Gotta go back to work at Walmart today. Blue Monday for me.
This is the Itzl Alert Network.
(Itzl is the name of the dog in the picture.)
We publish a diary here every day,
just before midnight.
This group is here for us to check in with each other,
to let people know we are alive,
and doing OK.
We welcome every member of IAN to write diaries for the group.
Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say.
If you would like to write a diary, let us know in a comment.
This is our regular schedule:
Monday: Crimson Quillfeather, alternating with ZenTrainer,
Tuesday: ejoanna,
Wednesday: Pam from Calif
Thursday: art ah zen,
Friday: FloridaSNMOM,
Saturday: bigjacbigjacbigjac,
Sunday: loggersbrat
If you'd like to be part of the Itzl Alert Network,
please leave a comment asking to join,
or send us a message asking to join.
We'd love to have you.
The bigger our network,
the less likely someone will be stranded all alone.
bigjac family update:
Still in the afterglow of words like this from last week:
You are a well loved and respected institution here at dk, bigjac!
Enjoyed reading your poem. Blessings on you and your family.
I’m an institution? Wow.
All of you know, we asked for $2,000, and got $2,445.
Okay, let’s be honest, when money flows like this, those who give, and those who observe, want to know, did the family blow any of that money on any items not essential to survival?
Of course they do, or at least we did.
Before we reveal an example of special treats we purchased, let me put this in perspective.
We are not smokers, none of us in this house.
Since I have 400 co-workers, I have lost many co-workers from cancer, caused by smoking.
My oldest sister died last year, after five decades of smoking.
Her three adult children, in their forties, are still smoking.
My younger brother and his wife have been smoking for four decades.
If they do not quit soon, we will be attending their funerals, one by one, within the next ten or twenty years.
Smoking can easily cost $200 per month, the payments on a nice car, and it is slow suicide.
So, you can be assured, no one is buying cigarettes at the bigjac house.
Now for what we have been buying:
Baked chicken.
Rather than pinching pennies, and eating all home cooking, Tonia, who lived through the Reagan administration, when her mother was dying, her father had left, and Reagan cut food stamps and welfare checks in half, when she had to actually eat nothing but cheap donated food, canned beans and peas and ramen noodles, Tonia demands grocery store deli baked chicken, any time she can get it. Since we got generous donations, and we completely caught up on the house payments, and the storage container payments, and the electricity and water, Tonia sends me to a Dillon store (Walmart baked chicken is not as good) to get baked chicken, and she is very happy. The chicken costs $8 for 8 pieces, which is one whole chicken, cut up and baked to a wonderful flavor. 2 wings (I eat the wings) 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, 2 breasts. I take the skin off for Tonia, and I usually eat the skin. Most of the fat, and therefore most of the calories, is in the skin. Tonia feeds our little dog some of the gristle. We give the bones to the feral cats out back. We also ate some fast food sandwiches, such as fish sandwiches and bacon cheeseburgers.
On another topic:
We went to a Home Depot lumberyard Thursday, to get ideas for a project for Tonia’s cousin who lives in a different house. While we were there, I was looking at items to repair our home. We need metal drip edge and gutters and downspouts. The front of our house has a false stone front, and it’s melting away and falling off. Back in 2005, twelve years ago, well meaning family members took everything off the roof, including all metal flashing and gutters, and replaced all the asphalt shingles. The shingles are laid straight, and there are no leaks anywhere across the main parts of the roof. But with no drip edge, the rain water runs off the roof, and a great deal of it runs onto the wood at the edge, and sneaks into the walls. And each place where additional rooms were added at the back of the house, especially the utility room and screened in porch, there is no metal flashing, and there are awful leaks in those places. The house was built in 1950, so it’s older than me. The windows, all of them, are rotten all around the glass, all the wood is rotten. So, we need all new windows. And we need metal drip edge and guttering and downspouts. And we need a partial clog cleared out in the plumbing down in the crawl space, likely replacing the cast iron sewer pipes. And we need new wires all through the house, so that we can have three prong outlets properly grounded. The cousin who lives here is an electrician, so we have the skilled worker on hand for the job. That will mean some new sheet rock. And the kitchen ceiling needs new sheet rock, maybe from an overflowing toilet in the upstairs bathroom, years ago, before I moved in.
I have a brother who is a building contractor. Tonia has a brother who is a building contractor. So we have the skilled workers in the family.
You can see we are leading up to another gofundme campaign.
Not in the mood to ask for money again so soon.
We need to make progress on Tonia applying for disability.
I need to apply for SS retirement checks in May.
We need to figure out our health care plan, in the face of the actions of Congress.
And we need to measure the house, and go back to Home Depot, and write up an estimate. We need to ask our brothers to help us write up an estimate. We need to ask our brothers what they will charge, or if they are even willing to do the job.
Thank you for letting me organize my thoughts here at Itzl.
To bring an upbeat mood, we give you that same poem from last week:
Ask for something
better.
Change the way you
dream.
Every day’s a
fresh new chance to
get your slate wiped clean.
Happiness
is in your power.
Jump into your plans.
Keep your dreams alive; don’t
let them get shit-canned.
Make your plans, start
new each day;
open up your mind: it’s
possible to
question all the
reasons people find to
stop and
take a back seat, when feeling
under pressure.
Verify your place in life,
when you’re feeling lesser.
You are really not required to start a word with
“x.”
Zero is the penalty, if anybody checks.