Story Edie (Complete)
- Thread starter Kathy in FL
- Start date
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
As Lawrence Welk used to say, a wonderful, a wonderful. 
Thanks for the carrot muffin recipe. I will do reg flour and none gluten.
Thanks for the carrot muffin recipe. I will do reg flour and none gluten.I disagree on the ghee making. You want the ghee to be completely water free so you slowly raise the temperature up starting at about 212F and once the water starts to boil through the butter fat watch and stir every so often until the bubbling starts to slow (also skim it during this). At that point slowly raise the temperature up until it reaches 260F and there is no more bubbling, at that point the water is gone. At this point it is clarified butter. If you continue to cook it at 260F the remaining solids will brown up giving you a slight nutty flavor, then it is ghee. Strain it though a flout sack towel and can it up. 5# butter will yield 6 wide mouth pint jars plus maybe a little. I just store them in the refrigerator. Oh, and a wok works REALLY nice to make it in.
Chapter 20
About the only thing that I had bought that needed to be in the cooler up to that point was the butter. See, I had another idea. I was going to go back to my old stomping grounds and get a membership at the warehouse store over that way. The reason why is because buying stuff at the grocery stores was taking a lot longer than I thought it would. When you can only buy 1, 2, or 4 of something it takes a lot more trips to get a surplus … or even enough to make it through the week. Plus, some of the cashiers were starting to recognize me.
Everything I looked at online encouraged people to “go gray” and shop at multiple stores. “Go gray, go gray, go gray” was all I read on some forums, and it took me forever to figure out what that meant. And if it wasn’t “go gray” it was “Go Galt.” Apparently there was like this book written a long time ago, like even before my parents were born, that talked about this guy named John Galt. The author was sorta like HG Wells in that she imagined some future world where governments had gone from freedom-loving to extreme-socialism. I still haven’t been able to read it. Not that I don’t want to, but I just don’t have time between one thing and another and the book is as bad as War and Peace when it comes to using five words when one could get the point across just as well. Either way I have basically learned to be careful to not get overly noticed, especially by people who can create problems for me or who might want to get into my business for my own good.
Some other advice I read along those same lines was to not make a habit of shopping at the same stores on the same days. To pay cash when you can though I didn’t understand that at first. It took me a bit, and some research, to figure out what that meant. It was to keep the banks and credit card companies from being able to track your purchases and selling the information to certain groups, or just give it free to the government who could really give you heartburn. Similar to what social media sites do whether you give them permission to do it or not.
Basically you are supposed to look and act like everyone else so people don’t get suspicious and then get in your business. Don’t be the nail looking for a hammer. Don’t be the person that stands out any more than necessary. Don’t get on any lists or on people’s radar.
Most people kinda get weird about their personal business. Some more than others and I count myself as one of them. It’s also true that there are more rules out there than I knew about before I had to become the adult. Going gray pretty much is just like trying to have a cloak of invisibility for whatever reason you have to need one. My “going gray” isn’t for political reasons like I read about online – I’m not even sure if I have politics to be honest – but I do it out of basic survival. I mean I probably do have a political opinion, I just don’t know what to call it yet and whether I want to share that opinion with other people even if they have an opinion similar to mine. The fewer people in my business the better. I don’t hate people, not really. But life sure has taught me not to trust many of them. And I’m all Teena has so better safe than sorry.
I admit that Mr. Gibson did more for me than I understood. I didn’t like him then and time hasn’t changed that but that’s more about his “bedside manner” than his professional abilities. One of the things he taught me whether he meant to or not is that when people get in your business, they can run over you. They may even be trying to help you. But your rights tend to get lost in their determination to do what they think is right. Mr. Gibson didn’t have do-gooder syndrome, he had I-know-better-than-you syndrome. I did not want another Mr. Gibson running my life so I “went gray” but for my own reasons.
It wasn’t quite as complicated to get a warehouse membership as I thought it was going to be. I did have to wait in line and juggle Teena when she started getting hungry. Lucky for me they had a baby feeding station in the ladies’ restroom so I could take care of her before she turned into a bandsaw/beaver. What took a while was for me to get over my shock of having been in one of those places for the first time. My gosh! First off, they call it a warehouse for a reason; it’s big. Two, the sizes of the stuff on the shelves. I like ketchup as much as the next person but buying two gallon jugs of the stuff just didn’t thrill me. And it was the expensive name brand stuff too so you can just guess what the price tag was. By the ounce it was cheaper than at a regular store for the same brand, but I could still do much better buying the generic stuff.
First thing I did was hit the baby supplies aisle. Diapers, diapers, diapers. I got two cases of the next size up from what Teena was wearing right then. I had enough of her current size from my other store runs. I got a jumbo mixed case of baby cereals. Then I got out of there before I got snookered into buying boxes of teething cookies that reminded me more of dog biscuits than people food. Or any of that other cutesy stuff that my doula had said wasn’t a necessity.
I was hoping that the next item on my plan was cheaper here than it was at the store, but I wasn’t hopeful after seeing the other stuff. But I was wrong. I got a gallon of honey. It wasn’t cheap but at least it was 100% with no additives or water in it to thin it out. I also picked up a large jug of maple syrup; not to put on waffles but for my tea. I like maple syrup in my tea more than regular sugar. And that’s assuming I put any sweeteners in there at all. After wearing Invisalign for almost three years no way do I want to have to deal with dental bills on top of everything else I’m paying for on my own these days.
That’s also how I was able to avoid the snacks and candy aisles. I mean sure, I would have liked that giant pack of Zero bars or the tote sack full of Reese’s cups as much as the next PMSing momma, but I need to set a good example for Teena before it gets too hard. And I already had enough jiggles to last any female a lifetime.
I also looked at all the huge packs of water bottles and almost gave into temptation until I remembered not to get stupid just because something would have been easy. I have a water filter and a Contigo thermos. I didn’t need anything else. Except I picked up yet more bubbly water that came in a pack of my favorite flavors. I brushed the guilt off by saying it was better than buying soda … which there was a whole of that too. I thought about juices then put them on my list for another time. Needs before wants.
I went around the warehouse making notes of prices on my phone so that I could compare them to prices from the grocery. Then I hit pay dirt. Canned veggies in six, eight, and ten packs. There was a limit of four but it was a limit on a pack and not by can. I couldn’t afford four of each that day, but I could buy two so that’s what I did. Corn, peas, carrots, black beans, chick peas, cream of mushroom soup, green beans, and pinto beans. They also had fruit cocktail, canned peaches, sliced pineapple, and mandarin oranges.
I found giant bags of rice and dried beans too and was surprised not to see anyone buying them like they were the stuff in the freezer area. You were only allowed one of each of those, but the bags were ginormous. Same for the giant bags of sugar and flour. I heard someone complaining they were limiting paper towels and toilet paper again when the guy in office (I guess they meant the president) said he wasn’t going to let that happen anymore. Well, a girl needs her TP so I went back and only blinked a couple of times at the size of the packages. One pack would last me for most of a year but I got two just to be sure. I also got a giant pack of paper towels even though I don’t use them much.
The flatbed I was pushing was getting full, so I decided to swing by and pick up some ground beef and the price was pretty good. Only thing was you had to buy it in the giant rolls so I would need Ziploc bags to break it up and freeze it in and I wasn’t sure how many I had at home. I went back to the paper area and … gulp … bought an industrial sized set of various bag sizes and then scurried to check out before anything else could corrupt my budget.
I was a nervous wreck when I left that place. OMG. The bill was a lot higher than I had expected but none of it was going to go to waste. It was the paper stuff that made the total jump. After getting everything back in the cabin and figuring out a way to store it where it didn’t look like I was starting my own warehouse club, I sat down to feed Teena again and pulled up my laptop to see if I’d made any sales.
ARGH!! It was a good thing, really, but at the same time … ARGH!
Chapter 21
I had to turn around and go back to town the next day as someone had purchased a bunch of my smalls – mostly vintage jewelry – and paid to have it shipped next day delivery. I had also gotten a query about three pairs of the vintage shoes that I agreed to ship together to save some of the shipping costs for them. When you have customers like that you want to give them top service so hopefully you’ll get good reviews and maybe even make a repeat customer out of them. I was up and at ‘em early again the next morning.
I had packed everything really well and had it labeled. All I had to do was wait in line (ugh) to get my receipt and while I was doing that ran into Celeste Dunn.
“Well hello there.”
“Hello Mrs. Dunn.” Then before I could chicken out I said, “Uh … Winn said that your church does stuff at the holidays.”
She made an assumption and asked, “You want to be put on the list?”
It took me a sec but then said, “Er … no ma’am. I mean I’d like to volunteer. Only I know that it might be a problem since I’m not a member there.” I shrugged. “Um …” Then I didn’t know how to bring things up.
She pulled me over to the side. “No need to talk about it since it is bound to be painful. Tinker and my first husband were second cousins. And Tinker’s first wife was a Dunn. He and my brother fought over the one he married after the first one died, though I told Robert she was an out of town tart and not worth the trouble. So, when I saw Tinker slinking around I made it my business to find out why.”
“Oh. Maybe Winn was wrong.”
“About?”
“He keeps hinting I need to get more involved with the community and let people get to know me. But if …”
She interrupted and said, “Don’t worry about it Sugar, it isn’t common knowledge. And Winn is correct. You can’t hide forever even if you might want to. Tell you what, tomorrow we are putting the boxes together. We only have about half the people committed to helping that we need. I know more will show up, but I don’t know how many. And some that sign up invariably can’t come for some reason. Let’s see how it goes from there.”
That was going to mean a third trip to town, but I was the one that brought it up and I’d been giving what Winn said some thought. No, I didn’t want people in my business. However, Aunt Nita had always talked about networking. My thought was to make connections in the area and maybe “help” haul off stuff for people that I could turn around and sell online. It was a good reason. It also made a darn good excuse.
And since I’d gone all the way to town I stopped at the bank, took out some cash, changed the security code on my debit card because it was all over the news that people’s cards were getting hacked, and then skedaddled in the other direction from where I normally go to an even bigger city to see what I could knock off my list and to hit a couple of estate sales and yard sales I’d found online.
The estate sales were kinda picked over by the time I could get there but I wouldn’t have bought any of the furniture anyway. I did get some collectibles and costume jewelry as well as some really funky vintage clothes that I would be putting in the consignment shop. I had better luck at the third estate sale and a couple of yard sales. Apparently people just don’t have any use for oversized jars and storage containers. They also don’t seem to think much of ice cube trays because almost everyone has automatic ice makers. Well I didn’t, and while it was cold that day, come summer I knew I’d be wanting ice on a regular basis, especially since I didn’t have AC.
Picked up a fair amount of office supplies as well; page protectors, ledgers, staples, tape, pens and pencils, file folders, notebook paper, etc. Most of them were in “opened packages” but I didn’t care. At the estate sales I also picked up some opened containers of cleaning supplies. That sort of thing doesn’t bother me the way it does some people. I won’t necessarily buy opened food packages, but I did get several bags of dried beans to add to my growing supply.
I guess the biggest thing I started “collecting” was knives. Rada knives in particular, but I’ve also picked up some nice butcher knives since then. And they’ve come in handy but that’s another story and I’m not there yet.
When I was done with that, I was going to head back but then spotted a warehouse store that was the same as what I just gotten my membership at. I stopped, splurged on a ginormous piece of pizza and soda (which I shouldn’t have but it was better than grabbing a candy bar for “those” cravings, or that’s what I told myself), and headed into an even bigger warehouse than the other one. Golly gee. The Christmas stuff made me nauseous to look at, but I could just imagine one of these days buying some of those toys for Teena. It was a very weird feeling. It was even worse to look at the price tags. Right then and there I added looking for those types of things at estate sales and yard sales. I mean if I was gonna prep for one thing I might as well prep for other things as well.
After killing that worry, I headed to the canned fruit and veggie aisle. Either the limits had changed, or this store sold out more than the one I had gone to the previous day. This store said limit of two cases … and that’s what I did. Two of everything I bought before plus I got two cases of each soup that was stacked on pallets … chicken noodle, tomato soup, vegetable soup, and black bean soup. Knowing what I know now, or being able to do what I can do now, I almost wish I hadn’t spent that money. But then again, nothing is going to waste so I suppose I shouldn’t worry at it.
Then I went over to the area where they sold seasonings. I nearly passed out. I wasn’t the only one ready to pitch a fit about the price of cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin pie spice. That’s when I heard some old man tell his wife, “Oh hell no.”
“But Harold …”
“No. And I mean no.”
He stomped off to go to automotive and the lady with her said, “Oh well, it was worth a shot.”
“Well, shot or not I still need it to get all the holiday baking done. What I’m going to do now I don’t know.”
The other lady looked around and then with a sly grin told the first lady, “You know what Masie does?”
“Yeah, buys them in the grocery. Unlike us, her husband has a great retirement plan and they can afford to.”
The other one shook her head. “Nope. They cashed out his 401K a few years back to pay off some debt and now they have to economize like the rest of us.”
More than just a little scandalized the first one says, “You’re kidding me. She makes out like they aren’t having any problems at all. Are you sure?!”
The other woman chuckled, “I caught her pouring Dollar Store spices into her McCormick seasoning containers. She tried to play it off then busted down crying and came clean. She swore me to secrecy so don’t tell anyone else.”
“Of all the … you know she’s always rubbing my nose in how nice her husband is and how he never yells about the bills at all.”
“Honey, he is nice. And about as clueless as they come. If Masie didn’t take care of the shortfall, they’d be eating cream of mushroom soup at nearly every meal including breakfast. As it is she’s had to turn off the woman that she had coming in to clean. And now she’s cleaning that big ol’ house all by herself and they’re about to have her mother-in-law come live with them because the nursing home says she’s too cantankerous and won’t keep her.”
The first one rolled her eyes. “Oh Lord, I didn’t feel sorry for her until you said that. You remember what that woman was like when we were growing up.”
“Do I ever. So … you wanna go by the Dollar Store tomorrow? That might shut my brother up for a while.”
They wandered off with their carts leaving me with a lot to think about.
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Thank you, love it.
beaglemama
Contributing Member
Thanks, Kathy!
Ice trays: I like big pieces of ice, doesn't melt as fast and water down my drink like little cubes do. Local payday loan place gives away sleeves of plastic cups, little smaller than Solo cups with smooth sides. I fill them about two thirds full of filtered water and set in the freezer. When the ice maker went out on our Sears refrigerator, what they wanted to charge us for labor and replacement would have bought a new refrigerator.
larry_minn
Contributing Member
I admit I have Dollar, two grocery, one warehouse member store I do +90% sales shopping at. Watching prices, being willing to divide up large amounts can save a lot.
Lake Lili
Veteran Member
@Kathy in FL - quick question re: Chapter 18
The highlighted sentence below just stops mid word. Is it supposed to?
Thanks,
Lili
******
“What? You think I’m going to laugh at you?”
I shrugged.
He shook his head and said, “That in there is what I call smart. The longest I’ve been stuck is two weeks of not being able to get down and go to town but that was because of a wash out. But being stuck for a week isn’t unusual at all.” He sighed. “You’re going to thi
“I opened that door.”
*****
The highlighted sentence below just stops mid word. Is it supposed to?
Thanks,
Lili
******
“What? You think I’m going to laugh at you?”
I shrugged.
He shook his head and said, “That in there is what I call smart. The longest I’ve been stuck is two weeks of not being able to get down and go to town but that was because of a wash out. But being stuck for a week isn’t unusual at all.” He sighed. “You’re going to thi
“I opened that door.”
*****
Looks like some editing cut it off:
“You’re going to think I’m telling you what to do.”
Chapter 22
Never go to a Dollar Store expecting to come out with just one or two items. I swear, I don’t know if discovering the one in Overton was a good thing or not. And the name of the store is a lie too. They should call them Buck-and-a-Half stores or Less-Than-Five-Dollar stores.
That day was the first time I’d really been in one. Aunt Nita was super down to earth about some things … like us not being rich so we bought whole chickens and cut them up ourselves … but she was also a snob about some things and dollar stores was one of them. I think one of her first almost-husbands was district manager for some of those stores and she wound up with an illogical prejudice for some weird reason. Well, I’m now admitting that maybe Aunt Nita didn’t know everything.
I came out of that Dollar Store in a daze. First off, I bought a lot of containers of seasonings. I know they may not be top shelf gourmet quality, but they do what I need them to do. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, garlic pepper, lemon pepper, oregano, thyme, rosemary, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder and garlic salt, basil, crushed red pepper flakes, and French fry seasoning are some of what they had in stock that day. Then they had bay leaves. I mean seriously. A heck of a lot cheaper than what was in the grocery store and warehouse club and all I wanted them for was to keep bugs out of things, so I didn’t need the best ones.
I avoided the holiday aisles, and the cheap toy aisle (except for some plastic blocks for Teena), but I did pretty good in the health and beauty aisle. I mean you just can’t beat their price for toothbrushes and floss sticks. On the other hand, I had to be careful because some of the other stuff I could get cheaper with coupons where I normally shopped. If I’d been all into the snacks and stuff, I could have done pretty good, but I wasn’t so didn’t. They even had a cooler section in the back, and I found dollar packages of country ham, something I have a weakness for but that is hard to find anymore. Aunt Nita said it’s too salty but to me that just means I can put less salt on other stuff and it evens out.
When I left there I was feeling kinda loopy and decided I didn’t want to cook since I had a lot to do and needed to get up again the next morning to come to town to volunteer like I’d all but promised. And what should my wondering eyes behold? A KFC on the corner sitting there big and bold. Sorry for the rhyme, I told you I was feeling pretty loopy at the time. Ugh. I did it again. Geez.
And I had a coupon in my purse for a bucket and a couple of sides. Oh Lord. I figured if I didn’t happen to see Winn that I’d have food for a couple of days. Afterwards, and nearly home, I realized I had to get gas so drove through town and stopped at the little station I normally did. And that’s when I saw the red and blue lights outside the hardware store.
That’s also when some guy tried to jack my car. I had gotten out, put my card in the pump, and it had just been approved when some guy tries to open the driver side and jump in. Uh … nope. First driving lesson Aunt Nita taught me is never leave the car unlocked while you are pumping gas. Especially if you have little kids in the car. They could open the door on the opposite side from you and climb out and run right into trouble.
The guy is yanking on the driver’s side door like he can’t believe it isn’t opening. He takes a look at me and growls. Honest to God he growled. I’m not stupid anymore. Or at least not that kind of stupid. I let out a scream they could have heard back in Overton. He still comes at me, but I can’t leave because Teena is in the car and not even animals leave their kids to be predator chow.
He grabs at me and I give him a face full of Unleaded and then start beating him with the nozzle. He knocks that out of my hand and I grab the squeegee and start using that. He backhands me and … uh … I lost my temper ‘cause I guess my fried brain was thinking it isn’t going to happen again. I’m not going down again. Yada yada major freak out.
They said that if it wasn’t bolted down I was using it to fight the guy. The guy gets a knife in his hand at some point, may have had it there from the beginning but I didn’t see it. There’s trash all over the ground where one of the things I was fighting with was the garbage can refuse container and on the ground is a soda can with the top cut off that someone had been using as a spit can for their skoal. The guy got what was left in the can – can we say gross – as well as a good size cut on the arm he took a swipe at me with. Then the cavalry arrived and the guy got dogpiled and pulled me backwards. But not before I stomped his nose.
I wrenched free just long enough to grab Teena out of the car … carrier and all … and started backpedaling and would have gone down if someone hadn’t grabbed my belt and hauled me the direction I’d been trying to go.
“Whoa Edie! Whoa there girl! C’mon … let ‘em have him. You done your piece.”
“He was going to steal Teena!”
In a calming voice (it was Winn) he said, “But he didn’t. You didn’t let him. C’mon.” Under his breath I heard him say, “Lord, where’s a female when you need one.”
That’s when some girl said, “Gawd Winn, you’re such a dork.” She comes into my line of sight and says, “C’mon, let’s go sit inside the shop while the Testosterone Poisoned Ones play he-men on Monroe. Hopefully they’ll do us all a favor and keep him in prison this time.”
Next thing I clearly remember was holding Teena so tight she was squeaking while the girl puts a can of Sprite in my hand. “Here. Best I can do. But Mrs. Thornsby says you look like you could use the sweet.”
“Uh …”
“Trust me. Just drink it. She never stops until she gets her way.” She popped the top on the can and handed it to me. I had to stop squeezing Teena to take it but did as she asked and then took a cautious sip. I’m not fond of taking drinks from people for obvious reasons, but the can made a hiss when it was opened so I knew she hadn’t messed with it.
“Thank you,” I told her.
“You’re welcome. My name is Teena Louise. What’s your baby’s name?”
“Teena.”
“Really? How does she spell it?”
I looked at her and said, “I spell it T-e-e-n-a.”
“Oh … my … gawd. Mom! Mom!! The baby is an ‘EE’ Teena!!”
A woman comes rushing over and gushes, “Really?! Oh my stars! Your grandmother is going to have a fit! Just wait ‘til she hears!” She then ran over to grab a phone off a reception desk, and I realized we were in a salon of some type.
Then the girl says, “Mom?” in a completely different tone of voice.
I and everyone else in the salon look out the plate glass window in time to see them putting a stretcher in the back of an ambulance … but we could see the sheet was pulled up over the face.
“Mom?”
The mother and some of the other women gathered in a tight knot I wasn’t part of. It wasn’t meanness on their part, I just wasn’t part of them. Then I saw Smith come out running and carrying on. I don’t know what got into me. But I ran out to him, dodging the cops and everyone around.
“Smith!” He wasn’t listening. “Smith! Look at me! Now!”
He finally heard my voice and turned a snot and tear-stained visage my way.
“I need you to calm down. Okay? I need you to come over here. With me. C’mon.”
I heard someone say, “Miss, he needs to give a statement.”
“He can give one. He’s gonna talk … to me. You’re gonna listen.” I turned and grabbed the boy’s sleeve and tugged him with me and believe it or not he came. We sat down on the park bench that was there more for decoration than use.
“Smith?”
“Munroe killed my uncle,” he said in a dead voice. “Munroe …” He started crying again.
I let him for a couple of seconds then said, “You tell me how you saw it Smith. Just go on and tell me. Everyone else can hang, you just talk to me … me and Teena … like when we come in the store. Just us. Take a deep breath. And another one.”
Some woman came running up and started making a lot of noise and then said the worse thing possible. “Smith how could you let this happen?!”
Smith seemed ready to have some kind of attack at that point. I was about to move us further away from the drama when the cops drag her out of earshot. Smith mumbles, “That’s my sister.”
I wanted to say “some sister” but didn’t. Instead I said, “Obviously she’s in shock. Hopefully she’ll pull herself together in a little bit. Right now it’s us that’s talking. Just you and me. ‘K? Now you tell me what happened. Just bleed it off.”
“It’s awful Edie. I … I don’t want you to know …”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve been through … some stuff in my own life. I’m stronger than I look.”
“Munroe is my … he’s my … gawd … he’s my brother.”
I patted his back and he finally started telling it. Mostly it is like you’d expect. Addict burns all his bridges but gets desperate and thinks he can weasel enough for his next fix out of family. Only Mr. Dunn wasn’t falling for it anymore. I don’t think Munroe meant to kill his uncle but when he pushed him into the shelves there was some kind of tool that punctured his back. It was the shock that killed him, but he likely would have died of internal bleeding soon anyway because the punch or whatever the metal thing was hit an artery at his kidney. Of course none of us knew that then, that came after the autopsy.
The woman – her name turned out to be Faye – kept screaming at Smith and shouting things like “now what are we going to do” and “why would you let Munro in the store” and a lot of crap like that. And why no one was shutting her up was my question. I looked at Smith and said, “I need to be able to trust you.”
“Huh?”
“I … need … to … be … able … to … trust … you. Do you understand?”
“Uh …”
“I need you to hold Teena for a second. You and Teena take precedence over your sister who seems to be having a meltdown no one wants to stop. I won’t be long. I promise. Just hold her, she’s wiggly because of all the noise your sister is making.”
“Er … okay?”
I got up and walked up to Faye. “I realize you are in shock, but you aren’t helping.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“It doesn’t matter. The question is, why weren’t you here instead of leaving it up to a barely sixteen-year-old kid to protect your uncle from your brother? You’re what? Thirty? The big sister? So where were you?”
Her mouth started open and closing like a fish.
“Don’t blame Smith because you didn’t do your job. It sounds like you should have dumped Monroe at some rehab place instead of letting him run amok.”
“You … you …”
“No. You. Why weren’t you here? In all the times I’ve been in the hardware store I’ve never seen you. I didn’t even know you existed until you started running your mouth just now acting like the wounded party in this tragedy.”
“You … you …”
“Just stop and think instead of spewing. You are in shock, but you are supposed to be the big sister. So act like it. Smith isn’t some dog you can kick around ‘cause life sucks. He’s your kid brother. As bad as this situation is, be glad you still have him, have family. Trust me, it sucks when you don’t. So chill with the noise, it’s not helping anyone, not even you.”
I turned and walked back to Smith who was looking at me like I was some kind of alien species. I took Teena back and then I took Smith by the arm and told the cop that was standing there with a similar look on his face and said, “I’m taking Smith over to the salon. There’s a lady in there named Mrs. Thornsby that will know what to do for him. When you need something more, you’ll find us there.”
Chapter 23
Boy had I pegged Mrs. Thornsby right. She “knew just what Smith needed” and it didn’t include Faye coming unglued all over him. I knew there was a story, but I wasn’t interested in it. Not then. Later I found out that Mrs. Thornsby and her husband were teachers for the Middle School boys at the First Baptist church and Smith had been in their class until he’d gone up to the high school youth group age. She’d also known Monroe and Faye when they’d been Smith’s age. Their mother had been married a bunch of times and all three of them had different fathers, none of whom stayed around. Smith’s had been the best of the lot, but he’d been some kind of contractor that worked overseas and one time he’d left and just never came home. He’d married some woman over in Thailand and liked it so well that’s where he stayed. He did send money at Christmas and had a college fund set up for Smith but that’s about the extent of his fatherly-ness. Can we say soap opera?
About an hour later a pickup truck comes speeding up and this guy jumps out. I knew he was older but not old. His hair was mostly still black under the John Deere cap he was wearing. Winn spots him and rushes out.
“Donny!”
“Oh my Lord”, I heard someone mutter. “Just tell me he doesn’t have Taylor Rae with him.”
“Didn’t you hear? She left him. Said she wanted a baby of her own, not one of his sister’s … well you know what she called them three even though she was married to their fathers.”
Ugh. I was beginning to see there were reasons why Smith was Smith.
Smith was hugging on the man called Donny and they both walked up to the cops just in time for Faye to make another run at both of them. But Smith seemed to surprise all of them because he stepped in front of the man Donny and I could hear him say, “You don’t get to talk to Donny like that. Uncle Don was his Dad. He’s … he’s got precedence over your drama.”
From the look of things, it was such an usual event for Smith to stand up to his sister that her jaw was hanging open and swinging in the breeze. I even saw Winn standing there with his mouth open.
It was awful as such things tend to be when you have to tell someone their parent is gone. I’ve done my share of crying over such things, and I knew there was simply nothing you could do but endure and keep going. Dad was there for me when Mom died. Aunt Nita was there for me when Dad died. And I was there for Teena when Aunt Nita died. And some day someone is going to be there for Teena when I die. Circle of Life. But it still sucks.
I had groceries and it was getting late and was already dark. I needed to get Teena home. I hadn’t brought her warmest clothes because I hadn’t planned on life happening. I looked at the girl named Teena Louise and asked her, “Is that guy going to take care of Smith?”
She turned to look at her mom. “Mom? You think …?”
“I called Carlotta. She’s already got the Prayer Chain going. She said she’d call Hiram and I’m thinking that Smith and Donny are going to be staying with them a couple of days. And sure enough, I see Hiram pulling up now. We’ll leave the family to handle what needs handling. They know they can call if they need something. If no one does, more than likely the Preacher will let us know what they need.”
Teena Louise looked back at me with a slightly vacuous look. I thought she was faking but turns out that’s her normal. She’s not stupid, I found that out, but she’s a little feather-brained. Her mom tends to run her life 24/7/365. And Teena Louise doesn’t seem to mind it. Each to his own.
I said, “It was nice meeting you. Wish it had been under different circumstances.”
“Mom” comes over and says, “Same here Honey. I bet you’re wanting to get that baby home. Tell Mickey … he’s the cop with that strawberry birthmark on his ear … that, and I’m sure all he’ll need is a phone number where he can reach you. Unless you want to leave it with me and I’ll give it to him?”
“No ma’am. I better do this myself just in case they say no, but thank you for the offer. It was nice of you.”
No way was I giving some stranger my name, phone number, and address when she wasn’t wearing a badge. Dunnville may be small-town America but it looked like awful things still happen here.
# # # # #
Family was closing ranks … Winn included … when I was finally able to get away. I suppose it was natural … and right … but it just emphasized that I was an outsider. It also emphasized something I had been thinking since I was attacked. Something I hadn’t really wanted to admit up to that point.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t interested in being an “insider” any longer. A lot of people at the party had been people that I’d considered friends, some of them were my best friends; most I’d known since Aunt Nita had put me in public school. I’d even been part of the “in crowd” through those people. And yet what had it gotten me? My own little slice of hell with the only bright part being Teena. I was done with it. Friends may be a nice thing to have but they weren’t necessary for existence. I hadn’t had any friends help me get through Aunt Nita dying. I’d had a couple of nice people care, but no friends. The ones that helped the most strangely enough hadn’t even wanted to be there and got out as soon as possible … Uncle Tink and Mr. Gibson … and I never considered them friends, nor they me. It was a strange kind of relief to admit it to myself. And the last little bit of my old life I’d been hanging onto, chains I hadn’t realized I’d been trying to shed, went down the drain with grease from the gas station that I washed off in the shower that night.
When I got up the next morning and looked in the mirror, I realized something else, I wouldn’t be going to town. It wasn’t that I was afraid, or angry, or anything else; but it just wasn’t happening. I called the number Celeste Dunn had given me and she answered on the first ring.
“Mrs. Dunn?”
“Who’s this?”
“Sorry. It’s Edie Holtzinger. Um … I was calling to tell you I can’t make it.”
“After hearing what happened yesterday I have to admit I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Oh. Well, it isn’t that. I’d committed and got up to get dressed and … anyway I looked in the mirror and … I … I just …” I cleared my throat. “Sorry. I don’t mean to dither I just look pretty craptastic. My lip is split and even though the swelling is down I guess you can hear I still have a little bit of a lisp. But even that wouldn’t be awful but the black eye is just kinda … gross. You aren’t the City Shelter, you’re a church and … well … it would cause talk and probably make people uncomfortable.”
“Sugar did you say black eye?”
I didn’t give her a blow by blow, but I did explain that Monroe had backhanded me at one point and that the black eye and everything just snuck up on me overnight.
“So … anyway I just wanted to apologize and say I hope I’m not causing trouble for you by trying to prevent other trouble.”
“Let me guess, you didn’t even go to the walk-in or anything to get checked out and none of those knuckleheads even thought to mention it.”
“Er …”
“That’s what I thought. I swear.”
“Oh, I’m not hurt or anything like that. I’m stronger than I look. And there was a Mrs. Thornsby there. She was nice. And a girl named Teena Louise and her mother. And … gosh … I think Mrs. Thornsby goes to your church and if you know her could you please tell her thank you for me? I might have forgotten to and I don’t want to be rude. She was really nice.”
“Honey, she’s standing right here and I will be sure and tell her for you. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes ma’am. Like I said it is more about not causing talk. Or distracting people from working.”
“Well I appreciate your thoughtfulness. We’ll think of something so you can meet people. You just take care.” I wanted to say not to worry about it, but it wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with her right then.
About four o’clock that day I was out on the back deck clearing algorithms out of my head when I heard a car drive onto the gravel in the front. The only person that had been here was Winn but it didn’t sound like his truck. Then I heard a couple of doors and a woman say, “I didn’t even know this place was up here. Daaanng. And you’re saying a kid lives here by herself?”
A guy responded, “I don’t know if I’d call her a kid. Chief says she is legally emancipated, and she has a baby. Also has had it rough so he says handle her with kid gloves.”
“Yeah. I get that. It’s why he wanted me to come along. Though Winn says she’s not the skittish type and seems responsible for her age.”
“But Celeste said she’s got a black eye from yesterday and the Chief is chewing my tail for not taking a statement and getting pictures. He’s gonna charge Monroe with everything he can this time around, family or not. Ol’ Monroe is going to do hard time for this one way or another no matter how it has to be made to happen.”
“Monroe needs rehab and counseling. All the State Pen is going to do is turn him from a sloppy addict to a hard criminal addict.”
“Your social worker genes are showing Cindy. Monroe is already a criminal. He’s had a rap sheet since we were all kids, and you know it. The only reason he hasn’t already done hard time is because they’ve all been misdemeanors and because you know who his grandfather is on his daddy’s side.”
“That’s just a rumor.”
“No it ain’t. Just ‘cause a certain someone’s name isn’t on the birth certificate doesn’t mean it ain’t true. That’s why the Chief wants to stack the deck this time and give Mr. Darnell all the ammunition he can.”
“Brrr. Let’s get this over with. Feels like snow and I don’t want to be driving these roads if it does.”
“Too early for it.”
“That’s not what the weatherman says.”
I finally stuck my head around the corner and got a look at who had been talking. There was a city cop car in the parking area and Mickey was about to knock on the door.
“Hello,” I said causing Mickey and the blonde woman with him both to jump.
She asked, “Were you standing there listening the entire time?”
“Only because I couldn’t figure out how to interrupt without sounding like I was listening on purpose.” I turned to the man that I’d spoken with yesterday. “Hello Deputy Dunn. I need to sign some papers anyway?”
“Sure do. And look at you. That wasn’t there yesterday.”
I shrugged. “It started last night after I got home and out of the cold. It’s just nasty looking because it is spreading.”
“What were you doing out on the deck. It’s cold out here. And where’s the baby?”
Yep. Social worker.
“She’s asleep and I was out here clearing my head. I had a Calculus Final and the proctor drove me up a wall because he is a pen clicker.”
“A what?”
“A pen clicker. They think they are being nice and letting you know how much time is passing by clicking their ball point pen at every five-minute mark since your eyes are only supposed to be on the keyboard and screen, not looking at anything else in case you’ve stashed answers or whatever.” Turning back to Mickey I asked, “So what is it you need?”
What he needed was a statement and a couple of pictures.
“Is this making your uncomfortable?” Cindy Dunn asked.
“It sounds like you already know I’ve been through it before so let’s just say I understand the necessity, but it isn’t fun and giggles. Um, can I ask how Smith is doing?”
“I thought you didn’t like Smith?”
Trying to clarify I answered, “It isn’t that I don’t like Smith, I just don’t want him imagining that I have feelings for him. I get some of his … er … eccentricities now that I’ve heard some of the family stuff but … none of my business and I’m not looking to make it my business.”
“Then why get in Faye’s face like that?”
“Smith’s sister? I wasn’t in her face. She was getting hysterical and taking things out on Smith that would have messed him up for life if someone didn’t get her to at least consider putting the brakes on her mouth. Smith is barely sixteen and she’s nearly twice his age. Responsible adults don’t behave like that and everyone else was busy dealing with Mr. Dunn’s … passing … and all the rest that went with it.”
“You’re not exactly an adult yourself.”
I shrugged lightly, trying not to make an enemy by having an attitude. But I wasn’t going to be pushed around either. “I am in the eyes of the law. I am as far as being responsible for Teena … my baby … and for taking care of the other things in my life I am supposed to take care of. Paying my bills, that sort of thing. And while I’m not saying that I’ve got a hundred years of experience, I’ve … experienced … enough of life to know that what Faye was doing wasn’t helping anyone … especially not Smith who looked too close to coming apart. When you come apart like that, there’s no getting put back together the same way. And from the sound of it, he’s got enough going on that he doesn’t need that kind of damage on top of it.”
She mumbled something that was a non-answer and said, “Perhaps we should take this inside. You won’t be able to hear the baby out here.”
I pointed to the intercom on my belt. “I don’t want to let the cold air in and wake her up before her nap is over with. It isn’t healthy. Not to mention I’m sure Deputy Dunn wants to get a move on.”
The man said, “I do. I need you to look over this and see if you can add anything to it or if there is something there you don’t agree with.”
Basically it was just a timeline of “the crime” from beginning to end. I told him, “I can’t attest to anything other than what happened when Monroe ran up and tried to car jack me and then what came after that. I know about some of the rest of it only because Smith told me. And I didn’t know that Monroe had tried to get away by kicking out a car window because I had gone by then. I can add maybe a few things … like the fact he was angry because I had locked the door on my car and he couldn’t get it open, but not much more than what is already in the report.”
“Was it Monroe that slugged you?”
“He didn’t slug me. He backhanded me.”
“And when did it happen?”
“When I grabbed the squeegee to keep him from stealing Teena.”
“The baby was still in the car at that point?”
“Yes Sir. I was yelling for him to go away and take some other car because my baby was in mine so it’s not like he didn’t know. There was just no way I was letting that happen. To be honest I didn’t really feel it until last night and didn’t expect it to get so ugly. I don’t normally bruise like this. And the only thing that is sore, now that my lip has gone down, is the bridge of my nose. It was hard to wear my glasses.”
“You wear glasses?”
“For reading only. Not for driving or anything else. They’re called prism glasses. I have diplopia in one eye where I was born with a lazy eye. It’s been corrected but I still use glasses to keep it in check and to save me some serious headaches from eye strain because I’m on the computer a lot doing schoolwork.”
Cindy Dunn says, “You’re dual enrolled?”
“Yes ma’am. Like I told you I just finished a calculus final.”
“High school?”
“Excuse me?”
“High school calculus?”
“No ma’am. I took that last year. This is Elementary Calc II.”
“Goodness. What are you studying?”
I shrugged again. A bad habit I’m still trying to break. “Probably business but I’m not locked in yet. I was going to get an accounting degree and then help my aunt with her business but … life kinda changed that. My guidance counselor is trying to talk me into some kind of STEM degree, but it doesn’t thrill me. Science, technology, and mathematics are okay; the engineering part though … meh … I’m still considering it, but I’ll probably stick with business. It’s what I know best.”
“Really,” she said with disbelief.
“Really. I helped my aunt run her shop Vintiques and I did most of it when she started getting really sick and the chemo pretty much toasted her. I did it pregnant and all the other crap that was going on too at the time and never let her down. But Aunt Nita’s brother had other ideas and … I’m figuring things out.” I didn’t tell her about my online business, and didn’t plan on it. That business was my business and no one else’s. If Uncle Tink and Mr. Gibson hadn’t thought enough about it to try and stop me, I wasn’t going to let it be used by anyone else for that purpose. “So, is Smith okay? Mrs. Thornsby seemed to think that man Donny would be looking after him. Or someone named Hiram would be looking out for both of them.”
Deputy Dunn seemed to have had enough of being on the sidelines and answered my question for her. “Long, drawn-out story but essentially Donny Dunn is both Smith’s cousin and his uncle cause of some mess where Don Sr. was married to two different sisters who was also cousins to him. Smith’s mother was raised by Don Dunn after her mother ran off and … don’t worry about it, let’s just say that family reunions here in Dunnville are complicated. Hiram is the patriarch of that limb of the Dunn family tree and Smith’s biological grandfather. They have more than their fair share of the nuts in the family. None of that really matters though ‘cause no one pays any attention to it unless forced to for some reason.”
“Er … none of my business. Thanks anyway. I was just wondering if Smith was okay. I’ve … kinda been there.”
It was like my answer flipped a switch for both of them and answered a question I hadn’t realized had been asked. It didn’t take them long to get out of there after that. Whew. What a mess.
Jeepcats27
Senior Member
Nice Chapters, thank you!!!!!
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Love it, thank you.
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
larry_minn
Contributing Member
More please. We have dollar general. Stuff on sale, on Saturday, or clearance are only deals I see. And name brand chips. Seem very greasy. But grocery chains have few decent sale prices. Getting so I see a actual deal. I buy a dozen, or more. And week later regret not buying 3 dozen. As half new price.
Chapter 24
Thanksgiving came and went and the only reason I paid attention to it is because it snowed making it a lot colder than was comfortable, and because my online sales were piling up and I needed to get out and take them to the post office. When I was finally able to the following Monday I didn’t go to Dunnville however; I took them to Overton. I was hoping to shave off a day – or at least a few hours – of shipping time by avoiding rural route issues. I also wore more makeup than usual hoping to hide the last of the black eye. I don’t know which was worse, the naked black eye or the hack job I did with the war paint.
If I’m honest I decided I liked my anonymity and intended on keeping it that way as much as possible. Something had changed. I’d fought the bad guy and … well I hadn’t won but I hadn’t lost either. I didn’t want a rematch but in a way that fight had empowered me and given me a confidence I had lost. It also helped me to be more confident in what I wanted … or at least what I was wanting right then.
I hoped people would just forget about me. I didn’t want to be known for being the orphan who tragically lost her mother and sister to a senseless vehicle accident. I didn’t want to be known for tragically losing her father and brother to workplace violence. I didn’t want to be known for tragically losing her innocence to people that were supposed to have been her friends. I didn’t want to be known for tragically losing her aunt to cancer. I didn’t want Celeste Dunn thinking of ways to “introduce me around” or Cindy “the social worker” Dunn keeping track of me, or Smith Dunn crediting me with more feelings than I had, or even Winn Dunn doing whatever he had been doing for whatever reason. I just didn’t want to be known, period, because I was tired of being judged. I was done with people and done with the Dunn family who were just a temptation and not a solution in my life. I was ready to go back to knowing no one and no one knowing me.
And with that decided I wasn’t going to let entanglements stop me from doing what it took to keep people from knowing me and from providing Teena with a life. Maybe it would be a one-parent kind of life but at least it wouldn’t be any more of a soap opera than I could help. I was lucky that the soap opera qualities in my own life hadn’t made me a real whack-a-doodle. I wanted something different for Teena and I was willing to fight and sacrifice to get it for her.
After dropping the packages at the post office – and they had a line just for pre-paid packages which was smart and efficient – I headed to a discount grocery store that I had looked up online. I also had coupons which I was going to use to full advantage. I started with four jars of Miracle Whip. The plan said four jars of mayo but I don’t like mayo so Miracle Whip it was. The stuff wasn’t exactly cheap and that led me to looking up a copy-cat recipe which I found at Top Secret Recipes[1]. Since it called for canola oil, I picked up another two gallons of the stuff.
Also on my list to do that day was go to the bookstore (both new and used ones that I found through Yelp) because I wanted to figure out how to raise chickens so I could have eggs without having to buy them from the store. That’s one of those “hobbies” that I started to develop despite the expense. But that was later, I was still working the coupons at the grocery store.
The plan said that I was supposed to buy five pounds of rice per person that day but I’d already bought a big bag of rice at the warehouse club and planned to buy another one later that day. So instead, I bought rice mixes … yellow rice, red beans and rice, rice pilaf, black beans and rice, rice-a-roni flavors, and stuff like that. Not only were they BOGO, I had coupons to add to that sale.
I did my research and figured out how to make my own baby food, but I needed dried fruits and veggies to do it. I didn’t have a fancy dehydrator like Winn had shown me … yet. But before a dehydrator could do me any good, I needed to have stuff to dry. My research revealed that blanched veggies dried better than just fresh veggies and that it was a waste to dry canned veggies because, in essence, they were already preserved for long term. The next best thing besides blanching them myself which could be a lot of work, was buying frozen veggies. They were blanched and flash-frozen at the processing plants. It would save me time and effort even if those big bags of frozen veggies cost money.
I also needed to replenish my bubble water and discovered that it was still cheaper to buy it by the 8-pack at the grocery than it was by the flat at the warehouse club. Not much cheaper but a few pennies was a few pennies, especially when those pennies involved gas for my rolling tank. I put on my list to try and figure out how to make my own.
While I was stuck home in the snow, I found out at least in part why the water at the house was so nasty. There was a leak under the kitchen sink … nearly broke my neck on the ice that had formed on the floor overnight … and when I investigated where it was coming from I found there was a filter under the sink that had frozen and cracked. Let me tell you, that thing looked like it hadn’t been changed since the turn of the century. I had to look up on some youtubes how to do it, but I took it offline and re-hooked the water up directly. The water was actually better without the filter. It still had a lot of minerals in it but wasn’t nearly as awful as it had been. Another bonus was that the filters for the water pitcher lasted longer as well. Who knew a dirty filter could put crap in the water instead of taking crap out?
I added to my list to look out for a food dehydrator, a water filter, and something called a Soda Stream at estate sales, yard sales, and Craigs List. That was in addition to the things I was already on the look out for like Rada knives and smalls that I could sell online.
I got more peanut butter at the store even though it wasn’t on the list yet because it was on sale. I also added to my medicine cabinet. And a girl who eats lots of peanut butter and cheese needs her daily fiber or she’ll need even more in the medicine cabinet and that is a universal truth. So I also picked up instant oatmeal, quick oats, and old-fashioned oats, but I got it in store brands instead of name brands. I knew there was a difference between the different types because when we made cookies at the holidays different recipes called for different kinds. I eventually learned to make my own instant oats from a recipe online[2] and that saved me lots of money because in addition to peanut butter, cheese, and tomato soup I eat a lot of oats and you can guess why. And a little secret, if you put a spoonful of that fiber that dissolves to nothing in water you are going to stay regular no matter what you eat.
Beyond the rest of it, for this grocery trip I decided to focus on the things that would help me start canning and since I was going to start with the BWB (boiling water bath) method that meant non-acid foods and the easiest lesson I found for that was how to make jelly with store-bought fruit juice[3]. I headed to the drink aisle and started with the flavors of juice that I would normally drink that was both 100% real juice and no-sugar-added. The recipe said the juice could have added sugar but that if it didn’t instead of regular Sure-jell I would need to use the Low/No-sugar type of Sure-jell. From there I headed to the soda aisle because I had also found that you could make jelly from soda[4] and I was determined to try it. I’ve since found out you can make jelly from flowers[5] and from wine but that was down the road.[6][7]
Of course, that meant looking for the Sure-jell and they didn’t have any. Didn’t carry it because they consider it a specialty item. They did have baking soda, baking powder, and canned tuna on sale, so I got that, got through the cashier line and headed to wallyworld which in all honesty I had been trying to avoid because I didn’t want to think about Christmas.
I bought all the packages of Sure-jell and liquid pectin they had on the shelf and refused to feel guilty about it. They had half-gallon jars so I picked up three four-packs of those. Not because I planned on putting jelly in something that big but because they would help me store sugar and stuff like that because one of the big things we were always doing battle with at Vintiques was mice. And it wasn’t because of the café though that didn’t help. It was because the strip center the store was in had an alley in the back where the dumpsters were, and on the other side of that was the grassy embankment of the river that ran through that part of town. Anything in plastic or paper in the café was a disaster waiting to happen and I had finally bought enough food I was worried about turning my pantry into a mouse buffet. I definitely added to my “Be On The Lookout For” list glass canisters and metal containers. And I started a supply of sticky pads and rat poison though that would change when Teena got mobile.
Also at wallyworld I picked up some hygiene items instead of going to the drugstore. High on my list was a bottle of Midol for me and teething medicine and diaper rash stuff for Teena. I looked at my list (I can access my OneDrive from my phone) and checked to see if there was anything else I thought I needed. If I was going to be out spending money I might as well make it worth the drive. Well, I got a couple of extra fuel cans after finally digging out the lawn mower and thinking about that stuff since I was the one that did the landscaping just like I did the small maintenance at Vintiques. I remember we used to do the lawn stuff all together – Dad, Robbie, and me – and it made it fun and go faster. Afterwards we would sometimes just take a drive to nowhere and get an ice cream on the way home or something like that. I missed it when they were gone and still do. It’s the one thing that Aunt Nita was never interested in, mostly because she had most of her time elsewhere. I think it is why I’d been susceptible to trying to find a way to be on the inside again.
I remember Aunt Nita used to say, “Your father is a good man Edie. If I could find one like him, I might just get married.”
I think she grieved for my dad as much as I did there for a while. For both of us it was like the end of a chance at something different. I get that Aunt Nita may have had unrealistic expectations where Dad was concerned but it took a long time for me to put two and two together. I don’t remember him being the same way about her though and I’m not interested in making up a tragic fairytale over it either. Sometimes life just sucks and you have to accept that a fairytale happily ever after isn’t in the cards.
I didn’t need to mow the lawn, but I would at some point, and it wasn’t a bad idea to keep extra fuel since I lived so far away from a gas station. I knew already that I needed to add stabilizer to the fuel if I wasn’t going to use it right away and that I had to have fuel for my vehicle and separate fuel for the lawn equipment that didn’t have any ethanol in it. That had been one of my father’s pet peeves and I’d taught Aunt Nita to continue it. Of course with most things being electric or solar charged these days most people haven’t got a clue but since I do I decided to make sure that I get it right to cause me fewer problems than more.
I hit the warehouse club up again for another giant bag of sugar and another big bottle of honey. And from there I headed home, by way of a different gas station this time. I had a baby to feed, homework to finish, a term paper to write, and a science experiment to prepare for.
[1] Kraft Miracle Whip
[2] Easy Instant Oatmeal Packets
[3] How to Make Homemade Jelly from Bottled or Frozen Juice - Easily!
[4] Make it Mine Soda Pop Jelly
[5] 20 Delicious Flower Jelly Recipes You Should Try * The Homesteading Hippy
[6] Make it Mine Flower Jelly | Better Homes & Gardens (bhg.com)
[7] Make it Mine Wine Jelly | Better Homes & Gardens (bhg.com)
Chapter 25
The rest of December passed the same way. I would go to Overton once a week to mail packages and pick up things on my list. The rest of the time I stayed at the cabin freezing my butt off until I moved us downstairs, trying to organize everything that still sat all over the place in boxes and bags, and doing my “science experiments” with the canning equipment.
I only had one batch of jelly not turn out right and didn’t understand why until I realized that the juice bottle didn’t say 100% juice, but 10% juice. I’ve gotten a whole lot more careful about reading labels, that’s for sure. I didn’t throw that “jelly” away but instead re-labeled it syrup. It wasn’t half bad on pancakes or over yellow cake. I even put it on ice cream once if you can imagine eating ice cream in the freaking middle of a snowstorm. Better than wasting all that money. I’ve eaten a few burnt biscuits rather than waste money too. When you’re the “Head of Household” you do what you gotta do.
It only snowed a couple of times in December for which I’m grateful. It gave me time to figure a few things out … like the move to the bottom floor and how best to build a fire so it gave off the most heat with the least amount of wood.
The list and the move only reinforced that I needed to get better organized. I turned the upstairs bedrooms into spaces that I could store all my online inventory neatly. And trust me I needed to because I was adding to it faster than I was selling it once it was too close to the holidays for it to be worth the extra cost of shipping. I knew that sales would slow down from that point until prom, wedding, and graduation seasons kicked in, but you wouldn’t sell anything unless you had good inventory to tempt people with.
I looked at the room I called my pantry and realized if I didn’t get that area organized it wouldn’t be worth canning because I wouldn’t have any place to put the jars when I was finished. That was a project that took nearly a week between taking everything out, finding containers to put things in, and on one side, where the shelves were really deep, adding braces so the shelves wouldn’t sag and slats so jars wouldn’t fall of the edge. That side is where I keep the canning jars once they are filled. Empty jars I’ve got shoved wherever they’ll fit … under beds, in closets, and in the storage benches that line the deck area on the bottom level.
I drew a plan and made a supply list to enclose the freezer “room” on the ground floor level but decided to wait until I could see whether I could get the supplies cheaper than buying them at the hardware store. I also made a similar plan, but for a tool shed, on the lower-level deck.
In my spare time, yeah right, I made plans for raised beds and the chicken coop to hold the hypothetical chickens I wanted to have. I also started pricing fruit trees online which was a crazy bit of research once I discovered that I needed to check the soil, the type of trees that would grow in my “zone” and of those types which varieties grew best. My goodness gracious.
And trying to find a place to plant those hypothetical trees turned out to be another project. First off, while my cabin isn’t part of the HOA up on this mountain, there are still restrictions on some things like cutting trees and moving dirt around. I know that sounds unbelievably stupid but there is actually method to that madness. In one word it is called erosion. That is not something you want on a mountain because too much erosion might mean that part of that mountain slides off. Going around collecting the fallen limbs that I could put on the wood pile revealed some of what I finally figured out was old terraces after I matched them to old pictures. Apparently there is a lot more land to the cabin than I thought. I didn’t find that out until the property tax bill came in … thankfully marked paid in full. It was when I saw how big the bill was and went to look it up on the tax collector’s website that I realized the reason why this cabin is the only one up this road – and why road crews stopped laying new gravel well before I thought they were supposed to.
Forty acres. Seriously, that’s how much land comes with this cabin. And it has been in Aunt Nita’s family a long time. Not the Halsey side but her mother’s side and probably explains more than it doesn’t but that was all just a guess on my part back then. It is also why Uncle Tinker didn’t lay claim to it; he couldn’t as it was Aunt Nita’s mother and not his. Ugh. Soap opera city. I knew I needed to go to the court house and look things up so I could figure things out but there was no time for it then.
Want, want, want. I was having a hard time keeping my wants under control. Between one thing and another plus reading those forums online, it gave me a lot of things to think about. So did listening to the news. Watching the price of groceries go up. Hearing about the protestors leaving the larger cities and heading out into the suburbs and smaller cities where they hadn’t had to really deal with that too much, and realizing my “year” of grace with things like property taxes, insurance, and stuff like that was going to be up before I was ready for it to be. I started quarantining money right then so it could be dedicated to the next round of payments to what Dad had always called his silent and unwanted partner … the government.
It wasn’t long after Christmas was over that I also got a letter from the County Health people and they wanted to know why Teena hadn’t been vaccinated or seen by a pediatrician. There was also a letter threatening legal action – some kind of child endangerment law – if I didn’t respond to their demands by taking Teena to a certain doctor’s office within 48 hours. Boy was I hacked.
Chapter 26
I stood there for a minute with that letter in my hand and debated what to do. I wasn’t going to let this stand. No one was going to dictate to me like this. I’m the one that paid Teena’s medical bills and I had proof that she was getting all the care her pediatrician deemed appropriate. No one was going to tell me that I had to use a doctor in this county just on their say so. I hadn’t even been that mad at the kids I used to be friends with. They’d hurt me. This letter infuriated me to the point I was seeing red. If you’ve ever had someone threaten to take away your kid that you knew you were treating just as you ought, you’ll understand. You get feeling mean, and I mean really mean.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I headed straight to the county medical center. Not the one in Dunnville, but the one in Overton where the administrative offices were. They wanted me to come back when I had an appointment to see someone, but I made noise that it was wrong to say I had to take action in 48 hours or lose my kid, but they could say I couldn’t have an appointment for two weeks. Finally, after refusing to budge, the receptionist called a manager who then took me back to her office to keep the noise to a minimum. Smart move on her part because I was ready to make some.
Well, it was obvious after she’d looked things over that she was stumped because all she had to do was log into Teena’s social security number and up popped all the HIPAA covered information that proved that I’d been doing what I was supposed to. From there I demanded to know who had sent the letter and why since the information was in the system. My story was in the system too and though it turned my stomach to explain it to her, I did which made her more serious to figure out what had happened. Turned out apparently a complaint had been lodged.
“By whom? What agency? Or whatever. Because if you were able to find out with the push of just a couple of buttons someone in your department should have as well. And that isn’t a form letter, it has too much personal information in it and the threats were very pointed and spelled out. If I wanted to, I could take this to the news and given what all has happened to me I bet I could make a real good story out of it.”
Okay. So that wasn’t nice. But I’d learned a few things dealing with Mr. Gibson and all the legal mess along the way. Both from him and by him.
The manager might not have appreciated the blackmail, but I didn’t appreciate the threat of losing Teena when I was doing everything I was supposed to and then some. Well, the long and the short of it turned out to be that a certain Faye Dunn worked at the clinic in Dunnville. She was dating a guy that worked in the county health department. Faye referred a “complaint” that was “made to their office” to her boyfriend who didn’t have the authority to issue the letter that was sent out. Apparently they do have form letters for this stuff, but it is usually the health department referring people to CPS, not the other way around. Faye claimed the “complaint” was from a social worker that was afraid of losing her job so wanted the complaint to be anonymous … which didn’t make sense to anyone investigating what was going on.
I only found out a little bit that day but before I left, I put them on notice that I better have a letter in hand retracting all the threats that had been made before the 48 hours were up … or I would go to the media, and it wouldn’t be the small, local newspaper either. No one was going to threaten my kid and get away with it and that’s what I considered that letter to be.
Next day Celeste Dunn left a note in my box that I had something that I had to sign for, that she’d be around at such and such o’clock for me to claim it. I was there with bells on. The County had sent the letter overnight mail and told me it wouldn’t be necessary to come in, that there was an ongoing investigation, and just to keep going to my pediatrician of choice.
Celeste had taken her time putting the mail in the other boxes and was listening when I said, “I’ll just do that. And would have anyway. Jerks.”
“Everything okay Sugar?”
I gave it a thought before I decided what to say. “Between you and me, if you see Cindy Dunn warn her someone might try and throw her under the bus with a claim that she turned in a complaint against me for not taking care of Teena properly.”
Celeste blinked in surprise.
“And if she’s wondering who might use her name like that you might want to whisper the name Faye to her.”
“May I?” she asked a lot more professionally than I expected, referring to the letter in my hand. Gone was the Southern Belle words and phrasing. That’s when I remembered that Celeste hadn’t always been a mail lady.
Since I’d started it, I decided to prove what I’d said by handing her the letter which included a certified copy of the first letter that I’d received.
“Mrs. Dunn, I didn’t go out of my way to get a particular person in trouble but that was a definite threat that I couldn’t back down from. I’m Teena’s mom. It is my responsibility to protect her and raise her right. Same way I was. My life went off the rails because I was stupid naïve to trust some people; but that’s never going to happen again. At any level. Just tell Cindy to be careful because if this was about Munroe, revenge because I tried to stop Faye from messing with Smith, or just whatever? It isn’t covered by the Whistleblower Protections or the laws that protect people from turning in abuse cases and letting the law figure it out. They called me yesterday to clarify a few things and let it slip out that Faye is already throwing her boyfriend under the bus saying she didn’t tell him even half the things that he said she did. I know Faye has some damage that isn’t her fault but it’s looking like she might be the type that wants to cause other people damage too. The one time I met Cindy she did her job but let it go after she got the answers she was after. And if that is the case, I’d rather not feel guilty because someone that was after me sideswipes her to do it.”
Celeste looked up from the letters and said, “I’m sorry about this Honey. Just don’t judge us all by the actions of one or two. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Wasn’t you who did it. And I have more sense than to blame people that aren’t guilty. I’ve got it as taken care of as I can. Hopefully it will blow over and no one needs to say anything about it again. I won’t. Holding grudges wastes time better put into living. But … I’d rather it not happen again. I don’t need that kind of nasty in mine and Teena’s lives.”
“I understand.” She nodded. “I’ll see Cindy tonight at church, and I’ll see if I can have a word with her.”
“Can you keep my name out of it? I know she can probably check into it on her own and find out, but I don’t want to turn this into a tit for tat thing and people get stuck in the middle.”
“No. We do not need a feud starting because Monroe Dunn is an idiot and wants to take the family down with him.” She handed me the letters back and added, “I’d put that someplace safe just in case if I were you. Trouble has a bad habit of trying to come back around on occasion.”
“Yes ma’am. I’ll do that.” I would have anyway, but she was just trying to be nice in a I’m-used-to-giving-orders kind of way.
For the remainder of January I did the best I could to not hear anything else of what was going on. I did get one call from Deputy Mickey Dunn who told me that it didn’t appear there would be a trial, that Monroe’s attorney was working out a plea bargain … but it wasn’t going to just be rehab and then he was free. This time he was going into a hard lockdown facility that he wouldn’t be getting out of with time served; he was going to have to complete a really strict drug offender’s program or he was going to be charged with 3rd degree murder (depraved heart) and not just involuntary manslaughter. He also asked if I had seen him recently and I said I hadn’t, which was true, and if there was anything else I remembered.
“No Sir. I’ve put it behind me. You said to let the law handle it. And I know that bad things happen. It doesn’t do any good to wallow in them.”
“No it doesn’t, and that’s a good attitude right there young lady. I do want you to know that as a victim you have a right to find out the disposition of the case. Write down this file number and you can call in a couple of weeks to see if there has been anything new. Monroe has been taken back into custody so there should not be any issues from that quarter, but you will be informed if he is re-released.”
“Yes Sir,” and then the call was over.
I looked at Teena and said, “For your sake and mine I hope this is over with. We don’t need trouble.”
Teena blew raspberries against the block she was playing with in agreement, and I got back to finishing my paper on quadrilaterals and why they were useful in my life. What a waste of time. Unfortunately the Instructor of the course was one of those touchy-feely types and it was a dumb question that made me feel like I was back in elementary school. It would have been slightly more interesting if the teacher had asked about quadratic equations but she didn’t so I was left in a stupor by the time I got in my five-hundred words. I looked out the window and it was snowing … again. I sighed and I went downstairs before Teena and I turned an interesting shade of blue.
Chapter 27
During January, despite the snow, I kept making my weekly runs to Overton. I had to as I was buying bundles of wood and those boxes of fake logs. When I wasn’t stuck inside working I would bundle Teena up really well and stuff her in the baby backpack I bought at a thrift store. I found this XXXXL coat at an estate sale and would wear that on over the backpack and then go outside and pick up fallen limbs to add to the wood pile. When I was lucky there would be big limbs and I would bring the chain saw and wheelbarrow and cut them up and bring them back. I barely kept up, but we obviously didn’t freeze to death.
About mid-way through January I did something that was incredibly stupid and got me refocused on The List. I was in the middle of making some mac-n-cheese and ran out of salt. Salt! One of the basic necessities of life. Gah. I felt ten kinds of stupid. The next day I went to town – luckily it wasn’t snowing – and bought salt at every store I stopped at. But I also got another lesson and it reinforced what I’d been doing and why.
Store shelves were bare. Not completely empty but limits were so tight you were lucky if you came out with one or two of what was on your list. There were also lines to get into the grocery stores. They were only letting so many people in at a time because the organized shoplifting gangs were getting so bad it was causing stores to close. And there was a bad winter storm on the way, something called a Polar Vortex.
As I said I picked up salt everywhere I went. It wasn’t necessarily table salt, but I figured salt was salt … or at least mostly. I got lucky at a Ross Dress For Less and found a bra in my size and a big jar of Pink Himalayan Salt back in their kitchen gadget area and at the Home Goods next door I found a variety pack of other salt seasonings to go with the tea kettle I had been searching for to replace mine that had sprung a leak on the bottom because I’d been saving the propane and heating things in the fireplace. At Dollar General I got both salt and pepper plus some canned tuna, some canned tomatoes, and probably the last loaf of bread in town if the complaints I heard throughout the rest of the day were true. I also got a bottle of ketchup and one of honey mustard.
At wallyworld I got two rounds of salt (that was the limit), a large container of black pepper (that was the limit), a couple boxes of raisins, and several other kinds of dried fruit that didn’t have a limit on them. I picked up my favorite sliced cheese for grilling which sadly did have a limit. I added to my dried bean collection, grabbed a couple jars of sweet relish and a good sized large jar of Miracle Whip, and managed to snag a couple of gallons of water because of Teena. I also got some coupons for baby cereal and baby food which I added to the cart because Teena was officially eating solid foods and the nasty diapers reflected it. Gross.
I stopped at a restaurant supply store and, if not for the prices, would have thought I’d walked into paradise. I got the kind of manual can opener they’d had at the café. It was called a swing away. Wasn’t cheap; cost me twenty dollars but it’s been worth it, and I’ve found two back ups at estate sales since then once I started looking for them. I have a new saying. “One is none and two is one and three is even better.” It means you need a back up for your back up because things break and run out at inconvenient times.
There was one fantabulous estate sale in January that was hardly attended due to the weather and the holidays just being over with. They’d been better off to delay it but from what I understood, the next of kin were way out of town and just wanted what they considered a headache done and over with and needed the money to pay some funeral bills. Even had I walked away with just the one item from the sale, the trouble of finding the location in the rotten weather would have been worth it. However, me and this other person both got what we came for. Get this, on top of a lot of other stuff there, this place had not one but two freeze driers. Freeze driers. Like the stuff that they made astronaut food with. Okay, that was a little silly. Or maybe a lot silly. But it is the truth. Only these were made for regular people and not Astro-scientists.
I’d been reading story after story online of how popular they’d been for a while until the economy really caused a pinch in the industry and in people’s ability to buy them. How some people used them to real advantage, how others were jealous of their “luck” of having one, how others had wished they’d bought one in better times, how others said they were just an expensive gadget you could live without, and how others even turned them into a way to make some side money. Sometimes when I ran across deals in the grocery that I really had no way of dealing with before they would spoil, I’d dream of having a freeze drier of my own and doing all sorts of fun and useful things with it. Then I’d wake up from what I thought of as a silly fantasy and just move along.
The estate sale company may have known its business in the larger cities it normally did sales in, but they didn’t seem to have their best and brightest on display that day. For one, the prices were real hit or miss. Cheap crap that was in style was going for a lot of money, and stuff that really was valuable was going for cheap like they didn’t know what they had. They were also trying to bundle too many big items and letting little cheap trinkets go as a single. For instance, they didn’t want to split the washer and dryer up. They could have sold one or the other of them several times over while I was there, but they wouldn’t do it; it was both or none. Stupid if you ask me. There was also a spare frig and dishwasher out in a shed they wanted sold together. It’s not that as a set they weren’t a good deal, but they weren’t cheap either. They were doing the same for the bedroom furniture and that was expensive as it was mostly newer stuff from good brands like Broyhill and some exotic wood imports from places like Indonesia and Thailand. They were also bundling those two freeze driers together. And on top of it all it was a cash-only sale. I had the cash on me for both of them but only because I had a lot of errands to do that day.
I was sighing and wishing but turned away as using the cash money for both the FDs would have put me in a bind. That’s when I was approached by a man I’d seen at a few other such sales and vaguely recognized all the way back to when Aunt Nita and I had done this as a way to keep Vintiques full. More importantly he apparently recognized me. When Aunt Nita saw him at a sale, we knew to just stay out of his way as he could out bid us on anything he wanted. He was a middle man, or what you would call an Acquisition Specialist, for some of the higher end store fronts up and down this side of the country. He was there for two of the bedroom sets and some antique cut glass crystal and he was definitely going to get them. But what he approached me about was for his own personal use. The freeze driers and a bunch of long-term storage food that was in the back bedroom’s walk in closet.
I knew the drill, but the offer was still a surprise. Apparently he assumed, wrongly, that I was working for another storefront since Vintiques had closed. He made a lot of assumptions, including that I was older than I was but I refused to hold it against him since Aunt Nita had always allowed such assumptions to stand; for business purposes anyway. He asked if I wanted to throw in with him and we’d split the freeze driers and the long term storage food in those honking big #10 cans. He wanted the large sized one and I’d get the medium sized one. I knew him to be a good deal maker but I wanted my cake and to eat it too so I said I was willing if he could get a deal on the peg board and sheets of lattice that were stacked in one of the sheds and the little hangers that went with them in a box that wasn’t even labeled with a price tag.
We shook on it. I mean we really did shake on it to seal the deal. Aunt Nita was fond of working with people like that and I learned to be as well. I might have trust issues in some areas but in business I’d learned early who you could work with and who you couldn’t. The guy had a grin in his eyes but it was gone and he had a poker face on by the time he’d walked over to the guy in charge of the sale. I know I wouldn’t have wanted to come up against him in a game of poker that’s for sure.
Well, he got a heck of a better deal than even he was expecting, and so did I. Seems one of the bedrooms came with a couple of the less-than-name-brand wicker storage trunks and they were full of what quilters call scraps and fat quarters as well as some other sewing odds and ends. I was trying to figure out how I was going to fit everything into the Tahoe when I got offered a deal on a little trailer. The thing was only about the size you could haul a stack of plywood on but that was exactly what I needed. Lucky for me the Tahoe already had a trailer hitch and trailer light connector. About the only time I’d thought about that hitch was when I hit it with my knee which was too often, but it has sure come in handy since then. The license on the trailer was still good, but only for two more months but that made it less of a problem that day. And luckier still was that the registration for the trailer had been located and the estate company had the legal authority to sign it over to me right then and there though it would be my responsibility to get it filed.
I had help loading the freeze drier into the Tahoe but I wound up loading all of the peg board and sheets of lattice board onto the trailer and figuring out how to get it tied down all by myself. Fun … not. It also fell to me to load my share of the long-term storage food into the Tahoe, including several five gallon pails of what turned out to be grains and mixed cereal types of things like I’d read about online. Whew. Good thing I’m stronger than my size would make you think. I still had to empty the two wicker chests before I could get them into the vehicle and I wound up just bagging the contents up and shoving them in the best I could just to try and save some time when I got home. I spent a little more money there buying a bundle of old tarps and moving blankets and a large area floor rug (weird things bundled together in my opinion) so I could cover the peg board, sheets of lattice, and a couple sheets of good ¾” plywood that was in the shed as well and they thought I was going to take to the dump for them. Yeah right. I was going to use the plywood and peg board for the tool “shed” I was going to build. I was still thinking about the sheets of lattice.
That estate sale took a lot more of my time that day than I had expected but there was no doubt in my mind that it was very much worth it as I had acquired yet one more way to create back ups for Teena and I. But I still had a lot of errands to go.
Thinking of back ups while I was once again at the restaurant supply store, I bought a butane stove that looked like a single burner on a gas stove top. I also bought eight butane fuel cans that fit the burner. The burner was forty bucks, but I wasn’t complaining because it was dual fuel; meaning it could run off of the butane cartridges or off a propane canister. I had a couple of those too from an old camp stove that Aunt Nita had kept for emergencies. And as a backup for my backups I bought sterno and tealights that I could use to at least heat some water to make oatmeal if the power went out. I also bought several large boxes of first strike matches and a couple four-packs of those lighters you can use for fireplaces, candles, and charcoal grills. I even bought a big bag of charcoal and a can of lighter fluid for just in case my just in cases didn’t work out. I didn’t have a grill. I’d had the chance to buy a grill at estate sales you don’t know how many times and I just hadn’t done it. I added that to my list and did my best not to kick myself for not having done it sooner.
I guess most people thought the only thing the store sold was the pots and pans and restaurant gadgets that were at the front of the store. That’s the only explanation I could come up with for why the store wasn’t as swamped as all the others as people were acting desperate ahead of the storm that was coming. But that wasn’t true at all. They had frozen food in giant bags, #10 cans of veggies, sauces, bags of meatballs big enough that they could supply the cafeteria at my old church school, these huge rolls of hamburger and these enormous rolls of what turned out to be pork loins. I wouldn’t want to meet the pig those things came from they were that big. They also had a lot of other things that came in restaurant sized packages. I wanted more than I got but I bought enough to make my wallet wince after all the cash I had spent at the estate sale.
I had a plan. Since it was cold and I wouldn’t be able to do much, I decided it was a good time to start using the pressure canner. It would hopefully keep the kitchen warmer. I nearly goofed though because I had forgotten that I would need to keep cold drafts off the jars to keep them from shattering. I did that by laying the furniture blankets on the kitchen counter, then sitting the hot jars on that and then pulling the covers or towels over the jars so that they could cool slowly and completely before I moved them downstairs.
My last stop of the day was to take the chainsaw in to find out why the chain wouldn’t stay tight. Well they weren’t busy and the owner himself showed me that it wasn’t the chainsaw but the chain. I’d run it too many times dull and had stretched it. That was a lesson learned and I not only bought a new chain but two backups. I also bought a little gadget that would sharpen the chain and some bar oil.
It was growing so cold that I couldn’t leave Teena so had her in the backpack and the giant coat on to go into the shop. I wasn’t thinking and finally got a little annoyed at one of the guys who kept giving me a spooked-out look. Then Teena pops her head up through the hole I’d made for her so she wouldn’t suffocate. The owner jumps too and then starts laughing like he can’t believe what he just saw.
“Wait, wait … I gotta call my wife.”
His wife was apparently the business’ receptionist because she comes out and then he asks if Teena will do it again. I said, “Pop goes the weasel.” It’s a game that we play so that I can check on her when she has to be under the coat for longer than normal.
I thought the wife was going to jump out of her skin and then everyone in the shop is laughing. But it wasn’t bad laughter, more the kind from a good surprise. The woman walked me out to the car so I could carry the chainsaw. She brought my bag of other stuff and the jug of bar oil so the men could get to the next customers so they could close on time. She told me, “That right there is going to keep me in stitches for a long time.”
It was nice having made someone laugh in a good way and I went home with a smile on my face despite the traffic that was turning into a nightmare, especially as I was learning to drive with that little trailer attached to the Tahoe. And it is a good thing I had the chainsaw with me because there was a tree across the road.