Nobody loves you when you're 43
(That's not true; I just had a variation on the Blink 182 song "What's My Age Again?" in my head yesterday.)
So, this weekend. I didn't have any plans except for Sunday, yet everything was sort of upended regardless.
Saturday: I slept poorly Friday night into Saturday. I was awake for awhile around 4 AM and couldn't go back to sleep for a bit; when I finally did, it was nearly 9 o'clock. Guess we're not going shopping today. Instead, I opted to chill. At 10 AM I watched a full episode of Little House--the one where Nellie fakes that she's paralyzed, and when Laura figures it out, she pushes Nellie down a hill in the wheelchair Pa had just fixed up for her. It was while that was starting that Kelly ended up in the front bushes. I then set about writing up the wake and funeral; that took much of the day. Saturday was sort of a wash at that point.
Sunday: I slept poorly again, but now mom and I both had errands to run. She wanted to get a turkey in a bag from Target; they were on sale. Our Target opens at 7 on Sundays and she got there five minutes early, and already there was a line of people. She doesn't know what they were buying but said she saw only two in-bag turkeys from the sales flier and was glad she got one when she did. It stays in the freezer and cooks from frozen. We're kind of incredulous, but whatever, we'll try it.
Meanwhile, since I didn't go on Saturday, I got to go shopping on Sunday morning. By myself. My father is sick. He's been sick all week; I think he started feeling unwell on Tuesday, and he definitely was ailing by Wednesday. We figured it was better if he stayed home, especially since it was my week to pay anyway. My only issue is that I was working off three lists, so I kept having to backtrack--our first list was on this little piece of paper, which wasn't big enough to hold everything, so we had to start a second piece of paper, and then I had other non-family items to buy, so that was the third piece of paper, so yeah. All over. And before I went to the store, I had to shower and sort laundry and I got a load going, which mom finished for me.
Things were hectic enough in the morning that I didn't even open my presents until about 11:30! Mom was kind of annoyed by that in a way. She'd gotten me all sorts of stuff but I was rushing around a lot and kept leaving it alone. She was a little pouty and was like, I'm going upstairs now, so I said I'd open the gifts. I guess she wanted to see my face, maybe? Anyway, I got a card and money, worth double my age; two fancy homemade soaps that are glycerin and oat milk, I think, with a built-in loofah; a Beekman 1802 hand and nail care kit, plus a bottle of polish; and the heaviest item, this snow globe in the shape of a lantern that has cardinals on it. Unusual, but pretty good.
When we'd gone shopping last week, dad had bought a bunch of produce. We'd had these sausages in the fridge that needed to get eaten, but when he got sick, he stopped cooking, and while mom did feed us, it was all basically frozen stuff heated in the oven; she doesn't cook from scratch. I'd bought more produce for Thursday and wanted to clean out the fridge first before putting the new stuff away. Mom was freaking out--it needs to be refrigerated! I was like, mom, it's not gonna melt. Let me have a few minutes! She still put stuff away, but at least she put it on a shelf and not in the bin, which needed to be wiped out. Oh, right--there was so much bad stuff that I needed to take it out to the compost pile. The neighbor kitty-corner from us back there has two new dogs, who immediately ran over and greeted me with barks. The one could see me through the fences and quieted down, but the other was more in the corner, where our tall fence blocked its view--except I could see its snout sticking through the space in between the fences. Well hello there. That was funny. One of those dogs, the non-nosy one, has a cone of shame for whatever reason.
Anyway, after cleaning the fridge, I realized, we need to use up this older produce. I immediately made a salad, and figured we could make sausage and peppers and onions for dinner on Monday--then went, no, I'll make them for Sunday dinner. We mix it up with egg noodles. My parents had been asking for days what I wanted for dinner, and I couldn't come up with anything. All I said was cheesecake, and mom bought a frozen Sara Lee one, which we started defrosting around lunchtime. Our evening plans would take us out and about, and they were asking me to pick a drive-thru place. Yeah...I really don't want drive-thru. And, given that dad was ill and wouldn't end up coming with us, this at least gave him food if he wanted to eat it.
We usually call grandma at 1 PM on Sundays. This week, though, the phone rang at 12:57. It was because grandma wanted to claim that she'd called her granddaughter on her birthday, heh. :) Also, she sang to me! Mom didn't pick up the phone right away, so she didn't hear it, but I said it was shades of Papa since that was his tradition. I thought to record it one year, too. We let grandma know that, with dad being sick, there was the chance we might not bring her leftovers, but we'd see. Dad had told me we were going to have the full-on dinner, and buy all the regular stuff, so I did, in part because I do want to give some to her.
I think after that I did my Duolingo exercises to get them out of the way, but not long after I started to feel weird. We'd had deep dish cheese pizza on Friday, and I felt flu-ish afterward since I hadn't taken a Lactaid. It almost felt like I'd had the deep dish cheese pizza again--that load of cheese can do a number on me. I just started feeling really weird and was worried I was getting sick, like maybe dad had the flu and had passed it on to me. My father did get the flu shot, specifically the 4X senior one that's much stronger than the normal shot. My stomach felt strange, kind of like I've felt in the past when I've eventually thrown up, which I've only done maybe twice in the past 15 years. Uh-oh. I took a couple ibuprofen and it went away after a while. Back in '09, I'd gotten diagnosed with gastritis, and I wonder if I'm dealing with that again. This month has been so stressful, in a year that's been stressful, that my stomach has been weird for a while now. Things did calm down last week when I took the milk of magnesia, but then they started back up. Knowing what it can do to one's bathroom habits, I opted not to take any yesterday, but it's in the back of my mind, for sure. I still ended up resting in my room for a while during the afternoon.
I'd already decided to start cooking around 3:15 yesterday. I'd chopped up the three old peppers--I'd made a salad with the tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocados, with a little bit of the peppers in it--but still needed to make them smaller, and I also had to chop half a large onion. I also made all six remaining sausages because they just needed to be cooked or tossed. I was hoping they were still good. That's what I need, let's give my family food poisoning for my birthday. Dinner seemed to go okay, at least, though dad has no appetite and didn't eat.
Then, the big plans: Mom and I were going to Illumination at Morton Arboretum. It came up over a month ago that, hey, why not go for my birthday? This year, since it's per car and not per person, it's not like we had a ticket for dad that would go unused. I think he was bummed that he couldn't go, but at the same time he feels crappy and, well, mom didn't want him in the car. She and I still wore masks just in case. I had mine on my entire time; she would take hers off, though I didn't really see that until she pointed it out to me since I was driving. She would also open the window from time to time, but I had the heat on and it was in the low 40s so it wasn't too bad.
This was an excursion where we never got out of the car. I pulled out of the driveway and didn't really stop until I pulled back in. You *definitely* want to make sure you go to the bathroom before you leave the house! It's about 40-45 minutes away, and the drive through the arboretum is about a half-hour, so we were gone close to two hours total. I kind of liked it this way--you stay warmer since you're in your car the whole time, and it's not like you can lose any members of your party. They have a radio simulcast of the music and you're told to tune into 88.5 FM since everything is choreographed to the music. The only bad thing is there is something close to that frequency, like maybe a talk radio station or something, because you'd occasionally get a male voice coming in--not clear enough to make out what he was saying, but mom was creeped out by it. There are signs at regular intervals saying to go 5 MPH, not to pull over, and not to pass the car in front of you. Well, immediately as we were entering the main part of the route, there's this car that is pulled over under the gateway--it sort of looked like a car wash to us. One car did pass it, but it pulled in front of the car in front of us and was there the rest of the time. You have timed tickets, though they're not strict--our time was 5:45 PM, but we got there about 5:30 and were let in, no problem. Marquees at the entrance stated the night was sold out. You just follow the road and get in with the sea of cars. That car two ahead of us was a pill. Had dad been there, he would've been annoyed. Like, just be aware that this isn't the year to stop and take pictures. A little stopping is one thing. Regular stopping so that there's a large gap between you and the rest of the line of cars in front of you is another. Yeah, there's a lot to see there. Some of the displays were able to stay in place, like the first part you go by, which has lights snaking up a hill; that was part of the walking path. Other things had to move--the lights by the entrance lake were put into the crabapple-area lake; the disco balls, glowing balls, porcelain trees, and chandeliers were moved but still integrated. Some things seemed new, at least to me. Some of the spotlights sort of shined through the cars, making it feel immersive. At one point, around where you turn from the main road onto the shortcut (you are blocked from continuing on the main loop road), you can see a ton of spotlights in the distance. I said that would be cool if it was foggy out. It was a tiny bit at the time, like there was a little bit of smoke in the air, and that enhanced the lights. However, mom disagreed; she preferred it to be clear. I think overall we had a good time, though she kept talking throughout and was distracting, plus I was driving so I couldn't see everything quite the same. But I do like being in a car as opposed to walking around in a way.
Back home, we broke into the cheesecake. Dad even had some. I went for a second piece, and just as I was finishing it, around 7 PM, the phone rang--and the Caller ID was that of my aunt in Nevada. Oh, wow. Sure enough, it was my cousin, calling on her mom's phone. Apparently she doesn't keep hers charged enough, heh. I had reached out to them after Aunt D's services since their flowers had arrived and were so pretty. I was more comfortable messaging them through Ancestry than trying to call, but my cousin called back, and we talked for close to three hours. Holy cow. Like, I was fine until 8, I was fine until 9, but once 9:30 rolled around I was getting sleepy. She did start to say, I should let you go, and I said, yeah, I have to get up in the morning, prompting her to say to her mom, she has a life, unlike us! They live in a small town on the tip of Nevada, practically in Arizona, and I don't think my cousin works; my aunt is retired. Even better, I'm not sure she knew it was my birthday; it was just a coincidence. So, yeah, there went any plans I'd had for the evening--and I had planned to, you know, check my email and stuff--but a surprise two hour and 48 minute phone call from a cousin I've only talked to once in the past 20-odd years, it's fine. She got a bird! I could hear it in the background and was going to ask, but she brought it up. We had a lot of discussions about budgies and genealogy and the services and other family members. She was unaware that Kevin was married with a son. Also, she mentioned that Liz's niece shows up as a closer match to her than I do, which makes her think perhaps her dad and Uncle Tony had the same biological father. Interesting. We had a whole lot of discussions and it was really interesting, and I have both her and her mother's phone numbers, plus a good email address, so maybe we'll stay better in touch.
I'd still wanted to check my email, and had three birthday messages from Avery, C3, and Aunt S. I did reply to all of them, at least briefly, and let my relatives know that I'd heard from my cousin. Finally, before I got too tired, I changed my phone settings to delete my oldest text messages. I'd told myself I'd do it on my birthday, so I followed through. I've been getting that storage issue alert basically every other day for the past couple weeks, so I had to do something. Nothing happened immediately, but Laura sent me a text this morning and when I looked a little while ago, sure enough, all her old texts were gone. They had gone back to June 2017 and now they only go back to mid-September. I wasn't kidding when I thought it would only save about our last five conversations! We're prolific when we get going. Oddly enough, I had a bunch of pictures and videos going back to 2018 on that thread, as anything considered a multimedia message, my settings save up to the last 50 of those. It was kind of weird to have all these random, out of context pictures and videos there. I will say my phone seemed a little zippier after that, even if space-wise my storage numbers don't reflect that I got rid of stuff. Then again, I took a few screenshots before I changed the settings, so yeah, I need to get those off my phone and perhaps things will be better.
So, this weekend. I didn't have any plans except for Sunday, yet everything was sort of upended regardless.
Saturday: I slept poorly Friday night into Saturday. I was awake for awhile around 4 AM and couldn't go back to sleep for a bit; when I finally did, it was nearly 9 o'clock. Guess we're not going shopping today. Instead, I opted to chill. At 10 AM I watched a full episode of Little House--the one where Nellie fakes that she's paralyzed, and when Laura figures it out, she pushes Nellie down a hill in the wheelchair Pa had just fixed up for her. It was while that was starting that Kelly ended up in the front bushes. I then set about writing up the wake and funeral; that took much of the day. Saturday was sort of a wash at that point.
Sunday: I slept poorly again, but now mom and I both had errands to run. She wanted to get a turkey in a bag from Target; they were on sale. Our Target opens at 7 on Sundays and she got there five minutes early, and already there was a line of people. She doesn't know what they were buying but said she saw only two in-bag turkeys from the sales flier and was glad she got one when she did. It stays in the freezer and cooks from frozen. We're kind of incredulous, but whatever, we'll try it.
Meanwhile, since I didn't go on Saturday, I got to go shopping on Sunday morning. By myself. My father is sick. He's been sick all week; I think he started feeling unwell on Tuesday, and he definitely was ailing by Wednesday. We figured it was better if he stayed home, especially since it was my week to pay anyway. My only issue is that I was working off three lists, so I kept having to backtrack--our first list was on this little piece of paper, which wasn't big enough to hold everything, so we had to start a second piece of paper, and then I had other non-family items to buy, so that was the third piece of paper, so yeah. All over. And before I went to the store, I had to shower and sort laundry and I got a load going, which mom finished for me.
Things were hectic enough in the morning that I didn't even open my presents until about 11:30! Mom was kind of annoyed by that in a way. She'd gotten me all sorts of stuff but I was rushing around a lot and kept leaving it alone. She was a little pouty and was like, I'm going upstairs now, so I said I'd open the gifts. I guess she wanted to see my face, maybe? Anyway, I got a card and money, worth double my age; two fancy homemade soaps that are glycerin and oat milk, I think, with a built-in loofah; a Beekman 1802 hand and nail care kit, plus a bottle of polish; and the heaviest item, this snow globe in the shape of a lantern that has cardinals on it. Unusual, but pretty good.
When we'd gone shopping last week, dad had bought a bunch of produce. We'd had these sausages in the fridge that needed to get eaten, but when he got sick, he stopped cooking, and while mom did feed us, it was all basically frozen stuff heated in the oven; she doesn't cook from scratch. I'd bought more produce for Thursday and wanted to clean out the fridge first before putting the new stuff away. Mom was freaking out--it needs to be refrigerated! I was like, mom, it's not gonna melt. Let me have a few minutes! She still put stuff away, but at least she put it on a shelf and not in the bin, which needed to be wiped out. Oh, right--there was so much bad stuff that I needed to take it out to the compost pile. The neighbor kitty-corner from us back there has two new dogs, who immediately ran over and greeted me with barks. The one could see me through the fences and quieted down, but the other was more in the corner, where our tall fence blocked its view--except I could see its snout sticking through the space in between the fences. Well hello there. That was funny. One of those dogs, the non-nosy one, has a cone of shame for whatever reason.
Anyway, after cleaning the fridge, I realized, we need to use up this older produce. I immediately made a salad, and figured we could make sausage and peppers and onions for dinner on Monday--then went, no, I'll make them for Sunday dinner. We mix it up with egg noodles. My parents had been asking for days what I wanted for dinner, and I couldn't come up with anything. All I said was cheesecake, and mom bought a frozen Sara Lee one, which we started defrosting around lunchtime. Our evening plans would take us out and about, and they were asking me to pick a drive-thru place. Yeah...I really don't want drive-thru. And, given that dad was ill and wouldn't end up coming with us, this at least gave him food if he wanted to eat it.
We usually call grandma at 1 PM on Sundays. This week, though, the phone rang at 12:57. It was because grandma wanted to claim that she'd called her granddaughter on her birthday, heh. :) Also, she sang to me! Mom didn't pick up the phone right away, so she didn't hear it, but I said it was shades of Papa since that was his tradition. I thought to record it one year, too. We let grandma know that, with dad being sick, there was the chance we might not bring her leftovers, but we'd see. Dad had told me we were going to have the full-on dinner, and buy all the regular stuff, so I did, in part because I do want to give some to her.
I think after that I did my Duolingo exercises to get them out of the way, but not long after I started to feel weird. We'd had deep dish cheese pizza on Friday, and I felt flu-ish afterward since I hadn't taken a Lactaid. It almost felt like I'd had the deep dish cheese pizza again--that load of cheese can do a number on me. I just started feeling really weird and was worried I was getting sick, like maybe dad had the flu and had passed it on to me. My father did get the flu shot, specifically the 4X senior one that's much stronger than the normal shot. My stomach felt strange, kind of like I've felt in the past when I've eventually thrown up, which I've only done maybe twice in the past 15 years. Uh-oh. I took a couple ibuprofen and it went away after a while. Back in '09, I'd gotten diagnosed with gastritis, and I wonder if I'm dealing with that again. This month has been so stressful, in a year that's been stressful, that my stomach has been weird for a while now. Things did calm down last week when I took the milk of magnesia, but then they started back up. Knowing what it can do to one's bathroom habits, I opted not to take any yesterday, but it's in the back of my mind, for sure. I still ended up resting in my room for a while during the afternoon.
I'd already decided to start cooking around 3:15 yesterday. I'd chopped up the three old peppers--I'd made a salad with the tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocados, with a little bit of the peppers in it--but still needed to make them smaller, and I also had to chop half a large onion. I also made all six remaining sausages because they just needed to be cooked or tossed. I was hoping they were still good. That's what I need, let's give my family food poisoning for my birthday. Dinner seemed to go okay, at least, though dad has no appetite and didn't eat.
Then, the big plans: Mom and I were going to Illumination at Morton Arboretum. It came up over a month ago that, hey, why not go for my birthday? This year, since it's per car and not per person, it's not like we had a ticket for dad that would go unused. I think he was bummed that he couldn't go, but at the same time he feels crappy and, well, mom didn't want him in the car. She and I still wore masks just in case. I had mine on my entire time; she would take hers off, though I didn't really see that until she pointed it out to me since I was driving. She would also open the window from time to time, but I had the heat on and it was in the low 40s so it wasn't too bad.
This was an excursion where we never got out of the car. I pulled out of the driveway and didn't really stop until I pulled back in. You *definitely* want to make sure you go to the bathroom before you leave the house! It's about 40-45 minutes away, and the drive through the arboretum is about a half-hour, so we were gone close to two hours total. I kind of liked it this way--you stay warmer since you're in your car the whole time, and it's not like you can lose any members of your party. They have a radio simulcast of the music and you're told to tune into 88.5 FM since everything is choreographed to the music. The only bad thing is there is something close to that frequency, like maybe a talk radio station or something, because you'd occasionally get a male voice coming in--not clear enough to make out what he was saying, but mom was creeped out by it. There are signs at regular intervals saying to go 5 MPH, not to pull over, and not to pass the car in front of you. Well, immediately as we were entering the main part of the route, there's this car that is pulled over under the gateway--it sort of looked like a car wash to us. One car did pass it, but it pulled in front of the car in front of us and was there the rest of the time. You have timed tickets, though they're not strict--our time was 5:45 PM, but we got there about 5:30 and were let in, no problem. Marquees at the entrance stated the night was sold out. You just follow the road and get in with the sea of cars. That car two ahead of us was a pill. Had dad been there, he would've been annoyed. Like, just be aware that this isn't the year to stop and take pictures. A little stopping is one thing. Regular stopping so that there's a large gap between you and the rest of the line of cars in front of you is another. Yeah, there's a lot to see there. Some of the displays were able to stay in place, like the first part you go by, which has lights snaking up a hill; that was part of the walking path. Other things had to move--the lights by the entrance lake were put into the crabapple-area lake; the disco balls, glowing balls, porcelain trees, and chandeliers were moved but still integrated. Some things seemed new, at least to me. Some of the spotlights sort of shined through the cars, making it feel immersive. At one point, around where you turn from the main road onto the shortcut (you are blocked from continuing on the main loop road), you can see a ton of spotlights in the distance. I said that would be cool if it was foggy out. It was a tiny bit at the time, like there was a little bit of smoke in the air, and that enhanced the lights. However, mom disagreed; she preferred it to be clear. I think overall we had a good time, though she kept talking throughout and was distracting, plus I was driving so I couldn't see everything quite the same. But I do like being in a car as opposed to walking around in a way.
Back home, we broke into the cheesecake. Dad even had some. I went for a second piece, and just as I was finishing it, around 7 PM, the phone rang--and the Caller ID was that of my aunt in Nevada. Oh, wow. Sure enough, it was my cousin, calling on her mom's phone. Apparently she doesn't keep hers charged enough, heh. I had reached out to them after Aunt D's services since their flowers had arrived and were so pretty. I was more comfortable messaging them through Ancestry than trying to call, but my cousin called back, and we talked for close to three hours. Holy cow. Like, I was fine until 8, I was fine until 9, but once 9:30 rolled around I was getting sleepy. She did start to say, I should let you go, and I said, yeah, I have to get up in the morning, prompting her to say to her mom, she has a life, unlike us! They live in a small town on the tip of Nevada, practically in Arizona, and I don't think my cousin works; my aunt is retired. Even better, I'm not sure she knew it was my birthday; it was just a coincidence. So, yeah, there went any plans I'd had for the evening--and I had planned to, you know, check my email and stuff--but a surprise two hour and 48 minute phone call from a cousin I've only talked to once in the past 20-odd years, it's fine. She got a bird! I could hear it in the background and was going to ask, but she brought it up. We had a lot of discussions about budgies and genealogy and the services and other family members. She was unaware that Kevin was married with a son. Also, she mentioned that Liz's niece shows up as a closer match to her than I do, which makes her think perhaps her dad and Uncle Tony had the same biological father. Interesting. We had a whole lot of discussions and it was really interesting, and I have both her and her mother's phone numbers, plus a good email address, so maybe we'll stay better in touch.
I'd still wanted to check my email, and had three birthday messages from Avery, C3, and Aunt S. I did reply to all of them, at least briefly, and let my relatives know that I'd heard from my cousin. Finally, before I got too tired, I changed my phone settings to delete my oldest text messages. I'd told myself I'd do it on my birthday, so I followed through. I've been getting that storage issue alert basically every other day for the past couple weeks, so I had to do something. Nothing happened immediately, but Laura sent me a text this morning and when I looked a little while ago, sure enough, all her old texts were gone. They had gone back to June 2017 and now they only go back to mid-September. I wasn't kidding when I thought it would only save about our last five conversations! We're prolific when we get going. Oddly enough, I had a bunch of pictures and videos going back to 2018 on that thread, as anything considered a multimedia message, my settings save up to the last 50 of those. It was kind of weird to have all these random, out of context pictures and videos there. I will say my phone seemed a little zippier after that, even if space-wise my storage numbers don't reflect that I got rid of stuff. Then again, I took a few screenshots before I changed the settings, so yeah, I need to get those off my phone and perhaps things will be better.