Alienation of Affections (of a Parrot?)

The Cranky Yankee went into the hospital for his breathing problems, and Mrs. Cranky got left home to care for his animals--2 dogs and Solomon the parrot. By the time he got home, Solomon had bonded with the Mrs. Solomon still tolerates Mr. Cranky, but every chance he gets, he heads for Mrs. Cranky, and he lets her rub his neck and pat his head--and he nips Mr. Cranky if he tries to touch.

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Don't Even Think About It!

What's Solomon's latest line? "Don't even think about it!" And sometimes he adds "Stop it!" either before or after his new phrase. He also likes to ask "What's your problem?" Wonder what he'll pick up from the Cranky Yankee next? Stay tuned, looks like even the parrot's starting to sound cranky.

Hot Under the Collar

We found out why our air conditioning was costing a fortune last summer while barely cooling the house. Back a few years ago, Mr. Cranky was raising birds and had most of them in the garage. Then his breathing got bad and he wasn't able to keep up with cleaning up after the birds. Then the rats moved in to feed on the seed droppings and steal the birds' water. Mr. Cranky was up in the attic recently and found that our air conditioning ducts are full of holes. We've been cooling off an uninsulated attic and wondering why the bills were huge while the house was still warm. Now it's time to patch the holes before we can afford to run the A/C again. Praise God we found the damage before it got too hot around here, so we still have time to fix it before we both melt into puddles of perspiration. How anyone survived in Florida before air conditioning was invented is beyond me.

Look out! Male driver

Mr. Cranky got a Hoverround power chair. As he's learning to handle it, anything that lands on the floor is likely to be run over and all the doorways are getting chipped, dented, torn up (you get the idea.) Our doorways and openings between rooms where there is no actual door are only about 2 inches wider than the chair, which leaves very little room for error.
Our dogs are learning to move out of the way when they hear the chair coming, and Solomon, the parrot, is just starting to get used to riding on Mr. Cranky's shoulder with the chair in motion. He was jumping off with a LOUD squawk whenever the chair moved. Mr. Cranky has learned to turn off the power when he's parked at his desk and has had to put a brick under his computer tower. The off button for the computer was at the same level as his toes. When he hit the motion control by accident, the chair ran his toes into the off switch and he lost most of a Sunday School lesson he was working on. He also has a few bruised toes because his feet are longer than the footrest.
A friend from church built us a ramp so that the chair can be driven out of the house, and another friend gave us a wheelchair so that I can push Brian around when we shop a store that doesn't have power carts. We are praying for a vehicle that can be equipped with a lift to carry the chair so Brian can go places alone when he wants to. His little Civic is too light to handle a lift gate, and I put on too much mileage to be able to swap my 2002 pickup for his 1997 Civic. I'd wear out the Civic in no time; it has 175,000 miles on it now and my almost 5 year old pickup already has 123,000.

His breathing last tested as about 33% lung capacity, but he's losing weight (over 40 pounds so far with another 70 to go) and trying to stay active around the house. He works for 5 minutes, recovers for 10-15, and does it again; but he's gotten the fence repaired, his old workbench moved back into the garage from the shed and reassembled, and the gardenia bushes trimmed . . . .

More to come--if he doesn't knock the house down around me.

Mr. Cranky is Selling Kids' Clothes

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Hot Times

Yes, I know it's August, and it's SUPPOSED to be hot in August (at least in the northern hemisphere.) But when you have COPD and a long hot spell without any rain to wash the pollen and other irritants out of the air, breathing can get difficult. So we pray for rain, thank God for the new power chair, and are grateful for air conditioning. (And groan at the total when the electric bill arrives!) By October it should be comfortable again, and this year is going so fast that it will be October in no time.

Life is like a roll of toilet paper: The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes!