Flushed with excitement
I have a few updates to recent happenings.
1. Grandma's toilet saga
This has turned into the phone saga. The day after she was on the phone with my father, the plumber or whomever tried to call her four times. She was out at IHOP, she was out at Butera--partly being a consumer, partly being a user of their bathrooms--and she missed their calls. Supposedly her phone is acting up and she didn't hear the calls or didn't know they'd come in or what. Ultimately they did come out and fix her toilet, and it was something relatively simple involving the valve in the toilet tank, so at least that's taken care of.
But now, about 8:45 tonight, the phone is ringing and CID says it's grandma but when mom and I picked it up at the same time, nothing came from grandma's end. Well, okay, it was hard to tell, because mom had her CPAP mask on and I think I was hearing that and it was obscuring any sounds coming from grandma's end. She didn't speak, I can tell you that. The phone call ends and I call her back. It goes directly to voicemail. A few minutes later, she calls; at least this time, mom was in the bathroom, so there weren't any Darth Vader-y sounds. Grandma apologized; she cannot hold her phone, because whatever she does turns it off. Like, she's holding it improperly for when she's trying to talk on it and keeps hitting a button or key that ends the call. She's really frustrated by that. Anyway, she was calling because she was mildly panicked that her driver's license expires tomorrow. Well...no, it expires on your birthday. You have a month to get it taken care of. She's at the age where she has to take the driving exam every year, so it's a big deal. She realized at this time of night, there's nothing she can do about it, but she felt better when we said, why don't you actually look at your license and see what the date is? Chances are you did it early last year to get it over with. You can update your license before your actual birthday, so long as it's done by your birthday. That calmed her down. Once off the phone, mom wondered if grandma had written herself a reminder to just get it done, not that it actually expired today or tomorrow. That's probably what she meant.
2. Neighborhood noises
My dad was outside playing with mulch, as one does, when he heard sirens. We're blocks from the path to the hospital, so we hear sirens almost daily at times, but this seemed awfully close...and sure enough, here's another ambulance heading to the house two doors down. Second time this week. What gives? Well, the neighbor in between was out there, watching the excitement, so dad stopped to talk to him. The guy had a bit more news for us. It seems that he doesn't care for the busybody wife, either. Considering that's the fourth family that's lived in that house since it was built, and the busybody house, our house, and our north neighbors all have original owners, hmm... Our south neighbor said part of the reason he planted a bunch of trees along the driveway was because of them, to give his family some privacy. Yeah, there's a reason we don't like the wife. She used to knock on the original family's back door. Like...that's trespassing. You've entered their backyard without permission. That's creepy and crosses boundaries. It's not like she's a neighbor kid retrieving a lost ball. Anyway, it sounds like the wife falls a lot and part of why an ambulance comes is likely because she has a Life Alert-type device, sort of like my grandfather did. Or perhaps her husband calls. She's a bigger lady and he may not be able to get her up. The husband also had a health situation; I think dad said he was dehydrated at one point. The weird one was when my south neighbor, who is Indian and vegetarian--possibly even vegan--said the husband came over and asked them to fry a couple eggs, which he was holding in his hand. I mean, we've heard of people asking to borrow a couple eggs, but to cook them? And it's not like frying eggs is difficult. That was really perplexing to us, that he'd do that. Is he that bad in the kitchen that he cannot cook for himself? Is there an issue with his stove? So many questions. We don't know what all was going on today, but still. I'm kinda wondering how much longer they'll remain in their house if things continue in this manner.
3. Fridge follow-up
When we got the new fridge, we had to allow strangers into the house. Dad cleaned the floor, for instance. I can't even tell you the last time the floor got swept and washed. He could do it every week, you know. But, BUT! Earlier in the week, or more likely over the weekend, dad pointed out something else he'd done: He finally, FINALLY, attached the trim that goes around the cabinets in the kitchen. I always want to call it cord-around but it's quarter round. I have been railing on him about this for YEARS. He replaced the floor in 2003, the week of Halloween. That was so long ago, it predates this journal. Otherwise I'd link back to my story of trying to prep for going to work at the bookstore and attempting to get my Cinderella hair just right, but getting interrupted by trick-or-treaters because dad was in the garage using his saw to cut planks for the floor--which was also a natural scary sound and legit frightened a few kids away. Ah, memories. But, yeah, for over 18 years we've had to deal with the trim not being attached and moving anytime we went to clean the floors, and dad thought it would cause trouble for moving the fridges in and out, so that's what finally spurred him to action. Not us getting a new fridge and stove in 2005, mind you. But I think he'd attempted to glue the trim in, so perhaps it was holding to some degree at that time since it was only a year and a half later, but yeah. This had been a pain in my tushy for ages. He'd needed a particular length of nail to properly secure it, and maybe his nail gun didn't work properly or something, and it's crap like that why my mom really hates it when dad insists on doing more projects around the house.
...And how's the bathroom coming? Sigh.
1. Grandma's toilet saga
This has turned into the phone saga. The day after she was on the phone with my father, the plumber or whomever tried to call her four times. She was out at IHOP, she was out at Butera--partly being a consumer, partly being a user of their bathrooms--and she missed their calls. Supposedly her phone is acting up and she didn't hear the calls or didn't know they'd come in or what. Ultimately they did come out and fix her toilet, and it was something relatively simple involving the valve in the toilet tank, so at least that's taken care of.
But now, about 8:45 tonight, the phone is ringing and CID says it's grandma but when mom and I picked it up at the same time, nothing came from grandma's end. Well, okay, it was hard to tell, because mom had her CPAP mask on and I think I was hearing that and it was obscuring any sounds coming from grandma's end. She didn't speak, I can tell you that. The phone call ends and I call her back. It goes directly to voicemail. A few minutes later, she calls; at least this time, mom was in the bathroom, so there weren't any Darth Vader-y sounds. Grandma apologized; she cannot hold her phone, because whatever she does turns it off. Like, she's holding it improperly for when she's trying to talk on it and keeps hitting a button or key that ends the call. She's really frustrated by that. Anyway, she was calling because she was mildly panicked that her driver's license expires tomorrow. Well...no, it expires on your birthday. You have a month to get it taken care of. She's at the age where she has to take the driving exam every year, so it's a big deal. She realized at this time of night, there's nothing she can do about it, but she felt better when we said, why don't you actually look at your license and see what the date is? Chances are you did it early last year to get it over with. You can update your license before your actual birthday, so long as it's done by your birthday. That calmed her down. Once off the phone, mom wondered if grandma had written herself a reminder to just get it done, not that it actually expired today or tomorrow. That's probably what she meant.
2. Neighborhood noises
My dad was outside playing with mulch, as one does, when he heard sirens. We're blocks from the path to the hospital, so we hear sirens almost daily at times, but this seemed awfully close...and sure enough, here's another ambulance heading to the house two doors down. Second time this week. What gives? Well, the neighbor in between was out there, watching the excitement, so dad stopped to talk to him. The guy had a bit more news for us. It seems that he doesn't care for the busybody wife, either. Considering that's the fourth family that's lived in that house since it was built, and the busybody house, our house, and our north neighbors all have original owners, hmm... Our south neighbor said part of the reason he planted a bunch of trees along the driveway was because of them, to give his family some privacy. Yeah, there's a reason we don't like the wife. She used to knock on the original family's back door. Like...that's trespassing. You've entered their backyard without permission. That's creepy and crosses boundaries. It's not like she's a neighbor kid retrieving a lost ball. Anyway, it sounds like the wife falls a lot and part of why an ambulance comes is likely because she has a Life Alert-type device, sort of like my grandfather did. Or perhaps her husband calls. She's a bigger lady and he may not be able to get her up. The husband also had a health situation; I think dad said he was dehydrated at one point. The weird one was when my south neighbor, who is Indian and vegetarian--possibly even vegan--said the husband came over and asked them to fry a couple eggs, which he was holding in his hand. I mean, we've heard of people asking to borrow a couple eggs, but to cook them? And it's not like frying eggs is difficult. That was really perplexing to us, that he'd do that. Is he that bad in the kitchen that he cannot cook for himself? Is there an issue with his stove? So many questions. We don't know what all was going on today, but still. I'm kinda wondering how much longer they'll remain in their house if things continue in this manner.
3. Fridge follow-up
When we got the new fridge, we had to allow strangers into the house. Dad cleaned the floor, for instance. I can't even tell you the last time the floor got swept and washed. He could do it every week, you know. But, BUT! Earlier in the week, or more likely over the weekend, dad pointed out something else he'd done: He finally, FINALLY, attached the trim that goes around the cabinets in the kitchen. I always want to call it cord-around but it's quarter round. I have been railing on him about this for YEARS. He replaced the floor in 2003, the week of Halloween. That was so long ago, it predates this journal. Otherwise I'd link back to my story of trying to prep for going to work at the bookstore and attempting to get my Cinderella hair just right, but getting interrupted by trick-or-treaters because dad was in the garage using his saw to cut planks for the floor--which was also a natural scary sound and legit frightened a few kids away. Ah, memories. But, yeah, for over 18 years we've had to deal with the trim not being attached and moving anytime we went to clean the floors, and dad thought it would cause trouble for moving the fridges in and out, so that's what finally spurred him to action. Not us getting a new fridge and stove in 2005, mind you. But I think he'd attempted to glue the trim in, so perhaps it was holding to some degree at that time since it was only a year and a half later, but yeah. This had been a pain in my tushy for ages. He'd needed a particular length of nail to properly secure it, and maybe his nail gun didn't work properly or something, and it's crap like that why my mom really hates it when dad insists on doing more projects around the house.
...And how's the bathroom coming? Sigh.