tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80427702292729623632024-03-14T11:36:14.704-07:00Karen's KornerHappily still clinging to my guns and religionjust birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-34982793573515398622013-05-22T12:13:00.002-07:002013-05-22T12:13:29.966-07:00Adventures with Grandpa – six months’ catch-up edition<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I haven’t written in my blog for a while, and I’ve meant to
write one specifically about some adventures I’ve had with my dad (aka
grandpa), but it keeps getting further and further in the past, so I’ve been
telling myself that I shouldn’t bother writing such old news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then I thought that some of these
experiences were so amusing that I just have to share them anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pretend it’s still winter and Thanksgiving
was just a few weeks ago!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t
seem that long ago to me, anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How
time does fly when you’re getting OLD!</div>
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<br /></div>
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The most recent tales began last Thanksgiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad came to spend the day with us, and since
there was nobody else to push it off onto, I had to do the cooking myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gina came too, and Dad wanted to invite Tim
Wolf and his family, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tim is a guy
that Dad met by accident a number of years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I remember correctly, Dad was doing some land surveying somewhere off
the Beaver Dam road, and Tim, who is a land surveyor who happened to work at
the Water District at the time, drove by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He saw the equipment and decided to stop for a chat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so they got to know each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the time that they met, I didn’t know Tim,
but not much later we both arrived early to a meeting and, while making small
talk, realized who we were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that we
had fun chatting from time to time, and his father was dying of prostate cancer
right about the time my dad was diagnosed with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately my dad survived; his father
didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My dad has become something of a
father figure to Tim since then, though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tim has gone up to Caliente to visit Dad many times, sometimes with his
wife and kids, sometimes without.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tim
left the Water District a while back and opened his own land surveying business
here in Vegas, just in time for the market to crash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isn’t that how it works sometimes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I understand that Tim is now preparing to
take over Dad’s land surveying business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I asked him recently if he regrets leaving the Water District, and I got
an emphatic yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Anyway, Dad wanted to invite them to come for Thanksgiving,
and I didn’t have a problem with it, in spite of the fact that I had never met
Tim’s family; my only problem is that when “company” is coming and it isn’t
just family, there’s more pressure to not mess up any of the food!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was surprised when Tim and his family
actually accepted.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Something else a little different was going on at the same
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without going into too much
detail, Jenny was sort of seeing two different guys, George and Mike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They knew about each other and kind of
rotated through the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had
already invited Mike to come for Thanksgiving, so I expected him to be
there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine my surprise when the
night before, Jenny walks through the door with both Mike and George in
tow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to admit that I’ve always
had a soft spot for George.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve
mentioned him in my blog before; he’s the guy who was raised by his Jewish
grandmother who was a holocaust survivor from Hungary, and when we went to her
funeral, Jimmy ended up being a pallbearer with yarmulke on his head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>George also had leukemia as a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is such a sweet guy, so willing and eager
to help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mike is nice, too, but I
haven’t become as attached to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Anyway, on Thanksgiving Eve, Jenny arrived with both guys, and they
crashed on various couches for the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The next day, Thanksgiving, both were eager to help with whatever they
could.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sent Mike outside to do some
yard work and George helped me in the kitchen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He went to chef’s school for a short time, so he has a few kitchen
skills, and it was fun ordering them both around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his enthusiasm, Mike pulled up a few
plants in the front yard that I wanted to keep, but I didn’t say anything to
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No point in that!</div>
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<br /></div>
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Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, I was also directing Dad to
assist here and there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked him to
peel some potatoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve never been very
good at judging how many potatoes you need, so after he peeled some, he asked
me if it was enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t sure, so
he kept going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got distracted with
other kitchen chores, and before I knew it, he had finished the whole bag!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a Costco bag of potatoes, too!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had leftover mashed potatoes for quite a
while.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Eventually all the food was prepared, Tim and his family
arrived, and we had dinner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We used
Mom’s china, and it was very nice, except that Dad forgot to bring the serving
dishes, so we had to go non-matching for those.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You can’t have everything!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
hardest part was dragging all the guys away from the football game on TV so we
could eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They do have their
priorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For my whole life I’ve never
known Dad to be much of a football fan, but when he wants to, he can sit and
watch with the best of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess
he’s usually just too busy with other things to watch a game.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We had dinner, which must have been fairly uneventful, since
I don’t remember much about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tim had
asked if they could bring wine and Dad said okay, but they didn’t, we had the
usual sparkling cider to drink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After it
was all cleaned up and we sat around for a while, Tim and his family left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jenny then asked me if she could borrow my
car to drive Mike and George home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
said okay, but first we had to move Dad’s car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He had parked in the driveway behind the space in the garage where I
keep my car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked Dad for his keys,
and he asked why Jenny didn’t just take his car instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea,
but he seemed pretty confident about the idea, so he produced the keys and off
they went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, not long after
they left, he wanted to know when she was coming back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told him it shouldn’t be too long, but you
know how these things can go, especially when the person has two boyfriends in
tow.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And, true to form, it was quite late when Jenny
returned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m so sad I missed this part
of the story because I was sleeping quite soundly upstairs in my bed, rather
exhausted from the long day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is
what happened, or so I was told.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Dad went to bed, but he woke up at some point and wondered
if his car was back yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe this
was about 2:00 AM.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He went downstairs
and, just as he was peeking out the window, Jenny came in … with George.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t remember what the story was, but
somehow she dropped off Mike but ended up bringing George back with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I imagine Jenny was surprised to see her
grandpa standing there, and he wanted to know what had been going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gina, who was sleeping in the den downstairs,
heard the commotion and came out of the room, not wanting to miss anything.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Dad told Jenny and George that they should get married.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jenny said that they couldn’t, and he wanted
to know why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She said there were
problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad said that if they would just
get married, they would work out their problems together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad then told them to go get in the car, he
was going to drive them downtown, yes, in the middle of the night, so they
could get married.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They managed to
convince him that the marriage bureau was surely closed at that time (not sure
if it is, but he believed it).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometime during this discussion, a cockroach of impressive
size also became agitated by the discussion and decided to run across the
floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad was very impressed at how
efficiently George dispatched it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
picked it up with his fingers, snapped it in half, and put it in the trash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to George, though, Gina was “three
houses down” by the time he grabbed it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I guess the cockroach appeared to be chasing her and she left the room
in a hurry!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>George’s explanation of his
cockroach skills was summed up in a minor statement:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>he was born and raised in the Bronx.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So there you go.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Not long after this holiday fun (the very next week, in
fact), Dad had to go to the hospital in St. George for his heart
procedure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had been feeling short of
breath while jogging or even walking too much, and the doctor wanted to do an
angiogram.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they do that, they
decide on the spot if they’re going to do heart bypass surgery or put some
stents in there, so we knew that after the test, there was a good chance he was
going to have one procedure or another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
think they had to be there at 7:00 AM Utah time, which is 6:00 my time, and I
got a little lost looking for the hospital, so I was a little late (that’s my
story and I’m sticking with it).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Honestly, they have moved the hospital, and that’s a fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I headed for the hospital that was near the
temple, and it wasn’t there anymore, and since it was so early, I had some
trouble finding someone to tell me where it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Kevin drove Dad to St. George, and when I got there, they
were in the area where you wait to be taken into getting whatever done (it
ended up also being the recovery area).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dad was in a hospital gown and lying on a bed, and Kevin was with him
(Kev was standing up).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nurses came in
and out to ask him questions and stuff, and Dad was having his usual fun
flirting with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was happy that a
cute nurse shaved his groin area (where they accessed his artery for the
angiogram – not sorry I missed that part).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Eventually they took him away, and Kevin and I went to the waiting
area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a while the surgeon called
us back to where Dad’s bed had been and, using a dry erase marker, wrote all
over one of the lovely landscape pictures (on the glass), describing what he
had found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He drew a picture of the
heart and showed and described the various arteries that are attached, noting
on the picture that “this area is 80% blocked” or “that area is 70% blocked.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of the areas were pretty bad,
really.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said that if Dad was younger,
they would immediately do a multiple bypass on him, but since he’s over 80,
they’re just going to do a couple of stents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I want Dad to be as healthy as possible, so I tried to talk to the
cardiologist about how Dad’s really healthy and isn’t your average
80-something-year-old (and how!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
doctor said that it doesn’t matter how healthy the patient is, their organs are
still that age and a bypass operation would bring more possible complications,
like a stroke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew that Dad
absolutely wouldn’t want to risk a stroke, so I quit arguing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kevin and I returned to the waiting area.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A while later (seemed forever), they called us back to the
same area, where Dad’s bed was back with him in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was happy that he didn’t have a
bypass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The doctor came and asked Kevin and
I if we wanted to see a film of the procedure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dad wanted to come and see it too, but the doctor wouldn’t let him get
up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad was crying foul as Kevin and I
left with the doctor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the screen, we could see Dad’s beating heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The doctor pointed out a small little vein on
the screen, then showed us the stent being placed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly, the small little vein plumped up
and became much larger and much longer, obviously showing that it had been
pretty badly blocked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then he showed us
the next vein, and how the blood running through it suddenly went from a
trickle to a flood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pretty amazing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like I think I said on my Facebook post, it
was cool, kind of creepy-cool, for us squeamish types.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If my memory serves, they did four stents;
they had no idea he would need that many, and the last one was in an area the
doctors call the “widow maker,” and it was really badly blocked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said that if they had done that area
first, they would have just gone ahead with the bypass surgery regardless of
his age, it was so bad, but since they had already placed three stents, they
just placed a fourth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s very scary to
think that Dad’s heart was so badly compromised and how easily we could have
lost him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, back in the recovery room, Dad wasn’t very
happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not because he was in pain or
anything; it was because all of the “cute nurses” were gone and the nurses now
on shift were all guys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a letdown!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eventually he was moved to a room, and he was told that he
would have to spend the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said
that I would stay with him and drive him home to Caliente the next day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kevin went home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following are a few exchanges that I
noted as they happened.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nurse:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you have
any pain?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dad:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lots of pain.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nurse (with concern):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Where?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dad:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just being here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The nurse brings Dad a pill and hands it to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dad:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s
that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nurse:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s Prilosec,
in case you get a stomach ache.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dad:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t have a
stomach ache!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nurse:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well some
heart patients get stomach upset from the procedure.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dad:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What about if we
wait until I HAVE a stomach ache to take it?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nurse:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fine.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The nurse comes in to talk to Dad about taking a pain pill.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nurse:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if they’re
not in a lot of pain, some people will take the pain meds just to help them
relax.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me (silently to myself):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Please please please, take it!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dad:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll relax when I’m dead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t want to
speed up that process, do we?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(Dad ignores me.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me (to nurse):<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well,
then I’m the one who needs to relax, so give it to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
(No pain pills administered to anyone.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I spent a fitful night on the couch-that-turns-into-a-“bed”
thing in Dad’s room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had thought about
going to my car to get the faux fur throw I had brought, but I thought I’d be
warm enough with the hospital-provided blanket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I woke up freezing several times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I missed my pillow, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh well …</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we woke up the next morning, we were ready and raring to
go home as soon as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s funny
how one night can seem like forever when you’re in a hospital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We practically had the bags packed and the
car warming up when the doctor appeared and told Dad that he had to stay
another night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You would think that
someone spoiled Christmas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both Dad and
I were very sad at the news, but the doctor said that since that last stent was
so bad, they needed to have him there for close monitoring for another 24
hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t take another day off
work (already took two days and at that time I still had a boss – my “new boss”
only lasted a little over a year and I’m currently bossless), so I called Kevin
and he said he’d come get Dad the next day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I intended to leave fairly early, at least early afternoon, but I had a
hard time tearing myself away from Dad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I didn’t want to leave him alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I eventually left after it got dark outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kevin arrived promptly the next morning and
took him home, hale and hearty, with instructions to take it easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll see about that!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I should have more adventures to share in another month or
so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m driving up to Washington with
Dad again, this time to celebrate Samantha’s graduation, and we’re stopping to
visit various people along the way, as always.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Right after we get back to Vegas we’re going to fly to Dallas for Neal’s
wedding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That will be 10 straight days
with Dad, 24/7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hardly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Wait. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>=)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m going to post my recipe for Spinach Dip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hate to claim it because, like I always
tell everyone who asks for the recipe, it’s on the package of the veggie soup
mix, but people still seem to have trouble replicating it, so I’ll just publish
it once and for all, and maybe yours will turn out better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll include descriptions of each step, just
in case something gets lost in translation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Karen’s Spinach Dip</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1 package frozen CHOPPED spinach <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(Make sure it’s chopped, not whole leaf or whatever else they
sell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always get one of those square
boxes of it, the cheap kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
probably about 8 oz., I’m not sure.)</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1 can water chestnuts, drained and diced <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(whole or sliced or whatever, the can is about
the same size as a standard can of tuna)</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1 cup mayonnaise</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2 cups sour cream <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(I
believe the original recipe says one 16-oz. Carton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I buy sour cream in the super-size cartons,
so I measure out two cups.)</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1 package Knorr or Mrs. Grass vegetable soup mix <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(NOT spring vegetable; use the regular
vegetable mix)</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chopped onions <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(I
never add onions, but it’s on the recipe so you can add some if you like them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom and Dad used to like to make it with
triple onions and thought it was great.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whatever!)</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span>Defrost the frozen spinach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year I didn’t plan ahead, so I put the
frozen block into a colander and ran water over it until it was defrosted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Squeeze as much water out of it as you can by
pushing down on it with a spoon (or squeezing it with your fingers) while it’s
in the colander.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do NOT cook the spinach
(Jill said she saw a recipe that said the spinach should be cooked.)</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span>Mix the sour cream and mayonnaise together in a
bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Add the squeezed-dry chopped
spinach and the dry soup mix and stir it together.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span>Chop up the water chestnuts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I drain them and dump them into my Ninja food
processor and push down on the button a couple of times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want them to add crunch to the dip, so
don’t puree them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Add to sour cream/mayo
mixture.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span>Add the onions if you want them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Refrigerate at least a couple of hours or overnight to give
the soup mix a chance to “wake up” (those veggies have been dehydrated, you
know).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Serve with bread or tortilla chips (must be bread).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone
can feel free to post it on the Smithalicious blog if you want to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like I said, I didn’t exactly invent this
recipe, but this is how I make it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that’s it for now!</div>
just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-87963289640831756582013-01-31T18:00:00.002-08:002013-02-04T10:37:02.937-08:00Arlington<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I took a trip to visit Jill
and Jared (and family) over the MLK weekend. It was a wonderful
trip. While I was there, we visited Arlington National Cemetery.
Richard Snelding, a friend from work, had a close childhood friend, Jonas Kelsall, who was
killed in the Chinook helicopter that was shot down in Afghanistan in 2011, and I
promised Richard that the next time I was in the area, I’d try to visit his
grave. Richard went to the funeral services, but those were held in
Shreveport, where they grew up. Jonas (the soldier) is buried at Arlington,
and Richard couldn’t go to that part. I figured we’d find the grave (they
have a terminal in the visitor’s center where you can look up locations of
graves and it prints out directions), take a picture, and then move on.
But it was so much more than that. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP35SKg87NXYYDxZ-gGAK7OTMIZVSBAFLFqa9XWI3JmdQ_kdyDqkqQmR2iBAnemlREXjw5SvFEG7s8GoCstnbruFLIFZ2hsa4SG2-hBD03UHtUXJoJqtstczrmJ1aFb3zs3e4khZ8_l_M/s1600/P1200307.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP35SKg87NXYYDxZ-gGAK7OTMIZVSBAFLFqa9XWI3JmdQ_kdyDqkqQmR2iBAnemlREXjw5SvFEG7s8GoCstnbruFLIFZ2hsa4SG2-hBD03UHtUXJoJqtstczrmJ1aFb3zs3e4khZ8_l_M/s400/P1200307.JPG" width="400" /></a>When we first got there, before
we found the grave, I was already amazed to see that they still had the
wreaths on all the graves. I knew that a nonprofit organization lays
wreaths on all the graves at Arlington in December. I’ve seen pictures of
it before, and when I was visiting Jill a year ago in December, a woman in her
ward talked about volunteering to go help lay the wreaths. Somebody goes
to a lot of work MAKING all those wreaths, too. I can’t imagine how many
it must be. Anyway, I figured the wreaths would be gone by now, but they
were all still there, and still in very good condition. There was a tiny
bit of browning here and there, but nothing significant, all with a big red
bow. They keep the grass immaculately groomed, so they must have to move
those wreaths and then put them back to mow, which would be a big job in
itself. (I assume you still have to mow grass in the winter, as long as
there’s no snow on the ground? Not much
experience in this department.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuE7GIJ7KQdepL0Y5vkDggaozuJI3IrxnF8p2toAnGi-bKMXBAC72hq0GiHSvYhsNIRhjim1IRUv22Y_Eqg1pqT54OQ5-VEDxt_2DpH_gwthAIaeKeYXAIn8adLAkP4snWT9BdLCVqtGA/s1600/P1200295-001.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuE7GIJ7KQdepL0Y5vkDggaozuJI3IrxnF8p2toAnGi-bKMXBAC72hq0GiHSvYhsNIRhjim1IRUv22Y_Eqg1pqT54OQ5-VEDxt_2DpH_gwthAIaeKeYXAIn8adLAkP4snWT9BdLCVqtGA/s320/P1200295-001.JPG" width="240" /></a> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Just Jill, Kadence, and I
went out there after church on Sunday. When we got to the grave, we took
pictures, and we had Kadence hold up the flag showing that he was a SEAL (the wind
was blowing like crazy). He was a
member of SEAL Team 6, and a bunch of them were killed when their helicopter
was shot down. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">We took pictures of where the tombstones began from the
deaths that day and had Kadence stand at the end, there were a lot of
them. I have since looked up more information about what happened that
day, and 38 people died in the crash, plus a SEAL working dog, so a lot of the
soldiers are probably buried somewhere else, maybe in the veterans’ cemetery in
their own home town. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The tombstone next to Jonas’s
said “Here lies the unidentified remains” from that day, and we thought that
was strange. I’ve since found out that sometimes they have remains left
over that they can’t identify (I imagine a lot of those caskets hold pieces and
parts of people instead of intact bodies), so they put them together in another
grave, so that’s what they did here. The tombstone shows in one of the
pictures I took of Jonas’s grave, and I have cropped it so you can see it. It says, “Here lies the Unidentified Remains
of Extortion 17. Afghanistan August 6
2011”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">They call the incident
Extortion 17 because that was the call sign of their helicopter that crashed. It was hit by a RPG (Rocket Propelled
Grenade) soon after it took off after the soldiers participated in battle there
for at least two hours. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Instead of just taking
pictures and moving on, we stayed with the grave for a while. It truly
felt like we were spending time with him and the others there. When we
were finally ready to leave, we decided to have a prayer. It was actually
Jill’s idea. She and Kadence got on their knees and she suggested
it. I knelt down too and I said the prayer. Even though we never met
Jonas, Jill and I cried and the spirit was so strong that I felt it for
days. It ended up being a very spiritual experience and totally
unexpected. We walked around for a while with wet and slightly muddy
knees, but we didn’t care. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Then as we walked from the
grave to the Tomb of the Unknowns, we noticed a few wreathes were blown over,
so we fixed them. Then we spent more time picking up wreaths and
returning them to their spots. Kadence went from “I’m tired, I can’t walk
anymore” to being very enthusiastic about picking up the wreaths and she was
running all over the place, fixing them. We all participated, and before
long it got out of control. It was a windy day and quite a few wreaths
were tipped over. “Come on, Grandma! Here are four more!
Look, there’s a whole row!” I got my exercise that day.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge4VsotehT_PCFS95sFbhh3OR0R4kxDQlQv_pscW-nTAFhgcWAo1trksYXazac2ZNiSv-JwGpbBAWxNpX3dvcg3yHFkT7cUiLUE7nCN2KedrlcgEGclQXnbYgaeFwfOIsz6a1z2oa0dE0/s1600/P1200321.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge4VsotehT_PCFS95sFbhh3OR0R4kxDQlQv_pscW-nTAFhgcWAo1trksYXazac2ZNiSv-JwGpbBAWxNpX3dvcg3yHFkT7cUiLUE7nCN2KedrlcgEGclQXnbYgaeFwfOIsz6a1z2oa0dE0/s320/P1200321.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The soldier guarding the tomb. He walks very precisely back and forth on the black runner.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsvY0IcUNVt5CLG6vDKQ6CfPFImQ8GQxVhPyvzwlFvKHN9sx_Px6Yz9yo2X5aD68yKVo16M0eioqft1LbHUDwqM8SJGG4LiqjrwXSUQfN4kKsMjVgJ45rAAh_URI2qiaeov0e8QTzQocc/s1600/P1200322.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsvY0IcUNVt5CLG6vDKQ6CfPFImQ8GQxVhPyvzwlFvKHN9sx_Px6Yz9yo2X5aD68yKVo16M0eioqft1LbHUDwqM8SJGG4LiqjrwXSUQfN4kKsMjVgJ45rAAh_URI2qiaeov0e8QTzQocc/s320/P1200322.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The officer inspecting the new guard to make sure everything is perfect</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd7bcE1UiK-jTAdqbzwGvxfEbJPy8hJz-5367pvVokZVQUNKC18meS3gJldmtjjhHhNBFQdwxiG8_wgYCgJwvfnFQTQLNV1uAV5fBC9uJ6uHTT-gEpj7b5PVkcmYWqPouQ_iu_DK3sOxw/s1600/P1200324-001.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd7bcE1UiK-jTAdqbzwGvxfEbJPy8hJz-5367pvVokZVQUNKC18meS3gJldmtjjhHhNBFQdwxiG8_wgYCgJwvfnFQTQLNV1uAV5fBC9uJ6uHTT-gEpj7b5PVkcmYWqPouQ_iu_DK3sOxw/s320/P1200324-001.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Making the change</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: small;">We went to the Tomb of the
Unknowns. During the summer they do the changing of the guard every 30
minutes, and we hurried to get there before the half-hour, but we then found
out that it only happens every hour during the winter months. Jill had
never been able to watch it, even though she had been there a number of times,
because she always had baby-watching duty and had to stay over to the side of
the big memorial amphitheater they have there. You have to be silent and show
respect when you’re there. So, even though it was cold and we had left
our coats in the car (we had debated on whether we wanted to carry them around
if we got too warm and decided against it), we waited the next 30 minutes for
the changing of the guard. Jill suggested that we wander around until it
got closer to the time for it to begin, but we had a front-row seat (actually a
front-row STAND) and I didn’t want to give it up. I was afraid we
wouldn’t be able to get close if we left, and it’s a good thing we didn’t, because
the place was PACKED by the time the guard change began. It was MLK Day and
inauguration weekend, and there were a lot of people there (lots of tour
buses, too). So we watched that and it was so cool, as always. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK9bXNc9Yh0xkTuLrLWJcY_s9e2y7-yXtSeQ0QF_seJSqvZH_ci8khrCHUjFGY014QxALYjY2Z3G3L1400rVe6wD2qTzohQUy8AkW0e8Q49Mj0Jfh97clkzcgXzRtwRKy5FFkzO-BhIcw/s1600/P1200314.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK9bXNc9Yh0xkTuLrLWJcY_s9e2y7-yXtSeQ0QF_seJSqvZH_ci8khrCHUjFGY014QxALYjY2Z3G3L1400rVe6wD2qTzohQUy8AkW0e8Q49Mj0Jfh97clkzcgXzRtwRKy5FFkzO-BhIcw/s400/P1200314.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">Then we hobbled our frozen
selves back to the car to return to Jill’s place. In spite of the cold, a quick, casual side
trip turned into a warm, wonderful memory.
You never know when that will happen.</span></div>
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just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-17762576610131207132012-11-08T11:40:00.000-08:002012-11-08T11:40:36.404-08:00Carry me back to ole Virginny ...I guess it's about time I posted about my most recent trip to Virginia to visit Jill and Jared and the kids (thanks to Susie's donated flight benefits -- thank you thank you thank you to Susie)! It was a fairly uneventful trip, when you put it in the context of my usual life experiences, I guess!<br />
<br />
I was set to fly out on Thursday afternoon, October 18. I was planning to leave work around noon that day and had received permission from Bill, my boss, to do just that. I was going to stay in for a few lunch hours to make up the time difference. I would be all packed when I left for work on Thursday morning so I could go directly to the airport. Julie was lined up to give me a ride to the airport and leave my car at her house (which is near the airport) so it would be handy when I was on my way home. I started packing the necessities during the week before (I pretty much keep my bag of liquids intact between trips) but hadn't decided on how wintery my clothes should be. I had planned to fly home on Sunday night, but I had asked Amy from my office to cover my desk on Monday if the flights didn't work out. All prepared, right?<br />
<br />
And the fates (or whatever) laughed.<br />
<br />
I was sitting at my desk Wednesday afternoon, thinking that I should get things cleaned up and ready, just in case I didn't make it home until Monday. I had a couple of hours left in the day and was procrastinating, thinking, I can work on it a little later and after all, I have all morning tomorrow (Thursday) to get it done, right? So no worries.<br />
<br />
Then my cell phone rang. According to the caller ID it was Jimmy, but he couldn't seem to say more than "Mom ... mom." I always worry that he's been in a car accident, so that was what I was afraid was wrong. Of course I don't want him to be injured or hurt in any way, but I also don't know how we'd replace his car, and he HAS to have a car. The bus doesn't even run where we live, and of course he'd lose his job delivering pizzas for Domino's. His car is old and falling apart, but it still goes down the road. It's actually been a really good car, considering that it was totaled and rebuilt at one time (I bought it from the guy who rebuilt it). Toyota Corolla. I sat here wondering what was going on when my office phone rang from a number I didn't recognize. It was someone from Domino's, calling to tell me that Jimmy was having a serious medical issue and that they had called 9-1-1. She suggested that I get over there, so I grabbed my purse and rushed out the door. Partway there, Jimmy called to say that he had decided to let me give him a ride to the emergency room, since a ride in an ambulance costs over $1,000 and their preliminary tests didn't show anything life threatening. I picked him up and off we went.<br />
<br />
His symptoms were that he felt a heavy pressure in his chest (left side), followed by light-headedness, shortness of breath, numbness in his fingers, and blurred vision. He was in the middle of his regular pizza deliveries when it hit, no significant event or anything. So I drove him to the hospital. When they learned it was chest pain, they immediately did an EKG, which was fine. After a couple of hours they did a chest x-ray. Of course in order for our health insurance to pay a reasonable amount we had to go to UMC, our county hospital, so of course the waiting room was packed with people who didn't appear ill at all. I know that people without insurance go there for any kind of medical issue because they can't be turned away.<br />
<br />
After a while Jimmy's symptoms subsided and he was tempted to just go home, but we knew we had to find out what was going on or, I guess I should say, rule out what WASN'T going on. After several hours, Jimmy encouraged me to go home and finish packing. I didn't know if I was going to be canceling my trip or not, based on the results of the trip to the emergency room, but I did need to finish, in case I WAS going. I was torn on whether to leave him there or not, but eventually I did, around 10 PM (we got there about 4:30 PM). I went home and finished packing. Jimmy felt well enough to send me a text, reminding me that I was going for three days, not three weeks (as if I overpack). A sure sign that he was feeling a little better. Then I lay down and tried to get a little sleep. He called at 3 AM and said he was done, so I drove back across town to pick him up. They didn't find anything wrong and assumed it was heartburn or indigestion of some sort and gave him a prescription for Nexium. By the time we got home, it was about time for me to get up and get ready for work. I called Amy, my backup at work, and she said she would take care of my desk, so I decided to go back to bed. Of course my desk was a horrible mess because I sat there procrastinating when I should have been getting organized. Oh well, good thing Amy is a good friend.<br />
<br />
A few hours later, Jimmy took me to the airport. We didn't know when I was going to be coming back, so we still left my car at Julie's house. It didn't look too hopeful that I would get on that flight, but I did, miracle of miracles. At first I had a middle seat (just grateful to have any seat at all) but they soon moved me to a window in one of those rows with more leg room, which was very nice. The girls next to me were so skinny that they could just fold up their legs to let me pass. I commented on that fact, and we became fast friends. I got to Dulles somewhere around 9 PM their time. <br />
<br />
When visiting Jill, I like to sleep in their unfinished basement on an air mattress I bought when we visited last June. It's cool down there, and I like to sleep where it's cold. My only fear is the possibility of spiders or other bugs lurking around. My answer to that problem is to purchase some bug spray and spray it around the area where I'm sleeping. Don't know if it helps much, but it gives me peace of mind. So of course that's what I did, and I left the can behind for the next arachnophobia-prone visitor. Just don't use it all, leave some for me and my next trip!<br />
<br />
I was awakened on Friday morning by Kadence and Jacob giving me a wonderful welcome. It's nice to feel wanted! They were soon going to get on the bus to go to school. Kadence is in kindergarten now, but she has a full day of school, just like Jacob (third grade -- wow!). Off they went. Jill wanted to go to the gym, so I watched the boys while she was gone. I'm not saying they got into any trouble while Mommy was gone, but they didn't mention anything about any rules ...<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mommy's gone, Grandma Karen's here, let the partying begin!</td></tr>
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<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hey, grandma, I've cleaned out the dog's water bowl (notice wet pants), let's play some Wii!</td></tr>
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After Jill got home from working out, we packed up and went shopping. We hit Costco and various other stores. When the kids got home from school, Kadence wanted me to go upstairs to her room with her so she could show me some of her princess dresses. I had to close my eyes until she was ready for the final reveal for each outfit. Somewhere in the middle, she was chattering about her various grandparents when she stopped and said, well, there's one grandpa she doesn't like as much. After searching her memory a bit, she said she doesn't remember his name, but he keeps pulling her hair and she doesn't like it. She doesn't like him pulling her hair. He shouldn't pull hair, she said, because "that isn't following God's commandments." I about fell off the bed trying to contain my giggles. As I thought about it, I realized who the errant grandpa most likely was. My own father, her great grandpa Smith. I've noticed him giving a little tug to his grandkids' (and great grandkids') hair, just to tease them and get their attention. I could hardly wait to tell him that he isn't following God's commandments and had better shape up! That night we went to eat at Chili's, which was probably a mistake. The food was good but the service was S-L-O-W, and I mean <i><u><b>slow</b></u></i>. Jill, Jacob, Kadence and I were supposed to go see Hotel Transylvania afterwards, but by the time we got there, it was late and there was a long line, so that plan got postponed.<br />
<br />
Saturday was just a blur of activity. First, Jill made pancakes. Sorry if you don't like the picture, Jill, but you posed for it! (not that you especially wanted to) <br />
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<br />
Jacob was busy cleaning up dog doo in the back yard while Jared mowed the front and then moved to the back. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jacob inspecting the yard for further doggy deposits.</td></tr>
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<br />
<br /><br />
Then came practice for the Primary program which was happening the next day, and right after that was Jacob's soccer game. <br />
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After the soccer game the boys went down for a nap and Jill and I sneaked off to the outlet mall for a little browsing. Jacob and Kadence went to a birthday party. As soon as we got back we had just enough time to wolf down some of the Taco Soup that Jared had made before heading out to see the movie we missed the night before. I hate to admit it, but I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of the movie. It's been a while since I've done that!<br />
<br />
On Sunday we got up early for church. Usually I'm not a big fan of primary programs, but it's different when your adorable kids or grandkids are participating! I was trying to get a flight home that evening so that I wouldn't miss any work on Monday, but it just wasn't happening. The flight was oversold by eight passengers and there were lots of standbys. I was FORCED to stay another night! ;-) <br />
<br />
The next morning, Kadence came to wake me up again before school. We chatted a bit, and then she thanked me for giving her the Candace shirt. The family is a big fan of the Phineas and Ferb show, and everybody has multiple shirts from that show except Kadence, so when I was in Disney World the month before, I bought a Candace shirt for Kadence (that says "You are SO Busted") and a Pirates of the Caribbean shirt for Jacob ("Dead men tell no tales"). Anyway, she said that she liked the shirt and thanked me for it, but ... well ... her birthday was a LONG time ago. She assured me it was okay, but really, I was seriously late with the birthday present. I told her that I got her something for her birthday. She disagreed and wanted to know what I got. I said I don't remember, but we would ask her mom. So then Kadence got a puzzled look on her face. If it wasn't birthday and it wasn't Christmas, WHY did I buy her a present? I guess random presents from family members on vacation (or whatever) just weren't on her radar screen.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the picture Jill took of the kids and their shirts right after I sent them. I didn't get any other decent shots of Kadence, so I added this one!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After that was the usual rush for shoes and papers to get out the door to meet the school bus, and when Jacob's backpack was finally located, Jill suddenly realized that there was a field trip that day, requiring a sack lunch, no backpack or lunch boxes, and other miscellaneous requirements. The mad scramble began. They got it together and out the door before missing the bus, but it brought back memories of past times. I remember one time in particular when I was married to my first husband, I was dropping my stepson Ira off at school. As I drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw him chasing after the car, crying. He had suddenly remembered that it was field trip day and he needed a lunch (he was planning to eat hot lunch that day). I told him I'd take care of it, and I drove to my office at City Hall, where I bought a sandwich, chips, cookies and a drink from the vending machines and delivered it all back to him. I saved the day! <br />
<br />
I had changed my flight to midday on Monday and didn't make it on that
flight, either, so I ended up leaving later in the day. I don't mind
waiting at the airport, really, since I have my iPad and can watch
Netflix or whatever. Other people were hogging the plugs to keep my stuff charged, but I made it through okay.<br />
<br />
My seat mate situation on the way home was interesting. I was given a window seat in an exit aisle (YAY) and at first an elderly asian woman was seated in the middle. It soon became apparent that she didn't speak much English and wasn't going to work out. The next standby people were a couple with three small children. They sat the dad and one of the kids there temporarily, but I knew that wasn't going to last, either. After much shuffling, they got a guy who had a window seat further up the aisle to switch to the middle seat, and they planned to reward him for his generosity. He was a fairly young man, 28 years old, a chemical engineer, and as soon as we took off, one flight attendant brought him two bottles of wine. After he drank those, he asked a different flight attendant and got one from her. Then a bit later the original flight attendant returned with two more bottles of wine. The guy offered to share his prize with me and the gal seated on the aisle, but we both declined, so he drank it all. He asked me if I was getting any food and I said yes, the asian wrap, so he ordered it for me and gave it to me (I didn't have to pay). He should have eaten at least some of it, because he kept getting more and more talkative. He went to sleep (passed out?) for a bit and when he woke up he kept shifting around in his seat, so it was obvious to me that we might be seeing some of that wine again. I asked if he was okay and he said no and headed for the bathroom. I got a barf bag ready for him, just in case. (I was only thinking of HIM, you know!) He managed to hold it down until we got to Vegas, and I helped him find the gate for his connecting flight (he was going to California). He was very nice and I always appreciate anyone who likes my jokes, even though he might have been slightly tipsy at the moment. <br />
<br />
All in all, it was a fun trip. It was so busy that it went by in a blur. Jill and I agreed that we should do more relaxing and less running around the next time I go. Jared said he'll believe it when he sees it. <br />
<br />
<br />just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-39097612348952414222012-11-01T09:55:00.002-07:002012-11-13T11:49:18.513-08:00This time it's all about me<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Susie has challenged me to post 11 random facts about myself
and answer 11 questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know if
anybody is going to want to read all this, but here I go…</div>
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First, 11 random facts about myself. This might take a
while ... I can never think of things like this.</div>
<br />
<br />
1. I vant to be alone. (No, I didn’t misspell that, I was quoting Greta Garbo.) Maybe I should change that to I like to be alone. Not all the time, of course, but I like to be by myself. Maybe after I stop working I’ll want to be more social, but now most of the time I prefer peace and quiet. There was a lot of chaos as I was growing up in a big family and lots more when my kids were growing up. I have to be “on” all day at work, being friendly and helpful and engaging and all that stuff. On my own time I like silence!<br />
<br />
2. I like true crime shows. I used to watch them constantly and my DVR was full of them, but I’ve cut back a bit because they have become too predictable. I really like it when it wasn’t the victim’s spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, sibling, child, or somebody else obvious who-done-it. Then I make Jimmy watch it, too. And yes, we have a burglar alarm, in use regularly.<br />
<br />
3. I’m a makeup junkie. I love playing with makeup and trying new kinds. My eyeliner will probably just go on thicker as I get older and my eyesight fades. (Maybe that’s already started.) Anyway, I also love sharing my new discoveries with my daughters and Susie, my BFF.<br />
<br />
4. I have the bad habit of thinking that I can get skinny by buying something. I have to face the sad fact that you actually have to USE the gadget or video for it to have any hope of working. I was once watching an infomercial and I thought, you know, I would buy one of those – but I already have one. Pathetic!<br />
<br />
5. I have a dream of owning a baby grand piano someday. I even gave my old piano to Jill to help me work on the dream. So far no progress, just even less piano practice.<br />
<br />
6. I love my navy blue Toyota Matrix so much that when the lease ran out on the first one. I bought another one just like it, only newer and better (but this time I bought it, no lease – that was a mistake). A lot of people didn’t notice I even changed cars. Toyota has stopped making them, though, so I guess I won’t be able to get another when this one dies. Maybe a navy blue Prius…<br />
<br />
7. I am terrified of all bugs and creeping things, especially spiders and roaches. I don’t like the crunchy sound of stepping on them, though, and I also don’t like having that nasty “bug juice” on my shoe. Usually I just spray them with a lot of bug spray. If the spray doesn’t do it, they’ll drown anyway.<br />
<br />
8. I love gadgets. Anytime I see a new gadget for doing something, whether it’s a tool or a new can or bottle opener or something electronic to clean the floors, I want to try it out. I also love trying out new miracle cleaners. Anything that makes cleaning up easier, I love it. My current favorite is “Whip It” which I buy from the occasional Sam’s Club Road Show (I understand you can get it other places but I’ve never had to look). It’s good stuff. It’s a concentrate, so you mix it with water and it lasts a long time. It also takes the spots right out of those carpets!<br />
<br />
9. I’m sorely tempted to buy all of the miracle face creams that I see, but I know that when you put on too many layers, it’s hard to tell what’s working and what’s just rolling off. But what if I stop something that’s working and I didn’t notice until it’s too late? It’s a dilemma. Usually I do my best to resist changing (much).<br />
<br />
10. I love jewelry, especially long, dangly earrings and watches, especially if they have a bit of bling. Jimmy says that I am revealing how old I am by even wearing a watch since today’s generation uses their cell phone to check the time. I don’t care. I can’t leave the house with earrings and a watch. Oh, and eyebrows. Must have eyebrows.<br />
<br />
11. I absolutely adore my family. My dad, my kids, my siblings, my nieces and nephews and niece- and nephew-in-laws, my great nieces and nephews, all of them. I do have my favorites, of course, but I wouldn’t dare name them here. I think you probably know who you are. If you don’t know for sure, just assume that you are. =) I also adore all of Susie’s family. They are wonderful.<br />
<br />
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Here are Susie's questions and my answers: (I don't know why the format changed. Looks the same on my Word document. Stupid Word.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>What
food do you remember most from your childhood?</u> I guess the food
I remember most is my mother's pot roast dinner we had almost every
Sunday. She did a lot more baking than cooking, but she made great
pot roast! </li>
</ol>
<ol start="2" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>What
is your favorite gemstone and why?</u> I love the blue sapphire
because I love its deep blue color and it's my birthstone. </li>
</ol>
<ol start="3" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>Have
you ever had a pet, and if so what was/is it?</u> I have had many
birds in my life, but I don't have one right now. Right now I have
two Chihuahuas, Chica (my precious baby) and Dobby (tends to get into
trouble but is impossible not to forgive). We also have two cats:
Scout, a chubby white female left over from when more kids were home and I
continue to feed, but that’s basically the only time you see her; and
Mamo, Jimmy’s tuxedo cat who loves only him. </li>
</ol>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>What
person (real, although it can be a person from the present or past) would
you most like to have dinner with, and why?</u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Former President George W. Bush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think he’s a kind and wonderful
person, and I’d like to pray with him, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would want to say the prayer myself. </li>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>What
is your favorite book, and how many times have you read it?</u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham,
and I’ve read it at least a dozen times and have listened to it on
audiobook several more times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
a classic that actually has a happy ending.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love happy endings … </li>
</ol>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>Do you
have a hobby?</u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does shopping on
QVC count? </li>
</ol>
<ol start="7" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>What
is your best memory of the two of us?</u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hard to say, there are so many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I think my best memories are from when we were roommates in Cedar
City and we did so much laughing that the store below the apartment
thought we were always having a party (and occasionally some fighting) and
both worked at Bob’s Big Boy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
would go shopping in the middle of the night and putter around town in
Susie’s pink truck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twerpie (my
parakeet) would wake us up in the morning by preening our eyebrows as we
slept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course my dad baptized her
then, too. </li>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>Do
you remember any favorite toys from when you were a kid?</u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I loved my Chatty Kathy doll.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was so amazing; it came with tiny
records that you put in its side to expand its vocabulary when you pulled
the string. </li>
</ol>
<ol start="9" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>Do
you consider yourself physically fit, and if so how do you maintain
fitness?</u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh h*ll no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have many plans for getting there in the future, though. </li>
</ol>
<ol start="10" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>What
is your blood type, and do you donate blood?</u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A negative, and I donate platelets and
red blood cells regularly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not, not
for pay, to a nonprofit. </li>
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<ol start="11" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><u>How
many times have you been to Walt Disney World?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Come on, you knew there would be ONE
Disney question…)</u><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think
I can count them all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you, Susie?</li>
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<![endif]-->just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-65218101288107991432012-10-09T12:09:00.001-07:002012-10-09T12:09:25.346-07:00Fun in Florida<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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LONG POST ALERT! (so what else is new?) </div>
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<br /></div>
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Well, I guess it’s about time I posted something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m partway through my “Adventures with
Grandpa” blog about our trip to Virginia in June (yes, way back in June), but I
got discouraged because it was so dang long I figured people would utterly die
with boredom if they tried to read it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>>>heavy sigh<<<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just
blab too much, I guess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of my
charms!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(?)</div>
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<br /></div>
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A couple of weeks ago, Susie and I went to Disney
World.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yay!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Disney World with my BFF!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I visited her in Denver a few months ago and
again Jill in VA last month (okay maybe it was in August) using the wonderful
flight benefits she bestowed upon me and have had nothing but fun fun fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, there have been a few bumps in the
road, but who cares when you’re having fun, right?</div>
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<br /></div>
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But right now I’m here to talk about WDW.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I flew to Denver on Thursday night, September
13.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My plane was a little late and I got
picked up at the passenger pickup curb quite a bit later because Gary fell
asleep in the car while waiting in the cell phone lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t mind, it’s always fun watching the
people come and go and the airport security kicking the butts of people who try
to park at the curb and wait (although I have to say they weren’t anywhere near
as mean as the ones in Vegas).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally
Gary showed up and we headed for the casa de Oviatt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susie had waited up for me and we did a
joyous victory dance about our upcoming trip to Disney.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next day (Friday) she went to work and I
just chilled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love chilling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s one of my favorite things in the whole
wide world. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later that evening, Michael
came over with his adorable little boys and it was great to needle each other,
just like old times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every once in a
while (okay, a great while) I can actually score a point on him and it
practically makes me giddy with joy (he’s pretty smart).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old lady’s still got it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least a little bit of it, anyway.</div>
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<br /></div>
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On Saturday morning, Susie and I headed to the airport,
chauffeured by Gary, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we
were off!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We made it on the plane and
even got to sit together in the exit row!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What a coup!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We arrived in
Orlando and picked up our rental car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
really didn’t want a silver or white one, since there are about a jillion of
those and it would be hard enough for us to remember which car was ours in
those huge Disney parking lots, but not even Susie could persuade them to let
us have something else (at no extra cost).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you’re wondering what kind of car it was, I’ll tell you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Silver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four doors, four wheels,
all the standard equipment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make or
model?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not a clue.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We stopped at the grocery store on the way to their condo to
pick up food and other necessities (like snacks).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We headed to the condo and Susie opened the
owners’ closet and began to unpack their stuff, while I went to my bedroom and
began to unpack my suitcase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All was
well until Susie realized that some stuff was missing from the owners’
closet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turned out that quite a bit of
stuff was missing, including the suit, white shirt, and tie that Gary keeps
there for church attendance, toys, Susie’s backpack with her season pass, their
first aid kit, some videos, a lot of stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whoever burglarized the owners’ closet obviously had plenty of time to
sort through everything and decide what to take and what to leave behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And of course nobody would know when it
happened because the only people who would realize anything was amiss would be
the owners, and they don’t tend to go there during the heat and hustle of
summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course Susie was very upset and called Gary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was trying to write down as many missing
things as she could think of, and after she went to talk to the people in the
office, she asked Gary to put in the complaint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She was sure that the burglar was someone with a key to the deadbolt on
the door, meaning someone working for the management company, not a guest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I should clarify that they have a management
company that rents out the condo to visitors when they aren’t using it,
complete with a cleaning service after each stay).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Susie had trouble sleeping that night, so we both slept in a
bit (I had stayed up kind of late too and yes, I was just feeling lazy).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next day around noon we were sitting on
their living room couch chatting, still wearing our night gowns, when we heard
a terrific crash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We thought something
fell in the kitchen, like maybe a shelf in the refrigerator, so Susie went to
inspect the kitchen and I headed back to the bedrooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The window in my bedroom was smashed in, and
I do mean smashed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t a tiny
little hole (imagine a window being hit by a baseball), it was SMASHED; there
was hardly any glass left in the frame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I guess anybody with any sense would have then run out the front door,
since somebody obviously had just smashed it in, but no, I went over to it and
peered outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t see
anybody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had called out to alert Susie
that I had found the source of the crash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I looked in the pile of shards of glass (fortunately it was all over the
second twin bed in the room, not the one I slept in) and there was no rock or
anything else I could see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I figured
someone hit it with something, maybe a hammer, and was going to come into the
condo through it, but they heard our voices and took off (thank goodness).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susie called the management company again,
and they sent the maintenance man that she doesn’t like to inspect the
damage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was quite insistent that it
must have been a guest who broke into the owners’ closet and said that there were
nobody’s footprints by the window in the alley but his (it had been
raining).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sounds like a confession,
don’t you think?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susie and I were
suspicious, and Susie was really ticked at him for trying to push his
opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seemed that he was trying
to claim that WE had somehow broken the window, when all of the shards of glass
were inside the bedroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guarantee
you, there was no rock or anything else but broken glass all over that half of
the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also tried to say that the
wind did it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a joke!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t even windy that day, and I wouldn’t
think anything less than a hurricane would break a window like that!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it was more like a wind BAG that did
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thereafter Susie referred to him as
“that a**hole.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The a**hole made an
attempt to clean up the glass (didn’t do a very good job – got the big pieces
but left lots of small glass shards all over the bed) and put a piece of
plywood over the window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The plywood
wasn’t even big enough to cover the whole window, so there was a gap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great work, huh?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After dealing with all that we finally made it to Epcot for
a few hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then the next day we found
out that we had to fill out a police report, so we had to wait for a police
officer to come and get Susie’s statement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The police officer was a nice woman, and while we were sitting around
talking to her, there was a knock on the door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was the other maintenance man, the one Susie likes, named Noel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was carrying a large sheet of glass to
repair the window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susie said, “Oh, I’m
so glad it’s you and not that a**hole.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And guess who was right behind Noel?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>None other than a**hole himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The police officer about fell off her chair, laughing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susie didn’t seem bothered at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to hide in the bathroom for a few
minutes to get my giggles under control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, things back home in Vegas weren’t exactly normal,
either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I left, Jimmy hadn’t been
feeling very well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had sort of a pain
in his right side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t a bad pain,
just a place that was very tender to the touch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And he was running a low-grade fever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On Friday, the day I was chilling at Susie’s house, he decided to go to
a Quick Care to see a doctor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
waiting several hours, they decided it wasn’t appendicitis but some sort of
infection (obviously – he had a fever, you know), they gave him some
antibiotics and sent him home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
weren’t overly confident in the skills of the doctor at the quick care, and we
would have been less concerned if I was home, but I wasn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A type 1 diabetic with a mysterious infection
and fever, home alone, isn’t the best situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He skipped his class that day and called in
sick to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He didn’t get any better;
the low-grade fever remained and the pain in his side stayed about the
same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was told to stay on a liquid
diet, and of course there was nobody to send to the store to get him what he
needed, so I called our home teacher to ask for his assistance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked him to call Jimmy to see what he needed,
and he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The home teacher went
shopping – at CVS! – and delivered whatever he could find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was so tickled that he “went shopping” at
CVS when there are grocery stores all over the place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a man for you!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it was sweet of him anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(CVS is a drug store sort of like Walgreens,
if you didn’t know.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally on Sunday (the day our window in Florida was smashed
in) he decided to go to the Emergency Room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At least at an ER they will run tests to make sure that it wasn’t
something serious; appendicitis can have many weird symptoms, I hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He spent the day waiting around and lying on
a gurney in there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After just about
every test known to man with no definite results, they decided to admit him,
just to make sure nothing got worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
got on the phone and he received a parade of (basically unwanted) visitors, one
after another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course I had called my
home teachers again and they faithfully showed up, armed with a blessing that Jimmy
conceded to receiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think he got
rid of them in less than 15 minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then my friends Julie and her sister Jeanne showed up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After they left, Jimmy’s dad and his
girlfriend showed up (Joanna had alerted him).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The main thing that Jimmy needed was the charger for his cell phone;
Dave, the guy who gave Jimmy a ride to the ER, had played games on Jimmy’s
phone the whole time they were waiting and of course it was dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Julie promised to bring him a charger the
next day before she went to work.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course I was wondering if I should get on a plane and
head home, but Jimmy assured me that there was no need for that just yet, so I
waited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jimmy was discharged from the
hospital the next day with no diagnosis and no prescriptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They told him his fever was gone so they were
letting him go, and to stop taking the antibiotic he got from the quick
care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jimmy still has the tenderness in
his side, but the fever hasn’t returned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He has since had appointments with his gastroenterologist and
endocrinologist and nobody seems overly concerned, so I guess we won’t be
either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Back in Florida, the window in my bedroom was replaced and
we were back in business, so to speak.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Susie had Noel, the “nice” maintenance guy, replace the deadbolt on the
owners’ closet and add some other little things to help prevent any further burglaries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least if someone did break in, they would
have to break the door, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the
rest of the week we continued our fun visits of the parks, but I’m afraid we
didn’t get to any of them before noon on any day (that I can think of).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, I guess that was my fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was feeling lazy and wanted to relax a bit,
and I truly didn’t realize that Susie wasn’t happy about that until much later
in the week when she was complaining to a complete stranger about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I protested that she never said that she
wanted to go earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think the
stranger believed me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess that was
lame of me, I should have known better, but I was enjoying the lazy pace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were still arguing about it when the
stranger tiptoed away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t too
worried about any further break-ins (much), but I was careful to take my iPad
with me and leave it in the glove compartment of the car whenever we left the
condo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the only thing of value I
really had, and I didn’t want to lose it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Also, I was fighting a bladder infection the whole week (I know, I know,
TMI, but it is part of the story) so I spent a lot of time visiting the
bathrooms around the parks, and Susie spent a lot of time disappearing while I
was in the bathroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s always been
very talented at that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, by Friday I decided to try calling my urologist for
a prescription.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had tried all my usual
remedies but was still struggling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
knew the doctor’s office wasn’t going to make life easy for me, either, and
they didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They first told me to go to
urgent care, but I begged and pleaded and groveled and cried (well, maybe I
didn’t cry) and they said they’d think about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would have cost me a fortune to go to
urgent care at some strange facility way, way, WAY off my health insurance’s
radar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had called the Target pharmacy
near Susie’s condo and alerted them to the possibility that a prescription for
me might be on its way and got all their phone/fax numbers to give to the
doctor’s office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later in the day the
doctor finally called in the prescription, but due to the time difference
(three hours later there) it was too late to pick it up, so I had to wait until
Saturday to get my prescription, but at least I had it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began my road to recovery!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We were scheduled to leave Florida on Monday midafternoon
(we were there over a week).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had
bought a few souvenirs (cough cough) and thought it would be easiest to mail
the ones for Jill and Jared (okay, the grandkids) from Florida.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That way I wouldn’t have to try to cram
everything into my carry-on both from Florida to Vegas and again from Vegas to
Virginia when I attempt to visit there the weekend after next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believe me, and Susie can attest to this, I
worked miracles to get the rest of the stuff I bought into my tiny carry-on
bags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no way I was going to
fit anything else in there and I didn’t even want to open the suitcase until I
was safely home and nothing flying out of there upon release of the zippers
would injure anyone (TSA – open at your own risk!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We even went to the post office on Sunday to
see if we could at least get a box to put the stuff in for faster mailing on
the way to the airport on Monday, but they had the boxes locked up (even though
they’re free).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when we left the condo
on Monday, I had my carry-on suitcase, my smaller carry-on, and a smallish
plastic Disney bag with the stuff to send to Jill and Jared inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I almost didn’t even bring a plastic bag,
thinking I would just put the stuff directly in the box at the post office, but
thankfully I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We left for the
airport a little early so we would have time to stop at a post office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When got to the post office, which was located
in some small Orlando suburb, we found that it was CLOSED from 10 AM to 2 PM!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was then about 1:20 PM and there was no
way we could wait around for it to reopen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I couldn’t believe that a US Post Office would be closed for four hours
in the middle of the day!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I thought
Caliente’s business hours were bad!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
least their Post Office is open all day!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(I think.)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Time was beginning to run short, and Susie said we didn’t
have time to find another post office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
asked, what can I do with this bag ‘o’ stuff, then?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t carry it onto the plane because I
already had my two legal carry-ons, and I couldn’t fit another paper clip into
my suitcase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susie suggested that I
check my larger bag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were, after all,
allowed to check two bags at no cost, but the bags would be going whether you
got on the plane or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She said we
could check it all the way through to Vegas, though, and that seemed a good
idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I figured I’d get to Vegas
eventually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My only problem then was
that my second carry-on was quite heavy, which wasn’t usually a problem when I
could put it on top of the case with the wheels and pull it along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susie said no problem, just check both of the
bags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked, what about my iPad, what
about my magazines and my wallet and my little velvet bag of jewelry and my meds?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She said to just put them in the plastic bag
with the gifts and we would get to the airport in time for me to buy a tote bag
at one of the gift shops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sounded
reasonable, so it was agreed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then the trouble began (or continued).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost to the airport, we suddenly remembered
that we forgot to get gas in the rental car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Must return it full, you know, or it would cost us a whole lot
more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Using Susie’s GPS, we took off for
the nearest gas station, and then headed back to the airport.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we couldn’t find the rental car
return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sign said that rental car
return could be done at both Terminals, but I swear, we saw no car return signs
on the B side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We ended up on the
freeway going the wrong direction (away from the airport) and had to exit and
return to the terminal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time was ticking
away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After more aggravation, we finally
got the car returned and rushed to the counter, where we had to check in and
check our bags.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That couldn’t be
avoided, even if we hadn’t been checking bags, because we didn’t have a
computer and printer at the condo to print out our boarding passes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were down to 30 minutes before flight
departure when it was my turn to check in, and the clerk couldn’t figure out
how to check my bags through to Vegas, I think because Susie had made our round
trip reservations from Denver to Orlando and I had made my own reservations to
and from Vegas to Denver, so they were two separate itineraries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susie rushed for the gate to try to secure
our seats while the clerk helping me called for assistance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had quickly crammed my iPad, wallet, meds,
jewelry, magazines, and of course my snacks in the little plastic bag
containing the stuff I had wanted to mail to Jill and Jared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No time for purchasing a tote bag, the
plastic bag was IT.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The clerks finally
got my bags to check through to Vegas, but they warned that they might not make
it onto the plane, since it was now 20 minutes to departure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I grabbed my plastic bag and ran towards
security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the handles on my plastic
bag immediately broke, so I was now cradling the bundle in my arms, trying to
hold the top closed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had a terrible time getting through security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They told me to go into the line over to the
left side, which Susie later told me she always refuses to do, but I didn’t
know any better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took (seemingly)
forever, and I was so rattled that I tried to go through the scanner with my
shoes on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Problem with that is that I
had to send them through the x-ray machine after a lot of other people’s
luggage, so I was hopping up and down impatiently while the luggage between me
and my shoes kept going back and forth in the scanner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Actually they were shoes I had borrowed from
Susie, but that’s another story.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
finally came through and I grabbed them off the belt practically before they
cleared the machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carrying the shoes
and my bulging plastic bag, I ran for the train.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came running up to the gate with about two
minutes to spare, which I knew could still be too late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Susie was standing there shaking her
head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t get on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There weren’t enough empty seats for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She may have texted that info to me while I
was sweating bullets, trying to get through security, but I didn’t have time to
stop and look at my phone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Susie immediately got on the phone with Gary so he could
look up alternate flights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also
called Carolyn, her daughter, who works for Jet Blue, to see if they had any
flights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was apparently a Jet Blue
flight that was leaving soon (going through Boston or somewhere), but it was in
another terminal, so she rushed off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
forlornly stood there, gripping my sagging plastic bag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I sat down and pulled out my iPad and looked up alternate
flights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turned out there was a flight
to San Francisco that was leaving in about an hour and a half with space
available.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then a couple hours later
there was a flight from San Francisco to Vegas that had something like 40 empty
seats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I booked myself for those two
flights and went in search of a gift shop to replace my plastic bag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long story short (and you thought I never
shortened any stories), I made it onto both flights and arrived in Vegas about
1 AM (translates to 4 AM Florida time).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jimmy was picking me up at the airport, but I had told him not to leave
home to come get me until I found out what happened to my luggage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As you know, in Orlando I had been told that
there was no guarantee that the bags would make it on the flight to Denver, so
I didn’t know when I would see my bags again and I needed to get that figured
out before Jimmy left the house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
didn’t want him driving around and around McCarran airport looking for me among
those crazy cab drivers (especially in my car).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>=)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The next little problem was that United Airlines has started
using our new airline terminal, #3, and I had never been there before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After wandering for a while through that vast
empty terminal, I found the United Airlines office and, lo and behold, the bags
were actually sitting there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They made
it, even though I didn’t!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(At least not
at the same time as them, anyway.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
sure was glad that I insisted on checking them through to Vegas, since I didn’t
go to Denver at all on the way home!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
called Jimmy to come get me and went to passenger pickup for terminal 3, which
is in a completely different location from where we usually go, so I sat on a
bench at the mostly deserted curb for a long time while waiting for Jimmy to
find it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, one of the airport
security guys (the ones I described earlier as the meanest ones on the planet)
offered to take me home as long as I could cook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told him I can cook, but I choose not to!</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvi_yWOSw4eBHa7ymdBVJqX6L4lt65kEaQW3OWzWN2oy17rrevKLIBLDN5JbcX34Jz_OgjxzKhT-uwsPOtDnnKxpxRCl5Ysmm-y_-_D-4gtrRNgQPFDCpW6r0AekrEwSNQUAFMDxKHqI/s1600/iphone+363.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGvi_yWOSw4eBHa7ymdBVJqX6L4lt65kEaQW3OWzWN2oy17rrevKLIBLDN5JbcX34Jz_OgjxzKhT-uwsPOtDnnKxpxRCl5Ysmm-y_-_D-4gtrRNgQPFDCpW6r0AekrEwSNQUAFMDxKHqI/s200/iphone+363.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Disney bag with just the gifts inside. Imagine it with an iPad and everything else added!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jimmy and I finally found each other and I made it
home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You would think that the story was
ended, but it wasn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter how much
I searched, I couldn’t find the prescription bottle with those antibiotics I
had begged my urologist to send me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
took everything apart several times before I gave up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heaven knows where I lost it, but the bottom
line was I’d have to call the doctor and beg for another one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I e-mailed the office to let them know I’d be late (I was getting into
bed about an hour and a half before I usually get up).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I got up and started to get ready, I
woke Chica up to go get fed (which she’s usually busy reminding me about before
I reach that part in my morning preparations), and one of her eyes was
completely white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It looked like she was
totally blind in that eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I rushed to
the phone and called the vet, and they told me to come in right away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I threw on some clothes, grabbed my makeup
bag, and rushed out the door, waking Jimmy on my way out to ask him to feed the
other animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Dave (the vet) said
it might be the doggie lupus coming back and had to draw some blood, which is
always a nightmare with Chica.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poking
both legs and both sides of her neck, they were only able to get a small
amount.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I was waiting to pay, I
noticed a bunch of velvet bags with that “Rainbow Bridge” poem on them and knew
that they held doggie ashes and I started to cry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My baby!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Let me know if you aren’t familiar with that poem and I’ll add it.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We started Chica on a steroid, which is the treatment for
doggie lupus, but Dr. Dave called me the next day to tell me that it wasn’t
doggie lupus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The test showed that her
liver was in bad shape along with various other things that didn’t lead to one
diagnosis (nothing about Chica is ever easy), but he said to bring her back the
next day for x-rays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The x-rays showed a
greatly enlarged liver and a small lump on her adrenal gland, which we don’t
know if it’s just a calcium deposit from an old scar or cancer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could point to several things that I won’t
bore you (further) with, but she doesn’t have the other symptoms that would
lead to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr. Dave knows I don’t
want (and can’t afford) anything too invasive unless it’s absolutely necessary
(and even then, sadly, there are limits), so we are treating the symptoms with
eye drops for her eyes, an antibiotic, and a liver pill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her white eye cleared up after a couple days
on the steroid pills (which I stopped giving her after her blood test results
came back).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So now we’re waiting and
watching to see what happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to
take her back for another blood test on Thursday (yay – those are always a
blast) to see if anything is getting better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She acts pretty normal, so I’m hoping she’ll be okay.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So that’s the story of my trip to Walt Disney World.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although it may not sound like it, I still
had a lot of fun!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know that my daily
life is always full of one minor disaster or another, so it’s just life as I
know it and I just try to enjoy the ride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What choice do I have?!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>=)</div>
just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-35554973172642173892012-07-11T17:04:00.002-07:002012-07-11T17:04:49.650-07:00A Day in (My) Life<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I was just going to write all this down in a whiny e-mail to
Susie, but then I decided, hey, I haven’t posted anything on my blog lately, so
I’ll whine to everybody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How about
that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s TMI for most of you,
but oh well, you don’t have to read it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I haven’t even blogged about our wonderful trip to Virginia to visit
Jill and her family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was an
“Adventures with Grandpa” chapter and a half!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately I forget a lot of the funniest parts. It’s sad that I
can’t just stop and say, hold on Dad; let me jot something down before I
forget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll have to try to dredge
through my memory to come up with some adventures we had that week, though,
because there were lots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway …</div>
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I couldn’t sleep last night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I really can’t figure out why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Working four ten-hour shifts a week, I try really hard to get a good
night’s sleep every work night, and I got to bed a little late as it was, but
after I got in there, I just couldn’t go to sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I turned on the TV and watched whatever for a
while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turned it off and tried to
sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No luck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turned on light and read a magazine for a
while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tried to sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Turned on the light and read scriptures!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tried to sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, not for a
long while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only thing I can blame
it on is that I got a lot of sleep over the weekend because I had a stomach
ache all day Friday and Saturday, and I pretty much slept all day and night
both those days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So maybe that’s why.</div>
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Anyway, I woke up early this morning for some reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got up to go to the bathroom and when I got
back into bed, I knew I wasn’t going to go back to sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just wasn’t happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I thought, hey, I’ve been trying to make
myself get up early and exercise forever (was going to start right after I got
home from VA but I hurt my back and was out of commission exercise-wise for a
while).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I got up, put on one of my
raggedy house dresses, and went to look at my collection of Wii exercise
games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I decided to do the barely-used
Just Dance 3 that I got from Joanna and Shayler for Christmas (yes, I had it on
my Christmas wish list – they didn’t get it because they thought I needed it,
if that’s what you’re thinking).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
picked a couple of random songs and imitated the figure on the screen as best I
could.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were faster than my usual
fare, and it was fun (mostly).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After
several songs I went to get in the shower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
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I felt pretty winded and sweaty, but I didn’t see it as a
big deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I washed my hair and
everything, so all the sweatiness would be gone, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wrong!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After I got out of the (cool) shower, I swear, I continued to sweat from
every pore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since I planned to wear a
dress, I put some of my fake tan stuff on my legs, arms, and other places that
would show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I blow-dried my hair and
went downstairs to feed the dogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Chica has been rather out of sorts lately (more than usual);
a lot of the time she doesn’t want to eat and will only eat a little if I cheer
her on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve been a bit worried about
her, since against all odds she survived doggy lupus about a year and a half
ago, so anytime she won’t eat, I get concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most of the time she wolfs down every morsel and then goes to see if
Dobby has anything left in his dish (he wisely eats faster and is always done
before she is).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, this time
she seems to think that if SHE isn’t eating, DOBBY shouldn’t eat, either, and
she has managed to communicate this opinion to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dobby, being the chicken dog that he is, will
obey her unspoken (unbarked?) command.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
has been either leaving his bowl untouched or, if I tell him to stay over there
and eat, he will lie down on the rug next to his dish and eat nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This has been going on for several days, with
neither one eating a full dish at breakfast or dinner, so today I decided to take
matters into my own hands and I sat down on a chair near Dobby and told him to
eat, and he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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All this is fine and dandy, but it wasn’t on my
getting-ready schedule and time was running out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I sat there, I glanced at my legs, and oh
no, they were looking streaky from excess sweating!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried to rub them to even them out, but the
fake tan had already dried that way (I use a kind that is tinted so you can see
where you’re putting it).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went
upstairs and put more fake tan on my legs, hoping it would even out, and then quickly
started to put on my makeup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought I
did an okay job until I glanced into my magnifying mirror and saw that, since
my face was still sweating in spite of the fan that was blowing on me, the
makeup looked like I’d laid it on with a trowel, and not very evenly, either!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My face looked like it had about 1/4 inch of flesh-colored
mud; we’re in the desert, which means it was also beginning to crack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I grabbed a face wipe and wiped it all off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Okay, okay, it wasn’t exactly a face wipe – it
was a container of baby butt wipes that had dried out completely, so I had
poured water and astringent over them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They work fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of them have
actually touched a baby’s butt.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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I was out of time, so I grabbed my small bag of makeup
essentials to put on in the car and got dressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The legs still looked streaky, so I grabbed
some light body makeup, hoping that it would be just enough to cover the
streaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, since my legs were still
sweating, they were damp, and the body makeup goes on REALLY dark when it’s
wet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So now I had really dark
streaks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I covered them the best I
could, grabbed my makeup bag and purse, and rushed out the door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I applied my makeup at red lights (mostly)
and made it to work only a few minutes late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I swear I kept sweating for hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My body was obviously in shock.</div>
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Unfortunately, though, my legs look like I dipped them in
dark brown paint (that had run a bit), and they got darker as the day wore on
(you know that fake tan gets darker after several hours).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course the rest of my body (that showed)
was lightly tanned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not a match, not
even close!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried to keep my legs
under my desk as much as possible, but of course there were a couple of trips I
had to make to the General Manager’s Office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Naturally, the gal who usually helps me is off this week, so I couldn’t
ask her to go.</div>
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Oh, well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess I’ll
be wearing pants for the rest of the week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
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Oh, and by the way … the incident where I hurt my back when
I first got back from our trip to Virginia?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was twisting around trying to put fake tan on the back of my legs
before church and there was a little popping sound and then the pain in my back
gradually began.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sounds like I should
give up on fake tan?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NEVER!</div>
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P.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I actually wrote
this last week, but then I decided not to post it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too boring or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But here I go anyway!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if anybody is wondering about Chica’s
health, I took her to our vet last Friday and it isn’t doggy lupus, it’s
some bad teeth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a relief!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s going in for dental surgery this Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keep your fingers crossed that she gets
through the anesthesia okay!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>--k.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-53453906070395096542012-02-04T21:26:00.000-08:002012-02-08T07:09:07.480-08:00Documentary about my wonderful dadAs most of you know, Jimmy is still in school, majoring in film and media studies. He has his doubts about ever finding a job in the field, but we're hoping for the best!<br />
<br />
Anyway, he took a documentary class last fall, and the major assignment for the semester was to make a documentary about someone, and he chose his grandpa, my dad, Lenard Smith. He and a friend traveled up to Caliente to film Dad in action for a few days last fall. The final project that he turned into his professor could only be something like five minutes long and focus on one subject, but Jimmy filmed Dad doing several different things, and I asked Jimmy to make a longer version for me for Christmas. And he did!<br />
<br />
Since Christmas I've spent time now and then trying to figure out how to convert the DVD he made into something I can share with family and friends, and I think I've done it, so I'm going to post it here. The video quality isn't as good as the DVD itself (of course) but I think you can get the idea.<br />
<br />
Jimmy titled his project "86 and Still Living." I think that describes my father pretty well! I hope you enjoy it -- if it's one-tenth as much as I do, it's a success.<br />
<br />
I can make copies of the DVD, so if you'd like your own copy, let me know and I'll send you one.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZBNiXfs0JlI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In case the video doesn't come through for you, here is the link on YouTube:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZBNiXfs0JlI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZBNiXfs0JlI</a></div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-18798481290664304802011-10-14T16:42:00.000-07:002011-10-24T09:15:10.309-07:00Moving OnWell, I haven’t posted anything in a LONG time, and it’s about time I wrote SOMETHING. I had a long post and a half about my boss Cary Casey, but then decided it probably wasn’t wise to post something so personal on a public forum, even though nobody reads this anyway. SO … I’m moving on, from a big big BIG part of my life. In case you didn’t know, Cary was my boss; I was his Executive Assistant for 17 years. He died June 24 at 65 years old. He was diagnosed with cancer (spindle cell sarcoma) in March, so it was fast and so sad. It’s still hard to imagine someone so full of life, so energetic and so passionate about everything, suddenly just gone. <br />
<br />
I had been organizing a video for him, filming employees sending him messages (nothing negative--like I'm so sad you're sick--was allowed) and I even organized a flash mob dance scene made up of a lot of employees. I intended to bully just the Finance Department to participate, but in the end it was not even just us. The General Manager and all the Deputy GMs were out there boogying (so to speak) with the rest of us, including most of the department heads. It was 107 degrees that day and we did it outside. I was amazed by the turnout, and it ended up being a lot of fun, even though I had to be out front (that was the only bad part). A couple simple dance steps is all we used, and we danced it to “Can’t Help Myself” which happened to be the song that played on one of the little toys Cary had in his office. He used to say that he would push the button to make it play every time he felt he needed to hear that somebody loved him. (Yes, you do know the song. It’s by the Four Tops and starts, “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch. You know that I love you! Can’t help myself …”) It was funny. I got a lot of calls about it the day after we filmed that part. Half of the calls were people telling me how much fun it was. The other half of the calls was people who were mad that I hadn’t invited them to join us. And so it goes.<br />
<br />
Sadly, Cary didn’t live long enough to see the video. It was all filmed and being edited when he died. But I believe that he has seen it now and appreciates my efforts. I know his family, his two children and his “widowed bride” (he married his long-time girlfriend just hours before he died) appreciated it. His children, a son Connor and a daughter Evan, are only 28 and 25 years old, so it was early to lose their dad. And I know how much he adored those kids. I’m also rather fond of them; they grew up with me, too! One thing will always stay with me. Cary had a bit of trouble with Connor when he was a teenager, so Cary was thrilled when Connor decided to join the marines right after graduating high school. Connor was at boot camp when 9/11/01 happened, so that kind of dampened Cary’s enthusiasm for his son being a marine! Connor was actually in the first tank regiment to cross into Iraq. We spent many days with Cary’s office TV tuned to Fox News as we watched continuous coverage of the war. We were afraid to watch and afraid NOT to watch! But Connor came back, safe and sound, and a man we could be even more proud of. Connor got married on the end of April, and Cary was able to be there. It’s the last time most people saw him alive. I saw him once more when I visited him at the hospital. Cary’s daughter, Evan, graduated Summa Cum Laude from UNLV over a year ago. Cary was very proud of her, too. But anyway, I know that Connor watched the video a lot, because at the funeral he made comments about it to some of the newer employees that he had never really met before. So it makes me happy that, even though Cary didn’t get to see the film while alive, it provides comfort for his family.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I’ll say only a few things about Cary. The first is what I said to him on the video. The video opens with me sitting in HIS chair with my feet up on HIS desk, calmly filing my nails. I look up as if someone has just come in and I quickly put my feet down. I say, “Cary! I didn’t know you were here! Sorry about that! Oh, just wanted you to know that I never did that when you were still here.” Then I paused and said, “You know, Cary, we’ve been through a lot in the 17 years we have worked together. There are lot of memories, good times and bad times. There were times we sat in this room and yelled at each other! The times you yelled and I cried, the times I yelled and you cried – wait, THAT never happened! Anyway, there is one thing I have to say. It was never boring! Love ya! Bye bye.”<br />
<br />
That was my contribution. We did have a lot of ups and downs, and a lot of it was very hard on me. I’ll post a few of his pictures. As you will see, he could be so crazy, he could be so fun, but he could also be very mean. But I survived. I have to tell one thing that proves to me that he did care about me. I can’t tell everyone the circumstances, but there was a day almost ten years ago that I got some very bad news. I had been house-sitting for my friend Julie, who was gone to Ohio for her grandfather’s funeral. I got the bad news before I left for work that day. When I got to the office, I told Cary what was going on. I also had a terrible migraine and I asked him if I could just go home for the day. He was shocked at my news and said yes, I could go. I gathered my things and walked to my car in the parking lot.<br />
<br />
Right when I started up my car to leave the lot, my cell phone rang. It was Julie. In the few minutes it had taken me to walk to the car, Cary had rushed around the office, trying to find someone who had Julie’s cell phone number. He wanted to get hold of her right away because he knew I needed a friend. And he got her number, called her, and she called me within that short time frame. I was shocked, still am, at what he did. So he did care about me in some way.<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In fact, something happened last week that I have to mention and then I won’t talk about Cary again (much). I was in my kitchen, mixing up my morning protein drink, and in my imaginings I heard Cary saying to me, “You sure have this new guy fooled, don’t you?” (He was referring to Bill, my new boss, who really likes and appreciates me.) Don’t take Cary’s statement wrong, it was exactly the kind of thing that Cary would say to me, in a fond, joking manner (as fond as he ever was). I agreed with him that yes, I do! Then I imagined that Cary said to me that he was sorry for all the things that happened. I told him, “I forgive you.” And I do. So that’s all the detail I’m going to go into about life with my boss. He has said he is sorry and I have forgiven him. The end.</div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">And now for the pictures.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD2a2y1jeoI-js6deWGsXp4YAYthKwLR7kG3CextNt962mwfgApZ3ix2tNLwHJRqp7DLVIu-n8np0kULBg_7ArBUiOFLOzCo-lH8R0qmD6D5PuV-4jWw5C-xXlt_OEUi0PWqOoB1ao8j4/s1600/employeeappreciation96-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD2a2y1jeoI-js6deWGsXp4YAYthKwLR7kG3CextNt962mwfgApZ3ix2tNLwHJRqp7DLVIu-n8np0kULBg_7ArBUiOFLOzCo-lH8R0qmD6D5PuV-4jWw5C-xXlt_OEUi0PWqOoB1ao8j4/s320/employeeappreciation96-1.jpg" width="209px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">This one was taken at our first Employee Appreciation Day, a Hawaiian theme. My boss, the CFO, twirling a baton that's on fire. He did singe a few of his leg hairs when he passed it under his leg. Originally he was going to wear something shorter, but I said no no no ... I could see his underpants! (Not that he cared.)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiKCisW68RtxJ3kMH1fUgxizAwWcbQ9Y6cU0o-LbXFrrD6VdUU8z0_NRQC2-uqprP_Be-UKFV1H-K-Fqm3aDj8Vn-RCiyVLC3gjp1C_OF3DH7xjYIME1_srPJFt-SFgRPd09dyNBiZQUI/s1600/king+tut-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiKCisW68RtxJ3kMH1fUgxizAwWcbQ9Y6cU0o-LbXFrrD6VdUU8z0_NRQC2-uqprP_Be-UKFV1H-K-Fqm3aDj8Vn-RCiyVLC3gjp1C_OF3DH7xjYIME1_srPJFt-SFgRPd09dyNBiZQUI/s320/king+tut-1.jpg" width="220px" /></a> </td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: small;">My boss, dressed up as King Tut and lip-synching that old Steve Martin song. I think the theme that year was 70s. And he mooned the General Manager (wearing his flesh-colored underpants) just before the dance started. Proof that he didn't care about such things!</span></div><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkXsrGt-nbXeNh8t87DKfC8fbxw6MD0hXb7FYMxCJ-2-MYMDUAYxmMuk855jclvYT8nzeOh1r45zZJYPGOd8j5S9yczQjqrXbh9LLkuoTKsTkB7Eq6cuMTACFiFJdm7mn6xieCWLqjsME/s1600/Cary+Miranda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320px" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkXsrGt-nbXeNh8t87DKfC8fbxw6MD0hXb7FYMxCJ-2-MYMDUAYxmMuk855jclvYT8nzeOh1r45zZJYPGOd8j5S9yczQjqrXbh9LLkuoTKsTkB7Eq6cuMTACFiFJdm7mn6xieCWLqjsME/s320/Cary+Miranda.jpg" width="240px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dressed up as Carmen Miranda hanging onto the back of a decorated golf cart. The theme that year was Mardi Gras. I had to do his makeup! That was weird. Also, during the second lap around the building, his bikini top rode up and exposed his chest. I was so horrified! Couldn't he feel the breeze?!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijooOCohWeoAkP1x1Mm62Fse2xap01lpLriQay55BcTtqG6Lee3LmqE_eibDvqc-v44pSk7QT6UWZPpRhtHzQXNI0l0y1otqDjOVu1wV7EQVuZRjXf8vXUERtPtzUOnQLd84p85aJ7dtc/s1600/birthday+2005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240px" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijooOCohWeoAkP1x1Mm62Fse2xap01lpLriQay55BcTtqG6Lee3LmqE_eibDvqc-v44pSk7QT6UWZPpRhtHzQXNI0l0y1otqDjOVu1wV7EQVuZRjXf8vXUERtPtzUOnQLd84p85aJ7dtc/s320/birthday+2005.jpg" width="320px" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">I had a big halloween-themed party for his 60th birthday. Here he is among his decorations. The skulls and bats hanging from the ceiling each had a signed message from someone from work. He left all the decorations up almost until Thanksgiving (his birthday was October 17).</span><br />
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiLcNRk7zUaCpM32APAlaFdarmOWd9DmFZROgz3sbGV9gpPhlwS4slueTbO9N1aCBM3W2wTgycMwVeBLkYB1bw9ZnNlkarzjFt9dtVmvSPiMiUhgkgDrJnTVk28-VkOdbMvBMQ4Mz3wys/s1600/CMC+picture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256px" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiLcNRk7zUaCpM32APAlaFdarmOWd9DmFZROgz3sbGV9gpPhlwS4slueTbO9N1aCBM3W2wTgycMwVeBLkYB1bw9ZnNlkarzjFt9dtVmvSPiMiUhgkgDrJnTVk28-VkOdbMvBMQ4Mz3wys/s320/CMC+picture.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">I took this picture of him for publication in the Bond Buyer and it also ended up in a couple other Finance publicatons.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8QUMM4ARCEf6zG3HBolPcQ2ziWRzrQtUtdRlzAqMALuA49ssO9B-h-MgWrOW6-yoMuFF9kvMsTlzE-zvYaorcpGjB-K_CrjYD3HUy2dHrdvn7B5Sa_esjXJT6RySQphWi6Z_-R4G4Do/s1600/Cabin+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211px" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8QUMM4ARCEf6zG3HBolPcQ2ziWRzrQtUtdRlzAqMALuA49ssO9B-h-MgWrOW6-yoMuFF9kvMsTlzE-zvYaorcpGjB-K_CrjYD3HUy2dHrdvn7B5Sa_esjXJT6RySQphWi6Z_-R4G4Do/s320/Cabin+006.jpg" width="320px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The enormous cabin he built with his own hands. He lost a finger building it!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRuJaoYU_nssP2NAmKx5FnozzXsNi1Hz3ztuC3P_cbm1RMVOyehXiyhcQsn43J0TkJGb8GVsM6WPwjabziFENJ5w8cf3aUV0LP5Mw51_g32nwh1JF2XMk2ZCI6CMx6mwnESRhHFSBTPqY/s1600/Cary+Casey-005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400px" oda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRuJaoYU_nssP2NAmKx5FnozzXsNi1Hz3ztuC3P_cbm1RMVOyehXiyhcQsn43J0TkJGb8GVsM6WPwjabziFENJ5w8cf3aUV0LP5Mw51_g32nwh1JF2XMk2ZCI6CMx6mwnESRhHFSBTPqY/s400/Cary+Casey-005.jpg" width="300px" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: small;">His last official portrait. Sure glad I made him go to that appointment.</span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-size: small;">His family used it in the newspaper, funeral program, etc.</span></div></td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-6998350867017401782011-06-03T12:56:00.000-07:002011-06-03T16:59:54.380-07:00It's a weird, weird, weird, weird world -- Take TWO<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Well, a while ago I found a program that let me create my blog post somewhere else and add the pictures and stuff where I want them and then post it here without much trouble. Being totally OCD, I can't stand it when there are too many spaces (or not enough spaces) in my blog, when the words don't divide right between lines, stuff like that. I can't tell you how many times I've posted a blog, then viewed it, and then discovered messiness like that. I go back to the post and try to fix it, only to find more problems when I re-post it. Drives me crazy! Well, I thought I had solved it. NOT! Now I can't remember what program I used! So I sat down this morning to write my next post (hopefully less depressing than the last), telling myself I could get it out quickly and then get on with stuff I've got to get done today. Then I wasted at least an hour trying to figure out what I used. (I didn't use it for my last post because I didn't use any pictures.) So much for getting something out quickly and easily! If anybody knows what program or tool or whatever I might be thinking of, let me know! It's driving me crazier! And I will TRY to post this one and walking away so that I don't spend all day trying to fix it so it looks perfect. UGH! WHO CARES?! (except me?)</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">OK THEN! When I last wrote (not counting the most recent one), Jill’s babies had been born and I had returned home from the joy and exhaustion of taking care of two newborns plus Jacob and Kadence and Jill and Jared. A few weeks later it was time to go back to Arizona for the babies’ blessings. I thought that there would be too many people wanting to stay at Jill and Jared’s place, so I was looking for a hotel room for us. Of course my dad (aka Grandpa) would be going, and of course Jimmy, and I hoped Jenny. Joanna and Shayler had already told me they were going. Joanna was flying down earlier in the week to help Jill with the kids, and Shayler was flying down a little later because he got a new job (YAY!) and had to work. My whole family was (hopefully) going to be there! And it might be the last time for a while because (as I may have mentioned before) Jill and family were moving to Virginia, like SOON. So, I had been looking around for a reasonable-but-decent hotel room for us to stay in without much success when I found out that Jared’s family were all getting hotel rooms, which freed up Jill and Jared’s place for us to squeeze into. I figured I could bring my aerobed for me to sleep on, and I’d round up the other air beds I have in the garage for other people to sleep on. Jimmy could take the couch, and Joanna and Shayler said they were getting a hotel room for the days Shayler would be there. I preferred to stay at Jill and Jared’s place, anyway. You get to spend a lot more time with them when you’re under foot every minute!</span><br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Jenny wanted to bring her newest boyfriend, Mike (not to be confused with M*ke, my ex husband #2), with her, so they were driving down in Jenny’s car. Besides, I wanted to drive down on Friday morning, and Jenny couldn’t leave town until mid- to late-afternoon on Friday because they had to wait until both Jenny and Mike got off work. Yes, we might have been able to squeeze all of us into my car, but I wanted to get to Arizona as early as possible so that we could spend every possible minute with Joanna and Jill and her family. So Jenny and Mike were coming in Jenny’s car. I had arranged for my friend from work, Lynn, to house sit and take care of our doggies and kitties. Toss in the fact that we had just had a new alarm system installed in the house. I’d had a sub-par system for a while and was basically just waiting until my contract with them expired before I got a new one. (This little fact might seem random, but it does factor in later on.) (And since when does the fact that something is RANDOM stop me from including it anyway?) </span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of course all (my) plans fall apart soon after they are made. Jenny’s car started overheating, so she didn’t know if it could make it to Arizona. Of course she HOPED it would make it, they would just keep stopping to add water. I wasn’t too happy with the idea of them driving that far with those risks, especially, probably (knowing them) leaving late at night, so I decided that maybe I could get a cheap rental car and Jenny could drive down in my car. I consulted with Jimmy (the only person I currently have at home to consult with – the animals don’t contribute much), and he thought that I probably shouldn’t spend the money; I am sort of broke all the time. If Jenny’s car couldn’t make it, they didn’t have to go. The voice of reason. I had already reserved a rental car at a very good price, but I could always cancel. I mentioned it to Grandpa, and he said that maybe we could ride down in his car. That sounded fine, except I decided that Jenny and Mike could ride down in GRANDPA’s car and we would take mine. Let them use the older vehicle! Sounded good to me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The plan was that Grandpa would arrive Thursday evening and we would leave for Arizona on Friday morning. He was already here when I got home from work that evening, and I could see immediately that my plans were already starting to fall apart. He had a meeting with a fellow land surveyor that afternoon, so part of his trip to Vegas was business related, so he brought his truck instead of his car. So much for my plan that Jenny would drive his car! I would have to let Jenny take my car, and just the cost of gas to drive that truck would probably be more than the rental car I had reserved (I did get a really good deal), so we were back to getting the rental car. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of course none of this stuff could be SIMPLE. That would be someone else’s life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It was too late to pick up the rental car that evening, so early the next morning, Jimmy and I drove to the rental car place near the airport to pick up the car. When we got back home, we loaded it up and took off for Arizona. I’m sure there were plenty of “adventures with grandpa” moments along the way, but those things have been crowded out of my mind with everything else that was going on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We got there, and it was Jacob’s school carnival that evening, so OF COURSE we had to go. He was going to a charter school, and the carnival was their main fund raiser for the year, and I have to admit that the items they were selling by silent auction were pretty cool. Jill had already bought a bunch of tickets for us to use for food and games; they had a bunch of those jumping things for the kids (you know, those big inflatable little room things), and the place was utter chaos with the noise of all the kids screaming and music blaring. Add to that was the fact that the weather was unseasonably cold, so it was pretty chilly, too. We loaded the babies’ car seats onto Jill’s double stroller and we went to look at the TONS of stuff at the silent auction in the school gym, but it was so crowded in there and trying to maneuver that enormous stroller through the crowd was difficult (coupled with people stopping to look at the babies). By the time we were halfway through, I had completely lost interest in everything. I guess I am not good at dealing with chaos. I did it while growing up in a large family and again when my kids were small, and I just can’t tolerate it as much in my old age. I was anxious to get out of there, so I waited by the door until the others were ready to leave. We went outside, where it was quickly getting colder as it was growing dark, got the dinner Jill had already paid for (hot dogs and chips), and tried to find a picnic table to sit down and eat. The wind had started to blow and Jacob was kept busy chasing our chips and napkins. Again, it was so loud outside that you couldn’t talk. Jacob spotted some friends of theirs who were standing in line at one of the jumping things, so he asked if he could take Kadence over there with them. Jill said okay. About thirty seconds later, Jacob was back and he was in tears, saying he had somehow lost Kadence. I stayed with the babies while everybody else, including Grandpa, fanned out to search for her. Jimmy went back into the building, Grandpa went to check the food area, Joanna checked the game area, and Jill set off to look for their friends, who had quickly disappeared. The searchers would occasionally return for a report and then go off in another direction. I sat helplessly with the babies, who (of course) decided it was time to eat and started to whimper. I wanted to whimper myself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Eventually Kadence was found (over by one of the jumping things) and we spent time rounding up all of the searchers. By then I’d had enough “fun” for one evening. I told Jill that Grandpa and I could take the babies back to the house, feed them, and get them ready for bed. We would take her vehicle because it had the car seat bases in it. I took her keys and planned to transfer her purse and other stuff to my rental car and then Jimmy would take the keys to my rental car back to her and stay with them. As we were exiting the school property, I noticed Jimmy answering his cell phone. Another crisis was brewing. While we were in the middle of the Kadence search, Jenny had arrived at my house. Although I had warned her that a new alarm system had been installed, she went inside anyway, causing it to go off. Lynn (the house sitter) had left to go gas up her car. I looked at my cell phone and there were, of course, many missed calls. The new alarm system is very LOUD, and there were increasingly frantic calls from Jenny with the alarm screaming in the background, calls from the alarm company, and calls from my friend Julie, who was unfortunate enough to be one of the backup people on my call list. Jimmy tried to call the alarm company back, but (of course) the cell signal at the school was really bad and the call kept dropping. The new alarm company had tried to impress upon me the fact that if the alarm went off and the person wasn’t on their approved list, that person would be arrested, no exceptions. Since it was new, I hadn’t taken the time to add who was permitted to be in the house (Lynn wasn’t on the list, either). So, while we were doing the Kadence crisis, Jenny had set off the alarm and the police were (apparently) on their way. It was so very loud at the carnival (and the cell signal was so poor) that we probably wouldn’t have heard it anyway if we hadn’t been leaving the school when we did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Jimmy kept frantically trying to get through to the alarm company. I managed find a spot in the parking lot with a tiny little signal on my phone and called Julie. She had just had minor surgery that day, so she wasn’t in the best shape to deal with this problem, either, but she had confirmed with the alarm company that Jenny is my daughter. After Jimmy was able to talk to the alarm company, he was able to convince them that everything was okay, and the security patrol cancelled the call to Metro (the security patrol was already at the house). Of course by now the babies were screaming at the top of their little lungs, and Grandpa was trying to soothe them. He had taken the car seats out of the stroller and had one in each hand, swinging them back and forth. It worked for a few minutes! We put the babies in Jill’s vehicle and then had the fun of trying to maneuver the vehicle out of there. We had parked on the large unpaved lot next to the school, and of course other people parked three-deep, completely blocking some cars from being able to leave. We were only partially blocked, so Grandpa stood outside and motioned for me while I tried to inch back and forth out of there. The babies continued to cry and I was just about at my wit’s end, to say the least! We made it, though, with only a few scrapes and scratches (just kidding, Jill).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We finally made it back to Jill’s place and eventually everything calmed down. Jared and Shayler arrived together that night (they arranged to arrive at similar times so only one trip to the airport would be required). To make a long story short (and you didn’t think I could ever shorten a story), Jenny and Mike arrived so late that they just slept in the car. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Saturday was going to be a big day, and this brings us to another little factor that I haven’t mentioned before: Jill’s biological father, Ira. I hadn’t actually seen him for many (MANY) years, but I had written to him occasionally over the years, sending updates and pictures. When the Internet arrived, we started doing it by e-mail. As Jill got older, I gave her the option of meeting him, but she was never very interested. Also, over the years I have told him about various events that Jill was involved in that he could attend if he wanted to, such as Las Vegas Youth Orchestra concerts. In recent years, Jill has communicated with him by e-mail and she has allowed him access to her blog, but she was still not very interested in meeting him. She felt that her family is complete and she didn’t want to complicate matters. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Well, without going into too much detail (actually I don’t have all the details), Ira has been sending gifts to Jill and her family over the years, and more recently he has been sending money. He’s actually been quite generous, sending money to celebrate their new house when they got it and other events I can’t think of right now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A year or so ago, Ira started thinking about religion. His parents are LDS, but they were basically inactive the whole time he was growing up. He was baptized as a youth and stuff like that, but their church participation was basically minimal. Long story short (ditto what I said earlier), when I married him, he said he wanted to return to church and we attended the temple preparation classes to get ready to get married in the temple after our first anniversary. It turned out that our marriage didn’t last that long. We got married in February of 1979; by October of that year, Ira had decided that he didn’t believe in the church after all and for that and other reasons, I decided that I didn’t want to be married to him anymore (even though I was pregnant with Jill by then). I moved out in October, we were divorced in January, and Jill was born in April. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Anyway, Ira’s current wife, Dee, is Catholic, and she is serious about her religion, but Ira wanted to return to his LDS roots. (His parents got reactivated in the church shortly after we got married and have been going strong ever since.) He started going back to church and got bit by the Holy Spirit bug, so to speak. He has reactivated himself and is hoping to go through the temple soon himself. (Actually he just texted me that he's going later this month.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When Ira found out that Jared lost his job last November, he wanted to send them money every month to help them get by. He asked for my opinion and I said that if they didn’t want the money they’d either send it back or just not cash the check. (They did wait a while before they cashed another check he had sent earlier, trying to decide whether or not to accept it.) They just didn’t want to feel obligated, even though Ira told them (and me) repeatedly that he just wanted to help, no obligation was required. Jill and Jared had some financial challenges between job loss and new job, so they gratefully (if hesitantly) accepted his help. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7VxjBkSBs-q0A0h3pd398FDsB83X9yL_r1UiJ_8BP4Le5hlVb6MWV2a3BOhVwj82dpydQSm9D7by0unb-2Jox2TmZjvzi8C9S-rpuqGkZpEeGVvL2ajNF14tYRGN7AMijQnnPqyYOExQ/s1600/IMG_1523.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7VxjBkSBs-q0A0h3pd398FDsB83X9yL_r1UiJ_8BP4Le5hlVb6MWV2a3BOhVwj82dpydQSm9D7by0unb-2Jox2TmZjvzi8C9S-rpuqGkZpEeGVvL2ajNF14tYRGN7AMijQnnPqyYOExQ/s320/IMG_1523.JPG" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ira holding Ben</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">His constant prayers, possibly combined with his financial help, led Jill and Jared to decide to invite him to the babies’ blessings. Since everybody was traveling pretty far for the blessings (my family and Jared’s family), Jill and Jared decided to have the traditional “post blessing Sunday luncheon” on Saturday so that everybody could head home after church. I had suggested that Jill might want to invite Ira to the blessings at church (I thought I could handle having him in the same church building), but I hadn’t thought about the luncheon thing. And now it was happening on Saturday!</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghP-jbEKEC5bAa61wRBfbehuSwu0bsTBiHT9juGPzmEldbfeFi7H0nsWkoIWD50_1jOTC37vU6fonN7_7vbjsC2hjMfQYBmCGfU1PV51_KQzhhxA2XSFCfwEyI0y-Zg9bjjWeFS7Im-cA/s1600/IMG_1531.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghP-jbEKEC5bAa61wRBfbehuSwu0bsTBiHT9juGPzmEldbfeFi7H0nsWkoIWD50_1jOTC37vU6fonN7_7vbjsC2hjMfQYBmCGfU1PV51_KQzhhxA2XSFCfwEyI0y-Zg9bjjWeFS7Im-cA/s320/IMG_1531.JPG" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary-Lou and Lee Gardner holding the babies</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So here I was, planning to see him and his parents (who, of course, had hated me not only for leaving their son but cutting them all off from seeing Jill) after more than 25 years. I wasn’t really nervous, but it felt weird. Really weird. On that Saturday, of course Jared’s family was already there, which included his parents, maternal grandparents, and one of his brothers with his wife and two kids. I was there with all of my family. The doorbell rang and in walked this tall, kind of skinny, sort-of-older (sorry, Ira, it seems I always think people around my age look old) guy with his wife and parents. They all looked vaguely familiar. I hugged everyone. </span><br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I knew Dee years ago when we both worked at the City of Las Vegas, so I talked with her for a while. Eventually Ira, who had been holding and feeding one of the babies, joined us. All of us laughed and talked, and it was completely, totally surreal. That’s all I can do to describe it. S.U.R.R.E.A.L. And a half! Of course all my other kids were rather fascinated with the whole subject. They’d been hearing about him all their life and here he was. </span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’ll wrap this up with more pictures and a few more comments. I’m all talked (typed) out.</span></div> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoiAv8mLn4bBbP5Hd9zCwM7GOLgrQoVreLoJfqkCUVMF_3YwWn_n7Izg7Hne4GE0QBg75M8OfEOlNOwGxFT0D9lEkBxrS2xlTMPWerSUFtrwHYtr6AZ4VsfOZCfVf9sxLRhyphenhyphenJG-LZQGqw/s1600/MVI_1537-8b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoiAv8mLn4bBbP5Hd9zCwM7GOLgrQoVreLoJfqkCUVMF_3YwWn_n7Izg7Hne4GE0QBg75M8OfEOlNOwGxFT0D9lEkBxrS2xlTMPWerSUFtrwHYtr6AZ4VsfOZCfVf9sxLRhyphenhyphenJG-LZQGqw/s320/MVI_1537-8b.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">First of all, in case you didn’t know, Grandpa’s latest new project is making violins. The violin in this picture is his first masterpiece. YES, HE MADE THAT VIOLIN! Jill played the violin for us and Ira recorded it on his camera as a video, but I grabbed a few still shots from the videos. (Grandpa played it for us, too, don't have a picture of that.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The next day, after the babies were blessed, we took a few family photos outside the church. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ira and family with Jill and family (plus Grandpa)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The kids with their daddy's support</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My family (Kadence was sick of taking pictures by then! Apparently Jacob was too!)</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jill and her family. Yes, Jill has Sam and yes, Jared has Ben, you just can't see him very well from this angle.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL_iLIRV16Amh3KzA7lyWe-1CHE3OJPo8PtrnNb3QZ20u-Z7TM6eg4E1IGk4brvln7paX7zz_8aAezENFAs4wmxtIb-wS-tz3cjKH9BMar5KzAw87-txsE930PloZzaCd4w5fnLyEGibI/s1600/IMG_1557-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL_iLIRV16Amh3KzA7lyWe-1CHE3OJPo8PtrnNb3QZ20u-Z7TM6eg4E1IGk4brvln7paX7zz_8aAezENFAs4wmxtIb-wS-tz3cjKH9BMar5KzAw87-txsE930PloZzaCd4w5fnLyEGibI/s320/IMG_1557-2.JPG" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Proof! Another angle of the above shot. I just liked the smiles in that other one better!</td></tr>
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If I can muster up any more energy, I’ll later post another “weird weird world” post about my final visit to Arizona, just before they moved to Virginia. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;">One more thing I must mention was that Grandpa slept on a cot in the loft area of Jill and Jared's house, where the kids' toys were kept. Every morning we were there, I woke up hearing Grandpa playing Princess Barbies with Kadence outside my door. So so sweet!</span><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-91429939318996482222011-05-30T14:21:00.000-07:002011-05-30T15:10:06.403-07:00It's a weird, weird, weird, weird worldWELL … Susie, my best friend in the whole wide world since high school, has been prodding me to write some more on this blog, but I haven’t been able to do it. I have a hard time writing about sad things, and I’ve felt a lot of that in the past few months. I seem to think that blogs are for fun and laughter, not sadness and tears, never that. Every time I’ve thought about writing more on here, I can only think of my pain and confusion, not the happy times. But now that I’m sitting here typing, I’m suddenly thinking of the many sunshine moments that I’ve had between the clouds, and I’m going to write (and think) about those. So here I go.<br /><br />But first I’ll start with the things that have been pretty much consuming my life for the past months. Feel free to just skip this post if you want! I won’t blame you!<br /><br />The problems with Cary, my boss, began the week before President’s Day in February. To back up a little, he had been having trouble with his knee. He had a minor surgery on it a couple years ago, but of course as soon as it felt slightly better, he was hauling a refrigerator up and down the steps at his cabin in Utah. Yes, a full-sized refrigerator. He bought it in Cedar and hauled it to his cabin. After he plugged it in, it didn’t work. He had to drag it back down the steps and back onto his truck and back to the store, where it was exchanged for another one that he subsequently pulled up the stairs again. A week or so later at work he was complaining to me that the dang surgery didn’t work and his knee was hurting again. I gently inquired whether or not carrying refrigerators up and down steps might be on the doctor’s approved activity list, but he gave me a cranky look so I dropped the subject. He soon started talking about knee replacement surgery, but that was forgotten when his back started hurting. He plays a lot of golf and the sore back was interfering with his game, so he had surgery to fix that. Then last fall he decided to get a full physical at Scripps in California. He got a clean bill of health, so he decided to go ahead with the knee replacement surgery. The knee replacement was done in December, and he returned to work in January. (Usually he tries to return to work way before anybody sane would consider, but that time his doctor refused to release him until he stayed home the full four weeks.)<br /><br />Then in February, the Tuesday before the President’s Day weekend, he said his stomach felt a little upset and he was going home early. I thought he might be coming down with the flu. (This was before the twins were born, and Jill had been really sick with the flu about a week before that.) On Wednesday, Cary called and said that he still felt a bit nauseous and now he had a fever, so we agreed it was the flu and he should stay home. We had a conference call with our bond consultants scheduled for that afternoon, so he said he still wanted to participate. I planned to connect him to the call from home; everything was just business as usual. At about 11:00 that morning, Heather, his longtime girlfriend (been around almost as long as I have), called to tell me that he suddenly started having a lot of stomach pain so she had taken him to the Emergency Room. He’d called her at work to come get him, so I knew it had to be bad if he didn’t just drive himself. (He came close to driving himself from his cabin to the hospital in Cedar City when he cut off his finger a couple of years ago while working on his cabin. He was alone up there, and he called a friend in Vegas after he did it, and the friend insisted that Cary call 9-1-1. That’s my boss.) At first they thought it was a blockage of some sort, a twisted bowel kind of thing. Later they discovered it was a growth. They took him by ambulance to another hospital, and on Thursday around noon he had surgery.<br /><br />To make a long story short (yes, I know, it’s already long), they removed over 30 tumors around his stomach and intestines. They couldn’t get them all because they were everywhere. At first the doctors thought it was Gastro Intestinal Stomal Tumors, or GIST, a type of cancer that has a fairly successful treatment history with medication. After initial treatment, it’s a pill you take every day to keep the tumors from growing and spreading, so it’s not a cure, but it can keep the cancer from progressing for a decent amount of time, years, even (they call it PFS or Progression Free Survival, which sounds kind of harsh, but it’s not that bad, when you think of the alternative). Hard to accept, but something we could (kind of) deal with for now and who knows, maybe a better treatment would come along by the time the pills stopped working.<br /><br />It took weeks to get the results back from the biopsies that were done, and the end result was much worse. It’s something called spindle cell sarcoma; his specific type is very aggressive, and there is no approved treatment for it. In addition, he was in Stage Four. Cary’s only hope was a clinical trial being run by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota (actually a clinic in Texas is also doing a clinical trial on it, but Cary chose Mayo). In between bursts of total joy (the birth of the twins and visits with my family), I was dealing with travel arrangements for my boss and basically trying to keep the office running on a fairly normal path. Of course Cary returned to the office probably ten days after his surgery. He was supposed to be in the hospital for at least two weeks. He got out in one week and then dragged himself to the office the following Monday. He looked like death warmed over and didn’t stay long, but he did his best to be there nearly every day. At that time I took a week off to be in Arizona for the twins’ birth. I had asked one of the department secretaries to sit at my desk and take care of Cary while I was gone, but it turned out that she wasn’t needed, because Cary was out all week with pneumonia. He was back to work the next week, a few hours a day, but he was not feeling very well. The stomach pain and nausea never really went away after the surgery, and he was struggling. I went back down to Arizona for the babies’ blessings (much more about that weekend later). A couple weeks after that, Cary’s son got married. I went to the wedding. Cary had still been dragging himself to the office every day. I took the next week off to go back to Arizona to help (and be with) Jill and the kids for the last week before they moved. Again I arranged for someone to sit at my desk and again she wasn’t as desperately needed, because again Cary didn’t come to work all week. In fact, the Thursday before the wedding (we are off on Fridays) was the last time he was at the office. He was too sick to go to the office and believe me, knowing Cary, it had to be really miserable to stay home. He just ain’t the stay-home-just-because-I-feel-horrible kind of guy.<br /><br />When I got back to town after my last trip to Arizona, I found out that Cary was back in the hospital. The Thursday I was gone, they had started chemotherapy in his clinical trial, and they had installed a port to make that treatment easier. He was in the hospital for tests to find out why he was so sick and in so much pain. I stopped to see him. They decided he also had an ulcer and he went back home the next day. Since then, the chemo made him so much sicker than he already was that he has barely been able to move from his bed to a chair. Coming to the office was completely out of the question, even for him.<br /><br />After a couple weeks of total misery, Cary decided to stop the chemo. The doctor said it wouldn’t cure him, and now Cary is more interested in quality, rather than quantity, of life. After weighing the options of what would be best for his kids financially, he put in his retirement papers, effective June 1. Heather (his girlfriend) is hoping that he can make it to the office one more time, so last Thursday I cleaned up as best I could but left all of his mementos scattered about as he always had them. They are recruiting for his replacement, which will be difficult. He really is among the smartest people I have known, a financial genius.<br /><br />I hate to even mention how all of this has been affecting me, because I don’t want to make this awful situation “all about me.” He is the one who is struggling. He is the one who has had to face these awful truths, and without the comfort of the Holy Spirit to help him through, but I guess you have to admit that these things affect a lot more people than the person himself. He has two kids who are really suffering, and his girlfriend, of course, and his father, who is still living (like I mentioned earlier, his son got married a few weeks ago; his daughter graduated from UNLV last year). But I have worked very (sometimes too) closely with him for 17 years, and it has hit me really hard. When he first had the surgery, I had his permission to tell everybody about what had happened and what was going on. When we had the initial GIST diagnosis, I was allowed to tell people about that. He never gave me permission to ask for prayers, but I did it anyway. In the group e-mails I sent, I said “he isn’t asking for your prayers, but I am.” But after we found out that it wasn’t GIST after all but something much worse, I was no longer allowed to share the information. Cary didn’t want people to know. So there I sat in my office, knowing the truth, with people constantly coming around to ask how he’s doing, and I have to put on a positive face and say that he’s doing good. Most people still think it’s GIST. I can’t just sit in my office crying all day, so I have to get control over my emotions, and I’ve done a pretty good job. Once in a while when someone is being especially sympathetic, a little leakage will occur, but pretty much I’ve kept it all inside except for the when I get home, which makes it really fun for those I live with. Jimmy tries his best to comfort me and then escapes to his room. The cats don’t care. Chica just cuddles up and throws in a lick here and there. Dobby does what comes natural to him – he will make a gesture at comforting me but worries deep inside that it’s somehow something he did wrong and goes to find a corner to pee in somewhere. It’s a guy thing. At least it takes my attention away from my sadness long enough to get mad at him. So he’s helping! (And both of the dogs are now confined to the kitchen or their kennels a lot more than before.)<br /><br />All of this restraint at work is taking its toll, though. It’s sort of amazing to me that no matter how tiny the tear, the headache and general weariness that follow are the same (or worse) as a full outburst. People are always telling me I look tired (read: OLD), even those I rarely talk to. Actually, I’ve been taking headache, sometimes migraine medication nearly every day. I’ve broken out in acne, hives, and I even got a sty in my eye over the weekend. The emotions are coming out, whether I want to let them show or not! Instead of crying all day, I just get to look old and ugly. What fun. Added to that is the mixed reactions I get at work. Some people look at me and seem to think, you sure don't seem to care, where are your emotions? Others look at me like I'm too emotional and therefore unprofessional. I can't win.<br /><br />Added to all of this, on May 5th, Joyce, a friend from work that I have known the entire time I’ve worked there, had a sudden, massive stroke. She was having a little Cinco de Mayo get-together with a few friends when it suddenly hit her. Her husband called 9-1-1 and she was rushed to the hospital, but vital parts of her brain had already died and she was paralyzed from the neck down. She couldn’t even swallow. A mutual friend, Linda, rushed to the hospital to see her that night, and she said that when Joyce opened her eyes, Linda could see that Joyce was already gone. When Joyce’s husband first started texting Linda, Linda thought he was checking on arrangements for the surprise 50th birthday party they were planning for Joyce in June.<br /><br />The family knew that Joyce wouldn’t want to be kept alive in her condition, so they took her off life support and put her in a hospice (she was able to breathe on her own, and they didn’t put in a stomach tube). She died a week later. The week after that, they had her “Celebration of Life” at their Baptist church. They showed the slide show that was made for the surprise 50th birthday party that never was. It’s so strange, because I saw her for the first time in a while on the day she died. She was passing by my office and stopped to say hello. Since we hadn’t seen each other in a while, we asked each other where the other one had been hiding. As she walked away, she said one of her trademark favorite phrases, “S.H.I.T.” (Sure Happy It’s Thursday – again, we have Fridays off). And that was it.<br /><br />If all this isn’t bad enough, Cary has now decided that he doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. He rarely calls, and when he does, he wants to talk to Rick, one of the department managers. Cary, who never bothered to learn anyone’s phone number but mine, calls him directly and, if Rick doesn’t answer, then Cary calls me to say, “put Rick on the phone.” If Rick is gone, it’s “put Randall on the phone” (another department manager). I don’t think Cary even knows about Joyce, because Rick didn’t think he should tell him. The only reason I know most of the details about Cary’s health is because I have asked Heather for the information. Maybe Cary doesn’t want to listen to another weepy female, but he should know that I can hold it together, I can be trusted, and I care.<br /><br />And yes, I remember that it’s not all about me. But still, being shut out hurts even more. It really hurts.<br /><br />So, on this Memorial Day 2011, I sit at home and feel sad. Tomorrow I’ll reaffix my mask, put on my big girl panties (Gs), and go back to work. I’m pretending to put together a retirement party, in case he's ever well enough to attend one, and working on a farewell video. I hope he’s here long enough to see it.<br /><br />(Are you still sure you wanted me to write something, Susie?) <br /><br />For anybody that's still reading and might be concerned about me posting this information on a public blog, I'm pretty comfortable that hardly anybody at work reads my blog. Plus the fact that Heather is friendly with someone else at work, and everything I have written here has already been spread around work by the other person. I've heard these things (and much more alarming stuff that I can't confirm that may be exaggerated) from other sources at work. I don't feel that I'm revealing anything confidential.<br /><br />In a day or two I’ll post some of the sunshine moments of my past few months. I just can’t write any more right now. Something to look forward to?just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-58798229038030066532011-03-18T19:34:00.001-07:002011-03-18T19:39:07.303-07:00Baby Baby (and two adorable kids)–TAKE TWO<p>OKAY, I got that last post out of my system! I’m tempted to just delete it. Oh well! We’ll see!</p><p>On Monday, February 28, I got the news that Jill was going into the hospital on March 5 (Cinco de Marcho, as I like to call it) to either have a C-Section or get induced. I was glad to have it scheduled so I wouldn’t have to jump in the car and floorboard it to Arizona, only to get there too late for the birth! I had a bunch of stuff (the basic travel necessities) packed just in case, but as a committed OCD person, I always like to have a plan.</p><p>In order to save time, Cindy (Jared's mom) and I made plans to meet at 7:00 AM at the Sam’s Club parking lot near my house on Friday, March 4. She could get a ride there with Court, Jared’s dad, while he was on his way to work. That way neither one of us would have to drive out of our way to meet and it would give us a firm deadline on when we were leaving. Knowing us, if either one of us was planning to meet at the other’s house, we would probably waste time yakking instead of doing our yakking ON THE ROAD. I’m sure you get my drift.</p><p>Everything worked as planned. We met, loaded up the car, and hit the road. In addition to our suitcases we had Cindy’s cot and bedroll (I planned to sleep on “my” aero bed that stays at Jill’s place), miscellaneous baby gifts from friends, two large bins of baby clothes from Jared’s brother, and, of course, the essentials, such as traveling snacks and a couple 12-packs of CF Diet Dr. Pepper. </p><p>Since Jill was going into the hospital the next morning, she suggested that we meet them somewhere for the traditional “last meal” and she just happened to have a coupon for Chevy’s, so that’s where we went. I hadn’t eaten there for years and it was great – and the food wasn’t bad, either. Then we went to Jill’s place and continued with our traditions, which meant the girls going for a pedicure, including Kadence. Jill was hoping that when she was going to be able to actually see her feet again, they would look pretty! We also went grocery shopping and watched “Unstoppable” on DVD. It was a full day!</p><p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWBaEAgeI/AAAAAAAAAUE/hRovgJGETEQ/s1600-h/101_0035b%5B4%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: left; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0035b" border="0" alt="101_0035b" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWBx_By6I/AAAAAAAAAUI/NWgSE3BVo5Y/101_0035b_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="191" height="289" /></a>On Saturday, Jill was supposed to be at the hospital at 10 AM to get an ultrasound to see what the babies had decided – move into position and be born the normal way, or speed up the process with a c-section. Jacob’s’ last soccer game of the season was that morning at 10:00. I kind of resisted going to the soccer game. I wanted to be at the hospital! But it was Jacob’s last game and nothing was going to happen THAT fast, so eventually I was persuaded to go to the game. Jacob was having an after-the-season pizza party that his soccer coach was taking him to, and a friend of Jill’s was going to babysit Kadence and (eventually) Jacob while we were at the hospital. I was glad that I went to the soccer game. Jacob played a really good game and it was fun watching him try so hard. </p><p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWDRgxpaI/AAAAAAAAAUM/N-LVlELfjLA/s1600-h/101_0019%5B9%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0019" border="0" alt="101_0019" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWD5JOfyI/AAAAAAAAAUQ/7Z1oXKl56iM/101_0019_thumb%5B3%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="359" height="247" /></a></p><p>As you might notice in the pictures, both Jared and Jacob are sporting crew cuts. Their Relief Society had an Enrichment Night where someone showed the others how to cut hair, and Jared volunteered. I guess it’s nice and cool for the summer!</p><p>After the game, Cindy and I took Kadence out to lunch before heading for the hospital. While we were there, we got Jill’s text that the babies were going to be born C-Section. I began to shake. I realize the doctors know what they’re doing and all, but this is MY baby we’re talking about! We dropped Kadence at Jill’s friend’s place and started down the road, but there was one small problem … we didn’t know the name of the hospital or where it was! Jill had vaguely gestured in its direction when we were driving home from the Mexican restaurant the day before, but that didn’t help much. I had also looked it up online for Jill the night before, but in my agitated state, I couldn’t remember anything about it. We called Jill’s friend and she didn’t know what hospital Jill was using, either, but she named off a bunch of them and I picked one that sounded sort of familiar so we set the GPS and went there.</p><p>We hadn’t been there very long when we got the text and picture that the babies were born!</p><p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWEuiIayI/AAAAAAAAAUU/5Oyq-ndAaKw/s1600-h/babies%21%5B1%5D%5B4%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="babies![1]" border="0" alt="babies![1]" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWFFQ9wcI/AAAAAAAAAUY/N21gTHsVNUk/babies%21%5B1%5D_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="340" height="262" /></a></p><p>We found out later that right after Sam was born, Jill started to bleed. Ben was way up inside and turned the wrong way, so the doctor had to use one hand to try to control Jill’s bleeding and turn, grab, and pull him out with the other hand. The nurse said that when the doctor was trying to deliver Ben, he grabbed her finger. She said she will never forget how sweet it was. In all, Jill lost at least a liter of blood and they said she might need a blood transfusion, but she managed to make up the difference by the next day. <p>Jill was in recovery for several hours, so Cindy and I were just hanging out in the waiting room when we suddenly realized that we weren’t absolutely certain that we were at the right hospital. I hate to say it, but it would be really typical of me to be sitting for <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWFsoKzZI/AAAAAAAAAUc/NXYbgNF6szc/s1600-h/101_0061-1%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: left; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0061-1" border="0" alt="101_0061-1" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWGJVjCUI/AAAAAAAAAUg/4HN8sDw5bVk/101_0061-1_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244" /></a>hours at the wrong place. Cindy started texting Jared, trying to confirm the name of the hospital, but Jared didn’t seem to understand what we were asking and kept answering that we had to wait to see them until they were out of recovery. Eventually a nurse came to escort another patient to her car and she noticed our “Twins are twice as nice” balloon stuck to the little flower arrangement we picked up in the gift shop. She was able to confirm that we were at the right place because she was going to be Jill’s nurse for the rest of that day. </p><p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWGtK1XSI/AAAAAAAAAUk/FtRZMnnZMtc/s1600-h/101_0040-1%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: left; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0040-1" border="0" alt="101_0040-1" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWG1UcRdI/AAAAAAAAAUo/E7Lz0jU0epk/101_0040-1_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a>Eventually Jill and the babies were taken to their room and the frantic grandmas were allowed in. Here’s my first picture of the babies in their little beds and one of me with the babies!</p><p>Jill’s friend who was babysitting Jacob and <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWHejydoI/AAAAAAAAAUs/9e5l7AYJtkE/s1600-h/babies%20n%20me%5B1%5D%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: right; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="babies n me[1]" border="0" alt="babies n me[1]" align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWHuw5S0I/AAAAAAAAAUw/2u6hBZH5iaI/babies%20n%20me%5B1%5D_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="164" /></a>Kadence told us that they wanted to go to “game night” at the church that evening, so after a couple of hours, Cindy left to pick the kids up and take them home. I stayed longer. Jill has already posted a lot of the pictures I took, but I’m going to do a few more and include my favorites anyway, even if they’re repeats! <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWIAleR3I/AAAAAAAAAU0/tWYgVJFWp5w/s1600-h/101_0043-1%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: left; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0043-1" border="0" alt="101_0043-1" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWIXsHDjI/AAAAAAAAAU4/_i5FGrcuUCw/101_0043-1_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a></p><p>Here is Jill with … Sam, I think. <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWJXTfCoI/AAAAAAAAAU8/Df4-FFhZa1M/s1600-h/101_0054%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: right; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0054" border="0" alt="101_0054" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWJvTULiI/AAAAAAAAAVA/QrEjgQV-wXc/101_0054_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a></p><p>This picture is one I took of Sam while he was lying on my lap. </p><p>The third picture (below) is Sam on the left, Ben on the right. I took Sam’s clothes off in an effort to try to wake him up so Jill could try to nurse him, but he wasn’t cooperating very well! It also makes him look enormous next to Ben. Ben is smaller, but <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWKvjdCPI/AAAAAAAAAVE/J-vwZiCX7MM/s1600-h/101_0058%5B5%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: left; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0058" border="0" alt="101_0058" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWK_TDbaI/AAAAAAAAAVI/0tDN1rkDzls/101_0058_thumb%5B2%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="241" height="188" /></a>you really notice the difference here!</p><p>They are easy to tell apart. Besides being different sizes, Sam has brown hair, and Ben’s is blonde. They also have different blood types. Definitely fraternal twins! I have no idea how Jeanette kept her girls apart. I still struggle to remember which is which when they have hats on! </p><p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWL3S2CVI/AAAAAAAAAVM/4GL4VU4I5-w/s1600-h/jared%20napping%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: left; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="jared napping" border="0" alt="jared napping" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWMYwPAdI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/qSfpIOaEEIY/jared%20napping_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a>Poor Jared was totally exhausted from all his exertion and just passed out that afternoon! When I finally left the hospital (probably around 8 PM), of course I couldn’t drive home without incident. Cindy had taken my car to pick up Jacob and Kadence, so I was driving back to Jill and Jared’s place in their Honda Pilot. As I was merging onto the freeway near the hospital, I noticed police lights in my rear view mirror. Hoping that I was just in his way as he headed towards more important business, I pulled over. Unfortunately, he pulled over behind me! BUSTED! As it turned out, I had forgotten to turn on the headlights. They automatically come on in my car and the Pilot’s dashboard lights go on at night whether the headlights are on or not, so I completely forgot about them. I used the “my-daughter-just-had-twins” and “this-is-their-car” excuse, and after spending about half an eternity checking my license and registration, the policeman let me off with a warning. Whew! </p><p>When I got back to Jill and Jared’s place, Cindy was having trouble getting the kids to go to bed. “Nice Grandma” (her) had to retire to her room and “Mean Grandma” (me) had to take over. Sometimes you just have to bring it on.</p><p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWNQ8Px5I/AAAAAAAAAVU/ncvlpxhSpCY/s1600-h/101_0094%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: left; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0094" border="0" alt="101_0094" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWN6nDejI/AAAAAAAAAVc/ECwpOH_JdoQ/101_0094_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a>The next day was Sunday, and Cindy and I took the kids to church (where we may have mentioned the babies’ arrival to a FEW people) and then to visit their new baby brothers at the hospital. The next few days were a blur of running back and forth between the hospital, Jill and Jared’s place, and Jacob’s school. Cindy flew home on Monday. The doctors considered letting Jill go home on Monday afternoon, but the pediatrician wanted them to regain some weight first. On Tuesday the babies were ready to go, but Jill’s headache became worse and they thought it was due to a leakage of some sort of her spinal fluid from the anesthesia she had, so they had to do another procedure (drew her blood and injected it several times into her spine) and reconnect her IV, which was painful and discouraging for her. Jared and a friend gave her a blessing, and her headache eventually faded away. I stayed at the hospital with her on Tuesday night, and she was finally able to go home on Wednesday. <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWO0MC1cI/AAAAAAAAAVg/CjMcpkuSHdw/s1600-h/101_4702%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: right; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_4702" border="0" alt="101_4702" align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWPUQkEdI/AAAAAAAAAVk/f_KkQ3Q9jG4/101_4702_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a></p><p>Here’s a picture of Ben, sleeping on their couch. When I showed him the picture, Jimmy suggested that Ben might be a bit young to be getting hooked on Wii. I didn’t even notice the controller until he mentioned it! Gotta watch that.</p><p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWQUfE-WI/AAAAAAAAAVo/F8n8wcRryEc/s1600-h/101_0140%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: left; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0140" border="0" alt="101_0140" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWQmz329I/AAAAAAAAAVs/2iK9Y0ZeXPU/101_0140_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a>Well, as everyone knows, I can go on and on, but I’ll wrap this up with a final few pictures. Early Sunday morning I had just gotten the babies back to sleep when Jacob and Kadence decided it was time to get up. I let the kids play with my camera, and Jacob took a <a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWRT7BY2I/AAAAAAAAAVw/Uj4wT048bgI/s1600-h/101E0163%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: right; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101E0163" border="0" alt="101E0163" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWR2_3_dI/AAAAAAAAAV0/PCQzZiG4c0Q/101E0163_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="183" /></a>picture of me and Kadence, then Kadence took a picture of me and Jacob. I thought they turned out pretty good, considering that we all just got out of bed! (Actually I had been up for hours, but that’s beside the point.)</p><p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWSimssQI/AAAAAAAAAV4/K2ApLrzrjPI/s1600-h/101_0170%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: none; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; DISPLAY: inline; FLOAT: left; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px" title="101_0170" border="0" alt="101_0170" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_hoipjRGAusU/TYQWTDoOkpI/AAAAAAAAAV8/BUS2oIa8AWg/101_0170_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a>Also, I got Jared to take my picture with the babies. No hair or makeup done, but I’ve got two adorable accessories!</p><p>The morning after I got home, the noises the dogs make in their sleep made me keep waking up and looking for babies. The strange thing, though, is that when I would open my eyes, I didn’t know where I was. It took me a while to realize that I was at home in my own bed. Then I would fall back asleep and do it again – hear the noise, startle awake, look for babies, and have no idea where I was. You’d think I’d be able to recognize my own bedroom! My heart and mind is obviously still in Arizona!</p><p></p>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-49094864189005683612011-03-18T07:49:00.001-07:002011-03-18T08:40:50.964-07:00Baby Baby (and two adorable kids)<p>I’ve been trying to write this blog ever since I got back home early Monday morning, but I’ve been struggling. Probably everybody that knows me, knows that I can blab endlessly about minutiae, and there’s lots of it to tell. I had every intention of sitting down and going over every day and all the ups and downs of my sweet daughter having twins: the build-up of waiting, my fears, the delivery, my fears, the joy of meeting the babies, the disappointments as Jill had to stay in the hospital longer, my fears, and so on. But every time I’ve sat down to start writing, I can’t “bring it” like I usually do. My writing seems dull and empty, even to me, and I just can’t post anything, not yet. I think I’ve figured out why.</p><p>Hey, are we allowed to tell our real feelings on these things, or is it just endless prattle about sweetness and light? I know it’s not, it’s my blog and I can write whatever I want. I do try not to offend anyone (much); I try to leave out anything that would upset anybody who might read this. But I guess that’s why I’m struggling, and it’s not because of feared offenses. It’s because I’m heartbroken. </p><p>My daughter and her precious family are moving far, far away. I’ve tried to be upbeat and happy for them. I know they’ll do great wherever they go, and it’s going to be a wonderful adventure for them. But I am sad, so very sad. I won’t get to see them very often. My babies (all six of them – and yes, I’m counting Jill and Jared too) will grow up without me. I know I’ll see them at least a couple of times a year, and you know I’ll be watching those air fares to grab a reasonable flight whenever I can, but there will be no hopping in the car and driving off to see them for a weekend. And honestly, I haven’t even done that very often while they’ve been close enough. </p><p>OK, it’s only Virginia. Yes, that’s far, but it’s not Korea or Australia. I’ve been trying to soothe myself with those words, but it isn’t helping much. Jared left to drive there with his friend Peter this past Wednesday, and during the time I was in Arizona, we were in full preparation mode. Making plans, shopping for Jared’s new work clothes (subsequently stolen by someone who broke into his car in Texas), deciding what he should take, shopping for a GPS for him to take (in the end he borrowed mine), worrying about money. His new job is giving him a lump sum of cash to help with moving expenses (as well as paying for a moving company to actually pack them up and move them), but he has to work there a couple weeks before he’ll get the money, so they have to scrape by until that happens. But he has a great new job, something many others don’t have, they’re moving somewhere exciting and fun, and yes, we’re blessed, we’re blessed, we’re blessed. </p><p>But I am sad. </p><p>Added to this is the fact that my boss at work has been diagnosed with a terrible, rare, aggressive cancer for which there is no current treatment. His only hope is to get into a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, but our (insert foul language) insurance is resisting approval of the tests that will qualify him for it. Yes, I’ve had my ups and downs with him. He can be a great guy that’s really fun to work with. He’s also tortured me from time to time to the edge of (what’s left of) my sanity. But I’m his “work wife” (he doesn’t have any others) and we’ve been putting up with each other for 17 years. I don’t want him to die. I just want him to be nice to me 24/7! Is that too much to ask?</p><p>So there you have it.</p><p>I’m going to write a second blog after this one and put in all of the happiness and joy of two new babies. I’ll try to hold off posting this one until the other one is about ready so that anyone who reads this can wipe this from their minds, if it ever lingered there. </p><p>Right after I’ve dried my tears. Again.</p>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-13863239090246105092011-01-07T10:33:00.000-08:002011-02-01T08:11:11.271-08:00Adventures with Grandpa - Christmas 2010OK, before we get started, I must admit that some of these adventures don’t directly involve Grandpa, but he was here, so there you go. And as a prelude to this madness, I must admit that I was further behind on my Christmas stuff than I usually am. Yes, I’m always running around frantically trying to get everything finished up into the late hours on Christmas Eve, but this year was worse than usual because I was out of town for the first two weeks of December (I won’t say where I went, because I might lose my readers’ – maybe I should change that to reader’s – sympathy, if I ever had any). So the setup to this story is that I was gone for the first two weekends of December. The third weekend (the last weekend before Christmas) was spent dragging out the tree and a few other decorations and throwing them together, along with repacking the post-Christmas-decoration-piles and stacking them back in the garage, cleaning house and shopping. (Yes, I was tempted to skip the Christmas tree this year, but if I did that, where would we put the presents? Under the coffee table? Couldn’t do it.)<br /><div><div><div><br /><div>The week of Christmas I worked a full week (four ten-hour days). Couldn’t very well ask for more time off; all of my backup staff at the office had already taken it off, and some people called in sick. After work I was running to the mall (horror of horrors) and other stores to grab last-minute stuff. Because of that, I hadn’t been able to get much sleep all week, which doesn’t help anyone’s general coherence. Friday, Christmas Eve day found me closeted in my bedroom with piles of boxes, Christmas wrap, ribbons and bows, unwrapped gifts that must be stashed at any second should anyone need to enter the room, and a dwindling tape supply. Of course the scissors, tape, gift tags or marker disappeared in between every wrapping job, adding further steam to my approaching breakdown. </div><div><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div>This brings us to Grandpa’s arrival. All my kids (except Jill and family, who weren’t here) were going out to dinner with their dad on Christmas Eve, so I had made plans for Grandpa and me to go out to dinner with my friends, Julie and Jeanne. Julie and Jeanne’s parents have been dead for a number years and they don’t have any children, so we often spend time with them on Christmas Eve or Morning, and this year we decided to go eat at a favorite buffet. It was Friday, which was crab night! Yay! We wanted to get there early, though, try to beat the crowd, so I called Dad on Christmas Eve morning and asked when he was coming. I mentioned that I would like him to be here by 3:00 so that we could go eat dinner with Julie and Jeanne. He said he would, then casually asked if I had any projects around the house that needed working on while he was here. I’m a big fan of projects, and at first I couldn’t think of anything, but then I remembered the ceiling fan in my bedroom. I bought several ceiling fans at the beginning of summer and I put the others up by myself (yay! So proud of myself), but I didn’t get the one in my bedroom done because I couldn’t get the existing light fixture off the ceiling. He agreed that we would give it a try. Yes, I wasn’t thinking straight. When would we do said repair? Christmas Day? Surely not on Sunday, the day after Christmas. Blame it on my total lack of sleep. </div><div><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>Of course Grandpa arrived around noon on Friday (Christmas Eve). The first thing he said after greeting everyone was “Where’s that ceiling fan?” I knew it was futile to try to stall him, so I showed him the box, but told him about the problems I had when I tried to put it up myself. First of all, there was insulation glued to the top of the ceiling fixture, underneath the light bulbs. When I pulled it loose before, trying to find a screw or something that would release the thing, insulation, meaning fiberglass, had rained down upon me, getting on my skin, clothes, hair, bed, and floor, causing extreme itching and tiny cuts, not to mention a mess. I had to shower and clean up the whole area afterwards, and even that didn’t relieve some of the discomfort from the tiny cuts on my hands and arms. I warned Dad about that, and he agreed that we should try to guard against that, so I ran downstairs to the garage to get a few tarps to throw in the bed, a couple garbage bags to cover our clothes, and some gloves to protect our hands. By the time I came back (and I swear, I was only gone a couple of minutes), Dad had already removed the glass cover on the fixture and was tugging at the insulation, resulting in a shower of fiberglass. I gave up, set aside my tarps and gloves, and started to help him. Of course the screw I had tried to remove was stripped, but he clipped it off with some wire cutters, and we soon had the fixture off the ceiling. I also must mention here that the ceiling fan was going above my bed, so we had to stand on the bed to do all of the installation, which is never very sturdy. I was worried that he might lose his balance and tumble off the bed any moment, so I was hovering next to him to try to catch him if that should happen. Then we had it mostly put up when I remembered that there should be another separate wire for the light kit, pre-wired by the builder who obviously tried to hide it from us, which meant we had to take the motor and everything else down again to dig for the wire in the ceiling, but eventually we found it and put everything back up. I won’t mention the constant searching for dropped screws and other bits and pieces; those are par for the course with any home improvement project. Sometimes, too, I suspected that Dad was deliberately weaving while standing on the bed so he could watch me leap into action and try to catch him when he wasn’t falling at all. Hey, he has to get his amusement somewhere! When it was time to connect the light kit (for the second time), Dad got a call from Uncle Frank, so he left the room to talk to his brother. I finished up the fan, removed all of the wrap, ribbons, gifts, boxes, gift bags, etc. from the bed and put the bedspread in the washing machine and put on a clean one. I vacuumed, and by then it was time to get ready to go out to eat. </div><div><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div>When we were on our way to the buffet, Jeanne called to tell me that Sunset Station, home of my favorite crab legs, wasn’t serving them today. It was Friday, the usual day for them, but since it was Christmas Eve they changed the menu. There was no line there at all, but she suggested that we go to Green Valley Ranch, another casino owned by the same company, who had advertised that they have crab legs every day. I truly didn’t care that much about the crab legs, but since it was closer, I agreed to meet them there instead. When we got to GVR, the line was very long. The people ahead of us in line cheerily informed us that a line like that meant a two-hour wait. I didn’t really believe her, but was a bit nervous. Time was short, as you know! Lots to do at home! We waited for Julie and Jeanne to arrive. When they did, we discussed going back to Sunset Station, where there was no line, but you know how that goes. By the time we got there, the line might be twice as long as this one! So we stayed. Dad wasn’t happy about the long wait, and it was more than an hour (but not two!) before we were seated. And, surprise surprise, no crab! Just my luck! </div><div><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div>Even though the wait was long, we had a nice dinner and headed home. I told Dad that unfortunately he was on his own until the rest of the family returned. I still had lots to do in my bedroom. I set him up with the TV and his favorite, the Hallmark Channel, and returned to my <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKO2-cOOxD99NtpKLqDO8-A1-JI5Sxfv13Ylur3NQAydY6XrYTSNPfSppuqQM3XumaU0lIqNb_aXClUbIUog_GIw10UlY4E0z-1CvHQscBhp8BuMrc2BzpPTRp4EyKOiqx_PVWTcjVUeY/s1600/DSCF5502.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559521664923875842" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKO2-cOOxD99NtpKLqDO8-A1-JI5Sxfv13Ylur3NQAydY6XrYTSNPfSppuqQM3XumaU0lIqNb_aXClUbIUog_GIw10UlY4E0z-1CvHQscBhp8BuMrc2BzpPTRp4EyKOiqx_PVWTcjVUeY/s320/DSCF5502.JPG" border="0" /></a>room. I reassembled all of the boxes, bags, gifts, wrap, and ribbon on the bed and commenced the wrapping process. I was also watching my current favorite (true crime) on the TV in my room. At one point I heard a funny sound. I thought, hmm, what was that? Maybe it was on the TV? I reversed the show for a minute or so and yes, I heard the sound again, so <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigpgjIFx-oLuzkPqSMHVtm46h_T0ak9dsA1T_aR0he1TQgIWOIpOc6CGjlXy_o_9Fv4e4vjQQECiEweJ0dKoLMpIFQ4K1kTQXxp03prbNxbvhfoAGWqGmUYxr6R5xODTwaStXiVdhjG7c/s1600/DSCF5502.JPG"></a>I thought it was one of those weird background sounds you sometimes get on this type of show. A few minutes later Chica, my ever-faithful doggie companion, whined because she wanted to sit by me and her way was blocked by all of the stuff stacked on my bed. (Dobby was hanging with Grandpa, as shown in the picture.) I cleared a path for her and she joined me. Soon after settling down next to me, she stood up and threw up all over my side of the bed, on my heated throw, bedspread, and floor. It’s kind of amazing how much stuff such a tiny stomach can hold. (Chica weighs under eight pounds.) I jumped up to go get something to clean it up and discovered what the sound was that I’d heard earlier. Yes, it was her throwing up on the other side of the bed, down the doggie steps, and on the carpet on that side. Chica has been seriously ill, but she’s been better lately. I didn’t know if this sudden illness was something she ate or a bad recurrence of her disease, but I carried her downstairs to the family room/kitchen area (all tile) and started the clean up. All of the boxes, bags, wrap (you get the picture) had to be moved from the bed again, all the bedding removed, including the cover from the doggie steps, sheets, blanket, and heated throw this time, and added to the growing pile by the washing machine. Dad was going to be sleeping in Jimmy’s bed, so all of his bedding had already been added. I had to find more blankets to put on the beds; I even had to bring in a big bag of bedding from the garage because the supply inside the house was totally depleted! (Seriously, if any of you have need for extra blankets and such, I have bags and bags of them in the garage that aren’t being used that I’d be glad to give you.) I penned Chica in the kitchen/downstairs family room with the rest of the family, who had all returned by then (tile only except for a few throw rugs), and returned to my labors upstairs. Every so often I would get another call that Chica had done it again, so I would have to come downstairs and clean up another mess and/or carry more rugs to the pile in the laundry room. When everybody else went to bed, Chica proceeded to whine and cry, alone in the kitchen/family room, disturbing everyone’s sleep. When I finally finished wrapping the last stocking stuffer (yes, we wrap those) and, with Jimmy’s help, got everything set up around the tree, I joined Chica in the family room and slept on the couch with her so that she would settle down and stop crying. Yes, I was worried that I might wake up in the morning to find her dead. The vet said that it was a good possibility. But I tried not to think of that.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div>Christmas morning (not very many hours later) there were a few more large puddles on the few remaining rugs, but she was still alive. We dragged ourselves out of bed and commenced with the Christmas festivities. We opened our presents, cooked a big breakfast, and cleaned it all up before opening the stockings. Chica seemed better but we held off letting her have anything to eat until later in the day. She was better. I continued washing all the bedding (some of the blankets and bedspreads are still spread over the furniture upstairs, even though they’ve been dry for quite a while). Later that day I remembered another project that I needed Dad’s help with. I hated to mention it, since I knew it wasn’t anybody’s favorite chore, but the toilet in my bathroom had been “plugged” for over a month. The trouble began before Thanksgiving, and I tried using the little plunger substitute I had, a gadget that blasts air into the pipes, many times to no avail. I had bought two more plungers and an auger (I usually borrow Julie’s but decided I needed one of my own) and still couldn’t get it to work. I guess you wouldn’t say that the toilet was plugged, it just wouldn’t go down the way it’s supposed to. My interpretation of that was plugged. I mentioned the toilet to Dad several times, and he was a bit reluctant to offer his services. Can you blame him? Finally on Christmas Day afternoon, I mentioned it again and he agreed to take a look. For this project, he didn’t mind being “suited up” with a full apron, rubber gloves, and a pair of goggles. (Actually I’m exaggerating about the goggles, but I thought it was a funny addition to the costume.) Armed with a plunger, he went into the bathroom. There was nothing in the toilet but water (it hadn’t been used for a while), so he tried flushing it and of course it didn’t go down. He removed the tank cover. I protested that the tank was fine, there’s something down the drain somewhere, but he ignored me and looked inside the tank while flushing. The little flapper thing in there that releases the water in the tank was coming up when flushing, but it was immediately slamming back down, not letting the water go from the tank into the bowl, so not giving sufficient water pressure to make anything go down the drain. If you just hold the handle down a little longer (but not too long so it gets stuck on the floater thing), the toilet was flushing perfectly. Thank goodness for Dad’s toilet expertise. I can fix what’s needed in there eventually and, miracle of miracles, I can use the toilet in my bathroom once again! </div><div><br /></div><div>We removed Dad’s toilet repairing armor, I turned the Hallmark Channel back on, and the rest of the day was completely lovely. Later in the evening we all gathered and watched my new DVD, “Despicable Me.” I love that video! Yes, Dad liked it, too. And I had my Christmas wishes fulfilled. A ceiling fan in my bedroom and a fixed toilet! What can be better than that? </div><div><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div>On Sunday, Joanna and Shayler left to go home, and Dad, Jenny and I went to church. Jimmy had to work (he thankfully got a seasonal job at Target). We had a pleasant evening. Our church begins at 2:00 PM, so by the time it’s over, the day’s about gone anyway. Later that night, though, the cause of Chica’s illness was revealed. It was something that broke all of our hearts. Under her bed, Jenny found a torn-open empty box of Bella Toffee. Dad had bought a number of boxes from Matti to hand out to his customers, and he brought two extra boxes for us, one for me and Jimmy, and one for Joanna and Shayler. He put the boxes under the tree with his other gifts. Apparently Chica discovered one of them, because only one was left. She normally doesn’t get<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPxxE2XsJV1reCUXZtQm_QJWtUNi4N6G195n9si48Wm7L57wR3iqga7b15cvqAbI_rlEaMKeVcyb1ftBMatr3CvzSJGx07hfw7N01709L4ppAxEP7UOPTrP1C-Owibs_Hq8UAnpqBzdOs/s1600/DSCF4830.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5559521648678848354" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPxxE2XsJV1reCUXZtQm_QJWtUNi4N6G195n9si48Wm7L57wR3iqga7b15cvqAbI_rlEaMKeVcyb1ftBMatr3CvzSJGx07hfw7N01709L4ppAxEP7UOPTrP1C-Owibs_Hq8UAnpqBzdOs/s320/DSCF4830.JPG" border="0" /></a> into stuff like that, but since she’s been sick, she’s been on steroids, which make her very hungry and increase her desire to try to get into the trash and anything else that’s available. She found a gold mine under the tree sometime Friday afternoon. I was relieved to find out that she was sick from eating something, rather than her illness, but we were all very sad at the loss of that wonderful treat. We opened the second box and had a piece. It is so delicious that it’s pretty hard to stop eating once you start, so who can blame her? We still mourn its loss, though! That’s really good stuff! Bad dog! Bad, bad dog!<br /></div><br /><br /><div></div><div></div><div>On Monday morning Dad left to go home before I got up, and I get up pretty early, since I leave the house to go to work around 6:20 AM. And once again, the Christmas holiday is over. I hope yours was as fun as mine! </div></div></div></div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-22655078197099681862010-10-26T17:04:00.000-07:002010-10-28T11:36:20.439-07:00The Dam Bridge is Done!Some of you might be getting a tiny bit tired of hearing (reading) about me complain about crossing the Hoover Dam when traveling from Vegas down to Arizona, most recently to visit Jill and Jared and family. WELL, last week I drove down there again and at LONG LAST, the dam bridge is done!<br /><div><br /><div>A friend of mine is lamenting that she wanted to go down there and drive over the top of the dam (on the old road) ONE MORE TIME, and my question is, WHY? WHY WHY WHY? If you want to visit the dam, visit the dam and leave us passers-through out of it!</div><br /><div></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyGAmlA4u-DwCu98pUBFxxv2SX4yNXBz2xdUbNsQD6-I584W63TOsAqwT6mKSob_fi9kZOd4vE0BzpswcuToCOOOE-NP-Ix-Y8J431x4sTwXcDLZ2zfDumZ4LAuGQho4ViaCFcgzo1MPY/s1600/bridge+10-10e.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533162097972358642" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyGAmlA4u-DwCu98pUBFxxv2SX4yNXBz2xdUbNsQD6-I584W63TOsAqwT6mKSob_fi9kZOd4vE0BzpswcuToCOOOE-NP-Ix-Y8J431x4sTwXcDLZ2zfDumZ4LAuGQho4ViaCFcgzo1MPY/s320/bridge+10-10e.jpg" border="0" /></a>And this is why I'm so happy about the bridge being done. Earlier this year (around March I think) I was driving down to Arizona and, as I sat in traffic trying to cross the dam, I took a few pictures of the progress on the bridge. Here are the bridge progress pictures. The first one was up close while I was driving by it from underneath. The second one was after I crossed over the dam and was ALMOST past the mess of traffic.</div><br /><br /><div><br /></div><br /><br /><div></div><div></div></div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQ_tex_C2SC-104VkPzInapvdem-w2phks84U88UEhN7SOABH4tEwG6U95vU1aeeJ_wfXQ-g_wgeeRtSs8z5JAUgqkW991shpQl5-DejmtvOgE_yq52k_dt-jpSYh_VnM8EiY0_ss-Dw/s1600/bridge+10-10f.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533161211115566274" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQ_tex_C2SC-104VkPzInapvdem-w2phks84U88UEhN7SOABH4tEwG6U95vU1aeeJ_wfXQ-g_wgeeRtSs8z5JAUgqkW991shpQl5-DejmtvOgE_yq52k_dt-jpSYh_VnM8EiY0_ss-Dw/s320/bridge+10-10f.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div>While I was sitting in traffic, I accidentally snapped a pict<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBMAVp8n4emoAps1sgPitrUwNUfsH3-B9rUvyIU4lfAQ_H1vhH8gzd61puyNEXXOPmrQldU9hHwWJkFjdhG6zvCX0gfFrVkySAv7_mxGB1FSVULzSX_7A9WUUfP_m_B9nd4jGgaxaN_is/s1600/bridge+10-10g.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533164785249770082" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBMAVp8n4emoAps1sgPitrUwNUfsH3-B9rUvyIU4lfAQ_H1vhH8gzd61puyNEXXOPmrQldU9hHwWJkFjdhG6zvCX0gfFrVkySAv7_mxGB1FSVULzSX_7A9WUUfP_m_B9nd4jGgaxaN_is/s320/bridge+10-10g.jpg" border="0" /></a>ure of the dash of my car. It's not the best picture and you can't see it that well, but it does tell a story. Here it is, and note how fast I'm going when I took the picture. That's right. Zero. I was STOPPED IN TRAFFIC. Just what you want when you have a six-hour drive ahead of you.</div><br /><div></div><div>Now take a look at what crossing the dam is like now that the bridge is done. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-pytsn5DzuEToJmyP9DvvWihP810huX2rMqKa2N0mihxLKUqgeN8KupO_Y-BuN-xsghHoDIq_APaWHjmT7zq0IEvqMMGdy6cSVglFusvN3E3NKfeG6K71MJOswL3aJb-_ZAgN618d7ts/s1600/bridge+10-10b.jpg"><img style="CLEAR: both; FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-pytsn5DzuEToJmyP9DvvWihP810huX2rMqKa2N0mihxLKUqgeN8KupO_Y-BuN-xsghHoDIq_APaWHjmT7zq0IEvqMMGdy6cSVglFusvN3E3NKfeG6K71MJOswL3aJb-_ZAgN618d7ts/s320/bridge+10-10b.jpg" border="0" /></a>I took this picture last Wednesday, late afternoon. I was driving in the rain, so this picture isn't the greatest, either (please excuse the coffee filter with popcorn in it sitting on the dash, that's how we Mormons use the coffee filters at the office--popcorn snacking) , but notice that it's a beautiful, wide road with no stoppage at all! And they've built it so that you can't even tell that you're how-many-thousand feet off the ground, it just feels like you're driving along on a normal road anywhere.</div><br /><div>And here's the best part. Take a look at my dash THIS time. That's right. Sixty miles per hour. Hallelujah and glory be! The dam bridge is done!<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9SC-0YlK2FhIe6qoge77chSwJptO8KSMBDzoinpHDS1k94Y5oGirTwz7Pn3FKEq2AWBway9UubL6Wv_J1G3S1zhAOsLw394BmumuAPpJz44kjvn3Pu5IVljnru2URqrS_QxYdoDNC85k/s1600/bridge+10-10.jpg"><img style="CLEAR: both; FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9SC-0YlK2FhIe6qoge77chSwJptO8KSMBDzoinpHDS1k94Y5oGirTwz7Pn3FKEq2AWBway9UubL6Wv_J1G3S1zhAOsLw394BmumuAPpJz44kjvn3Pu5IVljnru2URqrS_QxYdoDNC85k/s320/bridge+10-10.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><br /><div style="CLEAR: both; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BORDER-TOP: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial" alt="Posted by Picasa" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" align="middle" border="0" /></a></div></div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-91480829665042358642010-10-05T17:15:00.000-07:002010-10-05T17:21:11.878-07:00Aww! Cute, cute puppy!I just had to add this video I got from a friend. This doggie is so cute!<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxtd7vV816_PF6AN9dQDNvxc_66AXJuV33h04AGFKTqUX2M2lCEYn8yiEEZsCa5Lu9nsDBl1PQ8VDQVh6Ijeg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-57608856790285659522010-09-02T17:56:00.001-07:002010-09-02T18:05:06.569-07:00Adventures with Grandpa – August 2010<div><br />The weekend before last I drove up to Salt Lake City with Dad for April’s first temple session. I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t have enough material for an ‘Adventures with Grandpa’ chapter because it was such a short trip. After all, we left on Saturday morning and returned Sunday afternoon. Surely you can’t squeeze too many adventures in 36 hours or less! WRONG!<br /><br />First of all, I must explain why we didn’t leave for Utah until Saturday morning. Several months ago, April called and invited me to come to the temple with her family on August 21. I said I would go. I marked it on my calendar and it became “something I’m doing a few months from now.” Fast forward a little bit, and Cheryl, a friend of mine from work, came by my office to tell me that Weird Al was going to be in Vegas this summer. I always go with her, so I agreed to go again. It didn’t occur to me that those dates might collide until after she had bought my ticket. Weird Al was FRIDAY night; the temple session was SATURDAY afternoon! I couldn’t tell Cheryl I wasn’t going with her, since she had already bought my ticket. And I couldn’t miss April’s session.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Joanna had told Dad that we would drive up to SLC together. This meant that I would have to leave Vegas pretty early to meet Dad in Cedar City, as we usually do. I didn’t bother trying to explain to Dad about Weird Al. I just didn’t think he would understand. I just told him I had other plans on Friday and couldn’t go until Saturday.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqi75stolmYBxKU-SSzfuSNrENXTPVTE2nsavU6X5J9QtJGUIviNj6LRQwBHp6j4UrIJfKcMDjp9cZhWBBjimssBr3ul5qy9POKJrWK3zJNXSIL4jcARhZCunAe_y4bNq-NVvTE95ML0/s1600/weird+al+2010.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512485213261664882" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRqi75stolmYBxKU-SSzfuSNrENXTPVTE2nsavU6X5J9QtJGUIviNj6LRQwBHp6j4UrIJfKcMDjp9cZhWBBjimssBr3ul5qy9POKJrWK3zJNXSIL4jcARhZCunAe_y4bNq-NVvTE95ML0/s320/weird+al+2010.jpg" border="0" /></a>Of course this meant that I wasn’t going to get much sleep Friday night. The concert was a lot of fun, as always, but I didn’t get home until around midnight, and I still had to finish packing and stuff, and I had to be up by 5:00. I had talked to Dad about meeting in Cedar City. I said I was planning to leave at 6:00 AM. He asked, “You want to meet at 6 AM?” I said NO-NO-NO; I’m going to LEAVE at 6 AM! Shoot, if I was going to get to Cedar at 6 AM, I might as well not go to bed at all! Ugh, I’m glad I got that cleared up before we left!<br /><br />I was pumping gas at the Sam’s Club gas station when Dad called for the first time at 6 AM. I told him I was on my way. He said that he would get in the car and leave, and I told him NO, wait an hour! Make another sweep through the garden! Anything! He sometimes seems to think that we’re driving the same distance (actually it’s about 95 miles for him, close to 190 for me), and I always get a lot of razzing from him when he always beats me there. One trip, I was just leaving Vegas when he called to say he was already at Joe and Marie’s, and asked, am I almost there? He really gave me a hard time that trip. But I digress.<br /><br />This trip, when I got to Joe and Marie’s house, Dad was there (of course) and it looked like he was about ready to jump into my car and go. His suitcase was open on the sidewalk and he was digging through it, looking for something. It wasn’t until I returned from visiting the bathroom and getting the home remodeling update from Veronica (very nice, by the way!) that I realized that Dad had locked his keys in his car and was searching through the suitcase for a spare set. His keys were still in the ignition.<br /><br />I don’t know how he managed to do it (lock the keys inside), but I don’t have any room to criticize. Just a month or so ago, I did it myself. To make a long story short (and you never thought I would ever actually do that – shorten a story), I had rented a truck to move Jenny’s stuff from her apartment to my garage. After all of Jenny’s friends had unloaded the truck at my house, I locked the truck and went inside the house to take a break before driving back across town to return it. It was probably 112 degrees that day and I was melting! When I decided to leave … guess what? Keys in the ignition, doors locked. The rental place was already closed for the day, so I couldn’t call them. I could call Pop-A-Lock, but that’s extra time and expense, and it was a work night for both Jenny and me, and she was meeting me over at the rental place. I went back inside the house in search of a wire coat hanger, and it took me a while to find one (NO – WIRE – HANGERS – EVER!) Luckily for me, I had left the windows cracked open a bit in an attempt to keep the truck’s interior below the boiling point, so I had a little room to negotiate, even though the truck had those smooth door locks that can’t really be grabbed. Then I spotted the wing windows in the doors. I maneuvered the coat hanger over there and managed to unlock the wing window. After pushing that open, it was easy to reach in and unlock the door. Success! Nobody would have even known that I did such a dumb thing (lock the keys inside) if I didn’t blab about it.<br /><br />Anyway, back to Dad and his car. Dad had told Veronica that he had an extra car key hidden behind his back license plate, so I suggested we just get that one so we could get on our way, and eventually he did. So off we went. We hadn’t even left Cedar City when I asked Dad if he had remembered his temple clothes. He always brings them (and how he can squish so much stuff into such a tiny suitcase, I’ll never know – it’s about the size of Jacob’s lunch box), but this time he forgot. We were going to the Draper temple, and they don’t rent clothes there. When we stopped for gas, I sent a text to everybody I could think of to see if anybody had extras that he could borrow. Before long, everybody was combing their neighborhoods for extra sets of clothes. Eventually Shayler called to tell me that his parents, who live in Colorado, had gone there without clothes (the temple clothes, of course – I’m sure they were actually wearing other clothes when they arrived – but it’s amusing to visualize) and the temple had some for out-of-towners to borrow, so it turned out that Dad could (and did) borrow clothes from the temple, so that was eventually resolved, but not without a bunch of scrambling around and panicking first, which is always a fun addition to any trip.<br /><br />We eventually made it to Draper and met Joanna and Shayler at Wendy’s for something to eat before the session. Afterwards, we were all standing together in front of the temple, trying to decide what to do next. We wanted to go eat somewhere but had no idea where. Everybody was chatting, and Dad was having a hard time hearing us. He got a bit frustrated and groused that we weren’t including him in the discussion and that we were all laughing at him because he couldn’t hear. I told him quite seriously that we weren’t laughing about it, we were crying. And that’s the truth! How about we all pitch in a few bucks and get him a new set of hearing aids? They’ve got to have better ones that what he has!<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512486664664066018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhCIlhPZsYs0JwqAT9dx2DunpA87szBFsGrRXpSEQpdKRta0hewPGB6ykJ1tAuyX1KQs0zHtSe_FiCXsT0sa_cVAJZMt0RoWDLaLPiYLxYBw503dbLTXZk38hyphenhyphenyYwuGFpjnN5e8YXBWj0/s400/Aprils+temple+day4.JPG" border="0" /><br />Somebody mentioned Chuckorama, and everybody stampeded to their cars. Even though we were a pretty big group (10) and it was a Saturday night, we didn’t have to wait long for a table. Everything was really good and we had a great time.<br /><br />We went to Joanna and Shayler’s place to spend the night. They have a second bedroom with Joanna’s old twin bed in it, so Dad slept in there. I brought my air mattress, and I slept on it in the living room. Joanna and Shayler’s church starts at 9 AM, so we were up early the next morning, competing for their one bathroom. Joanna got in there first and then came to wake me up when it was my turn, calling “Wakey wakey!” (I wonder where she got that?) She also aimed her hair dryer at me every time I passed her in the hall, saying “Whoops!” I swear, everything I did to those kids when they were growing up is coming back to haunt me now. Next they’ll be vacuuming up spiders and chasing me around with the vacuum cleaner.<br /><br />Dad had brought a melon from his garden for us to have for breakfast on Sunday morning. He had explained to me that he had skipped eating any on Saturday morning just so we could have some on Sunday. We had put it in the fridge Saturday night. As I was getting ready in the bathroom, I could hear him talking to Joanna. She was telling him that it was his turn to get in the shower, and he kept saying that he was afraid that if he left us alone with the melon, we would eat it all and he wouldn’t get any. And, after all, he didn’t even get any Saturday morning. She eventually convinced him it was safe to get in the shower, but as soon as he closed the bathroom door, she decided to hide the melon from him. She grabbed it out of the fridge and put it in the ice chest I had brought. Then we sat and happily anticipated his return to the kitchen. Of course, the first thing he did when he returned to the kitchen was selecting a knife from her knife block (“none of these are very sharp”) and opened the fridge. He looked. He looked some more. Finally he asked, “what happened to the melon?!” Joanna sang out, “I guess it got eaten!” I got to watch him chase Joanna around the apartment and attempt to choke her when he caught her. Then we had some cantaloupe!<br /><br />I was sitting at the kitchen table putting on my makeup and Dad, happily eating his melon, was sitting there with me and providing a running commentary on what I was doing. How many face lotions do I need, anyway? And why am I putting on another kind of powder? What’s that stuff on your eyes supposed to do? When he suggested that I needed more blush to try to better attract a new husband, I called Joanna back into the kitchen and told her that the potatoes for dinner needed peeling NOW and we put him to work at the sink. (She said it could wait until after church, but I assured her that it couldn’t!)<br /><br />We walked to church. Joanna and Shayler’s current calling is to teach Gospel Doctrine in Sunday School, so of course we had to stay for that. (Dad complained that we were skipping Relief Society and Priesthood Meeting, but I told him that since we usually escape after Sacrament Meeting, we were making improvements, slowly working our way up to the full three hours.) After Sacrament Meeting I visited the ladies’ room, and I guess I took longer than expected, because when I joined them in the Sunday School class, Joanna and Shayler were already up front teaching the lesson. As I sat down next to Dad, he loudly announced, “DO YOU FEEL BETTER NOW?” My reply to him – SHH!<br /><br />We had a nice dinner with Joanna and Shayler and then began our journey back home. In between falling asleep, he woke up and complained that I wasn’t talking much. I was secretly listening to my iPod with one ear bud. I needed a little peace and quiet! We parted ways in Cedar City and both made it home alive. It was a short trip, but a fun one! </div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-42240655254688042772010-08-03T10:39:00.000-07:002010-08-03T10:46:26.767-07:00Adventures with Grandpa -- Trip to Washington 2010 Chapter 5ODOMETER: 1,526<br />Here we go with the fifth and final chapter of this edition of “Adventures with Grandpa.” If you think this has dragged on forever, imagine what it was like to experience it firsthand!<br /><br />We got up early and left Ron’s house about 6:00 AM. Ron’s daughter had wanted to cook breakfast for us that morning and Uncle Frank wanted to pack us a lunch before we left, but we were (or I was) anxious to get on the road. Vera had the afternoon off! We had to get there! We didn’t get very far down the road, though, before Dad announced that he wanted to stop and visit a friend in Redding on the way, someone he “hasn’t seen in 50 years.” I was getting the idea that this might be an elderly person, and to be honest I wasn’t excited about it. Dad was sure that we would only be there for a couple of minutes, but you know how that goes. I can’t remember the woman’s name, but Dad called her with his cell phone to tell her we were passing through and wanted to stop and see her. She said that she would love to see us, but she had an important appointment that day and wouldn’t be home until around 3:00 PM. Since we would be passing through Redding more like 11:00 AM (even earlier if I had any say in it), Dad decided that we wouldn’t be able to stop. DARN!<br /><br />Another thing that Dad has always done whenever we are driving toward California is sing, “California, here I come. Right back where I started from.” Unfortunately, that’s the only part of the song that he knows, so he sings just those two phrases over and over again. He’s done this all my life, and this trip was no exception. He also likes to sing a variation of our national anthem, the punch line of a joke he heard many years ago, “Jose, Can you See?” He repeats that one phrase over and over again, chuckling to himself, and will tell the joke AGAIN if you let him (I didn’t). When he isn’t singing one of those things, he amuses himself by singing, “Only 597 more miles to go. 597 more miles to go. High ho the dairy-oh, only 597 more miles to go,” every time we pass another mile marker with the mileage to our next destination on it. I can remember us kids singing that song when we were traveling as a family and it used to drive Mom crazy. Now I know where we got it! (He admitted to me that it irritated her when he sang it, too.) As a child I didn’t understand her irritation. Believe me, I do now!<br /><br />A description of the trip also wouldn’t be complete without listing a few of his driving habits. During the first part of our trip (up through Nevada), I felt safe letting him drive. Wide open spaces, nobody on the road, a few animals here and there, not much to worry about. Driving on freeways in heavy traffic, though, can be a bit (even more than a bit) scary. He complains about the cruise control in my car, saying that it didn’t work. I ask him if he turned it on. He answers yes; in fact he turned it on twice to make sure it was working. I would have to try to explain to him that if he pushed the button twice, he likely turned it off again. He couldn’t seem to recognize the little light that comes on in the dash when the cruise control is on. He also likes to speed up and slow down, just using the cruise control instead of the gas pedal and brake, which can also be pretty crazy in heavy traffic. Then there’s more complaining about how it isn’t working right. In my mind I’m thinking, “If you would just flippin’ stop friggin’ messing with it, maybe just maybe it would!” Outwardly I’m just bracing for impact.<br /><br />In addition to constant complaints about the cruise control, he was always adjusting the height of the steering wheel. There we are, careening down the freeway at 70+ miles per hour, and he decides to make an adjustment. He releases the lever, moves the steering wheel, and then tries to hold the steering wheel in place while fumbling around to try to find the lever to tighten it again. Meanwhile we are passing semis and zooming around corners. He couldn’t seem to tighten the steering wheel again, so there we were, driving along with a steering wheel that is flopping all around. It’s a miracle I have any hair left at all. Meanwhile, he is wondering why I don’t take a nap while he’s driving.<br /><br />Back to the trip, we drove along, passing through Oregon, California, and down towards Sacramento. When Dad was driving, I relieved my anxiety by texting Vera and attempting to laugh it off. It’s either laugh about it or cry! We finally arrived at Wiscombe Funeral Home midafternoon. I doubt that there are many other visitors there who fall out of their cars and kiss the ground when they arrive! Vera came outside to greet us and led us inside. She noticed me furtively glancing around and laughingly told me that there were currently no “customers” present. What a relief! Shawn Wiscombe, who lived in Caliente for a number of years and was even Dad’s neighbor for a while there, came downstairs to talk to us. He plans to sell the mortuary and move to Texas. I was worried for a moment that Vera would follow him there (it would be even harder to visit her there), but she wants to stay in California. The mortuary is adjacent to the University of California Davis campus, and Dad mentioned that when he was choosing his college, the final decision was between UCD and Utah State. He enjoyed looking at the campus and thinking about what his life might have been going there. It’s kind of mind-boggling to think what a difference that choice might have made to our entire family’s existence! Funny how small decisions can change everything.<br /><br />We had a grand tour of the facilities. Very interesting! Then we went to Vera’s place, a cute apartment. We sat down to chat for a bit before going to dinner. I thought I was doing my best to include Dad in the conversation, but before long, snoring sounds came from his side of the sofa. That meant that it was safe for Vera and me to have a REAL conversation! Just talking without repeating, explaining, and rewording for Dad’s benefit!<br /><br />After Dad woke up from his nap we went to a nice Italian restaurant. Then we went on a long stroll through an arboretum that’s maintained by UCD. They have a lot of plants that are labeled with their common and Latin names, so of course we had to stop every three steps or so to read another sign and examine the plant. Of course this doesn’t mean that we only analyzed the plants that were labeled. We looked at unlabeled plants, too, and tried to divine their origins. And of course there was later the inevitable quiz. Anyone who has spent any time at all with Dad knows this drill well.<br /><br />I guess I shouldn’t tell this part of the story (TMI), but here I go anyway. (Besides, I asked Vera, and she said I should go ahead!) When we first arrived at the arboretum, Dad tooted (it was just a little one), and I thought it sounded just like a quack. I looked over at Vera and asked, “Did he just step on a duck?” We grinned maniacally at each other and I started to tell her a few family stories on the subject (mainly starring her father, my mother, and one of my old boyfriends). Right then we turned the corner and there they were … some ducks, floating serenely on the river. It really tickled me and I started to giggle so hard that my vision blurred and I could hardly walk. Vera had to elbow me a few times to get me back on track. Dad apparently didn’t notice my hysteria and continued to examine all the plants, commenting on their history and origin, which got me going even worse. I guess you had to be there, but the memory still causes my eyes to leak a little.<br /><br />After touring the arboretum for a few hours, we returned to Vera’s house, where she graciously slept on the couch so that I could have her bed and Dad slept in her second bedroom. We (Vera and I) stayed up too late chatting, but it was worth it. It was so nice, such a fun visit.<br /><br />ODOMETER: 2,061<br />Early the next morning we got up and headed for home, another long, arduous drive. I have one more description to tell before I finish this long thing and get it published. It happened not long after we left Vera’s place. We were driving over Donnor’s Pass, and I was behind the wheel. Dad decided it was time for breakfast, so he got out his little plastic bowl and poured in some cereal, but he couldn’t find his spoon. I told him that I might have one in the console or glove compartment of my car, so he dug through them, but the best he could find was a spork, one of those fork/spoon things they give you at Taco Bell. I tried to tell him that it would work okay, but he wanted his spoon, so he decided to crawl to the back of the car to look for it. He undid his seat belt and proceeded to climb into the back, crawling across all of the junk we had piled back there (it seemed so full of stuff, I’m not sure how we managed to put Amanda’s cedar chest in there, too – Vera can attest to it, she had to attempt to ride back there between the mortuary and her apartment the day before). Keep in mind that we are traveling down a mountainous, curvy road and I am speeding around corners. There was an occasional THUMP from the back of the car where Dad bumped against one side or other of the car as he searched. I was also nervous that in his return to the front seat, he might kick me in the head or something (memories from long trips with my siblings and me crammed in the back of a station wagon kept returning). He never found his spoon, though, and eventually returned empty-handed. He resigned himself to using the spork. He pulled out his bottle of Caliente tap water, poured it over his cereal, and ate.<br /><br />We made it back to Caliente about 3:30 PM. We loaded my newly-refurbished bird cage (it was falling apart and Dad fixed it for me – he originally made it for me many years ago) and I was on my way.<br /><br />ODOMETER – 2,796. Home again, home again, jiggity jig! I survived another adventure with Grandpa!just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-51642000164234613582010-07-26T15:41:00.000-07:002010-07-26T15:54:15.770-07:00Adventures with Grandpa -- Trip to Washington 2010 Chapter 4ODOMETER 1366 (still) – the flip side<br /><br />When Dad and I first started talking about going on this trip, he said that he would like to come back through Oregon and visit Uncle Frank. I suggested that maybe we could go see Vera, too, while we were driving around. We decided to check into it. We worked the mileage numbers a couple of times and I just couldn’t see how we could do it without taking an extra day. If we drove from Cristie’s place to Uncle Frank’s place and then on to Vera’s place on Monday, that would be 725 miles, a bit far for one day’s drive, especially since we wanted to be able to spend time with both Uncle Frank and Vera on that same day (plus I wanted to see Cousin Ron, too, since Uncle Frank lives near him now). Driving from Vera’s place to Caliente (575 miles) plus me driving the rest of the way to Vegas (160 miles) on Tuesday was 735 miles, another really long day, and I had to be back to work on Wednesday. It just didn’t seem possible. A week or so before the big trip I was hashing it out with Dad over the phone (again) and finally I told him that the only way we could do it is if we left Cristie’s place after church on Sunday and traveled part of the way then. I didn’t know if Dad would want to go for it, since he hates to drive on Sunday, but I guess his wish to visit his brother and Vera won out, so he agreed to it. Of course Cristie and her family were bitterly disappointed that we were leaving them a day early, but them’s the breaks. (Actually, they were probably celebrating.)<br /><br />My plan was that we would leave Cristie’s house and go to Uncle Frank’s place. Since that was only about 190 miles, I figured we could hang out there for a few hours and then drive further towards Vera’s place before stopping for the night. It would make Monday’s drive shorter and we could spend more time with Vera. She had told me that she could get off work for the afternoon, so I wanted to get there as early as possible. The day after my discussion with Dad, I sent an e-mail to both Uncle Frank and Cousin Ron, telling them that we were going to be in their town on Sunday, June 20 (which also happened to be Father’s Day), probably mid-afternoon. I said that we would like to stop and visit them for a bit if they were available. I sent off the e-mail just before going to lunch that day. By the time I came back, I had responses from both of them. Ron said that Dad had called Uncle Frank and told him that we were spending the night there, and two of Ron’s sons were going to be out of town that day, so he offered those two bedrooms for us to stay. Uncle Frank’s e-mail said basically the same thing. My dad, the big blabbermouth! I should have known he’d jump onto the phone immediately! So much for my plans!<br /><br />Cristie told me that her church is a half hour away from her house and in the direction we were leaving town, so she suggested that we leave from church (probably another excuse to get rid of us sooner), so that’s what we did. We went to church and then got in the car to drive to Uncle Frank’s place. The car was getting very low on gas, so we needed to stop at the next available gas station to fill up. I was also eager to change out of my church clothes. We drove off into the rainy, curvy, mountainous roads and passed several small towns without a gas station. I was starting to get worried that we were going to run out of gas. Finally, in a little town called Elba (yes, the same name as the place where Napoleon was exiled—I don’t know why that seemed appropriate), we found a gas station. I left Dad in charge of filling up (it was an old pump and we had to get help operating it from a friendly passer-by), grabbed my clothes, and headed inside, only to be told that they didn’t have a bathroom. As I gaped at the woman in astonishment, she suggested that we go to the train depot down the street. Over $3.50 per gallon for gas, and no bathroom. Elba, indeed. We drove on.<br /><br />Further down the road, we stopped so I could change. Dad didn’t understand why we couldn’t just keep going to Uncle Frank’s place and I could change there, but I didn’t much like the idea of arriving and saying “Hi-where’s-the-bathroom?” Since I was driving, I exited the freeway and stopped at a Wendy’s. Dad said he would just stay in the car. I went inside, used the bathroom, changed my clothes, bought a Frostee for Dad, and returned to car. The car was empty and, of course locked. No Dad and no car keys. There I stood in the cold, wearing short sleeves and crop pants with sandals, clutching Dad’s Frostee and my purse in one hand and a bundle of church clothes and high heeled sandals falling out of the other. (I could add drama to the story by saying it was also raining, but at that moment it had stopped. And people think I exaggerate!) I walked in and out of Wendy's a few times, but no Dad in sight. I thought about trying to call him, so I pulled out my cell phone and saw that Cristie had called a couple of times (my phone was still on silent since being in church), so I stood by the car and called her back. Right when she answered, my car alarm started going off. If I was trying to be inconspicuous, that plan was over! It turned out that Dad had pocket-activated my car alarm while coming out of the Wendy's bathroom, but it took me a while to convince him that yes, that's our car blaring away, and not only did he set it off, he had to make it stop. And, of course, he didn’t want the Frostee (but he ate it anyway).<br /><br />(In case you’re wondering why Cristie was calling, she had given us faulty directions and could have gotten us seriously lost while we were frantically searching for a gas station, but we were able to figure it out before we got too far afield. See, Cristie, I didn’t even mention that part! Aren’t you glad?)<br /><br />We made it to Uncle Frank’s place and Dad’s neighbor, Bob, called Dad’s cell phone right when we were getting off the elevator. Bob had a gift for calling right when we were arriving somewhere. He called when we pulled into Brenda’s driveway, he called at Uncle Frank’s place, and again when we arrived at Vera’s. We were standing at Uncle Frank’s door and Dad motioned that I go ahead and knock, but I wanted Dad to be WITH me when we arrived, if you know what I mean! Finally Dad told Bob that he had to go and we went into Uncle Frank’s room. He is in one of those nice facilities with a private apartment upstairs (Uncle Frank’s is a one-bedroom with a kitchen and everything) and a dining room downstairs where they serve meals. Uncle Frank had made arrangements for us to eat dinner with him, but dinner time was a couple hours away. I sat down between Uncle Frank and Dad, and the fun began. Imagine sitting between two older men, and neither one can hear very wel<a href="http://localhost:1317/568ac3089e670592376ba99ff1cc20d5/image/9197e43f7b65d8b7.jpg"><img style="CLEAR: both; FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px" alt="" src="http://localhost:1317/568ac3089e670592376ba99ff1cc20d5/image/9197e43f7b65d8b7.jpg?size=320" border="0" /></a>l. Uncle Frank would say something, and I would have to turn and repeat it to Dad. Then Dad would respond and I would have to turn back to repeat it to Uncle Frank. And on and on and on. It wasn’t very long before the whole process was getting very old. The afternoon seemed to drag on forever and I was wishing that we had stayed at Cristie’s church for the classes! Uncle Frank did have the cutest dog, though. It’s a Corgi, and they aren’t allowed to walk them in the building, so Uncle Frank had a little red wagon leaned against the wall for the dog to ride in when he takes her in and out of the building. Uncle Frank had her do a bunch of tricks for me, and she was so cute. It’s so nice that the people living there can have pets.<br /><br />Eventually Ron arrived, and we went for a tour around the building before going to eat dinner. In the recreation room we had a little contest throwing bean bags at a target, and I was able to demonstrate that I can’t throw at all. At dinner, they have young girls waiting on the tables and serving the food, and they were so cute with the elderly people living there. The food was really good, too; we had prime rib! It was all very nice. Partway through the dinner, Ron’s daughter called; she had accidentally locked herself out of the house, so he had to rush home and let her in. Good thing it’s only five minutes away! Also during dinner, Ron suggested that he and I go back to his house to talk so that Dad and Uncle Frank could “catch up” there. Dad immediately seemed suspicious. Where were we going? What were we going to do? I thought it was kind of funny. It’s like he thought we were going to get into trouble or something. After dinner we returned to Uncle Frank’s apartment and Ron mentioned it again. I grabbed my coat and we left.<br /><br />Ron is very musical, and even back in high school he rigged old equipment so that he could record himself playing the different musical parts and harmonizing all by himself. Now he has equipment where he can record 12 different parts himself. I’ve always liked listening to his music, so he played some for me. He participates in a gospel group with some other musicians, and they had some original songs that he played for me, too, that were really good. After that, we just talked. His wife, Jean Ann, died about a year ago, and he told me all about that. He himself was diagnosed with cancer a couple of years ago, and his own future is uncertain. He is on a cancer medication that he takes every day, and his cancer hasn’t advanced for several years. He believes his cancer has been held in check by prayer, and I admire his faith and devotion. As I’ve said in prior blogs, we don’t share the same religion, but we do share the same faith in Jesus Christ. It’s always fun to talk to him about that.<br /><a href="http://localhost:1317/568ac3089e670592376ba99ff1cc20d5/image/e45aa18a41ee4a9c.jpg"><img style="CLEAR: both; FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 332px; HEIGHT: 262px" height="307" alt="" src="http://localhost:1317/568ac3089e670592376ba99ff1cc20d5/image/e45aa18a41ee4a9c.jpg?size=320" width="364" border="0" /></a><br />Eventually Dad and Uncle Frank arrived, and after a bit more chatting and some brownies baked by Ron’s daughter, we all went to bed. It was a very nice visit, and I’m glad that Dad blabbed about us spending the night there. We got up early the next morning and continued on our journey.<br /><br />Next chapter: Visiting Vera and goin’ home.just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-61350243502848655972010-07-23T13:40:00.000-07:002010-07-23T14:36:36.501-07:00Adventures with Grandpa - Trip to Washington 2010 Chapter 3ODOMETER 1366 -- bump bump bump … another one rides the bus!<br /><br />We finally made it to Cristie’s place. Hooray! The weather was so nice – cool and cloudy and rainy. Some might not consider that good weather, but when you’re from Vegas, you really come to appreciate something that is something other than hot, DANG hot. Cristie has a really nice house and her back yard is enormous. There’s a little play house on stilts that I can just see my grandkids climbing into (not me, babe). Her back porch is probably about the size of my whole back yard. Anyway, I at<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMbz4RwJ2yGYI55SJCleWBBfh4j5VmDL-7cuwH9Xg1wBCtAb0lOWRIc-dVx5-Mfy4lFZJl8Um_pHVXPgKuytdmij6Y76KOxWtlRxjpJ9gz73WV5x8YdrOoTMwzuibO9J2_dK3H83AIfgU/s1600/bus4.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497206036964195938" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMbz4RwJ2yGYI55SJCleWBBfh4j5VmDL-7cuwH9Xg1wBCtAb0lOWRIc-dVx5-Mfy4lFZJl8Um_pHVXPgKuytdmij6Y76KOxWtlRxjpJ9gz73WV5x8YdrOoTMwzuibO9J2_dK3H83AIfgU/s320/bus4.jpg" /></a>tempted to sleep in on Friday morning, but somewhere around 10:00 I heard Cristie backing her school bus into its parking space next to the house (“beep…beep…beep”), so I decided to get up. Of course Dad was already up, had been for hours, I’m sure (no “wasting daylight” for him).<br /><br />Cristie offered to let us go on her kindergarten run (picking them up at the school and taking them home), so we jumped at the chance. It was pretty interesting, sitting there watching Cristie drive an enormous bus down the street and pick up a bunch of chattering kids. They were LOUD, and as she drove along, Cristie watched them in the mirror, constantly saying, “Crystal, sit down, honey. Billy, get back in your seat. Jacob, sit on your behind.” And on and on and ON. This was the second to the LAST day of school. I hate to think what they were like o<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXhuQqKlqeE68WyUUWktgS9XSX58Upbu6MlmGwctYDsq0iA909KLPL5uMrUzHn9Qm4NWW9pJ9-GdWSwc0ubQk1PqNFlAlREiJLzs8oTxjOGpJiewxYo_KxP72Xky7UYLoedbMWw2G1nys/s1600/bus5.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497206235593801970" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXhuQqKlqeE68WyUUWktgS9XSX58Upbu6MlmGwctYDsq0iA909KLPL5uMrUzHn9Qm4NWW9pJ9-GdWSwc0ubQk1PqNFlAlREiJLzs8oTxjOGpJiewxYo_KxP72Xky7UYLoedbMWw2G1nys/s320/bus5.jpg" /></a>n the first day! One of them opened his back pack and took out his toys, which rolled down the aisle to the front of the bus and had to be confiscated until we got to his stop (not supposed to get toys out on the bus). Half a dozen of them left their papers and other things behind. They were hilarious. At some of the bus stops, mothers were waiting with gifts for Cristie. The gifts were passed back to me for safekeeping and of course I peeked: candles, note cards, earrings, candy. I swear, none of it jumped into my purse (much).<br /><br />After the bus ride, Cristie dropped Dad and me back at her house while she finished driving her routes. Cristie had a gas grill in the back yard that she’d been having trouble putting together, so Dad and I went out there and finished the job. If there had been any propane in her tank, we would have fired it up!<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYovrmr8798i4-VAbXrVWHjAq-kfEWkh2grETzZ8dIlWyk4EuzRLdE8T7YPUSJrrhQ6OiWXw8rVpZWYqMpE1svOJmpAgPPD3QdZnp-xhxCP9xa_vpPIw1s4Xn1VItQHwk5ACGrXStnrOI/s1600/dad+and+sam3.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 213px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497210953273788306" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYovrmr8798i4-VAbXrVWHjAq-kfEWkh2grETzZ8dIlWyk4EuzRLdE8T7YPUSJrrhQ6OiWXw8rVpZWYqMpE1svOJmpAgPPD3QdZnp-xhxCP9xa_vpPIw1s4Xn1VItQHwk5ACGrXStnrOI/s320/dad+and+sam3.jpg" /></a><br />Samantha came home from school and before long, she and Dad were out in that huge back yard kicking the soccer ball around, playing catch with a baseball, and doing a bit of batting practice. It made me tired just to watch them! I couldn’t fully represent my sister without taking a few pictures of this great Kodak moment, so I went inside and got Cristie’s camera and took a few shots. That used up the little bit of energy I had. (Like I said -- look at the size of that YARD!)<br /><br />That evening we went to a graduation party at Hannah’s house, Amanda’s friend. Hannah and one of her sisters went to Nauvoo on a family trip with us a few years ago and she has gone on summer vacation a few other times with Cristie and her girls, so Dad and I felt that we know her, too. After eating grilled hamburgers and few other things there, we went shopping for a new dress for Amanda to wear at graduation. Sam and I had fun running around Ross finding more things we could try to beg Amanda into trying on. We weren’t very successful in getting her to try on much, but she did find a cute purple dress to wear (not that you could see it under her cap and gown). Sam found a dress she wanted to try on, too, but Cristie was pretty adamant that Sam couldn’t have any more new clothes, even if it was only $10. Before you know it, Dad had his wallet out and was ready to buy the dress for her. Sam and I raced to the fitting room so she could try it on before the opportunity disappeared or Cristie found out (whichever happened first), but the dress was too short, so the game was over. I thought it was so sweet of Dad, though, to want to buy it for her. (For those of you who may be wondering where I got so much energy after being too tired to even WATCH Dad and Sam play catch in the back yard … HELLO, this is SHOPPING!)<br /><br />The next day, Saturday, was Amanda’s graduation. We had to be there early and I was afraid that there would be a lot of time sitting around bored, waiting for it to begin, and then the usual boring graduation thing. I’m sorry, but graduations are boring, even when it’s my own kids. BUT I was wrong! No boring sitting around before the ceremony!<br /><br />Like I said, we had to be there early. Before we left the house, Cristie was busy on their front porch taking pictures of everybody in every conceivable combination. Me and Amanda. Sam and Amanda. Me and Dad and Amanda. Dad and Amanda. (You get the drift.) Amanda was getting impatient, worried about bad traffic on the way to the Tacoma Dome and the fear of being late, so we kind of rushed to the car when the photo shoot was over. We were at least half the way there when Amanda let out a wail that in the rush to leave, she had forgotten her saxophone, and she was supposed to play it in the senior band during graduation. She was upset. I suggested to Cristie that we drop Dad, Sam, and Amanda off at the Tacoma Dome. Dad and Sam could get seats for us while Amanda joined her classmates. Cristie and I would rush back home and get the saxophone. We agreed that it was worth a try. There was heavy traffic, but Cristie stopped at the crosswalk in front of the Tacoma Dome so that the others could get out. It was also pouring rain. Amanda and Sam got out of the car, but Dad, who apparently hadn’t heard what was being planned, continued to sit there in the back seat. Traffic was beginning to pile up and Cristie was feeling the pressure. After all, she could lose her job driving the school bus if she got a traffic ticket. I’m sorry to say that we yelled at poor Dad to GET OUT! GET OUT! He suddenly realized that he was being ejected from the car and into the rain and didn’t have any idea why, but probably years of being yelled at by Mom kicked in and he bailed. We roared off. I still feel a bit guilty when I remember the confused look on his face. There he was, innocently staring out the window when he was ordered out of the car. Oh well…we did apologize later, and he was fine with it. He said we just should have told him. We didn’t bother to explain that we tried. Sometimes it’s easier to just apologize and move on.<br /><br />Cristie and I raced home and got the sax. I also grabbed some umbrellas, something else we had forgotten earlier. We rushed back, fighting even heavier traffic. It was almost time for the graduation to start when we got near, so I told Cristie to get out at the same crosswalk; I would park the car and walk in by myself. After all, it wasn’t my daughter that was graduating (and I wouldn’t be too heartbroken if I missed some of it … sorry, Amanda). I carried all five umbrellas into the stadium and got there right when it was starting (these things are always late). Amanda successfully played her sax with the rest of the band and graduated. And, of course, it had stopped raining by then and we didn’t need the umbrellas at all.<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497215413053335330" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1BOHK9nOE3-kSwO3a8rgLTqxDjhHhfrqoei9ljoaB0MslkHhONsYA7uRYedhG1bBc2ZjYat9pN63-lAPrt647FwtpwJmdZfAMkW1cFgMfZkXRNulct4gb9H-DIVZIdRdQivAxXI8c4vs/s400/us+four.jpg" />Next chapters -- visiting Uncle Frank and Vera!just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-76968444265905315742010-07-20T11:38:00.000-07:002010-07-20T11:50:41.847-07:00Adventures with Grandpa -- Trip to Washington 2010 Chapter 2ODOMETER 707 – Twin Falls<br /><br />We stopped in Twin Falls to get some gas. I left Dad in charge of pumping the gas while I went inside to visit the ladies’ room (okay, the female truckers’ lounge). When I wandered back out, there was a crowd around the cashier and I got there just in time to hear her tell Dad that someone else was pumping our gas! I elbowed my way up to the front and asked what was going on. Apparently the payment part of our gas pump wasn’t working and had instructions to pay inside. When Dad went to the counter to pay, they asked him for his pump number. He glanced outside, saw a dark blue car, and picked the number next to it. Wrong car, wrong number, and as luck would have it, the guy swiped his card right when the Dad’s card was authorized, so he innocently began pumping “our” gas. I looked at the cashier, and she said that they take no responsibility for these problems, and I’d better go get that guy before he drove away with our tank of gas. I didn’t know exactly how we were going to get our gas away from the guy at the pump, but I ran outside. Dad was still standing among the crowd at the counter, trying to figure out what happened. The cashier had shut off the pump as soon as we realized the mistake and fortunately the pump guy was on his way into the mini mart to find out why the pump stopped at $40 and change. I was glad that he didn’t get in his vehicle and peel out of the parking lot because I wasn’t sure how we were going to give chase before we filled up the car.<br /><br />I explained to pump guy what happened, but he was sure his card was charged, so there was a bit more debate with the cashier about whose card had been authorized first, and the waiting crowd at the counter grew larger and more agitated. Pump guy yelled that it was the cashier’s fault for not looking out the window and checking the pump before she authorized Dad’s credit card. The cashier yelled that it wasn’t her job to check. Pump guy repeated that it was, and Dad, who by now realized what had happened, tried to make himself heard above the din to explain that he was to blame for not picking the right pump number. I was just trying to figure out how to get our $40+ from pump guy, get some gas from the correct pump, pick up some food, and get on our way. Eventually pump guy gave us the cash and Dad used it to pay for our gas. I was grateful that we didn’t run into more trouble with pump guy, and you would think that our encounter ended there, but I wandered to the back of the mini mart where the hot takeout food case was located and found myself standing in line next to pump guy and his wife and kids. Pump guy’s wife began singing the praises of the jalapeno corn dogs and the whole pump family gave me their evaluation of everything inside the case. They had no opinion on the chicken salad I was holding. I felt almost obligated to give the jalapeno corn dogs a try just out of gratitude for the easy resolution to the gas pump fiasco. As we awkwardly walked to our respective cars together, pump guy repeated his opinion that it was the cashier’s fault, I said that it was probably Dad’s fault, and we drove our separate ways.<br /><br />Our next stop was Brenda and Andrew’s house in Boise. When we were planning this trip, Dad suggested possibly staying at their house that night. Dad had the assignment to do the asking part. Time passed, and when he called to nag me about other arrangements for the trip, I asked if he had talked to Brenda yet. No, he wanted to wait because Brenda just had a baby and it seemed too much to ask. Finally I started looking at the Boise hotels and realized that I had enough Country Inn points to stay in Boise for free, so I went ahead and made the reservation. I told Dad that we could go and visit Brenda and her family, but we would stay at the Country Inn. He seemed fine with that decision.<br /><br />Back to this first day of the trip, somewhere between Twin Falls and Boise Dad suggested that we should just keep driving and get to Cristie’s place today. At first I said no, we already have this room reservation, and it’s still so far to go, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of getting the driving over with and having more time to spend at Cristie’s. We arrived at Brenda’s house; I hadn’t been there before and their house is so nice and the boys were so cute. Brenda even got the baby out of bed so we could hold him. That’s sacrifice, waking a sleeping baby! After relaxing for a few minutes I decided that I really liked the idea to keep driving to Cristie’s place, so I stepped outside and called the hotel to see if we could cancel and still get my points back. They said we could, so we were set! Dad tried to claim that he was just kidding when HE suggested we do this, but there was no turning back! The room was canceled! Cute little Keagan kept asking us if we would stay and eat dinner with them, and I kept saying we couldn’t, we had to get going, but it was so comfortable sitting and chatting with Brenda, Andrew, and the boys that we were still there when it was time to eat. There is no dragging Dad out the door when there’s food on the table, so we ate dinner and then drove on our way.<br /><br />The drive took longer and was harder than I thought it would be. When we stopped in Pendleton to get gas we still had over 300 miles to go, and I was feeling a bit weary. I wasn’t necessarily tired, but I was eager to get there and get this over with. If I could have changed my mind about staying somewhere, I would have, but it was much too late! When I sent Cristie a text telling her how much further we had to go, she responded that they were going to bed and to call when we were getting near. That’s when I realized that they still had school the next day. If I had realized that, we probably wouldn’t have kept driving, but it was too late now! I regretted it even more when we hit fog further down the road. I hate driving in fog, it’s so scary! I tried not to think about any critters that might jump out in the road, too (wishing for that deer navigation area right about then). We kept going. Dad was falling asleep, so I decided I would plug in my iPod and listen to one of my own audiobooks (we had been making the usual attempts to listen to Dad-approved audiobooks on the trip without a lot of success). I would use my earbuds (actually just one of them). The problem was, the earbud case was in my purse, which was behind Dad’s seat. I reached behind him and carefully managed to tug the purse free without disturbing anyone (you know who). I rummaged through the purse and found the earbud case. Yay! Unfortunately, as I was trying to put the purse back behind the seat again, I managed to smack Dad in the head with it, waking him up completely. Game over! And I had been SO careful when I pulled it up front! After that, instead of going back to sleep, Dad would sit quietly for a while until I started to relax. Then he would make a really loud >>YAWN!!<< sound and about startle me out of my seat. After a couple hours of that, I was ready to ROCK him to sleep (you know, with rocks).<br /><div></div><br /><div>We finally arrived at Cristie’s place at 3:00 AM. We unloaded the car, staggered to our respective rooms, and collapsed. Everybody, that is, except Cristie. By then it was about time for her to get up and get ready to go drive the school bus! Poor Cristie! </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Stay tuned for more … </div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-37483883992770433972010-07-19T17:58:00.000-07:002010-07-20T07:32:07.674-07:00Adventures with Grandpa -- Trip to Washington 2010 Chapter 1Okay, it’s time that I get busy on the latest chapter in the continuing saga of my “Adventures with Grandpa.” This one was quite an endeavor, the main purpose being to drive up to Washington for Amanda’s high school graduation. To be honest, I had not really been looking forward to the trip – 2,800 (okay, 2,796) miles of driving from a Thursday to a Tuesday – but all of the stops ended up being a lot of fun, so all was well!<br /><br />ODOMETER: 0.0<br />My part of the trip began on Wednesday evening, June 16. I had planned to have everything in the car, packed and ready to go before I left for work Wednesday morning. Then I was going to drive up to Caliente right after work so that Dad and I could be ready to leave for the first part of the trip, to Boise, on Thursday morning. <br /><br />The closer the departure date came, though, the more I thought that maybe I should just stay in Las Vegas overnight on Wednesday. I figured I could get up early on Thursday morning and drive to Caliente to pick up Dad and then onwards to Idaho. When I left the office on Tuesday evening I had pretty much decided that I wasn’t going to leave until Thursday morning. I mean, why unload everything for a few hours of sleep? Might as well do it Thursday morning! (I think I may have been trying to delay the departure just a tiny bit.) That idea stayed with me until Dad called when I was walking from my office to the parking lot that Tuesday evening. By the time I got home, Dad had convinced me that I had to drive to Caliente on Wednesday night. He said I could just sleep in my clothes and not unpack anything at all. I didn’t quite take it that far, but I guess he was right that I didn’t have to unpack everything. I would just put the stuff for that one night in a separate bag. I was up half the night Tuesday night packing everything and I hauled everything to my car on Wednesday morning so that I could leave after work.<br /><br />I had planned to leave the office early on Wednesday. I filled the car with gas during my lunch hour. Cary, my boss, usually leaves at least an hour early, and I figured I could follow him out of the building, just as long as I didn’t beat him out of the parking lot. Of course, since that was my plan, Cary didn’t leave early. It happens every time! Finally at about 5:45 I told him I needed to leave, and I left. Before I even got to the freeway, Dad called, wanting to know how far away I was. I told him I just left, that I said I was leaving after work. I guess he forgot that I work until 6:00, not 5:00. Anyway, I was on my way.<br /><br />Seconds after I arrived at Dad’s house, Cory, Melissa, and their three cute little boys arrived. Apparently they had driven past earlier and I wasn’t there yet, so they drove around the block and when they passed by the second time, I was there. By the time I returned from the bathroom, Dad had called Kevin and Ann and they arrived. It really made me feel loved, that they all came to see me before we left. (Maybe they wanted one last glimpse of me while I was still sane.) Anyway, I had a great time talking with them and playing a bit of hide and seek with Hafen. <br /><br />The company left and we went to bed. I set the alarm on my cell phone for 5:00 AM. (Reader alert: this is probably TMI [Too Much Information], but here I go anyway.) As I mentioned earlier, I packed a tote bag with the bare essentials for that day of driving. When I was getting ready to leave that morning, I was horrified to realize that I had forgotten to put deodorant in my tote bag. It was in my suitcase, but that was buried somewhere in the car. I crept upstairs to Dad’s bathroom, hoping that I could find some there, but I had my doubts. Years ago I made the mistake of putting a stick of deodorant in Dad’s Christmas stocking. He was offended. He has never used deodorant in his life, he said, and what am I saying, that he smells bad? Of course I had to do the ole soft shoe and reassure him that I didn’t mean anything by it, I didn’t realize that he didn’t use it, of course he never smells bad, that Santa had made a big mistake, and I quickly took it back and tossed it in with Jared’s haul. So, based on that experience, I knew my only hope of finding deodorant in Dad’s bathroom was if Mom had left some behind. I poked around Dad’s bathroom with no success. All I could find was a can of Lysol spray. I sprayed a small squirt under each of my arms and hoped for the best. I’m happy to report that (as far as I could tell), it worked! So, I guess I have invented a new deodorant – Lysol! <br /><br />We planned to leave at 6 AM, and it was actually about that time when we were going out the front door. Dad paused a bit and wondered what he might be missing. I asked him if he had his hearing aid. He said, “It’s here somewhere.” I told him, “That’s fine, but you aren’t allowed to get cranky if you can’t hear me.” Then we went on with the last-minute check list. Did he have his glasses? Check. Tooth brush? Yep. Pajamas? Oops, Dad meant to get those but forgot them. As he pulled open a drawer to pull out a pair, he mumbled that he doesn’t sleep in them anyway, he just sleeps in his underwear. I told him yeah, I like to sleep in my underwear, too, but people often object when I’m sitting down for breakfast like that. He agreed with that philosophy and stuffed his pjs into his duffle bag. (I know, TMI again, huh?)<br /><br />ODOMETER 158: leaving Caliente.<br />Just past Pioche, after I had repeated and reworded something I already said a half dozen times, I reminded Dad about the rule about not getting cranky if he couldn’t hear me when I talk. He tried to claim that it also meant that I can't get cranky if he keeps saying, “Huh?” I said NO, that wasn't written in the rules! After thinking on that for a moment, he dug out his hearing aid and put it in his ear. Hurdle one crossed! (Unfortunately it’s a hurdle that wasn’t crossed just once.)<br /><br />After we passed Wells, we hit some unfortunate delays. There were several areas where the highway was limited to one lane and we had to sit and wait for our turn to be guided through the area. We could see that they were building overpasses that went over the highway and some places where a pathway was being dug out under the highway, but there were no roads, railroad tracks, or even a river bed at those areas, so I couldn’t figure out what they were doing. Dad noticed a lot of fencing that he said was deer fence. Then I spotted a sign. They were putting in some “deer navigation areas,” and I’m not kidding, they were putting in all of that so the deer could cross the road! Now I’ve seen everything.<br /><br />In between deer navigation delays, we passed the area where we wrecked our family car, where I almost drowned. I was just a baby, sleeping on the front seat between Mom and Dad. My brothers were asleep in the back seat. We were driving in the pouring rain, and when Dad tried to pass a truck, the car slipped off the road and rolled into a ditch. The driver of the truck Dad was passing stopped, but he wouldn't help Dad get all of us out of the wrecked car. He did, however, give us a ride to the closest gas station. The gas station building was still there, but it looked old and abandoned. I could just picture us there, wet and standing in the rain while Dad used the pay phone to call for help.<br /><br />Also, the sight of the deer fence reminded Dad of one of his favorite deer hunting experiences. He was out hunting with a friend, I think Dad said his last name was Edwards, so I’ll just call him Ed. Anyway, Dad told Ed to drop him off at the bottom of a hill and to drive to the top and wait for him; Dad said he would send the deer up to where Ed would be waiting. In truth, “nature” was calling and Dad had other plans before he did any deer herding. While Dad was taking care of business, a deer wandered past. Dad pulled out his gun and shot the deer while squatting there with his pants down! I know, I know. TMI. It just seems like such a John Wayne moment, though …<br /><br />More to come!just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-16719519637679996132010-06-25T12:24:00.000-07:002010-06-25T12:26:02.872-07:00Adventures with Grandpa - The Lost ChapterI just returned from what might be the ultimate “Adventure with Grandpa,” driving up to Cristie’s place in Washington for Amanda’s graduation (and several other stops while on the trip), but before I get to that, Vera told me that she still wanted to read what I wrote about my trip to Caliente for Neal’s mission farewell, so I’m going to finish and post that first. I don’t know why I never finished it and posted it (I probably decided it was too boring – but when has that stopped me before), but here it is. It’s five months ago and memory has faded a bit, but I was thrilled that at least one person wanted to read it, so here I go!<br /><br />That adventure began when I drove to Caliente to celebrate my nephew Neal’s mission departure. Uh oh, that didn’t sound right. We didn’t celebrate that he was leaving, we were celebrating that he made a great decision and is going on a mission and to say a fond farewell and best wishes.<br /><br />Anyway, I was driving to Caliente that Friday, January 29. Joanna and Shayler were coming too, but they weren’t leaving until after they got off work. (I don’t work on Fridays, hooray!) I had an appointment that morning and then I had to pack, so I didn’t get out of town until midafternoon. I told Dad that I wasn’t leaving first thing in the morning, but by the time I got there, he was getting anxious. I think that the main reason for that was because I told him I was bringing dinner and he was getting hungry. We do have our priorities!<br /><br />Joanna and Shayler were arriving late that night, so of course we had to stay up and wait for them. Since it’s been a few months since then, I don’t remember much about the waiting part, but maybe I’ve blocked out the memory, who knows? Anyway, they arrived and after much talking, we all went to bed. The next morning Dad and I were up early (actually I was up early, Dad was up REALLY early) and Dad suggested that we go for a walk. I had made a check of the supplies and suggested that we walk to the grocery store, where we could get some food for breakfast. He agreed, and off we went.<br /><br />At the store Dad decided that he wanted to make an omelet, so we bought eggs, and he picked up some red and green peppers. I got milk and some bacon. I decided that I would like to have some hot chocolate, so I asked Dad if he had any at home. He said he was sure he did. Knowing the age of some of the stuff in his pantry, I asked him how old the hot chocolate mix at home was. He declared that it wasn’t that old. Feeling more suspicious, I then asked him, Dad, I have one question for you. Did MOM buy that hot chocolate? (As most readers know, Mom died over four years ago.) Dad said that OF COURSE Mom bought it! He wouldn’t be buying anything like that! Just what I thought! Then I had one more question for him: “How OLD was Mom when she bought that hot chocolate?!” As he sputtered, I picked out my favorite flavor, the mint hot chocolate, and put it in the basket.<br /><br />We paid for our purchases and left the store. As we were checking out, Dad teased the checkout clerk about various things, but she just stared at him with a bored expression and didn’t respond. I guess she’s seen him in there before.<br /><br />When we got home, I checked on Joanna and Shayler (still asleep) and hollered through the door that they needed to wake up because we were making breakfast. I returned to the kitchen to unpack the groceries. Much to my dismay, I found that the can of hot chocolate mix in the bag was the wrong flavor! As I began to moan, I noticed that it had been opened before. As it turned out, as soon as we got home and I wasn’t in the kitchen, Dad looked in his pantry and found his hot chocolate and switched it with the one we had bought. He’s always up to something! He got a good chuckle out of my reaction, anyway.<br /><br />I was a bit skeptical of the omelet he was constructing. He chopped up the red and green peppers with some onion and added them to the egg, along with some cheese he had in the fridge. I can’t remember what else we made, except for the bacon or sausage we bought, but the omelet was really good. I was amazed! I think it might be called a “Western” omelet and I might try ordering it sometime. No, I didn’t say I would try MAKING it. Unless Dad is here to help!<br /><br />A few hours later, Joanna got on the phone with Kevin’s family and found out that everybody was going to that restaurant thing adjacent to the mini mart at the gas station for lunch. (I can’t think of what it’s called. The name “Joe’s” sticks in my mind, but maybe it’s not right.) Dad kept dragging his feet about going (“we just ate”), so by the time we got there, we were just in time to see everybody in their cars, driving away! We accused them of planning it that way (being gone by the time we arrived), but I bet they were just hungry. We WERE pretty late.<br /><br />We decided to go ahead and eat something. I asked Dad if he wanted to split a hamburger with me, but he said NO, he ISN’T HUNGRY, we JUST ATE! As I ordered, I turned and told Shayler that I bet Dad would end up helping me eat my burger. Joanna and Shayler ordered something. Dad had an ice cream cone.<br /><br />By the time the burger was ready, Dad was done with his ice cream. He got a plastic knife and asked me to cut off a little piece so I cut it in half and gave it to him. As Dad happily ate it, Shayler was practically rolling on the floor, laughing about how I had “called it.” Hey, I know my dad.<br /><br />Went over to Kevin and Ann’s place, where Kevin was stirring an enormous Dutch oven brimming full of chili on their grill. It was so full that even the gentlest stirring caused chili to slosh over the sides. I had fun standing and talking to Kev while he cooked. He showed me his new shed/garage building he had built, I admired his Rhino, and he offered to take me for a ride, but I didn’t have an adequate coat. Next time I’m gonna do it, though!<br /><br />The rest of the day is pretty much covered in my other blog about Neal’s farewell. The chili was delicious. I always thought that my recipe was the best, but this totally beat it. It had a delicious smoky flavor that was really great. I’m not one that likes spicy things, and Neal was diluting his and eating large bites of corn bread (something else that was really good, and I don’t usually like corn bread very much, either), saying that it was too spicy for him, but I didn’t think it was spicy at all, just REALLY good. I’ll have to get that recipe!<br /><br />Church the next day was really good. There was a gal who was getting ready to leave on her mission, too, and she spoke at the same meeting and hogged most of the time, but Neal did very well with the little time she left him. We had a nice dinner with everybody else at the church after the meeting, and I had fun talking to the family members who were there.<br /><br />As always I stopped at Mom’s grave site on the way home to check in. I know she’s not really there, but I always like to stop by anyway.<br /><br />Neal had told me about some of the places near Coyote Springs he had been working, and I tried to watch for them on the way home so I could say I saw them, but I’m not sure I picked out the right ones! But it was fun to watch the electrical lines and say to myself, “Neal worked on that. Didn’t he do good?!”<br /><br />It was a very fun trip and I’m glad I went!<br /><br />Coming up next – even more Adventures with Grandpa! You can look forward to reading it or blocking it, whichever you prefer!just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-6968506150050755442010-04-02T11:34:00.000-07:002010-04-03T08:52:01.266-07:00The Last LR Update (at least for now) 4-2-10WELL, I’ve been trying to get this written all week, but with my long, busy days of work and short evenings of laziness combined, I just haven’t gotten it done. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it!<br /><br />But I did (finally) live up to my earlier promise of returning to visit LR before he went home, and it was a great visit. He’s doing so much better, and last I heard they were supposed to turn him loose yesterday (Thursday). In fact, I just texted Jill for an update and she confirmed that yes, he did go home. I’m sure he’s thrilled to be home.<br /><br />Last weekend I decided to drive down to Arizona, sort of spur-of-the-moment. I was laying on the couch on Thursday night, texting with Jill, when the decision to go suddenly hit me (possibly, maybe, SLIGHTLY because she was nagging and pestering me about it). It’s probably a good thing that the decision hit me right then because not much later, Jimmy found me asleep on the couch with my cell phone still clutched in my hand. Old age is creeping up on me.<br /><br />So anyway, Friday morning I got my stuff together and set off for Arizona. I thought about surprising him, but that might be hard to do, since I didn’t know where he was (I knew he had been moved from the hospital to a rehab center), so I texted him that I was coming to see him. He seemed happy and sent me the address.<br /><br />I drove directly to the rehab place, using my trusty navigator. I got there about 5:30, parked near the front door, and tried to walk in. That’s when I saw the sign on the door that said that from 5:00 PM to 7:00 AM, you have to use the north entrance. There were no arrows or anything indicating which way that might be. Being directionally challenged, I had no idea where north would be, so I turned right and hiked to the end of the building. There was a door, so I went on in. I found myself in a large commercial kitchen. I decided that maybe that wasn’t the north entrance, so I tiptoed back out and hiked the length of the building to the other end. The door down there was locked. I headed back to the front door, starting to feel annoyed. Why couldn’t they give just a tiny hint on where to FIND the north entrance? Then someone came out the front door, so I asked. The north entrance was around back. I got back in my car and found that all the signs and arrows on the pavement were one way around the building, and I would have to pull back onto a busy street and make a left in order to get back into the parking lot and go the correct way to get to the back of the building. By then I was totally annoyed and, in a burst of rebellion, I drove AGAINST THE ARROWS and went around back. A few employees were back there smoking, and they looked a little surprised to see someone careening around the building, going the wrong way, but by then I was just DARING someone to say something to me. They didn’t.<br /><br />I went inside and started the fun process of actually FINDING my brother. Of course there was no one to ask, and the people I did ask couldn’t help me. There were names outside all of the rooms, so I started walking up and down the halls, looking for his name. I soon realized that the rehab center was more accurately described as what I would call a rest home. Everybody else in there was elderly, I mean ELDERly, and many looked pretty incapacitated, at least to my untrained eye. LR had to be the baby of the place, hands down! Some of the rooms looked like permanent residences, made up to look like a bedroom at home. One guy had team jerseys from various sports teams hanging from the curtains and other sports memorabilia everywhere. A lot of people had a pile of stuffed animals. I couldn’t help but think that we start life collecting stuffed animals and, by all appearances, we go out the same way. I saw a number of elderly women sitting motionless in the halls in wheelchairs with a couple of stuffed dogs or cats on their laps, and I thought how much nicer it would be if they could be comforted by a real dog or cat.<br /><br />But I digress. As I mentioned before, I had already been annoyed by my adventures in the parking lot, just looking for an entrance, and now the fun continued as I searched for LR’s room. On and on I walked, examining every name plate, not finding him. I didn’t want to actually look into the rooms to find him. It seemed a total invasion of privacy and when I did glance inside, it was often a sad sight.<br /><br />Finally, after a long march up and down the halls (and passing twice the same guy in a wheelchair, slumped to the side with his shirt pulled up, exposing a birthmark next to his belly button) I asked for more help. After the employee said they couldn’t help, I asked for directions on who COULD help and I moved on to someone else who couldn’t help, but eventually I did find someone to help. It turned out that they had just moved LR to another room and hadn’t gotten around to putting his name plate on the door yet. JUST MY LUCK! Of course I had passed his room several times.<br /><br />All of my aggravation melted away, though, when I saw my brother. He was sitting in his wheel chair, and his bed was neatly made next to him. I commented that it didn’t look like he’d been in the bed for a while, and he said he tried only to use it at night when it was bedtime. Sitting in a wheelchair was an improvement from always lying in bed, which is what he had done for weeks. When I hugged him, I could tell it was an effort to lift his arms and hug me back. He definitely was still very weak, but working at getting his strength back. A couple of times a day he took a turn around the hall using a walker, and I was impressed about how determined he plugged along. You almost had to jog to keep up with him! It reminded me of when I visited Dad in the hospital after he had his cancer surgery. When we were doing laps in the hall with him, he actually tried to break into a run. (He definitely left Mom in the dust.) Like father, like son!<br /><br />LR is still struggling to eat. The damage done to his throat is still healing, and he can only eat a small amount at a time, but he’s working at it. He has lost something like 40 pounds since he got sick. His legs and arms, as I said, are still very weak, but he is working to get them back.<br />I spent a lot of the day on Saturday with him, and that evening Rhonda babysat Jill and Jared’s kids so they could go out, and I stayed with LR. We watched a movie and snacked. (I snacked, he nibbled, but he made sure that the nurse knew he was eating. Had to write it down and get credit for every morsel!)<br /><br />It was a wonderful visit, seeing LR, and being with Jill and her family was a nice bonus, as always. It gave my heart the peace it needed, to see him awake and getting better.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzKSFiGTRYyf7BApOEuq899Fhg3-Pq6QEfNGvNxFZ9kcXyvbD6zSaWMdPgfXJNerZyBwMdiqDb6f2ptXT8HD31iqu7xK597IrdffZxtTiPoWibjcU3Kv-TvpotodiTWnEdoikjBgwRnU/s1600/IMG00034-20100328-1137b.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CLEAR: both" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrzKSFiGTRYyf7BApOEuq899Fhg3-Pq6QEfNGvNxFZ9kcXyvbD6zSaWMdPgfXJNerZyBwMdiqDb6f2ptXT8HD31iqu7xK597IrdffZxtTiPoWibjcU3Kv-TvpotodiTWnEdoikjBgwRnU/s320/IMG00034-20100328-1137b.jpg" /></a><br />As I was leaving to drive home on Sunday around noon, Kadence decided she was going to go home with me. She climbed into the back seat of my car and wouldn’t budge. I tried to talk her out of the idea. I thought I had her convinced when she got out of the car and went back in the house. A few minutes later, though, she returned, carrying her Phineas, Ferb, and Perry stuffed dolls (which incidentally I bought her for Christmas). Apparently my argument “no toys at grandma’s house” argument sunk in. She sat in that seat for a long time while Jared tried to help me by changing a couple of fuses in my car under the dash. I told Kadence that Jacob would miss her, her mom and would miss her, she didn’t have any clothes, she would miss her mom and dad and Jacob, and there was no con<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfRElRVmZnQpeRV7xgRGdwVUZZCaAjB31KcW94n4z0cWlZnu1oCQ-qiEgg0L4_xLtWBgr_V7AvKkh-X58XlMaWtNx92fCOqtHLfqgfbbBrJlB47aPfNXb4yeRtsfKiOFooayt1Crj322Q/s1600/IMG00036-20100328-1138.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455726313612341618" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfRElRVmZnQpeRV7xgRGdwVUZZCaAjB31KcW94n4z0cWlZnu1oCQ-qiEgg0L4_xLtWBgr_V7AvKkh-X58XlMaWtNx92fCOqtHLfqgfbbBrJlB47aPfNXb4yeRtsfKiOFooayt1Crj322Q/s320/IMG00036-20100328-1138.jpg" /></a>vincing her. Finally she had to be pulled from the car. We thought about calling her bluff and driving down the street with her in there, thinking that she would change her mind, but we were afraid she would call OUR bluff, which is what probably would have happened!<br /><br />Thanks again to everyone, family and friends, for all of your love and prayers.<br /><br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; CLEAR: both"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial" border="0" alt="Posted by Picasa" align="middle" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" /></a></div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-34567474429469297452010-03-19T16:48:00.000-07:002010-03-19T18:41:15.793-07:00Really new LR Update - 3/19/10<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPjBuVpmOdyUv7rFExn_8YQm5q0_Hq_YUqxWr_En5pzxT-mcfqJCjQgTgR7W_1Km2NlLo8MT3X9Virl5xbfBViQHzUJqe3TGZiKZE20rxNYJFF3FyPmMUe4f4WWhyphenhyphenaED43Z61O9aHChE/s1600-h/LRb.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CLEAR: both" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPjBuVpmOdyUv7rFExn_8YQm5q0_Hq_YUqxWr_En5pzxT-mcfqJCjQgTgR7W_1Km2NlLo8MT3X9Virl5xbfBViQHzUJqe3TGZiKZE20rxNYJFF3FyPmMUe4f4WWhyphenhyphenaED43Z61O9aHChE/s320/LRb.jpg" /></a><br />WELL, it's been a while since I did an update, so here we go!<br /><br />LR sent me this first picture yesterday with the caption, 'Look Mom, no bed!" I sent him back a text saying, "HE'S ALIVE!" (The younger generation might not get the 'Young Frankenstein' reference, but at least I thought it was funny.)<br /><br />He's finally been able to get out of bed and sit up. On Wednesday evening they transferred him from the hospital to a physical rehab facility, still in the Phoenix area. I asked him what needed rehabbing, other than his attitude (little sister joke), and he said that his arms and legs are very weak from the lack of oxygen he suffered during transport between hospitals and he still can't walk. So he's getting a lot of physical therapy and stuff like that to try to build up his strength.<br /><br />Most of my communications with him have been texts, so <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZBiuywuXjarmEBOjQPIv0LCRw8mVvNi_DdXk_6uOkOVysu9kGian825ETVzYD-X9bxFk-nHpeJt61-PCPEm1FDFESSWKJ-quQMv8XId2J5fKOwstfXmEmBKAXtftrp75FPYV8409b1s/s1600-h/LR2.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; FLOAT: left; CLEAR: both" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoZBiuywuXjarmEBOjQPIv0LCRw8mVvNi_DdXk_6uOkOVysu9kGian825ETVzYD-X9bxFk-nHpeJt61-PCPEm1FDFESSWKJ-quQMv8XId2J5fKOwstfXmEmBKAXtftrp75FPYV8409b1s/s320/LR2.jpg" /></a>when I got this new picture today with the flowers from the school where he works, I decided to call him. That's when I found out that he is still struggling with getting his voice back. He's a little bit hard to understand. He said that he is also working with a speech therapist, trying to get his throat back to normal and build strength there too, something damaged by both the lack of oxygen and the ventilator and everything else they had to stick down there to save his life. Whatever it takes!<br /><br />I asked him today how his legs are doing, and he said that he has graduated from a wheel chair (just sitting up in a wheel chair was an accomplishment at first) to beginning to use a walker, so things are slowly improving. Who would have thought a month or two ago that he'd soon be excited to use a walker?!<br /><br />Hey, I just got a brilliant idea. He now has his phone with him and I know he gets unlimited texts, so how about this: Everybody out there who has texting on their phones, send him a text! Let's flood him with texts and let him know that he is loved!<br /><br />If he won't immediately know who you are, start with that ("Hi, this is Igor, Karen's neighbor"). Then say get well, glad you're better, stop being so lazy, whatever you want! Here's his cell phone number:<br /><br />928 551 1118<br /><br />Go get him! And if you want to, come back here and give us a report!<br /><br />Karen<br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; CLEAR: both"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; BACKGROUND: 0% 50%; BORDER-TOP: 0px; BORDER-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial" border="0" alt="Posted by Picasa" align="middle" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" /></a></div>just birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8042770229272962363.post-69206316599450665812010-03-13T18:17:00.000-08:002010-03-13T18:31:34.353-08:00Newest LR Update - 3/13/10Good news!<br /><br />After the miserable day he had on Thursday, LR was given a blessing. On Friday, things started turning around for him. He has been able to eat a little bit of soft food without choking, and Rhonda got him the glass of water he's been dying for since he woke up. (I guess we shouldn't use the term "dying for" but there it is.) At about 3:00 this morning (Saturday), they moved him out of the ICU and into a regular room.<br /><br />When I called Rhonda for an update this morning, she actually put him on the phone and I got to talk to him! He's a little hard to understand, I guess because of the damage done to his throat, but other than that he sounded good. <br /><br />One thing that he said surprised me. The doctors had discussed where to fly him if they couldn't treat him in podunk-ville (wherever it was he was first taken by ambulance), and he thought they were taking him to Las Vegas! He didn't know he was in Phoenix until a day or two after he woke up. It would have been so nice, to have him here in my town. It was really great having him so close to Jill and Jared, but having him HERE ... well, you know! At the time, though, they decided to take him to the closest hospital that had the facilities he needed, so I guess that was the best decision. The other alternative was Albuquerque, and THAT would have been BAD, so I guess I'll accept where he ended up without too much grumbling. They did help him get better, after all.<br /><br />I asked him if anybody had asked how much longer he would be in the hospital (something that wasn't even thought of only a few days ago) and he said probably another week or so. The lungs still need work and so does the solid food thing, but as it is, things look really good.<br /><br />A big thank you to everyone, my wonderful friends and family, for your thoughts, prayers, fasting, and especially your love.<br /><br />Karenjust birdiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02271033060300436262noreply@blogger.com2