Mom's Interpretation of Being there with Bells On

Yesterday somehow we got to talking about what either Mik or she should wear to Kirsten's wedding next weekend.  I asked if she RSVP'd as coming with bells on or not. She said she hadn't even seen the RSVP note. Dad must have just mailed it without showing her.

Mom said she is most definitely going with bells on.  How that ends up will be G rated and festive, as she also plans to have lights on.  However, she had some inappropriate ideas first.  Mainly, she said I should photoshop her wearing three very carefully placed ornaments (think bikini) and send it to Kirsten as a warning as to how my mom planned to take the attire recommendations very literally and attend the wedding with bells on.  I said I wouldn't even go that far with her crazy idea, but I'd put it on the blog in words.  I don't think anyone wants to see anymore of a visual of her idea than this.

Mik "Folds" His Laundry

This morning Dad moved a pile of Mik's laundry from the living room to Mik's bed and told me to fold it.  I in turn told Mik to fold it and if he need instruction to ask.  This evening Mik asked me to watch Bones in his room and the clothes were still on the bed. He said we could watch in the living room instead, but I don't really like the couch. I said I'd sit in his recliner chair and he said he'd lay on his bed and just move the clothes to the side.  Instead, though he proceeded to say he was folding his clothes and putting then away.  What he really meant was he was just putting then away in the drawer and skipping the folding, which is fine with me as he did at least match up the socks and I pretty much do the same thing with my tshirts.

Is it downsizing or upsizing our fleet?

Ever since we moved to Alabama the driveway has been overcrowded with the four vehicles (5 if you count my scooter).  They all fit at first, but then the Homeowner's Association said I couldn't park my scooter on the porch and we actually began to keep the wheelchair rack on the van, so they all didn't fit.  Since we were looking at houses here, I also have wanted a boat and then we would need a truck to be able to tow a boat.

Last month Dad took me to the dealership on one of his off Sundays because I was asking him something about trucks (probably what colors Chevy makes).  At first we looked at and test drove an Avalanche, but in the end we (i.e. I) decided on the Silverado because they still make them and thus there were more to choose from so we could get the options I liked the most (mainly the bench front seat, which had a better console and storage for road tripping).

Mom was hesitant at first because she did not want to give up her Smart car, but it had not even been registered in Alabama, yet, and thus she had not driven it in at least six months anyways.  Thus, by trading in both the Smart cars and the Dodge Grand Caravan for one vehicle we downsized our fleet to one vehicle per driver.  It also meant now all the vehicles fit in the driveway.

However, Mom calls it the big ass truck.  It is big and the driveway does end up seeming kind of more crowded, but it is much more suited to our needs. For one, it can pull grandma's boat, which we are keeping in Alabama for the winter instead of storing it like is usually done when the cottage is closed up for the winter.  Secondly, the mini van was not exactly suited for Mik's heavy powerchair and this will work out much better for family road trips, especially once the seat lift is installed for transferring Mik into the Silverado. Thus, it is somewhat upsizing our fleet.

Captain Morgan in the front yard

While not as strange as the onions in the backyard I posted about earlier, the Captain Morgan in the front yard was another new experience.  Growing up in this university neighborhood and living at different places in it over the years, finding empty beer bottles or cans when cleaning the yard is pretty much a given.  So, when I was cleaning up some of the trash in the yard of the rental property I was not surprised to find two cans of Coors in the bushes.  What I was surprised to find, though, was a bottle of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum.

It would be one thing for there to be an empty bottle, but it was almost full.  It was not even hidden deep down under live bushes like the cans, but rather was right up near the sidewalk by the dead bushes.  Someone trying to stash it to come back for it later?  Well, too bad for them it is now poured down the drain and the bottle recycled.

How you don't want onions in your backyard

This month I am staying at my grandma's property that we rent in Tucson, as it is transitioning between renter's and we are keeping the studio for using when in town.  One morning last week when I went outside to walk across the backyard to the front house where I have been using the fridge and thought it smelled funny.  Not necessarily a bad smell, but odd. Then I noticed there was oddly some things on the ground on the dirt part of the yard I had just cleaned up the day before when I was rediscovering the brick path (another post on that later!).  Since, I had just been working in that part of the yard I knew it had to be something newly there.

It turned out that it was onions in the yard.  Now suddenly finding onions in your backyard may not be a bad thing.  However, mushy cooked whole onions that must have been thrown over the wall or fence from a neighbor's yard is not the kind of way you want to find onions in your backyard.  Of all the strange things that end up in our yards living in the university neighborhood, this certainly ranks as the most incomprehensible strangeness.

Neighborhood citation of the month: Boat on driveway

Okay, so maybe we don't get one every month and they are not really citations, but we sure have collected quite a few warning notices for breaking rules since living in our house in Alabama.  Some have made sense like the one about our lawn needing a mowing, which it really did and I was just waiting for someone to be home for us to go buy one.  Then there was the one about the scooter on the front porch, which I kind of get, but still think it looked better than the broken wicker chair Mom now has there (fixing it is on the list of projects somewhere between finding the guest bed under mom's stuff in her office/the guest bedroom and finding the desks and file cabinets under the boxes still not unpacked and stuffed in Dad's office).

When I left for Tucson at the beginning of the month, I totally predicted we were going to get a citation this month.  I thought it was going to be for the leaves in the yard which were just starting to fall and with me being gone for a month I figured no one would get around to taking care of them in a manner that pleases the reporter.  However, instead it was for having the boat parked in the driveway.

Now we never planned for the boat to be permanently parked in the driveway, but when Mom and Dad brought it from the cottage to keep (and use!) in Alabama for the winter they just put it in the driveway.  Apparently, that is not an okay thing to do.  I don't remember anything against it in the bylaws I read, which may or may not have been the real ones as we were confused on whether we ever got the right paperwork when we asked for them before officially purchasing the house (we were worried about the fact we had 4 cars to park on the driveway, which reminds me that I should do a post on how we now don't). I think I would have remembered, too, because I was dreaming about a truck and a boat since we were looking at houses last December.

Anyways, Dad told me today that he got a notice saying that we cannot have a boat on our driveway.  Of all the notices we have gotten, this one really bugs me as it makes absolutely no sense.  It is not like we have a garage to put it in.  Yeah, we were all along planning of getting a spot at the storage place, but sometimes we may want to have it on the driveway, such as the day before and/or after taking it out in order to load/unload and clean it up.  I feel like we should decide to just leave it in our driveway now until they show us the actual specific bylaw that we cannot.

Because it's been forever

Today Mom said Our Kaotic life hasn't been updated in forever (July to be exact).  It has been almost exactly a year since we made the decision to all move to Alabama and I am spending this month back in Tucson. I gave Dad a hard time about spending so much time back here when he came back in March to just work on making our house ready to rent for a few weeks and that turned into him being gone for two months.  Now I tried to make my one month into two months and stay until Thanksgiving, but Mik said I had to come home as planned.

He had several reasons why I could not stay gone longer.  His first was that the DirecTV genie box is getting full of shows. WTF, I have to come home so I can watch TV? I informed him I have been watching the shows on Hulu, so he went and deleted them and that problem was solved.

I forget what the other reasons he mentioned were, but somehow the conversation got around to how it is weird we did not go to D.C. this year and how we almost did go last month in a last minute road trip with Mom as part of her having to be there for work.  He said I should have gone, but he had forgotten that I was the one that was ready to do it and he was the one that didn't want to go.  I ended up not going because he wanted a mom weekend and if I went then mom and I would have been in D.C. for the weekend.  As much as he ruins all the fun yet again, I gave in and am not extending my stay in Tucson because at least in the end he admitted the real reason he wanted me home was he missed me.

Several random posts coming up in the next few days including the onion experience that I told Mom I would post to put something fresh on the blog.

Family Project Day

This weekend Mom asked us to pick one day for projects and one for fun as well as what we would do.  Before the weekend we decided on Saturday as the project day and the project being unpacking and finishing setting up Mik's room.  We also planned Mik getting a haircut and Mom going into work in the morning.  We had not (and still have) made fun day plans.

Here is how the project day went, though:

• ~7:15 a.m. I discover there are open houses in one of the developments we may be interested in several years when we save up for our dream house on the lake/river.  Dad and I decide to go to them and we piss Mik off who now says no haircut and no working on his room this afternoon, so the new family project becomes switching the bookcase from living room with the piano in Dad's office.
• 7:45 a.m. Mom, Dad, and I go to Farmer's Market as planned
• 9 a.m. Dad and I leave to go to open houses and Mom goes to work
• 10 a.m. We discover no signs and no cars for there to actually even be open houses at any of the four houses advertised, although one not advertised was oddly open unmanned and unfurnished, but it was not on the water.
• ~1 p.m. Dad and Mik are trying to decided what to make for lunch and decide to go to Panera Bread and use up a gift card we had.  I go with since it is also a good time to go by Target and pick up the rest of the Disney gift cards for our cruise next week.  As we leave Target Mik suddenly decides that while we are out he might as well get a haircut.
• ~3:30 p.m. We get home and instead of starting a family project Dad and I decide to figure out where our lawn mower basket is we ordered from Lowe's online and had not heard about it being in like it was expected.  We find it is at the store and leave to go get it.  On the way we end up finally stopping at Mad County Winery and tasting their fruit wines.  Mom and Mik were napping when we left and when we got home.
• 6:30 p.m. Dad, Mom, and I decide to play Rock Band

I guess we did get some to dos done, but it sure ended up seeming like more of a Fun Day than a Project Day and we certainly never did anything towards accomplishing any of the proposed projects for the day.  Maybe, tomorrow or our next weekend we are all home (i.e. a month or two!).  One thing is for sure I am determined this week's project of installing my cabinets will happen!!!

I Need a Magic Clock like the Weasleys

In the Harry Potter books/movies the Weasleys have special clocks that show roughly were each member is at.  Such as home, work, school, etc.  I so need one that says things like out walking/running, out of town, at work, etc. because it seems like just when I expect someone to be at home (Dad!) I cannot find them.

Mom, Mik, a Mustang, and a Shoe

This afternoon Mom came home driving a rental Mustang.  I happened to be outside running my scooter to keep it from being ruined sitting totally unused so long and I was confused at a random car parking in front of our mailbox.  Mom's first words were "I didn't buy it!"  I did not think she did, but I did kind of think she may have lost or left her Prius keys somewhere and had to get a rental.  Turns out, though, she flew into Nashville because it is so much cheaper than Huntsville (actually right after we moved here I saw on the news it is the most expensive airport to fly in/out of).

She is headed back out of town tomorrow, so there was no point in getting her car from the airport.  Also, she thought Mik might find it fun to go for a ride in a Mustang, which is one of the types of cars he likes to check out whenever he sees them.  So, I disassembled his manual chair and managed to get it to fit with enough room for me to still sit the back and Mik in the passenger seat.  I had figured that out before bringing Mik out, though, so he had to drive his powerchair out to load into the car.

Instead of just putting him from his powerchair into the car, Mom decided to just hold him sitting on the hood while I drove the powerchair inside the house, which I am proud to say I managed to do without driving off the sidewalk even once (see previous post about last attempt)!  Mik and Mom were not so successful at what would have seemed the easier task of just waiting, as I came back out to the two of them laughing as Mik was sliding off the hood and the two of them almost falling on the ground.  I grabbed Mik and held him up while Mom got a better grip and I could get into the back seat before putting Mik in the car, but nicely even if I was not there the guy from across the street had seen what was going on and came over to help if needed.

In the whole fiasco I had seen that Mik lost his shoe and assumed that Mom had, too and had picked up the shoe.  However, we get to the restaurant and I pick up the other shoe that had fallen off in the car thinking it was the one he lost outside the car, but then realized Mom had not picked up his shoe.  Not surprisingly, it was still were we left it went we got home from dinner and a movie five hours later.

Mik Stuck in the Bushes

I forgot I had taken this picture of Mik getting stuck in the bushes when he was bringing in his powerchair from getting repaired (the controls did not work when it arrived on the moving truck back in February) the one weekday Mom was home earlier this month.  Clearly, we need to widen the sidewalk, which we kind of suspected, as we had even widen the turning area of the decently wide ramp up to the old house when he got his powerchair.

It did seem like it would be a tight, but doable thing if he took it slow.  Not so much, as he quickly ended up in the bush and he could not get out because it was the control stick part stuck in the bush.  I helped him onto the porch, but not without going off the sidewalk into the bushes on one side and the grass on the other several times, since it really is hard to line it back up on the sidewalk it just fits on once your offtrack.

The real funny thing is that one of the things he said when we were house hunting in Alabama was that he wanted to have bushes in the yard including maybe planting them.  Now I think he is good with what we have and perhaps less near the sidewalk.

Mik's First Tornado Siren Experience

Last night I happened to catch the news and they were talking about possible tornados with storms today.  Earlier this month Mom and Dad were out of town and heard about bad weather in our region and wondered whether Mik and I knew what to do in a tornado.  I did, as I remember a few times hearing the sirens during the summers I spent in Illinois as a kid.  Mik didn't and when I asked him last night he still did not know, so I told him where to go if he heard the sirens.

This afternoon I heard a siren like noise, but at first I thought it was the laundry I had just started (my desk is right next to the laundry room).  I opened my door, though, and realized it was in fact the tornado siren, which I kind of was expecting since I happened to have the local channel on and they interrupted regular programming with storm watch coverage as the storm.  I went to see if Mik heard it (also, our safe spot is also right inside his room), but it could not be heard in his room at all at first (could slightly hear it when he turned his game system off).  Apparently, my room is not as sound proof, which makes sense considering it is the garage area.

When he saw that the tornado watch was in effect until 7 p.m. (it was only 4 p.m.), he said he really missed Tucson now because there are like no natural disasters there.  It only lasted about 30 minutes, though.  In that time, though, he decided we should have an emergency supply kit in the linen closet in his room, since that is in the alcove that makes one of the safest areas in the house.  I have a lot of that kind of stuff in my room and we sure keep stocked on food considering Mom and Dad seem to keep being going for weeks at a time, but the only thing in that closet is a big bag of dog food (and we did not even think of letting Billy in the room...poor Billy) and his glow stick flashlight that I only hung on the closet door this morning.

Mik's Xbox Drives Us Nuts

Last week Mik's Xbox 360 disc drive stopped working. He was going to have Dad try to fix it, but after finding out he won't be home for another month and the Xbox 360 now came in a newer version with the WiFi built in he decided it was worth spending his savings on a new one instead. I got it with my Amazon Prime shipping, so he was back to playing games quick. It was even surprisingly easy to transfer the harddrive data over to the new one and that is really saying something because I really stink when it comes to Microsoft/Windows stuff. What stumped us, though was getting it to connect to our WiFi network.

At first the Xbox seemed to not be able to understand that there were two networks with the same name when we have an extended network. We read about it being a known problem for some, so we thought if we got it connected to the main base it would then work like the old one did because that one was connected before we has the extension. So, last night we spent hours trying to get it to work in my room near the wireless router only to have the same issue of it not working. Part of the problem seemed that no one could remember setting up the password to login into the router to change the settings that may be messing with the Xbox connecting. We finally gave up and put it back in Mik's room to reevaluate what to do another day.

Then this morning I decided to finally hook up the Apple TV Mom got awhile back because I wanted to have it up and running for watching Nationals games on MLB.tv before the free MLB ends on DirecTV. When setting it up Mom noticed I was typing the password to join the wireless network wrong. Turns out I had been doing that the whole time with the Xbox, too, although I know I did it with re correct password at least once with it still being an error connecting. However, going back to it this afternoon I got it connected no problem and it appears it really was just typing error and one fluke of nonconnection error.

Getting Trapped

Several times since we have moved into our new house I have been annoyed by the door between the laundry room and the kitchen because when the pantry door is open it blocks that door. It hasn't been a problem lately because no one else was home using the pantry and every time until today I just ended up pushing the pantry closed when opening the door. Today though Mom opened the pantry door all the way and when I tried to come in the door would got stuck and it wouldn't open enough to get through. I guess if I really had to I could have gone out to the porch from my room and in the front door, but I called mom over to let me through and Mik thought it was funny that for once someone else was stuck and not him.

Who Really Moved?

The past week Mik and I have been wondering who has really moved to our new home in Alabama because neither Mom or Dad have been here for over two weeks and only Mom "should" be here two days in the next two and a half weeks.  Thus, it kind of feels like only we moved, especially since Dad is back in AZ most of this time.

Considering the first month we were here, we spent two weeks at Disney World, and the other time running around to government and medical places to get things all transferred over here, not only is it like half the household has not really moved here, but we have not really moved in either.  Boxes are still taking up half my room, although yesterday I did finally clear the path to open the door that goes out to the trash cans from my room.  Dad's den is still full of boxes and is actually a bigger disaster because he asked me to find his camera stuff and I could not exactly keep the somewhat organized set up when going through the stuff by myself (and I did not even find the stuff to go with his camera, so finding the camera was useless!).

So, going on two months in our new house, it does not seem much different than the day we moved in.  At this rate I predict we may have the boxes unpacked after a year in this house, but that does not take in consideration who knows what ended up in the attic!

Dog Feeding Check Mark Calendar

Last Friday Mom set up the dry erase weekly calendar to have checkmarks when someone feeds Billy, so he isn't fed extra as sometimes happens. In theory it is a great idea, but not so much when I went to erase the marks put there last week and discover the Monday evening and Tuesday ones don't come off. Apparently, someone (i.e. Mom!) used the permanent marker instead of the dry erase ones. The sharpie is in the organizer the calendar is on, but it was in a different slot and it is a retractable style marker and not one with a cap like the dry erase ones we have.

Luckily I knew about using rubbing alcohol to remove permanent marker after having to do it off of pumpkins when working at the pumpkin festival last year and a group decorated theirs before realizing the pumpkins were not free.

Calendar is now set back up with dry erase markers and sharpie is moved to junk drawer.

Forgot to give Mik a tour of house

Tonight Mik tried to have me go wake up Mom with the excuse that he did not know where Mom & Dad's room was.  I thought he was bluffing, but turns out he legitimately did not know where their room was.  I guess we forgot to give him a tour of the whole house after we moved in.

Seriously, the house is smaller than our old one, but the layout is with separate wings, so you really can just use the common areas and not encounter each other's rooms for the most part, especially since Mik has his own bathroom rather than sharing like the rest of us do.

At least Mik did vaguely remember my room was through the kitchen and he really did try to bluff knowing that he could get to my room right out the front door.  He definitely knew that, as the other day when he came home with Dad they knocked there to ask me something.

Mik Grapples with Concept of Daylight Savings Time

Having lived all his life in Arizona until this year, Mik was kind of mind blown when we talked about losing an hour overnight for daylight savings time. He knew about Daylight Savings Time and basically understood how it worked, but having only 23 hours in the day when the clocks spring forward had him staring trying to grasp the reality. In particular, because we were talking about driving home from Disney World today and gaining an hour when we got back in our home time zone, but would then lose the hour with Daylight Savings Time tomorrow. Bottom line was he could not figure out the purpose of Daylight Savings Time and likes it the way it was in Arizona, which we all agreed with.

Not Being Able to Find Mom & Dad in New House

The first night in our new house I ended up repeating the experience of when we moved into our first house when I was 1.  At that time we moved from a two bedroom condo to a one story house with what I remember being four bedrooms and 3 living rooms.   It was basically really huge and when we first moved in I would wander around unable to find my mommy and daddy.

Over 20 years later moving back into the same house with my both parents for the first time in over 5 years, I ended up doing the same thing.  It is not that the place is huge (my room is huge compared to my old one, but the house overall is not).  However, I asked Mom where Dad was and then went to find him outside playing what I call musical cars because you have to park the cars just so to fit them all in the driveway.  Then I went in to tell Mom I found Dad only to end up going in circles trying to find her.

Thus, it is easy to wander in circles with the way the main path through the house is basically a circle.  In fact, you can do a whole circle route if you go out on of the doors to my room and then go in the front door.  Funny enough that is actually the shortest route from my room to half of the house including the bathroom.

Changing Lightbulb in Mik's Room

Of course, one week from move date and the light bulb in Mik's room finally went out. Mik is now sure wishing the move date didn't get moved back a week, as he had to put up with Dad coming in after waiting two nights of no real light in his room and putting the ladder right over him to change the bulb. He asked Mik to move, but only gave him five seconds, which wasn't even enough time for him to stop leaning against the bed. Quite uncomfortable fifteen minutes of waiting for Dad to then go search out a fresh lightbulb, but at least it is changed.