Saturday, June 04, 2011

Possum: not just for dinner anymore!

Or at least that was what Little Miss Piggie Pie told me, barking at the top of her lungs and straining at the tie-out chain yesterday morning. There was a possum huddled under the dilapidated stone wall on the east side of my property, and LMPP wanted to catch it and kill it and eat it raw. When I hauled her in like a fish on a line, she sulked until it was time for me to leave for work, at which time she was happy to chase the cookies I'd tossed down into the basement.

Because I had dropped my car off for $350 worth of repairs on Thursday (oil change, air filter, new water pump), I had to wait for Mom to stop at a bank before picking me up. We got to work a little before 10:00, and then left at 11:30 to have lunch with three friends from the legal field (and Mom ducked one opposing counsel she'd just left a counter-offer for). After lunch, we got everything Mom needed for Portage County on Monday morning packed up and agreed that while we'd gotten stuff done throughout the week, there wasn't much of a feeling of accomplishment.

Mom took me to get my car, and I stopped for groceries before coming home. My evening consisted of watering plants, finishing the book I was reading, and wrestling the big Norfolk pine outside before LMPP ate any more of the potting soil out of the planter.

This morning I got up early, showered, dressed and stuffed the dog in the basement, and headed for Mom's. We went to a flea market in Chardon, which is northeast of Mom's house. We had a little contest--we each started with $25, and compared notes on how much we'd gotten at the end of the morning. I got three pretty daylilies, a gourmet dog biscuit and two purses. Mom got two hand mirrors, a set of pretty cloth napkins, a basket of sweet white onions and the most adorable birdhouse. She still had money left over, so she won. :) We had lunch at a local coffee shop, then stopped by the knitting store. They were having a big sale for their anniversary, so the $10 skeins of ribbon yarn were only $3 each! Mom got enough ribbon yarn to make ruffled scarves for me and maybe my picky aunt. Or maybe not--the last three attempts at scarves for Aunt Turkey were rejected for various reasons. *eye roll*

I had practiced purling on the way up, since I'd managed to forget how to purl since Christmas. I'm making coasters, because the ones I have are wood, which is nice but doesn't do much to battle condensation in the humid Ohio summer. I didn't knit on the way home, since we went the pretty way instead of the fast way, and I wanted to see everything. I did almost finish my first coaster, though, in a pattern called purl ridges. I'm still just knitting squares, but at least they're interesting squares!

When we got home, both of us slightly gimpy from all the walking and me slightly sunburned and very itchy, Dad told Mom she'd had an urgent call from a nursing home. She called them back, and found out that one of her wards had died of metastized lung cancer, less than two weeks after his diagnosis. Because Mom has been this man's guardian since 1986, she had no idea who his preneed funeral was with, and she was prepared to go into the office to get it. Fortunately, in 2003, I had copied all of the client files off the hard disks she used to use, so Dad remoted in to Mom's work computer, and opened up the Motion. I was able to tell Mom both the name of the funeral home and when she bought the preneed funeral, so unless they demanded the contract, she shouldn't have had to drive down to Akron.

I came home just as Snoopy was finishing up with the lawn, talked to him for about ten minutes, and then LMPP and I took a nice nap. Tomorrow I need to plant my new daylilies, but tonight is going to be all about relaxing.

No comments: