Comparison

Last Spring when we arrived home our pool hall looked like this:

And now it looks like this. It will not have any additional items added. If anything, items will be removed.

Yippy-Skippy

 I slept the best last night than in more than a week. I have climbed the mountain, really a hill, and I can see the top from here! Butch and I are pretty well packed up and ready to go. It feels like we have a free week. 

We plan to celebrate brother Leo's birthday on the 12th. My Grandma Z's birthday was the 11th and we always had a party for her so it feels right to celebrate this time of year.

Thursday we will wrap things up and leave for Missouri early in the day on Friday. Our first stop will be at Brad and Amanda's in Harrisonville. We look forward to seeing our Missouri kids, Gary, Susan, Amanda, Brad, Elise, and little Leo who is a lot less little than he used to be. He is 8 now and filled with an abundance of information!

Last season while in the Rio Grande Valley we felt very safe as protocol was strictly followed for everyone's safety with the pandemic. I was surprised and pleased to see that it still is! See the Magnolia blog: https://magnolianews.blogspot.com/2021/10/news-from-mabel-zoet.html A big THANKS to Deon for keeping up with what is happening with our Magnolia friends. From the sounds of it, we should be getting there sooner rather than later. Not all of Texas is as diligent as the Rio Grande Valley.

I heard from a highly intelligent science/doctor (as if that carries any weight) that we will be looking at an Endemic, meaning that this virus will never go away. The window is past where we could have stopped it in its tracks so now we must live with it for decades. It will be like the flu, perhaps deadlier and we will need boosters every year. 

Almost...

We are almost ready to roll on down the road. This has been a wonderful year for getting ready. The weather has been perfect...and dry! We have been able to take the time to do a little each day so we are less stressed. We have almost a week left to finalize everything. It feels wonderful to not feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of what lies ahead. 

The only negative I can see has been a lack of due diligence with this blog.

To catch you up a wee bit. Leo and Keri sent us off with a farewell gathering. The food was top-notch as it always is when Keri's hands prepare it. 

On the agenda today is laundry. So gotta go but maybe later I can add some gems.

A Word Thing

 Being the wordy person that I am I could not pass this up!

Washington Post Mensa Invitational (new words for old)

Here is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido : All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee , n. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted , adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate , v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4 esplanade , v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly , adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent , adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph , v. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle , n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence , n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash , n. A rapidly receding hairline..

11. Testicle , n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude , n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon , n.. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster , n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism , n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent , n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men

Moving to the backyard

 We are in the process of moving from the house to the RV. We started yesterday with the kitchen. Once the food has been taken care of the rest of it does not seem like as big a chore. It is not easy trying to live in two places even when they are only a few feet apart. Tackling the process in a two-week time period is better, especially when the weather is pleasant, and it is right now. So the kitchen is done. Next will be the bathroom, clothes, computer stuff, meds, etc. A person can become overwhelmed with all the decision-making. So far, so good. And now I must get back to it.

Rotten Egg Smell

 I am sharing this article not because we had this happen in our RV but because we had it happen in our 10 Gallon water heater in the pool hall. And the cause was the same as in this article and since we have many RV friends I decided to share the info we found to fix it.

https://www.doityourselfrv.com/rv-water-smells-like-rotten-eggs/

Class of '61 Reunion

 Here are some photos from the class reunion. 

Taken at Leo and Keri's place when I picked up the cobblers.

There were many attempts to get everyone in the group photo. Let's just say it didn't happen.😏

We sent up a white balloon for all of our classmates who have gone before us. There were 29.

Colleen's Column -Admission of crabby genes

 As I enjoyed Colleen's column this morning it brought me to the thought of my own genes. My maternal grandmother, Grandma Z, was a competent, steady as you go, take no foolishness kind of woman. And yet she was fun too. My father was adopted so there we have a "Nature or Nurture" situation. Grandma Brock, loved us openly and dearly until we were about 10 and then she was sure we were headed for hell. 😉 She may have been right. Both of my grandmas are remembered fondly, both of them had a harder life than I have had and both of them lost their mate too early in life.

As I have become closer to my Deja Vu friends I have come to realize I had much more freedom in my growing-up years than many of them were afforded. My mother was a young widow(31) and had a fair amount of trouble dealing with many of the issues that came her way. Add 4 children to that mix and you see what I mean. One of my cousin's assessments of my mother, her aunt, was that she was always willing to listen, no matter day or night and for hours on end. I have to agree. Her 3rd husband said he didn't know a person could sit in one place for 8 hours straight and talk. I had to laugh when he said it because I knew he was right! The housework could always wait. A good friend of hers, Joann Ott, told me that there may be dust under the bed but my mother could put a meal on the table with nothing apparently available. I am sure she learned that from her own mother. I don't like to but I seem to be able to do that too.

Enjoy Colleen's column and take your own walk down memory lane with your genes.

Admission of crabby genes

September 29, 2021

~a column by Colleen O’Brien

I found a photo of my paternal grandparents as a young couple lounging on the grass with friends at a  Fourth of July picnic, as it said on the back, no date. One of the young men wears a WWI uniform, the women wear snug, white, long-sleeved shirtwaists and calf-length black skirts. I figure the photo must have been taken between 1917 and 1920.

It opens a world of speculation about my grandparents. Grandpa lounges on one elbow in front of the group of four couples, a long, lean fellow with broad shoulders, a black cheroot hanging in his mouth, a cocky grin on his Irish face. I never knew him like this – a handsome, rakish fellow loving life. I knew him as a gentle, humorous fellow who smoked cigars, watched the fights on TV and let me crawl all over him taking his temperature, bandaging his fingers, giving him sugar pills from my doctor’s kit.

In this photo, he is irresistible, carefree and full to the brim with youth. I first became aware of him when I was a little girl of about 3; he was around 60 years old, had lost a child and a farm.

My grandma in the picture has her mouth open. I laughed because I remember her this way, talking, always telling someone what to do, berating Grandpa for dropping ashes on this shirt. She was a poet and a pistol as I grew up around her, Gramma having honed her crabby skills over the decades from when this picture was snapped. She too had lost a child and a farm.

She didn’t wear Grampa down, as I thought growing up; life got to both of them, and their reactions were characteristic of who they were.

Something about Grandma’s visage at the picnic so long ago nagged at me. “I think I look like her,” I said to myself, hoping I was wrong. But the longer I looked the more I believed I was the spitting image. I searched through a scrapbook until I came across the picture I was looking for that confirmed it. I’m 8 or 10 years old, standing before the camera holding the first and only fish I’ve ever caught in my life. My mouth is open, a slight frown creases my brow – I’m a miniature Grandma O’Brien.

Disconcerting, to say the least, to see these related females years apart yet connected by the particular genes that determine facial structure and expression. I hope I don’t have her temperamental genes because she was something of a crab. In the photo she was a young housewife, and she looks like she’s telling the photographer how to do his job.

I believe that one’s heritage has more to do with behavior than one’s environment. It is obvious that we have the build or hair color or upturned nose of our progenitors, so it must be that their innate personalities – the kindness or the meanness, the generosity or the stinginess – lurks somewhere in our souls.

As my children grew up, I felt increasingly that they were who they were when they came out of the womb. My training of them, or my brainwashing, was a surface ritual that is a veneer on their very individual selves. Of course, my rearing of them is also a family pattern with leftovers of my parents’ training, and of their parents.’ It is, therefore, a very intertwined process of genes and environment. These phantoms of past generations that appear in oneself and then in one’s child are as eerie as they are predictable.

Sometimes I see in myself what I call quirks that are the negatives of my mom or my dad, of my grandmas and grandpas. As I recognize them I quit doing them, but they come again. They are part of me. As I pile up mounds of letters, papers, poems and junk mail in my office, I am my Grandma O’Brien who was a collector and a saver. She was a rotten housekeeper, reading newspapers and letting them fall at her feet; cooking and baking and never cleaning up the kitchen; arranging cut flowers in vases all over the house and leaving them to wilt and rot.

When I see that I have done the same things, I am suddenly my mom, cleaning with a vengeance, making immaculate house out of chaos. This is the reaction to my other genes, my other grandmother who trained my mom. She was neat, clean and orderly, never crabby, very fun to be with.

With two such diverse gene pools, my life has been one minute one thing and one minute the other. At least it’s not dull.

I wish I’d known the two young people at the picnic 10 decades ago. But then, I do, don’t I? I am their blood and brains, and I act and react in ways they would recognize. I know I have a bit of the devil-may-care of Grampa’s youth, as well as the kindness and gentleness of his maturity. I might as well admit I have a tad of Grandma O’Brien’s shrewishness, shrewdness and sloppiness. What the hell, if you can’t admit the crabby genes, you can’t lay claim to the good ones. And had those two far-off souls at a picnic never laid side by side, I wouldn’t be here now with all their (my) faults and attributes.

Trivia-end of season

 

Last night we had our last trivia gathering for the season. One of the crew treated us to Pizza. We all enjoyed it very much. We will continue next Spring. I used questions from a couple of years ago and for the most part, they seemed new to the players. Being able to use them makes it easier on me. I do have a folder of questions I have labeled unused trivia questions. It is always good to have back-up.

Jar Opener

 Hey! I'm on a roll. Years ago when we lived at the lake I had one of these jar openers and we used it all the time. In fact, when we moved to Cumberland I remembered to take it with us. Unfortunately, I forgot it when we left there. It used to be Butch was the official jar opener in our house. But now his hands are quite arthritic and it makes it painful for him to even try so I have become the one to open jars and bottles. I can usually get it done. I have friends who also have arthritic hands so when I saw this I thought the kind thing to do was pass along the info.

About this item

THE EZ OFF JAR OPENER WILL OPEN TOUGH LIDS EFFORTLESSLY - EZ Off will grab hold of any lid whether it's factory sealed, childproof, tamper-proof or just stuck from what's inside the jar. A simple twist and The EZ Off Jar Opener will deliver

OPENS ALL JAR LID SIZES -- Try anything small like a bottle of water, nail polish, or a wide container of pickles, peanuts, canned fruits, jams, molasses, marshmallow creme, or maraschino cherries

INSTALLATION AND OPERATION ARE EASY -- It's easy to install the EZ Off with the pre-attached, peel-and-stick adhesive and the 3 included screws. It's ideal for children, the elderly, those with arthritis, carpal tunnel, those working in kitchens, and those with limited use of hands or amputees

YOU'LL NEVER KNOW IT'S THERE -- This jar opener hides neatly out of sight under a cabinet, cupboard, counter, or shelf, taking no valuable storage space

THE EZ OFF JAR OPENER IS MADE IN THE USA -- The EZ Off is made with premium materials by American workers here in the USA.

They have it on Amazon.

Food Tip

 I like red bell peppers. Actually, I like them better than green bell peppers. Of course, I do because they are way more expensive!  In Iowa, they are twice as much as the green ones and are rarely on sale. Also even if they are on sale it does not pay to stock up because they will go bad before you can eat them all. Now here is the good part!

I buy this product: 

Wallah! I have red peppers anytime I want! I will still buy the fresh ones. But most likely only in Texas.

Booster + Flu

 Butch and I went to our local HyVee pharmacy to see what it would take to get a flu shot and/or the Pfizer booster. We got both! And to top it off, each of us was gifted with a $10 gift card for the Pfizer booster and a total of 40 cents off on a fuel saver card for the Flu shot. The Pfizer one was an unexpected bonus. We had no idea they were doing that and since we planned to pick up a few grocery items we used them right away. It is very easy to go over $20 in a grocery store.

Back to the injections- neither of us had a reaction. The flu shot gave me an itchy spot for about 10 minutes and both injection sites felt warm. But that was all.

We thought about waiting till we got to Texas for the booster but there is a long way to get there and many people who are thumbing their nose at the danger all around them. We will now feel a bit safer on the trip down.

We are taking small steps towards taking off and plan to leave either the 15th or 16th. We will be moving into the motorhome next week to test our readiness.

Moles, Voles, Skunks, Ground Squirrels, or Gophers

 We were invaded but not sure by what. We did know that action was called for because there were new holes daily. So I looked to our in-house expert Mr. Google and found that the plan should not be to kill the little diggers but make our yard an undesirable place to spend the winter. Several methods were mentioned but I chose ammonia, basically because I had some on hand. I cut up strips of rags about 2" by 10 inches, poured ammonia into a disposable paper cup, dropped in my cloth strips taking them out with some tongs, and stuffed the dripping wet strips into every entry hole I could find and I found plenty! I tamped them in with a piece of re-rod. I then walked around the yard and stepped on every spot of mounded-up grass or soil I could find. It took more applications and running out of ammonia, I used peppermint oil the last time. At one point in the process, we noticed that the rags had been removed in 3 locations. That is when I used peppermint oil. It has now been over a week with no new humps or holes. We are feeling slightly relieved but will remain vigilant. Our neighbors on each side of us will not care one wit if they invade their yard. They are not the yard care people of the year or even the day!

Life is one adventure after another!

Ogden IA Homecoming Parade

 Our boy Devon Hiller is a senior this year and was chosen for the Homecoming court so we went to see the festivities. And wouldn't you know we have lacked rain all summer but yesterday there was just enough to be a nuisance.

Karla and Devon

Just Chillin'

 We are watching a movie now and then. Last night we watched The Two Popes and it was well worth it. Even made me tear up a couple of times. I happened upon a list of movies I had made a while ago that I thought worthy of looking into. One of them we discovered, we had already watched after we were into it a ways. 'The Marriage'. It wasn't memorable as a keeper. The next one on the list is 'Misha and the Wolves'. Hey! I put it on the list for some reason.

Today Butch did his daily walk on the golf course. He didn't hunt for golf balls as he usually does. He has accumulated bunches of golf balls. First I asked him why? He said it was like hunting for Easter eggs. Next, I asked what he planned to do with them. He said he didn't know but thought he might give them away. I asked him what percentage he thought were worthy of keeping and he said somewhere between 50-75%. He has always been good at entertaining himself. I am sure his mother would back me up on that.

Butch, Jason, and I hung the new light over the 8-foot pool table. We like it.

That's it for today...

Wind River

 Watched another good movie on Netflix last night. Wind River..a little hard to watch in places but it was a well done movie. Not a comedy!!!

North to South

 There is nothing like putting a nip in the air to have our minds switch directions. If you want to get technical we have been going to Texas for 33 years! Doesn't seem possible. The very first year was a vacation and could not have been for more than two weeks because that was about all we had for vacation in those days. And the month would have been February because the weather was balmy. After finding a place where we could have summer in the winter there was nothing holding us back.

Golfing was big for us in those years and we did plenty of it wherever we could. I dropped out of golf after 20 years of overload but Butch has carried on with it. He likes it best when his boys can join him. Rich was here yesterday and they played 18. I always did like it when all the boys went out to play.

So back to being southward bound. Our Motorhome has been gone through from stem to stern with lots of adjustments here and there. When things get some age just as people it is one patch after another. As much tender attention the Moho has had this summer, we feel we can trust it to be as ready as we are for the trip.

Our next step will be moving into the motorhome after the 4th or 5th of October. We have found through experience that living in it before we take off, cuts way down on items that get forgotten. We will live in it until we take off so I would guess a couple of weeks.

So until the next time!

Happy Day!

The doctor called to tell me that the normal reading of my blood indicates that the condition is not an emergency. She still thinks I should see a GI doc but if I can't do that in a timely manner in Iowa, I should get in touch with one in South Texas. I plan to do that. So there you have it. I am a happy woman.

I have lined up our itinerary for our trip south. I have made the reservations in the two places we will need them. I will put it in an email for those who may need or want it. I am a happy woman.

We had a good group of trivia players last night and a good time was had by all. The questions were not easy, however, laughter was abundant. I am a happy woman.

I have been diligently working on a slide show, 2 actually, for my Class of '61 reunion on October 1st and 2nd. These are pictures I have taken or gathered over the past reunions. It has been a long time since I have done a slide show so I had to work hard on the old tired brain cells to get it done. I have it completed. Updates on it should be fairly easy. So anyone from the class of '61 who would like to send me photos can still do so. Having this done makes me a VERY happy woman! And thanks Mickey for helping me test it.

Butch is at the golf course so I assume he is a very happy man!

Blood work???

 Had a blood test yesterday to see if my elevated numbers were still the same. Just saw the results. The good news is they are all completely normal. The other news is WHY? Will tell you what I know when I know it.

Tuesday...

 Tuesday is garbage day. The day we gather up our contributions to the landfill and place them at the curb for pick up tomorrow morning. I imagine that you can surmise I have a bit of a writing block since I have stooped to writing about garbage.

There is no news on the health issue. I have not had another attack. They came up with an appt. for me in Ames on November 9th. So I asked them just how serious is this thing. Didn't get an answer but they and I are now working on getting an earlier appt. Last I knew they were working on a referral to Des Moines Digestive Services. That was yesterday.

I have been working diligently on a slide show for my class reunion. I thought I had it done but then tried it on another computer and it would not work. So I found a workaround by using Google Slides App. It is a great app by the way as I was able to export the one I had done in Libre, another wonderful program, and it was nearly seamless. But still, I want a slide show that will work on anyone's computer with as little fiddling as possible. So now I have a slide show that works on my HP computer and one that works on my Chromebook. As soon as I do a bit more investigating I will be looking for a volunteer to test them for me. Butch is not a candidate. 

Speaking of Butch he has been keeping up with his yard work. It has been cut in half since he sold the extra lot. He has been getting his walks in by golfing and playing pool. We are adjusting to the larger table. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is not. I think that is true for any sport, however.😏

Last Fall and this one

 Last Fall we were kept from heading South at the time we usually do because of the derecho and the damage to our motorhome. Last year, a few days before we left we received an "incentive" to stop at the Winstar Casino in Thackerville OK. It included a $25 free meal, $50 free play, and a free stay at the hotel. We each received one of these fine deals! Of course, we didn't use the free room but we took full advantage of the other two. So our stop there paid us instead of them!

This season we were lamenting the fact that we were leaving earlier than last and most likely before the voucher would reach us. Surprise! They came in the mail a few days ago and they are good for the month of October. This is a stop on our usual route and we will be stopping there again.

The weather has been top-notch lately and we are enjoying it too. It is the in-between kind, not requiring air conditioning or heat. We do need more rain. My rain barrel is mostly full so the plants will not suffer much as long as I remember they need a drink on a regular basis as we all do!

I didn't expect much of an adjustment to an 8-foot pool table from a 7 foot one but it is a bit more than anticipated. I am handling it though and so far so good. Nearly every day at 4:00 pm we will be in the pool hall. 

Another subject; I have been having abdominal pain episodes. It comes and goes and this has happened perhaps 3 or 4 times since January. The last one was a humdinger and pushed me to seek medical advice. A blood test revealed an abnormality so a CT scan followed yesterday and that showed an enlarged bile duct. So now the ball is rolling for more tests to verify the results and see just how urgent the action should be. I hesitated to add this last paragraph. Talking about my own health issues is one area I am not overly comfortable with sharing. I will try for very short updates. Shouldn't be too hard as I do try to be brief generally speaking.

"An Unfinished Life"

 Butch and I watched this movie on NetFlix tonight and we really enjoyed it.

"An Unfinished Life"

Put the pool table together

 Yesterday Butch and I got the BIG BOY pool table ready for play. It looks very good and plays well too.

Chaos in the Pool Hall

 The Pool Table has been purchased and transported to its new location. Butch has made sure it was situated properly and leveled to the nth degree. His many years of helping with the recovering of the tables in Magnolia Park have come to serve him well.

The next step will be waxing the seams followed by installing the felt, getting the rails back on and we will then be ready to play. By the end of this week, it should be ready.

The room will be a bit less roomy and I am thinking we can make it all work. 

Trivia Night in the Pool Hall

 

Dee, Sharon, Jan and Sue-The girls

Butch, Larry, Denny and Jack-The guys