Saturday August 1st 2026

Doing the usual after-1st-cup-of-coffee dozing; just CAN'T keep my eyes open! Was rudely awakened again just now by a loud squeaking bark from Tinker. I wish she'd just outright bark instead of that noise! So I suppose I ort to get that ever important 2nd cup. No big important things to do today except everything! Like getting this blessed room cleaned up since it is Satiddy, and I DO have to restock my gingerale!

J came over to my room last night to ask me to come out to the LR to talk with her. She is depressed about having this knee recuperation going on so long, and her nieces not coming over every week to see her, and a half-sister I didn't even know she had, who is JEALOUS that she let me come stay here. Apparently this half-sister is one she had little contact with for a very lengthy time (years?), and now I hear about how this person has a borderline personality disorder! Eeek, I don't look forward to meeting THAT one, if and when she decides to visit! Apparently I have been given the guest room she used if she ever came to stay for a day or two. J told her she didn't have to worry about me hogging all of J's time because I am pretty introverted (like her husband S) and we don't spend a lot of time together going out and about and doing things. And J is upset because her nieces don't come over every week and spend a lot of time with her or answer her frequent phone calls. And she wants them to come help her clean out her garage and help get the excess furniture gone and the kayak that takes up a lot of the garage space. OH MY!

I asked J if she saw a therapist and she said yes, but hasn't seen this person in about a year. I suggested it might help to make another appt, and she said it does help and she feels better, but "the girls" being so busy all the time makes her feel left out. Since she is actually getting better and her knee is no longer inflamed; she goes to PT but doesn't do her exercises as often as she should, and is still taking the oxycodone, I think probably a little too often.

So basically while I'm slightly freaked out by all these new revelations, I said she probably should start weaning down off the oxycodone, find some out-of-the-house things she could do to occupy her time and interests (I didn't say 'besides laying around in bed, snacking and doing so much looking around on her phone and ordering things'!) Also she could get decisive and tell her nieces she has to do something about some things like calling the Salvation Army to come get the furniture she wants to unload, and telling whichever niece that owns the kayak that she just cannot keep storing it because it is taking up so much space and preventing her from getting the garage cleaned out, and she COULD hire someone to clean the garage out while she sat and directed them what to do with what..... Well, she said she felt better after talking with me, but I have no hopes she will CARPE DIEM and magically start doing something instead of wishing and wanting the nieces to come do it for her.... She has all these NEEDS in addition to wanting them to come and socialize as frequently as she does, and they do have their own lives, albeit not always HEALTHY ones, being as they are both or have been drug users (YIKES!), one now being 7 months sober....and, and, and....

SO! THAT is an interesting potential hornet's nest to have moved into! Hmmm. Oh well.

For now I have to get up, get dressed and take Tinker out, and J wants me to come out and talk w/ her again.....

So, I suspect I may be back here later on!

Yeah, so I agreed that I would go with them for The Tour (a three hour one, coincidentally, minus wrecking on an island) then we went to the "Cuban" restaurant for lunch; J wanted to go eat our sandwiches in a park. But about a mile down the road it began to POUR down the rain and kept it up a good long while. So, part of my 'tour' was seen from sitting in the back seat of the truck with big headrests in front of me, the disabled parking notice hanging off the rearview mirror, and the heavy rain on the windshield. I was very patient and didn't roll my eyes even once. J really REALLY needed to get out of the house; they took Wolfie along with us, but I left Tinker in our room. Sitting in the back seat with both dogs wouldn't have been too enjoyable. The "Cuban" Restaurant was just a hamburger place, and the steak and onion sandwich was quite greasy, served a soaked 1/2 pita bread, so you had to hold the wrapper and eat it from that . But the onion rings were crisp. It was like a steak and cheese sub minus the cheese and a big roll, but I liked it okay; I did eat the whole thing. We sat in the parking lot of a "cute little Episcopal Church" (per J) that overlooked the water. The rain didn't let up until we finished eating, but it was still raining the whole time we were out. And I did at least find out that the local library would be fairly easy to find. And where the elementary schools were, "so I can send my kids there when I have them?" I asked. We went around little roads in older neighborhoods, some with narrow brick roads (but not yellow ones), and we went to tour some of the ritzier neighborhoods where the houses had much bigger yards and were larger, but still very Floridian....and the hedges and trees and hanging down branches did give a peak once in a while at some of the more expensive spreads. To tell the truth I liked some of the very large old trees a lot better than the houses. But overall it was interesting and J was happily telling me of the history of the various places, and her and S's ancestors.

J was disappointed that when she asked me, I said I didn't have a 'favorite' style of houses, and I don't have any interesting ancestors except someone on my mother's side who was a distant cousin of Teddy Roosevelt. And I proved it by exclaiming "BULLY!" in a loud, enthusiastic voice. 🤪 So I let J jabber on and on about history and pointing things and places out to me.

Now we are home and I have walked Tinker and played with her various toys as she likes to do. I think S is resting in bed now, and J is poking around in the LR they don't often use and which is full of stacked storage boxes. I suppose I could hang up the clean clothes I washed, dried and folded yesterday. It doesn't appear to be promising that I will set into cleaning up the room in earnest. I am beginning to become discouraged about the possibility of finding my hearing aids, but they GOTTA be around here somewhere! I even cleaned out the car yesterday and didn't find their little box they are kept in, which is what I was hoping to do when I cleaned it out.

Meanwhile it still rains. I doubt I will be hungry at suppertime, but really MY 'suppertime' doesn't actually have a time, any more, so no worries about that. And I do have enough gingerale to see me through to the morrow....

I still am allowing myself lots of time dawdling and enjoyably spending my Nannie-less times!

Sounds like J just needed someone to talk to.

It will be Summer here until mid-October when Spring arrives. Our "feels like" temps remain high but Florida in Summer. Duh.

Worked today. I'll leave it at that.