Week Three: |
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| Rolling,
Rolling, Rolling |
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Since I've been riding my bike quite a
bit lately, I've been adding extra goodies. My bike now has a
headlamp, water bottle, and odometer. |
MouseOver the left part of this picture
and you'll see a CloseUp of the new LED headlight that I got for my
bike. I try not to ride too much after dark; but I do occasionally
ride home late from Joyce's house. The new light with help cars see
me, and me see pot holes in the road.
MouseOver the right portion of this picture to see a CloseUp of the
new odometer I got for the bike. Now I know how far I've been riding
in the park, and how fast a speed I can maintain on average. |
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MouseOver the left part of this picture
and you'll see a CloseUp of the new water bottle holder I added to
the bike. I have several bottles that I half-fill with water and
keep in the freezer until I head out on my trips.
MouseOver the right portion of this picture to see a CloseUp of the
new old backpack that I'm using with my bike. I
actually got this backpack way back in 1980 to use for my books when
I went off to college. I keep it bungee-corded to the bike so I can
use it for items from the grocery store or library. (it's too tough
trying to steer the bike while holding onto two 2-liters of Coke
 ) |
MouseOver the left part of this picture
and you'll see a CloseUp of the new lighted rear reflector.
MouseOver the right portion of this picture
to see a CloseUp of how
well the new headlight works. |
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| Leatherman the
Prognosticator |
I could rival Nostradamus
with my predictions.
As I told you, last month, as to how it would happen, things are
right on track with John getting (or more correctly "not getting")
any food stamp benefits. Amazingly, John did have the decency to
stay awake the whole night (instead of going to bed around 6 like he
normally does) so that he was actually ready for the phone interview
at 10am. However I was right about Human Services having the incorrect
phone number to reach John, so he called them after waiting about an
hour for a call that was never gone to ring at this number.
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Of course, since John
hadn't sent in any of the requested documents (utility bills and
payments, house lease information, etc), he had to wait several days
for another envelope from Human Services. The really odd thing
though - John waited for that envelop, then waited another 5 days,
and then had his mom drive him to the welfare office to drop off
those papers. If he was just going to hand deliver the documents, he
could have done that at any time, so why did he wait all those extra
days?!?
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All I know is that everyday the
cupboard get emptier and we move closer to having no food in the
house, while waiting for John to handle his affairs.
Hopefully, I have tallied up all the delays that I knew would happen
and haven't left one out. If I'm right, there should be enough food
in the house when July starts.
 
I've gone my fingers and toes crossed, so I hope I've times things
out right. |
| Out in the
Back Yard |
| Not much has been going on
in the back yard. The grass I seeded around is growing quite nicely.
About every 9 days, after periods of rainy and then sunny days, I
have had to mow to keep the yards looking nice. About once a week,
I've gone down to the bottom part of the yard and spent an hour or
two snipping roots, shoveling dirt, and generally uncovering more of
the brick driveway leading down to that area. |
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| The boyz taking a stroll
around the year checking out everything. |
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The morning glories are beginning to
take off, and having been slowly climbing the fence. It won't be
long until they reach the top since they've been growing at a rate
of a couple inches a day.
I tied some lengths of string from the main pole, dangling down
to the fencing. The morning glory vines will use them as they climb
up and grow throughout the rest of summer. |
| Now that I'm in yet
another house
I have new plants to identify. I recently id-ed the "orange
hawkweed" growing in Joyce and Cliff's yard; but I'm just not
certain what the plant, in these pictures, is. While it's leaves
resemble some type of hosta, it has a white flower kind of like
"baby's breath". There is a neighbor living two blocks away, on a
corner lot, who has a bed of this plant decoratively growing behind
a corner section of fencing. If worse comes to worse, someday when I
see them outside, I may have to ask them if they know the name of
this plant. With my luck, they'll just be renters and have no idea,
so I'll keep checking out pictures on the net
trying to match it up. |
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As you can see below in the picture on the right, I put up some
fencing around these plants. Although Joxer (in the left picture,
earlier that same day) has the legitimate excuse of being nearly
blind, he wasn't the only doggie I have that kept trampling through
these plants. Neither Aires and Zeus paid any attention either to
the plants as they grew taller and taller through the Spring. |
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Actually, a few weeks ago I took an old piece of wire fencing, cut
it in half, and wrapped it around this area of the yard. That DID
finally keep the dogz out of that area and allowed those plants to
bloom. I recently cut up an old piece of white plastic lattice (left
from when I used it for the "Back Porch and Steps Project") and
that's the lattice I just put out. Otherwise I had no need for it
and was just going to throw it away. |
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Unbelievable!
 
Remember I mentioned trying up some string for the morning glories
to use to continue growing up the fencing and pole? By the next
morning, the morning glories had already climbed nearly two inches
up the string! Wow! It won't be long until the flowers pop out now! |
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A cookout
unlike the cookouts I used to have
(but it wasn't my fault it was weird) |
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| I held my first official cookout at
the house, and though everyone enjoyed themselves, it didn't go very
much like I had planned. |
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| I invited Joyce and Mike P over to my
house, rather than Joyce's, one Sunday for cards and a cookout. I
figured we'd have something that I just love; and something that we
hadn't grilled out in a while - shish kabobs! (bamboo skewers filled
with portions of marinated meat and vegetables). |
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Before we had even gotten around to
dinner, I received a call from some other friends of ours (Rhonda
and her son Josh) who wanted to come visit if our dinner was over.
(It seems that Mike P had taken it upon himself to invite them over
to my house, and had neglected to tell me about the other guests
that would be coming over ) I did some quick calculations and figured
I'd have enough food, so I invited them on over. I also figured that
Rhonda could take my place at the card table for a while as I got
things prepared to start making the kabobs. |
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| I got my first sense that this
cookout/party was going to be weird as I tried to leave the card
game so that I could start dinner. I mean, if no one ever cooked it,
we sure weren't ever going to eat, right? I'm sure that seems
totally logical to you, my readers; but for some reason my guests
acted like I was somehow dissing them and seemed a bit put out when
I left the game. But to have been so troubled by my leaving the game
and letting Rhonda take my place, my guests quickly forgot all about
me and the dinner as the Euchre game resumed. |
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| I guess it's partly my fault for not
explaining better; but we
have done shish kabobs at Joyce's before, so I thought people
realized that they were to help move the dinner along by preparing
their own kabobs. It's one of the those special kinds of foods
that's supposed to gets everyone into a kitchen, spearing pieces of
marinated meat and vegetables, while chatting and socializing.
Instead I spent nearly 30 minutes alone in the kitchen spearing all
those veggies and stew beef pieces that I had already spent another
30 minutes on, cutting and preparing. Yes, several times I did poke
my head around the corner of the kitchen into the living room to
check on my guests and "suggest" that any of them could come help
me; but no one took the hint - or even my direct request when Joyce
and Mike both asked if I needed help. I was very troubled that not one of them left the
card game to assist me. |
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| But the evening had just started and
so there was still plenty of oddness yet to happen. In past years
when I've cooked out on Jim's patio or Joyce's deck, I've always has
some sort of company, as there was usually someone drawn to the
grill by the savory smells. Not so for this cookout. My only company
while I cooked a grill-full of shish kabobs was my mp3 player and
the doggies. Even smoke from the grill wafting into the window
wasn't enough to bring any of my visitors to the window, much less
outside, to check on me or their cooking food. |
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| Of course, you might think I was just
feeling out-of-sorts and was just imaging that everyone was acting
strangely by not visiting with me either in the kitchen or by the
grill; but when I brought the cooked food into the kitchen, things actually got stranger. I
had everything laid out on the counter (the kabobs, glasses, a
pitcher of tea, plates,
forks, napkins, a huge bowl of rice, salt, pepper, and soy sauce),
sent the dogs back outside out of the way, and announced to everyone
that dinner was ready and to "please come to the kitchen and grab a
plate", which worked out perfectly as they had just
finished up the game. |
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| I moved out the way so my guests could
serve themselves (thank goodness Mike P sure didn't hesitate! LOL), and went
upstairs to wash the grease and grill smoke off my hands and face.
When I came back downstairs, I noticed something odd though. Only
Mike P had a plate of food. Since John normally doesn't get up until
3 in the afternoon, he usually doesn't eat at a normal dinner time
anyway; but I had hoped he would join in since the food was fresh
out the grill.
Still, even though he might not have been hungry, you would have
thought that common courtesy would get him into the kitchen of HIS
house to help with HIS guests (especially since I had done ALL
the work for OUR guests
).
However, instead of helping the
guests get their food, John just stood back and was actually doing
nothing at all but staring into space. (if truth be told, he was
actually moving closer to his computer and I'd bet he was about to
turn on WOW, even while we had a house full of guests!) |
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| For some reason, DO wasn't eating
either, and was still just sitting in her seat at the card table,
without making any attempt at going and getting herself a plate of
food. Three times, after I got back downstairs from washing my hands
and while I was explaining to Rhonda what kabobs are, I heard DO
plainly say that the food "sure did smell good". I guess she thought
I was also serving up her plate - and maybe chewing it for her too.
I put a finger up to Rhonda for a moment, asking her to wait while I
interrupted our talk to speak with Joyce. Quite frankly, I told
Joyce that I had already announced the dinner was ready 15 minutes
ago, and that if she got off her dead ass and fixed herself a plate
she could eat anytime she wanted and find out just how good it
really was. I had already prepared and cooked the damn food alone
while everyone else was having a good time together and there wasn't
anything else I could do for her, if she couldn't eat it on her own.
That got her ass moving finally. |
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| Poor Rhonda. Not only did she not know
what shish kabobs were (and was therefore a little leery of even
trying them out); but there she was, caught in the crossfire between
Joyce and I. Rhonda had never been much further than the living room
in my house, and without John even pointing out where the food was,
she and Josh were at a loss about getting their food. They could see
that Mike P had gotten some; but Rhonda was wary of just wandering
into the kitchen since neither John or Joyce were going out there.
Finally I took Rhonda and Josh to the kitchen myself and got them
fixed up with plates of the yummy dinner. |
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I can't believe that I threw a cookout
and my guests nearly didn't eat! Of
course, after they finally did, everyone enjoyed the heck out of it
and talked about shish kabobs for the whole next week.
and talked about them and talked about them.
Though appreciative of their praise, if not their "friendliness", I
don't think I'm going to try another "cookout" with guests for quite
some time. |
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Sigh.
Maybe cookouts are another tradition of my life that I'll have to
give up because of how my friends have changed and how oddly they've
been behaving. Jim must have seen the first vestiges of this problem
when he nearly canceled any thoughts of Pooltag3 because of how rude
and inconsiderate our guests were. |
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| I swear I'm just so confused
about my life right now. It's quite depressing to have lost so much
and to have made so many changes in my life this past year, and now
I find many of my friends have gone insane. Well? what else could be
the reason, if not "insanity"? As I've mentioned before, the
alternative is that some of these people are just no longer my
"friends" in reality. Sigh. I know I've gone on about this before;
but the slide down into this situation was just so subtle that I
didn't see what a problem I had fallen into until too later. |
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| As I said, who would think in the same
year that my partner would pass away, I'd end up living with a
person that could barely keep himself alive and that my best friend
besides Jim over the last 20 years, my OhioMom, that her behavior
would change so drastically? When I think back to how she counseled
me, gave me her stories about how she dealt with Cliff lying in the
hospital dying, how that gave me the courage to go on, to go back to
the hospital and beg Jim to try to hold on just a bit longer so the
treatments could work. Sigh. Well, she's just not that woman
anymore. Her hatred of her worthless husband has corrupted her soul
and now that has spilled over affecting the lives of her children
and friends. |
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| I really do feel like I have lost most
of the support structure I have had up here in Ohio all these years.
I would have realized this at some point anyway I guess. Time has
been marching on. My friend Mary K, who helped me at Randy's death
and at Jim's, has her own health problems. Just since I had to send
her to the hospital instead of helping me with Jim, I think she's
been back in the hospital two more times with problems. Other
friends like Richard, Angie, and Linda have moved on with kids and
their family lives. (And that's how it should be).
Carolynn, my mom-in-law, has been troubled with her spinal issues.
working at the DQ, and moving to a new home. I should never forget
to mention that I had other friends, who used to be part of my
Ohioan support system, who aren't around any longer either. They all
died in the mid to late 90s from AIDS. So much of my support system
is gone or moved on, that's it's no wonder it's just little ol' me
struggling with these issues. |
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Once again all this has only reminded
me of my loss of Jim. I had not truly appreciated his spirit and
vitality. How could I have been so blind to have not seen how the
vast majority of projects, activities, and adventures that I have
talked about in the 11 yrs of this blog were only because Jim was
there to do those things with me. Many of my friends are physically
unable to do these things and others have too many other obligations
and not enough time.
I sure do miss Jim every boring day. |
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| Garden
Update |
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I spent an afternoon "fixing" half the
garden over at Joyce's. Not only had the dirt hardly been turned
over more than once; but the rows were crooked, and no sort of plan
to deal with water drainage, as this garden is planted going down a
hillside.
Now half the garden has been weeded and turned into a real "rows"
over growing plants. By the next afternoon, I could see the plants
were doing better, as they still had some moisture in the trenches
between the rows, and the soil was loose enough to spread out their
roots. |
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I can almost taste the B L Ts
Mmmm, bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches.
(those are blooms on the tomato plants) |
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Besides a few radishes, we
have been able to already reap some benefits from the garden. The
broccoli has been doing really well and we all shared five decent
heads. Mmm! Steam it up . . . Butter it up . . . and Eat it up! |
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Week Four: |
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| The Morning
Glories are Blooming! |
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The Morning Glories have climbed the
fence and the string, and are now starting to intertwine as the
plants continue growing.
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And the first blooms have come out! |
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Here's a picture of the area around the
corner from the back steps is where I've been doing out my grilling
so far this season. I still can't believe that I thought I had run
out of propane last year when in reality I've had enough to grill
burgers 4 times, hot dogs twice and all those shish kabobs last
week. |
MouseOver to see a CloseUp
of Joxer
waiting patiently for me to finish taking pictures |
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| Garden
Update |
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| After some days of rain
and sun, sun and rain, it was time for me to tackle the big garden
again. This time I worked in the lower half, which was the area we
turned over for the first time this year. Unfortunately, the dirt
needed to be tilled more, and we only had one bush bean plant and
one lima bean plant strong enough to break through the ground and
grow. As I weeded and straightened up these rows in the garden, I
transplanted those surviving plants to leave some room for peas to
be planted later in the summer. |
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| Joyce and Mike G survey
the handiwork of my gardening skills and discuss the health
and status of the plants. |
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| In another incident of my
friends' insanity or whatever it is, even the garden has been part
of the problem. I had to tell Joyce and Mike G (who supplied the
plants and seeds, and the lawn space respectively) when to pick the
radishes, broccoli, and some of the hot peppers. Each time it took
three days for them to finally get around to reaping the results of
what they sowed.
You'd
think after all that money for the plants and the water bill (and my
sweat, hard labor, and time) that they'd be anxious to pick and eat
the fresh veggies. I guess next I'll have to be cooking the veggies
for them too - I've been doing everything else.
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| The Garden
is Springing Up! |
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| Tomatoes |
Carrots |
Cucumbers |
Bell Peppers |
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This is a pumpkin that sprung up from
seeds sown over two years ago.
When it first showed up, we moved it to this side of the garden.
Over several days after it was transplanted, the poor plant was
stepped on several times. Then it was nearly covered in mud after a
hard downpour during a thunderstorm. Though I figured it was a
goner, this pumpkin plant is becoming quite a monster. |
Ladybugs are good for the garden
because of the aphids and "bad" insects that they eat (thank you,
Google, for all the info you provide me when I query your search
services LOL).
MouseOver for a CloseUp |
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Reading/Viewing List |
| So I may not have a pool
to lie out by and read books all the time like I have for many, many
Summers in the past; but that doesn't mean that I have slacked off
on my Summer reading. Actually I read a lot throughout the year; but
I seem to read a bunch more when I'm trapped inside by the Winter
snow or lounging out in the Summer sun. I'm still hoping to go on a
couple of short adventures this summer - consisting of riding to the
park, taking along a lunch and a book so I can get in some time
exercising on the bike, some time in the sun, and some time reading;
then biking back home. So I'll check you up on what I've been
reading (and what I've been watching) until the park adventures
start to really bump up my summer reading list book count. (I always
won those things in school) |
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| The Movies |
| Thankfully, libraries are
carrying multimedia items like audio books and DVDs nowadays -
because they are FREE
as long as you return them on time.
Because the library seems to purchase more "educational" and
"award-winning" material and donors donate more "varied" fare
the
selection of movies is quite eclectic. |
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| I wasn't a big "X-Files"
fan; but I had watched enough of the show to have enjoyed the first
movie featuring the FBI agents of Mulder and Sculley. However, this
second movie didn't answer any more of the left-over questions from
the series; instead it was a movie-tized version of an episode. It
wasn't bad; but you'd have to like the X-Files to care. I despise
Jack Black, yet I didn't hate him in "Kung Fu Panda". It was a cute
movie; but it made me want to watch Madagascar again.
Following
a re-watch of "The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer", I
finally got around to watching "Ghost Rider". I liked this one quite
a bit. It really did remind me of the comics. |
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| "Pan's Labyrinth"
turned out to be a pretty creepy movie and I wouldn't take a child
to see it, I don't think. But it was worth watching because of the
creepy factor. If you want really, really creepy then check out the
hottie Shia LeBeof in "Disturbia". In that flix the cute boy spies
on all the neighbors and one of them just might be a murderer.
OOooOO |
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| I had checked out Stephen
King's "The Mist" once before but that copy had been flawed and
would not play. So I had to request another copy and when it came
in, I biked over to pick it up. I really, really liked the movie no
matter what the critics say. First Thomas Jayne is awesomely hot
(see "The Punisher") and secondly, the new Stephen King approved
ending was awesomely, grossly cool. Finally, although I love heavy
dramas like "Saving Private Ryan" and such, I had not seen
"Schindler's List" until this past week. What a riveting movie about
an unusual man during a horrible time. |
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| The Books |
| Because my friends have
been so odd lately, I used the library to check on my own sanity.
After flipping through some self-help books, I brought one home to
read called "People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It". Say what you
will about them, but after losing two long term partners, I've read
through a lot of grief, depression, and other self-help books and
have found them sorta helpful. I can only say "sorta" because on one
hand fortunately these books have validated my thoughts and actions
about dealing with stress, grief, depression, etc. Unfortunately, on
the hand, it means that I've already had the "tools" to deal with
these issues and there wasn't anything new or helpful to find within
these books to really give me much new help |
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I often find interesting
books by checking the "new non-fiction" and "new fiction" shelves
first when I go to the library. My recent non-fiction readings have
included "Tell Me How This Ends" by General David Petraeous and "The
Red Zone" by Steven Vincent which, of course, are about the war and
the situation in Iraq; "Google Speaks" is about the founders of
Google; and "The Unthinkable" by Amanda Ripley which is a VERY
interesting book about "who survives when disaster strikes - and
why". This book is filled with anecdotal stories and medical facts
explaining the psychology behind how human handle, or don't handle,
disasters. I highly recommend this interesting book. |
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| Another interesting
non-fiction book that was on the shelves may actually have had some
connection to Jim. During my talks with the ladies at the antique
store, where Jim's belongings were being sold, I found out that some
of the Canton memorabilia that Jim had might be going to two
different buyers. One purchaser is in the process of renovating the
Onesta Hotel in downtown Canton. For nearly the first decade of
Jim's life, his parents were the manager and head housekeeper
(respectively), so some items that were sold may actually end up as
show pieces for how the Onesta used to look in it's heyday. The
other purchaser was putting together a book of postcards featuring
the city of Canton throughout the years. That book was finally on
the shelves in my library, so I checked it out. Though there was no
specific mention, but I did see two postcards in the book (one of
the Onesta, and one of the McKinley Monument) that I know had been
sold out of the antique store. I found all those really old
postcards of this town to be have been very informative and
interesting. In Canton's early history, the railroad connected this
city much more to the politics of the day, especially with President
McKinley coming from this city. The most amazing thing to see was
the the city for much of it's history did NOT extend northward after
the park. In these old photos, you can literally see how the section
of town I've lived in since I moved here was just a forest until the
early 1900s. |
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| I didn't just read only
non-fiction though. I had to have some "fun" reading too. I found a
new author and read a few of his books. Since I liked Christopher
Moore's "The Fool", a VERY bawdy tale about the fool from "King
Lear", I also read "You Suck: A Love Story" which was his wacky take
on vampires. I liked both and will have to try some more of his
books. In the Sci-Fi category, I read Orson Scott Card's book,
"Ender's Game". There are some more of his books that I need to read
next. I also got James Patterson's next book, 8th Confession, his
eighth book about the ladies in the Women's Murder Club. I recommend
ALL of the books in this series for some nice fictional
crime/investigator reading. The last book I have in the latest stack
from the library is called "The Buddha of Suburbia". I found out
through Wikipedia that David Bowie had done the soundtrack to a
British show of this name which is based upon the book - so I
thought I'd read it and find out what prompted Bowie to make the
music.
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