May 31, 2019 – “That was clever . . . .”

         My husband commented.

         I am on the 4-step of the stepladder handing down a blown out recessed bulb to my husband.  I am thinking darn right I am clever, who lost the suction cup that came with the original recessed bulbs and the light fixture, not me.

         I had to improvise with something so I could manage to unscrew the bulb because my small fingers can’t get into the socket area.  Fat chance of my husband doing this, with his big fingers.

         I now realized I wasted my time and treasure tying a one-foot length of burgundy, picot edged ribbon to the suction cup and wrapping it around the partially used package of new bulbs.  I’ve used that suction cup many times over the 6 or 8 years we’ve owned this light fixture. The ribbon has been on it since the beginning for a reason – so I can find it.

         Who dug in the china cabinet and found the package of bulbs?  Of course, my husband, and what happened to the picot ribbon with the suction cup that was wrapped around it?  The fairies must have taken it as it has simply vanished.  I have looked everywhere, even in the stupidest places - places a man’s mind would put something.

         My husband hands me up a new bulb, I adhere the wedge of packing tape I used on the blown out bulb onto the face of the new bulb, and I adeptly put the bulb into the prong slot and tighten it using the wedge of packing tape as the leverage, then I peel off the tape.

         “Viola!” I announce and proceed to do a second bulb.

         I climb down the ladder and still wonder where that suction cup is.  I notice my husband heading to the trashcan.

         “Don’t throw that empty package out – I have to get the same kind of bulbs and I need to know what I am buying . . .” I snatch it out of his hand.

         “Men and their logic,” I mutter.

         Why am I telling you this little vignette of typical domesticated married life?  I noticed something in an advertisement for BottomLine personal – a publication that was marked “Don’t get mad, get even!”

         I am one of those people that occasionally reads their junk mail when it is too hot outside to do anything productive in the gardens.  How could I resist a front cover that reads, “It’s OK to get mad says Harvard psychologist, but we say it’s even better to get even.”

         On page 11 of Volume 40, Number 9, is a picture of a roll of duct tape with a blurb:

         “Don’t get mad when a recessed bulb goes out . . . get duct tape!”

         It made me smile, about my packing tape cleverness of yesterday morning. Here is what they say to do.

Recessed bulbs can be so frustrating to replace. But here’s a trick that makes it easy.  Fold the ends of a piece of duct tape back over themselves, leaving a sticky section in the middle.  After putting the sticky section on the bulb, grab the ends of the duct tape and twist.

         It was nice to see that some other clever person came up with the same idea I had when I used packing tape.  [I’ve already bought new bulbs and two, yes, two suction cups to be hidden in two different places so they don’t disappear.]

         When writing this blog I decided to check the definition of clever to see if another word might describe how I feel.

         The internet gave me a cornucopia of adjectives:

          quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; 

             intelligent.

             skilled at doing or achieving something; talented

             showing intelligence or skill; ingenious

intelligent, gifted, precocious; capable, able, competent, apt, proficient; educated, learned, erudite, academic, bookish, knowledgeable, wise, sagacious, brainy, genius, skillful, dexterous, adroit, deft, nimble, nimble-fingered, handy, adept; skilled, talented, shrewd, astute, sharp, acute, quick, sharp-witted, quick-witted; resourceful, canny, cunning, crafty, artful, wily, slick, neat; foxy, savvy, fly, pawky, as sharp as a tack.

         Now I feel clever doesn’t seem to cover my impromptu packing-tape-light-bulb-change.

         Morale of the story:  Celebrate your accomplishments – no matter how large or small.

         The next time you do something resourceful know that you are more than clever, you are intelligent, talented and ingenious, or possibly most of the above synonyms.

May 22, 2019 – Old, re-furbished, now new

         This was a simple project.  I have a tin frog that I bought at one of those dollar stores.  He was a florescent lime green and he made me smile.  He lives out on the brick patio – as a salute to my finishing that project.

         As you can see, he isn’t lime green anymore.  The weather has done it’s damage.

         Recently I noticed that the red nail polish that I painted my house key – the actual door key – not the bolt key had worn off and I went to a dollar store with the intention of buying a shocking color to repaint it. I found cobalt blue and painted my house key cobalt blue – it’s me – I love it – I am a simpleton.

         That got me to thinking.  My new frog color would be green with touches of blue around the edges.  Now, I’ve never seen such a frog – but my imagination would put such a colored frog in the Amazon jungle.

         I used hardly any of the cobalt blue for the key.  I wondered how much 0.5 fluid ounces would paint, [the amount in a typical fingernail polish bottle].  Well, as you know the internet is a wonderful tool which advised me  8 ounces of paint will cover 16 square feet, which is 2 square feet per ounce or 1 square foot per half ounce.

         All I needed to do was to find frog green nail polish.  In the old days, that would be an impossibility - but not these days.

         After my brick laying stint, I repainted my frog and this morning I returned him to the patio.

         It’s not a bad paint job for the price of a cheap bottle of nail polish.  Now I wonder how long it will last.  I will report if it is short term, but something tells me, I might get a season out of this.

         Now I wonder where that old metal butterfly is – it needs a do-over.

May 21, 2019 – Little secret – No-see-ums

         You know those pesky No-see-ums, Certopogonidae, flying insects that you can hardly see.  They are tiny and they do bite . . . they were hassling me yesterday.

         I read all kinds of ideas from magazines, newspapers, gardening books.  If it is a tip or trick and has been in any media format that I’ve had in my hands in the last 40 years . . . I’ve read it and sometimes I’ve filed it away in my grey cells.

         I am still laying brick pavers for my “million-dollar-looking” driveway.  Yesterday I felt like I spent more time swatting at the No-see-ums than laying brick.

         Last night in bed, I thought about those miserable bugs.  I am allergic to traditional bug spray – it sets me into an asthma attack, so I don’t use it.

         Last year, I bought a bottle of herbal insect repellant spray, [all natural oils] from a Farmer’s market that is a mixture of water, alcohol, lavender, lemongrass and eucalyptus essential oils.  I used it sparingly because it too was a bit strong and I was afraid of an asthma attack.

         Just as I was falling off to sleep, I remembered a suggestion that you should spray your hat with insect repellant as an alternative as it is above where you breath in air.

         This morning I sprayed the top of my straw hat and let it dry while I was having my morning coffee.  Yesterday I was plagued with No-see-ums; today, not even one.

         Finally, a solution.  After a day of work, I gave my hat a sniff. I was surprised that I couldn’t smell the spray as it must have soaked into the straw enough that it doesn’t give off too much violate oil smell. I guess it’s just enough to keep the bugs at bay.  Even in the sun, in the heat of the day, my head sweating up the hatband – I was surprised I didn’t get a whiff of the spray.

        

May 13, 2019 – Lovely day – Mother’s Day weather wise

         My brother called late in the day and told me about his day. It is an understatement when I say it is difficult for him losing his wife of 40 something years in March. I sometimes don’t know what to say.

         He mentioned something he did – no he corrected himself half way through the beginning of telling me and worded it as that he should make a suggestion that I send out in one of my blog’s.  A suggestion everyone should do – before it is too late.

         I listened.  He said,

         “I dialed Peggy’s cell phone . . . just to hear her voice.”

         Part of me was surprised that he still had her phone active – I have no clue how these phone plans work – but I also know how my phone will go dead if I don’t keep it charged.

         “You should have Russ record a message before it is too late,” was his suggestion.  Since we, my husband and I have been sick since Tuesday with the Spring flu – I am certain it was not a cold – we are snarling at each other both sniffling, coughing, aching, and feeling miserable – together in sickness!  I couldn’t help but jest with my brother.

         “Yeah, like when I want to take a nice picture and he makes an awful face – I can imagine what sort of message I’d get when I’d ask for a message to remember him by just in case he goes off to the grocery store and doesn’t happen to return with us both sick with the flu.”

         I shouldn’t have rebuffed him so cruelly . . . what was I thinking?  I wasn’t – I was hardly breathing due to a sinus, killer head ache and coughing.  I did back down a bit and admitted I still had a message from Mom. I’d not admitted that to anyone – until that moment.

More about my old phone:

           I was talked into a blackberry when they were the “thing” for business and mine didn’t do what it was supposed to do.  Over the years and after two more transitions to other type phones - I don’t remember brands or types but, I opted for huge numbers on a flip phone because I was aggravated.

         I only needed to make a call when I needed to make a call and went the cheap route that was simplistic.

         I had the flip phone for many of years before it died and during that time, I kept one telephone message from my Mom.

         The message is 10 seconds long, she is calling and asking me to call her, and then she says, “It’s Mom . . . Mom St. John.”  What a curious thing for her to say . . . I never had a mother-in-law.  But, then, I guessed it was that she left that clarification of  “Mom St. John” as she would often leave messages for my sister-in-law Carol as her Mom was alive and well.

         I retired from business a few years ago, and kept the last business phone I owned.  Once in a while, I needed to hear a loving voice [during difficult or stressful times] and I’d dial my saved Mom-message and then I knew all was right with the world.  That message was the two o’clock in the morning – can’t sleep type fix-it that would help me sleep once I’d listened to it.

         Then, when my flip phone died, my heart sank because my Mom had died and I’d never get another phone message from her.

         All I can say is – it was a miracle - I was more than shocked that my new, smartphone replacement, was brought on line and surprisingly – all prior phone numbers and a couple of undeleted phone messages had made the transfer.  I hadn’t sent anything off to a cloud or anything.  I hadn’t signed up for any special “backup” plan.  I was mystified.

         Opening my new phone to the voicemail section, I listened to two current messages and deleted them, and then I held my breath when I pressed the button to listen to the last one – her familiar telephone number in the screen – August 15, 2015.

         “Hi, it’s Mom . . . give me a ring . . . it’s Mom St. John.”

         It is as clear and as cheerful as the day she recorded it.  I haven’t worn it out yet – that is a good thing.