Saturday Afternoon Chat: The window salesman, finally some swimming, a journey through the woods, and Timothy the Spider comes to live with us

Welcome to a Saturday Afternoon Chat. I’m sipping lactose-free milk with maple syrup mixed in today and snacking on chocolate chips (just a few). Healthy snack? Not exactly, but also not the worst. What are you snacking on today? Or sipping? And what are you doing? I hope to get some reading time in myself after a fairly busy week.

Today I thought I’d write my post like a “week in the life” type post – so here is my week in “diary form.”

Monday
I’m one of those women who sometimes says things to herself like, “I don’t need a man to make it through life.”

And I don’t need a man.

I want one, which is why I have my husband.

I do, however, enjoy acting like I just don’t know enough about home repairs because I’m just a dumb housewife when a window replacement guy comes and tries to talk me into a “free assessment of your windows because we were in the neighborhood.”

I was in the middle of creating content for my Instagram today when a man knocked on our side door. He was holding a clipboard and wearing a uniform. I don’t trust people holding a clipboard and wearing a uniform after some bad experiences.

I went to the side door and discovered our collection of Daddy Long Legs are back. One of them was hanging out on the handle. About a month ago we had like ten of them hanging out in that entryway because we rarely use it – normally only to bring groceries in and sometimes we just use the back door instead. My husband cleared them out with the broom while I watched from the hallway and said things like, “Ew! Oh my gosh! Is that one climbing in here?!” and he said things like, “They’re Daddy Long Legs! They’re harmless!”

Anyhow, on this day there was a baby one right on the door handle. Right on it. No room for my hand to open the door without touching it.

“Just open it!” my son cried from behind me while he held the barking dog back. “It’s just a Daddy Long Leg!”

“But it is still a spider!” I cried.

I finally pushed the thing aside and opened the door. Standing outside was the man with the clipboard, a beard, and some sweat beaded across his ruddy face from the sun beating down on him.

“Hello, ma’am I was in the neighborhood and happened to notice your windows are bowed out because ...” blah-de-blah-de-blah seller talk blah. “Can you see how that window reflects oddly there like a funhouse window? Well that’s because Argon gas is getting in between the panes there and blah-blah.”

“We don’t have any money,” I interrupted.

Go away I wanted to say.

“Oh that’s okay, ma’am because we can send an evaluator out for no cost to you and –”

I was already looking bored and rolling my eyes but he wasn’t taking the hint. I have to admit he was very smooth.

Cue “dumb housewife who can’t do anything without her husband’s permission mode.”

“You know....is there anyway you can stop by another time when my husband is home. He’s the one who handles all the house stuff.”

And then I stepped back into my house and pulled my spider-covered door closed in his face.

I was so proud of me because the last time one of those guys came, I talked to him way too long and was way too polite. This is what my teenage son said when I finally took the guy’s card and went back in the house that first time, but this time when I got inside my said he was very proud of me too.

He also told me that the gas the guy said was getting in between our windows is the third largest quantity of gas in our atmosphere and the guy was a scammer.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a weird day in some ways but it got better. I woke up super groggy after some weird dreams and it took me most of the day to snap out of it.

Some family friends we haven’t seen in like, well, thirty years or more, came to visit my parents so Little Miss, The Boy, and I headed over there for the afternoon. Well, honestly, The Boy went over earlier to help clean the house and mow the lawn. Little Miss and I went over later and visited with everyone for a little bit before they left and we jumped into the pool.

We didn’t last long because the water was extremely cold which wasn’t a surprise since it was only 70 degrees (F) out.

Wednesday

Little Miss and I tried swimming again on this day. It was warmer outside but absolutely freezing in the pool. We lasted maybe an hour. I kept hoping she’d break first so I wouldn’t have to be the bad guy and I was thrilled when she finally she said, “I think we need to get out. My teeth won’t stop chattering.”

Whew. I was free to jump out and take a warm shower.

“Let’s stay in our clothes in case we warm up and want to get back in though,” she said.

I did not want to do that. Not one little, itty-bitty bit but I said, “Okay.”

While drying off after the shower I heard what I thought was a fan blowing but there isn’t a fan in my parents’ bathroom. I looked out the window to see if the wind was blowing. It was not.

Finally I thought, “Wait. Is that rain?”

So I looked out the bathroom door and indeed it was pouring – I mean totally down pouring outside. We had seen nothing on our weather app about rain.

And not only was it outright pouring but I could see from looking through the bathroom door and the outside door window that two of our car windows were down.

Sadly, I was naked, my 9-year-old doesn’t know how to turn the car on and my parents both have mobility issues so I had to let the car get soaked until I could finish getting dressed and get out there.

Little Miss helped me with rolling up the windows – well, she walked out with me and we both got soaked in the cold rain but she didn’t help roll the windows up in the end. The cold rain made her decide it was going to be much too cold to try go back into the pool so she changed and then helped Grandma make tuna melts for dinner, which I didn’t eat of because I am still a picky eater at my advanced age and don’t eat tuna melts. Thankfully I had picked up some fried chicken from the only supermarket in a 15-mile radius so that’s what I ate instead of tuna melts.

While at my parents I called The Boy and asked him to kill a spider that’s been running around on our ceiling for two days but Little Miss and I are too short to kill or chase off.

It’s a black one. Somewhat big but not huge. So, yes, on this day while we were at my parents and he was still at home I called and asked him to kill the spider on the ceiling.

He said, “What spider?”

I said, “The one on the ceiling.”

 He said, “I don’t see a spider.”

I said, “He comes and goes.”

So he said, “This is the dumbest call you’ve ever made to me. You want to me to kill a spider but you don’t know where it is?”

So I said, “Yes, exactly. Do it before we get home so it doesn’t fall on our head. Bye.”

The end of this story is that the kids have named the spider Timothy and have decided to leave him alone on the ceiling. The problem with this ending is that I can’t find Timothy as I am writing this and if I find Timothy on me, I’m going to have to kill Timothy.

On this night I found an episode of Classic Mary Berry that I hadn’t seen yet and I was so excited. Mary Berry feels like comfy, cozy watching and Little Miss and I watch her especially in fall and winter.

I also found out there is a more recent series of hers on The Roku Channel so I will be starting that series later this week.

I felt like a total dork for getting so excited when I saw that I could access new episodes of her shows. You would have thought I found a bunch of money in my couch or something with the way I was clapping my hands and telling the children.

 Little Miss was excited.

The Boy was less excited but that’s okay.

He politely listened to me, nodding and smiling like you would with a patient at an insane asylum.

Thursday

Update on Timothy: Today he moved to the part of the ceiling over where I sit to do my writing and then over Little Miss. I moved myself to somewhere else in the house when he was over my sitting space.

Little Miss, on the other hand, decided to whip him away when he came to her part of the room by whipping at him with a cat toy. He moved some but then decided to hang out on the wall instead of the ceiling. Little Miss decided he was getting too close for comfort so she was going to kill him.

She pulled out a broom but the end of our broom was missing so it was just a hollow tube. This meant Timothy might be able to climb inside and come out to get us later so we added some duct tape to the end. Then she slapped at him and he avoided every hit somehow by scurrying up and down the wall away from her. She finally hit him enough that he fell down behind the bookcase. I figured he would be on the floor crawling toward us, so suggested she spray flea spray behind and under the bookcase.

We hoped he was gone but later in the day we looked up and he was back, crawling across the ceiling again.

I’m now starting to wonder if he is a CIA spy, something I’ve been worried about happening ever since I found out our neighbor’s son has CIA clearance.

Friday

Today was a lovely day and I thought it might not be. I knew it was going to be a long day and it was, but somehow, I had energy to get everything done I needed to.

I drove 40 minutes to pick up a friend of Little Miss’s.

Little Miss had to go in and visit their kittens and I needed a potty break.

Then we left but not even a few yards down the road, Little Miss said her friend needed her teddy bear dressed in a frog outfit so I offered to turn around.

That was a dumb, rookie mistake because after the bear was retrieved we headed out again, only to be stopped by a construction worker who had set up between the time we turned around and came back.

Before we left the first time I noticed a helicopter hovering over the field in front of our friend’s house. There was something hanging down from the helicopter, which was near some power lines that have those large red balls or round thingees as I call them on them. The ones they put on power lines in spaces like that to let airplanes know that there are powerlines there. I thought the helicopter was replacing those and watched for a few moments.

When we got stopped I was grumpy and got even grumpier as the minutes ticked by. Twenty minutes later we were finally allowed to move forward on a road where we couldn’t turn around and there was no cell service.

That’s when I was able to see the helicopter moving up the hill to my left in a large space cut into the hillside where the powerlines go up and realized that the thingee hanging down from the helicopter that I had seen before (I use thingee a lot. I’m a writer, yes, but I’m old so that’s the word I use when I don’t want to try to think of the real word or look it up) was a type of saw and the helicopter was actually trimming the tree line.

I wish I had had time to take a photo or a video but by then there were a line of cars behind me and I just wanted to keep going forward to get our groceries, which we drove another half an hour to pick up.

After driving up and down hills and around bends in the road and admiring the views along the way, we grabbed our pick-up order and then drove another half an hour to get home – or to my parents anyhow.

Once I got to my parents, I dropped off some groceries for them, picked up The Boy and left the girls with my parents and my brother who was visiting. The Boy and I took all the groceries in and then headed back to my parents to briefly say hello to my brother and take the girls for a 90-minute swim.

After that, it was back home for some pizza and Bluey and Minecraft and then Little Miss’s friend went home.

We weren’t sure we’d be able to swim again before summer was over for a variety of reasons – cold weather, algae, high chlorine, and rain, but today the weather was perfect and the pool was fairly warm until right before we decided to leave. It was nice we were able to get the swim in today because it is supposed to rain a lot on Saturday (today) and Sunday.

Little Miss wanted a sleepover tonight but I was strong this time and told her ‘no.’ It worked out well because she was overstimulated and glad for the ddowntimewhen her friend left and quickly fell asleep and we both were able to get up today and simply take our time waking up.

We do have one last summer sleepover planned for two weeks from now after The Husband takes Little Miss and her friend to the county fair.

School starts for The Boy this Thursday and for Little Miss on August 28.

Saturday (today)

Today the weather is gloomy but I don’t mind. I’m inside writing this blog post, my Sunday Bookends blog post for tomorrow, working on Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree, watching old movies, and planning to read a bit later on.

Little Miss and I are decompressing from the day’s events while The Husband covers some events for the newspaper throughout the day.

The Boy is enjoying sleeping in and lounging about for his final weekend before school starts. Timothy is still on the ceiling and has been enjoying the edges of the room more where I think he's realized we can't reach him easily.

So that is my very long post about my week.

How was your week? I’d love to know. Let me know in the comments by linking to a weekly round-up post or just by letting me know.

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