Where is the cranberry sauce?

Thankfully I no longer throw the contents of the cabinet on the floor when I'm searching for an ingredient. It's not as much fun when you have to pick up after yourself.

Thanksgiving dinner was a success. Dad had seconds and Dillon got to lick the roaster I mixed the dressing up in. We had turkey, collards, dressing, sweet potato casserole, congealed salad, and cranberry sauce. I didn't make dessert because the sweet potato casserole is better than most desserts. Thank goodness I paid attention when Mom was making dressing because I'd be devastated if I didn't have Mom's dressing on important holidays. Of course I'm not as brave with the celery seed as she was, so it wasn't perfect, but it was still good.

Dad ventured out this morning to Big Lots and Walgreens to see what was on sale. He came back empty handed and reported there were very few shoppers. I'm sure that will change tomorrow. Yesterday he made a good haul at Big Lots. They had marked their Thanksgiving merchandise down to 75% off, so now we have Thanksgiving figurines of a Pilgrim couple and a Native American couple. How's that for political correctness? You rarely ever see Native American Thanksgiving decorations. Of course tomorrow or the next day they'll be coming down because it'll be time to start putting out the Christmas decorations.

It's a good thing Dad enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner because he's getting it again tomorrow. I like leftovers and I see no reason in going to all the trouble to cook another meal when I still have plenty of this one.

Counting my blessings

When I count my blessings this Thanksgiving, Dillon and Dad are at the top of my list. That would come as news to Dad, but given that he said yet again this morning that I'd never have another dog with a better disposition than Dillon, he's earned his spot.







May your turkey be cooked to perfection, your table surrounded by family and friends, and your blessings too many to count!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love magazines

If you’re in the market for magazine subscriptions, check out Amazon.com. I just renewed my subscriptions to Southern Living and Woman’s Day magazines for much less than the publishers’ “best offer”. A 2-year subscription to Southern Living is only $19.95 on Amazon and I got a $5 discount so I’m only paying $14.95! For a 2-year subscription! A 1-year subscription to Woman’s Day is $9.99. They’ve got some great deals with additional discounts of $3, $5, and $10 off some subscriptions.

When you're checking out a magazine, do make sure you click see more options and then the down arrow beside the subscription options so you see all the offers, including auto-renewal, single year, or multi-year. I don't like auto-renewal and sometimes that's the default selection that's displayed until you click on the down arrow button.

It's a matter of attitude

I fed Dad and Dillon the same thing for supper, leftover hamburgers. I think Dillon was more appreciative of my efforts. I had 3 assignments due today and by the time I finished them, I was tired. I told Dad if the hamburger didn’t suit him, he was welcome to find himself something else, but it was all I was offering.

He made the mistake of asking if there was any onion he could slice. What he really intended was for me to slice him some onion. I handed him an onion, a knife, and a cutting board. He wasn’t dumb enough to say anything else, he just fumbled with the onion until he managed to cut a slice.

I’ve had a busy few days. The Kiwanis Club sponsored our first ever ladies high school basketball Tip-off Tournament this week. It took place Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with 4 games each night. I helped out all 3 days, fixing hamburger plates (hence the leftover hamburgers), selling tickets, directing people to the right places, and generally filling in wherever we needed an extra body.

I was in the unusual position of being the nice one. In fact, one of my fellow ticket-takers almost fired me for being too nice. Another wanted to know when I suddenly became a glass half-full type since I’m normally the resident cynic. I was motivated entirely by self-interest, not a change of heart or good will towards men. I just wanted everybody to be happy so they’d stay out of my face.

The tournament was supposed to be a promotional vehicle for the club. I figured that meant we were seeking positive publicity not a reputation as hard-asses. So I was on my best behavior. Which was a strain since one of my best friends described me on more than one occasion over the years as being mean as a snake.

It was sort of like the movie Freaky Friday though. The nicer I was, the meaner some of our other club members became. One of the guys, who’s usually a life of the party type, almost came to blows with one of the coaches and managed to completely antagonize the host school’s athletic director. And he’s the club member that told me last week that I was worrying needlessly, we were going to have plenty of help and it was going to be fun!

Back home, I felt free to return to my normal personality. Unfortunately, we’re now out of leftover hamburgers. I thought mine was good. Dillon thought his was terrific. Dad managed to choke his down.

Need your ego bruised; visit an elementary school

I arrived at my Reading Buddy’s classroom this week as he and his classmates were returning from recess. As they all filed past me, one little girl asked, “Are you Angelo’s grandmother?” I was sure I must have misunderstood the question; she spoke so quickly that all of the words ran together, but when I said, “Excuse me?” I clearly heard the word grandmother. I’m not used to thinking of myself as anyone’s grandmother. I don’t care that mathematically it’s possible; psychologically, it’s so far beyond the realm of my reality that it’s ludicrous to even contemplate. I managed to smile and politely assure her that I was not Angelo’s grandmother while mentally I was squashing her like a bug.

We read a book from the Dark Man series. The Dark Man is a tortured hero type “who has been recruited to play a part in a secret, cataclysmic struggle between good and evil” by a mysterious individual called The Old Man. One of the questions at the end of the book was How old do you think the Old Man is? Angelo’s response was, “Probably 50?” I wasn’t stupid enough to ask how old he thought I was. My ego had been bruised enough for one day.

We discussed Thanksgiving dinner on the way back to his classroom. We agreed on dressing, pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie. We parted ways on cranberry sauce, which Angelo thinks is icky. I was just thrilled that he was actually volunteering information and participating in the conversation. He’s sweet, but very shy and barely spoke when we first started reading together. He’s finally opening up a little. He’s going to his grandmother’s Thanksgiving morning. I didn’t ask how old she is.

Silver alert

I need a tracker. I don't think Dillon has talents in that area, he's only interested in tracking a ball and I'm interested in tracking my father. Plus, dogs aren't allowed in shopping malls. Although maybe if I got him a cute yellow vest that read "service dog" and put a ball in Dad's pocket?

I went to Streets of Southpoint yesterday to do some returning. I bought a couple of things there when I was in Durham 3 weeks ago and several of them either didn't go with what I bought them for, weren't comfortable after all, or were flawed. That'll teach me to shop at stores that don't have a location close to home in case I change my mind.

Since I was feeling generous, I told Dad he could come along if he wanted. He was searching for a Norman Rockwell wall calendar, and unlike most men he likes to shop, so he decided to join me. When I shop with Dad, we set a meeting place and a time and go our separate merry ways. Usually I physically walk him to where we'll meet, so there's no question. This time, his first destination was in the exact opposite direction of my first stop and walking him to the food court was going to force him to trek twice as far.

We stopped in the outside courtyard and I told him I'd meet him in the food court, I even pointed to its location on the second level, at the tables by the wall at quarter to twelve. I repeated myself and asked him if he remembered where the tables by the wall were. He indicated that he did. "Quarter to twelve," he repeated. "What time does your watch say now?" he asked. "Are we synchronizing watches?" I asked incredulously. This wasn't some military operation that required that much precision. I told him what time my watch said and he headed for Barnes and Noble.

I spent the next hour and a half making my exchanges. The clerk in Aerosoles tried to tempt me with the news that they'd just finished taking additional markdowns, but I try not to make the same mistake twice. I didn't buy anything else, so I was saving money left and right. I got back to the food court about 5 minutes early. Dad wasn't there yet, which surprised me because any time I've ever been scheduled to meet him at a shopping center, he was always there early. I wandered around for a few minutes thinking he must have found something interesting to look at.

When he still hadn't turned up 20 minutes later I was getting concerned, but trying not to panic. I walked around the food court scanning tables. No Dad. My first thought was that he hadn't understood where we were meeting after all. My second thought was that he'd had a heart attack or something and been taken to the nearest hospital. Either way, how on earth was I going to find him? You can't have him paged because he'd never hear an announcement. He doesn't have a cell phone. He has my cell phone number written down at home, but I don't think he carries it in his wallet because I rarely turn it on and he doesn't like using the telephone. He doesn't have a key to my car, so it was unlikely he'd return to the car. I'm not sure I remember my answering machine security code, so if anyone called my house, I wasn't sure I could retrieve the message from another phone. I did remember what he was wearing, so I figured I could ask the mall security officers to issue an in-house silver alert, but Dad would be mortified.

I was hesitant to leave the food court because I was still thinking he'd just been delayed in a store or lost track of time. That's not like Dad, but it sounded better than the alternatives. I finally decided to head to Barnes & Noble. They do have tables against the wall, so maybe that's where he'd thought we were going to meet. No Dad. I speed walked back to the food court. It was now 12:20, 35 minutes past the time we had arranged to meet. There sat Dad at a table against the wall reading a magazine. I was like every mother in the world, I was incredibly relieved, but my first words were "Where have you been? You're 30 minutes late." "I thought we were meeting at 12:30 or 12:45." He'd turned up what he thought was early for our meeting, just like he usually does.

I told him what I'd been thinking and he laughed, but apologized for holding me up. I didn't care about the missed shopping time, but the stress I could have done without. I threatened to write the next meeting time on his hand in indelible ink. If my cell phone had a camera function, I'd have taken his picture for the next silver alert situation. Santa wasn't sitting in his big red chair at center court, or I'd have stood in line to add a hand held personal GPS tracker device to my Christmas wish list. Or maybe Dad should add it to his. Because without some type of failsafe, I may never take him shopping with me again.

The storm is upon us

If you felt the ground shake around 4:20 this afternoon, don't be alarmed. It was just the earth quaking with the shock of the Carolina Hurricanes finally winning a hockey game. They blew an early 4-1 lead and had to win it in an overtime shootout, but the fact remains that the 14 game losing streak is finally over. Of course, they managed to lose 3 more players to injury in the process. Pretty soon the coaches are going to have to lace up and grab a stick.

Never let it be said that I'm a fair weather fan. This game wasn't even on tv, I had to listen to it on the radio through the computer. Let's Go Canes!

Not bad

I think I like my new dryer. I got a fairly basic electric Maytag with hardly any bells and whistles. I didn't want computerized controls, that was going to be just one more thing to break. It's fairly quiet for a dryer and it seems to do a good job on the clothes. It's got a moisture sensor feature (yeah, that's probably attached to a computer, but it's pretty hard to totally avoid computerization these days), so I don't have to set a time if I don't want to. I can just set it and it goes until the sensor says the load is dry. It seems to work so far. I also like having a light in the drum so I can actually see in there. The old one was dark and brown and it was sort of like looking into a black hole. I'm going to enjoy not having to iron Dad's shirts, that's for sure.

I'm glad the freezer went in the garage. It's not incredibly noisy, I haven't heard any shrieks or howls like one of the reviewers complained of, but it is loud enough to let you know it's running. Being out in the garage it doesn't bother me, but if it were in the laundry room practically next to the kitchen sink, it would seriously annoy me. Yesterday at the farmer's market Dad bought me a pound cake and a pecan pie because, "You can put them in the freezer." Maybe having a freezer isn't such a bad thing after all.

Welcome Home

Dillon hardly barked at all when we first brought him home. The only exception was when I would return from somewhere. Then he'd bark frantically, sounding as if he'd been abandoned and was desperate to be reunited. As he's gotten used to living here, he's started to bark a bit more, but he's still mostly silent. He's not the loud watchdog that Katie was, warning away all would-be intruders.

One thing that has changed, he's started barking when Dad comes home. At first Dad was confused and a bit insulted by this. After all, he lives here as he keeps reminding Dillon. Then I pointed out that he was looking at it backwards. Dillon's not warning him off, he's welcoming him home. "Think about it. I'm the one he's always barked at when I return and I'm his favorite person. You should take it as a high compliment that he's decided you're worth barking at." Dad looked pleased, but he still thinks Dillon has the whole barking at the door thing backwards.

Game on

It bugs Dad when there’s a sporting event on tv that he can’t see because we don’t get that channel. I’m the one that pays the cable bill and I’ve been satisfied with expanded basic. Even with 70+ channels, there’s usually nothing on worth watching and since I was already paying $66.99 a month, I wasn’t prepared to add anything else. Well, when he missed 2 Carolina basketball games this week because they were on ESPNU, that was more than he could handle.

He started making noises about a sports package. I pointed out that to get the sports package; he’d have to have a cable box too. He still wanted it. I announced that I wasn’t paying for any more cable than we already had. When did I become the parent and he become the teenager? He said he’d pay for it. Then he started wondering whether he’d really watch it all year round. Maybe he could just get it for a few months, and then discontinue it. I finally told him if he wanted it, he had to go stand in line at the cable office to sign up and get the box, but I’d pay the extra and we’d consider it his Christmas present. He got his coat and headed for the cable office.

He came home with the box, a remote control, and a receipt with a telephone number that he thought I had to call, but he wasn’t sure. “I didn’t understand what she was saying, but you can call and find out.” He always does that. He doesn’t want to look dumb, so he asks no questions, just depends on me to straighten it all out, which infuriates me. I bit my tongue and just told him to figure out where he was going to put the box. His tv sits on top of a file cabinet which left no room for the box. He had some rearranging to do.

I went out to hook it up the next morning. I hate hooking up cable. The tv is always in an inconvenient location with limited visibility, poor lighting, and little room to maneuver. I had to wedge my body between the desk and the file cabinet, stepping over electric cords and cable that had to be strung about knee high from the stand to the tv. The cable wire had to bend into an L shape to fit into the spot on the back of the tv and didn’t want to screw in tight. After I finally got it all connected, I turned on the tv and got a no signal message.

I called the cable company. They told me to put the tv on channel 4 and turn on the box. I did. Still no signal. Was I sure I had all the cables connected properly and were they tight? Yep. Well, try switching the cable from the tv output to the vcr output. Still no signal. Let’s unplug the box and wait a minute for it to reset. Still no signal. The woman couldn’t figure out what the problem was, but she could schedule a service tech to come out. For a fee. No way.

I hung up and took the box inside to try it on a regular analog set. Same problem, no reception. I took the box back to the cable office and stood in line for 40 minutes to exchange it for another box. Dad volunteered to go, but he’d have just come back again telling me he didn’t understand what they said. While I was there, I double checked what Dad had actually signed up for and how much my bill was going to be. You never know what to expect when you send Dad on one of these missions and I didn’t want any unpleasant surprises. When the woman handed me the new box, she commented that it was lucky they had one of the new models in stock so it should work. That just made me madder. Why did they give us one of the old, crappy models to begin with? Because they’re the cable company and they suck!

I took the new box home, hooked it up, and was still looking at snow. I called the cable company. They went through all the same questions. Is your tv set to channel 4, is your cable connected properly, etc. The woman couldn’t figure out the problem. She put me on hold. Just out of curiosity, I changed the tv channel to 3. Voila, a picture! When she came back on the line, I told her that they might want to change their records because in our market, the tv has to be tuned to channel 3, not channel 4 for reception.

“Are you sure?” “Well, I see a picture now that I’m on channel 3 and I still just get snow on channel 4.” “You must be the only market where that’s the case,” she said accusingly. Well, I’m not the one that set the cable signal. Then she was actually shortsighted enough to ask me to complete a customer service survey. Oh, yeah, let me tell you what I think about your service.

I unhooked the box from the old tv in my bedroom and took it back out to the garage to hook up Dad’s tv. I finally got the connections tight and managed to extricate myself without damage to the equipment or me. I held my breath and turned everything on. Glory hallelujah there was reception. I handed him the remote and told him it was all his. I had now wasted 3 hours of my afternoon on that stupid cable box. I went back inside to try to get some of my homework done. But first, I dug out a channel line-up so Dad would know where his new sports channels were.

When I went back out to the garage, he was standing there with the remote in his hand. “Something’s wrong, the channel won’t change.” You could scan up and down the channels, but if you tried to enter the numbers into the keypad, it wouldn’t change channels. I told him that was his problem. He could read the instructions that came with the remote, he could go back to the cable office, or he could just scan up and down the dial. I was done. I should have known better than to leave him on his own.

After I got back inside, the phone rang and it was the cable company. Had I solved my problem because they had a tech available to come to my house? I told them the box worked now that the tv was set on channel 3 instead of channel 4, but that the remote wasn’t working properly, it wouldn't accept numbers entered into the keypad. The woman asked the tech about my problem and he said it must be a faulty remote and the best thing to do was take it back to the cable office. I went out to tell Dad.

The tv screen was black with a no signal message. “I don’t know what happened. I didn’t do anything.” Yeah, right. He misinterpreted the instructions for the remote and in trying to get the keypad to accept numbers; he’d followed the steps that programmed it to control a component. In this case, the tv. It took me a few minutes to realize that what he’d done was change the tv to channel 8 which was why it was getting no signal. I put it back on channel 3 and we were back in business. He was still insisting that he hadn’t done anything. The remote still wouldn’t accept channels entered manually, so I told him what the tech said. He headed for the cable office.

He came home with a new remote. Same problem. “Did you tell the woman what the problem was?” “No, I just told her it wouldn’t work and I wanted another one.” If he’d described the problem to her, we might have gotten it solved quicker. I called Uncle Bud and asked how he changed channels with his remote. “I punch in the number and hit enter.” Aha! I looked at our remote. There were tons of buttons, but none of them said enter.

I hung up and kept looking at the remote. I was a little afraid to punch any buttons if I didn’t know what they’d do. It would be nice if the instructions had actually told you how to operate the remote and identified the buttons. I finally decided to enter a number and hit the ok/sel button. What do you know, the channel changed. I handed it to Dad, told him the correct steps to take, and headed for the door. “I didn’t mean to take up your whole afternoon.” “You know that good mood I was in yesterday, it’s gone now,” I informed him sourly. I skipped my homework and worked out for an hour. I had some frustration that needed an outlet before I exploded.

This morning Dad announced that he had a problem with his new sports package. I braced myself. “I’ve got too many sports to watch now,” he said with a smile. “Well don’t think that I want a play-by-play of every game you watch, because I don’t.” “I’m going to have too many sports to watch, but I’m going to thoroughly enjoy them,” he assured me. “I’d better not go out there and catch you watching Bonanza. It better be sports from now on.” “What about Gunsmoke?” “Marshal Dillon or Festus better have a ball in their hands.” Wake Forest plays basketball on ESPNU at noon. He’d better watch every minute and enjoy it.

It's raining, it's pouring

One of Lowe’s Black Friday specials last year was a 14-gallon Shop Vac wet/dry vacuum. It was on sale for some ridiculously low price and I told Dad that if he was going to be up braving the craziness anyway, he should get one. He looked at me like I was crazy. I told him that they were really nice things to have. You don’t need them often, but when you do, they’re lifesavers. He came home with one, still grumbling and announced that he wasn’t going to wrap it, but Merry Christmas. It sat in the garage for months. He moved it to the basement a few weeks back. For some reason on Tuesday, he finally got it out of the box and assembled it. Talk about timing.

It’s rained here for days. We’ve had about 6 inches. Most of it came down on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. When I went to check on the basement, the floor was covered with over an inch of water. That happens about once a year if we get an exceptionally heavy rain that saturates the ground. I went back upstairs for my duck shoes and a raincoat, stuck my head in the garage to tell Dad, and headed back to start vacuuming. I don’t know how many times I emptied the wet/vac, but it was dozens. Dad laid down boards outside the basement door so I had a sort of gangplank to roll the wet/vac across the yard. When I’d unscrew the drain cap, the water flowed up almost over my shoes because the ground was already too saturated to absorb it.

The basement mostly has a dirt floor, but in one approximately 12x12 ft. section where the furnace and hot water heater sit, it’s concrete. That’s the lowest section and naturally that’s the section that floods. If the furnace and hot water heater were elevated, it wouldn’t matter. Unfortunately, they’re not and since I’m very partial to heat and hot water, I kept sucking up water and hauling it out. I worked steadily for over an hour. Thank heavens we had that wet/vac. Dad now admits that I wasn’t so crazy after all. Of course, when I pointed out that if Lowe’s put them on sale again, we could accomplish twice as much with two, he gave me another one of the looks. I’m just saying.

I'm so excited!!!

I've got my internship lined up with the firm I wanted! I wrote them a letter on Monday giving them the details of the internship program and telling them that I'd like to do my internship with them. I told them I'd call today to discuss the opportunity.

When I called, one of the partners said he almost called me on Tuesday as soon as he received my letter. Yes, they're very interested in having me as an intern and they have plenty for me to do. All I have to do is set up the meeting with my faculty adviser to nail down the details and get the paperwork done.

Hopefully I'll do a really good job and they'll want to hire me when the internship is completed. I know two of the partners and like them both. Their office is on the Avenue, within a couple of miles of home and right across the street from Uncle Bud. In fact, it's in the old post office building where Uncle Bud started his career with the Postal Service.

I'm thrilled!

Stormy weather

They brought our new dryer and freezer today. Dad definitely picked the right time to buy a dryer. It started raining yesterday and it's supposed to continue through Saturday. Today is our regularly scheduled laundry day. Without the dryer, Dad would be facing sleeping on flowered sheets, a fate worse than death! He was really happy to have soft towels again. I pointed out that some people use a loofah to slough off dead skin cells and give their skin a youthful glow. He was getting the same result from his regular line-dried towel. He didn't seem to be appreciative of that health benefit. He'd never have made it in Sparta.

On Surviving Disaster last night one of the disaster scenarios featured a pandemic that killed millions, went on for months, and essentially shut down all commerce. You need to have 3 months of food on hand for emergencies like that. They made a supply run to the grocery store, which involved using a shopping cart as a weapon, and claimed you could survive on rice, canned tuna, and cooking oil for that period of time. I'm pretty sure that on that diet, I'd quickly lose my will to live. My idea of emergency supplies is a couple of cases of Nabs and plenty of chocolate. I already have a collection of shovels to bury the dead in my front yard and fill pillowcases and plastic bags with dirt to build a bunker to ward off looters trying to break in to get my food. Which would be sure to happen if everyone else was eating rice and tuna and I had chocolate and Nabs!

Well, time to see if my Canes can survive disaster tonight or if we'll make it 13 losses in a row. I wonder if a hockey game qualifies as reason to raid the emergency chocolate stash? When you're playing like we are, it's hard to view this season as anything other than a disaster. Oh perfect, Fox Sports has technical difficulties so all I'm getting is audio. What else can go wrong? It's definitely time to raid the chocolate.

Surviving Disaster

Tuesday is when Surviving Disaster comes on Spike TV. Tonight I’m going to learn how to survive a nerve gas attack. I’m sure it involves duct tape. Most of the reenactments are hokey, but it's a fun show and I always come away with something that may be of use in a future disaster. If nothing else, it provides Dad with a good laugh when I share the highlights with him at lunch the next day.

Tuesday is the one night of the week that is must-see tv for me. NCIS, NCIS LA, The Good Wife, and Surviving Disaster. The rest of the week, unless there’s a hockey game on, is pretty slim pickings.

Of course, this year watching a Hurricanes hockey game is also an exercise in surviving disaster. We’ve now lost 12 games in a row, our top scorer, our 2nd best all-around player, and our goaltender. What else can go wrong? I’ll be tuned in tomorrow to find out. It’s getting to the point where a win would qualify as a Miracle on Edwards Mill Rd. Just losing the game without losing another player would count as a victory.

Going whole hog

Dad came home from the farmer’s market on Saturday with another big bag full of turnip salad. “It was pretty good last week. I thought maybe we could have some more.” It was easier when he didn’t realize he liked turnip salad. We had to stop at the grocery store on the way home from breakfast on Sunday so I could buy something to season it with.

Last week I used a ham hock. I really wanted some ham bouillon, that’s less messy and less greasy, but Food Lion doesn’t carry it. Instead, I bought a package of sliced hog jowls. They had whole hog jowls too, but I thought it was worth paying the extra to have it sliced. And it was on sale. I got a whole package for less than $1.50. Dad’s comment was, “I’m disappointed. I thought maybe you’d go whole hog.” Har Har.

Boy, has my life changed. I never thought I’d see the day I’d buy any part of a pig other than bacon, pork chops, or pork loin. I’m becoming a real country cook. Dad was inspired to share stories from his boyhood when they raised and slaughtered a hog in the winter. Thank goodness, we live in the city limits and get our meat from a store. Oh, they gave the jowls to the hired help.

Caniac or maniac?

Dad is happy that the Yankees won. Now he can go to bed at a reasonable hour. At least until college basketball season starts.

My Hurricanes could use some of that winning mojo. We’ve lost 10 straight games. The record for most consecutive games lost in a single season already belonged to us. We lost the last 15 games of the 2001 season. Of all the records the team could have picked to try and break, why did it have to be that one?

Can we make it 11 in a row? I’ll be tuned in tonight to see. Never let it be said that I’m a fair weather fan. I’m even wearing my Hurricanes sweatshirt. As this year’s advertising slogan goes, It’s a Caniac thing.

House key

Dad's project this week, in addition to making room in the garage for a freezer, was to work on the pull for the disappearing stairway that goes to the attic. The one here just had a piece of rope hanging down. The one in Baltimore had a fancy round brass handle with a length of chain hanging down and a big decorative brass key (8 inches long) attached. He brought the chain and the key with him and decided to replace the rope with them.

It is classier looking, but he made it long enough so that he can reach it. That means it barely skims above my head. I catch myself ducking as I walk down the hall. On a more positive note, if anyone tall breaks in, it'll whack them right in the face. I wonder if the insurance company would give us a discount for our new burglar alarm/theft deterrent?

He'd better not think this is my Christmas

Dad has been lobbying for a freezer ever since he moved in. I have a side-by-side refrigerator that has always been enough freezer space for me. I’ve resisted adding a freezer because I use the spot in the laundry room that was obviously intended for a freezer to set up my dog’s feeding station. There isn’t another good space to put dog bowls. Plus, I hate noisy appliances and somehow I always end up with the noisy ones. I dreaded the thought of adding another appliance that was going to cycle on and off.

It has become more of a struggle to find room for things in the freezer. I have to make sure what I shove in is relatively stable. I instinctively stand back when I open the freezer door so that if anything tumbles out it won’t land on my toes. Dad doesn’t exhibit the same amount of caution. Since ice cream is one of the staples of his diet, he goes into the freezer at least once a day. His ice cream has to be on its own shelf so that he can get it out easily, without having to move anything or start a landslide.

He’s also plainly started thinking about what happens when I go back to work. He tried to convince me that my life would be easier if I could cook more at one time and freeze it for meals in a hurry. I think he’s more concerned with his dinner than my time. What really convinced me though was when there was no room in the freezer for the pound cake he bought at the farmer’s market last week. I already had something else to snack on so it would have been nice to be able to freeze the cake. No way. Not unless I cut it into slices, packaged them individually, and tried to stick them all over the freezer, after which I’d probably never be able to find them again.

So when he told me that we could put the freezer in the garage, where I wouldn’t have to listen to it, I gave in. He’d already been looking and knew what he wanted. I had warned him in previous discussions that it had to be frost-free. He picked the smallest frost-free upright Sears makes. As soon as I gave him the okay this afternoon, he headed for Sears. I guess he was afraid if he waited, I’d change my mind. It’s a good thing it’s going in the garage because when I checked out the reviews, one unhappy customer claimed the freezer emitted an eerie howling whine so loud that her child couldn’t sleep. Something to look forward to.

While he was there, he bought a new dryer. Mine died last Christmas Eve. Dad wanted to replace it with a gas dryer, I wanted another electric. We had an impasse. He finally said I could get whatever I wanted. I hate buying appliances because no matter how much research I do, I always buy the wrong thing. I finally decided on a pretty basic Maytag. I don’t want all the bells and whistles. That’s just more to break. All I asked him to do was measure the dryer while he was at the store. I have limited space in my laundry room and I was concerned about being able to open the pantry door. The thought of having fluffy towels again must have been too much temptation to resist. Sears really hit the jackpot today.

Go Yankees!

My mother is probably rolling over in her grave at the very thought of any daughter of hers cheering for the Yankees. As a die-hard Orioles fan, the Yankees were public enemy #1. It’s not that I have changed allegiance, it’s more a selfish wish in the interest of self-preservation. If the Yankees win tonight, the series will be over and I will be spared any more play-by-play summaries of the previous night’s game.

Dad has been a Yankees fan since he was a little boy and heard his first game on the radio. The Yankees were playing the Giants. He was young and naive and thought the Giants were really giants. He immediately started pulling for the Yankees in what he thought was a David vs. Goliath contest. He’s never wavered in his allegiance.

Unfortunately, not only am I not a Yankees fan, I haven’t been a baseball fan for years. I ask, “Who won?” merely to be polite. Dad takes the query as an invitation to give me the highlights of the most recent game. I’m not interested. This morning, he tried to tell me that I wouldn’t believe what had happened in last night’s game. Since I hadn’t even had my coffee yet, I most definitely didn’t care. I cut him off with, “Just tell me who won.” When lunch rolled around though, he couldn’t contain his enthusiasm any longer. I got a replay of the entire 9th inning, complete with finger diagrams sketched on the place mat.

The Yankees lead the series 3 games to 1. They play again tonight. Go Yankees!!!

Dadburn it!

Heaven forbid anything should come between Dad and an episode of Bonanza. It doesn’t matter that they’re all reruns that have aired umpteen dozen times.

I usually cook lunch, but Friday I cooked supper instead. I went out to tell Dad it was ready at
5:50 pm. He was watching Bonanza. He acknowledged my presence, but didn’t get up. I went back inside and finished putting the food on the table. No Dad. I fixed the beverages. No Dad. I sat down and served my plate. No Dad. I started eating. He finally came in a minute or so after 6 pm. I guess he had to make sure Hoss or Little Joe survived whatever peril they were in before he’d come eat. Needless to say, I was a bit provoked.

This morning, I went out to the garage to tell him that the tiny hole I’d spotted in the roof a month or so ago was in fact letting rain in. He tried to tell me at the time that I just hadn’t noticed it in all these years. Not likely, so I went up to the attic to check it today. Sure enough, there was a small trickle of water running down the pipe that penetrates the roof in that spot. Dad was watching Bonanza when I went to tell him. He did lower the volume and listen to what I had to say.

I told him how I thought it could be temporarily rigged to prevent the water from soaking the insulation. Of course, he had a much more complicated method, but since I was the one who was going to be doing the work, my method won. I pointed out that area of the attic isn’t floored and is in the lower end of the slope of the roof, so that getting to it isn’t easy. It requires balancing on the joists while holding onto the roof beams overhead for balance as you crouch down and duck walk to the spot. So forget any complicated procedures if you expect me to be the one performing them. I don’t think we gain anything if I fall through the ceiling while trying to stop a small leak.

I went back inside to see about putting a plastic bag at the base of the pipe and wrapping a towel around the pipe itself to catch the trickle of water as it ran down. Dad apparently has complete faith in my handyman abilities because he never moved out of his chair. It was obviously much more important to monitor the activities of the Cartwright clan than it was to be available to call 911 if I crashed through the ceiling. I’d just have to lay there until he came in for his next bathroom break.

I could maybe understand if we were talking about a sporting event that was taking place in real time. But I’m coming in second to 40 year old reruns! I wonder how he’d feel about a steady diet of cowboy beans?