Busy Weekend

10 Apr

Saturday was the annual Equitable Alumni Meeting. Normally we have it on a Wednesday night, but this time we decided to try a Saturday noon event, since none of us are getting younger, and invited non-E spouses to join us, for the sake of those don’t like to drive alone.  A lot of funny stories, as usual. One fellow told us about a kidnapping threat he received, when he was told they were holding his pregnant wife for ransom. Much derring-do with the FBI, and money bags stuffed with newspaper.

Palm Sunday was our annual scramble.  For the last five or six years, Resurrection has joined the Roman Catholic church in meeting on the Presbyterian parking lot for the blessing of the palms and the traditional All Glory, Laud, and Honor. DSCN0268Because our service is at 10:00 and both of the others meet at 11:00, we compromise on 10:30. Of course,  there is always somebody who forgets completely,  or arrives just as we are leaving, and all that good stuff, but it is nice to worship together in God’s great outdoors.

One of the members of Good Shepherd brought a miniature donkey, and everybody got their photo taken. I don’t know the name of the new minister there, but this is Rev. Kim and me deciding we didn’t want to ride into Jerusalem or anyplace else on Jack. I tried to convince her I was too tall, but she was short enough to do it. Obviously, she didn’t buy that theory.

And then, in the afternoon, The Squire invited me on a date. Really. No particular reason. Nice!

We went to a lovely Nepali restaurant for dinner, and then to the movies.  We both like real Indian food – not Americanized stuff – and this was the real McCoy. The waitress asked how spicy I wanted my food, suggesting one to ten, with five being medium. I opted for six – and lived to regret it. Six is D— hot, thank you very much!

And then we went to see La, La Land. It was a very good movie, and we both enjoyed it. It didn’t turn out the way we thought it would, but that made it even better.

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Well, Yeah

5 Apr

There was an announcement on the air this morning that an Air Force jet had gone down near DC, during National Guard maneuvers. The Grandson is in the AFNG, so I froze for a moment, until the reporter said that the airman was based at Andrews, and had ejected safely. He had steered the plane toward an patch of trees before he bailed out so there were no injuries or damage on the ground, although the people in the area had been evacuated for several hours as a precaution.

“The pilot was an adult male, and was taken to a military hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.”

I don’t care if the pilot was male or female, but I am very glad to hear it was an adult!

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You Talk Too Much

3 Apr

 

Last night was absolutely dreadful! I was in a terrible amount of pain from my throat, and was up and down several times, trying to either relieve the soreness, or just get myself bombed enough to sleep in spite of it. I even took a painkiller that had been given to me when I had my throat operation. It’s a wonder I didn’t poison myself! Not that I’d have cared at that point.

The doctor checked me out and we got that squared away – lungs clear, blowing my nose was unproductive, yadda, yadda.

I am still reading Dr. Warraich’s book, Modern Death, and we batted around our various horror stories. He had one patient who was braindead, and the family agreed to remove the tubes and machines. “How long will it take?” “Most people die within two or three days. Some longer and some shorter.” The machines were disconnected – and the family waited. And waited. And waited.

The woman began breathing on her own, and then sat up. She was completely lucid – other than the fact that she was convinced it was the early 1950s.  She discussed the place where she worked, believed Eisenhower was the President, knew where each of the children went to school, and was convinced her oldest son was her husband.

After a few days, she lapsed back into a come, only to awaken a few days later – in the 60s.  She woke up, a decade at a time. The doctor said she was just rebooting. Verrrry slowly. She recovered completely and walked out of the hospital, hale and healthy.

By the time The Squire and I sat down to whatever meal it was, my throat hurt so much  from chattering away that I couldn’t eat, and forget about talking. If nothing else, I’ve dropped several pounds with this plague. We have knitting on Monday evenings and Thursday mornings, and I’d missed Thursday’s get-together, but I was in no shape to go out tonight.  The Squire, bless him, offered to run to town and get my medicine (why do they give people with sore throats such BIG pills? Yeesh!) and drop off some stuff for the knitting group.

Sometimes, I look at him in complete wonderment. Where did he learn to be such a perfect husband, and what did I ever do to deserve his love?

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The Plague and I

2 Apr

Since last Wednesday night I have been grappling with either the world’s worst cold or a case of strep. Probably the latter.

I called a friend from church on Wednesday evening and told her I wouldn’t be at knitting in the morning, and spent most of Thursday curled up in bed with hot tea and warm oatmeal.

The Squire kept me well supplied with books, tissues, and soft food. I’ve eaten a lot of scrambled eggs this week, I’ll tell you!  He even fixed me what passes for scrapple in our house, bless him. Oh, I am so lucky to be married to that man!

When you come down to it, I felt well enough to go to church this morning, but I can’t talk (oh! the horror!) and we’ll just draw a curtain over my attempts to sing. I had called a friend to serve as chalice bearer this morning, but he sent me an email at 10:05 saying he wouldn’t make it. (Seervices start at 10:00, so that was no help at all.)  If I’d known in time, I’d have shoveled myself into a heap and gone anyway. As long as somebody else read for me, we’d have managed.

I already have an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow, so while he checks my latest meds, I can have him take a look as my throat.

 

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Bye, Bye, Blackbird

1 Apr

Whenever we have a snowstorm, the various blackbirds – redwings, starlings, and grackles – will flock to the feeders because they are unable to find their normal diet of bugs and grubs under the snow. As soon as the ground is clear, they fly off.  While they are coming to the feeder they are absolute vultures, eating – or wasting – everything in sight.

As a rule, we don’t have them hanging around, but because the only snow worth mentioning came in mid-March, the blasted things have decided to stay. They can clear out a three pound feeder in less than two hours, and leave the cardinals looking utterly bewildered.

At least they are willing to eat the cheap stuff from the grocery store, and I am more than willing to let them. I’ve had to bring in the finch feeders, as the blackbirds will rummage in them, tossing the Niger seed on the ground and eating the tiny chips of sunflower seeds. The finches won’t eat off the ground, and nobody else seems to like thistle seed, so it is a wasteful and expensive situation. At this point I’ve just decided to pull all of the feeders and hope to starve them out.

 

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A Matter of Life and Death

29 Mar

I have just finished reading two books written by physicians,  about the ways people torment their loved ones when death is on the horizon.  One is Extreme Measures, by Jessica Nutik Zitter, and the other is Modern Death, by Haider Warraich, and I heartily recommend either, or both.  Dr. Zitter takes a more “human” approach, while Dr. Warraich discusses, among other things, the way cells die.  All cells die; if they did not, we would have 9 miles of intestines and almost two tons of bone marrow in our bodies by the time we reach middle age.  It’s the cells that refuse to die that cause cancer.

Dr. Zitter writes about how families either refuse to face the fact that their loved one is dying, or they want the doctor to do “everything possible”.  Neither is good.

Yesterday was the 48th anniversary of the death of President Eisenhower (yeah, that’ll make you feel old!) and I remember my daughter, who was seven, asking us why they kept poking him.  The wisdom of a child!

Ask your doctor what he wants done when he is in his final illness.  Chances are he wants to be kept pain free and then “go away and don’t bother me”.

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The Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Day

22 Mar

Actually, today started out fairly well. There was a want-ad in the local paper for a receptionist, every other weekend, from 10AM to 7PM. I called and got the address, but the GPS didn’t like it, so halfway there I had to call The Squire and ask him for the phone number. I had omitted one digit from the address. Filled out the application and spoke with the lady at the desk, and things seem to be OK, but who knows?

I stopped to see Granddaughter-in-Love, and visited with her and the baby for a while. I had hoped to stop at a nursing home to visit two ladies from church, but I didn’t have time, as I had to stay with the other great-grandkids at 1:30, so “Mimi” (my daughter; their grandmother) could go to the dentist. Before she left, Mimi showed me where the Keurig machine was, as she knows I am a coffee hound.

That was when things went downhill in  hurry. Mimi was there when I arrived, and gave me a list of phone numbers and showed me where the snacks are located. “The Princess just went down for a nap, so she should be good until I get back. Butch has been down a while, so he might wake up in a half an hour or so.” She had no more than closed the door behind her when The Princess sat up in bed and started to cry. I watched on the monitor for a few moments, hoping she’d go back to sleep, but no such luck. I went up and opened her door, but the child-proof gate was also Gran-mama proof, so I couldn’t get in to collect her. I asked if she wanted to come over and I would pick her up, but she waved me away. Closed the door and she started wailing, loud enough to wake her baby brother.

Great.

Took Butch downstairs and sat him in his highchair, and I could see she had gotten out of bed; back upstairs and lifted her over the gate. Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I carried her downstairs and the three of us sat on the sofa. She stopped crying long enough to admire my shirt, and then rolled into a ball and started to fall asleep.

Butch crawled over and pulled her hair.

I couldn’t find their phone, and discovered I’d locked my purse – and my phone – in my car. The Princess was bawling her eyes out, and I was afraid the neighbours would think I was killing her. I want my mama! Where is Mimi? Finally, I put shoes on the big one and hitched the little one on my hip, and we set off with the paper with the list on it, to knock on doors until I got somebody to call their mum. I was about to give up when a truck pulled in down the street, so we hustled over there. I introduced myself, and the fellow said he knew the children and their parents. He called my granddaughter at her work, and she came home immediately. As in five minutes!

She called The Squire, and he agreed to come up and rescue me. What else could he do, poor soul?

Granddaughter left Butch with me and took The Princess to work, long enough to clear her desk and forward the office calls. The Squire arrived a few moments later, and I told him about my day. It must be the phases of the moon, because he said he had written down the address and when he stepped out of the door the wind grabbed the slip of paper and tossed it into the stream.

And I couldn’t figure out how the Keurig machine worked.

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A Last Hurrah

14 Mar

We have hardly had any winter at all this season, but apparently Mother Nature had one of those “Hold my beer and watch this” moments.

It started snowing around 8:30 last night, and by 1:30 or so this morning it had turned to a mixture of freezing rain and sleet. Yuck. We only had an inch or so here, but it was treacherous. Sirens were going all day, and I heard a tree fall a little distance up the road when I went out to feed the birds. Blazer went leaping across the carport for his morning constitutional, but made a sudden U-turn when his feet hit the snow. He did follow me to the feeders, but returned to “dry land” and waited for me to come back.

It started snowing and sleeting again a little after noon, but it really didn’t amount to much. With the wind and the sleet, it sounded as if somebody was throwing pebbles against the window.  At the moment, it is above freezing, so everything is slush, but it’s supposed to go down to the mid-20s after dark, and then the world will be one huge skating rink.

Local Grandson is a lineman for Baltimore Gas & Electric and was “lucky” enough to draw storm duty today. He doesn’t mind the work, but people who act as if he personally turned off their power, and the ones who insist they should be first “just because”, are, quite naturally, annoying and just make the work harder. If you see somebody up a pole, go take them a cup of hot coffee.

 

 

 

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Greedy, Greedy

11 Mar

And see where it gets you!

A quick trip to the discount club this afternoon, and there was a kiosk offering free samples of peanut butter-cheese crackers, if you swiped your club card. There were a whole bunch of people waiting in line, and we didn’t want to wait.

There was a woman at the kiosk, holding up traffic, swiping her card again and again, piling up packets of crackers and dropping them in her purse. She must have had a dozen.

Willing to bet you that she didn’t notice the sign:

Free Crackers – One to a Customer

Additional crackers will be charged to your account.

Ha! Take that!

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The Amazing Flying Woman

6 Mar

Saturday I tried to see if I could fly.   I can’t.

As I was coming down the stairs, my foot slipped on the carpet on the fourth or fifth step from the bottom and I went sailing.

I landed on my side on the floor. Missed the carpet, of course. A huge bruise on my cheek, and my ribs are sore – I probably only bruised them, but there is nothing to be done with ribs in any event.

The Squire was at the “Y”, but Blazer came over and helped. Stuck his nose in my face, whuffling and snuffling to see if there was anything he could do.  Dagnabbit, dog, but it hurts when I laugh!

If nothing else, we can be sure I don’t suffer from osteoporosis.

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