Back to Baking

On the plus side of visiting the grocery store (the one formally known as the non-frustrating grocery store - now, name to be determined) is that, along with the items on our list (or most of them), we ended up buying a few things that hadn't occurred to us. (By the way, that's also the negative side.)

One unplanned thing we bought (or three things, depending how you look at it) is, we bought three clumps of pizza dough. Pizza is one of the many things Sam and I bake when it gets to be baking season. 

The day we went grocery shopping, fall was in the air. Baking something like pizza seemed like a good idea. So we got some clumps of dough which meant we also had to add sauce, cheese and a few other things to the list, as well. No big deal. Grueling as it was to be at that store, we got everything we would need.

Though fall was in the air on the day we went grocery shopping, the next day, the day we decided to do the baking, fall was nowhere to be seen. At least, that was the case by the time we spread the dough and heated up the oven. The nice cool and comfortable fall morning air had been replaced by the usual hot, muggy summer air. Not a great day to do some baking.

Unfortunately, the die was cast and the dough had been stretched. There was no turning back. 

We made our three pizzas, which would have been nicer to do on a cooler day - but even on a hot, muggy day, it was fun. 

Hot and muggy, but fun.

Speed Shopping

Due to the ongoing pandemic, Sam and I no longer make our approximately thirty-five visits per week to various grocery stores in the area. Rather, we've reduced our visits down to one visit, to one grocery store, approximately once every week or so. 

The one grocery store we still regularly visit is one of those bulk-type stores (we like to do things in bulk). We've been stalling on the visits to the regular, usually non-frustrating grocery store (as opposed to the other, usually frustrating but still nostalgic, grocery store) mostly because in these still-in-a-pandemic-despite-what-some-people-say times, we don't want to have to go to multiple places if we really don't need to - especially to a store like the usually non-frustrating grocery store, where the aisles are much narrower.

For the most part this has been working out pretty well. The one problem we’ve run into is that the bulk store doesn’t carry everything we need (i.e.: “want”). For example, Sam uses a particular type of toothpaste that I can only get at the regular, usually non-frustrating grocery store. He also likes a particular type of canned fruit I can only find there. And I can't can't find regular, non-instant, non-single serving oatmeal at the bulk store. And, maybe most importantly, the bulk store doesn't carry the kind of pot scrubbers I like. (I fully recognize this is a sad commentary on the state of my life.) I could go on but you get the idea.

Over the last few months, these items, as well as everything else we couldn't get at the bulk store, have been going on a separate list. Over the last few months, the list has grown to be pretty long.

So, for the first time in over five months, Sam and I headed over to the usually non-frustrating grocery store. As we do with our trips to the bulk store, we headed out early to avoid the crowds. This, presumably, was smart.

When we arrived, the parking lot was pretty empty - but those few customers that were heading into the store had the distinct aura of frantic desperation - nearly running from their cars to the entrance, side-eyeing other approaching customers as a threat, grabbing at carriages, etc. Even now, I'm not sure what the big deal was. Maybe it's been like that for the last five months.

Anyway, once inside, the store seemed relatively empty (of customers, that is). Only those few frantic individuals were in our immediate vicinity. 

Thankfully, none of the merchandise had been rearranged. Everything we could find was where we expected to find it. The only discernible difference from our last visit months ago was that at the end of each aisle, there were now "one way" stickers on the floor. This was good news. This meant that our trip should be brief and efficient.

Except...

Down in the next-to-the-last aisle, there’s this one guy, this one mask-less guy (did I mention there's a sign outside of the store, as well as several throughout, telling customers to wear masks?), wandering aimlessly down the aisle - the wrong way. 

Not only does this guy have no mask on and not only is he the only one in this narrow aisle going the wrong way, but Mr. Rules-Don’t-Apply-to-Me is now using the sure-to-piss-me-off shopping technique (even in non-pandemic times) of barely inching along, drifting from side-to-side, randomly stopping with his cart at odd angles, and then standing next to his cart as he slowly picks up and examines each and every item on the opposite side of the aisle - thus blocking the entire aisle as he evaluates the worthiness of each potential purchases. 

“Let’s see… Do I want the eight and a half inch paper plates... or do I want the eleven inch paper plates? Maybe it would help if I spend the next few minutes picking up one package of eight and a half inch paper plates, study it for a while, then put it back on the shelf - and then pick up a pack of the eleven inch paper plates, study it for a while- and then put it back on the shelf. Then maybe I'll think for a few more minutes --- and then I'll pick up the pack of eight and a half inch paper plates again and study it for awhile...And maybe I should keep doing this...because. I’m. Just. Not. Sure.” Geez buddy. What is the big dilemma here? They're a buck sixty-nine for a package. For God’s sake, just buy one of each!

To make matters worse, once Sam and I - and the line of people behind us - finally got by this guy, we immediately ran into him again in the next aisle - still mask-less (of course), still slowly drifting side to side, like a pinball rolling in slow motion, still going the wrong way, and ultimately, still blocking our way.

But finally, FINALLY, we made it to the cashier where we were eventually able to check out.

It’s times like this that make me glad we’ve cut back from our weekly thirty-five or so visits to the grocery store. But we did pretty well purchase-wise. We got most of the things on our list, plus, for better or worse, a few things that weren't on the list. And most importantly, I got my pot scrubbers (even though they weren't on sale).

Today's Artwork

Another piece of art from the "Under My Bed Collection". This, like the previous example, is from the early Jacob era, circa 1998 (more or less)...

Revisiting the Rail Yard

Yesterday evening, for the first time in about two months, Sam and I went for a walk down at the rail yard. This walk, as we've found, is pretty weather dependent. Or rather, wind direction dependent. This is the path that, partway down, comes all too close to the vicinity of a sewage treatment plant. The plant sits just to the east of the path, just after the Bridge of Death. 

If the wind is blowing from the west, as it was yesterday, it blows the treatment plant's "aroma" away from us and allows for a more than tolerable experience. If the wind blows from the east, or, if it's a hot and humid day and the air is not moving at all (as it was about two months ago) - well, as Sam used to say, it's not our favorite. 

Two months ago, Sam and I made it as far as crossing over the Bridge of Death - and then we ran into the invisible cloud of stink. Thus ended our sometimes leisurely strolls at the rail yard - at least for the foreseeable future. 

Yesterday felt as if autumn was approaching, which I guess it is. The air was particularly comfortable. With low humidity and a light westerly wind, the walk worked out fine. (Though, by our return, the wind had died down and one of us (not me) spent much of our time in range of the of the treatment plant, coughing and semi-gagging). 

But we made it. That's the important thing. Here are some all too familiar views which, by now, don't need any explanation...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

News From My Neighborhood

I would like to thank my oblivious neighbors for going out and buying a new dog who pretty much barks nonstop all day long. This neighborhood was way too quiet before you folks stepped in and took corrective action! Hearing nothing but the sounds of birds singing (and admittedly, the occasional sounds of distant traffic) was getting way too monotonous for my tastes.

Judging from the dog's still youthful, though no longer puppy-like appearance, I'm thinking that this is either a rescue dog or a dog that some non-insane person had dropped off to "go live on a farm" somewhere (which I guess, technically, still makes it a rescue dog). Thankfully, my kindhearted, self-absorbed neighbors have opened their home, their hearts, and our neighborhood, to this exuberant and outspoken piece of joy.

I just hope and pray that this pooch isn't one of those dogs that one day (maybe soon) goes berserk and turns on it's owners, leaving them in a somewhat tragic, possibly semi-alive condition. 

That would be a real shame.

Closure

This morning, Sam and I grabbed a shovel and headed back to bury the dead turtle we came upon last night. Sam stayed several paces behind while I walked ahead and located it. Picking it up with the shovel, I found a spot nearby and we buried him along the riverbank, near the hollow tree. 

After putting the shovel back in the car, Sam and I walked the loop in the opposite direction of last night. We walked past the pond where the heron had been fishing, eventually coming to the spot where we buried the turtle. 

Sam slowed down and I watched as he walked slowly, peering over his shoulder at the small patch of bare earth. Then, turning forward, he moved ahead at his usual breakneck speed, and continued on with a smile.

Tonight's Sad Walk

On tonight's walk, Sam and I came upon a dead turtle, recently run over by the looks of it - a big crack in the middle of it's shell. I had to turn Sam away.

We both felt bad and wished we had a shovel to bury the poor thing.

Further down the road, we stopped and watched as a heron fished for dinner. We took pictures and talked about how lucky we were to come upon it. It was a good distraction for both of us. 

We continued our walk, then headed home.

We haven't talked about the turtle since we left. Sam seems to be doing ok. I still feel bad about it.

Home Work

The last week and a half has been devoted to, among other things, cleaning the house(!). This so-called cleaning is long past being long overdue - by about twenty-five years or so. But this is not to say that, after this week and a half, the place is now clean. This isn't even to say that the place is now cleaner. It's just that there is now slightly (not to be confused with "noticeably") less junk stuffed into this very old, very tiny, storage locker we like to call "home".

I took twenty-eight bags of trash to the dump the other day. If you were to look at our house, you would probably think, "Wait. Did he say he got rid of twenty-eight bags of trash - or did he say he brought home twenty-eight bags of trash?" It's that bad. Still.

While this house "cleaning" has been a little intense, it's also been a little spotty (think of a dog with mange). But at least the house is twenty-eight bags of junk lighter. I just wish the weight loss would show. Still, we didn't put it on overnight. We're not going to take if off overnight.

It would be nice if this pandemic wasn't around. Under so-called normal conditions, we could at least have a tag sale with some of this still-not-tossed-out junk. Instead, we're saving the stuff we want to tag sale for that possible moment in the probably distant future when a tag sale may once again be possible.

This means we now have at least three classifications of junk in and around our house: 1) Junk we may want to tag sale so we'll hang onto it until we can have one - and then possibly throw it out after, maybe (3% of our junk). 2) Junk we may possibly want to throw out - tag sale or not (.01% of our junk). And 3) All the other junk we have which we have no idea why we have it, what it's for, or in some cases, even what it is - but we know it's valuable, or possibly useful - so don't touch it - or else (96.99% of our junk). 

(By the way, "Junk" might be a little harsh. Many years ago, I made a comment about all the junk in our house and my Aunt Ellie said, in her usual dry and pointed manner, "How do you define 'Junk'?" My response was, "Anything that's not mine." I still hold to this but I'll try to use the more socially acceptable "stuff" instead - purely out of respect to Aunt Ellie, not out of respect to the truth or anything like that.)

 

 

So the cleaning and sorting continues. At least for now. 

 

One of Sam's jobs during this traumatic ordeal has been to take any of the seemingly endless amount of toy tubs - and sort them one-by-one. These new Sam-sorted categories (not to be confused with the categories above) are: 1) Toys I (Sam) want to keep. 2) Toys I (Sam) want to sell (in the Tag Sale of the Future). 3) Toys that may or may not be mine, or may or may not be Jake's - but he needs to look at

them and decide who they belong to and what to do about it. And 4) LEGOs. LEGOs is by far the largest category.

Sam has now sorted through an unknown amount of these tubs, to the point where we have two three MASSIVE tubs filled with nothing but LEGOs - and there are many more unsorted tubs to go. If my house someday sinks into the ground, it will be due in no small part to the weight of an infinite amount of LEGOs.

I saw a news story about a year or two back about LEGO collectors and how some people pay a lot of money for certain ones of these little blocks. At the time, I though this was pretty neat. Now, with tens of thousands of these things sitting in tubs all over my house, I'm thinking it's either pretty neat - or pretty crazy. Who has the patience to sort through tens of thousands of these things, looking for that one tiny little block which may or may not be worth something?

I don't know the answer, but I'm thinking either Jake and Sam might be a possibility.

More on the Form

Well, we managed to get Sam's ADA Bus Application completed. As I did three years ago, I wrote an attachment which allowed me to a) give a fuller explanation of (a small portion of) Sam's disabilities, and b) answer several of the form's questions with a "see attached" jotted in the all-too-short response lines. 

Also, as I did three years ago, I went through the form, question by question, with Sam, explaining those questions which needed an explanation, eliciting answers from him on those questions where he had an opinion. I'm not sure how helpful he finds this. I like to think, maybe (probably) foolishly, it makes a difference.

Going through it this way can be time consuming but in the end it's probably the most painless part of this ritual. Sam, without exception, has always been compliant with everything he's had to deal with over the years - so filling out these forms together was pretty minor, at least, in the greater scheme of things. And if I were in a better frame of mind about this entire nonsensical process, I might even be tempted to call this portion of it enjoyable. Maybe.

Next up was figuring out what to do about the doctor's portion of this application. Ultimately, I called his physician's office which resulted in making a phone appointment with Sam's doctor. As it turned out, she had an opening the next day and we could get it taken care of pretty quickly - if I could get the form over to them right away. Otherwise, it might be a few weeks.

This meant driving over to the doctor's office with the form (no big deal), facing the newly installed nurses (or possibly random volunteers) who are stationed inside the entry, who now take your temperature and ask you questions about possible COVID symptoms (leaving me to wonder how many people answer those questions honestly) and then dropping off the semi-filled out form (along with my attachment) with the receptionist stationed behind the also newly installed sneeze guard, in the now nearly abandoned, magazine-less waiting room - all of which was accomplished in well under an hour.

The next morning, the doctor called at eight A.M. - right on time. She and I pretty much breezed through her portion of the form, mostly because, shockingly, few if any of the answers had changed from the three years previous. Still, it was good that I could elaborate on a few things with her. Plus it's good to (hopefully) get some of those elaborations in Sam's record.

The next morning, the receptionist called and let me know I could pick up the completed form, so... see paragraph above.

With the form back, Sam signed it and addressed the envelope. I cosigned it... and noticed the doctor had forgotten to fill out a small portion on the back of one of the pages. So, after a brief call, it was once again back over to the doctor's office where... etc., etc, etc.

Finally, we were ready to get this thing out of our (my) sweaty hands and over to the Bus Company. We called the Bus Company before heading over, only to find out that, due to the pandemic, they are now open only limited hours. "Limited" in this case meant they had closed ten minutes ago. 

The drop off would have to wait another day.

Yesterday, Sam and I headed over to the Bus Company, making sure we were there within their new, limited schedule - only to find we couldn't get in. Every single door was locked. Every single door had the exact same sign on it. The only difference was that on some doors, the arrow pointed in a different direction. This resulted in cleverly leading you (us) in an endless loop around the building. 

Looking inside the dark building, we could see some kind of security guard(!) stationed in the lobby (I guess to prevent all the potential looters looking to steal those bus schedules). Whatever else he was doing in there (which appeared to be "nothing") he was doing his level best to look in every direction but ours. 

After finally giving up, leaving the security guard to his more important work (of counting the holes in the ceiling tiles), Sam and I went over and parked ourselves on a bench while I tried calling the Powers That Be. Nothing. Nothing but the same old recording about the Bus Company's apparently non-existent new hours.  

I had hoped to be able to hand this form over to an allegedly real person, both in order to get the name of who was responsible for receiving this form, as well as for allowing me the opportunity to give said allegedly real person one of my patented "do you know how ridiculous this is" glares. But it was not to be. Instead, we headed over to the post office and we mailed the damn thing.

Now, it's in the hands of a Higher Power, which is to say, the Post Office (and if you've been following the news and how Fearless Leader is now weaving his magic with them, well...). 

Anyway, now we wait. This is probably the worst part of these kinds of things - the waiting. Waiting for someone, god knows who, to make a decision on whether Sam can, in this case, continue to ride a bus he's already been found to be in need of. 

But for now, at least, and for hopefully for at least three more years, it's done... unless the Post Office or the Bus Company manages to lose it. Then we can to do this all over again. 

I'm sure that would never happen.

Today's Very Brief Conversation

Me: That shirt looks nice on you, Sam.

Sam: Thanks! (Looks at my shirt. Looks up at me. Looks down at my shirt again. *pause* Goes back to playing on his phone.)

Lost Time

You would think I would have accomplished something worthwhile in the two weeks since I last posted. If that's what you're thinking, you would be wrong. Well, that's not entirely true. Somewhere in there, maybe just before somewhere in there, actually, I picked up Rachael and brought her home for an extended visit - though to me, "visit" somehow seems like the wrong word to use for someone coming back home, albeit temporarily. But that's probably (obviously) just me.

It's strange and frustrating, but understandable, in these inter-covid days, to be wearing masks and semi-social distancing around family members and people you love. But if that's what it takes for a visit, that's what I'll begrudgingly do. A masked visit is better than no visit at all, so I'll take what I can get.

It was a two week stay that went by way too quickly - but that's the way it goes with these kinds of things.

Somewhere in those two weeks we did a lot of walking; showing Rachael some of the places Sam and I frequent. Somewhere in those two weeks, we went for ice cream - at least twice (though for some of us (not me), even more).

Somewhere in those two weeks, we laid a poor, unfortunate robin to rest in our Garden of Lost Pets and Wildlife. The bird, injured beyond repair, died shortly after placing him (or her) on a soft towel in a box, before we could get it any help. Like the passing of all the poor creatures we've buried over the years, it was heartbreaking.

And somewhere in those two weeks, we did other things, too. I think. Being all of three days since bringing Rachael back to The Big City, it's still kind of a blur.

On Saturday morning, we drove Rachael back to her make-believe home - a long drive made longer by knowing we would be returning home without her. Still, while we were there, we got to visit briefly. It was nice to see not only where she lives, but also to have the chance for her to show us a few of the places she frequents.

It was a visit that was over too quickly - both the day, as well as the two preceding weeks. And while it was not a lot of fun to leave her behind, at least we were lucky enough to share that time together. And these days, like all days, I (try to) enjoy it while it lasts - and, like always, I'll take what I can get.