rickvs

Rachal's mother died at 12:05am, having not really been awake for the previous day or so. Under the circumstances, we're all pretty relieved. She was stubborn enough that I was feeling some trepidation she'd hang on by her fingernails for weeks.

Not sure when her mass will be held, but Rachal and I will, in all likelihood, return to Dallas for a few days before it occurs. I do know that she'll be cremated, and eventually interred at Fort Sam Houston, having beaten all of her older sisters to this finish line. Kathy had a competitive streak.

I got through as the ninth caller, to be told that I had won $250 credit at a local steakhouse, plus tickets to see the Russian Ballet's presentation of "The Nutcracker". Then the call screener asked me to wait a moment, and before she took my name and contact info ...we were disconnected.

Occupational hazard. I'm sure she took the next caller as a matter of policy, but that didn't stop me from trying to get back through for nearly an hour. Growf.

Otherwise, my day was rather pleasant. We visited friends in Fort Worth, went geocaching ...and I found a tool bag in a culvert, for which I've been trying to track down the owner. If I can't, I'm now the proud owner of some middling expensive tools, most of which I have no use for.

All-in-all, an odd day, but better than most.

Rachal's mother is improving, to some extent. We'll get the results of her MRI later today, but in the meanwhile:
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We seem to have acquired a third feline. The kids across the street picked up Mittens on Craigslist, apparently at the age of three weeks. He has been a hissing handful, even swatting the human baby in their house, so we agreed to take him in and try to teach him to speak Cat. I thought yesterday that the only word he knew in that language was a hiss -- since he did that even while flouncing on his back while waving his paws.

After twenty-four hours of having his own room to himself, he seems to have decompressed enough to purr and accept pets when they're offered. We'll probably get him his shots this weekend.

Rachal didn't figure she'd want an additional cat this quickly, and was certain we were just window shopping in anticipation of getting one in a few weeks. But she fell in love with this gray kitten even before she heard its name, which, for the first time, she doesn't plan to change on acquisition of a new cat.

Lavender is about four months old, and very lovey-dovey, which is exactly what we need right now, I think. Mandy will stop hissing at her eventually, I'm certain. Nearly certain :>

I'm typing this with a big jury-rigged bandage enveloping my left index finger. It serves more to remind me not to bump it than anything else.

I made a nice half-moon-with-flap slice on the end of it last night while attempting to cut a cantaloupe in twain. While I rinsed it off in the sink, Pat was kind enough to avenge me on the melon.

It never hurt (sharp knife!), and I thought it was healing well when I woke up this morning. I rewrapped it, and through lunchtime had only a small dot of blood that soaked through the pad.

Until...

One of our vendor's delivery trucks called ahead as they pulled up to the door, with a COD package. I scrambled out to our car for exact change from the ashtray -- and pinched my finger between the door and the jamb. Again, it didn't hurt, but immediately felt warm, and the cotton pad began to fill in red from one end to the other, like a progress thermometer at a pledge drive.

I never lost enough blood to be hazardous, but spent a few interesting minutes trying to juggle paying the delivery lady (with Rachal's help) without staining the money, the package, or my boss's furniture.

In other news, I'm in another vehicle drawing: one of the local radio stations is giving away a classic Corvette, to celebrate the 30 years their DJs have worked together. I've got, I believe, a 1-in-92 chance that my midlife crisis car will not be a Hyundai Accent.

We spent the weekend with some friends of ours at their house in Fort Worth. It was a pleasant trip, except for that one time when we accidentally almost killed their dog. (He seems to have gotten hold of some subset of Rachal's pills).

He's back from the vet, and all right now ...but boy, that would have been *awkward*.

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Biggest bully of my life was a dude in middle school. I won't name him here on the assumption that he's less of a jackass after thirty years.

I actually wouldn't mind sitting down with him these days and hearing his story; I assume his parents were going through a divorce at the time, or some other event that would lead him to think the only control he had over anything in his life was picking on other kids (I wasn't his only victim). That doesn't justify his behavior, of course -- but while I wouldn't mind if teenage-me had another chance to punch teenage-him in the nose, middle-aged-me doesn't have much desire to punch middle-aged-him: I figure that for better or worse, the kid who committed the offense is gone.

I have brought the last load from the apartment to the duplex, and I have turned in keys to the apartment office, and the story I'm sticking to is that I did those tasks in that order *cough*.

We have internet service, and have some degree of cable television available, although I'll be moving the signal to different rooms than the tech left them, I think, before the weekend.

Cell phones are still working, and we'll have a land line up as soon I can can find the base unit.

I expect this shakedown process to last several weeks: I don't wanna unpack boxes until we've arranged the furniture, which I don't wanna do until I've set up the cable jacks, and so forth, but already the cats are enjoying the extra space ...and it's taken Paris more than a week to start agitating to go outside.

Rachal and I are both quite enjoying the ability to sleep in the same bed again, now that we have a different waterbed mattress, and the old leaky one has been retired with extreme prejudice.

I'll post more as it happens, but overall I'm still very optimistic about our new digs, even though I've got a lawn to mow in the near future :>

As a reward for finding a cheap 55" television for my landlady on Craigslist, and helping move it, we're being given the smaller-but-still-larger-than-ours TV it'll be replacing :>

The only downside was when I ripped a seam out of the slacks I was wearing while loading the TV on the truck, from my crotch almost to my knee. So before I went looking for neighborly assistance to unload the truck, I had to borrow a pair of sweats.

While waiting for the sweats, I had a brief vision of me walking, as-is, from door-to-door on our street and asking each occupant, "Any kids in the house who want to make a few extra bucks?" .. but I figured I'd be talking to the police before the third door.

After putting on the sweats, fortunately, the first neighbor I talked to was able to help unload the TV. (I must take a moment to sing the praises of the Forearm Forklift straps sold at U-Haul. If only they were a bit longer. And not both the same color). Afterwards, we compared notes on our duplexen (which were apparently built by the same company), and agreed to share information, as we dig it up, on the drainage system they may share.

So overall, it was a productive day :>