Snot

Tuesday was a pretty good day…until it wasn’t. . Greg, Alene’s son, came to spend the day and Kylie, granddaughter spent most of the day here as well. I was able to sneak away for a very quick lunch with Jill, my dear friend from Grease Monkey. 

Alene was quiet. She told Abbey she didn’t sleep because she was worried about the trip to CA. 

There are quite a few flowering plants in the backyard the Alene feels responsible for.  She’d brought up that she needs to water them because that darn Doug turns off the sprinklers to save water—he doesn’t. So even though the flowers are watered am and pm, she went out and watered in the middle of the day for 20 minutes. Once it’s in her mind, sometimes it’s so much easier to go with it.  “Pick your battles” as they say. 

Packing was quite the ordeal. Abbey helped her for awhile, then I helped her for awhile. Alene was totally and completely overwhelmed with the task. She needed to walk away from her confusion…and did. She had soooo many clothes sitting out and in her bedroom and in her suitcase, I was overwhelmed. We had a large stack of jeans and pants on her bed that she’d decided not to bring, so sweet Kylie quietly went down and hung them up. Out of sight, out of mind. A couple hours later, Abbey and Alene packed. There were still clothes removed from her suitcase when Alene was in the shower. I mean, who needs 20 panties and 15 pair of socks?

Then just before bedtime, we couldn’t find her purse…again. Abbey, Alene and I searched drawers, closets, bathrooms, upstairs and downstairs. Finally Abbey found it  behind a chair in a dark part of a sitting room.  Whew  

We were all tired, it was around 10:00 pm . Abbey guided Alene to her bedroom for hopefully a good slumber. 

Michaela (granddaughter) came in my room to say goodbye since I wouldn’t see her before we leave.  She’s an introvert, she’s brilliant and has a very tough exterior. We began to talk and she started to cry, no she sobbed. I told her to let it out and she did,  I thanked her for the snot she left on my night shirt!  We laughed and talked more for about 45 minutes. I’ll post more later on our conversation with her permission.

I was too tired to finish this post last night so it’s Wednesday morning and we’ll be leaving within the hour.  I asked Alene a few minutes ago if she was excited.  She paused and said “ yes, excited, a little scared and nervous.”  I said,  “ That”s okay, I feel the same.”

More from the road…


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Funny Farm

Image
 Arrived!  There’s a delay in posts to the blog because there’s no wi-fi here. I’ll do my best with this early in the morning. Also, I decided not to send out the link until I arrived. We got here Sunday late afternoon and Alene, Abbey and her friend Deena were waiting. Abbey and Deena left very early Monday morning for Alabama where Deena lives.  Abbey will fly back to Denver on the 18th. Alene looked very tired and a bit disheveled…she cried. We had dinner, visited and went to bed.  We were all up early Monday; Abbey and Deena left and Alene and I just talked and laughed until we decided to go into town (Ogalalla) for some groceries. The FF is 25 or so miles from town but we cross over the dam and it’s scary how low the water is. Also visible from the road is some of the damage that the tornado caused a couple weeks ago as well as damage from a recent hail storm. Alene said she’s got 22k in damage to the back of this place from hail. Now to Alene: On the plus side-there haven’t been
Read more

History and The Planning Stage

She said, “Why don’t you come and spend the summer with me at the Funny Farm ?” “She” is Alene, my dear friend of 45 years.  The “Funny Farm” is a place near Ogallala, NE that Alene and her husband purchased with her sister and brother-in-law about 25 years ago.  Their kids were young adults, their first grandchild was just born and everyone loved to water ski, jet ski and just play in Lake McConaughy. They had a blast and laughed till they cried. They decided that the perfect name would be The Funny Farm.  Jerry, Alene’s husband, died 15 years ago. Tragically, he had just retired. A couple years later, Alene bought her sister and brother-in-law’s share of the Funny Farm (I’ll shorten this going forward to FF.) Since then, Alene’s daughter, Abbey, and her two girls along with other family and friends have enjoyed time at the FF. Sadly, it’s probably time to sell for a variety of reasons but mostly due to the shortage of water.  I know Alene loves the peace being at the FF. It’s a simpl
Read more

Backward Steps

Image
 I abruptly ended the last post as we were leaving to go to a park where I could walk DanaRiley. I thought I’d be able to walk her around her but outside of their lawn area, the roads have stickers and DanaRiley had some in her pads the other day. So we went to the vacant sports complex and walked, ran my car through a car wash to get rid of some of the 5000 dead bugs on the window and front bumper, and we picked up a salad for lunch from Wendy’s.  Yesterday, Alene wondered aloud how it came to be that I was at the FF with her. If you read my first post, maybe you remember that she asked me to spend the summer here with her. I reminded her of that and she was stunned and remembers no part of those early conversations. But she believed me and we both laughed and said “crunch crunch” (her brain crunching). Well today she wanted to pay for the Wendy’s salads but didn’t bring her purse.  So I told her she could pay when we pick up a salad on our trip to California. She looked at me and slo
Read more