Tag Archives: The Squire

Don’t Bury Me at Sea

29 Apr

I have seen enough water problems in the forty years we’ve lived here to last me well into eternity.

Sometime during the winter a new spring opened up in the flower bed outside the den window. The water runs under the retaining wall, along the walkway, and then spreads across the walk until it reaches a point where it can cross and run down the other side and into a trench The Squire and I dug to direct it vaguely in the direction of the stream. I scrub the walk about once month with the push broom and bleach water to keep the “yuck” under control.

Last week we noticed a new spring about ten feet from one of the two wells in the front yard (We don’t call this place the “Rice Paddy” just to be funny.) and this morning The Squire went out to see if he could figure some way to direct the water toward the well, rather than having another trench or a sinkhole in the front yard.  To make a long story short, the answer is No. We did use the plumber’s snake on the pipe that runs from the well to the pond, and we are hoping that opening that up completely will keep water from seeping up into the yard any more than it is already. The well has so much pressure that it was coming up around the pipe faster than we could sweep the water into the pipe.

We were carrying all the tools back to the house, and I had kicked off my shoes rather than get them all muddy walking across the yard. The Squire, in a moment of pure whimsy, decided to go down the walk “to keep his shoes dry”. Mind you, his shoes cost over $400 and are made to conform to his feet, so this was not a totally unreasonable idea. However, the walk is covered with water – and slime.

Before I had a chance to react, his feet went out from under him, and he went crashing to the ground. He tore up his left shin, and managed to get himself thoroughly covered with dirt. Blazer was hopping all around, trying to help his poppa, and both of the humans – in spite of the pain – were laughing so hard it was difficult to get The Squire upright again.

A warm shower, lots of gauze and Bacitracin, some aspirin, and a dish of ice cream, and I think he’s going to survive.

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All Dogs Go to Heaven

21 Apr

The Squire and I normally eat our breakfast in front of the computer, checking our email before we start the day. I bring Blazer’s dish into the den and he eats with us.

Dinner and supper, we eat in the dining room, with the dog’s dish on the floor at the end of the table. He will not start eating until we do.  Today, both The Squire and I were out at dinner time, and even though we had put food in the dish, it was untouched when The Squire got home. When he sat down to work a crossword puzzle, the dog came in and sat beside the dish, looking up expectantly. Finally, The Squire bent his head and said grace over his puzzle, and the dog began to eat.

You may make of that what you wish.

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Confined to Quarters

11 Apr

Wednesday night, I noticed a soreness on the left side of my throat, going up into my ear. Aspirin and lots of fluids, and figured that was the end of it. By yesterday, I could barely speak, which you may have guessed is pretty serious for me.

Last night, I had a choking fit. My throat was sore and my uvula was so swollen I couldn’t breathe. This morning The Squire piled me into the car and took me to the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center. (A friend says he has a hard time reconciling the words “Johns Hopkins” with “Doc in a Box”, but that is exactly what it is.) I was so exhausted, and still dopey from the codeine cough syrup, that I fell asleep on his shoulder after they had taken my BP and temperature.  My local cousin’s wife (cousin-in-law?) was coming out just as they called me back for treatment. She spoke to me and asked why I was there, but I couldn’t answer her and just motioned to The Squire. Turns out she also had a scratchy throat, and he told her he hoped she “caught” it before it turned into the monster I have.

Anyway, I am confined to quarters for the duration, and on penicillin, codeine and Chloraseptic until further notice.

I have to tell you, Chloraspetic does work, but it tastes the way an old dog bed smells. I can’t get it in the right place when I spray it, so The Squire has to do it for me. True love, and all that. My throat is still sorest on the left side, so that’s where he aims. I was swishing the stuff around and then swallowing it, but he informed me I am supposed to spit it out. He has been fluffing and patting, plying me with hot chocolate, tea, and soft scrambled eggs.

What would I do without him?

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Persistence, Thy Name is Procyon Lotor

2 Apr

??????????There is no system on earth that a raccoon will not  try to outwit. We bought this suet feeder about a week ago, not so much because it is squirrel proof, but to keep the bloody grackles and starlings from eating everything in sight.

To fill it, you unscrew the knob on top, drop two suet cakes into the “pockets” and then hang it from a convenient place.

The first night it was up, the local gang of raccoons managed to unhook it from the post, nearly pulling said post out of the ground in the process, and then rolled it across the lawn and into the stream, where they abandoned it. They did manage to reach in and dig out most of one suet cake.  Mind you, there was a dish with three cups of dry food already on the patio for easy access.

Last night I left my car window rolled down about half-way – and this mess is entirely my own fault – and the raccoons managed to squeeze through the narrow opening and play havoc with two bags of peanuts I left on the back seat.  Bless him, The Squire took on the job of vacuuming out the mess, and retrieving my personal belongings from the peanut shells.

He put all the peanuts and shells that looked worth keeping in a plastic sack and put it on the patio behind him while he finished running the vacuum. Instead of grabbing peanuts out of the top of the open bag, the brazen squirrels came up behind him and chewed a hole in the bottom of the bag – which he discovered when he picked it up to move it.

Ain’t country linving grand?

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Back to the Salt Mines

19 Mar

The Squire got home after dinner on Tuesday, and Wednesday morning the church secretary called, sounding very apologetic, to say she couldn’t get her computer tuned on and could he please come over and take a look at it.  While he did that, I got the count for the soup supper – 21 people – and decided I needed to take another look at my recipe, as I had only planned on cooking for 24.  No big deal. Crank the recipe up one more notch.

We went to breakfast at IHOP, and then to the store to pick up twelve pounds of squash and six  packages of cream cheese. I cut the squash in half, lay it cut side down on a rimmed cookie sheet, and bake it for about a half an hour. Once it has cooled, I just scrape out the meat and dump it in the pot. While it’s baking, I sauté the onions in butter, and pour in the water, spices and bouillon cubes. It really does look grody while it’s cooking, but a whirl in the blender with the cream cheese, and it looks like liquid gold.

My Butternut Squash soup is easily the most popular soup served during Lent. (Excuse me while I break my arm patting myself on the back.) One lady had already gotten ready for bed, and when she heard it was Butternut Squash night, she got dressed, and brought a container so she could take some home for her husband!

While we were eating, The Squire very casually remarked that, in addition to the “we don’t keep people in the hospital this long” remark, they had also told him his blood was so thick it was starting to clog his veins. He wouldn’t have lived the night if I hadn’t taken him to the hospital. Lovely. I don’t think I was supposed to hear that part of it!

We went to the Laundromat this morning, and I have spent the day playing put-and-take with the dryer. I will be so glad when I can hang the clothes on the line again!

Snow tomorrow, and in the mid-50s over the weekend.

Nuts.

 

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He’s Home!

17 Mar

After an extremely long and frustrating day, The Squire is finally home.

Yesterday, he called me around 12:30 to say the nurse had told him the doctor would be in to see him in about 20 minutes, and they would discuss a possible discharge. It takes 15 minutes to get to the hospital, so I grabbed a bagel and drove his car down the road. (It is almost impossible for The Squire to fit into my Nissan; he has to ride in the KIA.) I arrived shortly before 1:00, bummed countless cups of coffee from the staff and got a bag of cheese crackers from the machine; that was my lunch. At 4:05 I slipped my purse over my shoulder and kissed him goodnight.

As I reached for the door the doctor walked in. We weren’t nasty, but we made it quite clear that this had been easily the longest 20 minutes on record. He did apologize, and said he’d had two admissions, ya-dah, ya-dah, but then told my husband that there were still some problems with his blood work and they wanted to do a stress test early this morning – NPO, of course.  “We’ll make as early as possible, so you’ll be back in your room for breakfast.

Ha!

I had asked my girlfriend if she wanted to meet me at IKEA for breakfast at 9:30, and then I’d go over to the hospital and she could do some shopping. Well, she couldn’t make it, and it was all for the best. I moseyed around here, running the vacuum, dusting, etc. and call The Squire’s room several times, beginning around  11:00. By 1:00 I was absolutely frantic, and could not find a phone number for the hospital. Whitepages.com is the most single useless piece of junk I have ever encountered. You look up one hospital and the first thing you get is a listing for another hospital entirely, and then two veterinarians, and finally six – six – listings for the hospital you want. Each one goes to a different department, but you don’t know it is until you call, and a sweet voice informs you that you have reached the Women’s Pavilion, Sport Medicine, Neuro and Pulmonology, and so forth. There was NO listing for the front desk.

Just as I was about to jump in the car and go down there, The Squire called from his room, sounding very, very tired. They had collected him at 11:00 (I probably just missed him) which doesn’t count as “first thing in the morning” in my book, and had brought him back up at 1:15. Because of his feet, he had to have a thallium stress test, which he passed with flying colors. Honestly, if I had gotten there at 10:30, fully expecting him to be back, when he hadn’t even left the room, there would have been Big Trouble. When I worked at Hopkins, thallium tests were very tightly scheduled; if you were told your test would be at 9:30, don’t show up at 9:32. They’d send you back home. I suppose in-patient testing is a little “looser” but it’s annoying to the patient and the family.

Anyway, two doctors came in around 3:30 and gave him the all-clear, and said he ought to have his discharge papers in hand by 5:00, so he called me to come get him. Yesterday we had discussed whether or not he would have been able to manage this at home, rather than my dragging him down to the ER. They both told him No. One doctor hung his elbow over the I.V. stand and said he didn’t think “you wife would be able to handle this” and the other looked up from a sheaf of papers  and told my husband his electrolytes would have never gotten back on track by themselves. “Believe me, we don’t keep patients in the hospital for five days if they could get well at home”.

So, we walked out a little after 5:00, and came straight home. The Squire wanted to work on his genealogy stuff, but gave that up after about ten minutes. Right now he is watching TV, and I fully expect to find him sound asleep when I go up.

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Still Here – or There

15 Mar
     I came home last night, typed up my blog, fed all the critters, and fell into bed.  When I went upstairs, our bed was made, but the guest room bed was open, as that was where The Squire had started to sleep. I was too tired to turn down our bed, so just flopped there. Slept straight through until 8:30,  when both the cat and Blazer came in to inquire after my health, “and by the way, we’re starving”.
     I had every intention of going to early church, which starts at 8:00, so that took care of that. I ate some breakfast and ran a few errands, and went on down to the hospital. The Squire was drifting in and out of sleep, so I just sat and knitted, like Mme. What’s-her-name during the French Revolution.
     The doctors seem to be giving this everything they have. They are keeping The Squire hydrated, which is the big thing at this point, as he has had liquid diarrhea to go along with all the other stuff. Diarrhea alone can kill you, so that’s a big deal. When I was there last night, they had put a “pot” into the toilet, and the tech came in to get two different fecal specimens for testing. They have ruled out c. difficile (?) and food poisoning, which I had pretty much eliminated anyway, as we had both eaten the same thing for dinner. Other than Imodium, I.V. potassium, and the I.V. fluids, I don’t think they’ve given him any sort of medicine. He has, at least stopped vomiting, which is a big help. They say his blood is “compacted” – too thick from all the loss of fluids.  His blood chemistry is all out of whack, and the staff is just trying to keep ahead of the symptoms.  Every once in a while he will get a searing headache and spike a fever, which nobody has been able to explain.  I did ask for the doctor to call me, as a) my husband is hard of hearing, b) he is so sleep deprived he admits he doesn’t always know – or remember -what he’s told, and c) I have a medical background and can get a better handle on what’s being said.
     He had gone to his urologist on Wednesday and that doctor had told him the blood tests showed his blood was “too thick” and recommended he see our GP about it. We think this crud was already working on him then, although he doesn’t remember any symptoms.
     Everybody has been wonderful.  The I.V. technician came by to make some changes to his line, and I told her he had just drifted off to sleep. “No problem. I’ll come back later.” I know the woman had five patients to see just on this floor, so that was really kind of her.
     At the moment, The Squire understands that there is a good chance they may release him tomorrow after lunch. He did have chicken parmesan and peach cobbler for supper – the first solid meal he’s had since Friday lunch. He wanted to walk around the unit for a bit, so I helped him get a gown on to cover his back, and then he brushed his teeth. By then he was exhausted, so he never did get his walk.
     We only have one bathroom, and that is on the ground floor, so I will open the sofa bed so he can sleep downstairs.

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Of Hard Drives and Furnaces

11 Mar

The Squire found his missing hard drives late Monday.

I was sitting on the sofa reading, and he came into the living room for a kiss. When he bent over, he discovered the cases sitting on the floor, under the end table – in more or less plain sight. Well, at least one can assume it wasn’t a place a thief would think to look.

We went to see our financial advisor yesterday (which is not quite as impressive as it sounds) and got to talking about misplacing things, and stuff piling up when you’re not paying attention. I remarked that from time to time I have to watch a rerun of Hoarders just to get motivated. Bill laughed and said his dad could have outdone them all; his father was a hoarder to end all hoarders. The house was so cluttered with stacks of papers and other junk that there were only narrow, unstable, paths to get from room to room. Many years ago, the furnace had gone up, and his dad had ordered a new one, which the men were unable to get into the basement, so they left it in the dining room.  Now old furnaces were big – maybe five or six feet long, by four feet high – and this thing sat in the dining room, taking up most of the space.

At some point, his dad was taken ill and spent some time in the hospital, so Bill and his siblings decided to clean the house. He said they actually had a celebration when they found the dining room table. (Sounds like my mom’s apartment, doesn’t it?) Imagine their astonishment when they uncovered the furnace! Here is this huge, hulking monster, so completely covered with junk nobody even knew it was there.

Bill said they were all very pleased with what they had accomplished, but their father never forgave them, and groused about it until the day he died. At least my mom was so foggy she didn’t even realize we’d cleaned up.  I wonder how long it took Bill’s dad to get the house in a mess again? My mother had her apartment “re-junked” in about a month.

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Still Digging

8 Mar

Well, in spite of some very, um, entertaining dreams, The Squire still hasn’t found his missing tapes.

He spent most of today entering family information from sheets his middle sister gathered at a family reunion several years ago, which he had picked up while we were visiting last week.  It is a wonder he has not pulled out what little hair he has left. As far as first names go, his family is as bad as French Royalty. Got a good name? Stick with it. He has at least twenty people named Alonzo, several in the same generation, where three siblings would each name a son after their father. Y’know, stuff like that’ll drive a genealogist bonkers.  Some people who filled out forms listed their parents, spouses and children as requested, and others listed only first names or nicknames, and one person, asked to list children and grandchildren only wrote “too many for this paper”. He has a cousin (or is it an uncle?) known only as Fat, and another is listed as Kissy.  And then there is a woman named Betty Elizabeth.  Who are these people?

Way back, when I worked for Blue Cross, I took a call from a fellow who was adding his infant son the his policy. His name was Francis J. and his wife was Frances M. The new baby? Francis T. “You named him Francis?” I asked weakly. “We named him after my father.”

What do these folks do when the phone rings?

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Playing Hide and Seek

6 Mar

We got a call from the vet at 7:45 this morning, saying that we could come up and get Blazer any time we were ready. We went to the Y and worked out, then swung over to grab the dog, who was mighty glad to see us. The tech said the vet had decided to close the clinic yesterday because of the snow, rather than risk somebody falling on the parking lot, and she had come over about noon to feed the animals. I must have just missed her, as she remarked “somebody had walked up to the door”.

Before we left for vacation, The Squire had backed up both computers and put the hard drives in a “safe place”, so now, of course, he can’t find them. I told him yesterday (after listening to him moan and groan all day) that if he thought about it really hard before he went to bed, the answer would probably come to him in his sleep.

This morning, he said he had been on an ocean liner, and had given the hard drives to the ship’s purser. When he got ready to leave the ship, he had asked the captain – who happened to be Jean-Luc Pickard – for his tapes. The purser had jumped ship at the previous port and taken the tapes with him.

So much for that theory.

Me? I hide the family silver. Him? He hides his Family Tree records. Just makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

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