If You're Going Through Hell

[Gwenivere]

I always wondered if there were only so many key combinations.  Guess your son proved it.  What were the odds?  Well, someone got a surprise when they got home.  

Most key fobs have a panic button. But your idea of unlocking and locking the car is good too.  I actually miss losing my car as that meant I could walk distances.  Now with handicap ones being almost too much, I’d trade in a nanosecond!

[Margm]

4 hours ago, widow'15 said:

but doesn't the fob when used correctly, give off a loud beep and lights flash when car is locked or unlocked. 

I am afraid I won't be able to turn it off if I try it.  Billy would know.  He's not here.  I'm not sure Scott would know.  He spaces out sometimes.  No drugs, unless it is what the doc gives him as an antidepressant.  After the fiasco with me not having enough sense to take the car out of neutral, I have not driven.  I will though. 

 

[KarenK]

Dee, your story reminds me of when we lived in the tiny one horse oil town in West Texas back in the 50's. Several people drove those old black rounded cars like you see racing around in the old gangster movies. My mother went to the grocery one day and shortly after she got back, the store called to let her know she had driven the wrong car home. I think I would have noticed just from the personal junk inside. I actually had a Ford truck and a T-Bird(different years)that the same key would start. My current truck's key fob has what you described. Lights flash when unlocked and a beep when locked in addition to the panic button. Lots of tan trucks here, probably to blend with all the dust. Mine is always the one with the dog nose prints on the side windows.  lol

[widow'15]

3 hours ago, Marg M said:

I am afraid I won't be able to turn it off if I try it.

Marg:  My exact sentiments - I wouldn't be able to remember how to use it. LOL  Dee

[widow'15]

2 hours ago, KarenK said:

I actually had a Ford truck and a T-Bird(different years)that the same key would start.

Karen: Like Gwen said, there is only so much room on that key.  Ford Motor Company might have cut costs in the key department.

Now I'm wondering if these key fobs aren't able to start someone else's car, too.  I have heard of garage door openers being able to open other garage doors.  Boggles this old mind.  Dee

[kayc]

17 hours ago, widow'15 said:

kayc: I'm not savvy with the key fob that comes with my 2008 car, but doesn't the fob when used correctly, give off a loud beep and lights flash when car is locked or unlocked.

Yes and I sometimes use it to find my car now, you can also use the alarm, although embarrassing.  The car I reported stolen because I couldn't find it was when my kids were young so probably about 26 years ago, my car was older and no bells or whistles, no keyfob.

Dee, that is funny!  NOW, not then, I'm sure!  Makes a good story to tell your grandchildren!

 

[kayc]

Gwen, my Morton's Neuroma is acting up now, so I'm in super pain putting any weight on my foot, put some Voltaren on it, not sure if it'll help.  Just what I need, now not only do my hands not work, my feet neither!  Guess I''ll be walking on pain.  My sister had surgery on her's years ago, but she had someone to take care of her, I don't have that luxury.  How come these things don't happen when we DID have someone around!

 

 

[kayc]

13 hours ago, KarenK said:

Mine is always the one with the dog nose prints on the side windows.  lol

That's funny, I can relate!  So does my mirrored closet doors and my patio door.  Clean it off, it's right back.

 

13 hours ago, Marg M said:

I am afraid I won't be able to turn it off if I try it.

Reminds me...George had a car that he'd just bought and the alarm went off and was blaring and he couldn't figure out how to turn it off, tried all the usual ways, had to call the place he bought it from, meanwhile he's in panic mode.  I wanted to laugh except he was truly having a panic attack so I didn't dare.  I got them on the phone and relayed what they said to him, got it off.

 

[Gwenivere]

My panic button is simple.  Press it and the car beeps and flashes incessantly, press it again and it stops.  I heard about garage door openers being prone to easy opening by remotes.  I guess now they change frequencies occasionally and how they stay attuned to our remotes is above my pay grade.  I’m just glad it works, but did hear about people cruising around and finding houses to rip off.  

7 hours ago, kayc said:

My sister had surgery on her's years ago, but she had someone to take care of her, I don't have that luxury.  How come these things don't happen when we DID have someone around!

This is the cruelest part of this whole thing on the physical side.  It makes things almost impossible or so stressful, it’s maddening.  Yes, we look at it as a luxury now.  It was something we never had to worry about before.  Steve never did and a source of anger in me.  Not his fault, but I’m allowed to feel it.  I want fairness in a world that isn’t fair.  That’s my weakness, always has been.

[Margm]

I don't know if I can move stuff, but I'm going to try.

My mama's family was the most country family.  No town anywhere close, way out in the woods and corn, cotton and in season sugar cane fields coming right up to the back of the house and also the country store.  I had my "crawdad" stream under the bridge.  I drove by last month and saw a small bridge but only pine trees growing all over the fields as a pine tree crop for some of the relatives, although most all the people are so far away only their relatives will get any benefit and it was a wonderful play land for all the grandchildren that have grown and  some gone.  Mama sold her land to a lumber company. But they were such a fighting family.  I remember Mama having big fights with her sisters over a digging hoe, black iron skillet, a rescued baby bed, and something going on all the time.  My grandma wrote her will on a Big Chief tablet using a #2 pencil she kept at her little country store.  She wrote a letter to them all.  She had left each of them some money she had saved from that little store and over double-digit acres of land for each..  They had to draw out of a hat which part of the land each one got, and the furniture divided.  Now mind you, this was all home made furniture, except the 1928 "girls" room bedroom furniture.  It was "store bought" and I guess, a prize.  Kelli has the two pieces that I stored in a shed that I did not know had a bad leak.  We saved the dresser and chest of drawers, but the rain ruined the bed.  In her letter to all of them, she begged them not to fuss.  Well, those words were just "blowing in the wind" because they never gave up the fussing.  The worse it got though was when she was a teenager my mama threw the fork at her brother for spitting watermelon seeds at her.  It stuck in his head right between his eyes.  He had a scar the rest of his life.  And Mama fought until she was 95-years-old.  They put her in a seat that was supposed to hold her up and steady her for feeding.  It was like a child's high chair.  No matter how tight they fitted it, we would watch this mischievous 95-year-old Alzheimer's child wiggle around until she would get her legs out and on top of it.  We had lost her with her mind many years before, but  my sister would not put her in the nursing home.  (I would have).  My dad's family were just opposite, they were so sweet and didn't understand that backwoods woman he brought into the family.  She wasn't loud, she was just mean.  She hated my dad's mom and that woman never fussed with her,  and that exasperated my mom.  As I got older, I would shut her up about my grandmother, the woman really was what you would dream for a grandmother, she really was an Angel and Mama hated her that much more.   

Probably another of my repeater stories.  As long as I can remember it though, that is in my favor.  If I forget it all, I'm in trouble.

Just so you don't think I'm making up these characters, this is four generations (about 10 generations ago), I knew two of them.  Older woman in front is my great-great grandmother who delivered over 10 kids before epidurals, probably before doc came.  She outlived her husband a bunch of years.  Next to her is her son, my great grandfather, behind him my little grandmother who I take my "fluffy" body shape from and my namesake beside her, my aunt.  

[kevin]

Marg, great picture.....great description, you brought life to the picture....What year???

[Margm]

In the 1930's.  I never knew the people in front.  Knew all about them and their history.  My grandma's father was her favorite person.  She got married at 15.  My granddaughter thinks it is scandalous that my grandfather was 12 years older than her and thinks he was a pedophile.  She was engaged at 13.  They just "lived fast, died young and left a beautiful memory." No, wish it had been that way but my grandmother had 7 kids in 10 years and had cancer, sepsis, nervous breakdown and a bunch more.  Out lived my grandfather about 25 years or more.  They had passed down my name from generation to generation and I guess I broke the chain.  The man in front got the first vehicle and people were always having to rescue him.  He thought the whole road was his and if a car was coming toward him, it better pull over.  He rode the center of the road.  

[Gin]

Today would have been our 20th wedding anniversary.

I was married 3 times.  First one ended in divorce after 31 years.

Second one ended in a suicide.
THEN I met Al, the love of my life.  Miss him so much

[kayc]

3 hours ago, Gin said:

Today would have been our 20th wedding anniversary.

(((hugs))) 

[brat#2]

Gin, those "would have been" anniversaries are so hard, my heart is with you, hugs

 

[Gwenivere]

I had no idea you went thru so much, especially a suicide, til you found Al.  You deserved more time with him after all that.  Thinking of you today and wishing you warm hugs from my heart to yours.  ❤️

[widow'15]

18 hours ago, Gin said:

THEN I met Al, the love of my life.  Miss him so much

Gin: So sorry you are facing an anniversary without your Al.  I agree with Gwen, you should have been given more time of happiness.  Keeping you in my thoughts.  Hugs, Dee.

[kayc]

I can totally relate, Gin!  #1 was a monster that terrorized me, beat on me, cheated continually, barely escaped with my life, gave him the house, car, etc when I left.  #2 was a controller, no love or emotional fulfillment, 23 years of it!  #3 was George and the happiest years in my life!  He treated me well, never tried to change me, we always showed each other respect and love and wouldn't you know my luck, he died way too early.  I felt robbed.  Why do other people get to keep their husbands but not us?!  I know, no answer, rhetorical question.  It is what it is, life isn't fair, but at least I have enough memories to last me a lifetime and finally know what love is!  (Tried once more, that sure didn't pan out!  Con who never lived with me, ruined me financially, cheated continually, etc. & disappeared after using my credit for $57,000.)  George is the ONLY one of them that truly had my best interests at heart!  Would rather be making more memories...

[Gwenivere]

16 hours ago, kayc said:

Why do other people get to keep their husbands but not us?!  I know, no answer, rhetorical question. 

Doesn’t mean we don’t beg for an answer every single day.  Specially when I see couples that are dysfunctional or not very close.  

[kevin]

Marg, turn of the last century, the common age for woman to marry was below 20 years old, husbands were usually at least 25 years old.......My Grandfather was at least 10 years older and saved enough to pay cash for their House($2200) in 1928 prior to the Marriage......Both my Grandfathers never drove, Grandmothers did...

[kayc]

Wow, $2,200 for a house!  But what was the wage back then?  Doctors sometimes got paid in eggs...

[Gwenivere]

My mom paid about 9G for the house I grew up in in New Mexico and that was about 1959.  Sold for around 50G in 1990.  Can’t touch a place in Seattle or around it for less than 200,000 and that’s low end. Even condos and townhouses are a quarter mil.  I hear housing sales are stable, but most younger people don’t buy now..  they want to be mobile and save on property taxes and repairs.  It’s very expensive owning a home.  Ours is so big to me now, but I can’t imagine moving.  Well, I can but it overwhelms me to do so.

[widow'15]

1 hour ago, Gwenivere said:

It’s very expensive owning a home.  Ours is so big to me now, but I can’t imagine moving.  Well, I can but it overwhelms me to do so.

Ah yes Gwen, it is expensive owning a home and my house is more floor space than I need thus I made the choice to move way back in February 2020.  But, thanks to the virus and our illustrious governor shutting down the housing construction business back in the early Spring I have not completed my plans to purchase a new manufactured home.  The new home is placed on my son's property but the weather and backups in the county permitting office keeps the brakes on.   I do busy myself purging and sorting papers, files and stuff in hopes that the upcoming shutdowns, weather, etc., does not hamper the finalization of my plans.  I have already convinced my brain, 2021 will be the time to put my house on the market.  So far, here in Tacoma, the housing market is good and am keeping my fingers crossed it remains so.

When Bob and I purchased our first home way back in 1965 our first house had sat empty on the market for a year.  It was during the time that Boeing was shutting down.  You are probably too young to remember the Seattle saying, "The last one leaving Seattle, turn out the lights?"   Our little 900 sq ft house cost us $14,000 and I looked on the county website and saw that it last sold for $255,000 in 2016.  

Even though I am not being rushed to move, just going back through all the memories of stuff, is a heart-breaker.  But, my old body is telling me I have to do this as much as it hurts the heart and soul.  One step at a time.  Dee 

[Margm]

2 hours ago, widow'15 said:

Even though I am not being rushed to move, just going back through all the memories of stuff, is a heart-breaker.

I can't do it even yet Dee.  Brianna makes fun of my many plastic boxes, the biggest ones, piled in my closet, at the end of my bed, and against the wall.  She wants me to get rid of them.  I opened the first one and so much of Billy jumped out at me I had to close it and still won't open it.  I don't care for a pretty bedroom.  I feel so snug with them around me, almost like living in the RV again.  I enjoy going into my bedroom and feel so contented.  If I need something, I have not needed it in five years, so I am doing fine.  I love my plastic boxes.  They can throw it all away when I'm gone.

I took the small bedroom on purpose.  The big one has the extra bath and is very large with a ceiling fan..  I figured she could make her own apartment since in the other apartment the small one was so hot.  Well, in this one the big one is the most hot.  She has it decorated like she wants it with a huge walk in closet with room to hang three different poles of clothes and still room.  I use my little closet and front closet.  It is enough.  Funny how few wants you have alone. 

 

[Gwenivere]

2 hours ago, Marg M said:

Funny how few wants you have alone. 

I’m experiencing that myself.  I like things as they were when Steve was here.  The very few new things were only because old ones broke.  I know we would have a new TV and more techie stuff because he would do it.  I’d reap the rewards.  But for me alone?  Not interested.  I’ve seen a few things that I would buy if he were here.  But without him, they just make me sad.  😢