 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 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, November 24, 2024
Tucker's Odyssey
After two meltdowns on my part, and Tucker finally being so fed up with me that he started growling and snarling at me, he slowly started to get better. On Tuesday he voluntarily ate small bits of meat. I had gone to Kroger and gotten cheap pre-made hamburgers out of the managers' special bin. I cooked the hamburger and fed it to him in quarters. First he ate the burgers alone, then with rice, then with vegetables and rice. A little bit more each night. One night I left miniature Milk Bones out. He ignored them for several days.One morning they were gone. Then he started eating his dog food again. He wouldn't eat the chicken flavor at first, just the beef, which was very puzzling. But he ate it, and that was a victory. And by Saturday he was dancing around begging for after-walk cookies again! We also finally saw the film Hidden Figures and loved it! The scenes where Johnson has to run back and forth to another building just to use a "colored only" rest room made the point about prejudice so perfectly. The other news wasn't as good. James' fistula is not "ripening" properly and he will need to have a catherization in which any blockage in the fistula is cleared. This will be done in January. » Sunday, November 17, 2024
The Dreadful Week
There was no warning. It began fine: I had bought James a new duffle bag for our anniversary to take to dialysis (the old bag was falling apart). It has a separate compartment intended for gym shoes or a wet towel/swimsuit, and we have put his blanket in there. He doesn't really needed it, because now that he's on dialysis, he's not cold all the time. There's a compartment for his sugar-free mints, one for his snacks and visor, one for his water bottle and a juice box, one for his TV schedule, and then the inner compartment has a pocket into which he has two paperback books. The central compartment now just holds his noise-cancelling headphones (dialysis clinics are loud), his neck pillow, and his tablet (charged daily so he can watch Battlebots and whatever that Sylvester Stallone show is).Tuesday was a disaster. James twisted, thrashed, and kicked because he was in pain all night. Needless to say I didn't sleep, and we went to Hanger to get his back brace fitted in very ill tempers. As we pulled out of the driveway a car stopped in front of us and the driver got out. I've talked many times about Tucker's adversarial relationship with Max, the German Shepherd on the corner. I don't know how much I've mentioned his relationship with Champion, the German Shepherd down at the end of the street. His people rent a house in the lower cul-de-sac. I watched Champion from when he was a young dog. He has always approached Tucker with curiosity--"Oh, look, what a cute little dog!"--and Tucker approached him back with his head up and his tail wagging obligingly. It was obvious they both wanted to play together, but of course his person was walking him one way, and I was walking Tucker the other. It was Champion's owner who stopped to talk to us: Champion DIED on Monday; he said they didn't know why. We couldn't go home afterwards because James was scheduled for the bone scan at Kaiser, so we spent about a half-hour in Barnes & Noble before heading to Townpark. I was quite woozy and sick; we were going to stop at Walmart for yogurt and I was so sick we didn't. I did manage to get us a couple of treats in Bernhard's Bakery. I was feeling better Wednesday, so after finishing the Lidl/Publix/Kroger grocery route, stopped at Walmart on the way home for the yogurt. In the evening I finally bit the bullet and ordered new phones. My current cell reboots at odd times and loses connection on local streets, and it's beginning to eat battery. I got James a desert tan color and I got a red one. Maybe it will be easier to find. Then...out of nowhere, James got up Thursday morning, went out to make breakfast, and found out Tucker had vomited on the floor. Sometimes he does just get an upset stomach and vomit. But Wednesday he only ate one dog biscuit and a mouthful of rice in beef stock. He was listless and his eyes were tragic and he'd only drink if he licked it off my hands during the day. He drank more at night and ate a couple more dog biscuits. By afternoon I called Riverview and made him an appointment for the next day. Thursday Tucker wouldn't even walk down the stairs voluntarily. I scooped him up and carried him on his back in his blanket and he just lay there. He hates being held upside down. His breath was raspy. He stayed at the vet the rest of the day and overnight. He had a high fever (105℉!) and diarrhea and had IVs getting antibiotics into him and helping his dehydration. We went to pick him up but he was limp and listless on Friday. I had to feed him with Hill's Urgent Care soft food with a syringe, and this was the only time he struggled. He has a dangerously low level of white blood cells in his body, can't go near other dogs and we have to watch him because he's susceptible to sepsis. It was so bad Saturday night I had a meltdown. This is too fucking much. First it was Oliver, then James in the hospital, then James at home, then the falls, and now it's poor Tucker. I felt totally helpless. Sunday was a little better, as I did get some stuff done, but a real struggle to feed Tucker via syringe (I mean, I get it! I would hate it, too!). Labels: dogs, food, health, pets, shopping, sickness, smartphones, technology » Sunday, October 06, 2024
October at Last...and Off to a Bad Start
I look forward to October every year. It's my favorite month except for December, although the leaves here don't really turn until November, but there's such a possibility in October...that it might be cooler, that it might be colorful, that we can make all the wonderful things coming up like the book sale and the Apple Festival.It started out on a bad note Tuesday. We'd had a nice day: went to Sam's Club for gasoline for the truck, went inside and found some nice sirloin steaks for a semi-reasonable price, and some nifty dark-chocolate covered nut clusters. Nuts are good for kidney patients, and these turned out to be really tasty, with flaky dark chocolate on them. We also went by Dunkin Donuts and got two more apple cider doughnuts, and James made chopped steak and ramen noodles for dinner... ...and forgot to check behind him to make sure the chair was there and sprawled out on the kitchen floor. We had to call the firemen to get him up, and he said he was okay—he didn't even scrape an arm or a leg like he usually does and start bleeding!—but over the rest of the evening he started to hurt worse and worse around his chest, and off we went at 10:30 to Urgent Care. Even though there were few customers, it took us until 3 a.m. for him to get an x-ray and then another 90 minutes for them to look at it. I had a screaming headache most of the time there; had taken three ibuprofin before we left the house and it barely touched it, and someone's alarm was going off constantly, and there was a baby crying, and it was hot in the little cubicle we were assigned to. We were so miserable we both considered just walking out, but we had to check... So, they said no broken anything and sent us home on a couple of hydrocodone for James and absolutely no energy for me. We got into the house and just crawled out of our clothes and fell asleep on top of the bedspread with a couple of fleece throws at about 5:30 a.m. Ever since now he has this pain around his torso when he twists (can't figure out how it happened since he appeared to have landed on his left side), coupled with the pain in his back that has been so intense he has been taking, in ones and twos, the hydrocodone Dr. Coyle gave him for post-op. I have been wakened every night by his moaning in pain. So, whap, apparently it was now my turn; tried to get in bed early Thursday night for the book sale on Friday and instead suffered nightmares and knee pain and nausea all night. It was a whole lot of fun for both of us. I staggered up long enough to help with breakfast and feed and walk Tucker, then crashed on the futon until it was time to get up for dialysis transport. I went straight to the book sale and bought thirteen books, and didn't feel fully human again until after supper. So James ended up going to his club meeting online again, after making it successfully last month on his own (sigh...). Over the week I also finished putting up a couple of more fall decorations, put the new signs up on the front porch (hopefully the plague of roofers will go away), brushed Tucker, updated my blog, and finally put away the charged power supplies (and sorted out the little woven crate they're in). I also, happily and sadly, finished the very last Maisie Dobbs book, The Comfort of Ghosts. I've been reading the series since 2007, when I read a great review of the first book. Maisie started out as a thirteen-year-old servant whose thirst for knowledge was so great that she would get up at three a.m. to study in her employer's library to further her education. Her employer educated her, and she went to college but didn't finish due to serving as a nurse in the Great War. Now World War II has ended. Maisie is at the end of a long journey. It was a satisfactory ending, but how I will miss her! Also, back in the day when James was working, one of the things we used to watch at lunchtime was the New Zealand-produced "reboot"/follow-on of Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds. They did a lot of fan service to the original series and we enjoyed it. However, Amazon Prime only showed two-thirds of the series. I just found out the remainder of the series was on Tubi. Alas, now it seems our kitchen faucet is either broken or giving up the ghost. Like we haven't spent enough money. Labels: accidents, autumn, books, dogs, health, illness, shopping, television, treats » Sunday, September 01, 2024
Breathing Rarefied Air
As the kids today say, I "did a thing." I was deathly in fear of doing this "thing" because it involved leaving James alone for the day. Make no mistake, he is much stronger and fitter than he was when he got out of the hospital at the end of June. But he still doesn't feel stable enough on his feet, mostly due to his back and knee pain, to go back to a cane or even back to where he was months ago just walking slowly and making sure he has touchpoints. He still relies on the rolling walker we got from Kaiser, but he's been using it to get around the kitchen much better—if still painfully—to the point where he can even wash a pan or two to start prepping. When I told him what I wanted to do, he said, "Go ahead, do it. I want you to do it. You need the break and you deserve it." He even went on Amazon and ordered a tray/storage compartment that fit on the top of the walker so I didn't have to help him transport the parts of his breakfast anymore (the egg plate or the burritos, the tea, the oatmeal, and the smoothie drink). He kept repeating "I will be fine." I was still paranoid, especially about what if he had a fall or had chest pains that didn't go away with nitroglycerin. To assuage that, I made sure the chair lift seat wasn't blocking the door and left a house key hidden on the porch, then told him to keep his phone on him at all times. If he had to call 911, hopefully he could tell them where the key was and they could get in without damaging the door. So I did it. From the moment that I saw Vincent D'Onofrio was going to be at DragonCon, I wanted to be there. We haven't gone since 2019, and, although I miss it, I don't miss the crowds, the constant noise, the crowds, the heat between the hotels, the crowds, the long wait for elevators since James is in the power chair, the crowds...well, you get it. I'm homesick for it, because DragonCon has been an alternate "home" for years, with a bunch of people I adore who I only see mainly there (the BritTrack people, the Trek Track folks, the sci-fi lit panel regulars, etc.). I miss them. So I bought a Sunday membership and bought a photo op (it's a very early birthday gift to myself). Alice did offer me to loan me her badge on Saturday (which would have been naughty, but...) while she watched the Georgia football game, but I decided against it (but thanked her copiously). She reminded me to get parking in advance, which I did (and it turned out I didn't need to, as there was plenty of space on Sunday at less than I paid for pre-paid, but...better safe than sorry, as everyone's mom has said at least once). We made it down to the wire with James neither having a fall or chest pains by Saturday night. Thursday night I was feeling guilty and said to him, "Maybe I should have gotten you a Sunday membership," thinking he could have wandered about while I was doing my fangirl thing. But just going for an echocardiogram, eating out at Pacific Buffet, and stopping at Barnes & Noble had wiped him out that day, and he demurred. Sunday morning, after not a lot of sleep due to anxiety, I was up at 7:30. My backpack was already kitted up with some snacks, my camera, a folder to put my reserved photo from the photo op in, my tablet, etc. I dressed, fed and walked Tucker, used the bathroom, and off Butch and I went. The bad day driving to DragonCon is always Friday, because of rush-hour traffic; on Sunday the freeway is practically empty. We freewheeled following the GPS down I-75, exited at Courtland Street, turned left on Andrew Young, and drove up to opposite the Westin. With SpotHero all I did was drive into the garage, find a parking space, and walk off (coming out was just as easy; I didn't have to scan a QR code or anything). After five years of non-attendance, you would have thought I'd fumble around trying to remember things. Nope—it's all muscle memory now, like riding a bicycle. It was cool and shady enough that I just walked down the big long hill from the Westin to the Courtland Grand (formerly the Sheraton), stopped once by a young blond woman who saw my Law & Order: Criminal Intent t-shirt (bought especially for the occasion!) and gushed "I love your shirt! I love that show," crossed Courtland Street again, and headed for registration. This was easy-peasy, just follow others through a little Disney World serpentine, show my QR code, and get my badge. Took five minutes. Then I went to Disability Services, because, while I am willing to wait in line, I cannot be outside in the sun or else Mr. Headache, Mr. Palpitations, and then Mr. Diarrhea will visit me in short order. DS decided that was justifiable and I got a seat in line and end of row designation. Now, breakfast! Again by long habit: hike the block to the Courtland Garage, use their elevator to what James and I have always called "the Luke Skywalk" and into Peachtree Center and the myriad of eating locations, some shuttered until lunch, others open for breakfast. Of course I went to Cafe Momo, which is a big buffet-by-the-pound, as I planned to have a hearty meal and then just snack later. In my styrofoam container I put oatmeal in one small compartment, roast potatoes in the other, a slice of French toast and some peeled and sliced oranges and kiwi fruit in the big compartment. Finishing off with a reduced-fat milk and a bagel and cream cheese, I went out to the tables to eat. (They have lots of other stuff—eggs—yuck!—both scrambled and fried and spicy; grits, pre-made tortilla shell meals with meat and lettuce; different fruits; coffee and tea; cereals; etc.) Oh, if you were looking for Waldo, I found him having breakfast at Peachtree Center, too! When I got done it was much too early to go to the Walk of Fame where Vincent D'Onofrio would be signing things, so I marched over the skybridges through the Marriott and into the Hilton to descend to the oh-so-wonderful coolness of the Galleria level where Trek Track and BritTrack are and walked into the Lower Decks panel. Alan Siler was on the panel and I can't remember when I'd seen him in person last. I got two hugs and we talked and he told me how he was splitting the book he was writing in three parts, and that his Kozmic Press outfit is going to be doing an anthology of essays of women talking about how they were influenced by the Beatles. You so rarely see books written about how women have been influenced by rock bands! And the panel was fun, too, talking about favorite moments in Lower Decks—has any scene been funnier than the punchline with T'Ana and the box she asks Beckett and Tendi to fetch?—and if this is really the end for the series. Now I moseyed on back to the Marriott and the Walk of Fame; there was no line at this point and I just strolled right in. The actors sit in little booths talking to the fans and selling autographs (James and I have been going long enough to remember when you bought the photos from a dealer or from the actor and the actors signed them for free!). Jodie Whittaker (Doctor #13) was signing autographs practically in front of me. Vincent D'Onofrio wasn't at his booth, so I walked around checking everyone out. Anson Mount, when I finally spied him, was wearing a baseball hat, so no glimpse of the infamous Pike hair wave, and looked tired. There was a lively crowd around "the hobbits" (Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, and Elijah Wood). And I absolutely had to stop and say hi to Barry Gordon when he was free. He does animation voices now, but I remember Barry Gordon from when he was a child actor, especially in the film A Thousand Clowns with Jason Robards. It was on television in the late 60s and I cried at the end when Robards realized that, to support his abandoned nephew (Gordon) properly, he would have to give up his bohemian lifestyle and take a 9-to-5 job. When he walks off dressed in the suit carrying a briefcase just like all the other white-collar automatons in NYC I burst into tears. He seemed happy that I remembered it. Finally I went back to the line to find out that Vincent D'Onofrio was expected shortly, so I got into line. I had his two books with me, Mutha and Pigs Can't Look Up. Unfortunately, I found out in line that it was cash only. I'd been talking with various of his fans in line, including other CI fans, and the guy dressed as the Fourth Doctor said, "There's an ATM over there; I'll hold your place!" and I ran over and got the cash. Turned out I could only have one book signed with the money I had and I really couldn't afford both, so I got Mutha signed and told him I remembered going to the Monkey Jungle place in Florida that he wrote about when I was about two or three (I agree; it was a terrible place, all noise and agitated simians and smelled horrible, and why parents dragged kids there I'll never know). The line was long and I didn't want to take too much of his time, so I never asked him James' question, which was if we would ever see a DVD or at least a streaming release of Night of the Cooters, and then I was sorry a few minutes later when another woman engaged him in conversation for at least two or three minutes. (While I'd been waiting earlier he told the woman before me the story of the unusual voice he uses for the Jack Horne character in the remake of The Magnificent Seven. He was in London doing a movie (I wonder if it was the Sherlock Holmes film) and he was waiting at a restaurant when this enormous man walked in; he actually blocked the light coming in the restaurant door he was so big, and "his hands were the size of baseball mitts." So he says something to him and this huge man replies in this high-pitched voice, so he wanted to use that voice in the future.) I stood there a long time watching him interact with everyone. Honestly, he looks gorgeous. You can tell he works out and takes care of himself; the only sign that he's older is the grey hair and beard. His hands are still absolutely beautiful, long slim fingers like a pianist's might be. (Yeah, I'm gushing here...) I also ran into Rob Bowen and got a hug. I was really restricting myself on locations, so perhaps it followed, but I didn't run into nearly as many people as I do—I usually see someone from ARTC, or Mark Heffernan, or the Rays, or Roger Nichols, or even Laura Hayden...but...no. Finally I decided I needed to hit a bathroom and hie myself over to the Hyatt to get in line for the 2:30 panel. I'd been in terrible fear that I would need to pee before the panel and lose my place in line or, even worse, have to pee during the panel, so I was sucking on watermelon candies and hadn't drunk anything since the milk at breakfast (which was terrible—it was labeled "ultra-filtered milk" and tasted like milk-flavored water). So when a friendly looking woman sat next to me in the waiting area I started talking to her and we were "bathroom buddies" for the duration; she watched my backpack while I used the rest room and then I watched hers. We bonded over knee surgery, which she'd had (both knees) and I was telling her James wished he could. (BTW, I periodically texted James all day, mostly to receive the response "I'm fine; have fun!")
The panel loaded quickly, and I got a nice aisle seat where I could take a lot of photos. Vincent was on this panel with Mike Colter, who played Luke Cage in the short-lived series. They were very easy with each other and it turned out they knew each other from sometime back when Colter was in an episode of CI ("Albatross"). (They had this very funny back-and-forth about the meaning of the word "albatross"—yes, it's a really neat bird, but it also has a metaphorical meaning and so on...) Since this was a panel about Marvel, the questions were mostly about Kingpin and Luke Cage, a lot of it going over my head since I've avoided Daredevil due to the violence. He did talk about how he loved the role, but that gaining the extra weight every time they filmed was getting harder because it's hard to lose weight as you get older. For the newest series, they have a new "fat suit" which he said is still very warm, but is very light, "like a sneaker," he described it. So with that and the use of prosthetics and makeup he doesn't have to gain the weight any longer (which is fine with me because he looks so fine!). Vincent also told the story about how he got the part of Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket; Matthew Modine, a friend of his, encouraged him to audition via a short film (he was working as a bodyguard at that time) and he rented a camera and performed some dialog from a play. Stanley Kubrick was impressed enough by the film to call him, and the first time he hung up on Kubrick because he thought it was a joke. Kubrick called right back and said immediately, "Don't hang up!" Once the panel was over, I had a short appointment in the ladies' room—"unavoidable delay" as Frank Gilbreth would put it—since it wasn't crowded, which I used it as an opportunity to decompress and cool down. It was not yet 4:30 when I headed downstairs for my 5 p.m.photo op. The area outside was crowded and hot, and I noticed from my appointment printout that I was still early, so I wandered in the rest room for a little longer and splashed cold water on myself and cleaned my face off and put a tiny bit of blush on. I'd never done one of these before so I wandered back following the signs not knowing what to expect. The basement level of the Marriott was partitioned off with a lot of dark curtains hanging from portable curtain stands. It was hard to be in this area without nostalgia because it had served DragonCon as the Dealer's Room and the Walk of Fame for so many years; it was here I got June Lockhart's autograph and talked to Dee Wallace-Stone about her being back to back with June Lockhart—two of Lassie's TV moms together! (Now the Dealer's Room takes up four levels of the Merchandise Mart!) The one thing I hate about the new Walk of Fame is they forbid you to take unauthorized photos; I used to love going in there and get candid shots of the performers interacting with the fans. I have photos of Mark Goddard and numerous other people just sitting behind a table and hanging with congoers. At first you stay in a general area where you wait for your photo op "partner" to be called. While a bunch of us waited, including a woman in a "DUN DUN" Law & Order shirt, I saw someone dressed as Vincent's Daredevil character Kingpin come in, portly, with the white dinner jacket, the cane and all. Then there were two of them, then three, and finally there were four of them altogether. They posed for pictures with the people waiting. It was funny. Then we D'Onofrio fans got called back and shuttled into lines. There were some DS seats available, but I was trying to stand and let the seats go for the people with back and leg problems. Now at this point I hadn't actually had a drink since ten a.m., and sucking on Jolly Ranchers wasn't helping any longer. I finally pointed to a chair and asked "May I sit down?" because I glanced at my Fitbit and discovered my pulse was rocking around at about 90. Sitting helped a lot. I was next to a married couple who were teasing each other, and she was in a wonderful T-shirt with Vincent's pic on top and the cityscape at the bottom and the legend "Robert Goren, Detective" at the bottom. Pretty swell! The photo op itself goes by fast because the Epic people are processing the pictures as fast as they can go. You drop your personal stuff on a table, line up, and one by one the person (or persons, because there are group shoots) gets into the picture with you, the photographer yells "Chin down!" and the picture is done and the next person is summoned. I broke protocol at this point, just quickly, because the one thing I had wanted so badly to say at the autograph table never came out. I said very quickly "Thank you for Twitter. It's helped me through some bad places in the last few years" and he bent over me a little to hear what I said and then they took the picture and I think he said "thank you" or something because I was brain fried and totally overheated at this point. Picked up my stuff and asked one of the Kingpins, "What now?" and he said come back here and get your picture, and he pointed it out when we got there, already printed out. And you got checked out to see if you got your photo—and the correct photo—and then it was over.  I really would have liked to stay...but I was tired and hungry and ohIhadtomakesure James was okay. I walked out the back of the Marriott instead of going across the bridge to Peachtree Center and taking the back door, which would have gotten me to within a block of the Westin, but I just did homing pigeon. Walked up the hill past the Hyatt and then crossed Peachtree Center and then left across Harris. By that time I was blowing like a racehorse and stopped to catch my breath at the water features in front of a building on Peachtree Street. In about a minute I was able to take in a lungful of air again to trudge on and turn at the Westin to go back to the parking garage. I will say I am glad we were not in the truck in this garage! It was tiny and if the ramps going up were steep, the ones coming down seemed like they were about at a 45 degree angle! The chair lift would have scraped the ground even without the power chair in it! But yeah, the gate just opened for me and out I went, back on the city streets, and back on the freeway, and then back home, exhausted. I was so happy I cried all the way home. James held dinner for me; it was about six, and it was a turkey burger which I smothered in the wonderful Meadowcroft Farms sweet onion relish. We split a Ritter peppermint-filled dark chocolate bar for dessert. Bliss. My day was complete when I posted my photo op on Twitter and once again thanked Vincent D'Onofrio for his posts—they have truly gotten me through many dark things in the past couple of years—and he liked my post. Well, of course I watched Law & Order: Criminal Intent later on...why do you ask? — [Fitbit stats: 13,546 steps, 5.38 miles, 12 floors, 49 active zones, and 62 active minutes. I put on 1000 steps with walking Tucker twice, but at least 12,000 of those steps were between 8:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. We don't call it "the DragonCon Exercise Program" for nothing.] [At least September 1 was better than August 1. I lost Oliver one month ago today. Miss you, baby bird.] Labels: dogs, DragonCon, dreams, emotions, events, exercise, family, food, friends, television » Sunday, April 28, 2024
Just an Ordinary Week (But...Dogs!)
It was a red-letter week: I finally delivered an overdue Hanukkah gift. It's been a comedy of errors for the last four months trying to get Mel and Phyllis their gift. Either they were where we were and the gift wasn't, or it was the other way around. ::sigh:: It's not even valid as a Passover gift now.The bad news is that James' toe is still not well; we had it checked out at podiatry this week. The doctor said if we were still patient about this we could "stay the course." So we are, but she sent him down for an x-ray to make sure. The good news of the week was Saturday in (1) going to Hair Day (where the Hanukkah gift finally was reunited with its owners) and talking to everyone, except for Charles, who is in Greece! and (2) going to the Jonquil Festival. We got there just in time for the Ready Go Dog Show. All the dogs are rescues, some from shelters, some from specific breed rescue. Five dogs performed: an Australian shepherd, a Pomeranian, and a chihuahua named Tito all chased frisbees. Then Phobia, a smooth Border Collie, jumped from a box over a hurdle six feet high. The final performer was a Belgian Malinois named "Beano," also a frisbee freak. The handler said the hardest thing to teach Beano was "stay"! James got himself two sugar-free desserts (I tasted the lemon cake; it reminded me of the lemon squares from Solitro's Bakery!) and also picked up some jambalaya and red-beans-and-rice for lunches. They had a bumper crop of vendors, but didn't see much that we wanted. The honey guy was there, but he had no small bottles of blackberry honey. On the way out we stopped at the library because they didn't have an outside book sale this year. Their "perpetual book sale" has shrunk from three large bookcases to two smaller ones. I still found three books: Reviving Ophelia, which I've wanted to read; Sisters in Crime, a collection of short mystery stories about women; and Strongheart, an award-winning children's book about the famous dog star. (We did go to Barnes & Noble, and I didn't buy anything. The library books only cost $2.75.) In other news, dropped more stuff off at Goodwill, posted the first part of a seven-part fanfic and redesigned the graphic for the series, tried out a new grammar-checker called Quillbot, and listened to more Colonial Williamsburg podcasts. Labels: books, dogs, events, festivals, friends, gifts, health, sickness » Sunday, February 11, 2024
Anniversaries and Headaches
A quiet week. Our big event for the week was on Friday driving up to Canton for our monthly "trip" (It's about the longest trip we take these days, thirty miles). We browsed around Books-a-Million—I bought four books: a mystery anthology, a time-travel mystery, an Arthurian retelling narrated by Elaine of Astolat, and a rom-com, and James bought me Ali Hazelwood's Bride for Valentine's Day—then had lunch at Uncle Maddio's.We got rick-rolled during lunch. 😊 At least we didn't get Whammed at Christmas. James had his stitches out on Thursday. The ones under the skin graft were so buried we went through four doctors before one could be found who could see the stitches! Now I only have to tend the nose; the graft donation site near his ear has surgical glue on it which will wear off. Saturday was our first Hair Day without Lin. Ron and Sheri (the hairdresser) decided to keep up the tradition. I wasn't feeling good most of the day due to the impending rain and a constant headache which even three ibuprofin didn't relieve, and Lin's absence made it worse. We stopped at Kroger on the way home, relaxed a bit, and then went to the Lawsons for a very delayed Christmas gift exchange. I usually play games with the others, but the headache was so draining I just stayed in the living room with the guys, mostly leaning on James' shoulder. February 9 would have been my mom's birthday, and it was also the 60th anniversary of the great Disney live-action story The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, about smuggling on the Kent coast of England in the 18th century (about the time of the American Revolution). Patrick McGoohan plays both the daring Scarecrow (in a terrifying mask) and the mild-mannered vicar Dr. Christopher Syn. According to Patrick McGoohan, this was one of his favorite acting roles, and the original DVD release, as a "Disney Treasure," sold out in one week. One of the fond memories of my childhood. 
 Labels: books, dogs, food, friends, health, sickness, television » Sunday, December 24, 2023
Food and Not So Festivities
It was an unremarkable week leading up to Christmas. Tucker did finally get his bath. The gifts were wrapped and the spare room finally looks decent again. Wednesday was James' physiotherapy and "Doughnut Day," plus we made it to Hallmark to spend our coupons. Grocery shopping was done on Wednesday, and on Thursday I finally got my birthday dinner.It was terrible. Some friends recommended Bay Breeze a few years ago, and we have enjoyed going there. They have baked stuffed shrimp that is actually affordable, and, even if it's not the "jumbo shrimp" they describe, it's usually good. Well, apparently it's gone way downhill according to other friends. We didn't get our appetizer until after our entree and it was overcooked, the shrimp were overcooked and tough and salty as the dickens, as was the appetizer (potato skins). After we finished eating, we went to downtown Marietta to walk around. We found gingerbread boys at the Australian bakery, went into The Corner Shop (the British store) and the candy store (found a dark chocolate Toblerone for dessert), and I checked out the new bookstore on the square, Elephant Books. (It's pretty much just starting out, so not a lot of books, and it strikes me as a "boutique type" place.) We never did get to the antique store to see the vintage decorations among the vintage items because Mr. Lower GI was acting up again and we had to come home. Friday I finished prepping my 2024 journal, and then Sunday it was back to the chores again, so Christmas Day would be free. Labels: birthday, books, dogs, food, gifts, illness, pets, shopping » Sunday, July 23, 2023
All Around the Neighborhood—and the Dialysis Pitch
So Monday morning I find Pam next door outside raising hell.They have been painting different color warnings all over our end of the street for over a week because Spectrum was supposed to come through to bury a cable. Now I know you can't do a damn thing about utilities digging near the curb, the "the first three feet (or whatever) belongs to the city" thing. But we've had cables buried before; they basically dig a slit into your lawn and slip the cable between it; the lawn grows and you never notice again. They buried our fiber line when we had it installed; I can't tell where anymore. But apparently, according to Pam, they were going to dig up the actual lawn, and here basically is where my charity stopped. She kept running out there to make sure they didn't topple over her mailbox, and I spent the afternoon in the foyer writing on my laptop with the front door open and the fan on me to make sure no one invaded our lawn. They did dig up the lawn of the guy next door to Pam (the House With the Red Door) and Tony's lawn beyond that (although I have to admit they did a fairly good job of putting the sod back down, it was still a mess out there). On Tuesday James and I finally installed a couple of hand railings I got off Amazon Vine for free on the lower staircase. They're supposed to be shower handles, but they're nice looking, chrome with black handles, and after going crazy finding the studs (we have two stud finders, both giving us different results) and avoiding the metal supports at the corners of the walls and breaking one drill bit (me), it took about three hours, but we got 'em secured. Of twelve screws, we got eleven in the studs and only one in a wall anchor, and we used deck screws instead of the ones that came with the railings. I find myself using them, so it's worked out well. We also have a date for the stairlift installation: July 31. I told James we'll have to name it "Harry." (July 31 is Harry Potter's birthday.) This was the first year we haven't gone to the Hallmark Ornament premiere on opening day (James was too busy getting Libertycon memberships), so we went on Wednesday. All I got was the St. Joseph ornament, and James got this year's airplane and also the little Fisher-Price mini airplane for the tree. I found a sweet gift for Juanita's birthday there, too. And, by God, The Avenue at West Cobb Barnes & Noble did have the new "Yankee." Thursday James had another iron shot scheduled, so we went for that, then went down to the pharmacy to pick up his prescriptions. The nurse came to shag us down because we had to go back upstairs and listen to the Kidney Counselors for an hour. Not to be rude, guys, but we've done this already. They are sure prepping us for dialysis. They also told us that to keep Dr. Kongara, we would have to drive to Kaiser's Cascade facility three days a week. If we went to DaVita (we have one five minutes down the street) or one of their other clinics, we'd have to be at the mercy of their nephrologist. Oh. Joy. Interestingly, they also told us that now you can do hemodialysis at home; you just have to have room for the equipment and I'd have to be willing to learn how to "plug him in" and do the sterile techniques. What fun. Friday we had Hair Day—always good to talk with friends—and then James had a video appointment with Dr. Kongara. More dialysis talk; his numbers must be terrible. But he's peeing fine. The doctor was asking if he was losing his appetite, or experiencing nausea or vomiting. Um, no. In fact, the lidocaine seems to have worn off and he's walking better (with a cane rather than the walker) despite the chronic pain when he does. Saturday was a double treat: Juanita's birthday party at the Longhorn in Kennesaw—and it's a good thing I looked at the invitation because James led me to believe it was the Longhorn on the East-West Connector—and then we came home to watch the long-publicized Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover, which was a gas and a half. I loved the end when they "cartoonized" the Strange New Worlds cast—Spock's arm! 😂😂😂 And today Tucker had a bath. It was on my to-do list for this week, but became required when I didn't pay attention to the fact the poison ivy had grown back at the front of the complex, where, of course, I walked him this morning. Yes, I'm tired. So I threw his bedding in the washer and watched Law & Order: Criminal Intent. So there. Labels: books, Christmas, dogs, events, health, home improvement, magazines, neighbors, pets, television » Sunday, April 09, 2023
Easter and Other Cotton Tails
We are spoiled, and it began the day James retired.We have no bedtime anymore. Unless we have to get up early—and we try to make appointments so that they're 11 a.m. or later—we don't go to bed at least until midnight (for a while, until I set the timer on the television to turn it off at midnight, we were staying up to watch Barney Miller on FEtv, since it follows Emergency!). By the time we shower, medicate, and I treat whatever outbreak James has on his left leg this week, then read for fifteen minutes, it's 2 a.m. We get up between 9:30 and 10 a.m. and by the time breakfast is over, since James has been making delicious homemade oatmeal every morning since the first of the year, it's eleven or after. (And, yes, I know this is going to play hob with Tucker's dog walk once it gets really hot. I already have a rash from the few days it's been warm.) So it was literally hell this morning to have to get up at 7:00 a.m. to drive Tucker across town to get his teeth cleaned. We had to get him there before nine so we could pick him up by 2:30 (and when we got there they said 4:30, and I said, "The doctor said that if I got him here before nine we could have him by 2:30," so they took him back and said 2:30). Now we had to hang around Perimeter Mall for almost six hours. We started out with breakfast at Panera. I have been spoilt by James' oatmeal; Panera's was as heavy as a rock. Combined with a bagel, it sat on my stomach for hours. Then we went on to the Container Store to get a few things, and next the Barnes & Noble next door. I needed something I thought I might find in Michael's, so we went there, and we also checked out Hobby Lobby. We ended up having lunch at Tin Drum. Sixty dollars for two meals out. Incredible. Finally it was time to pick up Tucker, who blinked at us sleepily. The bill was over $800. And we got stuck in traffic on the way home. A couple of more appointments for James this week, the usual chores. We went to Lowe's one afternoon for a paving stone; I put it over Snowy's grave and also put up a little white bird metal ornament where the birds are buried. Anyway, I left the DVD recorder/VCR unplugged for a week and now it seems to work fine. The reason neither it nor the Chromecast (which were both on the same HDMI switcher) were working was that the USB electrical plug for the HDMI switcher died. A new plug solved the problem. Spent a long cold Saturday dubbing stuff off the DVR. Then Easter Sunday was nicer: watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail and The Easter Promise, we had ham and potatoes for dinner with half a Lindt dark chocolate bunny for dessert. Later on it was time for Call the Midwife. Labels: dogs, Easter, food, pets, retirement, shopping, television » Sunday, September 25, 2022
Fun With Friends and Foods
First week on the semi-new schedule (new schedule will not start until James' full retirement), so all the Sunday chores are now on Monday. And there are only two more weeks in which I have to cook dinner! This is totally an occasion for rejoicing.The dog got a bath this week. As usual, he hated every minute of it, and then gamboled around like a puppy afterward. » Saturday, August 27, 2022
Friends and Flying Things
Summer's fading away...and good riddance. It's been a crap summer, from the temps to poor James' perpetual illness. I started the last full week of August by "drowning" the dog—Tucker always makes me laugh; he looks pitiful through the whole process but is happy and smiling once I'm done and enjoying his nice clean coat, and the inevitable cookie. The next day we had the first of James' post-hospital doctor's visits, to his GP. 3:20 p.m. appointment; didn't see the doctor till five. Sigh.Started the weekend early as we had some friends come into town on Wednesday staying over until the next day. First I did laundry and cleaned off some of the kitchen, though; they didn't come over until this evening, where we finally exchanged Christmas gifts. I had a nifty little pocket knife and also a Barnes & Noble gift card, so maybe I will get Ali Hazlewood's new book after all. James got a knife sharpener, which I hope will improve the performance of our steak knives. Labels: chores, dogs, food, friends, gifts, health, pets, seasons, sickness » Saturday, July 23, 2022
The Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Sort of a blah week, mostly chores and nothing much worth writing about, except that James finally got his Medicare card, so that we could fill out his Kaiser papers for Medicare Advantage. Oh, and we ended up going to two different Walmarts to find various little things. So exciting, eh?Friday was a little more exciting because we went to "re-up" the post office box for the HOA and we also watched Encanto, which was colorful and fun, with entertaining characters. I love the aunt who always had the rain cloud following her around, and I felt bad for poor Bruno (who we really should have talked about 😔 ). The other Friday event was a little more exciting in a way I didn't want it to be. When I took Tucker out for his nightly walk, we were accosted almost immediately by a rather...I guess I could say excited...pit bull type dog. He was not vicious or threatening, but Tucker felt intimidated and started growling at him, and this dog wasn't huge, but he was big and could have hurt either of us if "Little Caesar" there started being aggressive back. So I kept shooing him off and we did get back inside. But Tucker did need to get out and pee! So I finally loaded him into the car and went to the front of the complex, figuring maybe the dog belonged to or was visiting someone in the back. While Tucker was sniffing and peeing out front, I saw an SUV slowly coming down the street, and someone calling. When the car came abreast us, the woman driving called to me "Have you seen a blue pittie?" and I said yes, that he was down our street. In fact the dog was just trotting up the street and was about two houses away. The lady drove her SUV up to him and I heard her say "You bad boy!" Soon he was whisked away and we got back in the car and drove the several feet home. That's the most adventure I want in my week, thanks, unless I win the lottery. » Saturday, July 16, 2022
The Medical Cart and Other Tales
This was pretty much a work week: two straight days (Sunday and Monday) of regular housework and then chores that are done irregularly (plus loading the endless maw of the dishwasher). On Monday Peachtree came by to look at the thermostat. The reason the Smart Hub keeps dropping out is something about it being a low voltage line in competition with surrounding high voltage. Yeah, but we never had these problems with the old thermostat, so can't you fix it? He fiddled around and did a few things. It still drops out occasionally, but I guess it's not so frequent as before.Tuesday was the Great Dog Wash and Great Dog Bedding Wash, which pretty much knocks me out for the rest of the day, leaving me to indulge my Law & Order: Criminal Intent habit... James had to take a half-day on Wednesday because he can't see his cardiologist at the end of the week. Dr. Shosh said he looked okay and that it was fine for him to be off Plavix for five days before having any teeth pulled. Alas, after having a toothache for several weeks, the dentist tells him he has to go to an oral surgeon because his roots have grown sideways or some damnfool thing. In the old days you went to the dentist, and if you had a toothache they just pulled it, no muss, no fuss. Sheesh. So we found out we couldn't get an appointment with the oral surgeon until August 11, and then that was just for them to look at his teeth, so he has to go another month on salt rinses and Ambesol. We've already spent about $30 on Ambesol already and it's not helping a lot of times. Friday was a little bit fun: we had to pick up a scrip at Kaiser and then went to Sonny's for barbecue (nice big portions, so we have another dinner). Hit the nearby Dollar Tree and they must be very shorthanded because it looked like a bomb went off in the store: merchandise on the floor everywhere. So avoid the Dollar Tree near Sam's Club at the Big Chicken. We also went to Book Nook, and I want to applaud the employees for even staying there, because the A/C is on the fritz and it's like an oven inside. I did find another John Douglas book and one about forensics. Anyway, July 12 was Prime Day. This year I bought nothing but a three-tier cart, rather than anything electronic. I'd never seen a cart like this, with little hanging cups and dividers for the trays and hooks. On Saturday I loaded up the cart—not with fun craft things, but with all of James' medical supplies: the gauze, the Coban, the Betadyne, the stretch bandages, etc. out of the box on the floor and up higher, with extra supplies down below. Now I can just roll it out when I need it and put it back in the closet when I don't. Did a bunch of other rearranging on Saturday, too, and felt like I accomplished something. Labels: books, chores, dogs, electronics, health, illness, pets, shopping » Saturday, April 30, 2022
Return of the Well, the big news this week was that Fitbit finally contacted me because FedEx Ground finally delivered my broken one to their California headquarters. I figured it would take another month to get a new one back, but it arrived within three days! Then, of course, came the charging and the pairing and trying to find my favorite watch faces again. I need to, someplace, save which ones they are, because there's only one that still tracks active minutes, and I had to go into the Fitbit forum to search for what it was.A bonus was that it came with two pair (large and small size) of bands, one a blue "camo" sort of design, which James snapped up. Otherwise it's been sort of an off week. Last year when James went to the urologist, we found out his prostate is starting to grow back, but he was still "flowing" okay. We're not so sure that's true this year. Going to the the urologist at the end of the month hopefully will shed some light on this. Also, the knob that turns the different settings on our nice magnetic Moen shower head broke off. This was annoying because that shower head ran about $60 last time we bought one at Bed, Bath & Beyond. But I found another on Amazon for only $38 and ordered it that way. (We also did go to BB&B...which looks really bare. Is the chain in trouble? I couldn't even find poop bags for the dog.) Oh, and I gave Tucker a bath. This week we also had a nice Friday lunch at Okinawa with all three of the Spiveys, ate a final dinner at Ken's Corner Grill, which is closing on May 7, and...oh, yeah, I bought some more books. (But this is hardly news.) Labels: books, dogs, errands, friends, health, pets, shopping » Thursday, March 17, 2022
On the Road Again
And once again it's time for Atomicon.I'd packed yesterday and sorted two weeks of meds on Sundays, so that was the hardest part. The annoying part is all the stuff you have to wait in the morning for, like the charge cords for the phones and the last-minute meds. And then you have to wash the breakfast dishes so they don't sit for the weekend, and toss the trash. » Saturday, November 20, 2021
"The State of Happiness is Just a Point of View..."
It was a week of in and outs. On the "in" side I did some book reviews and blogged and shelved books. On the "out" side, I finally got rid of the alarm clocks—we don't use them anymore and there's no radio station I want to wake up to any longer.Thursday was a usual shopping day, Lidl, Publix, and Kroger in a row. And then we managed to have a little fun at Barnes & Noble. I'm having to buy "Yankee" magazine again since Nook canceled my electronic subscription. But at least the print copy came with a calendar, so I'm stocked on calendars now. James also took delivery on a sanitizer for his C-PAP machine. We are hoping this will cut down on the allergy problems he's been having for the last few months (he gets up sneezing very hard and it continues all day). I've been washing the mask and making sure there are no particulates in the tank, but this will make sure all the germs are taken care of. » Saturday, November 13, 2021
An Unexpected Vacation, or Doctors' Appointments, Store-Hopping, and Crime Series Watch
If James was going to have a week's furlough, at least we could get a "sort of" vacation out of it. So I turned off all the alarms and we looked forward to a nice Monday morning of sleeping in.Thanks, Alex, for coming to cut the grass (last cut of the season). Absolutely no thank you for showing up at 6:50 a.m. Sigh. In the meantime, James devoted Monday to giving the stovetop a good scrub. Tuesday I did the laundry (because Wednesday was reserved for our "big exciting trip" down to Kaiser Southwood) and a couple of the chores I would have done on Sunday. Happened to catch a message that Vincent D'Onofrio was going to be on the gossip show Daily Blast Live, so we watched it this afternoon. Sure wish the hosts would shut up and let the guest talk instead of bantering amongst themselves, but this seems to be the fashion today. Miss Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas, and Merv Griffin, who actually let their guests talk—what a novel idea. For the rest of the day I had my D'Onofrio/Erbe fix—mostly watched Law & Order: Criminal Intent. (I've started—early, since it was a birthday gift to myself—watching the DVD set I bought and realized the initial shows were still done in the era of pan-and-scan.) So Wednesday we had to drive 35 miles to the Kaiser Southwood office—thankfully traffic only a problem until we got to the I-20 cutoff—to visit James' urologist. Didn't realize we hadn't seen him for over a year! Dr. Starr did a cytoscopy (sp?) on him to make sure his bladder was emptying properly (it is). Apparently his prostate is growing back slightly on one side, but has left a sizable enough gap for everything to come out properly, so it's not a problem right now. There was a bit of scar tissue from the surgery, which the doctor was able to clear. We also picked up some new "hats" so James could continue monitoring output. Dr. Starr will see us one more time in May, and then he is retiring, bless him. If anyone deserves it, he does. And then he will recommend a doctor at Glenlake, which will save us these marathons to Southlake. We had planned to eat our anniversary dinner—did I mention Wednesday was our wedding anniversary? it's our "Baskin-Robbins anniversary," 31derful years—at the Olive Garden nearby, but, forever spooked by Atlanta traffic as always, we drove back home and ate at the Cobb Parkway location instead. I did the make-your-own-pasta (rigatoni with marinara sauce and meatballs) with a salad and James had his favorite, chicken marsala, with a "zuppa toscana" chaser, and we shared a piece of black tie mousse cake as dessert (the waiter wrote "Happy Anniversary" on the plate in chocolate fondant, which was sweet). Of course if Olive Garden's marinara sauce gets any sweeter, we're going to have to start classifying it as a dessert... To get it out of the way, we stopped at Publix on the way home. Thursday we had to complete James' doctor trifecta for the week. We had an appointment at Glenlake with a podiatrist in the morning, so instead of taking the freeway, we did our usual back door route through Lower Roswell and Paper Mill roads and were rewarded with gorgeous autumn color (Paper Mill is a ritzy neighborhood, so the houses are set in groves of trees, and the road itself descends to a creek bottom where the mill used to be and then back up). Glenridge Drive behind Kaiser Glenridge was beautiful as well. We saw Dr. "Mosh" this time (he has a very long last name) and he agreed with me that Dr. Friedman's suggested method of treating the little ulcer on James left "ring toe" was not working and changed it. Now I am to put betadyne on it and he gave me some silver-infused Mepilex foam to put on top of it. He also gave us some silicone spacers to use to keep James' baby toe from rubbing the affected one. Since it was on the way home, we stopped at Trader Joe's to (1) get a quick lunch, as we like their wraps, and (2) pick up more stuff. They had the Christmas stuff out so we got fresh "candy cane Jo-Jos" (Oreo cookie-type filled with crushed peppermint), peppermint bark, and peppermint puffs covered in dark chocolate. There is a Lidl nearby now, so we stopped there for our Lidl stuff like mandarin oranges, bakery items, etc. and found a loaf of whole wheat bread for James since Publix didn't have any. We were even able to get the two stores' worth of groceries home and put away and sit for awhile until it was time to hit the last appointment, the nephrologist, who gave James a clean bill of health. On the way home this time we stopped at Kroger for milk and yogurt and ramen noodles. Friday we actually had a free day, so took some stuff to Goodwill—sadly James' old desk chair was too battered for them to take—and then went to Walmart to get James new compression socks, plus what stock of sugar free hard candies they had (not much). On the way home we stopped at Popshelf to get James some Tina burritoes (their beef and bean flavor has the lowest sodium count of all the pre-made burritoes in the stores). Saturday! Finally! The event we'd waited for for two years: Free Electronics Recycling Day! Now we could safely get rid of the damn microwave that James rapped the truck door on every time he got into the truck. And the three dead UPS units, a VCR that wouldn't even turn on anymore, a fan, various little electronic devices, my old alarm clock, RCA cables, old lamps, etc. However, they would not take the light bulbs, even the damn CFLs which are supposed to be toxic and are supposed to be disposed of properly. Made me angry. We hadn't been to the Farmer's Market in downtown Marietta in a dog's age, so we went there next. Didn't have much money, but we bought some sweet Argentinian chorizo sausage (which we had for supper; it was delicious, but the sample we'd tasted was not so salty, or we wouldn't have bought it) and of course homemade dog biscuits for Tucker. We also brought the six preserve jars we've been saving for months on the drainboard to the guy who makes his grandmother Lillian's Hawai'ian marinade, as he recycles them to put his product in. It was crisply cold this morning, which made loading the electronic junk in the truck and walking around downtown a positive delight. We walked around the square as well and stopped at The Corner Shop (a.k.a. the British store) and bought a Terry's dark chocolate orange, a couple of meat pies for James, some chocolate "Christmas pudding," and a Scotland sticker. Then we went into the candy store next door where they sell all sorts of hard candies and unusual candy bars and different brands and flavors of sodas, and they had four kinds of sugar free hard candies! James got sugar free Chik-O-Stiks, butterscotch candies, root beer barrels, and peanut butter bars. Finally we stopped at The Local Exchange, but they didn't have any Marietta Square stickers (ours have been burnt out by the sun), so we got back into the truck and headed for home. As a last treat for our unscheduled "vacation," we each had a doughnut at the new "Dunkin" on Powder Springs Road near where we used to live. And thus ended the furlough, because James got the call that he was all funded up again—well, for the next six months anyhow—and back to work on Sunday. Alas, back to my having to cook dinner. But a week was a nice vacation from it. In various other news, we are watching Star Trek: Prodigy—James likes it, I don't hate it, but I could skip it without pain—and, between out bouts with watching Murdoch Mysteries, we are dipping into the original CSI on Hulu (it's on Paramount+, too, but the commercials on Hulu are less obnoxious). William Petersen is almost as nice to look at as Vincent D'Onofrio. (Notice I said "almost" here...LOL.) Labels: anniversary, autumn, chores, dogs, electronics, food, health, shopping, television, vacation » Sunday, August 29, 2021
Black Sunday
I lost a friend today. Even though she and her husband were both vaccinated, they caught COVID-19 a few weeks back. He has recovered, but she was medically fragile and was sent to the hospital. Her health wavered up and down, but finally her lungs became too stressed. This morning I got a message from a mutual friend that she was failing, and she passed on just before noon. We were not just friends but for several years she was also my supervisor at work. I couldn't have worked for a better person, strict but fair, and I learned many things under her tutelage.  My favorite memory of her comes from one of our Twelfth Night parties. I was going from room to room talking with people, and when I got down to the den I had to burst out laughing. She and her husband have always been big dog lovers, and there they were, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table, spreading crackers with cheese spread. And then feeding them to our dog Leia, who had stationed herself between them, gratefully accepting all their offerings! So, somewhere out there at Rainbow Bridge, I imagine Leia has found Betty, who is still feeding her cheese and crackers.
» Saturday, August 28, 2021
The Hits Keep on Comin'
Well, it's been a week. Sunday night as we were heading for bed, James admitted he was having a pulling pain across his chest. He tried lying down and it didn't feel better. We gave him a nitroglycerin and then a second one, but neither helped. Normally, at this point I would have been getting dressed to take him to the emergency room, but we'd read the report about the hospitals being at bursting point, and didn't know if we went to a hospital if we'd be turned away. So we ended up calling an ambulance, and they took him off to Kennestone Hospital. No visitors until they assigned him to an ER room. From James' account: The newly expanded Emergency Department at Kennestone Hospital was full to near bursting. It was a half hour before I could get off the gurney that I rode in the ambulance ride. I then was in a room labeled "Transfer Bed Storage" that was subdivided with portable screens for several hours. I was then moved into "EMS Receiving" (I think) before I was moved into a room in the "Clinical Decision Unit" in the hospital itself. Linda was waiting to see me in the ED waiting room, and was told she could see me once I had a room in the ED, but once I was moved into the main hospital, she couldn't come in due to CoVid restrictions. I had a number of conversations with the nurses and orderlies I met during my movements and all were overworked and highly stressed as they were very shorthanded. Apparently people at all levels are leaving in droves. The orderly who moved me from the ED to the CDU said he had four people on his shift quit that day. They and the nurses were quitting because the hospital was mandating the CoVid vaccination a mandatory requirement of employment and they did not want to get the shot. This kind of boggled me since I told a little white lie to get the vaccination as early as I could. While he was going without sleep and food, I got what little sleep I could, walked the dog, had something to eat, and went to the emergency room, which, as James recounted, was stocked full. While I was sitting there, a woman came in, with her left hand in bandages. Apparently she'd been in a car accident the day before and was now in great pain. When they told her how long the wait was, she burst out into tears. Another dude was hassling the check-in staff, and the security guard had to escort him out. After a while I was turned away, so came back home. James kept me posted on what was going on. I was worried he wasn't getting his medication, which was confirmed when they kept complaining about how high his blood pressure was, but he hadn't had any blood pressure meds since Sunday morning. They finally gave him the lisonipril, but wouldn't let him take the carvedelol because it might interfere with the stress test. At one point they told him he wasn't getting the stress test that day. So he took a nice big drink, and only then did someone walked in to tell him he was getting the stress test. Which came up with...almost nothing (but at least he finally got something to eat). He did have a value that was off. But he didn't have a heart attack. Or fluid on his lungs or heart. Or COVID. In fact, his creatitine was down to 2.15, and his A1C is 6.4! So they sent him home with orders to see his cardiologist and get another echocardiogram (although the one he had three weeks ago came out fine). He's been having trouble with his allergy all year, waking up every so often sneezing copiously, eyes itchy, and stuffed up, and is now wondering if he's been sneezing so hard that is what caused the chest pain. (Tuesday I did a wholesale clean out of his C-PAP, scrubbing everything with soap and water, then alcohol, then a water rinse.) And then he finally gets his shower Monday night, and...argh, another big blister on his left calf. So we're back to non-stick gauze and coban tape. Monday I gave Tucker a bath. Tuesday I brought Tucker home from his walk limping again, this time on his left forefoot. This time when I washed and treated and bandaged it, I left off the Elizabethan collar and he restrained himself and managed not to gnaw at the foot until I took off the bandage before his nightly walk (at which time he was walking fine). But all day he waved the paw at me every time I looked at him. At times it was comical; I'd say "Hi, Tucker" and he would look up at me pathetically and wave the bandaged paw. The weekend has been much calmer (well...I hope so, since the day's not over yet). Thursday we went to deposit a check at the bank and got James' truck inspected so he could renew his car registration. Only when we finished with that did we get to do the Lidl/Publix/Kroger hustle. I ended up getting milk at Kroger because one of the gallons of skim milk at Lidl was leaking and we couldn't tell which one. Well, I committed one hell of a boo-boo after this. Neither of us had slept well. We got home and schlepped all the groceries upstairs and got them put away, and then James, at the request of his boss, worked five hours because they were shorthanded. I fell asleep on the sofa. At Kroger, on
the manager's special shelf, I found a pound of ground beef for $3. It
was 15 percent fat, but if we get one of those, James usually either cooks it
and then drains it, or fortifies it with TVP (soya), which thins out the
fat. Well, I had brought in the milk from Kroger in, but forgot the bag from
Kroger. Only when I started prepping to make supper did I
realize the yogurt wasn't upstairs, which meant neither was the ground
beef. I had to throw the meat away. Wasted three dollars and good food. The yogurt was room temp when I brought it up. Don't know if it's still good or not. Friday James had his every-so-many-weeks appointment at podiatry. He had two toenails that looked like they were becoming ingrown, so the nurse had to do a lot of work on him. I am back on "betadyne duty" for a week, making sure where she treated doesn't get infected. The podiatrist is worried about the little sore on his "ring toe" on his left foot, although he's had it for months. It looks a whole lot better than it did in the spring; it just won't dry up because it's between his toes. I've been ordered to put betadyne on that, too, and not cover it so it dries up. Odd that they didn't tell us that before. We needed something from Costco, so made the trip; it wasn't there, but we picked up a few other things. Stopped at Barnes & Noble and I committed book: they have their Book Haul this month, and I found The Secret History of Home Economics at fifty percent off, and the same discount as well on Wintering, which caught my attention at the beginning of the year. It was one of the nominees for B&N's Book of the Year. On the way home we stopped at Publix for the eggs we'd forgotten. This morning we skinned out of the house with minimum breakfast, in search of what we needed at the Kennesaw Costco. And there we did find it. Also found James some new almond-flour crackers that he can snack on without amping his carbs. Had some nice samples there as well, including organic lemonade, sundried tomatoes and cheese on crackers (which tasted like a mini-pizza), coconut-flavored dark chocolate covered almonds, and an outstanding piece of bratwurst that didn't come up on me. As a replacement for missing breakfast we had lunch at Otter's Chicken (great wings there), and dropped in at Hobby Lobby to revel in all the autumn decorations. There's a light at the end of the smothering, stuffy, sweaty tunnel that is summer. Spent the early evening watching horse racing from Saratoga, and then later Law & Order, because literally nothing else watchable was on. Hey, all you people in New Orleans...be careful out there. Labels: books, crafts, dogs, food, health, pets, shopping, sickness |
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