I am back from my short trip but quite tired. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment. No I did not win anything this time.
Fun times but I sure am feeling glad I took tomorrow off too.
Got a request to post some more pictures so here you go! Hope you enjoy a look into the lives of me and M and our family!
And now some from my sister’s as J asked. Yes we did decorate her house. For two fricking days!
There you have it!
By the way, we put up Mom’s stocking and put a black band around it in memory.
As the holidays approach you might get more if you are interested
My mother liked to gamble much of her life.
When my father was alive, they both loved Vegas. So much so that they briefly lived there after my mother retired. They had to be brought back from there because they couldn’t stop spending money but that’s another story.
When we would take my mother to Vegas, while we were checking in, she was already sitting at a machine. Up until the pandemic hit, she played bingo every Wednesday at the local Elks Lodge. Over the years, she won many jackpots (about $5,000 or so at a time mind).
So when we take these kinds of trips my mind is often on her. Definitely this time for a trip she would have loved. Back when she still could love anything (before dementia and Leukemia). More on that in a minute
Our view…pretty nice, yes?
So I was playing one of my favorite slot machines and playing the minimum bet of 88 cents per spin. I’d played about 9 or so spins when I got the bonus on it. That’s when this little jar’s lid closes. You get either the mini, the minor, the major or the grand jackpot. The mini was like $15. Almost 100% of the time that’s what I get. Once in a while I get the minor which is about $30-$60 depending on how recently it’s gone off. This time…
I got the grand. Which never happens on an 88 cent bet. Ask anyone. But it did. Yes, I won $17,000. It’s going into my retirement savings, but yes. It was a bit of an excitement. It’ll never happen again but my mother had a hand in it, I am convinced. I had her blessings as total this trip I ended up winning about $19,000 and my sister about $7,000. So yes, my mother blessed us.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to say because I didn’t want anyone to think I was bragging or whatever, but since you did ask, I am sharing here.
I have no clue if I have mentioned this or not but a while back one of my old fillings basically crumbled and came out over several months. I haven’t been to the dentist for 20 plus years. Or I hadn’t been until today, but we will get to that shorty.
Back in my youth I had a bad experience with dentists (several bad) and so I stopped going completely. I planned never to go as I had developed a dental phobia.
When my filling began coming out, I ignored it still. Until my recent trip over Labor Day weekend when was sipping a lovely ice cold cocktail and I nearly died from the pain (warning for exaggeration). That whole weekend I had to avoid that huge hole. Here’s a picture of it courtesy of the X-Ray taken this morning.
That hole there is it.
Anyway, no surprise but I need a root canal. Ugh. But the dental office I am assigned to through my insurance doesn’t have the endo dude so I have to call Monday for an appointment so I can get that done. Ugh.
Plus I need two or three other crowns and blah blah blah. My portion of all the other stuff (not the root canal) is $3000. If I decide to have everything that is. Right now I am concentrating on getting the root canal done as that’s what is causing me pain.
So yeah, there you have my poor poor story.
The moral? I should have gone to the damn dentist LOL
Yes, that garden stake you saw in Friday’s flash is something I ordered. From Hobby Lobby (don’t judge me lol)
I have officially started my week’s vacation as of now.
Sister has a friend who has some money and tomorrow we are going to three wineries she is a member of and doing some tasting as well as a picnic outdoors. For dinner she is a member of a yacht club so we are dining there at their restaurant. It’s good to have friends richer than you.
This week I go with my sister to that casino and hotel in San Diego. I think we will have great fun.
I myself also joined a wine club. You get shipments three times a year. It’s one of my favorite wineries up north. That’s just a random side note.
It’s funny how the strangest things and memories and thoughts can set you off to weeping over your lost loved one.
Ma used to keep stashes of money. She played bingo weekly, loved Vegas, and until she had dementia went with my sister to the Native American casinos. She was pretty lucky too. So she kept stashes of money. If you went with her, and you gave her a sad face that you were out of money, she would take out her stash and pluck some bills for you. She could be super generous obviously.
Anyway, my sister came across some of her stash yesterday, another $200 in her underwear drawer in her closet. She gave me $100 and kept the other for herself. This made me cry. This was my mother’s money, she should be the one spending it. My mother, that is. And yes, I 100% know she has passed away from this life, I hope to a better one. At the very least she is out of pain. But this was her money and it makes me sad to get it. It just does. And I’m having a lot of weird guilt over it.
So yes, I am still struggling with grief.
Thanks for listening.
Still here and still in limbo. Ma hasn’t eaten for five days now but she still drinks a tiny bit of iced tea. I go there every night now to help get her into the bathroom and into bed. It’s taking up a lot of my time other than work and what free time I do have, I try using for fun things like video games or something like that. I am doing a tiny bit of writing when I can fit it in, as you know from what updates I have done.
Anyway that’s where things stand right now.
So yesterday I had a mental health day off from work. Did a bit of shopping and writing (I updated the last two chapters of Clarity the past few days and I am proud to have finished another one).
But just after lunch I got a text from sister to go pick up Mom who had fallen again. She had a big blood bruise on her back but otherwise seemed mostly okay. But those are the kinds of things I can expect at any time.
Today, sister gets her hair done and she’s now afraid to leave Mom alone, so I’ll be going over there shortly for several hours to watch her. This consists of me mostly sitting on the couch while she dozes in her chair.
Monday I go for my second doze of the Pfizer vaccine. I am anxious to get it over with. I have that day off too as the vaccine is in the morning and I decided might as well take the day in case of any side effects. I generally don’t get them from vaccines but you never know. I’ve been reading that, much like a flu shot, you’ll likely need to get additional shots as the years pass. Interesting times we live in for sure.
Anyway, I should have the next chapter of Cosmic Love up Monday, though I have yet to write it. Probably will tomorrow. Other than Cosmic Love, I am now down to only 6 wips. That is excellent for me. I once had 13 going at once. I’m running out of new ideas though, so maybe, I’ll stop after those 6? We will see. I mean how many times can we read about Jim meeting Spock at the Academy or Spock finally breaking up with Uhura to be with Jim?
Finally got my posting date for the T’hy’la Bang story. It’s June 22nd. Yaoichan12’s is June 23rd. So we aren’t first but we aren’t last either. I did manage to write a bit more and I have to have it pretty much done by the end of this month. It will be. I don’t have that much to go.
As you know I finished Cadet Ashayam and my next plan is to finish Nine Lives too. I’m already very much itching to begin fleshing out Vanik’s story, aptly named, The Matchmaker. It will be part of my Starfleet Academy series.
I plan to continue a few threads of flashes for the June flashes, so stay tuned for that.
I must admit there are some really fantastic stories on AO3 right now and it’s a little intimidating. I love it as a reader but as a writer, yeah, I’m a little envious. Ah, well. Such is life I suppose. There is always someone better than each of us at something or other I guess!
I bought myself a desk. Don’t recall if I mentioned this. But I had been at my dining room table for six weeks working from home. I have two monitors. So every single weekend I had to take my equipment down off the dining room table just so we could have a dining room table. My stuff took up a huge amount of it. Six weeks of this.
So I broke down and got a desk for about $220. It’s you know cheap Ikea type furniture, but it works. I’m off the dining room table and by the cat box, ha ha, but it is what it is. I figure I will be here at least another six weeks maybe more, so…desk it was.
We also bought a little bistro set for our patio so we can sit out there this summer and enjoy since we can’t really go anywhere. Things are starting to open up slowly but we figured sprucing up our patio was rather overdue anyway.
This weekend is Memorial Day weekend already. So it’s three days off for me and I’ll stop work at 1 on Friday like I would have if I’d been at the office but now I won’t have to walk home. I have a special flash for that Monday too.
And that’s the news that’s fit to print!
Don’t really have any May pictures yet. So you get one of theirs. Nice, huh?
Today I heard that a place out here called the Soup Plantation was going out of permanent business. If you don’t have those out there, it’s basically a buffet restaurant, think Hometown Buffet or Golden Corral, is you have those. Basically they don’t think the health agencies will ever let them operate again under this modern day life with the pandemic, so they closed down. I’m not much of a buffet person, but that place was okay, when I went there, and it’s more sad to me that 4,400 people are permanently out of jobs.
This time, this year, is just…there are no words really.
My company seems to be indicating now that we won’t be getting back into the office for months. They are even temporarily closing entire offices so they don’t have to pay for space/electricity we are not using. I definitely don’t anticipate going back at least through the summer. This really is stunning and unprecedented to say the least. I don’t think they want to rush anything only to have us all sent back out again. But it has made for a significant adjustment.
And I feel like I am whining a bit because I have a job still, at least for now, unlike so many many others. And I am not sick, at least for now, and they are continuing to take steps to ensure not too many of us do get sick.
The media and government on all sides these days makes me a little nuts so I have cut back on my amount of news intake. I recommend you all do the same if you haven’t already.
A few good things with working from home is absolutely no commute. I get to sleep in about an hour later. When I turn off my computer in the afternoon I don’t have to get in a car and drive anywhere. I just move to the couch! I can change the sheets on the bed while at work and I can throw a load of laundry. I can also serve myself good coffee as often as I’d like. I get to see my cat all day, every day. So yeah good things. And I think we have to think of good things in this life when we can.
I still have four more flashes left to write for May, so if anyone has a suggestion, and by that, I mean a SIMPLE one. PLEASE. Not some long involved multi-chapter thing. I have enough of those now! Anyway, let me know.
Spirk (with a small dose of Pinto) 