PROGRESS IN SOME AREAS

Weeding, for instance. And chopping and cutting and clearing ten years worth of plant growth outside. The place is looking not unlike Grey Gardens, that overgrown house in Long Island owned by crazy cousins of Jackie O's. Outside Bob wasn't here when this place was in its prime, when Odd had the place manicured. Now it's machete time. I suppose there's no pressing reason to clear it at all except I can't stand seeing it this way. I want it to look the way Daddy planned it. I do it for him. 
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Progress also on the Pill Front. Peg has finally agreed she needs Bonnie's help sorting her meds into individual daily doses in those blue plastic pill boxes, like Bonnie did for Odd. This decision was after Peg this morning turned on the tap inadvertently INTO her plastic pill bin, drenching the INFO LIST and the PILL DIAGRAMS--Bonnie has had to write it all out for her, what she takes when, what shape the Norvasc is as opposed to the Digoxin or the Amaryl or Alpurinol or. Peg takes 16 pills a day. Correction: she is supposed to take 16 pulls a day, but by the time she has them all out on the counter like some science experiment and next thing is three are on the floor or in the garbage or sink or back in the wrong bottle, who knows what the hell she's taking, or when.

I watched all this going on today and finally and to take over. What's astounding is that A) she let me; and B) for Peg's entire life, at least for as long as I've been aware of it, she has made a HUGE DEAL, and I mean huge, about taking pills, claming she has a small throat and chokes, the result being she wouldn't take any pill, even a minute one, without peaches and cottage cheese, tapioca pudding, applesauce--anything to make it go down more easily and it was such a (boring) production number and she made such a meal of it that by the time she finally got the morning pills down it was time to deal with the afternoon ones.

So now, today, this morning, once I'd got the pills all meted out in a little dish and was about to move into canned peaches mode, I see her tip them all into her mouth at once, swig a little water and--down the hatch! Well! I am stunned. I mentioned this. She said she has no problem with pills at all.
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STAFF ON CALL:  Outside Bob, who besides clearing the forest is helping get piles of stuff in the drive ready for The Dump, tomorrow's excitement, and another pile (which we are keeping hidden for now on the porch so Peg doesn't haul stuff back in) for the Tag Sale in Hinsdale that Bob is having in 10 days time and says I can horn in on. I am looking forward to it. How sad is this. 

I have given Bonnie a much-deserved week off. Terri is in Alabama seeing her son. Dominick is I/m not sure where, New York I think. Going to see if he, being Italian, wants the electric Pizzelle-making iron I found in the larder.
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8 GUNSHOTS YESTERDAY as we had lunch. Had seen the Boundary Guy's car up near all the pink ribbons earlier, so wondered if maybe he'd shot his surveyor or encountered a bear. Got into the car to investigate and found an elderly guy (younger than me no doubt) on Leland Road, also concerned. He said the shots had come from the house next door but there was a police car in the drive so he assumed all was OK. I came home and called the Fire Department about this because well, what if a policeman had been shot, and because I couldn't find the Police local number, and was told oh yeah, Leland, all OK down there, no worries, no one hurt, only "disposing of an animal". I then lay awake wondering what kind of animal takes eight shots to dispose of or was it just that the guy was a terrible shot. The General Store was robbed last night, Outside Bob told me, plus a couple of "breaking and entering" not far away. I am now creeped out and won't let him tell Peg. Who I am again feeling kindly disposed towards, despite having to watch The Top Ten Worst Tornadoes with her on the Weather Channel, all of which showed the usual devastating images of flattened houses and all looked the same. My main mission tomorrow is to track down the person who wrote the intensely irritating tune the Weather Channel plays when they show you the weather across the States, which they do about every ten minutes--and kill the fucker.