11am
My mother in law bought twin beds for the guestroom in case she has 2 guests at once who are not related, or, the grandchildren are here. Kind of what she should maybe have done 20 years ago, but. We'll just note that there's finally a setup for guests in a home she owns.
She slept in one of these beds for quite a while because the full sized bed she had ordered for master bedroom took an incredibly long time to come and she didn't really want to bring her old bedroom set here to the new place.
She ordered it during the pandemic from an Amish furniture maker in Ohio (a lot of her stuff is from there) and it took about 9 months to arrive. Now all the bedrooms are set up, and she has been still sleeping in here. Until this week, with our arrival. I hope she is enjoying her new bed and will continue to enjoy it. I really like it. It suits her well.
Twin beds, man. They're small. I wake up to roll over and am surprised and sometimes in danger of falling out of the bed. But I do like having my own Toss And Turn spot. I move around a lot at night. Doug is relatively stable. And the mattress is comfy. It is an okay place to be as long as I do not fall out of bed.
It's hot in this bedroom though. Hawwwwt. There is a ceiling fan (oh thank you sweet baby Jesus) which helps but I'm still too hot. I'm one of these hotel guests who lowers the AC to 64 degrees and snuggles to sleepies under the covers. Rather than be in a room that is maybe in the 70s (?) and sleep on top of the covers.
The pulls on the ceiling fan are weird. They hang perfectly still, and then one of them will start to circle, and then they bang together. The pulls are little ceramic discs, and they click together, sounding like dominoes. Silence for 20 minutes, then movement, clicking for a few minutes, then click! click! click!
The first night we were here it drove me batty. Last night I told Doug to put on his podcast and instead of setting it to stop playing after the episode was over - let it ride, continue playing and playing. Drown out the clicks.
It didn't work.
He got out of bed and managed to stick his belt up by the belt buckle on the longer one pull, just to hold it still.
Chaos before sleeping.
I feel like princess chrissie again, I'm normally not fussy, but this is important. It's exhausting for me being here. There have been a lot of discussions and back and forth and I am spending time with 2 people who always are right. So when they disagree, the other one is so wrong, and it's on and on and on.
Doug made a nice breakfast this morning. There were 9 eggs in the fridge, so he made fluffy scrambled eggs for the 3 of us. She said that she usually only has toast so this was a nice treat. She mentioned how nice it was repeatedly. I think Doug liked that a lot.
She has a gourmet kitchen and only makes herself toast. She fussed at him about using the stove but he didn't listen to her. He made scrambled eggs and ignored the fussing. There was a whole discussion about eating bread. She said we need to eat carbs to "protect our protein" and we had NEVER heard of such a thing. She said that with diabetes, we had to eat carbs. We said no, that is basically like saying "hey, here, you're allergic to gluten and it will kill you so eat all this gluten!"
They had a huge discussion about food, and the whole fussing about the stove and skillet and even making breakfast AT ALL stressed me out. He just ignores her. He has that kind of agency to ignore his mom fussing. The benefits of being someone's child. I just want to not be fussed at, and hide if I am being fussed at. Being not someone's child, this is my lot in life and the relationship.
Climate Change: Doug does not think it is "real" but he's not exactly a climate denier. She's all into it. We should be doing things to fix the problem. Doug says China and India are the number one problems, when actually, it is the US. Arguments ensue.
Fox News: My MIL has always been conservative but she does not allow that channel to be on in this house. She doesn't watch any of the national news "entertainment" shows - they are not news. They're propaganda machines. Doug watches Fox News (which, I hate...) So he especially likes Fox News Sunday, which is the only program I'll tolerate from their offerings. I miss Chris Wallace.
So they went at it on Sunday morning at 9am about this. She went into the kitchen and played NPR. Loudly because she is hard of hearing.
Battlin' News Ensues.
If it was not already 92 degrees out, and if I had a chair to sit on the patio in, well. I'd be outside.
So I've been hiding here in the guest room. Door is open, people can see me, I'm just removed from the noise.
1pm
Right now, the awning on the patio won't open. I so a lot of Troubleshooting is happening, and I am hiding. We noticed this morning, Doug and I, that there is a paper wasp nest growing inside the awning. We decided we'd try to open the awning so we could sit out on the patio furniture we carried out. It waiting. It is ready. But awning will not open, wasps have to be dealt with before I go out that way ever again. Bastards. More chaos.
We ended up calling technical support for help and found out that we (well, I. I admit it was me) changed the "channel" on the remote control, and it was all my fault. Had no idea what those 4 buttons were for that lit up along the bottom of the remote. Who knew you could have four awnings on one house and run them all off one remote. I mean, really. Who. Knew.
Lesson learned.
10 pm
This afternoon we went to home depot for some shelving. It turned into a 2 hour thing. Debating on what size shelves, wire chrome? wire black? 4 shelves or 5? are they adjustable? What about these plastic shelves. Who needs to store up to 10,000 pounds on one shelving unit. (Oh, people do.)
THEN... maybe I don't want shelves maybe I want like a cabinet. Searching for someone to help, they send us over there. No cabinets. Another person sends us back to shelving to the bathroom shelving area. I finally find a girl to ask if she has any idea, and she says they don't carry them anymore but they are available online.
MIL asks 100 questions. Why don't they carry them anymore? etc... etc.... it's not the girl's fault they aren't carried please leave her alone. Let's go back to the shelves. welll..... No. Maybe I want something like this modular thing like California Closets. No. You need someone to come in and install that. Can we just get the wire shelves.
We got one shelving unit.
We'll set it up and test out how it looks. I think she needs 3 or 4. Doug said 6 all along the one wall. She thinks 3 is even too much. It's going to take up so much space. Oh my God no, you'll put stuff up on the shelves. And have more space in front of the shelves. Why are we doing this!
We also got wasp spray, a small plastic table for the patio to put between the bench and chair. Doug had gone to get black mulch for out front yesterday because Bonnie's HOA only allows BLACK mulch. no other mulch! NO OTHER MULCH! And the staff landscaper here will put it down, but it'll cost her $250. Doug said no way. it is 6 bucks a bag! Fuck that!
So yesterday he went looking for the black mulch and there wasn't any. Another guy came over and said that he needed black mulch too. They had a discussion about how every single other color was out there, brown, grey, red... but no black.
Doug: I wonder why that is that only one kind of mulch would be completely out of stock.
Other Guy: Well, you know. Elections have consequences, and we're looking at it now.
Oh, so this is Joe Biden's fault that the store is out of black mulch? C'mon man.
The reason why there is no black mulch is because the landscapers for the all HOAs in the area all came and bought it all up. All of it. There are SEVERAL housing developments where black mulch is mandatory, your humble narrator noticed while riding around. If a homeowner was allowed to buy whatever the hell color mulch they wanted, they could switch to brown or red or stones and live happily ever after.
But no. Black Mulch Shortage means Joe Biden fucked things up. And yes, he is fucking a lot of things up but not black mulch supply.
Right, dude.
Anyway.
We successfully got the black mulch, happily restocked and plenty of it! Loaded up the shelves, the wasp spray, the little table, and headed home. We wanted to unload the stuff and then go out to dinner.
On the way home our battery light came on. The car started dinging. We came into the driveway and unloaded things, and headed to the car to go out to dinner. It wouldn't start. Doug tried to start it again, the radio turned on and turned off. The interior lights are working, but the car won't turn over.
Last time we had this happen, Doug replaced the battery and the alternator killed the battery in a few days and both then needed to be replaced.
So we think that it's probably the alternator. Doug's sister recommended a local garage. And I'm glad that the car died in the driveway here instead of on us when we are driving down 79 south of Pittsburgh. In the dark. At Night.
Cross your fingers this can be fixed. Diane said there is a huge shortage of mechanics in the area. If we can't get it fixed... oy. I can work from here on Thursday when I'm supposed to be back to work, but I just want to go home. This isn't "vacation." I love my family but I'm not on vacation. But we could maybe get more done for her if we have to stay an extra day or two. We'll see.
It could be worse. more adventures tomorrow, I am sure.
No picture today because the only one I took was of the paper wasps and they freak me out completely. So I won't post it here and have to look at it.
digits
exercise: Dedicated 10+13
Took myself for a walk while cake was being eaten. It was a beautiful night.
blood glucose:
9am: 171
4:30pm: 140
11pm: 183
food
Coffee
Water
3 scrambled eggs, a goat cheese medallion melted in the middle, 3 big pieces of watermelon.
ramekin of mixed nuts
"Piña Loca" half a pineapple carved out, full of grilled shrimp, chicken, onions, and grilled pineapple, side of refried beans & rice, 3 small tortilla wraps. several chips with salsa
2 beers
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