A Brief Coffee Chat

 

Hello dears, do come in.  There are Snickerdoodles and Hot Cocoa, Coffee and Tea.  Take your choice of hot drinks and come sit with me here near the sparkling Christmas tree which to date has only some inexpensive pinecone ornaments attached.   I plan to do more to the tree, but Caleb...hence the inexpensive pinecones.  I know that his little fingers are so tempted and if no one is the room he must touch and remove something from it as he did this afternoon and who can blame him?  It's asking far too much of a two-year-old who is entranced by this lovely tree that has appeared in the middle of his favorite window, to also say "Don't touch" and think he's going to mind.  Of course, he's going to touch!  and stand and stare and talk to himself before it.

It's cold out, isn't it?  I thought it was supposed to warm up this week but so far it keeps getting steadily cooler outdoors.  I'm not fussing.  I like cold weather in cold weather seasons.  And I like being in my home all cozied up when it's cold outdoors.

We've had an odd sort of week.   A mix of Caleb being here and Caleb not being here and us running errands and then having to go out unexpectedly today.  We had a day off from keeping Caleb yesterday as Katie was between one position ending and a new one starting today.   Still with the same company but the project she was employed in has closed and now she's taken a different job.   We went to the grocery yesterday and I bought most all that we'll need for our family party next weekend and topped up some of the low areas of the pantry and got produce for the weeks ahead.   

I crammed food in just anywhere in the fridge yesterday and it looked so terribly disorganized and messy, but I hadn't any gumption about sorting it out after the shopping and initial shoving into the fridge.   

I've not been feeling terribly well.  Not ill, just not well.   I had a lymph node swell significantly and I took myself off to the doctor after a couple of days of waiting for it to return to normal.   I love my doctor who is part chemist and part chiropractor and part holistic.  He thinks I have a blocked saliva duct called a parotid duct on the same side with the lymph node.  His prescription included warm Epsom salt compresses, massage with oregano or lavender essential oil, gargle and swish with colloidal silver three times a day and eat good sour pickles or lemons.    

The pickles/lemons are meant to activate the salivary glands and hopefully help clear the duct.  If all that fails, then it's off to the dentist to have him do x-ray and a procedure. I can also eat pineapple he said and since we'd just bought some fresh pineapple the other day that is being utilized.  The Bromelain will help the saliva glands as well.   I thought of several other 'sour' treats that could be eaten, such as sauerkraut and green olives.  And as I was typing all of this out, I thought of the candy my grandchildren are most fond of in the candy jar, which are called warheads and they carry a warning label that they are very sour.

 So, I bought pickles this afternoon.  I've used Epsom salt compresses and gargled as ordered.  The only thing I've failed to do is to pull out the essential oil.  Must go do that.  I can say honestly that in an afternoon's time the swelling is already down enough to notice. I've eaten a goodly amount of pickle slices, probably more than I'd typically eat in two or three months.   And the very idea of eating pickles is creating jet streams of salvia in my mouth.   

Speaking of the sour candies my grandchildren love, I keep wanting to say that this is a new trend but in honesty it is not new.  I remember clearly that Katie too loved the Sour Patch candies and Amie was so very fond of Lemon heads which are also sour candies.   I myself can recall the love we kids have for things like Sweet Tarts which were great big round discs at first and then became bite sized candies in a long roll.  And the original Charms Sweet and Sour lollipops that were also big lollipops, quite thick that were both sweet and sour.  Jolly ranchers too were a sour sort of candy.  Even as a child, I loved chocolate but given a choice between a giant Sweet Tart or a Charms Sweet and Sour Lollipop I was choosing the last two almost every single time.

Just for fun a few months ago, I looked up the Charms Sweet and Sour Lollipops to see if I might still purchase them.  You can and I did not.  None of the flavors available are familiar to me in the least.  They were weird compared to the blue raspberry and sour cherry and Lemon Lime flavors I grew up with.   These were watermelon and strawberry kiwi and stranger combinations than that.   They just did not sound good to me in the least and I didn't think they'd appeal to my grands, but I probably was wrong in thinking that given their love of the bilious colored warheads.

Bess came over to keep Caleb while we were gone.  She brought Millie along with her.   They seem to tremendously enjoy their time together here.  We got back just about the time Millie was going home for a nap.   Bess had an appointment and errands to run so Sam came to take her home.   They are doing fine by the way and your prayers were greatly appreciated.   Caleb had already been put down for a nap, but he never did go to sleep.  More on that in a moment.

John and I ate our lunch and had settled into our respective chairs while I used a warm compress on my neck.   I turned to say something to John, and I said "Oh!  Katie just drove past the window."  He's gotten awfully good at asking the silliest questions.  "What's she doing here?"   "I don't know, dear, I just saw her drive by."  "Well why?"  Honestly!  I'd been sitting right here with him, and I'd not texted with anyone and had no more clue than he did.    Her introductory training day turned out to be just a half day long.  

We three sat and talked and sipped coffee.  Katie asked if I'd like to go shopping and normally, I'd have jumped at the chance.   I just truly didn't feel I wanted to go anywhere.  I was still feeling a bit under the weather and having just paid property taxes, and the good doctor and knowing I had prescriptions to fill for other things, I felt my income had dipped quite a bit in two days' time.  Home seemed the best place to be.   So, since I wouldn't go shopping with her, she proceeded to pull up the Target sales ad on her phone and we 'shopped' vicariously, lol.   Mind you she is going shopping this evening with her fellow.  Once the shopping bug bites, Katie is easily infected.

Caleb, in the meantime, as we talked and talked, kept talking to himself and occasionally hooting at us to let us know he was not yet asleep.   He'd stop talking and Katie would whisper "I think he's asleep..." and I could tell her "Nope.  I can hear him in the bed moving around.  He's just busy and gotten quiet, but he's not asleep."   After two hours of listening to him, I went in to fetch him and that's when I discovered that somehow his pack and play was pushed close enough to my great grandmother's old Singer sewing machine, and he'd pulled open one of the drawers.  He'd ripped buttons off cards and emptied the drawer otherwise.  He'd torn an old manila envelope into bits.  He'd unmade his bed and dumped all the covers outside and he was sitting on the bare bottom of the pack and play with a very wet bottom.   Sigh.  

Needless to say, he was more than happy to come out of bed for all that he looked terribly tired.  He keeps trying to see if he can't go without these naps and then he sleeps super hard the next day and then we do a repeat of it all.

Katie gave her dad a haircut, Caleb ate a snack and then they left for home.  John started a load of laundry since I'd had to send Caleb home in shorts.  It was the last pair of pants I had on hand.  As I said it's cool outdoors and I hated to send him out like that but all he cared was that he was going home with mama.   Oh, and y'all he finally has a name for me.  I'm "Mymama".  I think that's because Katie will say "my mama" when talking to others about me and he's just picked it right up as my name.

After Katie left, John said "Well that's not too bad a day.  I've seen two daughters, a son, and two grandchildren."   I thought how nice it would be to have seen the boys, too.   As I sat here with my second warm compress on my face, up came Bess.  She ran in to pick up some things she'd forgotten when leaving this afternoon and mentioned that she and the children were going off to see her uncle who is in from out of state.  

I ran to the back porch and spoke to the boys who were in the car.  Isaac was upset.  He felt he was dirty and needed a shower before going off to visit anyone, lol.  We assured him he smelled just fine to us (as we stood on the porch, and he sat across the yard in the car).   I told him my doctor's prescription was to eat pickles and that made Isaac and Josh both laugh.  Isaac loves pickles.  

After Bess left, I told John, "Now that was a good day.  I've seen two daughters, a son, and FOUR grandchildren!"

Today as we ran through the grocery after picking up pickles and a handful of other items, John and I found boxed sets of Christmas cards.  I promise you we'd seen none the day before but today there were a half dozen or more on the shelf.  I grabbed one as we ran past.  "Surely this will cover us..."   I sat down this afternoon between Katie leaving and Bess's second arrival and addressed cards.  My box is used up.  I need 8 more cards.  I'll try to get those on Sunday and finish off my list for the year.  Two weeks later than I like to be, but I am happy I am able to send them out.  I truly had begun to think I'd miss this little part of Christmas and I was hurt over it.    

I LIKE getting Christmas cards and I like sending them, too.  I imagine others are as happy as I am to get them.  Perhaps they will be a thing of the past sooner rather than later.  I don't believe any of my children ever send a card.  I can't recall ever getting one.

Oh dear, speaking of things of the past...I was reading comments over on Prudent Homemaker this week and I have to share what was said.  A woman in Florida was speaking with her public librarian and was told that all libraries are going to become digitalized.   Borrowing a physical copy of a book will go the way of library cards.  Instead, one would visit a kiosk and get a download of any book wanted.  

I'd had a funny sort of conversation with Katie late last week about books.  I'd asked to borrow some of her Harry Potter books to read through.  Katie said, "Oh but they are 20 years old now, I really need to look them over and see how they are holding up."   I'd replied, "They should be okay.  You've taken good care of them.  Books last longer than you'd think.  I have some that are over 100 years old here."   I didn't add that there were books much older than any of my own in this world, but I was thinking of that. 

I felt a true pang at the thought of a world without physical books to hold.  I gasped as I read the woman's statement.   John asked what I was upset about, and I read off what she had to say.  I don't doubt the veracity of it.  It sounds just the sort of thing we can expect of this world.   But John is nothing if he isn't a comforter and what he said gave me great comfort.   "Well, they can do that if they choose but there are lots of people just like you who like the feel of a physical book in their hands.  You all are the sort that will never die out."   I gazed over at my bookshelves with all my beloved friends and new friends I've yet to meet sitting in stacks and rows.  I've often wondered what will happen to my books when I'm gone.  I don't believe anyone in the family will have any interest in them at all.  I've thought at some point I might donate them to a library but since so many were discarded from the library in the first place it's unlikely they would want them back.  And given the woman's statement of a digitalized library system, I see they will never go to any library.  

I have so enjoyed these books and the company they have been to me over these years.  I plan to go right on enjoying them.  Perhaps enjoying them all the more because one day to hold a book in my hands might well be a rare thing.

It is dark and you all shall have to be careful as you leave.   The deer are always out and about at night.  John and I have to watch carefully for them.  Do come again!  I've so enjoyed talking with you.