The good: Apparently the stitchery I made my grandmother, which I lamented the disappearance of in an earlier entry, has been located. Mom asked my aunt to keep an eye out for it while she was cleaning grandma's closet in her assisted care facility, and my aunt told her it was in the cedar closet at the grandfolks' house. Interesting, as Mom ransacked the entire house (including the cedar closet) in search of the thing... but whatever. It's back. This makes me happy.

The bad: The reason my aunt was cleaning out said closet is because grandma is doing very not well and my aunt is staying with her. (Mom wishes she was there too, but she has a herniated disc in her neck, so a 6-hour car ride is NOT a happening thing right now.) Grandma informed the hospice lady on Thursday that she had to "go to the people" - and when asked what people, elaborated that "you'll understand someday, and we'll all be together soon" or something to the effect. She slept through her 89th birthday yesterday due to the morphine she's on for cancer-related issues, although apparently there was a really nice cake from her favorite bakery. Right now my only hope is that her passing is painless and that she gets to go on to an incarnation as a really pampered housecat. Which, of course, doesn't mean I haven't cried my eyes out over the whole thing anyway.

The ugly: (although very funny) - check out these 1974 recipe cards from Weight Watchers.  

Didn't get any trick-or-treat goblins at all, which bummed me out. I had good candy and everything.

By eight, I was ready to give the whole bag to the first kid who came by (because that would've made my night at that age).

At ten, I gave up and turned the light off.

Not even one.

*sigh*

'Tis the season of fallen leaves and crisp breezes. When I was young I loved Halloween best of the holidays, and I find my opinion has not changed over the years.

Samhain week is one of two full-week vacations I take from work (the other over Beltaine). I'm trying not to think about the fact that it's half-over already.

I've gotten a bunch accomplished...

- Took the kittens in for their yearly vet adventure. They invented several new variations on the Mournful Carrier Yowl... and the vet told me that according to researchers, I should have three litter boxes in my house. I laughed and told him those researchers obviously had never seen my house.

- Did some mild cleaning.... mostly along the lines of shoving crap we haven't touched in years into boxes and lugging them into the tiny under-stairs storage room. Generally I dislike battling entropy during vacation. However, I suspect these particular boxes will remain where I put them until we move. Perhaps if the trend continues, I will be ambitious enough to ply paint to the downstairs walls over Turkey break. Perhaps.

- Did some writing. Not as much as I had anticipated, but hopefully the ball will pick up speed.

Probably tomorrow sometime I'm carting some art from the ill-fated Nebraska trip to the framing store. They've been leaning against the wall since we moved, and I can't imagine that's good for them.

And tonight I'll be standing at the door with the candy jar. Hopefully we get more kidlets than last year.

It's been an interesting few days, and last night I felt the need to accomplish something besides being a stressbunny over things about which I can do nothing (yet, anyway). So I ran out to Lowe's to get some shelving.

You see, our hall closet sucks as a hall closet. Figured I'd turn it into a pantry, as our current pantry is in the laundry room. To this end, I found a set of chrome shelving (four racks) that said "assembles in under ten minutes - no tools required." With the way my luck's running, I'd amputate a major appendage with a hammer (don't laugh - I'd find a way), so this sounded like the perfect solution.

Except... the top half of one leg is defective - so now it'll assemble in seven to ten business days when the part arrives.

Bugger.

And, of course, the touch lamp I picked up for the walk-in closet is missing the screw that holds the shade to the base.

Bugger again.

I think I may have offended the God of Getting Things Done.

I did realize today that I could half-assemble the shelving -- all four lower legs are fine. It also dawned on me to take the lamp bits over to Dad when I see him next, as Dad has every size screw ever made. There's hope.

And the pantry looks really nice, even half complete.

When I was a teenager and still had a ton of free time to burn, I spent six months on a holiday gift for my maternal grandmother - a very elaborte embroidery piece that would porbably take me upwards of six YEARS if I tried doing it now. You can see a picture here if you're curious, although the one I made had a different framing and slightly darker fabric.

My parents were up visiting my grandparents (both of whom are in assisted living) last weekend, and Mom came back with the disturbing news that it's gone. As in, not in Grandma's room at the home, and nowhere in their house. My mother turned the place upside down looking for it. And it's just.... gone.

She says there's a chance we might yet find it - she's writing a letter to one of the ladies at the care facility and asking that they keep their eyes open, in case some old bat thought it was pretty and wandered off with it and it is now hanging in her room.

I hope that's the case. These are people who have no clue what's going on, or what's socially acceptable or not. They're not wired right anymore. It wouldn't hurt as much if it was someone who just wasn't capable of knowing better.

The other possibilities are a) an employee of the facility, b) the lady who used to occasionally look in on Grandpa when he was still living at home, or c) one of my relatives. Given that Grandma's good set of silver is no longer a service for eight, I'm somehow doubting it was just misplaced in the shuffle.

Gods. It's not like I gave it just because I knew it would be returned. If I had it to do over again, even knowing how it would turn out, I'd still invest the time - because it gave Grandma a lot of joy for over a decade. But that someone would just TAKE something like that...

It makes me kind of glad that Grandma's mostly out of her head. She cried with joy when I gave it to her. It had a place of honor in the living room where she'd see it lots. She'd be devistated to know someone just made off with it.

Why do people DO that stuff to each other???

So, um, I'm going to be completely selfish and make a request. It's not for my grandmother, because I really don't think she'd notice the difference anymore. It's because there's not a whole lot of her left, and I wanted to be able to hang it in my house after she died and remember her every time I looked at it, and I was up crying until 3AM because it's a very real possibility that something I sunk my heart into for six months is now decorating the wall of a fucking heartless klepto and I'll never see it again.

So anyone has a spare "send-it-home" thought they could think in its direction, I'd be grateful.