Rainy Days and Mondays

 Rain.

It’s Monday and it’s raining. The Carpenters had a song about that. Rainy days and Monday’s Always Get Me Down.

Except they don’t.

I like rain. I like the sound of rain on our metal roof. I’m not too keen on the rain seeping in the leak we can’t seem to pinpoint, but I still like the rain. As for Mondays – they don’t really bother me too much any longer. When I worked a regular office job (for that university that must not be named in the middle of the state) Mondays were kind of a downer. But when I worked for newspapers I worked nights, weekends and holidays so Mondays were just another day -- kind of like they are now, minus the work part. I guess that actually makes Mondays better any way you look at it.

The rain has chased us inside the trailer. King is watching “Gunsmoke” on satellite TV. Before that he watched “The Big Valley.” He has a penchant for TV westerns. I can take them or leave them. I have an annoying habit of watching the actors and their stunt doubles ride horses. I am a snob when it comes to riding ability. Michael Landon was a good rider as were John Wayne, Robert Fuller, John Smith and a few others. The rest? Not so much. I’ve also been known to scream at the TV, “lighten up on that poor horse’s mouth. That hurts!” And don’t get me going about the final scene of Hidalgo where the character Frank Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen) returns the horse to the wild – with its (the horse’s) shoes on. I saw the movie in the theater and yelled at the screen, “Are you kidding me?” John Wayne and Audry Murphy both rode the same horse. It’s a good thing they never did a movie together. Michael Landon’s famous paint horse was actually more than a dozen horses over the course of the TV series – sometimes two different horses were in the same episode (and yes, I can tell the difference). James Arnes (Matt Dillon, Gunsmoke) and Lorene Greene (Ben Cartwright, Bonanza) also rode the same buckskin horse – Buck. Stands to reason Ben Cartwright never visited Dodge City.

So, that’s my life on a rainy day -- thinking about TV westerns and the horses that made them.

Back in reality, we still don’t have a departure date – although we do have a “must be in California by date.” Our daughter has a work commitment in mid-November. We will be there by then to help with the grandsons. We are also running up against some new COVID-19 regulations that are complicating our stay. The San Diego County park system has some lovely parks for camping. Each one has a 14 day limit, but we could move from park to park and never really had a problem. This year they have a 60-day total time limit for all the parks combined. Although they say it is because of COVID, I am fairly certain it is because the huge homeless population often travels from park to park. Those of us here in the Midwest, where winters are not conducive to year-round homeless living, really can’t fathom how prevalent homelessness is. Trust me, it happens right here in South Haven, but one does not often see people living in makeshift shelters under viaducts, or alleyways next to generators.

The challenge for us will be finding an affordable place to stay near our daughter who now lives in Carlsbad, California. There is also the problem with the age of our travel trailer. Many private parks and RV Resorts have an age limit for their trailers (anywhere from 10 to 15 years). Our trailer falls into the “older than dirt” category. Having an age limit, and banning school bus conversions is a way to keep pleasing aesthetics in parks – but that’s another story.

  
In the end we will figure it all out. We fly by the seat of our pants but we always manage. It’s our way.

The time to leave is quickly approaching ... I think

It’s a beautiful fall day but I’ve been chased inside by the multitude of flies that seem to be so prevalent this season. I’ve become quite adept with the flyswatter. The hapless intruders don’t stand a chance.

From my vantage point by the kitchen table I can see the Kal Haven Trail. The trees along the trail are still green – until you look closely and you can see a slight yellow tinge to them. While driving to Glenn today to get our mail there was an occasional tree that simply could not hold out any longer and has already changed to a brilliant orange.

The RV section of the campground was near capacity this weekend. But that includes a handful of RVs that are housing a work crew for the I-196 highway project. They come in Sunday night or Monday morning, spend the week at the campground and leave Thursday night for their real homes. The empty RVs stay here. This weekend, in addition to those staying in their RVs,  there were few hardy tenters. I’m not certain how long they will continue to venture out. We had a frost Saturday morning so they must have been cold. Or not. We have not yet turned on our furnace. When I poke my head out from under the covers on frosty mornings, there is something to be said for being able to snuggle back under the comforter and know if it gets REALLY cold I can pull out a sleeping bag. One would think those who stay in a tent are of the same mind. Except, I also know I have a really nice furnace I can turn on when the chill becomes unbearable.

Things simply seem to be winding down. We are in the home stretch for getting ready to hit the road. I think I ask King almost daily when his last golf scramble is as our departure date depends on the last golf outing. I know he knows when it is. He won’t tell me until I quit asking. And I won’t quit asking so we are at an impasse.  This is one I cannot win, but I’m too stubborn to give in. He and our sons are playing in a scramble today so I’m hoping they will have a few more dates and I can ask one of the boys for an idea of how much longer. When sons get to a certain age they can’t say no to Mom. We’ve been married 44 years so I obviously have a few work-arounds.

I’ve already enlisted our sons to work on King for new tires. I’ve mentioned the need for tires in another blog. Yesterday a friend was visiting. We have a canopy outside the trailer where we sit when we “entertain.” The friend helped me find the manufacture date on the tires. They were made in 2003. King pretends he thinks it’s not a problem. Again, after 44 years I can tell when he is wavering.

I’ve also mapped out our route. For the past four years I have been saying I want to visit the World’s Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas. It has often been on our list of stops. For one reason or another (snowstorms, the need to be in California in three days, an ice storm, etc. etc. etc.) our route has always changed. Although Kansas is kind of considered the middle of the country, believe it or not it’s not exactly on the way to California. I’m hoping this year we can make it. I also want to see the World’s Largest Belt Buckle, the Kaskaskia Dragon, the Welcome Alien in Roswell, NM and a few other places many consider tourist traps. I’m a sucker for Americana and National Parks. The two can be compatible if you know how to do it right. Being a retired journalist I’d also love to go to the Ernie Pyle Museum in Dana, Indiana but I don’t think it will be open. Ernie Pyle was a World War II war correspondent. My favorite journalism professor used to read excerpts from his columns to our class.

I spent an afternoon mapping our route, knowing full well we won’t follow it.  In fact, we have yet to follow any route. I am not exaggerating when our say our trip always changes – most of the time before we reach Chicago.

 It’s just our fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants way.

The foibles of technology.

I think it’s been a long summer for everyone. Not that King and I spend a lot of time socializing, but an entire summer of social distancing and finding things to fill our time meant we spent a lot of time on social media. Facebook is my social media site of choice and when I tallied my time spent on the site (they actually have a tool that tells you how much time you spend scrolling through junk) I decided it was time to disable the Facebook app on my phone. That way, I reasoned, I would have to consciously think about getting on Facebook. It would mean pulling my laptop out of the closet where it is kept, plugging in, booting up, wait for pages to load (it’s an old laptop) and – in short I’d have to REALY REALLY want to see what is happening in the Facebook world.

But getting Facebook off my phone was easier said than done. For me, the latest and greatest in cell phones is not a priority. My son was telling me he is coveting an android that comes with a $900 price tag. I’d rather have new tires on the trailer. My cheap, less than $150 phone came with Facebook pre-loaded so uninstalling the app was not an option. Turns out I had to disable it. When I clicked on the disable button I got a warning that disabling the app could cause other apps to “misbehave.” What does that even mean? In the end, I reasoned I had dealt with misbehaving children so how difficult could a misbehaving app be?  I bit the bullet and disabled the app. So far I’ve not seen a difference. No untoward behavior. Should bad behavior rear its ugly head, I’ll be stuck with a misbehaving phone.

Of course, I could have just stayed off Facebook but I have to be honest; I don’t have the willpower to just quit. The temptation was very, very strong. Sneaking one little glimpse into the Facebook world couldn’t possibly hurt, right? So I’d tell myself I would spend just a few minutes checking out my newsfeed. An hour later, with eyes blurring, I’d put my phone down.  It’s like eating just one potato chip.  It’s never going to happen. (I recall the time my sister-in-law told me about a new product she found in the dairy section of the grocery store. Philadelphia Cream Cheesecake bites. “They are so tasty,” she said. “One little square just hits the spot and takes the edge off hunger.” Really? One little 1 x 1 square satiates your need. Sure. I believe you).

But I digress.

 My son was telling me about a documentary he watched on Netflix about how much Facebook spies on us.  Then a few other people started talking about the same documentary, “Social Dilemma.” It would seem Big Brother (or a nefarious business) IS watching us. Now, I don’t have any deep dark secrets so no worries, right? I pretty much share everything on Facebook anyway, however, every time I drive past Walgreens I get a text message telling me what is on sale.  I know it’s not Facebook narcing on my location, but still. And I suppose it could be a coincidence, who knows?  Pretty sure it’s Google sharing my location.  But since Google Maps is such an integral part of our travels, Google has to stay.

King is cautious with sharing data but only if it is his idea. Most of the time he tends to think it is much ado about nothing. His attitude is so what? That is until the time our bank account was compromised and then he was concerned with “how did this happen?”  Telling him it could be any number of things did not help. Our next to non-existent online banking center help desk was actually a “no help desk.” We eventually gave up and switched banks.  It had taken me months to convince King direct deposit was the way to go. He REALLY wanted that paper check. When I pointed out to him it is rather hard to track us down while traveling he finally did acquiesce. Then the account was compromised, the bank shut it down and we were stuck with three direct deposits with no place to go. It literally took a call to our state representative (a former student) to get his pension check.

Technology is great when it works. When it doesn’t it is a nightmare. When they spy on us it is something else altogether.

 

Endings/beginnings

 The calendar says summer officially ends (this year) September 22,  and fall will continue  through December 21st. We all know that is not true. Summer ends the day everyone goes back to school. Winter begins with the first snowfall – unless it happens before Halloween, then it’s a fall snowstorm.

Or at least that is what it has been in the past. This year the recurring theme – rather than lamenting the end of summer -- is:  “What is going to happen when the kids go back to school?”

Tuesday, September 8, is the first day of school for our grandchildren in Grand Haven. The district had postponed an August start. The grandchildren in Paw Paw started August 31, and the grandchildren in California started (online) August 24. A niece who teaches in Spring Lake started a hybrid classroom August 26. Colleges are dealing with the spread of the COVID  virus among students and at my alma mater in mid-Michigan students are protesting face-to-face classes. It’s not your typical start to the school year.

I will confess both King (a retired school administrator) and I have a lot of reservations about the start of school. King is glad he does not have to deal with it on a professional level and we are both concerned for our children and grandchildren.

Meanwhile our life at the campground continues.  King and I are watching the weekend numbers slowly dwindle. I think the few trailers that are still here during the week are workers who travel the country to work when nuclear plants have their “outages” or maintenance on the facilities. Specialists come in to work the “outages” – traveling from nuclear plant to nuclear plant and living in the area for the month or two the plants are down/out/not powering or whatever you want to call it. The Palisades plant in South Haven is currently having an “outage.”  The plant is actually closing permanently at some point but that date appears to be a moving target. Since I no longer work in a newsroom I don’t pay much attention. Maybe that makes me uncaring? Or maybe I’m distracted by other things.

Ahh life goes on.

On a personal level, just as school resuming has caught us by surprise, so too has the reality that in two months King and I will be on the road again. We are waiting for the official date of the last golf scramble to determine our actual departure date. Retirement allows for that kind of flexibility.

But it is not as if our pending departure has taken us totally by surprise. There has been some planning, albeit it's been done in a haphazard sort of way. (My sister Donna, the perpetual planner, would be in full panic mode were she still with us).  In July I went online at the Secretary of State website to make an appointment for the trailer title transfer and discovered the earliest I could get in was November. That’s kind of not acceptable. I’ve been told I can call the day before I'd like to go in and try for a next day appointment. I keep putting it off a day of being on hold – I guess I’d better get to it.

The trailer also needs tires. King doesn’t think so. In the past I would just get up one day (preferable a golf day), hook up the trailer and have it done.  Unfortunately it’s no longer something I can just drive off and do. If we still had a backyard with a trailer in it, I might get away with it. As it is now he might notice the trailer missing or it moving down the road while he is sleeping in it. Small details, but I’ve always been able to figure a way around things or do what I want and listen to him complain about it in a off-handed way: “We could be going out to dinner tonight but you spent our money on new tires.” Those who know King see the humor in that statement. We never go out to dinner. My daughter has to tell him, “Take Mom out for dinner on Mother’s Day. Big Boy or McDonald’s does not count.”

And the truck … the “Check 4-wheel drive” light has been on since the fuel pump went out in Tulsa on our way home this spring. At the insistence of our son, and against the wishes of King, I took it in to have the differentials checked in June. The repair person said the differentials were fine and he was pretty sure the warning light was something that had been disconnected when they dropped the engine to replace the fuel pump. I’m guessing that light can’t be ignored much longer either. Points, plugs and warning lights are also on our “to do” list.

In the grand scheme of things these are small, petty annoyances. There are so many worse things going on right now. By the end of October they will be taken care of or we will have justified not doing them. It will all work out in the end.

In the meantime enjoy what is left of your summer, or fall, or whatever you wish to call it. And may all your annoyances be small ones.

 

 

 

 

But it's not enough for a garage sale

I am probably the Mrs. Kravitz (of the original Bewitched TV sitcom fame) of the Kal Haven Outpost campground.

Our home is parked next to the main entrance of the campground so I often sit in the “living room” and watch the comings and goings of fellow campers.

Last night a huge fifth-wheel trailer pulled in. I watched as first the truck appeared in my view and then the trailer, and the trailer and the trailer. Today, I can lean back and look out the window and watch as they continue to set up their camp.  The trailer was a “toy hauler” and this morning they backed a gator/golf cart thing out of the back end. The ramp then becomes a sort of outdoor seating area. They also set up a free-standing canopy. It’s a nice setup.

Before the pandemic shut things down last winter, King, our daughter and I took an afternoon and looked at new travel trailers. I have to confess we didn’t bother looking at the bigger models or the fifth wheels. It wasn’t so much the price tags as it was the length. Neither one of us has a desire to pull (and park) anything longer than 20 feet. That pretty much puts us in what manufacturers label as the “Weekender” category.  Evidently they don’t think one can live full-time in small spaces.  It takes some compromise,  but it is doable.

We are enjoying our life in our “weekender” and we continue to work to make our tiny house a home.

Last week King and I traveled to Grand Haven to help our son finish painting and putting up trim on his house. Well, King helped. I played with the grandkids. It gave us the opportunity to go through the nine remaining boxes of stuff we have stored in our son’s tool shed. I came home with a 1945 edition of the Joy of Cooking (which was a wedding gift to my mother), a few prints my mother had in her home, the Bible that was given to me when I joined Haven Reformed Church as a teen, and a couple of trivets.  

There are still a few boxes remaining that contain small appliances. They are doing little more than gathering dirt and mold. I thought I might save their content for the day we need to move into an apartment.  Now I am not so sure. I’m doing well with the set of cheap pots and pans, a single knife and plastic mixing bowls I use daily in the trailer.

So, I started eliminating even more “stuff” and gave a juicer and the picnic basked it had been stored in to our daughter-in-law.  I have a food dehydrator that I will give to the first daughter or daughter-in-law who says she wants it. I have bread pans and a few other things that can go to Goodwill.

Those treasures we decided to keep we brought home and spent a day or two looking for places to display them.  We live in 160 square feet. There is not a lot of wall space.

Our eclectic home has now become even more so. It’s become the Brady Bunch 1970s kitchen meets a 1980s rust and orange dining room meets my mother’s Early American décor.  The trailer now has a few sentimental things that will only mean something to me. The Early American prints were a gift from me to Mom when said she wanted something for above their bed.  There are two trivets in the kitchen. One was a gift to Mom when the church’s Women’s Guild group had a Secret Santa gift exchange in 1965. (There is a date and name on it). The other trivet I bought for her in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg, Russia) when I was an exchange student to Finland in 1973. There is also a glass vase my Finnish family gave my mother that same summer.  The cookbook is tucked away with a homemade Glenn United Methodist Church cookbook that has a few recipes from Mom in it.

Seven sentimental items and a sewing machine – that’s not so hard for kids to get rid of when King and I are gone, right?

Although it’s not much of a garage sale, is it.

We truly are worlds apart

It’s Sunday morning and the campground is a beehive of activity. People are sitting around their campfires for one last cup of coffee, joggers are getting one last run in before packing up and leaving and those wanting to get an early start are starting to unhook their trailers and RV’s or take down their tents.  By this afternoon there will be about eight of us left in the campground for the week. Summers are busy, but by the time we leave for the winter we will be the only trailer here.

I’ve been watching the young people across the drive from us. A group of eight friends (I assume they are friends) in their mid-to-late 20s spent the weekend camping. They have been a quiet group, spending most of the time sitting around the campfire, playing football and generally just chilling. There are two dogs with them – a golden retriever and a black lab. The lab must be older as he’s pretty sedate and goes with the flow. The Golden… is much younger and is quite insistent that everyone must love him for obvious reasons. They are well-behaved dogs. I got barked at when I came around the corner of our trailer with a huge hanging flower basket in my arms. It scared the poor lab to death to see a walking flower basket. He barked. Once.

Cindy could care less that there are other dogs around. She spends her days either sleeping in our bed or sleeping in the shade of the side of the trailer that faces the road. There is soft dirt there and she digs it up slightly for the coolness of the dirt under the surface.  I’m not certain she even notices the people across the drive, or if she can see that far. She definitely can’t hear them.  She is at the stage in her life where naps are frequent. She stretches out and almost immediately starts snoring.  Sometimes standing directly over her and calling her name is not enough to wake her and I have to physically touch her. I think it scares me as much as it does her.  Even my sweet Cindy could wake up snapping if startled. She never has… but the possibility is always there. I’m always cognoscente of that fact. I practice touch and jump back.

King and I normally park our home in more remote locations and often find our nearest neighbor to be a quarter-mile or further away.  This campground is very nice, clean and modern. But it reminds me of our early marriage years when we lived in married student housing. That’s ok. A bit of nostalgia is good for the soul. In our early days together I was the more gregarious one. I spent a lot of time outside with the other mothers watching our children and talking about classes. King only ventured out when there was a pickup basketball game.

I’m not so gregarious anymore. I prefer isolation. I could say it’s the pandemic, but I honestly think things would be the same with or without social distancing.  People wear me out.

Something happened this week that has me scratching my head and saying to myself, “Really, Phyllis?”

We got satellite TV.

For the first time in 43 years I can honestly say I am really excited about having almost unlimited TV channels. I think it is a further excuse to stay away from people.  A complete satellite system was among the things given to us by our friend two weeks ago.  It only took our son (a former cable installer) and 50 calls to the service to get it working. I guess I REALLY missed cable news shows. I didn’t realize it until I spent that first morning with satellite binge watching news shows. And yes… they are news SHOWS. Please people. Learn the difference between news reporting and opinion giving. That said, I do enjoy watching them.  Except for one news network, but since I neither endorse nor pan anything in my blog, that show shall remain nameless.

But I don’t watch news 24/7. And King likes his sitcom re-runs (before we got satellite I bought him the first five seasons of Andy Griffith on DVD and he now has the shows memorized). 

The other night, however, I fell asleep while reading and woke to King swearing at the TV. I listened for a while and realized he was swearing at a news show host.  “He’s just giving his opinion. He’s entitled,” I told him.

“Not when his opinion is wrong.”

“Ok then. I have a nice teen paranormal romance here. Why don’t you take a break and learn about werewolves and Dijons?”

We are worlds apart.

 

I get new marching orders

I arrived in Michigan from our winter in California with an ankle that sometimes ballooned to three times its normal size. Friends and family were convinced I was going to die. I was pretty sure whatever was wrong happened because I repeatedly whacked my foot on the side of our daughter’s bed while I was taking care of her after surgery. She often insisted, quite loudly, that I move a little faster while helping her in and out of bed.

After several ex-rays and doctor visits I finally relented and made an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon to see if he could figure out what was going on. Turns out I have an extra bone in my ankle (it’s congenital) that was, in fact, injured by whacking it repeatedly on the side of the bed. There is actually a name for the extra bone. It’s called os trigonum.

The surgeon suggested I start physical therapy. Three summers ago I went to physical therapy when I had knee replacement. So it’s not new to me. It’s cool. It gives me something to do.  And I’d like to be able to keep up with our 13-year-old dog, Cindy, when we go for walks.

I have the same therapist I had three years ago. My first day of therapy was his first day back to work since the COVID shutdown. I would like to say here, I wear a mask,   I work out on a bike for several minutes of “warm up” and I have yet to die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Wrong again conspiracy theorists.  

So part of my therapy is to improve my balance while standing on one foot. I can’t do it and I’m pretty sure it’s not an injury thing. I simply don’t have any balance.  I used to. I could do that yoga pose thing where you put your left foot against your right knee and stand for hours.  Now I just tip over.  The therapist is always ready to grab me in case I don’t right myself in time.  I finally told him I would give him an A for effort but if I actually did tip over to just let me go. One person down is better than two.

Honestly, I used to be quite limber. I could do hand springs, cartwheels, forward and backward walk-overs and even a passable splits. It is quite surprising when you discover these feats are no longer possible.

Years ago, when the children were young, we were visiting my parents. The grass was soft and cushy and I decided to try a backward walk-over. I think I landed first on my neck and then on back with my feet stuck underneath me. And I could not move. I finally managed to roll across the driveway to a lawn chair and pull myself up. I walked into the house to find my father lying on the floor in fits of laughter.

He finally pulled himself together long enough to gasp out, “I was coming to help you but I couldn’t stop laughing.”

Anyway, that was the last time I tried anything acrobatic.