Just need to talk to my friends (205) May 2025
Comments
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I just watched "The Twister: Caught in the Storm" on Netflix. This was about the Joplin tornado of 2011. 161 people were killed. A sobering documentary. Carl, did you live in MO when this happened?
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Beth, I did. I lived in Springfield, about 70 miles east of Joplin. One of my brothers lived in Joplin and his house was destroyed. He wasn't home, but his wife and dog were. They rode it out in the bathtub while the roof blew away and the front wall fell into the yard. They were at the edge of the storm. In the center, they probably would have been killed. My brother heard about it on his car radio and hurried home. He had to walk the last mile because the streets were blocked by debris.
I lived in Joplin back in '74 - '76, but I don't recognize the town anymore. My old house is there, but a mile-wide strip in the center of town just disappeared when three major tornadoes locked arms and marched through town.
I had my present house bult with hurricane clips in the exterior walls, and with the master bedroom walk-in closet reinforced to FEMA standards to withstand a storm. I have never been hit by a tornado, but I have picked the debris of other peoples' houses out of my yard. That's close enough!
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Sandy, I didn't watch that channel for two days but had to watch Rachel and Lawrence tonight.
Time for bed.. Hope everyone can have a good nights rest. Good night, sleep tight.
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Thank you everyone, for your kind words about my cat Seven.
JeriLynn, I'm sorry your little kid didn't make it. They can be so delicate.
Lorita, have you heard of a FURminator? It's a type of combing tool that picks out the undercoat. I have an older model for my long haired cats. The newer models are able to be attached to a vacuum cleaner to gather all the hair that is collected. You might consider that to help with the dogs itching.
Iris
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Good morning,
Lorita I'm praying 🙏 that your feeling better today. You know we are not spring chickens anymore!
Iris, I'm sorry about Seven, pets are family just like our other love ❤️ ones.
I guess getting off the old medicine as I start the new one has my body all messed up. Yesterday when I sent my results in my blood pressure was 145/101. I layed down for a hour and sent it again at 150/80. I always rest 30 minutes to 1 hour before sending results. Also, my oxygen level is jumping around, at times it might be 85 to 88 and other times anywhere from 90 to 95.
Ron
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Good morning
Busy week for me too HB.
Lorita good Lord willing we go plant shopping tomorrow.
take care
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Carl, I can understand why you took such precautions when you built your home. You mentioned the safe room situation with your master bath; I have to ask, do you not have a basement? Are basements not standard in MO? They are in IA.
We rode out an F2 tornado in our previous house. We had a lot of damage, but not such that the home was destroyed or structurally unsound. A few blocks away as the crow flies, 2 homes were totally destroyed. We lost 4 trees; one was a 30 foot tall spruce that was actually uprooted.
An acquaintance of mine has a sister who worked at Ozark Christian College and of course she knew some who passed away there in Joplin.
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Beth, I don't have a basement because my house is built on solid rock and it would have taken major dynamiting to have dug a basement. I could get into my crawl space and lie on wet gravel, but it is a lot easier and quicker to step out of bed and walk into the closet when the alarm sounds.
The geology of Iowa and northern Missouri is very different than that of southwest Missouri. This area was a shallow sea for many millions of years, and the limestone is 100 feet thick. That makes for shallow soil and high water tables. My parents' and in-laws' houses had basements, but they had to have sump pumps to remove the water when it rained.
I had basements in both houses I owned in Kansas City, but that is a different geology; more like Iowa.
I guess everyone who lived in Joplin in 2011 lost someone they knew in that storm. 161 is a lot of deaths in a town of fewer than 100,000.
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Good morning.
Ron, I hope your BP and O2 saturation improve soon. Did the doctors talk about supplemental oxygen?
Iris
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Up and on the porch all by myself…
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Morning, rain must began here. Of course the car windows were partially down so had to get them up.
Carl, can't do the reverse mortgage because I own the farm completely. I sold my cattle except for Billy at the end of 2021 and leased my.land. I don't have anyone to leave the farm to so probably WIll sell at some point, when I get the nerve. I was born in this house and my family has been here 89 years so selling it will be hard. It is a problem. I could sel! and have a living estate, I think it's called,so I could live here until I complete my life but having had control of what is done and then not, might be hard. Like Scarlet, I'll think about that tomorrow but the tomorrows are getting fewer and fewer.
Hope everyone is well today. Back later
Se
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Thanks, Carl. That was interesting.
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Guess it is just you and me this morning Lorita.
As long as you have enough money to live in your home until you die then why worry about it. Now if you are dependent on leasing your land (Mike could decide to keep the cows elsewhere or he reduces his herd) then you do need Plan B. Unfortunately as we get closer to that Rainbow bridge we begin to think differently.
Do you have a DPOA in place to help you if you want to sell at some point? If you die who gets the house and land. These are things we old people have to consider.
I am still sorting, trashing and organizing. I swear stuff self generates!!!
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Carl, Darwin is 86 but still active. He goes out almost every day and cuts up trees that have fallen. He has a wood stove and uses the wood for that and gives wood to anyone who needs it. He has many Ricks in his barn. I asked him about the anti anxiety or antidepressant medicine and he says Donna does take that, not sure which.
I just received a text that my Boodt has been delivered. Where? Probably sitting in the rain at the main road or in the mailbox. Stormy just ran to the window and barked but I.don't think it was delivered here. Wherever it is, just as good they stayed off my drivrway. If is pouring rain and has been for a couple of hours.
Judith, there have been several posts today.Do you not see them? When I.get my will done, maybe the attorney will be the DPOA or executor. I have a nephew but no idea where he is. He would not be a good neighbor to anyone so.not going there. I had thought I would eventually sell the farm to Mike with a living estate and when I die, the money I have would go to my charities. No one else left. Guess I will go check the porch for the Boost.
Addendum: It's on the porch. Guess Stormy knew what he was talking about. Still raining. Got two apples and I gave Rusty a slice this morning. WM had some apples that were between two and three dollars each - not what the Gala cost. My favorite is Braeburn
!
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so the posting troll has reached my laptop….there were no earlier posts when I first wrote.
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So weird about this site right now. I had sent a note to one of the moderators about not being able to see the navigation at the top right hand corner — that seems to be fixed now. @JeriLynn66 was having the same problem. JeriLynn, is it fixed for you now?
But now it seems that posts are still going astray. I wonder if the site has been recently updated or something like that? Sometimes updates introduce new bugs.
Carl - I am all about that shallow sea, especially during the late Cretaceous.
Beth and Carl - tornadoes are so far out of my experience that I just look at them (and the destruction they leave) with bewildered dread.
jfkoc - I'm doing a lot of sorting, trashing and organizing as well. I agree - it must self generate. The thing I spend the most time on is — shredding. I swear, my dad made 10 photocopies of every single piece of paper he ever came in contact with. And, his social security number is on at least half of them. 😐️
Lorita - I'd never had Boost until we gave it to my sister near the end. I tried it myself and found that I like it.
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Paper seems to self generate everywhere. When I worked for Social Security we did an annual cleanout of paper we no longer needed, but hardly anyone does that at home.
My in-laws ran a home building business out of their home from about 1960 to 1985, and my MIL saved every receipt and invoice and cancelled check. After my FIL's death in 1995, I sat down with a shredder and made confetti for several evenings while I watched TV. I ended up keeping about one large envelope of paper, and the rest went out.
My mother's house was as bad. I tossed 5-year old grocery ads and the owner's manual for a '58 Ford after she went to NH in 2012, with a ton of other trash. Things I wanted, like a portrait of my grandmother, were intermingled so I went through the piles one page at a time. I took all of July and part of August.
My SIL kept every piece of paper her lovely daughter put pencil or crayon to, and their attic was stuffed with it. My brother would never have gotten her out of that house if the tornado hadn't spread the entire 35-year collection (and their roof) across western Missouri.
Tornadoes are weird. I have seen crop fields with a clear path across the field where a tornado sucked the seed out of the ground, and I have seen trees with straws driven through them. The tornado twisted the tree open, the straw blew in, and the tree closed around it when the wind passed. I heard of a dog who was lifted and carried a quarter mile, then set down unhurt. No ill effects, except the dog got really nervous when the wind blew after that. And then of course they do things like take the roof off the school and set the school bus inside. When the hand of God passes over you, you just take cover and pray.
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Speaking of tornados, we just had one move through our area. No damage around here, just a lot of rain causing flooding. It looked like the path of two tornados, one went to the north of me and the other south. I'm not aware of any damage anywhere else, but do have flooding again.
Ron
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GG, at this moment everything seems fixed.
Getting ready to cook some supper for the man of the house. Bacon wrapped filet, roasted fingerling potatoes, flat Italian green beans (with bacon grease, of course) Texas toast. We’ll eat something healthy tomorrow.
It’s been a very long and busy day. Stay safe everyone
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Keep your feet dry, Ron. It's about to start raining here and is expected to rain through tomorrow and the next day, so we may get some flooding too.
JeriLynn, I need a cook like you around here. Or maybe not, I'm fat enough.
Blackberry bushes are blooming in fencerows all over the area, so there'll be lots of berries by July. I probably won't pick any, but I'll buy some from the people who do.
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Carl, we have blackberries blooming down the driveway and by the tub in the corral. We used to have lots of them that we picked and made jam and cobblers. Spraying for weeds in the pastures has killed most of them. I used to pick them while the dew was still on to avoid getting. Chiggers. Can't eat then now but love the seedless jam.
Closest I have ever been to a tornado was two miles south of us. Mother and I were sitting on the cellar steps ready to get into the cellar is needbe.Tore off the steeple on the Baptist Church and took down trees for a few miles. A year ago today an EF4 tore up most of Barnesdall and into Bartlesville. It was on the ground 41 miles with winds 170-180 mph. They're still rebuilding homes and businesses.
Ron, glad the tornados missed you. More bad weather predicted for tomorrow afternoon.
Went out and fed Billy. I was a little late and he was nibbling on a little bit of loose hay that was up by the crib door. He was ready to eat his sweet feed and hay. He is staying in the barn most of the time. He's lonesome without his family being here. Hope they bring them back soon ,-I miss them, too.
JeriLynn, what time is supper? Surely sounds good. I just had some yogurt.
I need to shred old income tax papers in the worst way. Probably have 20 years of them. I have two boxes of junk mail I need to either shred or burn.
GG. Did you say you could freeze Boost? I bet it would be like a fudge bar. I may try that. I tried the Equate brand but it is sweeter with less than half the gm. of protein. I have a canister of protein powder but it tastes grainy when I mix it with milk.
Enjoy the evening.
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This is the type of damage all over the area. So far I haven't heard about injuries.
Ron
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Ron, I see eight men in rain gear watching one drenched woman in a T-shirt and shorts operate a chain saw. Either it's her saw and she doesn't trust them to use it properly, or chivalry has died. 😮
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Wait, there's another saw on the road. She must be showing them how it's done. Watch closely, boys.
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Seriously, that looks like the road by the cemetery last week, three blocks from my house. Spring weather isn't all lovely, is it?
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Carl - tornadoes lifting up dogs and blowing them a quarter mile away, and then setting them down unhurt = my bewildered dread.
Ha! I read that video image the same way that you did - "okay you guys, here's how it's done. Pay attention!"
Ron - I'm glad the tornadoes spared you!
JeriLynn - Oh good. I had mentioned to the moderators that you were having similar problems as mine. What is Texas toast? Is it like a grilled cheese sandwich?
Lorita - Yes, I've frozen Boost into popsicles. They come out really well. The containers say not to freeze them, but I think they mean, "don't freeze this if you're going to drink it later." As a popsicle, they're great.
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GG, it gets especially weird when the tornado carries your house away with you and your dog in it and lands you atop a witch. 🙃
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Good morning rockers, VA appointment this morning with radiology! Don't really know why I'm still going to them since I'm no longer getting radiation treatments and had been referred to hemooncology oncology who started me back on harmone shots.
Ron
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Morning,
GG, Texas toast is just a form of white bread. It's thicker than regular and the easiest thing to butter and throw in the oven to broil. Less than a minute if you want bread that isn't burned. (ask me how I know, lol). I also forgot to list the fresh corn on the cob we had with dinner. I think (although the label didn't say so) it was "peaches and cream" variety. It was very sweet.
Tornados are a possibility here Thursday. In 1974 and again in 1989 during rush hour with 21 fatalities and over 400 injured. Then around 2010 another that left us without power over a week. My daughter and late husband had gone to stand in line to get ice. By the time they got back I had the charcoal grill going and coffee making. Made breakfast on the grill. Heated water in a huge pot for baths. I won't talk about the 3 hurricanes in 6 weeks while we lived in Florida in 2004. I had to bring in generators for the hospital, costing about $10k per day. That wasn't fun either.
The Speck saga continues. She is walking but too wobbly still to go into the coop. Or maybe she could and I'm just overly protective. I take her out of her cage (it's big) and put her in the backyard in the mornings. By about 6 pm she comes to sit by her cage on the patio to get ready for bedtime, lol. I may put her in the chicken run for a bit today to see how she does. She's not laying eggs. Wonder if that is a permanent thing? For dinner she had some green beans, roasted carrots and fresh strawberries (and dried worms). She isn't spoiled, is she? Just so you know, I am NOT one of the crazy chicken ladies that paints their toenails as I see being done on Facebook.
Carl, it seems your wife is settling in very well. And you are getting some much needed rest and peace of mind. I'm glad.
Ron, hope your breathing is better and your pain is less.
I did put a post to @David1946 in the "Living with Dementia" feed. He hasn't responded so not sure if he saw it or what. But he is posting there occasionally.
Lorita, I know decisions about the land and farm are on your mind. Judith makes some good points. I hope you can find an attorney to help with planning. And, forgive me for suggesting, sooner rather than later. Because we never know. And when you're done, you're done. No more worrying about it. Peace of mind.
Today, I'm shopping to complete my funeral ensemble. I have my dress and shoes already hanging in the closet but need some new "feminine" things to complete finish up that business. I have a prepaid burial plan, the plot is already there with my name on it, and the funeral home has instructions about lipstick and nail polish colors. I don't do the chicken's nails but I cannot bear the thought of marching into eternity without lipstick and nail polish. And NO pantyhose. That would ruin the look of those maroon, suede, peep toe sling backs with a 3-inch enamel heel. And HB, my dress is Ralph Lauren. No Alfred Dunner for me either; I'm with your Mom on that one, lol.
I hope to stop by the nursery today and get some plants for the patio. I still have 6 small and two large pots to fill. I wish Beth and Eagle could come help. I'd fix us some lunch.
Have a good day everyone. Thinking of you.
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Good morning
Carl your mentioning, take cover and pray reminds me of something I heard a Helene survivor say. She had a handicap daughter who couldn’t walk or stand. The flood washed their home and her parents home down the river. Her husband was self-employed. All of his equipment was in his truck and both of their vehicles went down the river. They could not see her parents house so they did not know what had happened there. She said she looked at her husband and she said our children and us have just lost everything. She said her husband looked at her and said the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh, blessed be the name of the Lord. And she said at that moment, complete peace beyond understanding came over me. I’ll never forget what she said, and she’ll never know how much that helped me. Helped me to understand that even when terrible things happen to us it’ll still be OK even if I die. That brings a freedom and a peace within.
there’s a company in Saluda, North Carolina call precision grading. If anybody wants to be go on Facebook and look at what’s posted there for the past 222 days. It is all pretty inspiring and it is all truly people. There’s no selfishness there. There’s no smearing other people there. It’s just people trying to take care of other people. It’s amazing. Beautiful things are happening there in the rubble. Being positive in a situation where it would be easy not to be. I’m not on Facebook, but I can see a little bit each day. Those of you on face book can read it all. It has inspired me to want to take a vacation there this summer and meet some of the people that I feel I know. I don’t know if that will happen or not but I’m thinking about talking to one of my sisters about it. Im not a big vacation person so we will see.
JeriLynn I would have enjoyed that supper too.
Ron glad you are safe.
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Commonly Used Abbreviations
DH = Dear Husband
DW= Dear Wife, Darling Wife
LO = Loved One
ES = Early Stage
EO = Early Onset
FTD = Frontotemporal Dementia
VD = Vascular Dementia
MC = Memory Care
AL = Assisted Living
POA = Power of Attorney
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