Three times again

Well, life is always interesting here.  Last week C (son) fell off the truck lift and broke his leg.  And not just a simple fracture,oh no.  He cracked his tibia right behind his knee cap. (A fracture of the tibial plateau).   If it doesn't heal correctly, it could fuse and result in a knee that cannot be bent.  He now has a full length brace that he must wear unless he is in the shower or changing clothes; crutches too.  Next week he goes for a CAT scan to see if the end of the tibia itself has fragmented from the downward pressure in the fall.  If so, surgery.  If there is ligament or tendon damage, surgery. We must wait for the results, which are to be done now so as to give the swelling time to go down. The only saving grace is that he is on workman's comp., and not having to pay for this on his own.

I have jury duty starting in June, through July. 

I have cataract surgery next week, too.

The horses are nearly out of hay, the rain has been so persistent that the path into the barn would stick the hay truck in mud.  We will try tomorrow to get a partial number of bales (around 50) to see us through until the rotten weather eases, using the four wheel drive pickup.

N (husband) finally got a hearing test, and it shows that he cannot hear in high range at all, and that the mid-range frequencies (voices) are weak.  I thought he was just ignoring us...

And finally, daughter R is moving her job into a new building.  That doesn't sound too traumatic but R doesn't like changes, and this is sure to send her into a tailspin.

Interesting times.

Bumper sticker:  "When everything is coming your way, you're probably in the wrong lane."

I'm a sucker for jokes like this

A couple lived near the ocean and used to walk the beach a lot. One summer they noticed a girl who was at the beach pretty much every day. She wasn't unusual, nor was the travel bag she carried, except for one thing. She would approach people who were sitting on the beach, glance around, then speak to them. Generally, the people would respond negatively and she would wander off, but occasionally someone would nod and there would be a quick exchange of money for something she carried in her bag. The couple assumed she was selling drugs and debated calling the cops, but since they didn't know for sure they just continued to watch her. After a couple of weeks the wife asked, "Honey, have you ever noticed that she only goes up to people with boom boxes and other electronic devices?" He hadn't and said so. Then she said, "Tomorrow I want you to get a towel and our big radio and go lie out on the beach. Then we can find out what she's really doing." Well, the plan went off without a hitch, and the wife was almost hopping up and down with anticipation when she saw the girl talk to her husband and then leave. The man walked up the beach and met his wife at the road. "Well, is she selling drugs?" she asked excitedly." No, she's not." he said, enjoying this probably more than he should have. "Well, what is it, then?" his wife fairly shrieked. The man grinned and said. "Her name is Sally and she's a battery salesperson." "Batteries?" cried the wife. "Yes," he replied. "She sells C cells by the Seashore

Suzanne

I haven't felt much like posting here, because last week my very very best friend died of inoperable lung cancer.  We have been buddies since the 5th grade in FL, that's more than 50 years, and I thought of her as my sister, much more so than my actual sister.  I haven't written anything here about my friend as she battled her disease because she read this blog and I didn't want to compromise her privacy, or to make her feel like she couldn't get away from her trials and just read here for a chuckle or two.  Now that she is gone I feel the need to talk about us, if that isn't too weird.  We'll see.

When we lived in Memphis in 1970, Suzanne and her husband came for a visit. We all went for a ride on the Mississippi River; went to see Graceland (Elvis’ home), feeding squirrels in the park and so on.  We couldn’t do some of the things available because starting out we were pretty broke once the bills were paid.  But after they left, I found where Suzanne had tucked dollar bills all throughout the apartment for us to find.  There was one in the refrigerator!  She was so generous.

She came to see us in San Francisco in the 70s and we had a good time going to Alcatraz, Chinatown, walking along the Pacific Ocean, etc.  But the thing I remember best was seeing her riding my horse in Golden Gate Park.  She was wall-to-wall smiles.

In WV she came for a stay and went downhill skiing (something I have never been brave enough to try).   She was a strong shoulder to rely on when I went through my own cancer.

Growing up in FL she would frequently tell the story about how I helped her with her bike when she began crying, back in the day when she was 9 or 10.  She was the bridesmaid at my wedding in 1970.  We sang in the high school chorus, went to church, sang in the choir, and went to see Camelot. She teased me about my hair (usually a wreck) and we talked about boys.

But in all of these times together the main thing we did was talk and talk, about the world, about our families and community, and reminisce about the “good old days”.  She was incredibly generous, with money (I never could snag the check when we went out) as well as her time (like all the activities she organized for my first trip to her in FL) ; was a talented singer, had a wicked sense of humor and a caring outlook for people and animals.  It is so sad that a kind and well-loved woman had her time here cut so short.  I thought we would become old ladies together, but it is not to be.  I will cherish the times we had together.

 
"Don't cry because it's over.  Smile because it happened."

Older and Wiser

(I found this on the knitting forum)

Have you ever been guilty of looking at others your own age and thinking, surely I can't look that old?

Well...you'll love this one.

My name is Alice Smith and I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist. I noticed his DDS diploma, which bore his full name.

Suddenly, I remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40-odd years ago.

Could he be the same guy that I had a secret crush on, way back then? Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought.

This balding, grey-haired man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my classmate. After he examined my teeth, i asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School .

'Yes. Yes, I did. I’m a Mustang,' he gleamed with pride.

'When did you graduate?' i asked.

He answered, 'In 1975. Why do you ask?'

'You were in my class!', i exclaimed.

He looked at me closely.

Then that ugly, old, bald, wrinkled, fat, grey-haired, decrepit, S.O.B. asked me:

'What did you teach?'

Stormy Weather

We have had some rip-snorting weather for the last two days, big thunderstorms, the kind that make you jump.  Three of the house cats are chickens and hide inside the closet downstairs.  The other three can't be bothered; I understand why Gracie doesn't run, she is deaf and can only feel the vibrations. But the other two are nonchalant.  Why is this so odd?  Has to be something from kitten-hood, before we got them.  Anyway, the three scaredy cats eventually venture forth, stretching and all, Hiding, who me?

I have been reading several books by Melissa Olson, fantasy with vampires and werewolves, etc.  That makes them sound pretty juvenile and schlocky but they are a pretty good read.  These have been on my Kindle (instant gratification when ordering a book).  When i went to select one of them, Amazon told me I had already purchased one of them 3 years ago.  When I looked in my archives, sure enough there it was.  I  have no recollection of ever reading it, so there was another "new" book to read.  The problem with finding a new author is that I read faster then they write, so once I have covered all the previous books, I have to wait, sometimes a year or more, for the next installment.  And it leaves me searching for another author.

I was one of the early adopters of the Kindle.  Our actual bound versions of books have been driving us out of the house, one bookcase at a time.  I (guiltily) tossed several hundred books recently, when I gave up on selling them on Abebooks (see the clickable link at the right).  After two years (or more?) I basically paid people to take my books, what with the monthly charge, and the shipping, and it couldn't continue.  We offered them to the library (no) and to the used book store (going out of business) and finally at a flea market (a nickle each; if they didn't have a nickle, then just take them), and had hundreds left.  There are more in the attic, and filling boxes in odd corners of the house, and I can't justify keeping them all.  But I did cringe when we dumped them at the transfer station (trash site).

I went to google maps not long ago, looking at the street view of the house I grew up in.  I wish I hadn't looked.  When I first checked several years ago, the house looked fine, but this time I was sad to see that the chain link fence was gone, as were the awnings, and the windows were boarded shut and worst of all the lush green yard was now scruffy weedy dirt.  I guess it was a defaulted mortgage.  This was in North Miami, and the house was built in the 50s, when my parents moved out of Washington D.C.  I slaved over that yard for all the years I lived there, I swear my mom thought the yard police were coming to arrest her if the yard wasn't pristine.  We also had 3 huge hedges, all had to be cut back to military perfection, and I had the calluses to prove it.  This was before electric hedge trimmers, I should add.  Maybe the house will eventually be opened again, it is built of cinderblock and the roof is tiled, so sitting for a while won't hurt it, I think.

Bumper sticker for the day:  "I like you but if zombies chase us I'm tripping you."

Test results

I saw my GP doctor last week, and he found some worrisome lab results when he did his routine tests.  I am on antibiotics (which make me feel crappy) and will return on Friday.  I hate waiting like this, it leaves my imagination too much time to churn out nightmares, fueled by all the stuff on the internet.  It could be just an erroneous lab result, I worked as a medical technologist for several years, and I know there are scads of errors made, even with the most OCD of techs.  I will try to be unperturbed until I know more.  Update: The doctor switched me to another antibiotic (which is very very bitter, I might add) and took blood for further analysis.  Still a puzzle to figure out, but not too serious.

It is a beautiful day today, Easter Sunday.  Even though we don't celebrate it, I think it makes a nice boundary between winter and spring (which was its origin, until it was co-opted by the Christians; they didn't approve of the fertility rites).  It may snow later this week, but it won't amount to much, it is far too warm.  All the stores are loaded with candy and baskets and easter grass, thank god my kids are well past that age.  They went to a Catholic elementary school, which was academically great and a little too holier-than-thou about religious training.  They knew our kids were not Catholic (we paid twice the tuition because the parish didn't subsidize it), but there wasn't any overt catechism training, and not much preaching either.  But the Easter celebrations were a little too fixated on crucifixion and rising from the dead, a little macabre for a young child, when you look at it. Just my point of view, as a heathen.

The dogs are once again barking and barking, we go out to check things out (after the raccoon affair several posts back) and there is nothing.  One dog is lying in the sunshine and barking at the sky, what is with that?  Low flying birds?  UFOs?  I dunno.

Bumper sticker for the day, "Chocolate comes from Cocoa which is a tree.  That makes it a Plant.  CHOCOLATE is SALAD!"