You're welcome

I’ve been really lucky over the years and never had the flu. That being the case, why subject myself to a flu shot? Then last year, I read a list of professions whose workers were most likely to be exposed to the flu. Lawyers' offices were in the top 10. Add that to the fact that one of the attorneys has 4 children under the age of 5 and the odds of my being exposed increased exponentially.

If it was only me I had to worry about, I’d still have risked it. After all, I was exposed to heaven knows how many children during my years of playing Santa’s Helper. But they say that those who live with elderly family members should get a flu shot, so last year I got my first. My arm hurt for days. Which was particularly annoying since I got the shot on a Sunday and had bell practice on Monday. This year, I resolved to get my flu shot several days before bell practice.

I bit the bullet this morning. I told the pharmacist that I was only doing it for Dad’s sake, although there was a healthy dose of self-preservation added to the mix. If Dad gets sick, I get stuck playing Nurse Nancy. I lack the caregiver gene. I’m not the soothe the fevered brow type, at all. I think people should be like dogs and go suffer in silence. Unfortunately, most men don’t see it that way. The pharmacist laughed and said that her mother was very good at being a caregiver. So was mine, I informed her, but obviously, the trait isn’t genetic because I definitely didn’t inherit it.

I announced to Dad at lunch that I’d gotten my flu shot. “You’re welcome,” I told him sourly. I don’t like shots and I expect him to appreciate my sacrifice. The good news is, although my arm hurt for a bit afterwards, it doesn’t really hurt at all now. They did a segment on the news tonight that explained this year’s flu shots are using smaller needles that don’t go into the muscle of the arm so instead of days of aching muscles, you only have a little discomfort for a few hours. Hooray for modern medicine.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Even Dad's atrocious timing couldn't completely screw up her picture. Wouldn't you think that in at least 1 of these photos, Dad would have managed to get a picture with Mom's eyes open? Despite that, wasn't she pretty? She wore such stylish clothes in her Charlotte years. Love the color and style of this outfit. I'm still wearing some of her jewelery from those years and to this day, despite the fact that it's costume jewelery, it draws compliments.

We used to have so much fun shopping together. If there was a particular garment that I was in the market for, Mom could spot it on a rack from clear across the store while I was still searching. I miss those times. I'm celebrating her memory with a birthday balloon that I placed on her grave and a store-bought mini birthday cake that I'm going to eat in her honor. It's got plenty of frosting, just the way she liked it.

I’m beginning to feel like a zookeeper

In case you missed the news, animal prints are very “in” this year. My love for leopard is genetic. Mom loved leopard prints. Growing up, I thought it was silly and frankly rather tacky. I guess it’s an acquired taste. Once I hit adulthood, I acquired it.

I started slowly, years ago, with a leopard-print blouse. I bought one for Mom and one for me. I still have that blouse, but the shoulder pads have consigned it to the closet for the time being. On one of our shopping trips, Mom convinced me to buy a pair of leopard-print corduroy pants that I thought were a bit much, but received compliments on every time I wore them. They’re back in style this winter and still fit! I have a leopard-print faux fur hat I pull out when it snows. My leopard-print fleece robe and slippers keep me warm and cozy during the cold winter months.

Last year, I bought a very tasteful leopard-print cardi and leopard-print belt. This year, my collection has expanded to include a leopard-print jacket, tiger-print skirt, tiger-print cardi, and leopard-print shell. Yesterday, I finally gave in and purchased the zebra-print cardi I’ve been lusting after. Dad's giving it to me for Christmas. As soon as the zebra-print chiffon skirt goes on sale, it’s probably going to find a home in my closet as well. I also ordered a leopard-print knit top yesterday, but since it’s a grey-black print instead of the traditional brown-black and was on a super sale, I could justify it.

I’m still searching for the perfect leopard-print scarf, then I think my collection will be complete. Mom had one that I wish I had, but who knows what happened to it when Dad was cleaning out her stuff. Oh, then there’s the cheetah-print blazer that I may have to have if it’s still left in my size after the price gets reduced a bit more. It looks really good on me. So does the leopard-print pencil skirt that I'll bet Mom would have already bought me for Christmas. I'll have to see how low the price goes.

I’m sure Mom’s laughing at me, but she’d also love all my animal-print clothes. I still wear the leopard-print sweater set I wore for her funeral. Like mother, like daughter.

The itsy bitsy spider...

scared the shit out of me last Friday. Since it was well after Labor Day, I was transferring the contents of my summer black straw tote to my new winter black leather hobo. In the process, a medium-size black spider flew out of somewhere and wound up on the back of my hand. I dropped everything, frantically shaking my hand, and the spider disappeared. I didn’t see where he went. Gingerly picking up all of the items in the area didn’t reveal a spider, so I decided to assume that he’d fled and was no longer in the immediate vicinity.

In celebration of the beginning of the weekend, I decided to get a $5 one-topping pizza from Little Caesar’s for supper. Pizza calls for beer, so I stopped at Lowe’s Foods first to pick up a six-pack. The cashier rang up my purchase and I reached into my purse for my wallet, which is green. I opened the wallet and out popped the same black spider I’d disturbed earlier in the day.

Fortunately, I’m not a screamer. I inhaled sharply, and like any sane person, flung the open wallet down on the counter, and stepped back. The spider was perched motionless in the middle of the open wallet. The clerk just stared. I wasn’t touching that wallet until the spider was removed. There were several people waiting in line behind me. Too bad, they could go to another checkout lane because I was not going to try and get my money out of the wallet until the spider was gone. It didn’t matter to me how long it took.

The clerk was still just standing there. “Do you have a Kleenex?” I asked. I was willing to kill the spider if I had something to do it with. She slowly started walking across the front of the store. She stayed gone so long that at first I thought perhaps she was scared of spiders and wasn’t coming back. In the meantime, the spider decided to move. He ran to the front of the counter and leaped to the floor. As soon as he touched the tile, I stomped him to death. Crisis solved.

Right about then, the clerk finally returned with a paper towel. “I don’t need it now. I just smashed him on the floor,” I informed her while calmly reaching for my wallet to hand her the money for the beer. The people in line behind me were staring. I suppose I could have used the Kleenex to clean up floor, but now that the spider was dead and not attached to anything belonging to me, it was no longer my problem. I completed my purchase and headed for the door, desperately needing one of those beers to calm my nerves.

I was hoping that the spider was the same one I’d encountered earlier that day and that there wasn’t an entire family of spiders living in my purse. I was a little nervous when I reached for my wallet at Little Caesar’s to pay for the pizza, but no guts no glory, or in this case no pizza. I was relieved when no spider jumped out at me.

The pizza and beer were good and boy, had I earned them.

The load

I went to Rocky Mount yesterday. I got home about 6 p.m. and stopped at McDonald’s to pick up cheeseburgers for supper. I was tired and didn’t feel like fixing Dad a sandwich. All I had to do was put ice in his glass and get his Diet Pepsi out of the frig. I went out to tell him supper was ready and then pushed his glass against the ice dispenser paddle. Instead of ice, a flood of water came pouring out of the dispenser. At first, I thought I’d accidentally hit the water dispenser instead of the ice dispenser. Nope, the glass was positioned beneath the correct dispenser.

I opened the freezer door. Everything inside was thawed or thawing and half of the ice in the dispenser had melted. I was standing in water, obviously the melted remains of the other half of the ice that should have been in the dispenser. By this time, Dad had come into the kitchen. “I think the refrigerator died,” I announced. “Everything in the freezer has thawed.” I was grabbing packages of frozen peas and shrimp, hoping they weren’t completely thawed and could be salvaged if I got them to the freezer in the garage.

Dad walked out of the kitchen, heading down the hall. I couldn’t believe he had just walked away. At first, I thought perhaps he’d gone to get some towels out of the linen closet so we could mop up all the water on the floor. He stayed gone so long, I finally went for towels myself. I met Dad coming out of his bedroom. He hadn’t gone for towels. He’d gone to wash his hands for supper!

“I can’t believe the refrigerator stops working and you don’t even help!” I snapped. “Well what could I do? I can barely walk.” He managed to get down the hall to his bathroom. He manages to find the energy to putter in the yard. Even if he wasn’t going to help me move stuff from the frig to the freezer, he could have held the door open and he could have brought me some damn towels! The thought obviously never occurred to him.

I left the refrigerator door closed to try and preserve whatever cool air was still in there. “What do you want to do? Call someone to fix the refrigerator or get a new one?” Dad asked. You might think that was a generous offer. You’d be wrong. It’s not that he wants to be nice and leave the decision to me. It’s that he doesn’t want the responsibility of making a decision.

I spent the rest of the night researching refrigerators. Mine is a Kenmore that I purchased in 2001. Replacing a compressor would cost too much. I decided on a Maytag that had good reviews. The biggest problem was that both Sears and Lowes gave delivery dates of October 4. That meant about 2 weeks without a working refrigerator.

This morning, we obviously needed ice to try and salvage what was left in the refrigerator. Dad was settled in his chair with the newspaper. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and headed to the store for ice, sans makeup and without coffee, annoyed at him all over again for giving no thought to the things that had to be done. I came back with 2 bags of ice, grabbed my coolers, and started divvying up the ice. Dad put down his paper and came to stand in the kitchen.

He didn’t offer to help by holding a bag for me to pour ice into or handing me items out of the refrigerator. He just stood there and watched, as if I was the morning’s entertainment. It took every ounce of restraint I possess not to snap at him that I wasn’t the damn floor-show and if he wasn’t going to help, he could get out of the kitchen. I do not understand how a grown man can act so damn helpless. The only thing you can count on my father for in case of emergency is that he will be of absolutely no help.

After I got the most important things out of the refrigerator, and ran out of cooler space, I opened the freezer door to see what was left in there. I was shocked to see fresh ice in the dispenser and discover that the bread had frozen again. A sudden thought occurred to me. “Did you go in the freezer yesterday?” I asked Dad. “No.” “When was the last time you were in the freezer?” I persisted. “I finished my ice cream on Saturday.”

I guarantee you he didn’t close the door completely and that’s why everything thawed. The same thing happened several months ago when he was getting his ice cream out of the freezer in the garage. He didn’t close the door firmly and things started thawing before I noticed the water on the garage floor.

Dad rarely opens the refrigerator or freezer doors. Since he doesn’t cook or make his own sandwiches and doesn’t even put his Diet Pepsi bottles back in the refrigerator after pouring his drink, he doesn’t pay enough attention to properly closing the door. You can’t just expect the door to fall closed by itself. You have to push it firmly closed. Maybe I should post a sign.

He’s been complaining about the high price of ice cream. If he doesn’t start being more careful, he’s not going to have to worry about the price of ice cream because I’m not going to let him have any. My other thought is to make him buy one of those small dorm-size refrigerators to use solely for his ice cream and Pepsi’s and place the freezer and refrigerator off limits. Newer models come with door alarms, but that wouldn’t help if he was here by himself since he’d never hear it.

Now that it looks like the source of the problem was operator error, I can take some more time before replacing the refrigerator. I did stop by Lowes and Sears to see if they at least had a floor model of the Maytag that I’m interested in. Neither store had it in stock. I did buy refrigerator thermometers for the freezer and refrigerator so I can monitor how they’re cooling. Now if I could just figure out how to monitor Dad.

A wet blanket

My den has become a glorified drying rack with wet newspaper sections draped over almost every available surface. Dad’s morning routine has been severely disrupted. “The newspaper carrier couldn’t have gotten the paper any more wet if he’d tried,” Dad grumbled. “He should have thrown it into the grass not the driveway.” I refrained from pointing out that the newspaper carrier was throwing papers out of a moving car in the dark and I considered it remarkable that the paper wound up in front of the right house.

Dad reads the newspaper religiously, the N&O in the morning and the Daily Herald in the evening. If the paper doesn’t arrive on schedule and in readable condition, he’s not a happy camper. Of course, for someone who devotes so much time to reading the paper, it’s amazing the things that he completely overlooks.

I rarely ever read a print copy of the paper, preferring to get my news online. Although lately, I’m trying to avoid the news as I find it both infuriating and depressing. Last night, I decided to catch up on the local news, so read the three most recent copies of the Herald.

In Wednesday’s paper, there was an announcement that flu shots were being given at the Senior Center on Thursday. This past Thursday. Dad always gets a flu shot at the Senior Center. He hadn’t mentioned going anywhere on Thursday. This morning I mentioned it to him. Nope, he’d missed that announcement. “It was in the paper on Wednesday? I’ve been looking for it,” he complained. It was right at the top of the page under upcoming Valley events.

I pointed out that Drugco was also advertising free flu shots if you have Medicare Part B. “But if you go to the Senior Center you can just walk right up with no waiting,” groused the retired man whose engagement calendar only contains upcoming medical appointments. It’s not like he has a busy social schedule.

Although today, he is scheduled to go to a high school reunion. The last reunion he went to only had four class members in attendance. This year, they’re combining the class of ’44 with the class of ’42. “What happened to the class of ’43?” I asked. He shrugged. “Maybe they’re all dead,” I said helpfully.

I was surprised and pleased that he agreed to attend. It’s being held at the lake and was originally supposed to be a picnic lunch. Since it’s raining here, hence the wet newspaper, I hope they have a foul weather backup plan. I pointed out that moving inside means the mosquitoes won't be feasting on them. Since the mosquitoes are now so big they need landing lights, that's a big plus in my book. Maybe by the time he gets home, the newspaper will be dry enough to read.

Just because it's cute, doesn't mean we need one

Dad called me to the door on Monday. One of the baby squirrels was cavorting in our front yard. “He was standing right by the front tire of the car when I got out,” Dad informed me. “He wanted me to pick him up!” I went out for a closer look and the silly squirrel started trying to follow me across the yard. “He’s too young to know how to look out for himself,” Dad explained.

I went inside for my camera and snapped a few pictures. The squirrel climbed part of the way up the pine tree in the front yard, but then froze, apparently afraid to climb any higher. As someone who is afraid of heights, I didn’t blame him, but going up the tree would have taken him closer to the squirrel’s nest, high up in the branches, that may be the one he fell out of.

At lunch, Dad brought up the squirrel again. “I know you call the Humane Society if it’s a lost puppy or kitten. What do you do if it’s a lost baby squirrel?” I looked at him in amazement. “You behave hardheartedly like me and wait for nature to take its course,” I said. “Think about it. Do we really need another squirrel? It’s not like there aren’t more than enough around here already.” Since when did he start worrying about baby animals?

Peculiar

These are not stone yard ornaments. They're real mushrooms that popped up overnight in my neighbor's yard. I think they're the biggest ones I've ever seen. Hurricane Irene seems to have had that effect on the flora and fauna. I swear the mosquitoes are the size of wasps. I've had to resort to applying bug spray just to take a walk or spend more than 2 minutes outside.

I asked Dad yesterday morning if he'd seen the mushrooms. Last night at supper, he said, "With my hearing, I didn't understand what Larry (our other neighbor) was talking about. He was pointing at something in the yard. There were mushrooms in the area, so I thought he was commenting on their size. I said they were nothing compared to the ones in Suetta's yard. Later I realized he was pointing out 2 baby squirrels that had fallen out of a tree. If he's not aware of my problems hearing, I guess he thinks I'm very peculiar."

"Even people who are aware of your hearing loss think you're peculiar," I assured him. "Thank you," he replied with a grimace. "How could you mistake baby squirrels for mushrooms?" I asked. "Well, they were in the same general area," he said.

There's one thing you count on when talking to my father. No matter what you say, he's going to hear the exact opposite. It's uncanny, but true. And even on those rare occasions when he does hear you correctly, he's still going to view whatever you said in a completely different manner. Trying to communicate with my father is frequently not worth the effort.

Friday, I made the mistake of regaling him with what I thought was a funny story that had happened at work that afternoon. He took the opportunity to be critical and make yet another disparaging comment. Since I was enjoying a beer with the pizza we were having for supper, and had imbibed more than a few sips at that point, I snapped back at him that comments like that were one of the reasons I tried to remember not to tell him anything that happened at work. In fact, they were the reason I frequently tried not to tell him anything at all. I finished the rest of the meal in silence. I'm planning on serving Mexican some time this week. He's earned it.

Will it ever end?

I don't understand why every September 11th we allow the terrorists to relive their greatest victory. They kicked our butt and made us bleed and we're still publicly mourning, every year for the past 10 years. We keep letting them win over and over again. I just don't get it. None of us are ever going to forget 9/11. We don't need public memorial services and tv specials to remind us.

Sweet potato biscuits

I had a sweet potato left over from lunch yesterday which, since I hate to waste food, I had stuck in the refrigerator. This morning, I decided sweet potato biscuits sounded tasty and would be a good way to use up the sweet potato. I found a recipe on-line at All-Recipes.com.

I thought they turned out really well. I've made sweet potato biscuits before using other recipes and been disappointed. These were very good both plain and buttered. I also stuck a piece of country ham in one and had a ham biscuit. Yummy!

Instead of using only all-purpose flour, I substituted 1/2 C whole wheat flour and 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose flour. The only reason I did that was because I accidentally bought whole wheat flour twice recently and I'm now trying to find ways to use it. Normally, I use it when baking Dillon's dog biscuits, and I needed 1 bag, but it would take me years to make enough dog biscuits to use up the 2 bags I now have on hand.

Sweet Potato Biscuits

Ingredients
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 3/4 cup mashed sweet potatoes
• 1/4 cup milk

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in the shortening until pieces of shortening are pea-sized or smaller. Mix in the sweet potatoes, and enough of the milk to make a soft dough.

3. Turn dough out onto a floured surface, and roll or pat out to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into circles using a biscuit cutter or a drinking glass. Place biscuits 1 inch apart onto a greased baking sheet.

4. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

FOOTNOTE (from recipe author)

• Either canned mashed sweet potatoes, or leftover sweet potatoes can be used in this recipe. I make my mashed sweet potatoes using a little brown sugar and cinnamon, which lends a little spice to the biscuits.

Feeling froggy

This little guy was on my porch steps this morning when Dillon and I returned from our walk on the Canal Trail. At first, I thought he was just a leaf, but I went back to take a second look. Then I headed inside for my camera, sure that he'd be gone by the time I returned. He was still there, waiting motionless, until Dillon almost stepped on him. He moved, froze again briefly, and then hopped under the porch to safety.

The Canal Trail is still a mess. I don't think anyone but me has done any cleaning up back there. I keep clearing it one handful at a time since I see no point in continuing to step on the same branches every day. Someone said the Trail was closed. It probably is since it's blocked by fallen trees in many places, but there are no signs where I've been walking, so I just keep climbing over and under and go as far as I can. Right now, I swear the biggest threat is the mosquitoes. If you slow down for even a moment, they try to eat you alive.

I hope they get the Trail cleared by October. It's beautiful back there when the leaves start changing color. It'll look different this fall I'm sure, but it'll be a pity if folks can't walk back there to enjoy the fall foliage and I was looking forward to the Halloween Haunted Trail adventure.

It's not easy being green

I had a flowerpot full of beautiful curly leaf parsley sitting on the porch rail. It was green and lush and lovely. Until yesterday, when I saw a flowerpot of stalks with not a curly leaf in sight. I marched outside in disbelief to get a closer look, wondering what on earth had happened overnight. A quick glance revealed the culprits; 3 big, fat, green caterpillars happily munching away. I was so outraged, I completely missed the photo op.

I grabbed a small American flag, left over from the 4th of July, and used the wooden pole to flick the caterpillars off my plant. They sailed into the air and disappeared somewhere below the porch. At supper, I asked Dad if he’d noticed my parsley. When I shared the story, he said, “I trust you dispatched the varmints.” “I flicked them off with a stick,” I replied. “You didn’t kill them?” he asked incredulously. “No, that would have been gross and disgusting,” I said with distaste.

He shook his head. “That’s probably what’s been eating the leaves on my bushes,” he complained. "Where did they go?" “They're probably on the ground below the porch somewhere,” I said. “If they’re that big, they probably move pretty fast,” he countered. How fast can a caterpillar move? “With so much to eat right there, why would they leave? They’re probably getting ready to climb the porch and launch another attack on my plants,” I said. “Next time you see something like that, call me if you’re too squeamish to take care of them yourself,” he lectured.

He found the caterpillars after supper and killed them. I’m supposed to call him if I see more. Fine, because I don’t want to kill them. Not that I harbor any sentimental fondness for them or have any problem with someone else killing them. It’s just that killing them is going to be messy. It’s one thing to stomp on a spider or whack a fly or mosquito. It’s another thing entirely to squish something as big as those caterpillars. Yuck!

Irene was a bitch

According to the local paper, the power company classified damage to our area as catastrophic. Immediately after Irene, 90% of local customers had no electricity. They were still working to restore power to some customers as late as this past Saturday. Friday morning was the first day that I got up and didn’t hear generators running somewhere nearby.

The number of huge hardwood trees that fell all over town is amazing. We're talking root-balls as wide across as I am tall. Many of them fell without hitting structures, others are lying on buildings. The town is going to look very different when this is all over. It's sad. Old trees are so beautiful and add so much charm and character. Until they fall down. Then the way you view them changes forever, literally and figuratively.

I am so thankful that we had those 18 pines taken out of the backyard a couple of years ago. Otherwise, I have no doubt that some of them would have been lying on the house. I heard a couple of really loud thumps during the storm. I remembered that sound from Hurricane Isabel. It signaled a tree falling. When the storm was over, we discovered 1 pine tree snapped off and lying on the roof of Dad’s shed. Four others had crashed down onto the back fence, which is now knee-high in places. Fortunately, Dillon is a homebody.



Dillon did very well. At first, he retreated to the bathroom and the closet, just like he does whenever it rains. But since there was no thunder and the wind and rain lasted for such a long time, from Saturday morning until about midnight Saturday night, he finally came out and just started following me around everywhere. I guess you can only stay scared for so long. It seemed like every time I turned around for the first couple of days, I was tripping over him. After the storm was over, Dad and I were still tense and busy trying to make do in the dark, so I'm sure the nervous energy and frustration affected him.

Our power was out from Saturday afternoon around 5 p.m. until Monday night around 10 p.m. We were among the lucky ones. Fortunately, the weather wasn’t extremely hot, so it was bearable, but boy, did I miss my ceiling fans. A neighbor let us run a cord from his generator to our freezer for a couple of hours a day so that we didn’t lose all of our frozen food. I still lost everything in the freezer side of the refrigerator.

On my last grocery run before the hurricane, I picked up a bag of ice, just in case. As soon as the power went out, I grabbed stuff for sandwiches and breakfast out of the refrigerator and started loading up coolers. Dad had two nice coolers in Baltimore. Naturally, he sold them before moving down here. Same for the Coleman stove. I doubt he got much money for those things and we sure could have used them. He was completely unprepared for dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane.

I kept a Yankee jar candle burning in the bathroom and one on the hearth in the den so I had some light other than flashlight available. I have a battery-powered lantern that Dad decided was one of the best things ever invented because you can carry it easily by the handle, set it down on a counter or table, and have both hands free. I discovered that trying to read by a book light is easiest if the book is a paperback. My transistor radio came in handy for getting important local updates, like the location of stores with ice. I used Sterno to heat water for coffee in an old fondue pot and an old pickle jar to make sun tea in the backyard.

First thing Monday morning, Dad presented himself at the insurance company’s office. They had no power and no telephone, but they took his information and assured him they would report the claim as soon as they had service again. That wasn’t good enough for Dad. He insisted the woman use her personal cell phone to call in his claim. He spent the rest of the week expecting the insurance adjuster to turn up at any moment, going so far as to tape a note on the front door that he was hard of hearing and instructing the insurance adjuster to knock loudly, but not leave because he was there. The adjuster didn’t call until Thursday and came to the house this morning. Dad was satisfied with the man’s initial report, so hopefully that will work out to suit him.

Dad has now decided that perhaps preparing for a hurricane isn’t so foolish. He’s been pricing generators and has assured me that he’s going to buy a 100 ft. 12-gauge extension cord. He went to Radio Shack to check out battery-powered radios. He keeps shaking his head and wondering aloud, “What if it had been stronger than a category 1?” He may change his mind in another week or so, but for the moment, he’s become a convert to the benefits of emergency preparedness.

Can you hear me now?

My landline telephone went out last Saturday during Irene. Fortunately, it stayed on long enough for me to report the cable outage and the power outage, but after that, my ability to communicate with the outside world became problematic. I have a Tracfone cell phone. For the first few days, my cell had no service, which was frustrating since I’d made a point of charging it just in case the landline went down.

I finally discovered that if I stood in a certain place on the back porch, I could get a signal sometimes. On Friday and Saturday, I had to resort to standing in the middle of the backyard in order to get a signal. I tried to remember to take a pen and pad outside with me for messages because if I tried to go back inside, the signal dropped.

My landline phone was out until this Sunday. My initial date for service restoration was August 30. Three CenturyLink customer service reps called to provide me with that update. After that date came and went, I had dead silence from CenturyLink customer service, just the same as when I picked up the telephone receiver.

On Thursday, I called to try to get some type of update. The lady was very nice, but could only say that repairs were going slower than expected. I tried playing the my dad is elderly and I can’t call 911 if he has a health problem card. It was a serious concern. Dad has been out there cleaning up the pinecones and branches in the yard and he overdoes it sometimes. When he tells me that he’s going to take a day off because he’s tired, I become concerned. With no landline, and a cell phone that only works in the middle of the backyard, what would I do in case of emergency?

The customer service lady said she’d make a note so the supervisor was aware that I needed priority service. She went so far as to say she’d send paperwork to Dad’s doctor to try and get us priority service in the future. I went out front to relay the news to Dad. I found him standing beneath the Chinese maple, arms above his head, holding onto one of the branches as if that was the only thing keeping him upright. I told him if a CenturyLink repairman turned up, he should try and look decrepit. “I don’t think that will be a problem. How’s this?” he asked. “That’ll work fine,” I assured him, “just hold that pose.” Unfortunately, being earmarked “priority” still didn’t get my phone back on.

Sunday morning, the doorbell rang and it was a CenturyLink repairman. Finally. Of course, after he came back to the door a couple of minutes later to ask if I knew where the phone lines went into my house, I began to question how much help he was going to be. It’s not like the lines are hidden. They run from the utility pole at the front corner of my lot right across the front yard to the bedroom end of the house. Fortunately, once he had that information, and spent about 30 minutes going from one utility pole to another, he managed to get my phone service back.

Apparently, there was a huge tree about a mile away that had fallen and taken the phone line down with it, cutting off service to my neighborhood. I’m glad to have service restored. The blinking light on my telephone indicating voice mails was about to drive me crazy. And for someone who refuses to answer the phone, Dad hates to miss a call when he’s expecting one.

I hear voices

That’s a good thing! The cable went out last Saturday morning, hours before the main thrust of Irene arrived. There was no damage to the lines going from the house to the pole at the street and no damage anywhere on the lines in my immediate neighborhood, but obviously, there was a problem somewhere. Naturally, Charter provided no information as to when service would be back.

Disasters are very boring when you can’t watch the tv coverage. Dad was going through serious tv withdrawal surviving 8 days with no Yankee baseball or Lehrer News Hour and Nightly Business Report. I suggested it would be a good time to read War and Peace. Apparently, that’s not on his bucket list. I had a bunch of library books, but only a few managed to keep my interest. I wasn’t in the mood for anything serious or thought-provoking. I just wanted to be entertained with no heavy lifting required.

Dad used the opportunity to start lobbying for satellite tv again. I’ve been resisting because in order to get all the channels we can’t live without, we’d need a package that costs more than I’m currently paying. Last night, after a week without tv, I was ready to say to hell with the cost difference and sign up. It’s ironic to me that one of cable’s chief selling points is that service stays on during bad weather, except hurricanes apparently. My neighbors with satellite had tv back as soon as power was restored.

I’ve been turning the tv on every day, just to see if by some miracle service had been restored. This morning, I clicked the on button. It takes a minute for the picture to come on, but I thought I heard voices. Sure enough, the picture came on. One more step towards civilization. I hurried down the hall to tell Dad. He hasn’t been trying the tv at all, depending upon me to alert him when it started working again.

The good news is we have cable. The bad news is today’s Yankees’ game is airing on a channel we don’t get. One step forward, another step back. At least Dad can watch 60 Minutes tonight. And I’m still considering signing up to Dish. Yeah, I’d be paying more, but Charter sucks, and I’d get a ton more channels with Dish. If Charter can call me multiple times a week to try to sell me more services, they were trying to sell me some ESPN package while I had no cable, why can’t they call to tell me when service will be restored? It’s amazing how short-sighted and tone-deaf companies can be.