While still picking food out of my teeth from my lunch, my washer is tossing the sheets about madly. I woke to hear the HVAC running this morning which meant it was less than 75 degrees above zero in my house! Yikes! The day I landed in Jax after my visit north, the thermometer had reached 79 above zero, but dropped as the rains and winds beset the area. We are expecting these cooler temps to remain through the weekend, due to the front which moved across the southern states, where even Houston is having snow! The Jags will get to play in cooler weather Sunday, with the high expected to be mid 60's, good football playing temperatures!
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Since I crawled out this a.m., I showered and got dressed, did some e-mailing, finished the church newsletter and sent it off, worked on The Palace letter, talked on the phone with Travis (upstairs neighbor) who was trying to help me find health insurance, did some on-line shopping for me and for my sister, blah, blah, blah! Rush is not on the air today and the guy from Milwaukee is substituting for him. Not my favorite fill-in host but oh, well.....Today on Neal's show, he had a repeat caller, a former contractor whom Neal had raked over the coals a few months ago. Neal caught lots of flak for the way he treated the caller, gave him a rough way to go for having four kids in an unstable economy/market as construction, and all that stuff. Sort of told him to quit sitting around and moaning about the problem. Well, the guy called back today to say "thanks" to Neal for making him angry enough to get off his butt, pull himself up again, and got two jobs in order to support his family. It was a real tear-jerker and I could tell that the folks in the studio were also choked up. The show producer, Belinda, asked the guy to hold after he finished with Neal and we suspect this will be the family the "show" will adopt for CHRISTmas, at least, in some way. I love to hear stories like this!
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It is quiet on the river right now, have seen no helicopters at all since getting home, although I was gone much of the day yesterday. Justin called me last night to ask if I saw the orange moon rising. Sadly, I had not, even though, Linda, the palm trees outside my river room had been trimmed. Guess I was not looking. He was putting up lights at his father's house, pressing his friend and friends' brother into service to help him out. Of course, I demand equal time, as though I do not get that, so he is going to spend all of Thursday with me next week. We are starting with Bible study, then come back here to go through my list of things to do.
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I also want my tree put up and such which means I should go to Michael's and/or Joann's for more clip-on ornaments for the tree. Justin loves those and so do I, not only for the simplicity of application but because they are quite lovely. He will also take care of getting the beds ready for our guests, even though Joanne already began the process by stripping the Daybed and trundle and washing them. Between us, Justin and I can prep the beds, make the rooms ready and welcome for the company. Counting the days (20!) until Kerry gets here, for CHRISTmas Eve and then followed by the staggered arrival of Schippers and Alayna. Kerry and Alayna may pass each other in the airport which is too bad. Anyway, Justin and I will end the day with going to see "The Christmas Sweater" at the theater, Glenn Beck's story being simulcast or whatever you call it to the theaters. Guess that is more than equal time, right?
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Tuesday in WI was a full, busy one with many contacts made and even squeezing in one more Bible study. In the morning, I drove up to see Arno at the home, and let us just say that I saw him. I do not know if he saw me or not, since his eyes were pretty shut the entire time. At one point he did mutter something about Nancy going around behind the truck, but whether he was "conscious" or not remains unknown. He was going to see the eye doctor that a.m. (good luck on that one!) and I had a nice conversation with one of his caregivers there, a sweet young lady named Andrea. She was escorting three patients to the eye doctor by herself, yikes!, so just prior to their leaving, I left so as not to hold up production. The staff came out and took a picture of Arno and me with their camera and then used mine to photograph us as well. Andrea asked if I was the Kim from Florida who writes the nice letters and has such beautiful handwriting........well, yes, that's me, and I did not have the heart to tell her it was computer generated penmanship! Barb said they could not have read mine anyway, it was too tiny! Ha!
At least I'm awake in this picture!
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When I got back from Green Bay, I stopped at Late's Drive-In for perch sandwiches and cheese curds for Mom and me. Of course, she suggested we have leftovers instead but ate her nice sandwich and curds. I had to have one more taste of perch before leaving for Florida and that's it! We went to church for Bible study led by Kathy Wendland so I got to see Linda one more time plus some of the other ladies. I dropped Mom off at home after class and went to pick up Sharon at her residence facility. Since my soda supply was depleted at Mom's house, I decided to stop at the minimart on the corner to restock. There I met Pastor Kitzerow, a retired pastor who helps out at FG and is a member there. He really is fond of Alayna and is a sweet sweet man. We had a nice chat before he had to get going and I went in for my sodas. On a table just inside the doors were bags of fresh cheese curds and homemade chocolate candies. Well, well, well, what do you know??? I needed some curds to take back with me and here they were, still warm and runny in their bags. Even though I bought the expensive angel food at The Honey Pot, I took another bag of the candy along as well as non-pariels, my second-favorite chocolate candy. And ooohhh, does it smell good!
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Sharon got off her bus and I took her inside to change and get her supper pills. We went to the Covered Wagon for our dinner, where she could get her bratwurst, bathed in fried onions, and her onion rings. Instead of perch, I get the cheeseburger and a cup of their homemade chicken dumpling soup, just like old times when we came here for lunch when building houses in Manty. For dessert, I made the mistake of telling Sharon, who is blind, that they had blueberry pie. What a mess, even for a sighted person, but much more so for one who cannot see what they are doing!?! Eventually she scraped every bit of blue off the plate and tried to clean her hands with a paper napkin. She had it up to her elbows (an exaggeration on my part) and the waitress noticed the struggles with getting her cleaned up. She brought over a warm dish cloth for Sharon to use on her hands and wrists, no exaggeration, and then Sharon proceeded to wipe her face with the same cloth. Oops! No worries, though, the waitress put the cloth right back into the sudsy bucket she took it from! I had the raisin pie and that just put me over the top, I was stuffed to the brim.
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After I dropped Sharon off at her residence after dinner, I headed over to see the Petska's, where I would meet Barb later on. I got there first! It is so funny at Petska's that they keep their living room TV channel on the one that monitors the lobby of their building, in order to see who is coming and going. Every time I have been there, that is all that is on TV. The last time I was there, the rug in the lobby between the doors was crooked and I told Clara I was going to straighten it out when I get down there again. And I did! She had said the manager would go behind me and put it back the other way, but when I was there Tuesday, Clara said it stayed the way I put it for several days before someone moved it again! Monk-ish me!
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I had a great visit with just the Petska's before Barb got there, telling them that Justin said he was jealous of me, being able to go visit them, because "I like those people!". I knew they would like to know that. They like him, too, almost seeing him as often as their own grandkids. The entire evening was lovely and it was good to see Barb again. I see her folks more often than I see her, it seems. Harv was bowling so Barb will come to her folks house to check on them while he does his bowling. Since they live in Green Bay, the weather can often interefere with those plans so they must take every advantage of visiting.
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Alayna sent me a text message from work asking me to make sure I got in touch with Mona and Allie as they had been asking about me. Evidently Allie did not know Mona and I had lunch the day after I arrived in town and totally missed seeing me. Nuts! Time ran out but of course, I put a bug in her ear to tag along with Alayna when she comes down at CHRISTmas---ooooo, Mona will hate me for that!
