Bill & Rita Notes

We had promised to come see my godmother after the funeral and lunch. We were expecting all of that to be wrapped up by 1:00 or 2:00, but we didn’t eat till almost 3, and got out of there after 4:00. I was rather dreading what would happen next — my godmother has always prepared huge meals, and we are expected to eat all of it. But that didn’t happen this time. She seems to have lost a lot of energy since her husband died, and although she suggested ordering a pizza, we escaped with only some snacks and drinks. She brought out some Jaegermeister, which Rita has never tried — she ended up drinking three shots. Conversation mostly consisted of Rita and Liz competing for who had the most aches and pains. We were disappointed to discover that since her husband died, she seems to have become a Liberal. They both escaped Europe just ahead of the Russians and had always been strongly anti-socialist in any form. Now she is telling us how the president is doing an ok job, and how obamacare will be a great thing. Quite sad, such a change in 3 years.

We then drove up to Milwaukee the next morning (Friday) to visit my dad, who we also haven’t seen in 4 years. We got there about 10 as planned. First he starts speaking to us in Ukrainian; took a minute for him to realize we were not understanding him. Then he says he has to take a friend to the doctor, and after that he is going to lunch, so we should come back after 12:00. !!

We had thought we were coming to visit and have lunch together! No, he goes every day to the park, where they serve a $2.50 lunch to seniors, and he can’t miss out on that for one day. We drove around town a bit, found a park near the lakeshore. The previous day had been really nice for the funeral, but today was very cold, very windy, and a fine mist coming down. We walked from the car to the lake bank for a minute, but it was too miserable to stay out there. We drove around some more and found a better park, where we had a good view without getting out of the car. We then went to lunch at Appleby’s, and got back to Dad’s place about 12:30. Nobody home. We waited in the car until almost 1:30. But actually, it was more fun just sitting in the car. The visit is always incredibly stiff; couple of dead minutes trying to think up a topic; ask an opening question; receive a 2-word answer which cuts off that subject; rinse and repeat. Luckily Rita has lots to talk about for any occasion. Not sure how much of it he understood — his hearing is farther gone than mine — but it filled the silence. Then I remembered I had the computer out in the car, with all our photos, which he had never seen. That got things moving nicely, and a whiskey-coke made the rest of the visit almost enjoyable. Luckily we had an out, we had to get back to Kenosha by 5 to meet with Rita’s sister. We did find out that he has a good renter upstairs who does the lawn-mowing and snow-shoveling. We had been worried for several years that he is not able to stay in that place, but he should be ok there for a few more years. We also discovered that he can still tell a Communist when he sees one, and will be voting appropriately this year.

Our last visit of the week was dinner with Rita’s sister Bonnie. That was the best of our visits. We had to tone Rita down a little — after the day with my dad, and the evening before that with my godmother who is just as deaf, Rita was stuck in her outside voice. I had a nice Friday fish fry, which we never get in Ohio. We had a nice visit with Bonnie, and got a few things from her for Rita.

Saturday morning we picked up a few kringles from the bakery, and off we go. We went through a few construction areas both going and returning, but no big delays. In north Indiana we passed through an area of farm fields covered with dozens and dozens of wind turbines. On our last trip three years ago we had seen a few, but now they go off as far as you can see in any direction. I looked it up when we got home, this is one of the biggest wind farms in the country with over 200 turbines. It will eventually have over 300, and generate 600 MW, about the same as an average coal-fired plant. I think it is kind of neat, especially if it works as advertised (of which I have some doubts), but Rita declares them to be pure evil come amongst us.

Today (Sunday) we are unpacked, foot-high lawn is mowed, garbage put out, and starting to watch some of our backlog of TV recordings.

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Rita’s mom died on Sunday, Apr 29. We went home on Wednesday for the funeral, a 400-mile drive. There were some thunderstorms the night before — tornado watches actually — so we were a bit worried about the weather, but the driving day was nice, and Thursday for the funeral was beautiful. The funeral was very nice; same people as were there 4 years earlier for Rita’s dad, but a lot fewer — maybe 30. At the cemetery they didn’t have enough people for the bearers, so I took one corner. It was my first time doing that, and was every bit as heavy as I expected. Then someone decided at the last minute that we should each throw in a shovelful of dirt. The cemetery crew was not expecting that and was not prepared, so there was some delay while they ran out the heavy equipment and a truckload of dirt. We got to the restaurant about 2:00 for lunch.
People always joke about horrible mothers-in-law, but I got along with Beverly quite well. We both enjoyed subtle, off-hand humor, and a hobbit-style love of snacks. Well, she is at peace now, and hopefully we will see her again someday — well, Rita will, probably not much hope for me…

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Rita called me at work yesterday, frantic. She has several groups with whom she goes to lunch, mostly connected with the Officers Spouse Club on base. Perhaps one of them was yesterday?, she had not written it on the calendar and couldn’t remember. I spent the next 20 minutes on the phone, trying to direct her into our Yahoo mail to find the evidence. Lots of wrong turns and pages that didn’t look quite right. Finally found the emails, and one of the first ones she found was a reply to my reply, that she couldn’t make one of her regular groups (the one she had thought was happening that day). We then remembered that she had a new group schedule a lunch, and then this regular group scheduled for the same day, so she had to decline that one. But it was already too late, she’d missed the other one too! More fussing and trying to remember….. there was no email for the first one, they just made the date verbally … so, never got on the calendar… who was it? where was it? .. Mimi’s Cafe! Then she remembers, Mimi’s Cafe was last week, she already had her lunch.

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We went out for our first walk of the year, the usual two and a half miles. This is the earliest we have ever started, and it is the earliest that we have had T-shirt weather since leaving Florida. Got up in the 70s yesterday and today. Caused by la Nina, similar to el Nino I guess. The jet stream is pushed way north and we are getting all the air from Louisiana and Florida up here. We really love it, although we still have a couple weeks till spring and it could get cold again.
I’ve been in a technical photography class all week for work — or, instead of work. Lots of fun, and I’m learning a lot. Really makes me want to go out and get a $1000 camera of my own. We also are learning a little photoshop, which will definitely help me. About all I can do with our photos right now is lighten them up a bit and crop them.
Trying to get our 2010 photos put together to go online, but I am having trouble getting Rita to look at them — there is always something more interesting on the TV.

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Looking back through some old blogs, I saw that I had done a census of our genealogy data about four years ago. So I thought I would do another, to check my progress. In the past four years our family tree has grown from 25,000 to 30,000 people; and from 240 to 340 family groups. I have completed 230 family pages (which means I did 70 in 4 years, probably not very good), with 110 still to go. Plus, a lot of the old ones I need to go back and redo with all the proper sources. It will never get done.

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There was an advertisement on the television tonight for a performance of Riverdance. They say it is at an end, and this will be among their final performances. We had a mild interest in it — we’ve seen it on PBS several times, and own the VCR tape (ask your grandparents what that is), but have never seen it live. Our first impulse was to let it drop, because it is very short notice — tomorrow night only, and we have at least seen the televised version. But then I was thinking, why not, we’re not doing anything else tomorrow, and it’s not far away, just over in Springfield at Clark State. So, I looked it up. Tickets about $50 each, not all that bad. But something wrong with the online ordering, it said they could not find “that number” of seats — no matter what number I put in, even one. I figure they maybe sold out already? So, more discussions with Rita, and we figured we already have spent enough lately. And I do have tickets to Lord of the Dance, coming up next month at the Schuster Center. And… and… all of a sudden I remember, I think I bought tickets for something else! What for? and When??? Could not remember. We looked through the calendar for the next few months, but it was never written down. The tickets are paid for, but will be picked up at the “will-call” window, so I have nothing. I remembered it was something at the Victoria theater in Dayton, bought pretty much just because of the location, not so much for whatever the performance might be.
I looked up the upcoming events calendar at the Victoria Theater, and there it was — we had signed up for Cirque d’Or, and it is this weekend! Three performances, which one? After thinking about it, I remembered we have Bunko this Saturday, so I had ordered tickets for the next day.
That was a close one, we would have missed it completely. So thank you Riverdance, for reminding us of this. I do have to dig out our Riverdance and Lord of the Dance tapes so we can celebrate St Patrick’s day properly.

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I continued making some slow progress on the first-floor bedroom/den. Was going to say slow and painful, but since I didn’t actually hurt myself (much), it wasn’t really painful. But, let’s say painfully slow. Got the closet two-thirds insulated before I ran out of insulation. (I thought I would buy more insulation on Sunday when we were out for our grocery shopping, but as it turned out we went out rather late, and I didn’t want to waste any more time with a side trip to the hardware store). I did get the one wall finished that I needed to do, in order to put up drywall along that side. Maybe four sheets of drywall put up, so most of the room is done except for one more piece that has to be cut out to fit around the window. Now, when I say “done” I actually mean half-done. I am doing the lower half first, as in the living room, so that I can hook up all the electricity. As in the living room, I will leave all the cables from the original circuit hanging there, and since they are still live (capped off of course), I cannot seal them up in the wall at this time. I still have to do the same thing to the dining room, and some basement lights, before I can shut down that old circuit.
We have decided that the small closet in that room will not be used for clothes, so I am going to build shelves in it. That should handle a lot of the small boxes and loose things, all of the stuff that Rita needs which has been getting shuffled around and lost for ages. Doing that should increase her happiness by maybe 18%, with a corresponding decrease in my aggravation.
Back to why the progress was slow, Saturday night I had a game session with a group of guys from work, we occasionally get together for a pencil/paper/dice game of Dungeons and Dragons. Then Sunday I had to work through a mild bout of vertigo. Had some meclezine in the morning and it was ok.
Today at work was still having some vertigo, a little worse than yesterday but still manageable. I took a meclezine (antivert) in the morning, which worked ok until lunchtime. After lunch I had nothing for it except a benadryl, which usually helps some by clearing out the ears. Things were spinning a bit, and trouble walking straight, but I was able to stick it out all day.

The vertigo started toward the end of 2003, and since then I have been pretty consistent with about 6 episodes a year — most I ever had was eight, and the best years were only 4. It almost always lasts 12 hours, then is gone. The last couple of years it seems to be changing. In the early times it was almost always very strong, where I had to hold onto the floor to keep from flying off the face of the earth, and got violently sick if I moved my head at all. The last few years the episodes are less violent, but seem to be spread out more, and never goes away entirely — I am just a little bit dizzy and off-balance all day, every day.
Everyone’s vertigo is a little different. We study when mine happens, and it seems to be related to weather changes. I know it is definitely related to clogging of the sinuses. It may sometimes get triggered by stress, or if I have my head down for a long time reading or working on the computer. The past few years it also tags along with ordinary illnesses — when I get a cold or flu, now it is usually cold+vertigo, or flu+vertigo.
But, although I complain, I know I am getting off easy with this. A lot of people with vertigo can’t get out of bed at all for days at a time. So I can be thankful for that much.

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I just finished our taxes for the year. Came out pretty close this time, with small refunds from Federal and Ohio. I don’t know why people get all excited about getting a big refund, it is my own money given to them on an interest-free loan. I rather have a bigger paycheck. I also don’t enjoy sending them a check, so I try to adjust our W-4’s so that it comes out as close as we can get to the final amount.
This year is the highest tax we have ever paid as a percentage of income. The nominal tax rate for my income level is 25%, but with deductions of course we have never paid that — probably averages about 10% over the years. And I have to say, with all the fuss and bother they make about tax cuts one year and tax hikes the next year, my own final result (which I get by dividing the actual final tax owed by the final Adjusted Gross Income at the bottom of Page 1) never seems to vary by more than a percent from one year to the next.
Prior to 1981, our total income was always too low to pay anything at all — we first became honest citizens in 1982, and it was about 8 to 9% for many years. But starting in 2004, which hit a low of 7.8%, it has been going up a little every year. We first hit 12% in 2008, and this year it jumped up an entire percent to 13.6%. Kinda makes me wonder what happened to those extended Bush tax cuts?

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The groundhog may be a bit off this year. We had a nice sunny day, hitting 50 degrees. Still no appreciable snow this year. This morning I saw one of our chipmunks out, maybe the earliest we’ve seen one. He looked a little skinny, so I put out some extra peanuts and an ear of dried corn.
Made a little progress on the first floor bedroom/den — very little. Lost a half day Saturday helping Rita find her earring, and today was grocery shopping. But I did get a couple of sheets of drywall hung.
Taking out the trash tonight, I got a nice treat — crescent moon, and what looked like two bright planets close by. I looked it up in the almanac, and we have Jupiter and Venus up there. Venus this month is supposed to be the brightest in our lifetime.

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This is probably one of the worst-maintained blogs out there. I’ve had this for four years now, and I see I have put up posts in only 23 out of 49 months. Longest active time, with at least one post per month: 13 months. Longest dead time with no posts at all: 13 months. The problem is I keep going back and forth, should I use this as primary news, or the monthly newsletters. And the past year a lot of my small updates go on Facebook. Oh well, it doesn’t matter, since no one will ever read this.

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