Friday, September 16, 2022

prank calls, food, flowers


Boxes are gone, taken to the post office. Now I have to come up with a price.

Tuesday in Houston would have been a good day to rob a bank or some other crime. Police got a call about an active shooter at Heights High School, incidentally the high school my grandchildren went to. The school went on lock down and 500 police showed up. Five hundred. Talking heads interrupted programming to tell us over and over that they had no information about what was happening. Parents were showing up and a spot was designated for them to wait for their children as they were released. Turns out there was no active shooter, no shooter at all, it was a prank call. I guess this massive show of force from the police was in response to Uvalde but hey, guess what, it doesn't matter how many cops show up if none of them go inside to apprehend the bad guy. I'm not saying none of them went in, don't really know how the whole thing was resolved, but 500 police? Really? And apparently there was another prank call at a different school the same day in a different city, apparently, this is something that's happening all over the country. What the fuck is wrong with the people in this country?

I've made prank calls, when I was a kid, you know, pick a number at random out of the phone book and ask them if their refrigerator is running and when they say yes tell them they better go catch it, hang up and then laugh hysterically with your best friend. Or ask if they have Prince Albert in a can (a brand of loose tobacco) and if they do tell them they better let him out. More hysterical laughter, harmless fun. Annoying maybe to the recipient but never instigated a police response.

Slow day at SHARE yesterday except it was a food delivery day from the food bank in Victoria. Besides what Jan ordered they sent another giant carton of watermelons, big ones this time, and two boxes of bagged peaches, two boxes of bagged sweet potatoes, and a box of lettuce. And lots of milk left over from the Dollar Stores and hamburger buns out the wazoo. I brought home stuff to share with neighbors and family because they filled all the freezer space. Any bread not given out needs to be frozen or parceled out to the volunteers as it will be too old next week. Same with the milk donated on it's 'sell by' date, has to be given out that day or parceled out to the volunteers to distribute. I brought home a 2 pound bag of pistachios in the shell for myself. They're shelf stable but we got several boxes.

I might try to work out in the yard a little today. Weeding needs to be done, stuff needs to be cleared out, and I have a clump of day lilies to plant. We had a small rain shower yesterday and it's predicted to rain today. Regardless, currently in the mid 70s at 8 AM we have 99% humidity which makes the 'real feel' in the high 80s.

This is one area that needs attention. It's full of stuff. L to R in the back: indigofera blooming, white phillipine lily not blooming yet, rose of sharon blooming, orange cosmos not blooming yet; L to R front: Texas sword leaf blooming, mistflower just starting to bloom, rose and zinnia intertwined blooming, very bottom R wild petunia blooming which really is interspersed all through there.


indigofera


sword leaf

The mosquitos are fierce though so we'll see what I get accomplished before the heat and sweat drives me in.



17 comments:

  1. Oh I remember making prank calls just like yours when I was young. It was fun! It's crazy that 500 police arrived. Makes me wonder if they made the prank call themselves so they could show how tough they are when they show up in big numbers like that. Macho testosterone! Lovely flowers.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Five hundred police is a lot. I don't think there's that many in three counties here but I could be wrong. I have no real idea.
    I should go work in the yard. I am having a terrible time getting motivated to do ANYTHING these days. I don't know what's wrong with me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't think we have that many police in the region! We're small enough that a couple of recent prank callers to the high school were not only promptly tracked down, they were hauled into juve court, probation, parents warned they're liable. I think the speed of discovery scared the life out of them and warned other kids not to go there. Houston's a bit bigger!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I started volunteering at the Clark County Food Bank which is at the other end of the chain. We separate and repackage the donations into boxes for the distribution centers. We get HUGE amounts of bread and pastry - mostly from WalMart & Safeway - and a lot of produce, some of which look really nice. Sadly, we aren't allowed to take any home. I contacted the local Share warehouse a couple of times but never heard back and CCFB seemed really eager,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good for you. If you were down here then I'd know who packages up those bags of rice et al. The bread from the food bank is usually from Bimbo and the last two months was mostly sweet stuff or buns or rolls, not much loaf bread; hamburger buns also came from the food bank. We get a lot of meat, desserts, and produce from Walmart but because it was a slow day and the freezers were full we didn't take anything from them this week. Mostly we just take stuff that has to be given out that day and then only at the end of the day though a couple of the volunteers pretty much help themselves. I rarely bring anything home, mainly some small dessert item but I did take a 2 lb bag of dried cherries once.

      Delete
  5. That area might be full of stuff, but it sure makes a lovely picture! As soon as I finish reading blogs I'm going out to clean my car. I have the day off & decided that enough was enough - it is DISGUSTING.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I remember one other prank call that was around in my day. We'd call a store and ask, "Do you have pop?" If the answer was yes, we'd say, "Well, send him home. Mom wants him." Of course, that wouldn't work in areas where 'pop' was called 'soda.'

    Do you have any tips for dealing with horse flies or deer flies? I can keep the mosquitos at bay, but the danged deer flies are driving me to distraction. They've never been a problem before, but any insect that pulls out hunks of flesh deserves what it gets.

    ReplyDelete
  7. We were naughtier than you- phone a bar and ask if they could please page Jack Mehoff. No rain in our town! Nothing but a little dew.
    enough to keep the dog from walking all the way to China, but not enough to water anything substantially. Bone dry.

    ReplyDelete
  8. We were such nice kids we never did anything like it. I swear.
    I love the indigofera, our climate changed summers may become hot enough for it to grow here.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Girl, if we were neighbors I'd show up at least three morning each week with my easel, drawing board and every medium I possess--with your permission of course. And I'd draw, paint, take pictures and just look all day until 3 PM. Here's hoping you wouldn't charge me though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Charge you? For what, having fun? Can you sign your name? Make one up if you want, just so I can distinguish your comments from other anon.

      Delete
  10. The yard looks good with all the blooming things. Sorry about the mosquitoes.

    ReplyDelete
  11. That must be a southern school prank. Last week three teens with guns were apprehended at a high school by the guard. Before he intercepted them the guard called for backup and notified the authorities inside the school of three potential shooters. By this time five police cars had surrounded the kids and the guard. One kid escaped but was apprehended shortly thereafter. The kids also ratted out three friends intending to shoot up another high school. They were apprehended outside that school. This all was one column in the newspaper, though it probably made live TV, which I don't watch any more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I didn't see anything about it. Guess it's just too common an occurrence for the news to bother with. WTF is wrong with teens? Would we have been shooting up our schools if guns had been so prevalent when we were in school?

      Delete
  12. Gads... talk about over-reacting, but can't blame them considering Uvalde. :/ sad...

    ReplyDelete
  13. Glad the boxes are shipped! It does seem the police would send some officers to verify the situation before calling out ALL the troops, but then again, they're probably hyperconscious of the fact that it just might be a real shooter and they don't want to get blamed for a delayed response. I wouldn't be a cop for anything. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. (And of course some of them deserve to be damned.)

    My friend and I tried that Prince Albert joke when we were about 12, and the guy we called was way ahead of us. He said, "No, we let him out." Stole our punch line!

    ReplyDelete
  14. This is the new life. Shootings. We have had a number in this rural area...nothing at schools...but it still is concerning.

    ReplyDelete

I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.