Your Weekly Antics, No Harm No Foul Edition...6-1-23

Things been a little strange as of late? Feeling a bit off? Those around you acting stranger than usual? You guessed it...with the start of this new month, we're heading in to a new full moon, the Strawberry Moon. By now you regular weekly readers should have the moon schedule's down, memorized, locked and loaded, and your life and schedule running around it. If you have not chosen to plan accordingly, good luck and Godspeed, you may need it. Here's what I've got...

1. It's come to our attention that I missed our standard work fire drill this week. Let's talk about the fire drills in Pouch Hall at AIC circa the early 1990's vs the fire drills of today. One of Elder Services favorites was the Resident Assistant of our dorm Pouch Hall back in the day, and was in charge of making sure all residents vacated the dorm accordingly. Let's talk about this. We lived on the 4th floor - there were a lot of stairs - you think I was climbing up and down 4 flights of stairs when I knew there was really no risk at all of a fire? Absolutely not. We would go about our business watching Days of Our Lives, stay quiet and hope for the best. Let's remember who was in charge then, shall we? Do you think we were going unnoticed? Absolutely not, and let's remember she had the master key to our rooms so we eventually had to step it up a notch and start hiding in closets and under beds...I'll admit it, I was a real pain in the ass - again, not really sure why she's put up with me all these years and is still my friend.

2. Present day - fire drill at work. New and improved fire drills with technology involved. In today's computer age and people working from home, a tight ship must be had and your whereabouts accounted for at all times in the event of an emergency. This is why it is so important to sign in when you're working in the office, sign out when you're not. Sign in when you're working from home, sign off when you're done. Let people know when you left, when you'll be back, and where you went. I'd like to report that for the first time ever I was actually signed out correctly that day, therefore Bullett didn't have to experience a flashback of 1991 and go looking for me during the fire drill. It only took me 30 years, but I finally followed her simple directions. She doesn't need to know this rule following was not intentional and was done so by accident.

3. While we're on the subject of what a super efficient model employee I am, I'm on call this week kids - on call for the full moon, fantastic - the on call schedule is from Thursday to Thursday. I remembered I was on call, but didn't remember what day it was therefore alerted my co workers of my on call status a day early. Again, I'd like to say I did so because I am super efficient and on the ball, but I'd be lying to all of you...I had no idea what day it was.

4. While the work fire drill was happening, I was out spreading cheer amongst the elderly community - not sure if those I was checking in on felt the cheer I was attempting to send their way, but they were at least entertained by this Goose and the shenanigans she caused in her attempts to keep me in my car, which worked by the way. She made it perfectly clear she was not happy with where I parked and she wasn't going to leave me alone until I moved, so off I went - I was in no mood to challenge a crazy bird in a parking lot. Exhibit 1, the Angry Lake Quinsig Goose.

5. Entertainment was abundant on that visit once I got past the disgruntled feathered beast and her offspring. Stripping down to your skivvies and sunbathing isn't just for the young - I witnessed first hand such an event at this lovely lakeside elder housing building that fine day...who needs to snow bird in Florida when you can pull out your lawn chair and sit in the sun on the patch of grass that's right next to your building? It's called being resourceful, don't knock it. There was a photo of said sunbather made available to The Antics, but we've used our better judgement, have chosen not to share the photo to protect the anonymity of our geriatric sunbather. That and I don't need any more clients.

6. Despite my best efforts, sometimes I miss the obvious as will be demonstrated in Exhibit 2. I try to pay attention, but it doesn't always work out for me...

7. Working in Geriatrics, I've read a few obituaries in my day. To whoever is in charge of picking out the photo for mine, let me be the first to tell you, choosing a picture of me that is from 1978 when I'm wearing my favorite Donny & Marie tshirt a long with my feathered Dorothy Hamill do, you're not doing me any favors. You can also stay away from pictures taken from any childhood milestones and events, even those that are obvious photographic evidence that my calm and angelic disposition shined through even way back then as shown in Exhibit 3. As it's frowned upon to show up at Sue Miller's house in the middle of the night to retrieve photo's such as those of myself and Ronnie Miller's former figure skating days, this photo will have to do, but I digress. Bottom line, for crying out loud, when in charge of someone's obituary, go with a more recent photo. Second thought forget it - I'm picking out my own picture - none of you can be trusted.

8. Here's the latest thing that's making the youngest Kap kid lose her mind...planters - you read correctly people, planters - as in pots one plants their plants in. You see them everywhere, not just at your local garden shop. You'll find them at CVS, Wal Mart, Michael's, Target, TJ Maxx - they're everywhere. Here's a fun fact...only about 10 % of those planters have adequate drainage holes at the bottoms of those pots and according to her those she finds are the wrong size or are just plain ugly. Who knew it is so difficult to find a decent looking good sized planter to replant those little green buggers that you've nurtured and worked so hard to grow, just to be left with planter options that will promote root rot. There will be no planter replacements purchased without drainage holes people - she's not having it. Root rot equals dead plants. Dead plants equals disgruntled kid. My solution to all this? Call Phil, he's the plant guy, he'll know what to do....

9. Meri found out the hard way that when helping Grammy plant, she can't be trusted with the hose. Exhibit 4, Grammy's gone rogue.

10. Yard work, it is, or should, be a family affair. You've got a ton of mulch to spread? Grab a kid. Annual flowers to plant in your flower boxes? Get to it. Have to mow the lawn? Well it's certainly not going to mow itself. When wandering about your yards getting all this work done and checking things out, you may find areas of your property or home that require your attention in means of repairs. I hope you're all as lucky as we are here at the Kap pack to have a three legged handy man who can complete such repairs without being asked. In addition to fighting off all woodland creatures from the 4 corners of our yard, Harley has upped her game and added to her wheel house of talents reconstructing some of our outside apparatus such as this seen in Exhibit 3. Harley's idea of updating the exterior of our home is much different than ours, hence the teeth holes in the relocated drain spout that she ripped off the side of the house... once again this all went down in pursuit of a chipmunk...and so our summer begins...Exhibit 5, the damage. Exhibit 6, her response to being called out on her wrong doing.

And last but not least, should you run across a random guy sunbathing on the side of the road, witness yet another member of the bird species taking over our streets and parking lots, do things correctly even by mistake, accidentally destroy something when in pursuit of the greater good, or show up at Sue Miller's house when she's got the hose out, cut yourself some slack. If it was all done in good fun, no harm no foul.

Have a great weekend!