Teeeiiiiirrrrred!

(Texasspeak:  Tired)

I am pretty well exhausted.

Tuesday night sleep was pretty bad.  Having had what was discovered to be an F1 tornado forming over/going over my house kind of made sure of that!

Then Wednesday was Otter's 3rd of 4 dental appointments, which went well.  She didn't get sick this time, the dentist had a newer type of happy gas that worked better for her.  It still took a couple of hours, more or less, for the appointment itself but she recovered much quicker.  She spent a couple of hours on our couch with a blanket and then was able to eat a late lunch with us.  After I took her home, she spent a couple more hours resting and then felt well enough to go run an errand.  She has one more appointment which is in a couple of weeks.

After I took her home, I bought groceries.  The store wasn't very crowded, but I was pretty tired and it took me a while.

When I got home, I parked on the couch with the idea of not moving until it was time to go to bed.  But of course that plan changed when Otter called because her car wouldn't start!

Last summer, it acted up a couple of times and Bill thought it might be a problem with the starter ignition.  Then it started acting right and we forgot about it.  But it's done it a couple of times lately for Otter, so we are probably going to have to see about fixing it.

Last night I think I was in bed before 9:30.  I did manage to sleep last night but I was still tired when I woke up and I'm really tired tonight.

But I keep thinking of the fact that we had a very near brush with a tornado and then I realize that being tired is probably not all that bad at all!  Not when I consider the alternative.

Close. Way Too Close.

Last night, Tuesday, April 26, 2016, we unexpectedly had to play this.  We got over 15 spaces!

Including the one about circulation - and it sprouted right over our house.

It was an ugly night.

But let me start at the beginning.

We knew a few days ago that the conditions were going to be right for bad stuff on Tuesday afternoon, evening and night.  The forecast kept changing and by Tuesday morning, it looked like we would probably not have the bad stuff but still could get thunderstorms, hail and wind with a much slighter chance of bad stuff.  We had a thunderstorm with hail midday.  Then the sun came out and that is actually bad, because warm air was not a good thing to have.

About 7:30 or so, it was a little rainy and it was windy but not bad.  About 9:00, it was obvious that we were probably going to get some storms out of the system that was rapidly moving in from the west.  There had been a few rotating areas, but the one spot that could possibly cause us concern was going to far north to bother us at home or Otter at her apartment although we expected that she could get a harder storm because the southern edge of the storm track was going to be pretty close to her.  Shortly before 10:00, I texted her with that information since I had the tv on and was watching it.

Almost immediately, we heard the worst sound possible:  the sirens going off.  We went to the laundry room (our safe spot) and I called Otter.  I told her to head down to their basement immediately.  She said the sirens in her area were not sounding but she got her shoes on, grabbed her purse and her radio, locked her door and started heading down.  She texted me as soon as she got downstairs and said that their sirens had started almost as soon as she had locked her door.

From then until 10:30, we texted back and forth with updates and the reports kept getting worse and worse.  The storm in her area was tracking north enough that it looked like her area would be safe.  She stayed in the basement with most of the other residents in her building until it was safely past them.  But by then, another "pop up" had happened and it was heading our direction.  It had produced at least one small tornado but it didn't stay.  However, the track was still coming towards us and we were waiting to run back to the laundry room if we needed to.  We weren't sure if we were going to get hit or not.  The wind was pretty strong at that point.  But it suddenly increased and it sounded odd - somewhat like the train sound associated with tornados but not exactly.  At that point, I commented to Bill that I did not like the sound of the wind and at that time the reporters started calling out street names and they were right where we live.  We hotfooted it back to the laundry room - and Maggie went right along with us.  We had taken her back every time we went to the laundry room, but animals frequently seem to sense things like that - maybe they hear them.  When she started heading to the laundry room pretty much ahead of us and on her own, we knew that something bad was happening.  The sound of the wind increased and it was very loud.  That was probably when it was sprouting.  It blew past us in a matter of a few minutes; it did actually develop into a tornado and it touched down probably less than a mile from our house.  I had been texting with Otter because she had heard the same reports we did and she knew we were in the firing line at that point.  When it passed us, I let her know that we were safe.  It was around 11:00 p.m. then.

Otter stayed in their basement for a while, there were a few dogs that were also their with their owners and they did what they always do - she's a magnet for them.  She was playing with a chihuahua that lives in the 1-bedroom that was originally her apartment before she and former roommate moved to the 2-bedroom unit.  Let's just say that she is very much my father's granddaughter!  She went back upstairs after a little while and let me know.

We were both exhausted by that point, but also Thankful.  It was after 11:30 before I managed to get to bed.  Bill was up for a couple more hours, he knew he wasn't going to be able to sleep.  I was awake until well after midnight.  It was so hard to get up at 6:15 this morning when my alarm went off.

Otter had her 3rd of 4 dental appointments today, otherwise I think I would have just turned the alarm off and gone back to sleep.

But we are safe and their were no injuries associated with any of the storms.  There were several small tornados, in Tulsa as well as assorted surrounding areas.

Thoughts on the Loss of a Musical Genius

When the world lost the brilliance that was David Bowie a few months ago, one of my comments in my blog entry was that Prince had always been one of my favorites and that I considered him to be very much like Bowie.  They have a lot in common; immense talent and being very much the trendsetters although in Bowie's case he was the trend and the rest of the world followed.

Prince was at the very least a trendsetter and very much "ahead of the curve" in terms of his talent and the art he produced.

It probably sounds odd that a middle aged, conservative white female likes Prince's music.  But I always have.  Music is very important to me and always will be.  I chose not to be boxed in the a particular genre, style, sounds, etc. but prefer to just enjoy and immerse myself in nearly all styles.

Prince was a very unique person and performer.  While Bowie was the background music and soundtrack of my childhood (and really all of my life), Prince was the type of talent that was the same for a later generation or two.  I think if I have to pick a favorite song, it would be When Doves Cry.

I think it's a very appropriate song for this week.

Talent like that does not come around very often and it's frequently not recognized - at least not always in the artist's lifetime.  But sometimes it is, and the loss of a gifted, brilliant artist like Prince is a hard one to take.  He was truly a musical genius.

Sneezy Friday

This picture perfectly represents my week.

Pass the kleenex please!  (Texasspeak:  any brand of tissue is kleenex.  It just is.  Deal with it.)

Nice. Quiet. Peaceful.

And we have pachinko machines practically raining down on us!

Also, as of today Bill is 100% through with the previous job.  He turned in the paperwork to have his retirement account transferred.

All done, all done, all done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On another note, Maggie was starting to get slightly itchy so she's back on her zyrtec allergy pills.  I gave her the first dose last night and she slept like a rock!

Fluffy, but still a rock!  Just a cute one, though.

See Froggy - I actually remembered to blog without you getting on me!  :)

Just Friday

It's been so much calmer lately that I kind of forget about blogging!  I know, I know - I said I would try to get back into the swing of it.  But we went from crushing stress & worry for over 2 years to none and it's taken a little time to get used to that now!

I have spent a lot of the week with assorted allergy symptoms.  Today's main thing has been sneezing.  A LOT!

When I took Magginator to the vet last week I thought they did the heartworm test but it turned out that they didn't.  So I took her back yesterday and she got the all-clear, so she's now back on the heartworm preventive pills.  We usually only give them during "mosquito season" but with the mild to the point of not actually happening winter we had, the skeeters have already shown up.  In March!  I'm thinking that we'll just make it a year-round thing from here on out.  She's doing very good, she has one pill left of the antibiotics and she's a playful, 12-year old puppy.  She seems to enjoy Bill being home so much, she is really crazy about him and it's funny.  We made tacos for dinner tonight.  Maggie spent the entire time we were cooking sprawled out on her belly, watching every move we made.  Piglet!

Hancock Fabrics announced last week that they are closing.  The entire chain.  There are two in Tulsa.  Otter heard about it and told me, then we went into Tulsa on Monday and went to one of them.  I found a little fabric and two crochet pattern books.  Otter bought fabric as well, and then as many patterns as she could carry!  Ok, she didn't buy quite that many patterns.  :)  But she bought several.  We are going to the other store sometime in the next few days.  They have always had a nice yarn department.  They don't have a lot and the brands that they have are fairly common at other stores.  But they usually have colors that are harder to find.  I had intended to look for yarn (Bill - hush!) but the yarn was consolidated down to one small aisle and it was basically all tossed together.  I took one step and could hardly breathe plus I was one big itchy, watery-eyed mess because of the wool and my allergy to it.  I looked at a couple of skeins but it was all piled together and just touching a non-wool skein made my skin start to react badly because it had been squashed into a bin with the wool yarn.  I'm hoping that the other store is a little better as far as their yarn department goes.

However, I am not allergic to this:

And that is a Very Good Thing.

Those are this year's crop in my front yard.  The whiskey barrel had somewhere around 30 babies come up in it.  Probably not all of them survived, but most of them seem to.  And they are ALL blooming.  Plus there are about 8 plants outside of the whiskey barrel in the yard itself and they are blooming!  The scent is heavenly!  They smell like Home.  It's very strong and the honeybees are very happy.  They are such a deep blue and we are really enjoying them.

It's a TEXAS tradition to take pictures of your children and/or pets with bluebonnets and we missed out on that when Otter was little.  But we have pictures taken from a couple of years ago of Otter with our 'bonnets and then I took some more of her last week.  I'm not posting them because her face is visible, but the pictures turned out very well.  After all, she is a TEXAN and they are bluebonnets.  The fact that they are in NE Oklahoma doesn't matter a bit.

It's just our own, special little corner of TEXAS.

Sunday Ketchup

I haven't done a Catch Up post in a while.  I think it's overdue.  So, here goes:

The situation with Bill's employer actually was over 2 years, now that I've had time to think about things.  It was pretty bad, but once we realized that her was eligible for the contract buy-out we realized just how crushingly bad it was.  Once we found out that he was eligible, there was no question in our minds that he was taking it.  We just weren't sure what day he was going to pick to be his last day.  His last official day was Friday, and on Thursday he received official notification that his job was one that was going to be eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts effective July 1 so he would have been out of a job anyway even if he had stayed.  Just further proof to us that it was God's care and provision.  About 2 dozen people had taken the buy-our as of last Friday, anyone who is eligible can still opt to take it if their jobs are also on the chopping block.

At some point, Bill will need to find another job.  But we will be able to stretch the timeline for that out for a while if we have to.  He spent last week trying to catch up on pachinko machine restoration and cleanings for some of his customers.  The calls and emails wanting restorations and cleaning just keep coming.  More proof that God is still watching over us!

Last Wednesday, there was really bad weather.  It was rainy early in the day, although the forecast was for last afternoon/early evening but the rain had stopped by the time it was supposed to start.  I went to the grocery store, I was just getting back in the car at 5:00 and the news report was on as I started the car.  The reporter stated that we were "in the clear" as far as any potential bad stuff.  About 7:00, the first of what turned out to be 4 separate tornados sprouted.  The first one was west of Tulsa and it went through the northern part of the city/county limits.  There were no deaths, but there were a lot of injuries and a great deal of damage.  The storm continued on east and it took the twister with it.  The next target was a small town north/northeast of Tulsa called Owasso.  Again, damage and injuries but no deaths.  The tornado dissolved but then the storm kept going east and 2 more sprouted.  The next targets were the smaller towns of Claremore and Catoosa.  Widespread damage but again, no deaths were reported.  (None of those are the area we live in.)  We joke about the forecasters, but this time it was no joke.  They just missed it and they missed it BIG.

Otter turned 24 on Thursday!  We got her a small birthday cake, I took it (and ice cream!) to her apartment Wednesday afternoon so that she would have it on her actual birthday.  J was there, so he put it in the fridge for her and I told him to remind her that on your birthday it is perfectly acceptable to have cake for breakfast!  She apparently listened, because she texted me that she had cake AND ICE CREAM for her breakfast on Thursday.  :)  We met J & Otter at a Mexican place for dinner on Thursday, it was really nice.

Maggie was dragging her rear again last week, so I made an appointment with the vet for her on Friday.  That was actually the only time they could see her other than Thursday, and I had already arranged the day off as a vacation day - originally Bill had planned to make Thursday the 31st his last day but then he found out that his insurance premium would be covered for April if he made the 1st his last day.  Anyway, on Thursday morning Maggie had a slight accident.  It looked like she was just not able to make it outside but she tried.  I cleaned up after her and then I realized that she'd had "potty problems" outside and that evening she was acting like she wasn't feeling too good.  I called the vet and let them know and they scheduled an exam for her.  Friday, I took her for a short walk about an hour before the vet appointment.  She was having really bad "potty problems" then and she had a blade of grass sticking out her her behind parts!  She was happy to get in the car but not happy to get to the vet's office, but she was even more unhappy when she realized that she was being taken back to the room to get her "rear alignment!"  The vet came back in with her after that, he said that her glands were actually not very full and that it looked like they had emptied on their own.  He said that sometimes happens and that she probably had a slight intestinal infection.  He gave her an antibiotic liquid dose (which she didn't particularly like) and then sent home a few days worth of antibiotic pills for me to give her twice per day.  She also got her nails trimmed while she was there.  She responded pretty quickly to the medication, although she did figure out that there was a pill hidden in the bread bite she got this morning - she spit it out at me!

OK, I think I'm caught up for now!