The Weekend That Was

My first day off started with shopping.  This is snow bird country and we had fun with that in Wal-mart.  While in the girls section, I see a dress I want to get for Faith.  So, I whip out my new phone and call my daughter to get Faith's size.  She said she got the package and enjoyed the prickly pear candy Duane sent her.  I told her to hold on he's right here.  He's sitting on the store scooter talking to Nicole while I'm looking at dresses.

Dress for Faith, t-shirt for Nicole and sleeper for Anna.

On the way to the grocery store is Grandma's Spinning Wheel.  My favorite yarn shop.  I like Kiwi Knitting, but Grandma has more of a selection of hand dyed yarns.  I picked up a second skein of the merino silk that I bought last month to make my sweater.  For some strange reason another skein just jumped onto the counter with the one I came to buy.  Yarn is sooo sneaky like that.  Vouch for me ladies.  Duane reads this blog and the comments I get.

This is Alpaca Peds 20 % superfine alpaca, 65% superwash merino 15% nylon.  It comes with a smaller co-oridinating skein for the heels and toes.  That's the melon color in the background.  I'm making this into socks for someone who may or may not read this blog.  I'm not telling which.  Then again, this person has the same size foot as me and I might decide I like them too much.  The weather is getting cooler, or so the weatherman claims.

Taken with my Nikon digital camera.

I haven't been able to find 20 ounce apples since we moved down here.  A Google search and I noticed that my favorite apple farm, Herman's sells them mail order.  $16.00 for 18 apples which is a good deal.  But then $19.28 for UPS ground shipping for a total of $35.28.  Which is kind of expensive, but I was going to do it for a good NY apple.

At the grocery store, I saw these huge honey crisp apples, which is what they are selling back home.  They were on sale for .99 a pound.  I just about did a happy dance right there in the store.  The strangest things amuse me to no end.

Taken with my phone camera.  Granny Smith is placed for size.

I bought five of the big ones and four granny smiths.  Now, I have to decide.  Do I want to make my yearly apple cake, or apple pie, or an apple tarte tatin? Duane is wanting pie, but that means I'll have clean off the clutter on the table.   Once I go back to work on Tuesday, I won't have the energy to deal with them.  I'm not sure if these apples are as appley as the NY apples.  We'll find out and I'll let you know.  I'm a bit of an apple snob being I come from an area that has both an Apple Blossom Festival and Apple Festival every year.

I thought I could come home, help put the groceries away, then play with my new yarn. This past week, our dollhouse size frig has been acting up.  It took several days for the manager to get his guy to bring us a new one.  Friday night, we get the new bigger frig.  When we came home, the new one was worse than the old one.  The ice trays were filled with warm water.  We had to throw out everything that wasn't a condiment. A somewhat quick trip to CVS on the corner, carrying back twenty pounds of ice.  I called the manager and he came to look at it an hour later.

I'm pissed that I'm about to lose another $200.00 worth of food that I just bought.  Plus, my late ex-MIL was thawing.  Over the summer, when I suspected that all the things going wrong was my ex-MIL's curse,  Nurse Rudee suggested I write my MIL's on a piece of brown paperbag put it in water and freeze it.  Which I promptly did and shortly there after, Duane got his disability, the boarder left, and I got a job. I grabbed up the container and went next door to the manager.

He says, "The guy is coming in an hour with a different one."

Me: "That's good.  In the meantime, can you freeze this little container for me."

He reaches for it. "Yeah, sure. What is it?"

"My ex-MIL, I can't let her un-thaw."

He jumps back, and looks at me like I was holding a body part in my hand.

"It's just water and a paper with her name on it."

"Oh, ok." He warily takes it from me and puts it in his freezer.  I then explain the above.   He's looking at me sideways.  I'm suddenly not the normal person he thought I was.  Possibly a witch!

Hello, I was hoping to appear on That 70's Show. 

Frustrated as I was, instead of playing with yarn, I cleaned the living room. A couple hours later and the guy dragged this beast in, straight out of the 70's.  Harvest gold, Kelvinator. Duane said the next one would probably be avocado green.  I said, "There better not be a next one and most certainly not any avocado green."  That color gives me nightmares from my teenage years.  Luckily, we had ice within a half hour, and not the kind that I had to walk to the CVS and drag back.  Then, I went back to the manager and collected my late ex-MIL. He's still looking at me funny.

Butterscotch says, "These are my colors."

Sunday morning, I spent quietly knitting on the purple sock until Duane got up.  He was angry that his Bears that were in London wasn't on TV.  Talked to my daughter for an hour on the phone.  Then cleaned the bedroom.  My neck was cramping after that, so I thought I would take the luxury of an hour nap.

Something had attacked my plants.

When I woke up, I took my coffee out on the patio.  I noticed something wasn't right with my plants.  They were fine just an hour ago, before I laid down.  Upper left corner and bottom right.  When I inspected them, the bottom right one had been dug up, chewed and laying on the petunias.

The upper left plant wasn't completely dug out, but certainly had been trampled and chewed on.  I'm suspecting it's the kitten from the apartment across the way.  The man who isn't supposed to be there (that's another story), has been letting the kitten out the past few days.  I've saw this kitten run through my planter a few times.  Duane says, it's all circumstantial evidence.  I've had plants since January and never a problem until now.   While I was fixing my plants and watering them, that guy tossed a ball out the door to make the kitten go outside.  I asked him if that kitten had been in my planter.  He ignored me.

One of the few things lately, that has made life enjoyable for me.  I'm pissed.  When the manager walked by and I showed him the damage, the man closed his inner door.  I didn't get to tell the manager my suspicions as he was holding heavy bags of groceries and was in a hurry to get inside.  More circumstantial evidence is, when that man let the kitten out this morning and it ran for planter, he came and got it.

Today, is my last day off.  I need to walk up to the store to get carrots and spinach, for the bunnies and birds.  Do the laundry and maybe make a pie or a tarte-tatin.  Any thing else happens and I might beat it with my broomstick and remove all doubt about whether I'm a witch or not.

I want to thank everyone for you kind wishes about my granddaughter on Friday.  Sadly this is a nightmare that is probably going last a long while.