Damnable Thieves: Stole a Handicapped Walker!

Someone Stole a Handicapped Walker and Sold it for Scrap!

There are just low-life opportunistic thieves: and they travel in packs.

My brother-in-law is handicapped and uses walkers to get around. I have a handicapped tag hanging from my rearview mirror: don’t use a handicapped space and do not even think of harassing someone who is handicapped around me!

He is well liked around here, and does so much for these tenants. And for years has stored his walkers under the front stairwell. They’re very handy to grab when needed: and I usually have another in the trunk of my car.

However, as he was leaving for a doctor appointment, and went to retrieve his walker, it was gone. He called me; I flew home, opened my car trunk expecting to see the spare, but no luck.

So are those there few pennies that ya earned scrapping the stolen metal walkers, plus some old beach chairs, worth a tour in one of the nine levels of hell from Dante’s Inferno? (click the title for the Cliff Notes synopsis.)

Yeah, I went to the police station, and then I went to the local metal scrap yard. I asked them to put the thieves thru the chipper, butt first.

Can ya blame me?

And This One Looked like ZZ Top

I had been keeping my eye out on two odd-looking men hanging at the end of our parking lot: One was sitting on the back of an old sofa dumped on the curb; the other was pacing about the parking lot, possibly talking to someone down below.

I wasn’t sure what to make of them, and I thought one would make interesting pix, but as I grabbed my cell phone, the dude suddenly appeared at my door.

He didn’t even knock! This bizarre looking man, with a beard over a foot long, yanked open MY door and tried to step inside! Whoa!

I am so glad that I wasn’t sitting at my kitchen table, but was standing at the door, which prevented him from striding inside.

Where the heck were his manners? Didn’t your momma teach you manners such as knocking, THEN waiting for an invite?

He asked if I had any rooms to rent.

Does this look like the Bates Motel?

Frankly, I was insulted. The owners spent a chunk of change sprucing up this place, and I have spent enormous energy keeping it looking good.

I firmly told him, “No rooms, just apartments, and we do not have any vacancies.”

He walked away. Whew!

Even the Cat is Fed Up with the Cold!

We all agree, this has been one so very long winter, and Spring is only teasing us with a few warmish days.

Some time ago, the cat began sleeping on my feet, and I always thought it was because she was finally warming up to me. Nah! In the winter, I use a heating pad for my Popsicle Toes (great jazzy song by Michael Franks).

This winter has been so freaking mean and long, I splurged on an electric blanket, and it is set to Thermal Nuclear Meltdown, every night. In fact, I turn it on long before bedtime to be sure that the bed is thoroughly cooked.

The heating pad was moved from the foot of the bed to the top, just under my shoulders. The cat moved too: She no longer sleeps on my feet; she pretty much took over the bed. It is AMAZING that a 5 pound cat can hog the entire bed!

The cat wants the electric blanket turned on, all day long.

During the day, she has learned how to demand that the heating blanket be turned on. I am not kidding, she will come out to wherever I am, dance, talk, then jump onto my bed, pace around and sniff where the clickers are! She has learned to differentiate the sound of each controller and curl up on that end of the bed.

The blanket will automatically shut-off during the night, it’s a safety feature, and during the night I will click the heating pad and blanket back on. One night, I only clicked the heating pad and the blanket went cold. The cat actually walked up the bed, and curled her furry body under my face, thus hogging the heating pad. I thought it was merely a coincidence. She has repeated that stunt many times this winter: Teach me not to keep the blanket cranking.

The Dog Could Care Less

Because the Lab is now 12 years old and his hips are giving him problems, I placed the heating pad on the floor just for him. I wrapped it in a towel, left it on the floor in his favorite spots, I even wrapped his hips with the heating pad, but he would shake it off, and then walk away.

We humans are suckers for our pets. The four-legged critters rule our homes, and our hearts. They are in charge of the house. Sigh.

Another Dead Mouse

I am getting better at NOT screaming when I find them: Live ones scurrying around never bothered me, it’s finding dead ones in my home that freak me out.

When my son was small, there was a very large radiator in his bedroom. One day, as I was cleaning his room, searching for lost toys and laundry, I made the mistake of reaching under that radiator for a small white sock.

It wasn’t a sock.

That was the very first time that a cat that had left a mouse for me, never mind the fact that I had mistaken the mouse for a sock! I screamed like a girl, ran out of the room, through the living room, kitchen and finally out the back door onto the porch. Once out there, I realized that I had to go BACK inside and pick up that poor critter to dispose of it.

But this latest poor mouse bit the dust in the furnace room: Can’t blame the cat for its untimely demise, not too sure if I should blame the workmen, after all, they had spent quite some time working down there. But they did state that they swept up the mess they had made.

Obviously they missed the critter.