Preps can pay off short term too!

Sometimes I don't take my own advice quite as much to heart as I should.  I'm lax about keeping up with my look ahead storage (realized the other day that I only have two extra bottles of dish detergent), sometimes my Honda's gas tank gets down to half full before I fill it and occasionally I even don't know exactly what is in the grab and go bag if I have to bail out on short notice.

This week it has been brought home to me in No....Uncertain....Terms....that it pays to be prepared.

Most of the time I like to think I am as light as a fairy on my feet - graceful, careful and not prone to stumbling around like....er, an old lady.

Last Saturday I blew a hole in that theory that I could have walked through....well, if I hadn't been lying prone...or is it supine?  Anyhow, flat on my face on the porch outside my house.

Still not exactly what went wrong....yeah, I know, I fell,   I mean I'm not sure what the instigating event was.  I suspect it was the old deal where a person thinks they can take the dog out on a leash, open the door to do that and talk on the phone all at the same time.  At least one of those didn't work.

I fell flat on my face...actually trending more to my right side, hit my head a resounding whack on the porch, knocked the breath out of myself to the point where I couldn't even gasp cause that required more breath than I had and lay there like the proverbial fish out of water.

However, I did not drop the leash!

Gathered myself up, completed the "take the dog out" maneuver and put an ice pack on my head.  Friends were dropping by and hung around long enough to be sure my eyes were still the same size etc and that I wasn't going to become an inert lump on the floor.

I'll keep the rest relatively short - I hurt, I hurt a lot....couple days go by I don't hurt so much until I coughed.  Then I felt like someone who really disliked me had stuck a knife in my back...repeatedly.  Perfectly in time with the coughs.

So go to the Redi-Care, get poked and prodded and xrayed all to find out I have three broken ribs. Reasonable I suppose...most anything would break if I hurled myself onto it!..

The point is (drum roll as long as you do it, I can't move that fast) that I have enough food and meals so I don't have to go anywhere for a few days.  My friend brought me milk and half and half but otherwise I'm all set for the duration and so is the dog.  Might have to make an emergency trip for fresh vegetables and wine but otherwise I'm good to go.

If I was as slack about food as I am about some things I'd be, to put it impolitely, screwed...and hungry or, worse yet, dependent on the kindness of others!  And we all know how New Englanders love having to ask for help...not!

So, especially if you live alone, think on this.  It doesn't have to be a disaster to leave you wishing that you had a few groceries and maybe a bandaid or two (did I mention my scraped knuckles?) as well as perhaps an ice pack in the freezer.

So think ahead at least short term, ok?  And keep track of your feet better than I did this time around!

P.S. Surprise!

Howdy,

As a Post Script to yesterday's blog post I have to mention:

The evacuation of the homes near the train tracks where there was a derailment including train cars carrying propane.

The forced evacuation of homes near the fires in the southeastern United States.

Not much warning there, guys, hopefully their vehicles were fueled up and ready to rock!

Gas - it's a delicate subject

I truly wish that I could see how many of you who read my blog just jumped to absolutely THE wrong conclusion based on that title!  I admit I was hoping for a "gotcha".

At any rate, I'm talking about gas in your car - or diesel if that is your fuel of choice.

There are a lot of reasons to keep your car/truck/SUV gassed up and ready to go.

If you had to leave right now with what you have for fuel, how far would you get?  Do you even have any idea?

It doesn't have to be the apocalypse to cause an unexpected road trip.  Could be a regular old evacuation (if there is such a thing) to get away from rising water or toxic fumes or just that annoying kid next door.  Admittedly the kid might not cause an emergency (depending on how loud he's screaming) but the other things are a potential for all of us no matter where we live.

Among other things, at least half a tank of gas helps keep condensation in the tank to a minimum and that's a good thing.  It also potentially could at least get you far enough away from an emergency situation and into an area where gas lines aren't two miles long.

And how about all the fires down in the southeast?  Do you think most of those people expected to have to load up and go with little or no warning?  Probably not.

I'm struggling to find a way to convey how important I think it is to be prepared for the unexpected. Hell, if it was "expected" it wouldn't be an emergency, right?

You do not want to be the one sitting by the side of the road because you were going to get the car gassed up tomorrow.  Perhaps on your way to the grocery store to finally get some extra provisions in case of - ta da - the emergency that I've been nagging you about for a year now.

So if you don't want to be "that guy".....

Keep the car gassed up!

When you lose someone

When you lose someone close to you do you cling to the common everyday things that remind you of them?

Obviously I do if you read my posts on the baskets.  Every time I use one I am reminded of my grandmother, my mother and my dearest friend, my Aunt Emily.

She was (well, I guess she still is) my mother's younger sister.  She was an amazing person - worked in Washington, D.C., acted as a courier for sensitive documents during the war ("who would suspect a young woman of doing something important" she told me when I asked) and traveled the world with my grandmother on her vacations.  She rode camels, sailed around the Horn and just generally kicked the ass of every stereotype in existence - all the while being the perfect lady.

She actually ended up in D.C. because she went to take a government test with a male friend of hers just to be moral support.  She got the job.  He didn't!

I can't begin to accurately describe her really - for starters she was one of the least judgmental people I have ever known.   She was able to talk with anyone from a congressman to a truck driver.  She never married and when I asked her why she opined that "there was a war on - shortage of eligible men, you know?".  No matter what crazy idea I got in my head she was always there supporting me - I would like to learn to hook rugs?  Next Christmas I got the whole enchilada:  frame, hooks, pattern and wool.  I would like to get a commercial truck driver's license?  Check in hand she urged me on!  Oh my god, my poor mother must have wanted to squash us both!

I could go on for half of forever about her but all this is leading up to the small things that remind me of her every time I go to my cabin.

When the dust had settled on her passing and everything had been parceled out according to her desires no one wanted the pots and pans and utensils from her kitchen.  Yeah, they were very well used - not to say pretty much worn out.  We're dealing with a dyed in the wool Yankee here:  some of the knives were so thin from being sharpened hundreds of times that you probably could have snapped them in half.  And some items were of a design not seen in probably 50 years!

So I gathered some of them up and took them to my cabin in Maine.

Some of the pots I use every time I cook and other things were just so cool that I had to use them for decoration!  Take a good look left to right.  Who now has a spatula that you can scoop something up with and hold so the fat drains off through a hole?  Just me!  And a flat whisk?  Stir, whisk, strain, you name it and it does it.  The single mixer?  Look closely - it's made so you can push up and down and it rides up on the shaft and turns to whip up whatever needs whipping up.  The big knife and the ice pick are just that:  big knife, ice pick.

It was a standing joke between the two of us that we would sit at her house in "our" chairs and she would listen to all my woes and triumphs as if they were actually important.  Within 15 minutes I would be yawning and totally relaxed. She would accuse me of thinking time spent with her was boring...far from it, I think that being in her presence was my safe place and god knows I loved that woman.  To this day she is probably the person I miss the most as the years go by -  always my first thought is to ask her or tell her or show her.

 Just one more time.