back for hat, scarf, gloves, hoodie to, at minimum, put in her back pack. 

If your car breaks down, get it off the road and get back in. If there is not a lighted, heated building within a hundred feet, get back in. Call for help and wait.

(Lexi's driveway). Make sure Lexi has a blanket in her car. Take the fleece blanket from the back of my car.

(My side window the entire trip). It's OK, Gramma. Lexi's mom is driving.

This week's flowers still look so nice.

Recovery

I guess we all know the big one is coming. The Polar Vortex. The cold.  It began here last night with a lot of wind. I lay in bed  realizing there probably is nowhere in anyone's mobile home to put a bed that is not on an outside wall.

So, I slept fitfully, listening to the wind and the driven rain pick at the siding and blow loose stuff around. Not more than small branches and dirt, but stuff definitely was on the move.

My heating system has come up for discussion in the past. It is a heat exchanger, used for heat in winter and cool in summer. 

My sister was here the other day, and while the "furnace" was running, she put her hand down over the nearby grill and said "That really is cool air!" Take that, universe. My sister stuck her hand in my heat, and it is cold.

I digress. I was sleeping fitfully, hearing the wind pick at my siding, when suddenly the heat exchanger made a grinding, banging noise. It would not stop. I lay in bed, rueing it was one in the morning, Sunday morning, and soon I would be out of heat and hard pressed to get maintenance here on Sunday.

But it quit, and I fell asleep for an hour, to be waked again by the horrible noise. I knew I could change the furnace over to "emergency" and burn dollar bills for heat, and I got up to do so. 

In the middle of the kitchen, I encountered Toby the Cat, on full alert, in the event the horrible banging, grinding noise came at him through the back door. He apparently intended to size it up, face to face, before he selected flight or fight.

I stopped to pat his brave head, and in the midst of the next rush of grinding and banging, I realized it was the outside storm door, left unlatched and now swinging wildly in the wind. Pulling it tight was not easy; it was a couple of tugs to get the latch secured.

The next evening I asked Laura if the noise had waked her. Yes it had, and what was it. "The storm door someone left unlatched last night."

"Yeah, I thought I didn't hear it click."

Sigh.

Stay warm. Bring in the pets. Feed the birds.

Housebound

  

Cold as we’ve never known, the weather service says. Two thirds of the population will be affected. I think of my lovely niece in Georgia, who moved away from Ohio thirty years ago, to avoid winter. The high Wednesday will be zero. Thursday, no better. Come the weekend and next week, fifties. That pesky Global Warming!

I just chuckled, remembering this past weekend and telling Laura we would stop on the way home and top up our half empty tank, because the weather would be turning cold. That depression era precaution I learned from my parents. It’s still taught, I’m sure, but under a different brand than “better safe than sorry.”

The loom has been “topped up” with a new warp, and the next batch of towels is “cayenne”.  The last thread on the shelf is “pumpkin”, then I will begin again.  The last warp of 120 turns yielded 82 towels, so I went for the max this time, 150 turns. I think I’ll get 120 towels, minimum. Perhaps 125. I think that should quench my Tibetan flag pole odyssey.  Especially since I know what I will do next, come spring.

Will I be weaving tonight, Laura wanted to know, and I said to go ahead with whatever she wants to do in there. I went to look, the incessant clicking had me curious. She has reduced her collection of jeans to shorts (short shorts, I’m sure), and now is reducing the scraps to six inch squares and then a quilt. “Aren’t you lucky to have a quilter in the family?”, I asked, and she grinned, broadly.

I took to heart my weekend warning of the potential of apps to abuse. I read even more than the cursory bit I began with.  There is nothing innocuous to be found. 

When Emily and Hamilton arrived seven years ago, they were as far into porn as they could be without a credit card. They were 13 and 16, leading completely unsupervised lives. Any self-respecting parent would have been on top of that like, well, a parent. Jan and I rolled out the parental controls, and even when he left here at 18, Ham’s computer shut down at nine in the evening.

What I’m heading toward, is, if any current parents are reading this, please know there is nothing innocuous about SnapChat or WhatsApp or any other thing on your child’s smart phone. I used to be in control, when the phone lived in my room from six in the evening to six in the morning. But this past year took the stuffing out of me in more ways than one.

I spent the last six months in a hospital or skilled nursing facility, and gave Laura total access to her phone, to keep in touch. And as I said, she’s a good person, but currently swept up by bad decisions. I told her tonight of my flip phone decision which will happen this weekend. She asked at once if I still would permit her mother to buy the smart phone. My instant decision was No.

Cards tomorrow! Then I expect to be housebound until the snow begins melting, come this weekend.

Water soup

      

By Friday night, enough was enough.  Poor Laura and her bad decisions in this detachment portion of teen age life. I’ve already encountered several detachments, and kicked them to the curb. The super blunt, for instance. 

I wonder if I even mentioned all the phone apps that permit teenagers to talk to anybody about anything, and there is no record. All while being under the age of consent and using a phone they aren’t paying for! And now Zuckerberg is buying the apps. I don’t know how parents keep up with it. I took the phone.

Anyway, come Friday night and three straight nights of water soup, I’d had it. For anyone who has heard of our family Grandpa Soup, no, it’s not. Nor is it Stone Soup, which winds up as loaded and good as Grandpa Soup.

No, Water Soup, with leftovers, is made from half a chicken breast, one carrot, one stalk of celery, a few thin noodles, and water. “Did we run out of food this week?” I asked the cook. 

I added my own list of ingredients to today’s shopping list. Mine included artichoke hearts, in a can, half and half, cheese ravioli (from the refrigerator section, not a box), and a couple of cheeses. Oh, yes, red pepper flakes and basil. And other stuff. Peas. I remember peas.

It was for a new recipe I’d printed to use when I cook again. Laura has a portfolio of recipes I’ve given her over the years, most made once and filed. She is a college cook, mac and cheese in a bowl. Now it must include meat and a veg, to pass grandma’s inspection. But this week we have degenerated to Water Soup. So I presented the list of ingredients for Cheese Ravioli with Artichoke Sauce.

After lunch I made a new loaf of Boston Brown Bread, cleaned the kitchen and retired to the loom. At the usual time, and with only three bouts of new warp left to tie on, I heard “Supper’s ready” at the usual time.

Supper still was presented in a bowl, and it was good. I glanced at Laura’s face, and we both agreed the red pepper flakes will be halved, come future. “Did it take long?” I asked.  She may have begun quite early, for all I knew, to put supper on the table at the same time. “The usual,” she replied.

Out and about on Wednesday

I went to breakfast today with Lynn. I met her two or three years ago, in the therapists' office, in the waiting room. Where did you grow up? North Hill! So did I! Etcetcetc, down to My maiden name was Lytle, and Did you know Melvin Lytle? My brother!

Anyone who still has a fifth grade love letter from my brother could only become a friend.

We had the usual, oatmeal and English muffins, and discussed all developments since December. I brought her up to date on the consensus of sending Laura to complete her last year of high school from her mother's home. Laura wants to go, Shelly wants her back and so it's best.

My custody was ordered by the court, seven years ago, and only they can unorder. In her inimitable way, Shelly does not understand this, and is determined to find a way that does not involve an attorney. 

We (my attorney and I) gave her a week, then moved on. Courts are notoriously slow; no need to wait for Shelly to decipher there is no magic. So, we filed, and soon enough the parents will be served and the minuet will begin.

I went to the post office on the way home. It is going on fifty degrees today, and raining, so here are some pictures of weather in action and people in action.

Not the least of the snow piles. It has to go somewhere. In some places on the roads the crews could not pile it high enough to entirely clear the road. Driving was a bit tricky.

Water running, running across the road. This is a mild view; there was some serious driving down Riverview this morning, avoiding deep water in my lane. It will be quite the hazard for afternoon drivers.

A sign of the times. We are in the National park, of course, but there are more than a few metropolitan parks adjoining or encompassed by the national park. Deep Lock Quarry is one. It was one of the first parks I found here, fifty years ago. way before the National park owned us.

It is an old slate quarry, and was so important that the railroad serviced it. It is deeper than I can reliably quote you, but possible to get down and back up. Lovely trails throughout. Like all the metro parks around, they have a sign announcing they are open, as opposed to the National park across the road. What a mess that fool president is leaving to be cleaned up.

In the event anyone is interested, this is a picture of the only one bedroom unit in my trailer complex. It is rented. The next one will be set up the road, directly behind Cathy's current unit. It will be mine. Out my back door and in her front door, just like now.

This unit is cute as a button! The manager tells me when the plans are in hand, I can select the unit layout myself, and can have a ramp and a walk in shower. It sure doesn't get better than that.