~~A Couple Days Rolled Into One~~

Today's high temperature was: 72 degrees

Today's humidity was:   34%

Sunny, nice breeze, nice and cool.

My kind of weather!!!!!

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Sunday--------------I do like September.  I like October a lot better--sunny days, a bit of warmth every now and then--beautifully hued leaves.  I like cutting back and cleaning up my garden too.  So many plants overgrown--dead leaves--dead, scraggly bud thingies on the lilies.  It looks really bare when I am done, but super neat.  Buttoned down for the winter and surely to bloom again next March/April  I have a lot of spring bulbs coming this month.  I put sticks in my gardens where there was sparse or missing Tulips/Daffodils, so when I cut back the gardens, I will see where those sticks are and..."stick" a bulb in there :-)

Merle didn't feel up to going to church--he picked up a cold virus while he was in hospital--so Pearl rode in with me.  She likes to sit in the 3rd row from the back.  I like to sit in the 5th row from the front.  I decided to sit with her yesterday, as she so hates sitting up near the front.  What a different perspective!! When we stood to sing the first hymn, I realized how very tall I am.  Everyone in front of me, is shorter then me.  We had a lovely young woman sing some special music yesterday--clear, nice voice--none of that vibrato crap. It was hard not to be distracted,  way back there, especially when the three old ladies (my age) two rows behind us, talked through the whole thing!!!  I so wanted to turn and tell them, "Sh-hh," but I didn't.  Pearl knows them--high school friends, and she turned and looked at them and they kind of quieted down, but...
I felt completely detached from the entire service.  We went in a side door, directly into the sanctuary and left the same way.  No going through the "shaking hands" line to greet the minister.

I have a real problem with the people in this church.  Granted--I haven't attended church regularly, since I moved here, so things may have changed, but--man are they ever noisy!  I was taught that went we entered the Sanctuary, we were to be quiet.  Sit down, meditate, pray, get in a quiet attitude so we were ready to hear what God had to tell us during the service.  Now--the people come in, laughing, talking, walking back and forth to greet others--which to me, is ridiculous, because after the first hymn we have the "welcome and greeting" of everyone around us.  OR, you can talk to your friends before or after the service--coffee hour--whatever.

My sister says, "back then, we believed that the Sanctuary was where God was present.  We entered into the presence of God in a quiet, prayerful, reverent manner.  Now, we know--God is present everywhere--the hallway, the dining room.  The Sanctuary is just another room where He is."  In her church, they have a video screen up in front (I hate those things) and it starts a sort of countdown at 30 seconds before the service begins.  People get quieter and quieter.  Then the bells are rung and in walks the acolytes-minister-choir.

In our church, the people keep talking.  The bells are rung.  The organist starts playing the processional music, the acolytes walk in and light the candles on the alter, the minister, lay person reader, behind and still--the people keep chatting.  The minister sometimes seems to have to shout, "GOOD MORNING!  PLEASE STAND AND SING OUR FIRST HYMN--"Be Still My Soul."  Then people sort of quiet down.  Drives me absolutely NUTZ!!!
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Remember Pearl and her land-line phone she bought purposefully to get the cable company bundle?  And then the phone didn't work, so she called Comcast and they told her, "Something is wrong with your phone."  So, I brought it home and plugged it into my phone jack and it worked perfectly.  Remember that?

So--now she is going to call Comcast and tell them to come out ($75.00) and fix her phone.  I told her, "Your phone is fine.  It works great."

"Then--why doesn't it work?  They did something to it."

"No they didn't.  The only thing they did was hook it up to the modem.  What they meant was, your phone line--FROM OUTSIDE TO YOUR PHONE JACK isn't working."

"Well, they told me it did work, but...now it doesn't.  This damn computer stuff drives me crazy."

"Okay...."

"No--I don't want to hear it.  I have a headache."

"Sh-hh.  Take a deep breath.  Relax.       What Comcast meant was................the...let's call it...your phone line from the phone TO the modem works just fine.  Okay?  Now...the phone line from the other end of your phone that goes into the little outlet thingie on your wall--behind your bed?  That is the line that doesn't work.  It is the line that is connected to the phone wires outside your house.  Comcast has nothing to do with that.  You would have to call ATT or whomever around here supplies the phone service--yes, ATT."

"But, I had ATT for my phone, Internet and TV and I called to cancel them.,...so they won't come back out."

"Okay--solution?  Call Comcast and tell them to take your phone off the bundle and just have TV and Internet connection with them."

"But, then they will charge me more!"

"Okay--Pearl--breathe..........................  You don't use your land-line phone because you have a cell phone. You are NOW paying for TV, Internet and phone--and yes, it is cheaper to have all three bundled together...if you are using all three.  BUT, if you take off your phone, your price, overall won't go up...you will only be paying for TV and Internet and your total bill will be cheaper for just those two items.  It might cost more for TV and it might cost more for Internet--for each item, but......your TOTAL bill will be cheaper."

"I don't get it.  I think you're wrong!"

<sigh>  

"Let's say your TV hook-up costs, fifty dollars a month.  Your Internet hook-up costs forty dollars a month and your phone costs fifty dollars a month."

"Well, it's not that much. My TV is more and the phone is less and.........."

"I know--we are just using hypothetical numbers here. So--your bill would be one hundred forty dollars if you bundle all three.  Now--if you take the phone off, and only bundle two--your TV is going up to seventy-five dollars a month and your Internet is going up to forty-five.  Much more then before when they were bundled."

"Oh...kay."

"So add that up--seventy five and forty-five--how much is that?"

"Ah---one hundred twenty?"

"Yes!  So see your total bill will be less with just two bundled."

"But--they didn't charge me fifty dollars a month for my phone. I think you've figured wrong."

GOOD GRIEF!!!!!  

"Okay, call Comcast and just ask them.  Ask them if you take off your phone and just have TV and Internet, what your TOTAL bill will be.  Not what each item will be, but your TOTAL bill, because that is really all you care about, right?"

Now I had a headache and had to go home!

It's like trying to explain calculus to a three year old--she just doesn't get it AND with her memory issues, it makes it very difficult.

I do NOT want to be "teacher of the world,", but she keeps getting me involved and wants to know--or not.  I have no clue anymore!!!
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So, I came home and called Pammie and she was washing walls and steam cleaning her carpets and rearranging furniture and making her bedroom upstairs, instead of downstairs and...she was having a ball!!

"Momma---I just love it!!  Do you realize that this is the first time in my life I have lived alone?  It is so nice to do whatever I want to and not have somebody standing over my shoulder and saying, "You aren't doing that right!"  It is so nice to take my shower and be able to walk nude from the bathroom to the bedroom, without someone making unflattering comments.  I love sleeping in the nude and I haven't been able to do that in years.  Oh, Momma--I am loving this!!"  :-)

Of course you are my Dear.  There is nothing like taking the huge rotten, heavy, pushing you down mountain, off your back/mind/soul!!
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I don't know if any of you read the Cedar Cove series of books, written by Debbie Macomber.  I had all of them, read the, Susan read them, Pearl read them, Dar read them, Jackie read them.  We all were anticipating watching the movie on the Hallmark Channel and..........we are all very disappointed in said movie.  If we hadn't read the books, it probably would be just a good movie to us, but---they leave out  whole chunks of the books that "we" think was needed to make the story line flow better and, they add stuff that wasn't in the books and confuse us so we have to call each other and say, "Do you remember that being in the books, because I don't?"  Oh well--creative license.
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"MOM--I was sleeping!  You aren't going to post this on Face Book, are you?"
"No, Buddy.  On my blog though."
  

"I'm so embarrassed!"
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Monday--------------------someone said it was a Holiday?  

I keep hearing military music and fireworks--I don't think it is a military holiday like 4th of July or Memorial Day, so---I am not impressed.  Then I heard someone say, "It's the last day of summer."  Ah--I don't think so.  Summer ends on September 20th, and we have lots of warm, sunny days in October, so...........

All I know--it is the day when I swap out my white purse for my dark one.  I put away my white shorts, jeans and sandals, until Memorial Day, because----I live by Rule #3.  "If you live above the Mason-Dixon line, you don't wear white after Labor Day."  Yes--I know that is an old fashioned rule, but then....so am I.

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My sister and Chuck stopped in on their way to a short day-long road trip to--wherever the road takes them.  They brought me, 6 ears of sweet corn, out of their garden this morning, and 4 lovely tomatoes.  Chuck sawed off the dead branches on one of my Rose of Sharon bushes, and dug up two nice clumps of our Mother's Lemon Lily and Rudbeckia to transplant.  They have a large stone at the end of their driveway--at one time it had an iron ring in the top and was made for hitching a horse.  They are going to plant the Brown-Eyed-Susan's in front of that stone, so Susan won't have to plant annuals there--it will be a stunning vignette!!!

Chuck is going to get his tractor, with the front loader scoop, get behind the

rock and push it up straight.  Won't it be pretty with the Hosta and Rudbeckia?

Then, after they left, I went down to Merle and Pearl's.  I had tried to call her cell phone and it said I had the wrong number. I also wanted to take them some ears of fresh sweet corn and a a schedule of MSU and UofM football games I had printed out for Merle.

She has a new cell  phone!!!!!  One of those smart ones!!  I think it's a bit too large to carry in her jeans pocket, but the thing will do it all. Internet, games, e-mail...it even makes and receives phone calls!!!!!---when you figure out how it works--which will be another saga in itself!!

You know what's so great about this phone?  I don't know a thing about it or how to work it, so.....................I'm off the hook as "teacher" this time.

Oh--the reason her cell phone would not receive calls?  She didn't call her phone provider and tell them she had a different phone and thus, more money, and they disconnected her. She also could not make any outgoing calls, but she hadn't realized that as yet. 

Oh My!!

She said, "You told me my land-line was working...and it's not."

"Do we have to go through all that again?"

"Yes.  I want to know why it's not working!  If it works at your house, why doesn't it work here."

"I told you--the phone line is not working."

"But it is.  I have it plugged into the modem and all the lights are on, but the phone still has no dial tone."

Aha--I have an idea.

"Where do you have it plugged in?"  (Even though I knew full well.)

"Back in the bedroom--come here--I'll show you."

So down the hall we stagger.

There is her "purposefully purchased land-line phone just so she (thought) it would help get cheaper bundle"--she picked it up and handed it to me.  No dial tone.

"See, I told you.  It's the phone.  It won't work here.  I think maybe when you carried it to your house, a wire inside got put back in place and then when you carried it back here, the wire got disconnected again."

<sigh>

I put my finger under the line from phone to modem and said, "See--this is connected to the modem.  Comcast is telling you that this wire is fine--it is working.  "Then I picked up the line that went from her phone into the phone jack on the wall.  "This is the line that isn't working. That's why Comcast told you there was something wrong with your phone."

I saw a glimmer of understanding in her eyes.

"Do you have another wall outlet---phone jack for a phone...somewhere in the house?"

"Yes, there is one in the living room."

So, down the hall we staggered again.

She pointed to where the jack was and I plugged in her phone and held it out to her.

"I has no dial tone," she said.

"Ah ha!"  I exclaimed.  "That means that the phone line, coming in from the outside of the house, the line connected to the phone company, is not working.  It is not hooked up, or not connected."

Then I saw the bright light of full understanding come to her face.

She turned to Merle, sitting in his chair.  Merle!  The phone line outside, the one that comes off the pole, is the one that isn't working!"

"Yeah, I know," he says.

I thought she was going to throw the phone at his head.

"Why isn't it hooked up to the house?" asks Pearl.

Merle put his newspaper down, switched the toothpick in his mouth to the other side and said, in his slow way, "The wire from the pole to the house IS hooked up.  We didn't need an inside phone, so we never called ATT to have the line connected."  Back to reading his newspaper.

"Well...I'm calling ATT tomorrow and have it connected!"

That's when I saw Merle grimace and I said, "You don't use this phone, right?"

"No," she said.

"Then, why don't you call Comcast and have them take it off your bundle.  Your total bill will be cheaper every month."

"Okay.  I'm going to do just that, tomorrow!"

AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!

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I got home and my sister called and said, "I am calling you from Hell!"

"Anyone there that you know?"

"Yeah--I think I just saw Dad going around the........never mind.  That's not nice!  No--we are in Hell---Hell, Michigan!  Remember when Daddy and Mother brought us here?"

"Yes."

"There was a sign that said, "Welcome to Hell" and it had little devil's with pitchforks on each corner of the sign?"

"Yes."

"Well, now it has a regular town name sign like all the signs in Michigan.  Green and white."

"Well...you can't be in hell, or the sign would be maize and blue!"

"Bawhahaha," she laughs.

"No--we are not in Ann Arbor!  Anyway, there is only three buildings in Hell now.  A bar and two stores.  So disappointing."

"Well...we all knew that hell would disappear at some moment in time.  Maybe this is a prophetic sign?

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Remember this~~~

...and when I massacred them?

Today--new bright green growth.

 See that tiny woman in the background?  She is trying to trim her 7' bushes
with a small handle cutter--one branch at a time.
I am going there in the morning with my electric hedge trimmers and get 'er done!








"ZZ-zz

MOM--I was sleeping!  You aren't going to post this on Face Book are you?"
"No, Maggie--on my blog"

"I am so embarrassed!"

"Psst--Buddy, Mom said she was going to post a picture of us on her blog"
"Yeah--I know."
"I'm so pretty.  Everyone will comment how pretty I am.  Everyone will laugh at how fat YOU are!"

"Nobody is going to laugh!  Everyone knows I am her favorite...and...
quit calling me fat!"

See ya................