Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: So Mean

♪♫Monday, Monday, so good to me♫♪ goes the song by The Mamas & The Papas. I’m always surprised when I Google the lyrics and don’t find what I think they should say.

“What’s that?” you ask.

♪♫Monday, Monday, so mean to me♫♪

Mondays can be mean when you’re not ready for them.

My weekend flew by and sometimes there aren’t enough hours in the day to do what I want. Fortunately, God has granted me another day.

We made a ten-pound turkey for Thanksgiving for just the two of us. Needless to say, we had turkey left over and ate turkey for days.

“You could freeze it,” you say.

I know, right! But it doesn’t taste good to me after it’s been frozen even though I know it shouldn’t affect it at all.

One of the best things about turkey is turkey sandwiches, but we don’t buy bread. Mostly because we don’t eat bread. I thought about getting a loaf but then I’d have leftover bread that would just go to waist — waste!

Aye-yi-yi! What a conundrum!

I let it rattle around in my head before I came up with the perfect solution. “I’ll make homemade bread!” I told Mike. He didn’t care. He doesn’t eat that either. But Miss Rosie and I do!

The Kipp girls had come home for Thanksgiving and as is the tradition in the Kipp household, the girls help decorate for Christmas.

“Well, Marla likes to decorate but Jenn isn’t much interested in it,” Miss Rosie tells me.

I made bread and took two still-warm loaves down for the Kipps. I collected my hugs from the girls and Miss Rosie showed me how the decorating was progressing. We were in the living room, I turned around and there stood this lovely woman with love shining on her face. I don’t know if it was for me or the homemade bread! I couldn’t resist taking her picture.

I had enough bread to have some warm with butter, a couple of turkey sandwiches, and homemade bread toast. I wasn’t sad at all when Mike didn’t want any.

>>>*<<<

Mike and I had back-to-back doctor appointments. I went on Tuesday and he went on Wednesday.

For me, my appointment was to see Dr. Bucci in Wilkes-Barre to have the YAG done on my new eyes.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures but we did see these peacocks in Wyalusing at the winery. I didn’t even know they had peacocks.

On the hill before we get into Tunkhannock, Mike asked, “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“That burned-up semi.”

“No. I’ll have to look on the way home.”

And I saw a ‘bloody’ handprint on the door of this cargo truck. I think it was purely decorative, but I won’t swear to it.

I was unclear as to why I had to have laser on eyes after having my cataracts removed so I asked for clarification. Karen, the gal who prepped me, explained it to me but I found a simple explanation on the internet.

A cataract is much like an M&M. It has an outer coating (capsule) and an inner nucleus (the chocolate). When an eye surgeon performs cataract/lens surgery the surgeon makes a circular opening in the front facing capsule of the lens and then removes the inner nucleus. The remaining capsular envelope supports the new artificial lens which is typically injected in through the opening in the capsule. Over time the capsule shrinks and wraps around the new lens much like shrink wrap or cling film. Often, months or years after cataract surgery, the capsule (a part of the eye behind the iris) that holds the intraocular lens will become cloudy. This can make vision blurry or dim. Doctors call this posterior capsule opacification or sometimes a second cataract.

My vision was great when I first had my new lenses implanted but over the course of my two-week and one-month check, I wasn’t seeing as well and the eye exams reflected that. The YAG punches holes in that cling wrap.

“What does YAG stand for?” you wanna know.

I know, right! I asked that.

“It’s a word about this long,” she said and held her hands about two feet apart. “And I don’t remember what it is.”

I Googled it. It stands for yttrium-aluminum-garnet. Now we both know.

The laser takes less than two minutes and the only prep is eye dilatating drops. I watched as people were called in and marched out in a rapid succession. When it was my turn, I went in and Dr. Bucci was just finishing up the notes in the previous patient’s chart. He dotted an i, closed the jacket and handed it to his assistant who took it and handed him my chart.

“How are you doing?” he asked as he scanned his notes.

“Okay, I guess. I still wear cheaters sometimes.”

“You shouldn’t have to. Not with those lenses I put in there.”

“Maybe it’s just habit on my part,” I justified.

I was sitting where I was directed to sit, Dr. Bucci had me hold the handles on the corner of the table, put my chin in the chinrest and forehead against the forehead strap. He pulled the laser in front of himself and started to set it up. “Can you raise the table?” Dr. Bucci asked of his assistant. “I feel her floating.”

The assistant raised it then put her hand on the back of my head slamming it tight against the chin rest and strap.

Oookay then, I thought and pressed into the straps after she took her hand away.

“This isn’t going to hurt at all,” Dr. Bucci said. “It’ll just be a series of lights.”

He worked the lights back and forth across my eye, all the while saying, “Blink,” or “Don’t blink.”

Sometimes I blinked when I wasn’t supposed to but I couldn’t help it.

“All done,” he said pushing back and turning to the table where my chart sat. “You won’t have to wear glasses anymore.”

“But I like to wear glasses!” I told him. “In fact,” I reached in my pocket and pulled my glasses out, showing them to him. “I bought these.” I unfolded the ear pieces and put them on. “There’s no magnification in them. They’re just blue light blockers.”

“Your lenses have blue light blockers in them,” he said. I didn’t know that. “But you can wear your fake glasses if you want to.”

The assistant was dumbfounded. “Most people are tying to get rid of their glasses.”

I think glasses can be a fashion statement and make my face look more interesting. But I love how my Miss Rosie put it. “My face feels naked without my glasses on.”

On the way home, on our side of Tunkhannock, I see this tree. I’m so busy looking at it and trying to figure out what I’m seeing that I didn’t take a picture.

“Can you turn around?” I asked Mike.

“Why?” he wanted to know even as he was applying the brakes.

“That tree back there. It looks interesting. The way it’s cut makes it look like they might do something crafty with it.”

Mike turned around and I got several shots of it.

Right across the way was the burned-up semi that I missed seeing both ways. Turning around gave Mike the chance to show it to me so he wasn’t totally unhappy with having to turn around for me.

Later the same day we went up to the well pad again.

There was a lot of activity to keep us watching for quite a while. One machine was moving giant mats from one side to another.

A hoe was digging at something. And once a while a head and arm would appear like someone was inside a container throwing stuff out while the guy on top watched.

We were thinking about leaving when a semi hauling a big piece of equipment came up the road.

“I hope he doesn’t block us in,” Mike worried.

“I think there’s two,” I said. "I saw lights behind him."

Mike wasn’t sure we could get out between the parked semi and the workers trucks sitting beside the road. But he was sure we could scoot around the front of him. It was only as we were leaving that we saw there were four semis hauling stuff.

I’ll be interested to go back and see what they did with these things.

>>>*<<<

Mike was bragging to our old friend in Missouri about his salamander. Some people call them torpedo heaters.

“I’ve had this thing for about forty years,” Mike told Margaret. “And it’s never given me any trouble. Some people use diesel in them and it’ll gum’em up, but I only use kerosene in mine.”

Don’cha know that less than an hour later when he went out to work on the patio the heater wouldn’t light?

Mike thumped it a few times and it lit, but pretty soon it quit again. He looked it up on the internet.

“It’s got a filter inside that’s supposed to be changed every year,” he tells me. Then asks, “Do you think I should change it?”

“Well, yeah! No wonder it doesn’t work!”

I was been busy inside doing … I don’t know what I was doing at that particular time but Mike came in carrying the nasty soot-soaked filter. “Do you think I can clean it?”

“I guess you can try.”

He ran water over it and used an old toothbrush to scrub at it but it didn’t come very clean.

There are controls on the back that regulate the mixture of air pressure and kerosene.

If it’s not mixed right, it might even spew kerosene out the front. Don’t ask how we know that, I’ll tell you.

“It sprayed kerosene all over everything out there,” Mike comes back in and tells me. “I need a pressure gauge to help me set the pressure right.”

I’m like, “So, get on the internet and order one — and while you’re at it, get a filter, too!”

Mike got the gauge in a couple of days.

“Didn’t you order a filter?” I asked when the gauge was the only thing he pulled from the shipping bag.

“No,” was all he said.

Mike played with the pressure gauge for a while but either doesn’t understand how it works or something’s missing.

He fooled with that heater and fooled with it until he got it working again — for a while. Then it quits and he decides to order a new filter. I don’t know if it came the next day or the next but, in the meantime, he’d gotten the heater working again. When the filter arrived, he put it in — and the heater wouldn’t work.

Ayi-yi-yi!

“I’m putting the old filter back in,” he says and then the heater works again.

He also went back to the internet and found a video showing him how to adjust the pressure without a gauge and now it’s working pretty good.

We’re probably going to have to find someone to look at the salamander for us.

“How’s the patio coming?” you wanna know.

Fabulous! Mike’s a good carpenter.

>>>*<<<

Oh my gosh!

What a morning we had the other morning!

Fresh out of bed, way too early, the drama started.

The very first thing I do every morning is take care of the cats. I used to be able to do other things first, but with Sugar in the house, she starts meowing for breakfast before I’m out of bed. Sometimes, if I don’t get up right away, she’ll quiet down but as soon as she sees I’m up, she’s back at it.

I was at the kitchen counter getting the cats’ food around when I see Bondi shove her nose between the trash can and the counter. “Did you find a mouse?” I asked.

Bondi backed out, her tail wagging so hard she about wags her hind end off, she bows down and says, “Woof!”

“Okay!” I say and pull the trash can out. Now the game was on!

Bondi stuck her nose in the space between the microwave cabinet and the wall. I can hear her snuffing in great big exhales.

“Is he in there?” I asked. She can’t always tell the difference between a freshly laid mouse trail and a mouse. There have been times I’ve looked and there wasn’t a mouse.

Bondi backed out of the trash can cubby, running right smack into Raini who was trying to get in on the action, gave her a snip and snarl before she ran around the cabinet, stuck her nose in the other side, sniffed heavily, backed out and gave the cutest little, “Grrrwoof!”

I got a flashlight and looked. “There he is!” I said excitedly seeing those beady little black eyes staring back at me. I grabbed the flyswatter that was hanging on the wall over my head and started poking the mouse. He’d take off for one side and the dogs would both be on the other!

“One of you stay here and the other one go over on the other side,” I told the dogs. Did they listen?

NO!

Bondi ran back and forth and Raini just followed.

The mouse jumped the wire handle of the fly swatter and headed for me. I dropped the swatter, screamed, “HERE HE IS!” Both dogs would come over to my side and the mouse would duck back behind the cabinet.

This little charade continued for quite a while. The mouse was too smart to be forced out of hiding and into the maw of a ferocious predator by a harmless little wire handle. Back and forth he went, back and forth the dogs went, missing him by mere seconds many times. I had to come up with a different plan. I went out on the patio and came back with a narrow flat piece of wood and I tried to rake him out. That almost worked. I’d gotten the mouse worked out to the edge of the opening where Bondi could finally see him and at the last second, he gave her the slip. I couldn’t really see how he managed his Houdini escape because there were two dog heads between me and the action, but I saw him go!

The mouse ran down in front of the sink and dived in the cubby where the cans for our burnables live.

I pulled the cans out and since he wasn’t hiding right there, I knew where he went. He went behind the buffet that’s under that counter. That space is way too narrow for Bondi to get into so I did what I did the last time this happened. The cabinet is heavy so I pulled one side out then went to the other end and pulled it out. The first side pivots back in and I just have to keep working at it until I get it far enough away from the wall that Bondi can get in there.

We had the same problem with this cabinet that we had with the microwave cabinet. The dogs always seemed to be at the wrong end. And they were at the wrong end when the mouse made a break for it. He came running up the front of the cabinet while the dogs were behind it. I’m screaming but the dogs don’t get there until after the mouse had gone under the butcher block.

“You lost him,” I said dejectedly. All my hard work and he was gone.

Bondi is the true mouser. I watched as she put her little Chiweenie nose to work. Around the butcher black she went, around Raini’s kennel she went, then she came back and zeroed in on the butcher block. I started pulling some of my stored glass out of the way and there he was, between the glass and the counter. With Raini blocking escape on one side, Bondi got him!

“Good girl!” I praise.

Bondi shook him hard, killing him almost instantly. She put it down and checked for signs of life. Raini watched but didn’t interfere. As soon as Bondi walked away from it, she grabbed it and ran.

“OUTSIDE!” I command and Raini obeys.

That wasn’t the only mouse I’ve seen around here in the last few weeks. Someone brings‘em in and leaves’em in the yard for Raini. I don’t know if it’s Spitfire or Blackie but I’m pretty sure it’s not Tiger. He never shares his kills. But there were at least three of them out there this week alone. I’ll see Raini tossing them around but she doesn’t always eat them. If I can get to them, I’ll toss’em over the fence. If she knows I’m after her mouse she’ll grab it and run. I don’t even bother to chase her. She’s a hundred times faster than this old woman.

Spitfire did bring one in the house for her one night while we were watching TV. Raini and I both recognize his, “Come and see what I brought you,” call and she’s off like a shot!

Then, one morning we get up and my mouse trap, with a mouse in it, is laying in the middle of the floor. I don’t know who heard the trap go off on the shelf by the dog food, but one of them did and carried and it on the dining room rug.

Oh! And you’re gonna love this! I know I did.

We were settling down in bed one night and Raini disappears. She does that fairly often. I don’t know if she goes for a dringk know if she goes for a dringk know if she goes for a dringk —

Oops!

Tiger jumped on my keyboard and how it got that to repeat, I’ll never know.

I don’t know if Raini leaves the bed to get a drink, something to eat, or to pee, but she’ll come back. On one such night, she comes back, gets up on the bed, then jumps over my legs into the middle. I fluff the covers and something cold and wet lands on my bare-naked arm. I get my headboard flashlight and discover Raini had brought a mouse in with her, at least, what was left of a mouse. There was a head and there was a tail and not much in between.

Ewwww!

I got out of bed, picked up the very tip of the tail, carried it outside and tossed it. When I came back I stopped at the kitchen sink and scrubbed my arm in hot water. I was kinda grossed out.

>>>*<<<

I told you Mike and I had back-to-back doctor appointments and I didn’t back-to-back the stories.

Oh well. I meant to but you know me. I’ll get off on a tangent and forget where I’m going.

Mike had his yearly checkup with his heart doctor and he’s been cleared for another year. His doctor is in Vestal, New York and we don’t go that way often so I took a bunch abuncha road pictures.

(I bet my editor’s left eye is twitching on that one!)

Mike was tentatively planning a trip to our out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere lumberyard for the next day. He needed some one-by-six knotty pine for his patio enclosure project.

“You know, Mike, we might be closer to C.C. Allis now rather than to go home and come back tomorrow,” I said on our way home.

It was raining lightly but not so much that Mike thought it would hurt the boards that would be sticking out the back of our car.

“Okay,” he said. “Punch it in the GPS and we’ll see if there’s a cut across.”

Our GPS did plot a route across the mountains. We got off on to some narrow dirt roads, let me tell ya!

This old doll house was on Mike’s side of the road. I knew we wouldn’t be coming back this way so I took the shot. Whether the people were trying to sell it or just re-home it, I don’t know, but I’ve seen where people pick these up from road-side give-aways and turn them into spooky haunted houses.

That might be fun to do someday.

It was a challenge to get the camera to focus on something other than the raindrops on my side window and sometimes I missed the shot altogether.

One of those narrow dirt roads we found ourselves on.

This says, “Welsh Congregational Meeting House Ad 1848”

We didn’t recognize any of the roads we were on and weren’t sure from which direction we would approach C. C. Allis but we knew we were getting close because the GPS tells us how far it is to our destination.

“There it is!” I said spotting it through the trees.

We pretty much had the place to ourselves, at least as far as the lumberyard goes. It seems no one else wanted to haul lumber in this light, drizzly rain.

>>>*<<<

On my morning love call to Sally, our neighbor, she told me part of our soffit was coming down and she didn’t think we could see it from the house. She was right about that, we couldn’t see it from the house, but it wasn’t the soffit blowing in the wind, it was the fascia.

I helped Mike get the big extension ladder out because I don’t know if he’s completely healed from his hernia surgery. Then he put on his big boy pants, tamped down his fear of ladders and heights, climbed up and nailed it back in place.

I stood by to call 911 if he fell (which I didn’t believe would happen or I’d never have let him get up there in the first place) and to take pictures for you.

While I was standing by, I took a picture of a jet flying high above us, his contrail following behind. We must be under a flight path because we see a lot of jets.

Since Mike had the ladder out, he decided to clean the gutter on the other roof. By the time he was done holding on to a cold metal ladder and digging frozen chunks of ice and leaves from the gutter, his hands were pretty well frozen, too. He threatened to warm them on me!

>>>*<<<

One more job Mike did this week was to fix my big spinner.

I was standing at the kitchen window and saw all my spinners spinning except that one. “Is there something wrong with it?” I asked Mike.

When he went to get the mail, he stopped to fix it. They’re not tight on their bearings, wobble, and had gotten hung up on each other.

Raini stays with me most of the time but she always follows Mike when he goes to get the mail. She sits in the yard and waits for him to come back.

A couple of days later I see one of the pieces of my spinner had fallen off. If I had a welder I could fix it.

And Raini! That stinker. I noticed bits of something laying on the floor and didn’t know what it was. Truthfully, I didn’t even look at it too closely, I just picked it up. The trail of breadcrumbs, so to speak, led me to one of my weights under the table. I picked it up and found this.

Raini had carried one of my three-pound weights out from the exercise studio and chewed the neoprene off.

Compared to what my beautiful cousin Shannon’s new pup chews up, we’re lucky.

If my week wasn’t busy enough, we also got haircuts.

Mike noticed all the birds at Paula’s feeders while he waited for me to have my haircut. When it was my turn to wait, I watched the birds, too. I thought they were landing on the window and didn’t quite understand how they were doing that. Looking at my photos I can see they’re holding on to a screen.