Today's Adventure

A "quick" trip to the hospital ER to address a temporary problem. We arrived before 1:00 p.m. It was very cold in the room so Lee insisted I go home and he would have them call me when the scan was complete.

So I came home. I did a little housework but did not eat lunch. We had each had a late breakfast.

At three the phone rang. Your husband is ready to come home.

I drove the mile and three tenths to the hospital, pulling up to the ER entrance. Nobody there. I parked the van and went inside. It was still cold and he was still attached to a needle and a blood pressure cuff and an oxygen monitor. He did have a couple of blankets. It didn't appear that he was quite ready.

We got home at 4:30. He still insisted he wasn't hungry but he was getting a headache (no food?) I fixed a quick lunch of mostly leftovers.

Back home.  Hot outside but comfortably cool in here.

I wonder if they keep it so cool in the hospital to discourage germs.

P.S. The nurses, PA and aides were all very nice, pleasant and helpful. That really helps.

Doggy Thunder Scarves

I decided not to buy two "Thundershirts" for over $60 each for our dogs. One dog, Jill the Bully, is afraid of noise - thunder and fire works. When I heard that it is legal to shoot firecrackers starting June 30th through July 4th (Dang!) I decided to try something I saw on the internet. If it's on the web, it really should work, right?

It showed long strips of soft cloth held in front of the chest of the dog, brought around behind the head and crossed, then placed under the chest, brought up and tied in place. I found some light weight flannel and cut four inch strips. I made them extra long because Jill is a little pudgy. Jack is still thin.

The trick will be getting them to stand upright long enough to perform this maneuver. Usually they just roll over and want their tummy rubbed when we approach.

I'll let you know how this works out.

Cabbage?

I planned to have escalloped cabbage (or maybe fried) for lunch today. After I cut open the head, I decided against it.

What in the world  is that?

It's now in the trash.

Freezing TV

Over the week-end we had more reception problems on our television sets.

I called twice and once was late Sunday night. No channels available, freezing screens, no sound etc.

This morning more of the same. (We do watch TV too much.) I called the help number, explained the trouble ever since June 7th when the new system was installed and told them if this wasn't fixed we were going to cancel their service.

"The service tech will be out between 10:00 and 12:00 a.m. Will that be satisfactory?" Yes,''

He came and replaced the main brain (box) for Contour. He believes that it was a bad unit.

When you pay almost $300 a month for TV, internet and telephone, by darn, you want them to work!

Blue Water Flags

These flags appeared partially on our yard and all across our neighbor's yard yesterday. Lee thinks there is a leak. I see no water leaking but the word on the flag is "water."

I guess we'll see if the city comes to attend to the situation.

Cool Saturday

Before noon, that is. After that it warmed up.

I sat out on the back porch and watched the birds eat from the feeder. Some of them saw me and left immediately but a few grackles got a peanut before flying away. I didn't scare the squirrel though.

He came and stayed, ignoring the dive bombers.

As usual, a trip to the grocers for forgotten items. This time I had a list. We now have creamer which eliminates milk and Splenda in the coffee. All is well in the coffee department.

I try to ignore the news but I still cannot because I am nosy.

Missing our family too! What a Saturday.

Malts

I hadn't had one in years but I thought all ice cream  places had milk shakes And malts.

Nope.

So I had a milk shake.

More of the Same

Today we went to pick up the new prescriptions. One was "ok" but the request for a calcium concoction was listed with a different level of milligrams. The pharmacy did not have that particular combination. They had called the doctor's office yesterday and asked if what they have on hand was all right to substitute. (It was just a matter of a few milligrams!)

The answer came back requesting exactly the same item they had ordered the first time.

We're still waiting for an answer on this one.

Sigh.

Confusion Today

We were waiting for an appointment today. We have wonderful doctors but sometimes they "run behind." The sign says if your wait is longer than thirty minutes, notify the receptionist. After an hour, I did just that. Pleasantly. She was so nice and went to check. No, they hadn't forgotten us. (That happened many years ago and Lee was left sitting in a room for a shot that the doctor ordered and the nurses did not know he was sitting in there with the door closed.)

We finally got in. Mentioning a call we received this morning about an appointment next week, we were told we could disregard that call.  O.K. All is well and a new prescription replaces the need for a bone scan. Yay! Going over the info on the chart, the nurse asked where our street was located in Hutch, leaving out one letter. I wondered why she did that. Well, it was typed that way on the address line. She corrected that.

Earlier in the day at my appointment, they advised me to check all the info on the yearly check-up sheet. That had Lee's birthdate the same as mine.

Makes one wonder about errors.

Big Wind

We had a fast storm blow through our town last night. There was some thunder and we looked outside and the rain was horizontal. Very strong winds. Some later said it was a microburst. I'm not sure if that has been confirmed.

We lost power about 6:10. The battery radio reported 9000 without power in the north part of our city. One entire mile of wooden light poles were blown over on forty-third between Plum Street and Mayfield Road, for you locals.

Our power returned about 8:15. Luckily the temperature went down with the rain and had started back up by eight so we never got too warm in the house.

Thanks to all those electricians who climb the poles (when they are still standing!) A hard job in all kinds of weather. My dad was a lineman and later the head of a crew. He would get called out at night.  I have always wondered why we don't have more lines underground. Some new areas do and lots of places in Texas have that situation. An electrician friend told me it's harder to find an outage underground. That makes sense but I would think there would be fewer problems.

More thunderstorms forecast for today and tomorrow. We need the rain but could do with less wind.

Depth Perception

Today I removed my coffee cup from the microwave not clearing the lip of the glass turn table.

I didn't know I had such strength to clip heavy glass with a mug, resulting in  a broken edge.

There it is. Now we must be careful to not brush that broken spot with a finger.

Shortage

We decided to get a couple of sandwiches, 2 for $6.00. Waited in the drive-through, ordered, waited again, paid, drove home.

Detect an error in judgement here?

Always check in the bag. Paid for two. Got one.

Judging

Yesterday we had a long wait at the clinic due to a fax mix-up. I was people watching which we used to do on a Saturday night when I was a kid. Drive uptown, find a parking place and watch the people walk by. The stores were open late only on Saturdays.

As I saw the people come and go to check in at the lab, I really couldn't believe how some of them were dressed. Short, flimsy shorts that were almost too short on a lady who couldn't be a day under sixty. A tee shirt dress on a very pregnant young woman. I could go on.

Then I realized I was sitting there in my sweat pants with a fairly nice blouse. I forgot to change into my nice slacks before we left the house. (Someone keeps the temp very low.)

Judge not.

Flag Day

We will put out our flag and see how many are out in our neighborhood.  Report later.

I was surprised that there were only three other flags flying on our street. Maybe the others forgot it was flag day although our newspaper included a print of the flag on one complete page. The idea is that if you do not own a flag, you can tape it to your front window.

I didn't see any of those.

Busy?

We actually got some things done yesterday before it reached the 90's. Lee mowed and I helped him dig out the wet grass from under the mower. Think green cement.

I vacuumed the back screened in porch. The bag was very full. We had trouble removing it to put in a new bag! ( I  said "we." I should have said "Lee.")

Skype is not reliable headed east from here to New Jersey. My sister-in-law and I wrestle with it every day.
However, from here to California, it is perfect. Can't explain that oddity. On the other hand, it seems like a miracle that we can call and see each other and chat - for free. Remember LD? That's Long Distance for you non-operators. And it cost extra! We Number Please women were a dying breed in the 80's and now there are very few PBX (Private Branch Exchange) operators who answer calls at businesses. Time Marches On.

I did watch some historic television very early in the morning. Perhaps I needed time for a nap, but I made it through to an early bedtime. I wonder what it would be like to keep regular hours.

Errand

We had an early morning trip to the east side of town to buy some garage door lubricant. The sound the door makes when it's closing makes you think it may be in terrible pain.

As we headed east on 17th Street, we saw a detour sign. Our destination was just around a curve that we couldn't get to! So we turned south, took the first road east and it curved north with nowhere else to go but follow the curve.  About half a block later our garage store company appeared on our right.
A very lucky outcome. I was prepared to wander around looking for the place.

Sometimes things just work out.

Sunday

Another day of temperatures twenty degrees above normal.

A good day to stay inside and thank Willis Carrier.

Bar B Que

We have a wonderful home owned barbecue café here - Roy's Pit Barbecue. We splurged yesterday and I got a rib dinner. Five huge ribs, salad bar, beans and two slices of garlic toast.

Heavenly!

Many Errands

The mornings are cool so you want to do what you have to outside before noon.  It didn't work out that way so much today.

A trip to retrieve a prescription and deliver it to the pharmacy; a trip to buy yarn for a small blue afghan (Congrats to number three!)

Before all that there were some interesting events. When I turned on the television after all the revisions from yesterday, I was asked to  "set up the remote."  We did that yesterday. I checked and all three tv's demanded the same operation. What the heck?

So I'm watching my morning news show and eek! Frozen picture.  Just like Skype. Good grief.

This happened about four more times on the set in the office (third bedroom.) No problems on the super sized set in the bedroom.

During early morning, I punched that off button about five times, waited and tried again. Sometimes it would  respond and sometimes not. After lunch I got online and chatted with a helper from the provider. He ran a check and so far so good.

However, we were receiving channels that were not included in our new package. Mr. L, who usually has no problem spending money, was sure we were going to be charged mega bucks for those premium channels. So in the heat of the day, off to the local store. They took a look and the clerk the day before had told me Showtime and HBO. Nope, it's HBO and Cinemax. All is well in the tv world for a year. After that, renegotiate! Then I gave them the story about the freezing picture. Oh, he says, we had an outage this morning - that might have been it. Well, only on two of our sets. That makes no sense.

I was pleasant to the guy but let him know that we expected it to "work" with the amount we shell out every month for our main entertainment. Yep, we are hooked on tv (and the internet.)
When I left I told him I hoped I didn't have to come back and bitch at him again.

He laughed.  Does anybody else remember rabbit ears or if you were one hundred miles away from the nearest station, a tall tower in the back yard with a rotor to point toward one of the two stations in the state? Simpler times.

Cable Man

Today the specialist came to hook up our cable boxes. He arrived about 10:30. Almost three hours later he left.

He replaced the wiring from the house to the cable in the back yard which is attached to the light poles. He went into the crawl space after learning we had no basement. He had ladders and rolls of cable and equipment in the back yard.



And to think they told me that I could attach three connectors and we'd be in business!

Maintenance

When you are fortunate to own a home, you are also responsible for all the upkeep. If you rent, the land lord must do it. I understand that sometimes that is a difficult process.

We have a list of all the things we have done, or had done, since 2006. It's a long list.

And the list goes on.

June 5, 1968

Fifty years ago we had two sons, nine and almost seven years old. We also had a small, portable tv set atop our chest of drawers in our bedroom. We had gone to bed after watching some of the results from the primaries.

I woke up and the tv was still on. There was no remote so I got up to turn it off. Suddenly there was coverage of Robert Kennedy speaking to the group of supporters. I left the tv on and went back to sit on the bed.

I don't know just what time it was here or in California, but it was in the middle of the night. He said, "On to Chicago," and I still watched.

Seeing that happen live on television was unbelievable. The events in Dallas were not on local tv until after the event. But here - this was actually being shown when it was happening.

I will never forget it.

More on the Saturday Story

After deciding the pins were no longer in the dogs' stomachs, I started to remake the bed.

The king size sheet was in heap so I did like my mother used to do: hold it and flip it out onto the bed.

Only the ceiling fan was going and the sheet caught one of the chains and the fan wrapped it around the base of the fan near the ceiling. Neither one of us could reach it so Lee was headed to the garage for a step ladder. I said no, that I would use the ruler. He suggested the weed eater that had a couple of points on it.

Retreating to the garage, I cleaned the mud (or dog poop) off the weed whacker and came back. Sure enough, I was able to catch the chain and unwind it.

So ended the time of frustrations.

I was exhausted. Lee was relieved and exhausted. You know how people say later we'll laugh about this? That never entered my mind.

More on an Unpleasant Saturday

Yesterday while trying to find the correct connection for the HDMI port (!) on the big tv, I brushed up against a small quilt I had hung up. It was covering the beautiful but so far unpainted repair job of the hole in the wall. It had been held in place with two of those large push pins with colorful "pushers."

I picked up the small quilt and tossed it on the bed. I was so absorbed in trying to find out if I could connect our new set up for the cable company, that I have no memory of picking up the pins.

Later, they were  nowhere to be found. Lee was certain the dogs had eaten them, thinking they were dog bones. We tried using a flashlight to look under the dresser the big TV is sitting on. I tried using my phone camera to take a photo under it. Nothing but a dusty carpet. Lee worried and worried about the dogs having a horrible death. We searched every where in that room that we could with a ruler used as sort of a snow plow to sweep under furniture.

Nothing appeared. He took all the bedding off the bed, thinking they might be in the blanket.

This took up most of the afternoon. I finally went into the dining room where my parents desk is located and looked in the drawer where the pushpins can be found. There were a green, a blue and a white. Lee insists they were both blue but in the photo I took of the hanging quilt, only one looks blue and the other looks dark - could be green.

So we finally concluded that I had put them in that drawer. What scares me is that I have no memory of picking them up from the floor and putting them in the desk.

The desk at a former residence.

And tomorrow, the final installment of the Saturday Full of Irritating Events....

I Guess Not

A trip to the cable company for a remote replacement became a ride home with a whole new system. No charge. Just three cables to connect. "If you have set up your computer (with help) you can do this!"

One look at the back of our 54" tv told me otherwise.  The service man will be here Thursday morning.

Scan and Go

A trip to Wally World this morning for one skein of café latte colored yarn to finish another afghan.

The store was not crowded even though the parking lot was full - as it always is.

I got my yarn and headed toward the check out lanes. There were seven self service lanes open.
Two were occupied. At the two open check out lanes with humans ringing up merchandise, there were lines with four or five people in each line. In conversations with two people behind me, we agreed we'd rather stand in line and wait than "do it ourselves."

Are we just old fashioned? Yes. Do we like human contact? Yes.

I don't know what we will do when they have phased out all the humans and we have to use the Scan and Go option.

As I saw on the internet, "If I want to Scan and Go, I'll stay home and order from Amazon."