First Weekend in April...

Good afternoon! It’s about 4:40 p.m. and that’s after setting the clock ahead an hour over the weekend. I sure didn’t like that idea – losing an hour of sleep. L L My body clock will eventually catch up, though.

Okay, here goes my attempt to recap the 3 ½ day weekend I had…

Bob showed up at 11:55 a.m. on Thursday and so I was able to leave just after 12:00 p.m. – after doing “turnover” with him. I went home and changed clothes and laid down for a little while on the couch – with Sukiey up there with me. We slept for about an hour or a little more. Then, I got up and got ready – and went down to the lobby to wait on Etta Mae. She was a little after 2:30 p.m. arriving to pick me up.

We went back to her house after a stop at Taco Bell to fetch something to eat. Once there, we ate and then got to work. We did the data entry and then went to try to print the receipts – but the printer still would only print the color parts. That’s when it hit me – the problem with the printer was that the black cartridge was empty! I opened the “hood” on the printer and pulled the black cartridge out and shook it and didn’t hear anything, then I checked the color cartridge and I heard liquid in it. So – I told Etta Mae that I believed that was the problem. We grabbed the 2 black cartridges she had – the one I had taken out and another empty – and took off to Office Depot. There she bought another black and another color (so she would have a spare color) cartridge and we turned in the empties for recycling and got $3 off the price of one of the cartridges and a free ream of paper for the other.

When we got back to her house after the trip to Office Depot, I installed the black cartridge and pulled what we had been trying to print back up on the screen and tried again. This time we were successful in getting it to print like it should. I was like I couldn’t believe I was so dumb! By that I meant that it didn’t occur to me to check the status of the black cartridge before. L L Oh well – it happens to the best of us. L J

It was around 7:30 p.m. when Etta Mae dropped me off at Sterling Towers. I went up and hung out with Sukiey and I did try to read a little of Paul and then went on to bed. I slept in Friday, since I knew Chris wouldn’t be ready to go to Wal*Mart before at least 11:30 a.m. and then was kind of leisure-like when I did get up. I got a bath, dressed and was ready so that when she called and said she was ready to go, I would be able to go on down and meet her.

It was around 11:30 a.m. when Chris called and said she was ready to go to Wal*Mart, so I went on down and met her and we were off. I had brought 2 rolls of film with me to drop in at the photo lab. When we got to the store, that was the first place we went – we made a bee-line to the lab and dropped the rolls in. Then we started rambling through the store and I got things that were on my list (plus some things that weren’t) and then we stopped back in at the lab after it had been about an hour and picked up the finished prints. I checked them out and paid for them. We resumed shopping and finally finished up a little later and I got checked out.

We loaded the car up and headed to Sterling Towers and when we got there, I went and got a buggy, while Jean came out and asked Chris to go to Dr. Majure’s and get Becky’s cat some Frontline. We unloaded my stuff and I went up and dropped it off, putting the perishable and frozen stuff away, but leaving everything else. Then, I went back down and returned the buggy and rode with Chris to the Vet’s office to get the stuff. She got Revolution instead of Frontline.

We returned from the Vet’s office and Chris dropped the stuff and her change in Jean’s office – she had left to go run an errand. I went on up to my apartment and unloaded the remaining bags and put the purchases away. I spent the remainder of the day with Sukiey. And – I tried to read some of Paul.

Saturday morning Chris called and woke me up to get ready and go do the newspapers. We got out there around 7:15 a.m. – earlier than usual – because Ronnie and Beverly had to make a trip to Vicksburg. We worked at the runs and finally they left around 11:15 a.m. to go home and clean up and change, then head off to Vicksburg. Chris and I stayed and worked – I finished up way ahead of her. So, she sent me down to Krystal to pick up lunch – when I got back with it, she stopped and ate, then went back to work, while I took off again – this time to the Wal*Mart a couple of blocks down the road.

When I got there, I found an Atlanta Braves jersey that I liked and put it in the buggy, along with some new underwear – my original reason for going. Then I went back to the Photo Lab. They were kind of crowded. I had one of my CDs with me and I used the Kodak machine to make some reprints of some of the pictures so I could share them. I got copies of the shots of Chris with Romeo on our trip last Sunday, a shot of me with Romeo on that same trip, a shot of Sukiey, shots of Kay and Ray, plus a shot of me with them,. I ended up with a total of 18 reprints and I paid for them before leaving the Lab area. I went on to shop for a few things I had forgotten – including Easter cards – some of the reprints are coming to you in one of them.

After I was done, I went back to check on Chris and she had finished up finally – a few minutes before – and she insisted that I drive. Her feet were bothering her; she took her shoes and socks off in the car. We headed off and made it back to Hinds County (where Jackson is) and to CVS. I went in and picked up my prescriptions and a couple of other things. Chris came in while I was in there – she needed batteries. She got them and we took off for home – she drove this time.

We got back to Sterling and I unloaded my bags out of the car and went on upstairs. I found Sukiey on the couch when I went in. She has gotten to where she likes to do that. I put everything up – the Braves shirt was still on the hanger, so I just hung it up. I opened the packs of underwear and got them out and put them in the laundry basket after taking the tags off and did the same to the bras I bought. I had a pile of clothes in the basket by that time.

I was tired out Saturday evening, but after relaxing for a little while, Chris and I went down to Taco Bell. We got our orders “to go” and after eating, Chris came up to check on Harold’s cats – Patti and Kelly – and she came by to see me. We decided to move Sukiey’s litterbox – after she showed me how Harold has his. We moved it to a closet next to my bathroom – put the towel down on the floor of the closet and then put the litterbox in there. We had cleaned the litterbox before moving it. Once Chris left, I went and got Sukiey and showed her where her litterbox had been relocated to.

Sukiey had made a mess with the litter – so Chris went down and got the community broom and dustpan and came back up and we cleaned up the spilled litter from the original location. We also set up the portable vacuum cleaner to charge for future use – the directions said to let it charge for 24 hours before use.

I finally went to bed Saturday night – after changing the clocks that needed to be done manually – and Sukiey got in bed with me. During the early morning hours I heard a noise and I wasn’t sure where it was coming from – so I sat up to try to figure that out and about that time I saw Sukiey coming out of the closet. Then I realized that she had been in the litterbox and that’s where the noise came from. J J

Sunday morning I woke up and was lethargic – for lack of a better description. I shut the alarm off and went back to bed. I fell back asleep and woke up around 8:30 a.m. Well – too late to go to Church. L L I called Chris to tell her. I finally got up and went to have breakfast and then take a bath. Once I was done with that, I headed downstairs with the laundry basket and supplies and I took Paul with me to read while waiting. One of the young couples who live at Sterling was in there doing a pile of wash as well. I don’t know their names, but he’s real friendly while his wife isn’t – oh, she’s not rude, but she just isn’t as outgoing as he is. They finished up with the dryers about the time my laundry was done washing, so it was a case of “timing”. Once I got the dryers going, I went in the lobby and sat down to read Paul and made a little progress with it. I finally got everything done and returned up to my apartment and put it all away.

Then, I laid down on the couch and Sukiey got up there with me. We both took a nap and later on I called Chris – she had already gone to her “cell” meeting, but called me when she came back. I was on other calls a couple of times, but we finally connected. I told her that I wanted to go get Sukiey a regular food bowl for her canned food – but Chris said she had a bowl for Sukiey and she would bring it up as she was about to come up and check on Harold’s cats. She brought it to me and I put some canned food in it for Sukiey. Chris was able to get to see and pet Sukiey – as she was lying on my bed.

Chris and I did some further cleaning and rearranging and made a little more room for Sukiey and me to maneuver around where her feeding area is. I like it better and so does she. Hopefully sometime soon we’re going to do some more cleaning and I can toss out some stuff I no longer need and make more room. Right now it’s quite cramped.

By the way, Chris accused me of “pampering” Sukiey. The reason: I set up a night light near where her feeding area is so that the cat can see to eat when it’s dark. J J She said that cats have very good vision and Sukiey really doesn’t need the light to see by. I’ve left the night light set up, though. That’s in case I get up during the night and want to go in the kitchen as well as for Sukiey. What do you think? Am I going overboard here?!

I watched the NASCAR race from Martinsville, Virginia and was pleased that Tony Stewart won – although I was rooting for Bobby Labonte. Bobby and teammate/car owner Kyle Petty were both knocked out of the race – Bobby’s transmission broke and Kyle was having gear problems. Hopefully they’ll have better fortunes at the next race.