Yes, you can get a body inside a chest freezer, but we all knew that from all the movies on TV. Now I know it because I realized there was just way too much frost lining the freezer walls and I took everything out. When I went to clean it, I discovered stubborn stains in the bottom corners. I’m short and leaning over just didn’t do it; the step ladder idea didn’t work well either. I climbed inside with a spray bottle of cleaner and a roll of paper towels.

Actually, it  wasn’t bad in there, not that I could stretch out and I suppose I would tire of getting low enough for the top to close. Climbing out was a little troublesome as well. After going to all that work to clean it out, I hated to put the frozen stuff back in, but I did because who wants roasts, hams and turkeys rotting on your basement floor?

Then I cleaned out the old refrigerator that’s down there. It is working much better since I discovered the iceball that had formed in the back of the freezer.  What is all this domestic work I’ve been doing? Could it be that I have had some sort of breakdown?

What do you think?

I could have painted last evening, but yesterday afternoon I was so tired, I decided to nap. As in actually go to sleep; do not pass go, do not read, do not surf the Internet. Then I woke up and there was still time to paint, but having decided to not do so the first time, the second decision was so easy.

I was feeling kind of down and thought about watching YouTube Tickle Me Elmo videos, but settled instead for Anderson Cooper getting the giggles. I almost wish I had a Giggle Me Coop doll. I suspect some people don’t admit to knowing me.

Will I do stuff today or not? Oh, I could happily do “stuff” like going out for lunch, renting a nice car and driving to Oregon, munching a cookie. The question really is: Will I do  gosh darn, really annoying, dirty, tiring, crummy chores? If I do, I’ll bet I’ll be stomping around and not a bit like Mary Poppins. And to think all the chores my ancestors did just a couple of generations ago . . . Well, that didn’t have the hoped for morale booster effect? It’s looking pretty bad here, folks.

AHA – –AND AN UPDATE

Yes, the kitchen has had some cleaning and the fence has a some priming, but the best  part was when my recruited worker got a sad look on her face and said, “We worked so much* and go so little done.” Oh, I know that makes me sound me and I probably am mean, but after years of pushing on, I couldn’t help but feel some fascination when she continued to remark on the amount of “sweat” on her body.

*One and a half hours outside. Not quite ready for the Japanese POW camps yet.

I recently mentioned our relatively cool summer and WHAM!!!!!, it is not 100 degrees, but it has been in the 90’s and humid. I believe the low was 70 last night. Of course, those who live in southern areas are rolling their eyes, I suppose, but it has been over a year since we have had warm nights and it feels a bit strange to have the air give you a moist hug when you venture out at midnight. (Trash night, dontcha know?) We are all feeling wimpy for remarking on the heat in parking lots, when we remember that three years ago, we would have been so glad to have a day that only made it to 90.

As for precipitation, well, it may rain and it may not. The percentages keep changing on my phone forecasts and, in fact, the sky alternates from angry to bright blue  – that would have annoyed me 50+ years ago in my suntanning days. Yes, I’m old enough to have been around when tanning was in vogue, although I do remember us all shuddering when we were at the pool at Indiana University and saw this lady with skin that looked like thick, creased leather. I think that caused me to wise up more than any scientific alerts.

It’s still mid-afternoon and I could put on crummy clothes and do something dirty – outside where it’s hot – and sweat. Or I could just sit here and think about it. I need to find my sunglasses, though. The hunt might take a long time; I imagine I might have more success if I got up and actually looked. The view over the computer is someone limited. Of course, I could look at that as a challenge.

Why, why, why do medical assistants constantly refer to a doctor as “Doctor” as is “Doctor will see you now.” or “Doctor wants you to know . ..”   I’m certain that almost every other English noun referring to a person has an article in front of it. The doorbell rings, someone answers and yells, “THE plumber is here.”

“Room Service” may be here, but “THE waiter” rolls it in.

I’m guessing at the asylum, the workers say, “Here comes THE  new nutcase.” Yet, they tell the nutcase” DOCTOR will be right in.

Obviously, I am still irritable.

I am usually easy to annoy, often sharp and have an irritable response close at hand, but these past few days, I have been the Mt. St. Helens of irritability. I’m not really expecting to be very pleasant today, but I think yesterday was eruptive. When one hapless grocery-bagger was totally incapable of following the simple request to hold the bar code where it could be scanned and twisted the item six ways to Sunday and then gave me a puppy dog look, I responded with “the look of death.”

That was the beginning. Another look of total pity and disdain was addressed to a young medical technician who looked at me and asked, “Have you ever had your blood drawn before?” Then when a urine analysis was required and I asked for some water first, she hesitated as if that couldn’t possibly work and grudgingly gave me a glass. When I went into the restroom, my eyes were sarcastically telling her, “Now, sister, I’m going to go piss one for the Gipper.”  Like she would get the reference.

One man mentioned the bushes needed trimming around my house and I let him know that I abhorred neatly little manicured shrubs whose shapes denied the random flow of nature and were far too short to impart any sense of of wooded refuge into the house.

As the day progressed, I came home and remarked to my daughter-in-law that I had run into “that floozy”.

Fortunately, when I discovered the pharmacy had put conflicting information on the medicine bottle, I just decided I’d call on the next day and went stomping off to be by myself,

Gee, looking back at this, I’d  say I didn’t really erupt; I rumbled. Which means . . .????? Vancouver, this will soon be it? Maybe.

We have started painting zee fence. (Feeling a little Frenchie for a moment) and it is Pebble Grey.  My shorts now have Pebble Grey spots on them, but, hey, that’s okay since I had a bleach accident with them a year ago.

It is always enlightening to realize how BIG a fence is that encloses a SMALL area when you start painting. I don’t know how long it will take us but I am looking forward to the part when we get to where the woodpile used to be, because a couple of years I painted the fence with the wood piled in front of it and it looks a little odd now that the wood is gone.

If I had artistic talent, I would paint an evergreen forest on the fence panels with a path leading somewhere magical. But I don’t, so Pebble Grey is as magical as it gets. Maybe I can pretend it is a gentle fog rolling in, carrying the scent of the sea. I could add a fog horn for verisimilitude, or I could stand out there and pretend to be a fog horn. I suppose that would get old and I might wind up in an asylum with Pebble Grey walls – not too stimulating, dontcha know?