Turtle Shells, Phones and Sailing Into Political Waters, a Random and Happy Tuesday Post

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It's time once again for a random and happy Tuesday, linking up with Stacy's Random Thoughts at Stacy Uncorked and Sandee at Comedy Plus.  

No, i'm not going to talk politics, just talk about talking about politics.  Sort of.

Even before heading to Carl's yesterday, i knew he was off work this week.

And they must have had company.  How would i know?  The floor cleaning pads i'd washed were dirty again and all the stuff from the kitchen table is on top of the dryer.

It's funny how your housekeeper knows so much about you, isn't it.

After determining he didn't have anything to be dealt with in the laundry room besides me looking for two of the missing dryer balls, i woke Carl and reminded him he had to go sleep in his chair so i could do the cleaning.

He stretched, got out of bed, brushed his teeth, and then started trying to clean the prodigious mess that is his room almost all the time, almost stepping on one of those dryer balls.  I later found the other in a pants pocket.  At least that way i knew the pants were clean.  Why he didn't remove it from the pocket before trying to put the pants away by stuffing them in the top of the closet we will never know.

I interrupted his sniffing clothes to find out of they were clean or dirty and reminded him i just rewash them all if they aren't hung up in the closet.  He then tried to start hanging up clothes and i had to run him out of his room so i could get the cleaning done, reminding him anything he was currently wearing would not get washed.

"Why not?" he asked.

Because i can't throw you in the washer and they are on you, i told him.

"Oh."  Then, "Yeah, right."

 

He left with his blanket and pillow, and came back about 15 minutes later.

"Bigger pillow!  Need to trade!" he said, so i let him pick one of his other three and put a clean pillowcase on it as those had been taken off and were already in the washer.

As he headed back to his sleep chair, he said, "We ate at a restaurant yesterday!"

I knew Ms. V, his mom, had a birthday and figured their other son and his wife had come in town for the celebration.  That's why the last minute cleaning and shuffling of stuff was done.

What'd you have? i asked him.

"Stuffed shrimp!" he said proudly, licking his lips.  "Someone had steak."

I'm glad you had a good time, i told him.

"We talked politics!" he said.

Dangerous, i told him, but in this case it wasn't really.  Their family are all mostly on the same page and are very respectful of each other in the few places they disagree.

He finally went to his chair and i noticed Mr. L wasn't asleep, but had the TV on and some type of earbuds in, probably so he could hear the TV without his hearing aids.

In order not to scare him, i try to make a point of making sure he sees me and knows i'm around, since his hearing is very bad, i know he won't hear me come in.  I went in and waved to him and he pointed to the TV.  "America's Cup in San Francisco!" he said.  

I had no idea he was into sailing, but he was obviously enthralled.  I just nodded and headed back to Carl's room.

For having a day off, Carl really came into his room very little.  At one point, he wanted to tell me about his plans for a pool party, then said he was going back to sleep for a short time.

I reminded him he could sleep for a long time if he wanted, but he set the timer in the kitchen for 23 minutes and 23 seconds.  Why that length of time is anyone's guess, but he didn't get up when the timer went off.  In fact, he was just getting out of bed when i had to run to the house mid-morning to tell my Sweetie something and he had his phone turned off.

Why was his phone turned off?  Because he'd already called me to let me know the car was working again and they checked it and told him it was a glitch.  This model car will sometimes have the power steering go out when you are stuck in slow traffic for long periods of time.  Just pull off the road, turn off the engine and let it reset itself, and then it will be fine.

Let's hope that holds true.

But anyway, he'd already spoken to me once, so why in the world would he need to talk to me again?

It's a good thing we don't live far from Carl's place, but #2 Son had put a turtle shell to finish drying in the back yard under a bucket the evening before and he didn't want it accidentally thrown away, as has happened previously with hides he was tanning or other hunting trophies he was trying to taxidermy.

By the time i got back from alerting Sweetie to leave the bucket with the bricks on top alone and why, Carl had showered in the hall bath instead of his own, which i had already cleaned for him, so i had to clean the hall one, too.

Ms. S across the street was my second client of the day, and she'd told me she was getting a new dryer.  Ms. V headed out for her morning walk and went over there to see the new arrival, and when i got there, we three ladies must have talked and laughed over husbands and phones and half a dozen other topics for a good thirty minutes.

It did us all some good.

In honor of Mr. L's obvious love of sailing, some funnies.

Have a blessed and beautiful Tuesday, everyone!

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Today is:

Dia del Amigo -- Paraguay

Father-in-Law Day -- unsponsored and unclaimed, but fathers-in-law deserve respect, too

Feast of the Throne -- Morocco; Western Sahara

Festival of Fortuna Huiusque Diei -- Ancient Roman Calendar ("Fortune of the Present Day")

Friendship Day/International Day of Friendship -- UN

Independence Day -- Vanuatu(1980)

Kronia -- Ancient Greek Calendar (festival of Kronos as god of the harvest; date approximate)

Martyr's Day -- South Sudan

National Cheesecake Day

National Support Public Education Day -- Change.org wants this to be an official day for support of US public education systems

Paperback Day -- anniversary of the 1935 publication of Penguin #1, Arial, A Life of Shelley, by Andre Maurois in London, the first successful series of paperback books

Sts. Abdon and Sennen's Day (Patrons of barrel makers and coopers; the ashes of ferns cut and burned on this day will keep away insects and unwanted guests)

Sumiyoshi Matsuri -- Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine, Osaka, Japan (Osaka's last major summer festival, through Aug. 1)

Anniversaries Today

Zara Anne Elizabeth Phillips, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, marries Michael Tindall, 2011

Birthdays Today

Hope Solo, 1981

Jaime Pressly, 1977

Misty May-Treanor, 1977

Hilary Swank, 1974

Tom Green, 1971

Simon Baker, 1969

Vivica A. Fox, 1964

Lisa Kudrow, 1963

Alton Brown, 1962

Laurence Fishburne, 1961

Kate Bush, 1958

Delta Burke, 1956

Ken Olin, 1954

Jean Reno, 1948

Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1947

William Atherton, 1947

David Sanborn, 1945

Paul Anka, 1941

Peter Bogdanovich, 1939

Buddy Guy, 1936

Allan Huber “Bud” Selig, 1934

Edd "Kookie" Byrnes, 1933

Thomas Sowell, 1930

Sid Krofft, 1929

Christine McGuire, 1926

Henry W. Bloch, 1922

Henry Spencer Moore, 1898

Casey Stengel, 1891

Henry Ford, 1863

Thorstein Bunde Veblen, 1857

Georg Wilhelm von Siemens, 1855

Emily Bronte, 1818

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Santa Barbara"(TV), 1984

"Death Valley Days"(Radio), 1930

Today in History

City of Baghdad is founded, 762

The First Defenestration of Prague, 1419

Christopher Columbus lands at Guanaja in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras during his fourth voyage, 1502

At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs, which set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next one hundred years, 1608

In Jamestown, Virginia, the first European style representative assembly in the Americas, the House of Burgesses, convenes for the first time, 1619

An earthquake in Naples, Italy kills 10,000 people, 1629

Baltimore, Maryland is founded, 1729

Bartolomeo Rastrelli presents the newly-built Catherine Palace to Empress Elizabeth and her courtiers, 1756

First ascent of Grand Combin, one of the highest summits in the Alps,1859

Chief Pocatello of the Shoshone tribe signs the Treaty of Box Elder, agreeing to stop the harassment of emigrant trails in southern Idaho and northern Utah, 1863

In Montevideo, Uruguay wins the first Football World Cup, 1930

Premiere of Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award winning cartoon short, 1932

A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto, 1956

US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid, 1965

David Scott and James Irwin on Apollo Lunar Module module, Falcon, land with first Lunar Rover on the moon, 1971

Six Royal Canadian Army Cadets are killed and fifty-four injured in an accidental grenade blast at CFB Valcartier Cadet Camp, 1974

Jimmy Hoffa disappears, 1975

In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line, 2003

Israel and Palestinian officials agree to resume negotiations for a peace agreement, 2013

The first centenary of the WWI Battle of Passchendaele is marked at a ceremony at Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, 2017

NASA launches to Mars its Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter aboard a V 541 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, 2020

Amazon becomes the second largest private employer in the US, after Walmart, 2021