With the minutes on Mike’s TracFone running low, we decided to go to Consumer Cellular. Neither provider has contracts so you can leave whenever you want. We researched it and decided Consumer Cellular would save us a little money over TracFone and Gary, Mike’s crony from Missouri, has that provider and is very happy with it.
Wednesday, a week and a half ago, Mike called Consumer Cellular and switched. “You need at least ten minutes left on your phone for us to get it switched over,” he was told. He had eight minutes left so after he finished his phone call, he shut his phone off.
Friday we received his new SIM card, installed it and called to get it activated. “If you don’t have service in a couple of hours, call us back.”
And we waited anxiously for Mike’s phone to work. Three or four hours later, when Mike’s phone still wasn’t working, I called them back. “It shows that we are waiting for TracFone to release your number. It can take up to three days to complete the transaction.”
That’s what they say but when we switched to TracFone it happened in minutes, not hours.
Saturday found me on the phone again. “Is your TracFone locked?” the nice lady at Consumer Cellular asked.
“I don’t know what that means,” I told her.
“Check with TracFone and find out,” she advised. “If it is, they can give you a code to unlock it.”
I called TracFone and as you may have guessed, that was the problem. “Can you give me the code to unlock it?” I asked.
“No. Because you have not had service with us for a year, we can’t unlock it.”
Well, I’m sure they really could if they really wanted to, but policy is policy. I call Consumer Cellular back and told them the problem. “They won’t unlock the phone because we haven’t had service with them for a year,” I told the gal. “So can we cancel with you and go back to TracFone?”
“Yes you can, but may I ask you why?”
“We wanted to keep our smart phones,” I told her.
“We have smart phones.”
“Yeah but they gave us these. We didn’t want to buy new phones.”
“Oh. I understand. You’ll have to have TracFone port your number back.”
Now I’m calling TracFone again to get Mike’s phone number ported back.
“My name is Susan. How can I help you?”
Bless their hearts. They try. They give these gals American names but I have to really listen to understand them because they still have Indian accents!
I explained what happened, what I wanted her to do, and gave her all the information.
Hours pass and still no phone for Mike.
I called again and TracFone told me it could take a couple of days.
We wait.
I don’t carry my new phone with me as much as I used to carry my old one. The smart phones are bigger and don’t have holders to clip onto your waistband like the old flip phones did so that means putting it in your pocket, and I’m afraid I’ll break it if I sit on it, so most times it’s forgotten here on the table. And that’s just what happened on Sunday. My phone was on the table and I wasn’t here. That means when it rang, I didn’t hear it. TracFone had called me and left a message. “Our information doesn’t match with Consumer Cellular’s and they won’t release the number.”
I returned the call and gave another Indian girl, Barb (yeah, right), the information all over again, then waited. I thought it would be straightened out and Mike would finally get his phone back.
No phone that day.
Monday I called Consumer Cellular. “We’re trying to get my husband’s number ported back to TracFone but the information isn’t matching. Can you tell me what the problem is?”
Mark was very nice. “Certainly. Just give me a minute to research it.”
I waited.
Mark came back on the line. “They’re spelling Michael wrong.”
A light bulb goes off in my head. Over the years I’ve heard Mike spell his name many times. “M-I-C-H-A-E-L,” he would say and I always wondered why. As far as I know, that’s the only way to spell Michael. “Oh. Did they transpose the a and e?”
“I’m not sure ma’am. Give me a minute and I’ll put an order in.”
I waited.
“That should take care of it,” he said when he came back on the line.
I thanked him for his time and called TracFone again. After ump-teen million calls back and forth between the two companies, and weeks of waiting, Mike finally got his phone back Monday afternoon.
“Peg, Friday to Monday only comes out to four days the way I count it,” you say.
I know, right! When you are used to having a phone at your fingertips, being without one — even for a day — seems like weeks!
<<<<<>>>>>
I told you about capturing our three wild girls, Callie, Sugar and Anon, so I could take them to be spayed, but I never gave you a follow up.Sugar had something wrong with her tail. I thought maybe she had a bott fly. It seemed pretty early in the year for flies, but I didn’t think it was out of the realm of possibilities. Besides, I didn’t know what else it could be.
“I don’t think there’s enough meat on a tail to support a bott fly,” Momma said when I talked to her about it.
“Well, it’s right at the base of the tail, if that makes any difference.”
When we took the girls to the mobile spay/neuter clinic, I had them check it. “It’s a cat bite,” they told me. They cleaned it up and gave her two shots, one for pain, the other, an antibiotic.
We brought the girls home and turned up the heat in the cat room. They have to be kept warm for the first night because their temperature drops when they’ve been under anesthesia, but they can be turned out the next day.
I settled the girls in crates so they wouldn’t be bothered by the other cats and left them. A few hours later I took them a little food and water, as instructed, and everyone was fine.
After dinner I went to check on them again. If they had eaten their food, I was to give them more. Sugar was laying on her side and didn’t respond when I talked to her. Anon, who was in the same kennel with her, was walking on her and I thought Sugar was dead.
“For some reason white cats are more susceptible to dying after this procedure than other cats,” Lisa told us as we waited for the girls to be spayed that day.
“Have you ever lost any?”
“Two,” she answered.
With Lisa’s words echoing in my head, I touched Sugar. She was cool to the touch, but she moved. I got a small cat carrier and fixed it with a litter box, food and water, put Sugar in it and took her into the house where it was warmer than the cat room. All evening she sat and watched through the door of the carrier and seemed to be fine.
The next day, Tuesday, I let the girls free. Sugar comes and goes, as she pleases and Callie stays in the cat room most of the time but it was the last time I saw Anon.
One of the things we brought with us when we moved was the feral cat box that Mike made. It’s double walled with R19 insulation around all six sides and just a small doorway. Inside are some rags and a cat bed. Two or three cats could curl up in there quite comfortably. After Anon was gone for a week I thought I might check the feral cat box. It’s in the cat room and I know the cats use it sometimes, I’ve seen them come out of it, yawning and stretching. But if Anon was in there, she might not come out if she hears me come in the cat room. I got a flashlight, got down on my knees, peered inside and there was a pile of fur in there. I touched it; it was soft. I pulled on it; it pulled free. It freaked me out and I let go of it. Possum? Rabbit? I don’t know what it is — was, but it was something! All I really know for sure is it’s not the right color for Anon.
“Peg, how can something die in there and you not know it?” you wonder.
I know, right! Well, truth is, we did smell that something had died. But when you have mighty hunters like we have, I figured they batted a mouse carcass or piece of rabbit someplace and couldn’t retrieve it. I did find a dead mouse, abandoned in the bottom of a five gallon bucket a few weeks before that. And when I would go in the cat room, and it was especially stinky, I’d switch to mommy breathing, you know, the thing you do when you have to change a poopy diaper — breathe through your mouth.
When the weather gets warmer, and I can open all the doors and drag it outside, I’ll clean the feral cat box out. It doesn’t stink anymore anyway.
It’s been almost two weeks now, since I’ve seen Anon, but I haven’t given up hope yet. She sometimes would stay away for long periods of time and that’s what I’m hoping for now.
Speaking of cats…
We were rudely awakened at twenty minutes to two in the early morning hours of Wednesday by a cat fight.
I jumped out of bed. Mike was on the couch. If he has trouble sleeping he goes back out to the living room — and the TV.
“Who’s fighting?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I think it’s outside,” he answered.
Round three, or maybe four, kicked in about that time and the screaming, hissing, and thumping of two cats fighting comes to us from the landing. That’s what I call the portion of the garage that intersects with the apartment, house, and cat room. I flipped on the light and pulled the curtain back. The neighbor’s cat Jerry was there, facing off with a tabby. As soon as he saw me, Jerry took off — with the tabby hot on his heels.
The next morning, all of our cats were accounted for and undamaged and this is the mess left behind. Boy! Talk about the fur flying! I’d just gotten the landing swept from the rabbit fur left behind the week before. Now, I’d have to haul the sweeper back out there and do the landing again, or it would all end up in my house, tracked in on our feet.
That’s Smudge, in the picture, inspecting the crime scene.
And speaking of Smudge…
“Peg! Look at this cat,” Mike said to me the other day. I was crocheting or something and I looked up. There was Smudge, on Mike’s lap, all spread out on his back.
“Crazy cat!” I said and grabbed my camera. Smudge lays on his back more than any other cat we’ve ever had!
The very next day, the day after I vacuumed the landing, Mike is going out the door and yells for me. “Peg!”
Something sounded wrong. I jumped up and went to see. “What?” I said when I got to where Mike was standing in the doorway.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I reached down and touched it. “It’s like grass or something.” I picked it up and pulled it apart a little. It’s full of hair-like fibers, or maybe it is hair. Could this be a mouse nest? Feisty caught a mouse five days before this, could she have gone back, found the nest and brought it in?
<<<<<>>>>>
Almost all of the snow we’d gotten from the blizzard of 2017 is gone and we’ve been having a lot of rain. Just what we needed. Our dirt road was a slippery, sloppy mess from all of the rain we’d gotten before the snow and all of the rain we’ve gotten since the snow, hasn’t improved it any. Our yard is a swampy, soupy mess, and so is the Kipp’s yard.“It sucked the shoe right off my foot,” Miss Rosie told me when we were bemoaning all of the rain.
Nonetheless, I braved the elements and went out for picture taking the other day.
These fuzzy buds remind me of pussy willow, but I don’t know what they are.
Our pond is full!
“Rosie, is that damage from the ash bore?” I asked her on the way to exercise class one night.
“I don’t know. I thought it was some kind of moss,” she answered.
Here are some things we saw on a recent shopping trip.
Someone wiped out our Wyalusing sign, you can see the tracks.
No idea what happened to these poles. I don’t see any tracks where something hit it. Could it have rotted and come down in the recent high winds we had?
My handsome younger brother, Richard, came for a short visit this past week. He got here Wednesday afternoon and after unwinding and visiting for a while, we made dinner together. Homemade shrimp alfredo and Kat’s homemade bread recipe.
“Last time you were here I didn’t take any pictures,” I told Richard, and got my camera out and took a picture as he stirred the alfredo sauce.
After we sat down to eat, I got my camera out again. “Is it good?” I asked and snapped a picture just as he put another fork full in his mouth.
“Mm-hmm,” he mumbled as he chewed and swallowed. “Way better than that jarred stuff!”
Just before eight o’clock that night, Mike’s sweet tooth kicks in.
“You know that pudding you made for me a few days ago?” Mike asked.
“Yeah?”
“Some of that would sure taste good right about now.”
“It would!” I say as if it shocks me.
“Yeeah!”
“Do you want me to make some?” I asked.
“Would you?” Nothing like answering a question with a question, is there.
“Sure I would.”
“Well, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“It’s not. It’s easy to make,” I say and get up to go make it.
All of this was posturing. I knew he wanted me to make some and he knew I would. A week ago I’d ended up with two almost full gallons of milk. It would go bad before we could use it on a normal basis so I found a simple, easy recipe for vanilla pudding online and as it turns out, Mike loves it. Not only does Mike love it but Mike loves it warm way better than he likes it cold and this too reminds me of Kat. I’d make puddings from scratch for my kids when they were growing up and Kat preferred some of them warm and wouldn’t eat them at all if they were cold.
The pudding was almost ready when Richard came back in. He was bedding down on the other side, the house renovation side of the mill. He had his choice of three different recliners, it was warm, he had a TV, and a bathroom. What more could you ask for?
“Hey Brother!” I greeted as he came in the door of the apartment.
“Hey,” he answers back.
“Want some pudding?” I say.
“Sure, I’ll have a little,” he answered and took a seat at the table.
We chatted as I kept a constant stir on the pudding. When it was done I pulled it from the heat, stirred in the butter and vanilla, poured a man-size bowl for Mike and a second, smaller bowl for Richard. (Yeah. I avoided saying a sissy-size bowl here.) I know that he doesn’t eat a lot of sweets so I didn’t think he’d want more than that. If he did, it would be easy to refill his bowl.
“What do you think of it?” I asked.
“Mmm. It’s good.” After a couple more bites, Richard went on. “I bet this would be good as ice-cream.”
Richard loves to cook and he likes to tweak recipes. For us, in this house, there wouldn’t be any cold pudding, let alone frozen.
Scraping the bottom of his bowl, Richard glanced at the time. “It’s time for the space station.”
I glanced at the clock. Eight fifteen. “Yes it is,” and I got up, grabbing the sweater from the back of my chair. We all went out into the yard and for six minutes we got to watch a steady little dot of light make its way across the nighttime sky. It doesn’t really thrill me all that much, and I’ve seen it before, but…
“It’s the space station, Peg!” Mike says.
I know, right! Still doesn’t thrill me.
In the morning I tried to tempt Richard with, “…shredded wheat, oatmeal, pancakes, eggs!” for breakfast but he didn’t want any of it.
“How about homemade bread toast with some of that leftover cream cheese on it?” I don’t normally keep cream cheese on hand. It’s one of those things I love and eat too much of if I have it around, but the alfredo needed one and a half packages, so there was half a pack left.
Richard thought about it for a moment. “Yeah. That would be alright.”
I fed the cats as Richard watched the toast. By the time I got back and remembered to take a picture he was just finishing up. Doesn’t he remind you of his dad in this picture?
“Peg, he was your dad too,” you say.
I know, right! He was and the way Richard is sitting reminds me of Pop!
Richard left mid morning and I enjoyed his visit very much.
<<<<<>>>>>
This past week I got a package in the mail. I’d found a place online that sells tulle really cheap! Like $1.79 for a 100 yard roll, six inches wide. Unfortunately, the cost of shipping doubled my expense.
“It’s going to be a pain in the butt cutting it in half,” I told Mike. I plan to make scrubbies to sell on my craft table at the Wyalusing car show in June and I need my tulle to be three inches wide.
“Cut it with the table saw,” Mike said.
“Are you kidding?” I asked.
“No.”
I remembered when I’d bought vinyl for my Cricut machine. It was cheaper to buy twenty-four inch rolls than twelve inch, which is what my Cricut called for, and Mike cut it in half with a saw. The thought of un-spooling, cutting the tulle in half with my scissors and winding both halves up times six seemed a daunting task. “Do you really think you can?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Let’s give it a try!” I was really warming up to the idea.
Mike was careful as he cut the first spool of tulle in half. All was going well until he was almost the whole way through then it snagged and chewed it up a little. It’s not a big deal, once crocheted no one will ever know anyway.
“I’ll have to cut it halfway through, turn it over and finish cutting it,” Mike said.
It worked really well and made short work of what otherwise would have been a tedious job.
So this week I made a cat rug from old tee shirts, I stamped sayings on copper bracelets, and I made six scrubbies from half a roll of tulle; three large and three small.
“Wait, wait, wait!” you say. “What’s this thing with the bracelets?”
Mike is very supportive of my creative endeavors. He knows how much making things means to me. He bought me some new tools. Among them were two letter stamp sets in different sizes.
I am not the best at it, they look a little rustic, if you know what I mean. But I wrote things on them like BLESSED, LOVE AND LIGHT, BE STILL, CHOOSE JOY, FEARLESS, BEAUTIFUL, LIVE LAUGH LOVE, SAVED BY GRACE, LET IT GO, and one with just LOVE and XOX on it.
“Someone might want them plain,” Mike said when I showed them to him. So there are some plain ones too.
“What is that other thing sitting there?” you wonder.
It’s called a dapping or doming block set. You set a flat piece of metal on the block and with the punches you can dome it. I haven’t had a chance to make anything with it yet but trust me, as soon as I do, you’ll be the first to know.
>>>>><<<<<
Let’s end it this week with a few more road pictures, shall we?
An old tractor in the field.
Sheep!
A lone cow and crooked tree is my current desktop photo.
Let’s call this one done!
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