Skip to main content

As the Dust Settles

The cockroach, the wasp, and a couple of mosquitos have paid the ultimate price for their attempt to invade our new abode. I'm sure they will be missed by their families and friends, but the message is clear, "Do not mess with Miss Maria." We are awaiting an autopsy report on the roach. The question is, did the aerosol spray kill him, or did he drown in the excessive amount used to try and kill him? Watch this space for the official report.

(I'm learning that addressing a lady, it is best to proceed her first name with Miss, regardless of her marital status.)

It seemed like we haven't moved for a moment on the afternoon of July 4, 2015. I am standing on the deck of our new abode in Mandeville, LA: cooking Beer Brats, lusting after potato salad, tomato, cucumber, and onion marinated in olive oil /  balsamic vinegar and my cold NA Beer. No, it's true. I was definitely not on the second-floor porch of 1039 Highland, where I might have been having we not moved just a few days ago now. And the company was as good as it gets, but not the same. The hot, humid temperature disappeared for a few hours as a wet and stormy front moved North of us and deigned not to disrupt our picnic. We ate outside until some of us beat an honorable retreat from mosquitos. It always amazes me that the little devils love to bite some and spare the others.

Danny and I watched golf and reminisced about our own attempts to play the game and how much we love it even though neither of us is a threat to anyone playing the game today. PGA Golf is like a lot of TV sports. The guys make you think it's easy. They can't fool the spectators like me. I've played the game. I'm sure it's true with baseball, soccer, basketball, and the rest.

The ladies helped Maria organize her studio. This is no small thing, as the studio is a maze of boxes and totes piled willy nilly throughout the 18 x 18-foot room. Maria went from a frustrated (didn't know what to do first) to a smiling, laughing ruler of her domain. I have become more understanding of the league of women and their need for one and another. While the fringes of the area are still rather chaotic, there is a work table, and her tools are within steps of where they need to be. I think I felt anxiety and frustration leave the house that afternoon as the boxes empty.

We are really settling in. One certain indicator is my job for today, getting our new lawnmower started. I say new, but in fact, Maria scored a super deal at a yard sale. She bought an almost new Toro lawnmower and a Homelite gas-powered weed wacker for $85. Now to get them running and working for us.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ring The Bell

 It appears there is a tradition in the radiology department at Ascension Hospital that patients, upon completing their course of treatment, ring a bell. ( We know not for whom this bell tolls.) Ring the Bell with My Sweetheart Jeanne. Jeanne drove me to all but two of the appointments. Pam Frautchi took me to the other two. Today, after being zapped thirty-two times, I rang the bell. This begins a roughly one-month recovery period where the effects of the radiation abate and, I'm assured, a return to normalcy occurs. In my case, I anticipate more energy and greater awareness. Books, Books, & More Books I am simultaneously celebrating the end of the third year of volunteering for the All Saints Hunger Book Sale. Next week, we will wrap up the preparation for the sale and open our doors on August 3 for the public. I ran into this humourous but quite accurate cartoon on a T-Shirt that shows most of the volunteer's sentiments at this point. If you think the printed and bound p...
One of my latest efforts. Sketch: The Lady Is Blue Gouache 9 X 12 Reporting: I enjoyed a pleasant evening with my friend Michelle Mooney. I took her out for dinner to celebrate her birthday and to thank her for the many first-rate haircuts she's given me. We were surprised at the number of people who dined alfresco in the balmy night air. Whatever we've done to please Mother Nature, she had deemed acceptable by giving us a shot of summer just when late fall weather was wrapping her fingers around our throat. If I have one complaint about the friendly confines of The County Claire, it's the noise level that makes it difficult to converse. The rumble is an acoustical problem with the customers speaking in normal conversational tones. This is without audible TV showing some game or background music selected by a dance DJ.  I know! We should have eaten outside, where the only noise is the occasional 14 bus snorting by.   Maybe It's Me Since my two soccer teams are not doing...

It's time again.

It started in 2004 when we moved to our condo off Downer in Milwaukee. Then we mover to the Westside of Milwaukee when we rented from Ken Karr, the former landlord, now a current friend on Highland and 29th St. Then we moved to Mandeville Louisiana for a little less than a year. Returning to The Fox River Valley, we rented a home in Fox Crossing, formerly The Town of Menasha. When the tree fell on the roof, and the landlord felt no urgency to fix it, we moved to W. Commercial in Appleton. Here is a shocker. Are you sitting down? We are moving. No, I don't mean off the couch and out to the patio. There are too many damn mosquitoes for that to happen. No, we are packing our stuff, or at least the stuff we unpacked from the last move and moving to a home Maria purchased on Mason and Glendale in Appleton. Let me unpack that last sentence (pun planned for). We are moving at approximately the end of September to a house. The house has been in t...