Potato fiasco

Don-Mike had another name for this, it kind of rhymed with potato. I repeated it, tickled with the words, saying I was going to use it as the name of my blog entry tonight. Now, of course, I can't remember it. I hate the short term memory loss. This will bug me for a while, what was that word?

Don & I take turns cooking dinner on Sunday. Don fixes lasagna 0n the first Sunday of the month & it has come to be known as Lasagna Sunday. So, when I was planning menus for March I saw there were 5 Sundays. If we continued to fix dinner every other week, lasagna would no longer be served on the first Sunday. So, I had a scathingly brilliant idea. Don-Mike could fix dinner on the fifth Sunday! I also had an alternate plan. We could have potluck, where everyone would pitch in with something, or we could have a potluck potato bar.

Don-Mike thought about it a while & decided he would take the 5th Sunday challenge. He thought about it, planned it & shopped for it. Funeral potatoes was the main dish of his meal. I went shopping with him & we did not get any potatoes. Why get potatoes? We had a 50 lb. bag of potatoes in the cellar that had never been opened. He went down today to get the potatoes & they were soft & sprouted. They were in 3 feet of water. The sump pump had not been plugged in. None of us had even thought it had been warm enough for the cellar to flood like it does every year.

I suggested dropping back & punting, but he had planned on fixing "funeral potatoes" for dinner today for a month. I told him the closest open grocery store was Logan. I could drive down & get some. He suggested I ride down with him.

Only the big box stores are open in Logan, Wal-Mart, Smith's & Albertson's. We went to Wal-Mart. Don-Mike got potatoes & I got bread, milk & some frozen burritos. The frozen burritos were to appease Nick. He had a huge melt down today after I got home from church. He came to the front room door with 2 cans of tuna that I had bought last night for Don's tuna noodle casserole tomorrow night & asked if he could have them. Don said no, it was for supper tomorrow night.

He put them back & then came looking for a fight. He said we NEVER have food in the house. I told him we have food in the house. He could have the d***d tuna. He was raging by then. He said he didn't like just opening a can of vegetables or fruit or tomatoes. He wants to open something to eat & not have to fix it. All we have in the house is INGREDIENTS. He doesn't want to have to MAKE something to eat, he just wants to get something to eat.

I went out & there was no bread in the bread box. I went to the freezer & almost had heart failure. I couldn't find any bread. Then the box of ramen noodles was empty, but hadn't been thrown away. The last egg had been used last night, but no one had told me there was not another dozen in the extra fridge. All the milk we had was in the fridge in the kitchen, there was not another gallon in the other fridge. He was right, there was no food in the house.

Then I started raging. My usual response is "Your lack of planning is NOT my emergency!" Well, today, it was my emergency. I could have got the milk, bread, potatoes & either more ramen noodles, spaghetti-os (sp-os), frozen pizza or burritos here in town & not have to run clear to Logan. But we knew there were potatoes in the cellar. We just didn't check on them yesterday to find that they had gone bad. I had asked as I left for the grocery store last night, "What do we need?" knowing the closest open grocery store on Sunday is 25 miles away.

Don-Mike's meal turned out delicious. It was nice to have someone else fix the meal & do the planning. He fixed enough for everyone to fill up. They are such hearty eaters, many times there is not enough to fill them up. No one went away hungry. I gorged myself. We have punch every Sunday. Since the diabetes diagnosis, they give me water to drink, instead of punch. Last week Don-Mike suggested I buy some Crystal Lite so I can have punch too. I said the water was great.

I'm still tryng for an 11:30 bedtime. Last night I went to bed at midnight, but was up this morning at 7:15. I have to copy the ward bulletin every month on Fast Sunday

Lent, Day 22 continued

Back from supper & watering the dog. It's getting warm & we're going to have to get something bigger to water the dog in or water him 2-3 times a day.

Back to the back or green door. When we got cats, we had to devise a way to keep the cats from pushing the door open & coming in, so we just put the sugar bucket in front of the door. It's a green pickle bucket & holds about 25 lb. of sugar. When it's full, it holds the door closed enough that the cats can't get in.

A few months ago, Nick had a rage & slammed out the green door & broke the window. I don't remember if there was a door on the "porch" or not. Anyway, he got in his pickup, gunned it, dug up holes in the new driveway & backed right into the pine tree. I told him that I've always been afraid that he'd wrap his vehicle around a tree, but never expected it to be in my own front yard.

Don trimmed the pine tree so there are no ragged edges & it seems to be healing. This was last fall, I remember because Nick wanted to sell his pickup for $2,800. When he backed into the pine tree, it bent the bumper in. This is a 1969 Chevy pickup & those vehicles were made out of steel. It takes a lot to bend them.

These are the pictures I took of the deer with my cell phone, which is why they are blurry. There are 3 deer there. In the first picture there are 2 deer together, closest to the tree. In the second picture, there are still 2 deer together, closest to the tree.

A car came by & some boys, about 10 years old, decided to chase the deer. The third picture is in front of the Hatch House with only 2 deer in flight. Actually all three are there. One took off to the right of the little adobe cabin & one is on the left between the Hatch House & the cabin. The third is the one in front of the Hatch House.

This is in Franklin, the oldest permanent settlement in Idaho, in the historic part of town. My Grandpa Porter, my mother's father, had an Aunt Bess who lived in the Hatch House. Actually all this picture shows is an addition to the house. She used to make the hill billies from Cub River wipe their feet before they could come into her house. Maybe they even had to take their shoes off. I can't remember the story. It depends on the day as to whether Mother can remember it or not.

I remember Grandpa used to tell me that he had an Aunt Bess who talked just like ordinary folk until she had a daughter go to college. Then she started reading the dictionary so she could use high-falutin' words. He'd tell me that because he said I used too big of words.

I always thought it was funny, because I love to read the dictionary. For my 18th birthday my mom gave me my very own dictionary. I used to read with it in the chair next to me. Actually, I read with her dictionary in the chair next to me & it was falling apart, so she bought me my own dictionary, which is also falling apart.