Part of the Group of dancers at the Celtic Festival
The Squire and me, squinting into the sun. I was still in a cast, so everything I wore was a muumuu of some sort. And a sweater. It was cold down there!
Most of the units had their hurricane shutters in place.
For as long as I can remember, I have been tired. My mother used to tell me I was so lazy I was even born late. When I was away at school, we didn’t have study hall on Friday night and could stay up an hour past our regular bedtime; I’d leave the dining room and go straight to my dorm. Even now, I sleep ten hours a night, and whenever possible I take a nap after our mid-day meal.
A few years ago my GP found that not only was my thyroid on the blink, but I am extremely anemic, which would explain my chronic “pale and interesting” complexion. He put me on an iron supplement which was strong enough to plate a battleship, and caused considerable, um, gastric distress. So I have limped along, trying to eat more raisins and spinach, which have the same effect, although mild enough that I can function.
My former endocrinologist retired, and my first appointment with the new one involved the usual interview and review of symptoms, mostly drop-dead fatigue. She also suggested an iron supplement, and I explained I had a bad reaction to that medication. “Nonsense! People get constipated from iron, not diarrhea!” Oh, we are off to a good start! Nothing like somebody who has never seen you before telling you that you don’t know how your own body works. “Take this for a month and come back for another blood test.”
I’m taking half the prescribed dose, and am answering the call of nature often enough for it to be considered a litany.
And I only thought I was tired before.
On a whim, I purchased a super-deluxe ladies razor, with “ribbons” of shaving cream and body lotion built into the head. Some swell, as they say.
Well, I don’t know what was in that stuff, but my legs broke out in a rash from my ankles to my knees. I had to take a second shower, and rub some prescription anti-rash stuff all over, and I still scratched so badly I drew blood.
Yeesh.
Well, wadya know? “Go get the ax” is a real song! My girlfriend found the lyrics online someplace, and sent them to me. It just doesn’t get much better than this:
GO GET THE AX
(Grandpa’s Wooden Leg)
by Lesley Nelson-Burns
Peepin’ through the knot-hole
of grandpa’s wooden leg,
Who’ll wind the clock when I’m gone?
Go get the ax
There’s a flea in Lizzie’s ear,
For a boy’s best friend is his mother.
Peepin’ through the knot-hole
of grandpa’s wooden leg,
Why do they build the shore so near the ocean?
Who cut the sleeves
Out of dear old daddy’s vest,
And dug up Fido’s bones to build the sewer?
A horsey stood around,
With his feet upon the ground,
Oh, who will wind the clock when I’m gone?
Go get the ax,
There’s a fly on Lizzie’s ear,
But a boy’s best friend is his mother.
I fell from a window,
A second-story window,
I caught my eyebrow on the window-sill.
The cellar is behind the door,
Mary’s room is behind the ax,
But a boy’s best friend is his mother.
The horses run around,
Their feet are on the ground,
Oh, who will wind the clocks when I’m away, away?
Go get the ax,
There’s a fly on the baby’s chest
And a boy’s best friend is his mother, his mother.
While peeping through a knot-hole
In grandpa’s wooden leg,
Oh, who has put the shore so near the ocean, the ocean?
Go get the Listerine, sister’s got a beau
and Grandma’s false teeth will soon fit Jenny, fit Jenny.
While walking in the moonlight,
The bright and sunny moonlight
She kissed me in the eye with a tomato, tomato
A snake’s belt slips because he has no hips
So he wears his neck tie around his middle, his middle.
I normally wind our tall-case clock on Sunday morning, before church, but it dawned on me while we were fixing dinner (The Squire was cooking; I was just supervising.) that I had forgotten to do so, and hustled off to take care of that little chore.
When I came back into the kitchen, I started to sing a “song” that my German grandmother used to sing when I was a kid. No, it doesn’t rhyme, and the tune, such as it is, doesn’t qualify as catchy, but maybe it was better in German than English. I dunno.
Looking through the knothole in Grandpa’s wooden leg,
Oh, who will wind the clock when I am gone?
Go get the ax; there’s a fly on Baby’s nose,
And a boy’s best friend is his mother.
The Squire just stared at me. It’s nice to know that even after forty years, I can still sca – um – surprise him.
They just don’t write songs like that anymore. (I think it’s illegal.)
“Goin’ downy oshun, hon” is Baltimore-ese for heading the Ocean City, which The Squire and I, along with my brother-in-law, did this past weekend. Eldest Daughter has a condo, which she was kind enough to let us use. Everything we needed was there – eggs in the fridge, shampoo and soap in the bathrooms. Eldest Daughter and her husband do not drink coffee, but Brother-in-Law had brought his coffee pot. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any milk (I put coffee in my coffee) so poor BIL had to top off his coffee with whipped cream. Kaffe mit schlagge. But – the whipped cream had both milk and sugar.
We spent Saturday at a Celtic Festival in Berlin, Maryland, listening to bagpipes and watching Irish dancers. Wow! I get winded watching those young ladies, and they weren’t even breathing hard. Listened to a story teller, and watched a blacksmithing demonstration. The fellows watched a demonstration of swordplay; the knights slaughtering the peasantry, The Squire called it. The actors had some of the kids in the audience (mostly boys, obviously) come into the arena and flail about, smacking their wooden long swords against the knights’ shields, and then moved in to corner the child. They would take a collapsible sword and “kill” the child. There was some mighty inventive dying going on, let me tell you. One kid would spin in circles, crying “I’m dying! I’m dying”, while another would simply fall flat clutching his chest, flapping like a fish out of water. In the end, the knight would pull the sword from the hilt and the “stab” the child one more time; the blade would slide up into the hilt, so there was no harm done, and the boys just loved it.
While we were touring the museum-cum-gift shop, The Squire was inspecting an interactive display of various woodland sounds – a rattlesnake, and some bird calls. Suddenly I heard a familiar sound. “That bird!” I called to him. “That bird! That’s the one I’ve been hearing in the yard. What is it?”
“Oh, that? It’s a red winged hawk”, he replied, in a tone of voice that indicated I should have known all along. Someday…
Later, we went to dinner at The Green Turtle, which as to be the noisiest place I’ve ever been in my life. Just about every table had a TV set, each turned to a different game – some football, some baseball – and even with half the sets muted people were still straining to make themselves heard. And then suddenly, everything went quiet. One set was turned to a baseball game, and a young man began singing God Bless America; everyone stopped to listen. It was truly moving. I know there are folks out there who will have a fit over mentioning God, but the national anthem is SO hard to sing, and this was just lovely. A lot of people in the restaurant clapped, and then things returned to normal.
This morning we drove back to Berlin to go to church at St Paul’s. I managed to misread their website, and we arrived at 10:00 for a service that began at 10:30. Ah, well. At least we didn’t have to fight for a seat. We’ve been there before, and as luck would have it, hit Rite I both times. They do Rite I and Rite II on alternate Sundays, and for those of you who are not Episcopalians, Rite I is more traditional, and Rite II is very modern. (Guess which one I prefer?) This parish is VERY high church. The altar is still against the east wall, and many parts of the service are chanted or sung. I just took off and ran with the chanted psalm, and left the fellows in the dust. Ah, bliss. At any rate, it was nice to be able to go to church and not have to robe up or be an usher, but to just sit in the pew and worship.
We met my cousin and his wife for lunch, and exchanged medical complaints, and caught up on kids and grandkids. We came back to Ocean City and strolled the Boardwalk, working off some of those excess calories. The Boardwalk is interesting for about three blocks, and then it gets repetitious. Every block sells sunglasses, saltwater taffy and T-shirts. Over and over.
It’s a great place to be if you are a people watcher, though. Some of the oddest folks outside of Wal-Mart march up and down that strip. A lot of nice folks, but some real weirdoes in between. One lady is going to bewilder me for years to come. She was wearing a dark dress and shoes, and the little circular cap that many Mennonite women wear instead of a prayer cap. Except hers was black and covered with sequins.
Wondrous strange.
We have two hummingbird feeders and three regular bird feeders right outside the den window. This is part of the reason I never get anything done.
Even this late in the year, we are still getting hummingbirds, tanking up, I suppose, for the long trip south. After the squirrels have eaten the seed and peanuts we put out in the morning, they know just how far away to start their running leap to land on top of the guard, and then hop up onto the feeders, dangling upside down to eat the seed there. I’m not sure of the reason for this, exactly, as there are now plenty of acorns, which can be collected without the calisthenics. However, with all the bending and stretching, we have noticed at least one female seems to still be nursing, even though it is pushing the first of October. A little late in the year for that, girl.
The Squire and I are trying to pin down a new bird. The bird has a particularly raucous cry, which sometimes wakes me in the morning, but The Squire can’t hear it without his hearing aids. He has marvelous eyesight, but I can’t see the bird without my driving glasses.
Teamwork.
When I was a kid, milk was not homogenized. Store milk came in “baby faced bottles”; the cream rose to the top, into the “baby’s” head, and could be poured off, if desired. Other then when I was away at school, we drank farm milk, which I was able to purchase until about fifteen years ago. To this day, I always turn the jug upside down before I pour out the milk, to mix in the cream.
Our family drink is a combination of 1/3 fruit juice and 2/3 diet ginger ale. The juice bottle always needs to be shaken, as the pulp sinks to the bottom.
Ginger ale does not need to be shaken.
Last night, The Squire and I went to the library for a meeting with Ben Franklin.
What an amazing man he was! He only had two years of formal education, but his great love of books and reading led him to be ahead of his time in every possible way. He went to England to help defuse the coming war; the colonists, for the most part, were willing to remain part of the British empire, but England treated the colonies as a cash cow. His description of Parliament then sounds a lot like our Congress now. He discussed the passage of the Townshends Acts, which was the final straw for the colonies. “Never was so much trouble unleashed with so little discussion.”
He gave up and came home.
Franklin worked with George Washington to force the thirteen individual militia to work as a single army. Each militia had its own drum and bugle signals, and all were loath to agree to a uniform code. (Ah, States Rights!) He was ambassador to France, he started the first public lending library in the country in Philadelphia, he set up a new Post Office system and served as Post Master General. He was the only man to sign all four of the following documents: the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris that ended the war, and the Constitution. His last public act, in 1788, was to sign an appeal to Congress calling for the speedy abolition of slavery.
This marvelous one-man show was put on by a local fellow, David Fisher, who has combined a love of history and acting into bringing Dr. Franklin to life. He lives near Baltimore, and if you live along the Eastern coast you might want to go to his website https://sites.google.com/site/drbenfranklinspeaks/ and see about getting him for your organization. Unsolicited testimonial, here. As a re-enactor myself, I know how much goes into this sort of thing.
Had a rather rough night last night. I’m not in as much pain, but trying to get the cast in a comfortable position was difficult (I think I have it figured out now.), and – the curse of the elderly – both The Squire and were popping up and down to go to the bathroom. The dog sleeps in the hallway, and he was getting disgusted with us. I keep telling him “Stay down” and sometimes he does, but most of the time he stands up and gets against the wall, so he was grumpy about being disturbed so much. After I smacked him twice with my cast, I finally told The Squire to go sleep in the guest room, so at least one of us could get a decent night’s sleep.
This morning, he helped me wash my hair at the kitchen sink. I think I’m going to let him keep me.
Saturday night was just about unbearable, and I called the answering service before we went to church, saying I wanted to discuss the pain and swelling with someone as soon as possible, so I would leave the cell phone on vibrate during service. When we arrived, Fr. M, who is a paramedic, took one look at my hand, went for his sick call set, and gave The Squire and me Communion in his office. He then chased us out the door with a broom and told us to go to Patient First or the ER.
I called the answering service back and left another message.
Neither the clinic nor the ER were able to help me. The hand needed to be re-cast; one was unable to do it and the other unwilling. Came home and called the answering service twice more. So much for 24 hour service.
The doctor’s office called at 9:05 on Monday morning – yesterday – and I was given a 1:00 appointment. We arrived at 12:45, and were back home before 1:30. The doctor did re-cast my arm, and the new cast, having been put on over the swollen knuckles, is much more comfortable. Although my thumb is still immobilized, my fingers are completely free, which has a great psychological benefit. I am able to make a fist, and the exercise has brought down the swelling considerably. At any rate, I was able to sleep last night, and so was The Squire. Poor man. It can’t be easy, having your bed-mate popping up and down all night long.
I had my choice of colors for the plaster wrap, and chose green; it will match the liturgical season! I’ll be in this blessed thing until late October, so might as well make the best of it.
Went up and did the wash this morning, and I was able to help The Squire get it all on the line. Frankly, I think I was more ornamental than anything else. I’m useless at fixing meals, too, as I can’t even manage a can opener. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
My mother would have a stroke over the way that man hangs up clothes. (Well, if I did it, she’d object, but him? She’d think it’s cute.) However, I have learned over the years that panties dry just as well hung from a single clothespin as they do from two, and take up a lot less line space. Two napkins, smoothed together and folded over the line don’t have to be ironed, and don’t have clothespin marks. At least, he’s never tried to hang a round tablecloth by its center, as one of my relatives used to do. Have you any idea who hard it is to set a table when the center resembles a wizard’s hat?
The Squire and I managed to get me in and out of the shower without too much hassle, but getting my hair washed involved going to the salon. Do you know what they want just to wash your hair? Yeesh. We are not going to be able to do this twice a week for the next month. It was Local Granddaughter’s mother-in-law, and I don’t think she would have charged me, but the shop manager rang up The Squire’s haircut and then looked at mother-in-law so she could put me in the register. Better luck next time. He can stay in the car or something.
thisendoftheswamp 