Accomplishments for 2021

Posted on 29/12/2021 by Grumpa Joe

Where do I begin? In January of course. This is not as great as I would like it to be but it is what it is, and I have to live with it. Just making the list has been cathartic. I recommend that all who read this do the same thing at the end of each year.

2021 Accomplishment List

  • Wrapped up a successful winter coat drive, 735 coats collected and donated to ten charities
  • Launched a new sock collection with the District Grammar Schools
  • Began a new Intarsia project “Night Hunter”
  • Moved Lovely into a new job three times
  • Delivered lunch to Silver Cross Hospital Health Care workers
  • Met on ZOOM for the first time
  • Attended 12 OASIS meetings for the Sight Impaired
  • Received Shot # 1 for COVID-19
  • Prepared 100 collection boxes for the sock drive
  • Proposed marriage to Lovely
  • Entered two pieces of art into the Emerging Perspectives art show at Tall Grass
  • Began sorting socks
  • Joined OASIS Board of Directors
  • Drove Lovely to Rolling Meadows and Island Lake twice
  • Attended 10 Lions Board and Member meetings
  • Bought a Marriage License
  • Vaccination #2
  • Picked up socks from Walmart & Meijers
  • Shopped for a wedding dress, and suit
  • Sorted 23,000 pairs of socks into Men’s, Women’s and Children’s
  • Delivered Easter Food baskets with Lions
  • Hiked the trail between Frankfort and Mokena
  • Made funeral arrangements for Freddie
  • Attended Freddie’s funeral
  • Married Lovely
  • Met with the Stray Bar Wine club 6 times
  • Drained and cleaned the pond
  • Visited Holland Michigan Tulip Festival
  • Planted the 2021 Monet Vision ‘Gold Rush’
  • Installed anti bird netting over Lovely’s pickle patch
  • Spent three days at the family farm
  • Launched my Wurst Fest Ticket sale drive via mail.
  • Went to the Lithuanian Embassy in Chicago for Lovely’s birth certificate
  • Spent 8 hours in the ER with major abdominal pain to learn I passed a kidney stone.
  • Went to Ray Bodnar’s funeral mass
  • Took my grand daughter to see ‘Van Gogh Immersed’ in downtown Chicago
  • Drove to Michigan City, IN to get immigration documents signed
  • Attended brother Bill’s 90 bd party
  • Attended Artist’s reception for ‘Into the Light’ with Intarsia piece.
  • Visited Brookfield Zoo
  • Replaced the rear shocks on the Death Star
  • Placed two Intarsia pieces into a local salon for display
  • Marched in the Frankfort Labor Day Parade
  • Bought new hearing aids
  • Started Lovely on a 24 session regimen at the Chiropractor.
  • Applied to get State of Illinois special Medicaid program for Lovely
  • Completed ‘Night Hunter’ and put it on display in our house.
  • Visited Lincoln Park Zoo with Lovely
  • Collected money for Lions Candy Day
  • Walked many miles with Lovely
  • Attended Lion Les Egbert’s funeral mass
  • Hiked Little Red School House White Oak Trail
  • Hiked LRS Black Oak Trail
  • Hosted and cooked for family Thanksgiving
  • Designed a new Christmas Card, and had them printed
  • Sent 160 cards
  • Spent a week at Island Lake cat sitting
  • Launched the 2021 Winter Coat collection
  • Collected money at Jewel for turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas
  • Delivered 550 coats to FTFP, SSCC, TL, SA, MM, NLTFP
  • Refinanced the house
  • Hosted and cooked for Family Christmas
  • Attended Boyz Nite out Christmas party with wives.
  • Wrote 182 posts on GrumpaJoesPlace.
  • Read 56 books
  • Watched three hundred movies
  • Stayed on KETO diet for nine months
  • Attended Library Volunteer Night meeting as Lion
  • Spent untold hours gazing into space and wasting time.

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Hotline

Posted on 28/12/2021 by Grumpa Joe

Another day in Paradise and I’m in a brain freeze. There is no subject on the face of this earth that I want to write about, so I’m writing about not wanting to write. It might be because my opportunity clock alarmed me too early this morning, and I wasn’t quite prepared for taking on an opportunity. The sky was very dark grey and ominous. By the time I finished breakfast it was snowing huge flakes the size of my fist and falling fast. Although the sky was dark the space between the sky and mother earth was a very bright white.

This was a day that was supposed to be easy. One task I had to accomplish was a phone call to the State of Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. My Lovely was awarded a Medicaid insurance card under a little known law that Governor J. B.” Pritzker signed into law back in February. Under this law folks without Social Security numbers can apply for Medicaid services. Basically, it came as a letter stating that she qualifies and it contains her name, an RIN (Recipient Identification Number) and her date of birth. The date of birth was shown wrong. Somehow the month and the day were transposed from reality. The month should have been a two, and the day a three, but they had it as the month is three, and the day is a two. All this told me was that anytime she will use this card, the bill will be sent to the State and they will bong the request for payment because her birthday will be different. I needed to get that straightened out.

In the fine print of the letter was a statement “you may be required to enroll in a health plan”, naturally, I wanted to know if she needed to do that. If you want to know if you need a health plan please call the “Health Plan Benefits Hotline.” I dialed and immediately got a voice stating that the call volumes were high and that there were at least 20 people ahead of me and that the time to wait would be twenty minutes, so much for a “Hotline.” I chose to wait . At least they played some decent music to keep me holding, with an occasional break telling me to keep holding because my call was important to them. I paid some bills, and cleared my desk while holding. At the twenty-three minute mark a real live human named Kion (Kee-on) came on. Kion immediately asked for my social, and I had to remind him that the call was about my Lovely and not me, and she didn’t have a social, would her RIN do? A confusing thing about this letter was that I was also approved and awarded an RIN. I made a fatal mistake of asking him why I was included in the award. The next ten minutes was an interrogation about me and my circumstances and nothing about my Lovely. I had to remind him that this was about her and not me. It didn’t matter, he was busy typing away explaining to his computer why I should be removed from Medicaid.

Eventually, the conversation got back to Lovely. I still didn’t have an answer as to whether or not she needed to be enrolled into a medical plan. Kion did not know. He gave me another number for Client Enrollment Services where no doubt I will have another twenty minute wait to get a hotline connection.

Grrrr! The snow was three inches deep by the time I ended the call, and it was time to take Lovely to her doctor’s appointment.

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Many are familiar with the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, commonly known as The Night Before Christmas, by Clement C. Moore, but Ottawa resident Tom MacDonald has re-penned it for COVID times.

Posted on 24/12/2021 by Grumpa Joe
A COVID Christmas by Tom & Ken MacDonal

‘Twas the night before Christmas, but COVID was here, so we all had to stay extra cautious this year.”

MacDonald, a retired diplomat for Global Affairs Canada, said he isn’t really a poet.

“I like poetry and every now and then, I do something. But it’s usually this sort of poetry that’s supposed to be more amusing than deep,” he said.

“I came in the door one day and saw the masks hanging there by the door frame. And I thought of a line and I just decided to do a riff on the old visit from Saint Nick.”

MacDonald said he wrote the poem “just to amuse my family and a few friends.”

The idea to make it musical came from his brother Ken MacDonald.

“I sent the poem to my brothers and sisters,” Tom MacDonald said. “My brother is very musical, a great piano player, sings in choirs, and a clarinet player. He made the video using my poem.”

MacDonald said he hopes his poem can give a few people a “good chuckle” this holiday season.

A Visit from St. Nicholas was first published anonymously in 1823, and attributed to Moore in 1837.

This poem was written and submitted to us well before the Omicron surge hit Ottawa. We are sharing this with you, as a bit of gallows humour – because if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.

A Covid Christmas Twas the night before Christmas, but Covid was here,

So we all had to stay extra cautious this year.

Our masks were all hung by the chimney with care In case Santa forgot his and needed a spare.

With Covid, we couldn’t leave cookies or cake

So we left Santa hand sanitizer to take. 

The children were sleeping, the brave little tots

The ones over 5 had just had their first shots, And mom in her kerchief and me in my cap 

Had just settled in for a long winter’s nap.

But we tossed and we turned all night in our beds

As visions of variants danced in our heads. Gamma and Delta and now Omicron

These Covid mutations that go on and onI thought to myself, “If this doesn’t get better,I’ll soon be familiar with every Greek letter”. 

Then just as I started to drift off and doze A clatter of noise from the front lawn arose.

I leapt from my bed and ran straight down the stairI opened the door, and an old gent stood there. 

His N 95 made him look pretty weird But I knew who he was by his red suit and beard.

I kept six feet away but blurted out quick” What are you doing here, jolly Saint Nick?” 

Then I said, “Where’s your presents, your reindeer and sleigh ?

“Don’t you know that tomorrow will be Christmas Day? “.

And Santa stood there looking sad in the snow

As he started to tell me a long tale of woe. 

He said he’d been stuck at the North Pole alone

All  his white collar elves had been working from home,

And most of the others said “Santa, don’t hire us!

We can live off the CERB now, thanks to the virus”. Those left in the toyshop had little to do.

With supply chain disruptions, they could make nothing new.

And as for the reindeer, they’d all gone away.

None of them left to pull on his sleigh.  

He said Dasher and Dancer were in quarantine,

Prancer and Vixen refused the vaccine, Comet and Cupid were in ICU,

So were Donner and Blitzen, they may not pull through.

 And Rudolph’s career can’t be resurrected. With his shiny red nose, they all think he’s infected.

Even with his old sleigh, Santa couldn’t go far.

Every border to cross needs a new PCR. 

Santa sighed as he told me how nice it would beIf children could once again sit on his knee.

He couldn’t care less if they’re naughty or nice

But they’d have to show proof that they’d had their shot twice.

But then the old twinkle returned to his eyes.

And he said that he’d brought me a Christmas surprise.

When I unwrapped the box and opened it wide,

Starlight and rainbows streamed out from inside. 

Some letters whirled round and flew up to the sky

And they spelled out a word that was 40 feet high.

There first was an H, then an O, then a P,

 Then I saw it spelled HOPE when it added the E. 

“Christmas magic” said Santa as he smiled through his beard.

Then suddenly all of the reindeer appeared.

He jumped into his sleigh and he waved me good-bye, 

Then he soared o’er the rooftops and into the sky. 

I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight

“Get your vaccines my friends, Merry Christmas, good-night”.

Then I went back to bed and a sweet Christmas dream

Of a world when we’d finished with Covid 19.

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211222-More Memes and Cartoons

Posted on 22/12/2021 by Grumpa Joe

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Last Minute Shopping

Posted on 22/12/2021 by Grumpa Joe

Like all good men I deferred shopping for Christmas gifts until the last possible moment. Today, I was reminded why I haven’t shopped at a mall in over twenty years. With a new wife in mourning over the loss of her only child going through our first Christmas together, and her first Christmas without him, I thought it might be wise to buy her a little something. This morning I left to go shopping after meeting with a Notary and signing 150 pages of refinancing documents. I figured after that experience shopping would be simple. WRONG!

For once I had some gift ideas in mind and I was determined to fulfill them. I learned while listening to her grandson that Lovely likes a perfume by Givenchy. I searched the internet for where to buy it, Macy’s came up. Luckily there is a Macy’s near us in the town of Orland Park. That also clued me to the fact that this tiny bottle of scented liquid will be costly.

I routed myself via a little known street that goes north and south to the Orland Mall. The main route is fast but there is so much traffic on that road that fast is only a dream. My route was slow and steady, but got me there within twenty minutes. I parked on the East side of the building where there are fewer people entering. That was also a good move because I entered directly into the store and followed my nose to the perfume department. That is when I hit the wall. One would think they were giving the stuff away there were so many people, 99% women, and me. I asked one lady where I could find Givenchy she told me to turn left and head for the wall. I did, no one there knew where Givenchy was. I felt like a cue ball bouncing around as I hit the rubber bumpers from one counter an another. Finally, on the sixth ask, I found a lady who looked at me and said “here,” but we are sold out.” I gave her a dumb stare and decided to be charitable she only works there and she wasn’t responsible for inventory management.

A new scene unfolded as I began searching for a new scent to buy. The clerk sprays a business card with the smell and I was expected to like it or not. On the fourth one, my smeller was totally neutered and it could have been dog excrement and I would have said “yes that is the one.” Well it didn’t actually smell like dog crap so I bought it. The sales clerk bagged it all pretty in tissue paper and stuffed it into an oversize Macy’s bag. I ran from the store into the main mall. Luckily I quickly found the next place I wanted to visit, Victoria’s Secret. Two steps into the store a hot young thing with a bare midriff latched onto me and off we went to the undie department. My lovely was perusing a catalog a few days ago and stopped at an ad offering 5 pairs of undies for under $10, “buy them,” I said. “No, no” she said, they are too expensive. Well, I found a deal at 5 for $35. I never realized that women’s underwear has more styles, designs, and fabrics than Carter has pills. After about fifteen agonizing minutes selecting five of the same thing in different colors I said, “I’ll take them, now what?” The hot thing shoved them into a crude bag and said take them to the next room there’s a line. I did and almost balked. The line was ten people long and social distanced.

When it was my turn I landed at the teller window staffed by a nice young black girl that was very well endowed. She wore a black blouse that exposed her belly and was held together by one button positioned half way between her boobs and her belly button. The two girls bulged out looking for a chance to escape to freedom. I was never so anxious to pay for something and to get the hell out of there.

One thing I noticed is that all the sales girls were made up alike. They wore lots of eye shadow, had eyelashes long enough to sweep the floor, and their nails were catlike but done exquisitely. The crowds were large and buying stuff, not like last Christmas when we were in COVID mode.

I vowed that if I survive until Christmas 2022 that I will again avoid shopping centers, and buy my stuff online.

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