 Nostalgia, DVDs, old movies, television, OTR, fandom, good news and bad, picks, pans, cute budgie stories, cute terrier stories, and anything else I can think of. Contact me at theyoungfamily (at) earthlink (dot) net . . . . . . . . . .
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» Sunday, December 15, 2024
I Give Christmas My Best, But It Isn't Much
 We had fun with friends this week; yes, these days it's such a rarity that I have to headline it. On Saturday we went to Hair Day, although we were the only ones there except for John Campbell. So we had some quality time with Ron and John while Sherii clipped hair. The house seems so large and echoing without Lin there. It must be so hard for Ron, still cherishing the house they shared but living with the silence.Went home to wrap gifts and then had Game Night at the Lawsons. I was still feeling a bit sad from the morning and preferred to spend the evening talking with Jerry, David, and John Bouler rather than game playing. Alice and Ken couldn't come because poor Ken had another kidney stone. We munched on pizza and came home with enough leftovers to have pizza for another meeting. Wednesday was my 69th birthday. I'd like to say I did something really special, but I didn't. I hit a couple of stores, but the most important thing I did was go to Drivers' Services and renew my driver's license. Because I was over 65, it said I had to go into the office and have an eye test. I had an eye test in May and tried to send them the info, but I apparently didn't have the correct info. Well, to my surprise, it took me exactly one hour and one minute, per Life360! Now, we're only four miles from the Drivers' Services building, so that was no problem. I took my iPad with me, but I hardly had a chance to look at it. I got the friendliest clerk, who noticed it was my birthday, and she was nice to talk to, and then it was done. I had a paper license to carry until I get the new license. Did manage to put up the 1940s Christmas village, minus the Christmas tree lot, and a bit squished together, on the mantel shelf rather than on the longer board that usually goes on the mantel shelf. Strung line for the Christmas cards under the mantel shelf (the rest of the cards went on the medial bookcase) and brought up the stuffed Max and Rudolph and the Charlie Brown tree (missing the red ornament to dangle on it) to sit on the hearth with Rusty the deer in a Christmas bauble collar. Finally did put up a Christmas tree: I used the new tree I bought for the library, the four-foot tree. I decorated it only with the glass ornaments that came in boxes (the satin balls, the holly balls, the old McCrory's ornaments, the "snow dusted" red ornaments, etc. and a few of the cellophane wrapped "presents" and two pine cones. I put "Little Blaze" the star at the top and tinseled the whole thing in layers of icicles. It was set on a temporary circular table with a silver tree skirt I found at Hobby Lobby for half price, with the manger set underneath. I managed to crowd most of the manger pieces on the table or in the stable itself, but five figures didn't fit, so I tucked a small teak table that sits in that corner all year under the circular table and covered it with the tree skirt and put the remaining five figures (two wise men, a camel driver, a camel, and the boy piper) on that. It gave the whole thing a nice 3D look, and then the wrapped gifts went around the base of the table. In annoying medical news, James went to see Dr. Keel, the guy who's supposed to do the "cement." Look, I'm glad this dude is being careful. I don't want him "just winging it" on this procedure. But now he's saying we need permission for James to go off his blood thinner for a week. Until he gets that, no treatment. Sigh. Did a whole bunch of usual chores this week. Braved Walmart for yogurt, since neither Kroger nor Publix carry my flavor any longer. (Food Depot doesn't, either. I checked. We don't have an Ingles close by.) James got an early seat at dialysis on Friday, and got approved for an earlier seat starting Monday. 10:30 is too early, but it's better than my picking him up after dark. Labels: birthday, chores, Christmas, Christmas decorations, friends, games, health, illness  » Sunday, December 08, 2024
Christmas and Treatments Trickle In
Well, it was a bad week for medical solutions for James.Dr. Connally was very firm that she wanted James to undergo some kind of aquatherapy, so on Tuesday we went to the place where he would have the therapy. This turned out to be a swanky retirement home that included a fancy dining hall with white tablecloths, flowers on the table, and Muzak; a little coffee shop type place, meeting rooms, a big gym, and a huge pool with a lift. The therapist was very nice and said because James had trouble walking he would probably be better off going to their other location (on Dallas Highway) because their pool has only stairs and the Dallas Highway pool has a ramp. She said she was very confident that, especially once James had the "cement" in his vertebrae, the aquatherapy would help him regain some mobility. Except he can't have the aquatherapy now because he has the permacath and it might get wet, even though he's only going into the pool waist-high. Which we kinda figured. Then we saw Dr. Connally on Thursday. She was pissed off that James hadn't had the "cement" yet, as she had ordered that something be done immediately. James thought she was being unrealistic. I've managed to rouse minimal interest in decorating for Christmas inside this week. On Wednesday I cleaned out the foyer of Thanksgiving decorations, ditto with the dining room and other bits of upstairs, and then later in the week did the foyer, and then the gingerbread-and-candy cane kitchen decorations and the dining room old-fashioned feather tree and the "1910 tree." I put up what was left over in the dining room boxes on the media bookcase in the living room. In useful things, I got and used bolts to fix the hand truck (the last time I tried to use it, a whole bolt and nut were missing—how?—and another bolt was missing its nut), and also dropped off two full shopping bags of toys for Toys for Tots. I cleaned my desktop keyboard. I got my car inspected so I could renew my registration. I've tested out the Christmas tree; there are still lights out on it. I don't feel like putting it up at all. Labels: chores, Christmas, Christmas decorations, donations, exercise, health, illness » Sunday, December 01, 2024
Reasons for Thanks and Reasons for Sorrow
Tucker did have the ultrasound to make sure he had nothing nasty going on inside him on Monday. He passed with flying colors.Next day and on Wednesday James had doctors' appointments, podiatry on Tuesday and cardiologist on Wednesday. We had a dinner invitation for Thanksgiving Day, but it was across town and we would have to drive home in the dark. Instead we spent Thanksgiving on our own; we made extra turkey so we could have leftovers (and indeed, we ended up eating turkey for weeks). With carrots and stuffing it was a sufficient dinner, and we watched most of the Macy's parade and the National Dog Show. At night we got a treat: Lower Decks! Alas, the final season. We were able to go to Second Thanksgiving, as we call it, at Alice's house. Juanita made a killer turkey and Kayla brought an even more killer ham. The company was even better than the food, even if I've been suffering from a lack of sleep. All this was beside the point. We had gotten a call from James' sister some days ago. Her husband had been cleaning up some debris left over from Hurricane Helene and hurt himself. He was taken to the hospital to get checked out. The doctors found a virulent cancer throughout his body and gave him days to live. He died on November 27. They told my sister-in-law that the cancer was so aggressive that if they had taken the same tests in September, it would not have shown up. Today I put up the outdoor lights and the candoliers, but I hardly feel like Christmas this year. I'd prefer to crawl under a blanket and forget about it. Labels: Christmas, Christmas decorations, death, dogs, family, food, friends, pets, Thanksgiving » Sunday, January 21, 2024
De-Christmased At Last
"Doggedly I continued." And finally today, Sunday, January 21, it is all put away in the closet and I vacuumed downstairs to boot.It took a while, although there was a Monday rush: I had to get everything downstairs removed and stored because we were going to have a severe cold snap (lows in the teens) this week. I didn't want to freeze my feet off downstairs. So Monday, between chores, I took down everything in the library and the airplane tree in the hallway. Happily, the foyer stuff was already down. On Tuesday I took down all the dining room decorations and the Christmas village and the board it sits on over the mantel shelf. The latter killed my back, so I spent Tuesday evening watching Killers of the Flower Moon, which I was so interested in seeing after reading the book. I found it turgid and overlong, and wondered why Martin Scorsese chose to center the narrative around Molly's useless husband Ernest, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and his larcenous uncle, played by Robert DiNiro. It was gross watching these two slimeballs plotting the deaths of Molly's family so they could take over their oil shares, while Ernest professed to love Molly! Oh, the cinematography was great: there's one haunting scene where Molly is dying because blockhead Ernest is slowly poisoning her via her insulin, and there's a fire outside, and her sickroom is lit with flames as she burns up with fever. It doesn't help that I'm not a DiCaprio fan at all; I would have liked to seen more of the Native Americans and also of the FBI search for the culprit instead of Leo as a lazy horse's ass. The cold came rushing in on Wednesday; I wore my "Rhode Island weight" winter coat to physiotherapy—finally, already, Kaiser!—and to Publix. The wind had a blade edge. Compounded with this, our internet service was dead all day. It's not like we didn't have stuff to watch, and we both ended up hotspotting on our phones and could get on the internet, but it was still frustrating. It was very localized, too, just in our neighborhood; I suspect that some idiot with a backhoe or a ditch witch severed the fiber line and that's why it took so long to restore. Thursday we had a big fat dose of reality. James goes to podiatry every six weeks to get his feet inspected due to the diabetes and get a proper nail trim. Pretty much every night I rub lotion on James' legs and feet and treat any injuries on his legs where the skin is fragile. Today the doctor found a sore on the right side of his right baby toe, about 5 millimeters in diameter, with evidence of penetration under the skin. I put the lotion on from the left side and usually check his feet and toes, but this got completely past me. James got an x-ray to see if there is infection down to the bone—there is no pus but the toe is faintly redder than the others—and I have to keep Mupirocin on it with a covering of Mepilex AG, and we have to come back in two weeks. James thinks it might be because he's wearing the Skechers instead of slippers and they are a little narrower, and the wound came from the shoe rubbing his toe. But he's been wearing them around the house since October and the raw spot was not there when he went to podiatry six weeks ago! I'm just appalled that I missed it in the first place and am kicking myself. The tests came back by yesterday and the infection is not in the bone, but he does have staph. I hope the Mupirocin works. I took the Christmas tree down on Friday, to the accompanying scream of my back, taking solace in Lassie episodes. There has been a "Lassie channel" on Xumo for a month or two, but they were mostly repeating the Jeff episodes and the transitional episodes over and over and not in order. Well, the same channel is now a Roku Live Channel, and they appear to now go through eighth season. So seventh season Lassie took my mind off my aches and pains on Friday, and when we got done at Lidl, Publix, and Kroger on Saturday, then had a nice trip to Barnes & Noble, I lucked out when we got home and "Lassie's Odyssey" was just starting! Solid gold Lassie, my favorite story from when I saw the original broadcast in February 1962. (Of course the asshole chimpanzee story "Casey" came next, but one can't have everything.) I wish I could say "now we can relax" but starting Wednesday we have a marathon three days of doctors' appointments (and of course it's going to freakin' rain) and then another spate of them starting Monday the 29th. ::groan:: And I still need to bathe the dog and change the bed. Sunday I got all the Christmas stuff back into the downstairs closet. Yay! Labels: Christmas, Christmas decorations, internet, Lassie, movies, sickness, television, weather » Sunday, January 14, 2024
"Undecorating," the Garbage Rustlers, and a Lift
Found myself struggling this week: first it was putting up the Christmas decorations, now it was taking them down.It didn't help that I was distracted by other tasks that needed doing. For instance, James has been having trouble turning left out of our street. There is some kind of waxy-leaved bushes that were planted out front when they built the neighborhood, which are now taller than they were eighteen years ago. He can't see the cars coming up on his left on the main road. So Monday morning after my dog walk I marched up to the front with my hedge clipper and took down about half of it. This should have been a quick and easy job, but evidently the battery is not charging properly and I had to keep unlatching it and plugging it in again. Very frustrating. I came home and ordered a new battery. Zounds! It's one third the price of the hedge clipper! Labels: chores, Christmas, Christmas decorations, events, food, health, movies, organizing, shopping, television » Sunday, December 17, 2023
Birthdays and Other Things That Make You Blink
On Monday evening at 11:30 p.m., I officially turned 68 years old. How the Dickens did that happen? In my head I'm still the six year old who fell in love with Lassie, the ten year old who learned to play the organ in the fifth grade classroom at Stadium School, the fifteen year old who adored Mr. Abosamra's English classes, the eighteen year old who missed almost the entire final quarter of twelfth grade due to surgery, the twenty-something who cried when the Paperback Books store in Providence closed...ten budgies, eight cars, two states, and James...so many years!Monday we were off for a birthday dinner. Alas, we forgot Bay Breeze was closed on Mondays. We made a short stop at Ollie's Discount Store, then ate at Okinawa instead. Bulgogi beef, yum!  I had a bunch of Hallmark coupons, so on Friday we went to Gretchen's at the Avenue at West Cobb. Unfortunately Mr. Lower GI decided to go spare at this point; James got a Battlestar Galactica ornament and I had to hotfoot it to Barnes & Noble to use the bathroom. The result was that I spent no coupons, but did buy four discount books, including two Christmas books. It took us a long time to get over Snowy's death, then we had the whole summer with James falling or hurting himself in some way. In the last few months he's been asking me if we were going to get another bird. For a long time I couldn't think about it. Snowy's death itself had been so painful—I couldn't forget how his little body struggled as his legs stopped responding to his body, but he still attempted to crawl into a corner to die, and he didn't want me to hold him or comfort him in my hands—that I cried almost constantly about him at least once a week, most recently a week ago on his adoption day. James said I needed a bird; I was thinking more that he needed a bird; after all Snowy had been his working companion. But this weekend he talked me into it. He'd found a bird store out in Norcross called Fancy Feathers. But that's a story for another post. I did vacuum before we left. The last thing I wanted to do was frighten a baby bird with "the bizippy thing." Sunday I got disgusted at my laziness and went downstairs to at least put up the airplane tree. It took me what seemed like forever because I dropped something like every fifth ornament. I broke the wing off one of the glass airplanes, and one ornament I dropped even knocked two more off the tree. I was fit to be tied by the time I was finished because I felt old and useless. There's nothing to decorating the airplane tree. You hang the ornaments, swag the garland, put on the star, and you're done. And it took so long. Sigh. Labels: birthday, books, budgies, Christmas, Christmas decorations, food, illness, music, television » Sunday, January 22, 2023
Health and Welfare
It's been kind of a frustrating week. By the 18th I had all the Christmas things put up, and the regular fall items back up. I did not put up all the winter things; it felt like there were too many of them and I need to trim them down. I won't be getting rid of the winter village, but I didn't put that up. What I had up suited how I felt.On Thursday I had an occurrence where my heart started to race (not palpitations, but in the 80s and 90s) for what I thought was no reason. I was feeling off for most of the end of the week, even though we did go out to lunch. I'm a little harassed because I don't think Snowy is feeling well. Since James retired and we changed our schedule, he's seemed a little quieter. James figures it's because he's not talking on the phone all day, giving Snowy some feedback. He says Snowy still sings when he gets up to make breakfast, and he's been doing something cool since the beginning of the year: he gets up and makes oatmeal for the two of us, real oatmeal. He says it doesn't take long, and he sits and has a cup of tea in the five minutes he has to stir it to keep it from sticking. I put real maple syrup on it, and it tastes so much better than the instant; I didn't realize how much until I had to have an instant the other day. Labels: birds, chores, Christmas decorations, food, health, movies, pets » Sunday, January 15, 2023
Tedium and Enjoyment
Have spent a very desultory week doing chores and "detinseling." The usual stuff got done, the easiest of the Christmas decorations got put away. Oh, and I trimmed the bushes in the front yard while they're dormant to keep them in check. I want the nandina to fill in at the bottom, not look like a bunch of broccoli with skinny stems.Most of my entertainment is reading about Paris for the piece of fanfiction I'm writing. It's a longer story and I'm scheduled to start posting the first chapter in mid-February. My favorite so far is Vivian Swift's Le Road Trip, which is written in handwriting like a Susan Branch book and illustrated with Swift's watercolors of France. I've also done research on what's at the Armistice site at Compiègne, which is pretty cool. The big event of the week was the late-date Christmas party at the Lawsons, which was a welcome break. John made a pineapple upside down cake, and we ordered pizzas. As usual, the men chatted and the ladies played games. We had one very funny minute where Jessie was supposed to toss the dice and she absently plopped them into her drink glass instead. By the time we left I had a killer headache from laughing so hard. He didn't get hurt, but James fell on the way out. He went to put the tip of his cane down and it sank into soft grass instead of the sidewalk of the driveway, so he just relaxed and went down. Luckily a few friends were able to get him vertical and going again. Labels: books, Christmas decorations, friends, parties, writing » Sunday, December 25, 2022
"We're Fr0zen!"
Remember that headline? From the opening scenes of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Headline of a newspaper reporting the "big storm" Santa Claus needs Rudolph to lead the sleigh for? (BTW, to the folks who complain about "everybody only liked Rudolph after he proved he could
lead Santa's sleigh on a foggy Christmas Eve"...um, 𝐠𝐨 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤
𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧. Hermie and the deer—followed by Yukon Cornelius and the Bumble—get back to Christmas Town and Santa
apologizes to Rudolph—as well as promises to find homes for the misfit
toys—as does Donner—and presumably the others—before Santa gets the
weather report and asks Rudolph to lead the team.)Well, we didn't get the blizzard (thank goodness, because Atlantans would have thought it was the apocalypse), but we did get the cold! On December 22 the temps were in the 40s. The next day the high was 19°F. Christmas Eve the high was 21, and it only got up to 31 on Christmas Day. It was cold, even for me. I put Tucker's sweater on him and bundled up in my RI-weight winter coat, lined hat, and lined gloves and was pretty warm outside except for my face and knees. Thank goodness for the boot socks! I prepared early: shut the outside faucets off, took the flags down due to high winds on the 22nd, and left the faucets dripping downstairs. But boy was it cold, even in the house with the heat. Snowy fluffed up and we put on sweats and warm socks and it was still chilly; the heat couldn't keep up. I kept warm by making gravy for Christmas Eve spaghetti and pork ribs. Christmas Day we lay slugabed and didn't even open gifts until noon. (Both of us gave each other lots of books. I also got a CD, Dinner was spent at the Butlers with friends and good food and a gift exchange near the Christmas tree, and when we got home I watched The House Without a Christmas Tree. Good times. It was good earlier in the week: we were vindicated! James had a video visit on the Winter Solstice with the nutritionist, which the doctors at Wellstar had insisted on, to purge us of the Evil Sodium! This was the first appointment we could get. She asked us a series of questions, which we answered honestly, and talked a lot about the low-sodium foods we ate (we even knew the numbers). At the end of the interview, she admitted that, based on our answers, we were doing everything we could. So there. Later on that day we went into downtown Marietta and walked around so we could see the Christmas decorations before they got torn down on Monday. Had a nice time there, too. Labels: Christmas, Christmas decorations, friends, health, television, weather » Sunday, December 11, 2022
Christmas Tree Down
I am fit to be tied.Thankfully, this has nothing to do with James' health. James had a very good day on Friday at physiotherapy, and we also saw the respiratory specialist that day. We can knock off carrying the oxygen bottles around and he no longer needs the supplemental oxygen during the day! She gave him a walking test and his pulse ox stayed at 93 while he was walking and went up to 96 when he sat down. (We had been practicing him coming up and down the stairs without the cannula for a few days now and got the same results!) We still have to keep the "fishtank," though, because she wants him to stay on oxygen at night. We can cope with that. No tripping over that damn hose anymore! He's fallen three times due to it, including into the printer, breaking the printer cable. Labels: Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, electronics, health, television » Sunday, December 04, 2022
Decorations Go Up, and Hopefully So Does James' Mobility
Alas, my Christmas decorating is perfunctory and stolid this year. Did I not love the lights and want the glow and of course the decorations for Twelfth Night I might just bury my head in my fanfic and stay there. I am working on a Christmas story to help. Decorations that went up this week: foyer and dining room, the gingerbread and candy cane stuff for the kitchen, the woodland tree and the Rudolph tree and the little Scots and Italian things for our bedroom, and finally the village on the mantel—I do so love the 1940s theme and wish I had 40s Christmas music somehow playing for it—and the hall bathroom and the wall divider. This makes it sound gloomy, but several good things happened this week. First we had Hair Day, which was nice, even though I was feeling a bit ill. I had Butch inspected so I could renew my registration, and I also stopped at CVS to see if they had tinsel. I was appalled: the once lovely CVS Christmas aisles had been reduced to one with a few decorations and a bunch of cheap gifts. On Friday it was time for Apple Annie. Mostly what we bought was stuff from the bake sale; James was dying for goodies and we bought all sorts, from oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to something butterscotch for him. It was surprising because there were no sales downstairs at all; St. Ann's has opened a new fellowship hall on the first story and most of the booths that went downstairs were in this huge new hall. I bought only a little ceramic Hanukkah decoration for Mel and Phyllis and a little ceramic ring holder with a fox design. On the way home stopped at Michaels for some Christmas lights, Trader Joe's for our annual Christmas treats like peppermint puffs and Candy Cane Jo-Jos, and finally stopped at Half-Price Books, where I found Rinker Buck's new book at half price, a book about travels in Arctic Europe, and the Llewellyn book about Yule that I wanted to borrow from the library which is no longer at any Cobb library at all. After a long delay from the hospital triple-event, James has finally started physiotherapy. We go once a week to Post Oak Tritt Road off Sandy Plains. His therapist is a perky, bouncy lady named Karen, and we both like her very much. She has him doing lying down exercises to move his hips, standing exercises briefly, side stretches with his legs, and rubber band pulling with his arms.
Labels: books, Christmas decorations, health, shopping » Sunday, November 27, 2022
Happy Thanksgiving...Wishing for Happiness
I was born two weeks before Christmas, and baptized on Christmas Eve, and I've gravitated toward Christmas ever since. I love the color and the lights and giving gifts and the special scents of the season and getting together with friends. But after Christmas I love Thanksgiving best of all. There's no pretension to it. Oh, a lot of people try to turn Thanksgiving into a picture perfect magazine thing, or they go into the same old tiresome Pilgrim and Indian thing, which isn't even really true and isn't the basis for the holiday we celebrate. It's about getting together with special people, whether family or friends, eating together and feeling gratitude for our blessings, even if it's been a rotten year. After October's debacle, I am very thankful for November, even if it wasn't the November I wanted. This Thanksgiving was spent, as it has been for years, at the Lucyshyn home; they have a great big open space kitchen/dining/living room area just perfect for hosting guests. There were two turkeys, Clair's wonderful pot roast, lots of veg, including our carrot/craisin salad, cornbread, and other goodies, and of course homemade pies and other goodies for dessert. James got slightly wobbly heading back out to the car, but we made it okay. It's a pretty long haul out to Lawrenceville and back, but the company is worth it, and Butch did his best, except for a few minutes when I noticed that the car was in low gear. I couldn't figure it out, until James noticed the second time it happened that his portable oxygen bottle had pushed the gearshift down! Thank goodness it isn't something I need to have fixed again. (There's another thanks for today.) I posted a short Thanksgiving fanfic in my series and gave thanks for that, too, for keeping me sane through four hospital stays. I don't really want to be writing any more stories from the hospital, but am thankful I can. On Saturday, like hobbits, we had Second Thanksgiving at Alice and Ken Spivey's house. Yet another yummy turkey and more veg and warm friends. We are both still down from the October hospital stay, and, although this weekend was the first Sunday of Advent, I really had to push myself to put up the lights. I actually did it Saturday night because rain was expected Sunday, but got no joy out of it. However, I was rewarded for my promptness by being able to program the pesky timer with no mistakes the first time! On Sunday I put up the candoliers and the door wreaths, including the front door wreath and the flag.
Labels: Christmas, Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, food, friends, holidays, Thanksgiving, writing » Saturday, December 11, 2021
A Happy Birthday Saturday and Other December Tales
I was ready to decorate the Christmas tree on St. Nicholas Day, but the weather didn't cooperate: it was still too warm. If I'd done it on Monday, the tinsel would have stuck to my hands. So instead I changed the bed, cleaned out James' side table that would be next to the tree, cleaned out the corner, and brought the tree up and assembled it—as well as replacing about seven more bulbs (after I replaced every bulb at the bottom of that tree last year!) and fluffed it, all ready for the morrow.The tree was up on Tuesday, while I worked my way through Pearl Harbor specials on the History Channel (yeah, I know...actual history specials on the History Channel!) for the 80th anniversary. When they quit, I put on my own: The Waltons' episode "Day of Infamy." Labels: birthday, books, chores, Christmas, Christmas decorations, food, friends, health, shopping, television » Saturday, December 12, 2020
Not The Birthday Gift I Was Expecting
To say this has been a week full of ups and downs would be an understatement. The good news: I finished putting up the downstairs decorations on St. Nicholas Day (as well as doing most of my Sunday chores) and put up the Christmas tree the next day. Alas, even these fun events were fraught with frustration: the top half of the library tree did not light, I couldn’t fix the problem with the Lightkeeper Pro, and I ended up just replacing bulbs until it came back on. It looked as if most of the yellow bulbs were burnt out! I lost count of how many I replaced, mostly yellow, but also some at the bottom of the tree where I’d replaced lights last year! Not only that, when I plugged in the three segments of the main tree to test them, the top did not light. I left it plugged in while I decorated the library tree and the library, and then the downstairs hall and the airplane tree. When I came upstairs with the tree ornaments, nary a light did I see in it. Until I kicked it. Then it lit up! Since I started late (I was sick during the morning), I had to quit tinseling the tree halfway through to attend an online seminar on “Christmas Past” that I signed up for last month, thinking it would be fun. It was, although I didn’t learn anything I didn’t know. The company was nice, though. Then I did finish the tree and it was safely pushed in the corner for this Christmas season. Tuesday I found some special programs on Amazon Prime about Tasha Tudor, and really enjoyed those, especially the Christmas-themed one with her children. This was filmed, of course, before she died; apparently there was then a big court battle because she left everything to the son and not her other children. Happier times at Christmas, at least. And Wednesday I found out where to drop my Toys for Tots contribution. And then Friday we thought everything was really hunky-dory because we went to IKEA and finally bought a new mattress. It was a great birthday gift: our old one that we bought at the Home Show had gotten so soft James was sliding off the side of the bed. It was warrantied for fourteen years and only six years old, but the company that made it had gone out of business. Bye-bye warranty. So we went there and once again tested all the foam mattresses (we have to have foam, as we have a adjustable bed), and still decided on the same mattress we had picked out a couple of months ago, except instead of the medium firm we got the firm. We made arrangements to have the mattress delivered and the old one taken away, with signed documents to that effect. Cool, right? Well, maybe… On the way home we stopped at the Buckhead Barnes & Noble, which had been the best one around here. Alas, it has been as denuded as the others, the magazines aren’t up-to-date, and there were panhandlers hanging around the doors. At least we had some ice cream as our dessert. And then came Saturday! We had a delivery window from 1 -5 p.m., so I took my time getting up. It was 9 a.m. before I noticed I had a call from a delivery service at 8:05: it was the people delivering the mattress. He said it was contactless delivery and he would just leave it on the porch! Sure enough a few minutes later Tucker barked, and a rolled up mattress was dumped on our porch. A few minutes later the dispatcher from the delivery company called me to make sure we got the mattress. I explained it was supposed to be delivered, set up, and the old taken away during the afternoon. He said he’d call to see what was going on. I continued calling him all afternoon, but never got any satisfaction, and of course I tried calling up IKEA, but their automated message continue to inform me that they were too busy to take calls and to contact them online (but the only thing you could do online was cancel the delivery, and that had already happened!), and then it would hang up on me! I finally got through via a different phone number only to be told that they shouldn’t have told me they would do a pickup; they weren’t doing any pickups. Our salesman called the desk and asked before he made out the paperwork! This is a violation of my contract with them–we wouldn’t have bought the mattress there had I known they wouldn’t take the old one away. Basically after several calls they tell me they are refunding our delivery fee and we will have to make arrangements to get the old mattress removed ourselves. About five o’clock I got mad. The mattress was in a deflated roll, and I just kept upending it until I got it on the landing, and then I managed to tug it up the nine stairs left one at the time till I got to the top and James could help me pull it. We always turn the mattress when we change the bed, so it wasn’t much different to actually get the old mattress off the bed (it took about ten minutes of tugging and grunting because the old one has no handle). After that, the new mattress was positively a doddle to cut open and unroll on the bed to inflate. I know it’s supposed to inflate for a whole day, but it can’t be helped. Tired of James thumping his heel against the side of the bed when he starts to slide off and it must hurt his feet as well. So yeah, we have a new bed, but now we’re stuck with a queen–sized mattress leaned up against one wall of our bedroom, blocking the chifforobe, the toy chest, and the chair that I sit in to put on my shoes. Not only that, but just as I finished taking my shower, I got heart palpitations! I’d already taken my pill over an hour earlier, so I didn’t know whether I was going to bed that night or Urgent Care. I finished drying off and put my nightgown on and went to lie down, taking deep breaths and willing my heart to get back to normal rhythms. It would beat-beat-beat-beat then try to slow down then go back to beat-beat-beat-beat to start the cycle again. And then it was back to normal rhythm. The whole incident only lasted about 20 minutes at the most, but seemed like hours. Now I know how my mom felt when this happened to her. She would be doing something and just stop in her tracks and sit down and be very quiet until it passed. Scary. In the meantime James admitted to me on Monday morning that he almost fell again in the bathroom–I was really upset and went ballistic, which was why I was sick on Monday morning. He is continuing to have problems with his shoulder after the fall, even though the X-rays determined he did not break anything. This has not been one of our better weeks, even with the comfort of the Christmas tree. Labels: books, Christmas, Christmas decorations, Christmas lights, events, health, shopping, sickness, television » Saturday, December 05, 2020
Our Aching Heads
Well, it was a week. And boy what a week... He was only there about four hours. They took bloodwork, checked his sugar again, did a CAT scan of his head and thankfully detected no internal bleeding, gave him one pain med, and then had him call me to take him home about 7 a.m. He looked terrible for lack of sleep, his shoulders ached terribly, and he said they seemed really in a hurry to get rid of him. Once Kaiser opened, we got the earliest appointment for him with Kaiser, right after the one I had on Thursday, but with a different doctor. Hell, I was going to take him with me anyway if he couldn't get an appointment; I didn't care. Tuesday he did still get up and work. I wrapped up and mailed the out of town gifts [and made a big goof, but didn't realize it until later]. I also got Thanksgiving and fall packed up and got the last of the boxes down myself since James wouldn't be able to help me. Oh, Thursday, Thursday, terrible Thursday. Thursday morning I was sitting at my computer just doing some odd writing and I experienced a terrible dizzy spell. The room didn't spin, but my head did, lasting about fifteen seconds. I could still see straight, I called out for James and could speak coherently and not slurred, and could grab his hand, but I have never been so giddy. It frightened the dickens out of me. By the time we arrived at the doctor's office that afternoon, I was scared out of my wits and my blood pressure was normal for anyone else, but high for me. By the time the doctor came in the office (he was running late, so James and I basically rolled in for our appointments at the same time). After listening to me babble hysterically for fifteen minutes and checking my heart and breathing, the doctor decided the dizziness and the blood pressure was caused by stress, and he authorized a sonogram for me so we can figure out what caused the stomach pain last week. The doctor James saw authorized some x-rays to check out his shoulder pain, but, alas, the Cumberland office had no x-ray tests happening that day (the tech was out sick) and the West Cobb office closed at five, and we didn't get out of there until 4:55. Sigh. So we went home and didn't get the x-ray until Friday morning. We also went to Costco to pick up James new glasses, and he was quite pleased with both pairs, once the lady at the counter figured out which was which, but the line was so long we nearly missed lunch with Alice and Ken and Aubrey. He got two pair, one for distances and one for use at the computer. I can't wait to get my eyes checked on the 22nd and go to Costco for glasses; I'm also planning to get one pair for distance and one for the computer. In the afternoon I put up most the rest of the upstairs Christmas decorations. Sigh. Sand is leaking from the weighted bottom of the woodland tree—never knew it had sand in it—but the little white star lights I bought for it at Lidl work pretty well, as do the lights I bought for the mirror above the Rudolph tree. The dining room and kitchen are all nice and sparkly, and the 1940s Christmas village is up. On Saturday we had Hair Day and Chinese from Dragon 168 for supper. Cross fingers I will be able to put up the downstairs decorations up on Sunday. Then all I will have left is the tree. Labels: accidents, Christmas decorations, food, friends, health, sickness, weather » Saturday, November 28, 2020
Thanksgiving and Christmas Changes
It wasn't the most sterling of Thanksgiving weeks. I've been experiencing some problems with my stomach and lower GI tract all week. It was at its worst last Saturday, but it has slowly improved all week. Wondering if it has been some type of stomach flu, but then I've never had anything like this last so long. Since I needed to check in with my doctor anyway to renew a prescription, I made an appointment for the next week.Came home from the gathering at Alice's this past Sunday with a turkey carcass, so on Tuesday we had made turkey soup. Of course after that we had to play freezer Tetris to get the soup stored, except for the one container we kept out to have soup when the bottom drops out of the thermometer, which we were told was coming up. In the meantime we had low 70s for Thanksgiving and the surrounding days. We ended up staying home for Thanksgiving after being invited to the Lucyshyns like last year. I was still having minor stomach pains. We only knew there was an invitation open recently, so we had already prepared to spend the day on our own: we'd bought two packages of turkey thighs (so we'd have leftovers), diced butternut squash, baby carrots, roasted potatoes, and stuffing. I cooked the turkey in two glass baking dishes. One baking dish was used to make the gravy, in the other dish I cooked the turkey thighs partway, then, James having already put together the stuffing mix with fresh celery and cooked it up on the stovetop, laid the stuffing under the thighs and cooked them all the rest of the way until the turkey was at the proper temp. Meanwhile, I used the lower oven to roast the potatoes, waterless cooked the carrots, and warmed up the butternut squash, which had been cooked and mashed already. Missed most of the initial broadcast of this year's socially distanced Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade while cooking, but saw almost all of the National Dog Show, and then rewatched the parade (NBC apparently had nothing better to broadcast Thanksgiving afternoon) while we ate. Dessert was Hershey's dark chocolate pudding (sprinkled it with Andes peppermint bits for a "punch," but they were sticky and stale, so I threw the rest away), which is as good as it sounds. We did some minor Black Friday shopping the next day: first we hit Staples, which had a set of 22 InkJoy gel pens on sale for $10. We then went to Target, where I went looking for a double cube storage set. I had found them online but was bewildered when we arrived at the store not to find them with the furniture (but while we were waiting for help found a nifty-looking convection oven/microwave/air fryer in appliances—not sure we want to drop the cash on it, though). Once we did find the double cube we rode it up front on the platform at the front of James' power chair, checked ourselves out, and he carried it out to the truck. Easiest Target purchase ever. Then we hopped next door to get James a new wireless keyboard, which he'd reserved at Office Max (water fell in the old one, and alas, the hair dryer did not help it recover as it did my own keyboard). When we got home, I put the double cube together. It replaced a dog's breakfast combination of a small teak table, a storage cube, and a cloth storage bin under one of the living room windows. Now two cloth storage cube boxes are stored neatly in the double cube compartments, and my CD player and my cassette player are set on top. A surprise came in the mail as well. I believe I wrote that I found a cheap DVD player that could be hacked to play Region 2 (British) DVDs. Well, last week it quit working! I sent a letter of complaint to the manufacturer and they sent me a new one. Saturday we had a fun visit to Hobby Lobby and then a routine Lidl excursion. The weather report was calling for torrential rain on Sunday, and the first Sunday of Advent is when I traditionally put up the outside lights and the window candles. So when we got home I put out the outdoor Christmas lights. We have multicolor net lights for the small bush right in front, and then I scatter multicolor strings on the top of the larger bushes to one side of the door. Well, the multicolor strings (I did three this year, scalloping them on the outside of the bushes as well) worked fine, but one section of the net lights burned out. After nearly ninety minutes trying to get them re-light, I tried bunching them so the gap that was out wasn't so noticeable. It looked terrible. I went rummaging in the garage and found two more strings of multicolor lights, and a shorter string of LED lights. I arranged the two larger strings on the top of the front bushes, and then scalloped the short string underneath. Looks much better. I also had a new wrinkle on the front door wreath this year. Most of the "picks" on the wreath were faded from the Georgia sun, as was the bow. So I had gone down in the library, pulled off the old picks and the bow, and attached bright colorful new picks (three Christmas-y ones and then three woodsy ones and three holly corsages), the three green baubles from the previous decorations (the green had not faded at all, so I reused them), and a new bow. The ribbon I could find for the bow was not as wide as I wanted, so I wasn't satisfied, but the new picks look nice. Plus at Hobby Lobby I had picked up a string of multicolor battery-powered LED "seed" lights. These were nestled on top of the wreath and do look quite nice. Bet they eat batteries like crazy, though. [On Sunday I did put up all the window candles, as well as the indoor door wreaths, so the first Sunday of Advent decorating was done.] Labels: Christmas, Christmas decorations, crafts, events, food, friends, holiday, shopping, sickness, Thanksgiving » Saturday, December 07, 2019
Friends and Food (and A Little Bit of Christmas, Right This Very Minute...)
We had Hair Day today; a very small crowd, only eight of us, and John Campbell, who popped in for a haircut and then headed out again. We had the sobering news that a friend has to have a cancer removed on Tuesday. It is outpatient surgery, but that doesn't make the diagnosis any better.For lunch we had sandwich fixings and a little salad that James made, and goodies from the relish tray Mel and Phyllis brought. For dessert Ron and Lin bought a birthday cake that ended up being just for Lin and I, the other December "babies" having not made it this month. "A good time was had by all," I think! We finished up early because Sheri was having people over for the LSU vs. Georgia game. Lunch perked me up, but I was feeling decidedly under the weather because like an idiot I forgot to take my pills last night, so I was not only stuffy, but my heart was hammering at the least movement because I'd missed my atenolol (and I can't take it in the morning because then I wouldn't be able to take it at night). I told James I'd take it easy for a couple of hours and see if we could go out to eat, but at suppertime my stomach was still dicey. Instead we had turkey soup for supper. We really screwed up with the turkey carcass Juanita gave us; we put too much water in. It basically tasted like poultry flavored water, with water predominating. We usually cook two packets of ramen noodles when we have them, but only use one packet of flavoring, so James tossed an oriental flavor packet in and made it just right, not too salty, not too bland. I had it with elbow noodles only and James added veg and canned chicken to his. In the afternoon I did finish decorating the living room, with James' help, and then brought the empty box downstairs and put all the empties back in the closet. Just have one more box to empty, the decorations for the library and the lower hallway. I cleared out in the library to have a clear palette, so to speak. Spent the evening watching The Bishop's Wife and then the Pearl Harbor episode of The Waltons. Labels: Christmas decorations, cleaning, food, friends, movies, sickness, television » Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Packages and Tinsel
» Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Well Begun is Half Done
So what do you do when Christmas is over?
Start getting ready for next Christmas! After breakfast and dog walking, I went off to Town Center. Started at Barnes & Noble due to a traffic diversion; bought two years' worth of Christmas cards, both with a wildlife theme. There's a Hallmark store on the other side of the shopping center, so I went there next. Of course people were crowded in there buying ornaments at half price. One woman had one whole shopping cart full of ornaments. I'd be willing to wager she was buying up all the fannish ones (Batman, football players, Avengers, Baby Groot, etc.) and will hold them for a while and then sell them on E-Bay as collector's items. I just picked up the new Marjolein Bastin's Garden ornament which I had not gotten originally: it's a snow-capped wreath with apples on it, with two tiny chickadees coming to feast on the apples. It was half off, and I had rewards points! Next to JoAnn; you guessed it, more Command hooks. I said I was going to reorganize in the new year and I mean it! Plus two clearance items. Next door to Michael's, where I picked up a 70 percent off garland (I put it on the porch later on) and dessert chocolate. I crossed to 2nd and Charles because they had neat, cheap cards last year. None this year, but I found a lovely roll of holly wrapping paper for a grand total of 37 cents. Stopped at Hobby Lobby and bought bows and tinsel cord. Finally stopped at Publix, didn't find their crusty white baguette again and in very bad temper bought a Chicago roll (which was not a good substitute), and some black-eyed peas for James. Spent the rest of the afternoon at home listening to Christmas music and reading Christmas magazines. Had beef bits and Rice-a-Roni for supper and watched bits of Happy New Year, Charlie Brown. Really dreadful. The first few specials were the best, all charm and gentle humor, then they gradually lost their magic. Charlie Brown spends a good part of this one shouting. And what teacher gives a little kid War and Peace to read over Christmas vacation? Better was the first episode/preview of the new season of Better Late Than Never, which William Shatner talked about at DragonCon. The four crazies (Shatner, Terry Bradshaw, Henry Winkler, and George Foreman) and "the sidekick" Jeff are doing Europe this time, and discover beergardens and take a Sound of Music tour. Labels: Christmas, Christmas decorations, food, music, shopping, television |
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