Most of my dedicated fans know that my 93-year-old father finally decided that he couldn't hack it any longer, living alone in a three story house on the side of a mountain. He came to live with us on my 64th birthday, January 12th, 2017. Carmen gave up her office; it's now my dad's room. He says it's the finest private nursing home he's ever seen.
He has a laundry list of health issues: celiac disease, emphysema, extreme difficulty swallowing and abysmal balance. He has fallen several times since coming here. Thankfully, we have caught him most of the time. He has bad dentures that don't help him chew, so his food is nearly always soft or blenderized, and his allergy to wheat and gluten narrows the choices of foods quite a bit. He's 5'10" and 95 pounds, and losing weight.
For the most part, his spirits are good, and he loves to talk. He likes to tell his stories of his childhood on the farm during the 1930s, his WWII Navy experiences, his working life at the Baltimore City Planning Dept., the Maryland State Roads Commission, Westinghouse Armaments Division and The National Geographic Society. He was an illustrator at heart when he was eight years old, and continued to draw and paint for a living - or at least a supplement - until his stroke in 2013. He didn't lose much, as strokes go, but he forgot how to draw and paint. He also lost the ability to read and make sense of sentences and paragraphs. He can read the words, but not tie them together into complex thoughts. And his hearing is very bad. Lucky for him, I dealt with a very hard of hearing mother for fifty years or more, so I know how to make myself heard.
It's now pretty much up to Carmen and me - mostly me - to keep his life together, make sure he has food he can eat, keep his bills and accounts up to date, get him to appointments on time and with the proper paperwork, wash his clothes and his dishes, and be his ears and his memory. Basically, I'm his daddy now. But that's okay. He was my daddy for a very long time.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Wynifred J. Emerson
My mother requested no funeral, no memorial service, no whistles or bells. She was cremated early this week, and her ashes were mailed, along with my brother's, to the family plot in Shamokin, PA. It was purchased by her grandfather in 1940 for $98.00. George at Mountainview Funeral Home said $98 won't buy anything at all any more.
She was a stay-at-home mom for my entire childhood in Odenton, Maryland. For most of it we lived in the split-level house she had designed in 1956. She was, I think, remarkably tolerant of me and my particular brand of fun. Some might argue that she was too tolerant. I was an outdoor kid, ranging far and wide around the neighborhood. As long as I was home for lunch and supper, she didn't worry about me - or at least I was not aware of it if she did. When I came home, I often brought turtles and /or snakes to live with us. One summer we had 14 box turtles on our screened back porch, all with names and distinct personalities. She fed them scraps of meats, vegetables and fruits. She didn't feed the snakes.
When I stayed in the yard, I still could not be a calming presence. I started a forest fire in the woods behind the house once. A forest ranger gave me a stern talking to after that. I climbed trees as far as I could possibly go and then some. I had a rope swing on the old pine tree, and I would wind the rope around and around it as far as I could, then launch myself, spinning madly while I also spun around the tree until I was unwound and then wound up again, then spun madly the other direction. She saw my head flying perilously close to that tree at breakneck speeds many many times. She told me to be careful.
She was a den mother in my Cub Scout pack, and an interested mother in my Boy Scout troop for which my dad was Assistant Scout Master and designated Akela. She planned family trips to Civil War battlefields, museums, zoos, fishing and all manner of other interesting activities. She read to me - The Wizard of Oz books, The Borrowers books, the Alice In Wonderland books to name a few - instilling in me a love of reading. We made Christmas ornaments, assembled Easter baskets, dyed eggs with onion skin dye, beet juice, or regular commercial egg dying kits. She was the best mom I knew.
We always had four-legged family members, cared for primarily by Wynifred. Princess and Sindbad, a German shepherd and a Siamese cat, were the primary critters I remember from my youth. Both of them died after I graduated high school. We also had a two-legged family member until I was eleven. The Easter after I was born, they gave my six year old brother a tiny baby duckling, He named it Mr. Peepers after his favorite TV show. The name held until Mr. Peepers laid her first clutch of eggs - just in time for Easter! Then she became just Peepers. My mother made sure Peepers, living in a pen at the edge of the woods I almost burned down, was fed, watered and taken regularly to the pond near our house for some swimming and tadpole hunting. That became my job after my pre-adolescent brother lost interest.
In 1968, when I was fifteen, we moved to Vero Beach, Florida, where she had spent her teenage years until she met and married a handsome airplane mechanic stationed at Vero Beach Naval Air Station. Her mother still lived there, and Wynifred hired a local contractor to turn the concrete block ruin in the back yard - it was intended to be a garage before it was abandoned by my grandfather - into a house much more modern than the sixty-year-old frame house they had lived in since the thirties. My mother was a whiz at designing living spaces. If she had been born forty years later, she could have been an architect. For a short time, we lived in the old house while my grandmother shared the new house with Gil Emerson Commercial Art, for which my mother was secretary and bookkeeper. I was a part time graphic artist, photographer and darkroom technician. We scraped by on her genius for buying fifty dollars' worth of groceries for ten dollars and a fist full of coupons.
After I left home in 1971 she worked at the Indian River County Library, doing books and answering the phone for several years. My dad was plying the art show circuit on weekends around Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Then in 1978, I decided I liked fishing the Indian River and the inlets better than ice skating, and moved back to Vero Beach to stay for nine years. My dad and I decided to really dive into the commercial art biz. We got a process camera, built a darkroom for it, landed the Los Angeles Dodgers account, and were off to the races, with my mother again at the helm with the books and the business end of things. When my dad decided to hand the business over to me in '87, I and my new wife decided to move to Central Florida. He sold the business soon after, and bought an RV.
My parents then began to wander the mountains in search of a suitable location for a summer home at which to escape heat and hurricanes. It was not until 1995 that they bought a lot in Smokey Mountain Estates in north Georgia. They hired a Vero Beachite contractor to build the shell of a three-story house with subflooring, stairs and enough interior framing to hold it together, and for the third time, my mother took on the task of designing. This was their dream cabin in the mountains. For ten or so years they hauled themselves and their cat(s) back and forth from Vero Beach to Blairsville every spring and fall until it got to be too much for them. They decided they liked cooler summers and the lack of hurricanes better than warmer winters, and they moved the rest of their stuff up to Georgia. A few years ago, my dad declared the cabin finished, with only a trickle of small projects to keep him busy.
Their health was pretty good through the 1990s and double naught years. About five years ago her cardiologist told her that she needed a pacemaker. She refused, period! No pacemaker nohow!
Three years ago my dad had a stroke. He was taken to Gainesville, GA, fifty miles over Blood Mountain, to a hospital better equipped to handle his situation. Then he was transferred to a rehab /nursing home in Gainesville, where he celebrated his 90th birthday. I was with my mom for a couple of weeks after the stroke, and realized that she was not physically, mentally or emotionally fit to live alone without help. We hired in-home help for her, but she refused to let them do anything other than to take her down to Gainesville several times until Dad was released to come back home. He was left weaker but still ambulatory, and with some difficulty speaking and swallowing, but in pretty good shape. He promised my mom that he would never put her in a nursing home, that he would take care of her until death did them part.
In late February, my dad told me that he had been keeping it from us that my mother had Alzheimer's. "I ask her to put things in the refrigerator. She says 'What is a refrigerator.'" He knew that if he tried to get her tested, there would be hell to pay. He asked me to go with her to her routine doctor's appointment on March first. I did. I told Dr. Sanders about her memory issues. He had his nurse come in and give her the standard test. She could not answer most of the questions. The first three: what year is it, what city do you live in, what state do you live in. He was convinced. He gave her a card with four weeks' worth of pills of increasing strength. "They are not a cure. They only slow the progress of the disease." After she had finished the card, they went back for a prescription to continue the medication. The day after the first new pill, she got really sick. An ambulance took her to the emergency room. They pumped her stomach, and she was okay for a few days. Then she got really sick again. Back to the ER, where they admitted her. They spent a week trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Finally, my dad told me that she had an intestinal blockage, and they were going to operate. I was concerned about her chances of surviving surgery, but he had already authorized it, so I zipped my baloney lips.
On the afternoon dog walk of April 12th, a nurse at Union General Hospital called me on my cell to tell me that the plan was to haul her to Chattanooga, through the roller coaster roads that she hated, implant a pacemaker so that she might survive this surgery, and find and remove whatever was blocking her lower intestine. I told her that this sounded crazy to me. She said that that was why she had called me. She thought I might be able to convince my dad to rethink it. I tried calling him. No luck. At about 8:00 that night, Union General called again to ask me for final authorization to haul her to Chattanooga. I guess they, too had not been able to reach my dad, and my mom was unresponsive. I said NO! and told them I wanted to talk to Dr. Sanders. Carmen finally got a hold of my dad. Dr. Sanders called my cell. Between the four of us, we decided to abort this insane plan and put her in hospice. My dad said that he was not aware of the pacemaker piece (his hearing is not so good) and he had thought that after this surgery she would come home for him to take care of her. Doc Sanders said no, if she survived the surgery she would go to a nursing home until she was well enough to come home, and he was skeptical of the chances of either of those outcomes.
Carmen and I went over to Blairsville on the 14th. We sat with my dad who sat with my mom every day until the end. He decided to let the neighbors go ahead with the 70th anniversary party on the 21st, and on the 22nd he told her all about it. He opened the numerous cards and read them to her. She was still unresponsive. We went home at 5:00 as usual. At 8:12 the hospital called and said she was soon to go. We got ready as fast as we could, arriving at 8:40 - about ten minutes too late.
Carmen had gone back to Nashville several days before. I stayed with my dad, helping him with the arrangements and the contacting of relatives with whom he hadn't communicated in years - decades even. I listened to his stories and told him some of mine before I went back home on Tuesday the 26th. He is living alone now for the first time in his almost 93 years. The neighbors keep trying to help him, but he says he needs to be alone with his grief for a while. I think he'll be okay.
She was a stay-at-home mom for my entire childhood in Odenton, Maryland. For most of it we lived in the split-level house she had designed in 1956. She was, I think, remarkably tolerant of me and my particular brand of fun. Some might argue that she was too tolerant. I was an outdoor kid, ranging far and wide around the neighborhood. As long as I was home for lunch and supper, she didn't worry about me - or at least I was not aware of it if she did. When I came home, I often brought turtles and /or snakes to live with us. One summer we had 14 box turtles on our screened back porch, all with names and distinct personalities. She fed them scraps of meats, vegetables and fruits. She didn't feed the snakes.
When I stayed in the yard, I still could not be a calming presence. I started a forest fire in the woods behind the house once. A forest ranger gave me a stern talking to after that. I climbed trees as far as I could possibly go and then some. I had a rope swing on the old pine tree, and I would wind the rope around and around it as far as I could, then launch myself, spinning madly while I also spun around the tree until I was unwound and then wound up again, then spun madly the other direction. She saw my head flying perilously close to that tree at breakneck speeds many many times. She told me to be careful.
She was a den mother in my Cub Scout pack, and an interested mother in my Boy Scout troop for which my dad was Assistant Scout Master and designated Akela. She planned family trips to Civil War battlefields, museums, zoos, fishing and all manner of other interesting activities. She read to me - The Wizard of Oz books, The Borrowers books, the Alice In Wonderland books to name a few - instilling in me a love of reading. We made Christmas ornaments, assembled Easter baskets, dyed eggs with onion skin dye, beet juice, or regular commercial egg dying kits. She was the best mom I knew.
We always had four-legged family members, cared for primarily by Wynifred. Princess and Sindbad, a German shepherd and a Siamese cat, were the primary critters I remember from my youth. Both of them died after I graduated high school. We also had a two-legged family member until I was eleven. The Easter after I was born, they gave my six year old brother a tiny baby duckling, He named it Mr. Peepers after his favorite TV show. The name held until Mr. Peepers laid her first clutch of eggs - just in time for Easter! Then she became just Peepers. My mother made sure Peepers, living in a pen at the edge of the woods I almost burned down, was fed, watered and taken regularly to the pond near our house for some swimming and tadpole hunting. That became my job after my pre-adolescent brother lost interest.
In 1968, when I was fifteen, we moved to Vero Beach, Florida, where she had spent her teenage years until she met and married a handsome airplane mechanic stationed at Vero Beach Naval Air Station. Her mother still lived there, and Wynifred hired a local contractor to turn the concrete block ruin in the back yard - it was intended to be a garage before it was abandoned by my grandfather - into a house much more modern than the sixty-year-old frame house they had lived in since the thirties. My mother was a whiz at designing living spaces. If she had been born forty years later, she could have been an architect. For a short time, we lived in the old house while my grandmother shared the new house with Gil Emerson Commercial Art, for which my mother was secretary and bookkeeper. I was a part time graphic artist, photographer and darkroom technician. We scraped by on her genius for buying fifty dollars' worth of groceries for ten dollars and a fist full of coupons.
After I left home in 1971 she worked at the Indian River County Library, doing books and answering the phone for several years. My dad was plying the art show circuit on weekends around Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Then in 1978, I decided I liked fishing the Indian River and the inlets better than ice skating, and moved back to Vero Beach to stay for nine years. My dad and I decided to really dive into the commercial art biz. We got a process camera, built a darkroom for it, landed the Los Angeles Dodgers account, and were off to the races, with my mother again at the helm with the books and the business end of things. When my dad decided to hand the business over to me in '87, I and my new wife decided to move to Central Florida. He sold the business soon after, and bought an RV.
My parents then began to wander the mountains in search of a suitable location for a summer home at which to escape heat and hurricanes. It was not until 1995 that they bought a lot in Smokey Mountain Estates in north Georgia. They hired a Vero Beachite contractor to build the shell of a three-story house with subflooring, stairs and enough interior framing to hold it together, and for the third time, my mother took on the task of designing. This was their dream cabin in the mountains. For ten or so years they hauled themselves and their cat(s) back and forth from Vero Beach to Blairsville every spring and fall until it got to be too much for them. They decided they liked cooler summers and the lack of hurricanes better than warmer winters, and they moved the rest of their stuff up to Georgia. A few years ago, my dad declared the cabin finished, with only a trickle of small projects to keep him busy.
Their health was pretty good through the 1990s and double naught years. About five years ago her cardiologist told her that she needed a pacemaker. She refused, period! No pacemaker nohow!
Three years ago my dad had a stroke. He was taken to Gainesville, GA, fifty miles over Blood Mountain, to a hospital better equipped to handle his situation. Then he was transferred to a rehab /nursing home in Gainesville, where he celebrated his 90th birthday. I was with my mom for a couple of weeks after the stroke, and realized that she was not physically, mentally or emotionally fit to live alone without help. We hired in-home help for her, but she refused to let them do anything other than to take her down to Gainesville several times until Dad was released to come back home. He was left weaker but still ambulatory, and with some difficulty speaking and swallowing, but in pretty good shape. He promised my mom that he would never put her in a nursing home, that he would take care of her until death did them part.
In late February, my dad told me that he had been keeping it from us that my mother had Alzheimer's. "I ask her to put things in the refrigerator. She says 'What is a refrigerator.'" He knew that if he tried to get her tested, there would be hell to pay. He asked me to go with her to her routine doctor's appointment on March first. I did. I told Dr. Sanders about her memory issues. He had his nurse come in and give her the standard test. She could not answer most of the questions. The first three: what year is it, what city do you live in, what state do you live in. He was convinced. He gave her a card with four weeks' worth of pills of increasing strength. "They are not a cure. They only slow the progress of the disease." After she had finished the card, they went back for a prescription to continue the medication. The day after the first new pill, she got really sick. An ambulance took her to the emergency room. They pumped her stomach, and she was okay for a few days. Then she got really sick again. Back to the ER, where they admitted her. They spent a week trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Finally, my dad told me that she had an intestinal blockage, and they were going to operate. I was concerned about her chances of surviving surgery, but he had already authorized it, so I zipped my baloney lips.
On the afternoon dog walk of April 12th, a nurse at Union General Hospital called me on my cell to tell me that the plan was to haul her to Chattanooga, through the roller coaster roads that she hated, implant a pacemaker so that she might survive this surgery, and find and remove whatever was blocking her lower intestine. I told her that this sounded crazy to me. She said that that was why she had called me. She thought I might be able to convince my dad to rethink it. I tried calling him. No luck. At about 8:00 that night, Union General called again to ask me for final authorization to haul her to Chattanooga. I guess they, too had not been able to reach my dad, and my mom was unresponsive. I said NO! and told them I wanted to talk to Dr. Sanders. Carmen finally got a hold of my dad. Dr. Sanders called my cell. Between the four of us, we decided to abort this insane plan and put her in hospice. My dad said that he was not aware of the pacemaker piece (his hearing is not so good) and he had thought that after this surgery she would come home for him to take care of her. Doc Sanders said no, if she survived the surgery she would go to a nursing home until she was well enough to come home, and he was skeptical of the chances of either of those outcomes.
Carmen and I went over to Blairsville on the 14th. We sat with my dad who sat with my mom every day until the end. He decided to let the neighbors go ahead with the 70th anniversary party on the 21st, and on the 22nd he told her all about it. He opened the numerous cards and read them to her. She was still unresponsive. We went home at 5:00 as usual. At 8:12 the hospital called and said she was soon to go. We got ready as fast as we could, arriving at 8:40 - about ten minutes too late.
Carmen had gone back to Nashville several days before. I stayed with my dad, helping him with the arrangements and the contacting of relatives with whom he hadn't communicated in years - decades even. I listened to his stories and told him some of mine before I went back home on Tuesday the 26th. He is living alone now for the first time in his almost 93 years. The neighbors keep trying to help him, but he says he needs to be alone with his grief for a while. I think he'll be okay.
Monday, January 25, 2016
Both Sides Now - Reflections on Snow.
For the first 15 years of my life I lived in Odenton, an unincorporated little burg on the Pennsylvania Railroad line between Baltimore and Washington in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. It seemed to me that we had a lot of snow during those years (1953-68) but now I'm not so sure. The biggest deal I remember was the Blizzard of '66, which dumped three feet of snow over a weekend in February. Add to that the fact that Troop 721, including my dad and I, were camping out that weekend, and it's no wonder it is etched on my memory. We had to tunnel out of our tents, then dig our way out of the campground on Sunday morning. Then we were out of school for a whole week.
The primary snow-related recreation was sledding. Our back yard had a gentle slope from the edge of the woods down to the driveway. In the early years on Hammond Lane, our best sledding was there. Soon, however, the new Junior High School was built a quarter mile away, and the grounds around it offered several excellent hills. As soon as there was enough snow to sled on, we kids - about seven to ten of us - hitched up our wooden sleds with steel runners and dragged them to the Junior High. Usually four or five times per winter (sez my 63-year-old memory) we were blessed with enough snow for sledding.
Then we moved to Vero Beach, Florida. In 1977 there was a hard freeze that shut down the citrus industry for ten days. It snowed, but not enough for sledding. Not enough for a decent snowball.
In 2005 Carmen and I moved to Massachusetts. We had heard about New England winters, and learned that the rumors were true. Especially our last winter there, 2008-09, the snow just never seemed to stop. In four years, I saw kids sledding only once, which was perplexing.
Then we moved to Albuquerque, where the news media gave us dire warnings of horrific winter storms coming. They'd blow through overnight, dump 3/4 of an inch of snow and move on. By 9:00 it was all melted, and by noon the world was as dry as ever - and that's pretty dry. There was nary a sled in town.
On the opposite side of the coin...Meadville, Pennsylvania, the moss-covered buckle of the lake effect snow belt. The average is 120 inches (that's ten feet to you and me) of snow per year, and for the first two years I never saw anyone sledding. Very perplexing. Then we got a dog who required long walks three times a day, taking us to parts of Meadville I'd never seen before. It turned out that there were kids who went sledding when the weather was good. They weren't there frequently, but at least four or five times per winter.
Now we have landed in Nashville, Tennessee. This past Wednesday night the rain turned to sleet and snow. By morning there was a quarter inch on the ground and next to nothing on the roads, and on Thursday we were warned to stay off the roads. We former Meadvillians laughed at that. Then on Friday morning we woke up to a half inch of snow that kept on coming down. By the end of the morning dog walk, it was about 3 inches deep. During the afternoon walk, it was approaching 8 inches and still coming down, and everywhere we went there were kids (and grown-ups too) dragging sleds along the unplowed and unsalted streets, heading for the hills. Every decent hill we saw had kids (and grown-ups too) sledding on them. By last night (Sunday) the hills were showing dirt due to the hundreds of downhill runs over the snow, and still kids were sledding well past dark. It began to dawn on me.
In Odenton, Maryland, maybe four or five times a year there was enough snow to sled on. In Nashville, Tennessee, 8 inches is the most snow people have seen in decades. In Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, if you skip the sledding today or tomorrow, there will be another opportunity the next day, or next week, or next month at the latest. Wait for a nice sunny day, not too cold.
And that, my friends is what I have learned from Snowmageggon 2016.
The primary snow-related recreation was sledding. Our back yard had a gentle slope from the edge of the woods down to the driveway. In the early years on Hammond Lane, our best sledding was there. Soon, however, the new Junior High School was built a quarter mile away, and the grounds around it offered several excellent hills. As soon as there was enough snow to sled on, we kids - about seven to ten of us - hitched up our wooden sleds with steel runners and dragged them to the Junior High. Usually four or five times per winter (sez my 63-year-old memory) we were blessed with enough snow for sledding.
Then we moved to Vero Beach, Florida. In 1977 there was a hard freeze that shut down the citrus industry for ten days. It snowed, but not enough for sledding. Not enough for a decent snowball.
In 2005 Carmen and I moved to Massachusetts. We had heard about New England winters, and learned that the rumors were true. Especially our last winter there, 2008-09, the snow just never seemed to stop. In four years, I saw kids sledding only once, which was perplexing.
Then we moved to Albuquerque, where the news media gave us dire warnings of horrific winter storms coming. They'd blow through overnight, dump 3/4 of an inch of snow and move on. By 9:00 it was all melted, and by noon the world was as dry as ever - and that's pretty dry. There was nary a sled in town.
On the opposite side of the coin...Meadville, Pennsylvania, the moss-covered buckle of the lake effect snow belt. The average is 120 inches (that's ten feet to you and me) of snow per year, and for the first two years I never saw anyone sledding. Very perplexing. Then we got a dog who required long walks three times a day, taking us to parts of Meadville I'd never seen before. It turned out that there were kids who went sledding when the weather was good. They weren't there frequently, but at least four or five times per winter.
Now we have landed in Nashville, Tennessee. This past Wednesday night the rain turned to sleet and snow. By morning there was a quarter inch on the ground and next to nothing on the roads, and on Thursday we were warned to stay off the roads. We former Meadvillians laughed at that. Then on Friday morning we woke up to a half inch of snow that kept on coming down. By the end of the morning dog walk, it was about 3 inches deep. During the afternoon walk, it was approaching 8 inches and still coming down, and everywhere we went there were kids (and grown-ups too) dragging sleds along the unplowed and unsalted streets, heading for the hills. Every decent hill we saw had kids (and grown-ups too) sledding on them. By last night (Sunday) the hills were showing dirt due to the hundreds of downhill runs over the snow, and still kids were sledding well past dark. It began to dawn on me.
In Odenton, Maryland, maybe four or five times a year there was enough snow to sled on. In Nashville, Tennessee, 8 inches is the most snow people have seen in decades. In Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, if you skip the sledding today or tomorrow, there will be another opportunity the next day, or next week, or next month at the latest. Wait for a nice sunny day, not too cold.
And that, my friends is what I have learned from Snowmageggon 2016.
Saturday, December 5, 2015
We can rebuild him. We have the technology.
November 30th, 2015...a date which will live with the other three.
On October 3rd, 2011, I had my right knee replaced. It had been hurting with varying degrees of agony since the early 1970s. After surgery it hurt less, but never really stopped hurting until the summer of 2014.
On December 16th and 30th, 2013, I had my cataract-slimed lenses replaced with Bausch and Lomb implants. That was amazingly cool, to wake up and see better than I had in years.
On June 6th, 2014, I had a minimally invasive right hip replacement, and within a couple of months my right leg was nearly pain free. But!
In the fall, I was still using my cane on dog walks, just for extra stability. I had to stop, however, because my left shoulder was beginning to hurt so horribly. I figured the pain would subside after a while of not using the cane. It didn't. In the spring of '15 I told my doctor about it. She gave me a steroid shot. No effect. We moved to Tennessee, we bought a condo, I was remodeling the kitchen, and my shoulder started getting rushes of pins and needles that continued down my left arm to my wrist, leaving me breathless with pain. I told my Tennessee doctor the whole story. He sent me to physical therapy. I learned to stop the pins and needles thing (yay) but I also learned that now I couldn't lift my left arm above chest level - very counter-productive for kitchen remodeling. Three weeks of physical therapy showed us that a) the pain was getting worse and b) the mobility was not getting any better. My doctor called me back in and sent me to a neurosurgeon, who sent me to get an MRI, which showed that the C5 nerve coming out of my neck was being pinched by a bone spur. That's the nerve that tells my muscles to lift my arm above chest level. Surgery was the only hope. No big deal. They would simply slash open my neck in the front, move my throat parts out of the way, and go into my neck vertebrae with shovels and rakes and implements of destruction. Ten days later, I was scrubbed and shaved and prepped for surgery. They removed an assortment of bone fragments, fused together four levels, installed some screws, and closed me up again.
When I awoke on November 30th, my shoulder pain was gone. I had a sore throat, some difficulty swallowing, and some constipation, but that was a good trade for the blinding pain I'd had in my shoulder. By Wednesday, I was able to raise my arm all the way in front of me. Today, I raised it all the way out to the side. My sore throat and other issues are gone. My neck pain is gone. The only way I know that all that was real and not a bad dream is the big bandage on my neck, and the hard plastic cervical collar I wear at all times. The bandage comes off tomorrow, leaving Steri-Strips to keep me together until they come loose on their own.
I spent a long long lifetime whining about doctors and how I didn't trust them and refused to have anything to do with them. It took getting old and running out of other choices to admit that there are many doctors that really can and will help me feel better.
Damn it!
On October 3rd, 2011, I had my right knee replaced. It had been hurting with varying degrees of agony since the early 1970s. After surgery it hurt less, but never really stopped hurting until the summer of 2014.
On December 16th and 30th, 2013, I had my cataract-slimed lenses replaced with Bausch and Lomb implants. That was amazingly cool, to wake up and see better than I had in years.
On June 6th, 2014, I had a minimally invasive right hip replacement, and within a couple of months my right leg was nearly pain free. But!
In the fall, I was still using my cane on dog walks, just for extra stability. I had to stop, however, because my left shoulder was beginning to hurt so horribly. I figured the pain would subside after a while of not using the cane. It didn't. In the spring of '15 I told my doctor about it. She gave me a steroid shot. No effect. We moved to Tennessee, we bought a condo, I was remodeling the kitchen, and my shoulder started getting rushes of pins and needles that continued down my left arm to my wrist, leaving me breathless with pain. I told my Tennessee doctor the whole story. He sent me to physical therapy. I learned to stop the pins and needles thing (yay) but I also learned that now I couldn't lift my left arm above chest level - very counter-productive for kitchen remodeling. Three weeks of physical therapy showed us that a) the pain was getting worse and b) the mobility was not getting any better. My doctor called me back in and sent me to a neurosurgeon, who sent me to get an MRI, which showed that the C5 nerve coming out of my neck was being pinched by a bone spur. That's the nerve that tells my muscles to lift my arm above chest level. Surgery was the only hope. No big deal. They would simply slash open my neck in the front, move my throat parts out of the way, and go into my neck vertebrae with shovels and rakes and implements of destruction. Ten days later, I was scrubbed and shaved and prepped for surgery. They removed an assortment of bone fragments, fused together four levels, installed some screws, and closed me up again.
When I awoke on November 30th, my shoulder pain was gone. I had a sore throat, some difficulty swallowing, and some constipation, but that was a good trade for the blinding pain I'd had in my shoulder. By Wednesday, I was able to raise my arm all the way in front of me. Today, I raised it all the way out to the side. My sore throat and other issues are gone. My neck pain is gone. The only way I know that all that was real and not a bad dream is the big bandage on my neck, and the hard plastic cervical collar I wear at all times. The bandage comes off tomorrow, leaving Steri-Strips to keep me together until they come loose on their own.
I spent a long long lifetime whining about doctors and how I didn't trust them and refused to have anything to do with them. It took getting old and running out of other choices to admit that there are many doctors that really can and will help me feel better.
Damn it!
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Thinking Inside, Outside, All About The Box. Turtles, That Is.
During the 60s my summertime activities included collecting box turtles. One summer I had seventeen of them wandering around our screened patio, looking for a way out. Did you know that box turtles can climb screens? I didn't either, but they can and did, sometimes several feet off the floor. Anyhoo, we named them all and got to know their various personalities, fed them fruit, vegetables and meat scraps, had turtle races, traded turtles between us, and at the end of summer, we let them go. Often we found the same individuals again the following summer. It was, you can tell, a major part of my childhood, finding and keeping box turtles. Once I had a snapping turtle, and several times I kept snakes, but summer after summer - box turtles.
Then in '68 we moved to Vero Beach, Florida, and my focus shifted to fishing. After high school graduation in 1971, I returned to Maryland, but had neither the time, the space nor the inclination to look for box turtles. The next time I saw one was in Ocoee, Florida in 1998, thirty years and many thousands of miles later. It was walking calmly across the driveway of F/X Scenery and Display, where I worked as a carpenter. No longer having any desire to keep wild critters captive, I watched it crawl into the scrub beside the driveway, and walked away. It did spark these same memories, but having no blog, they got away from me. Did anyone have a blog in 1998? Probably.
In 2009, nearly twenty years and many thousands more miles later, we were living in Albuquerque for Carmen's ministerial internship. One of the things we kept hearing people there complain about was the problem of snails in the garden. There was a pretty nice garden behind the house we were renting, so I looked up snails and remedies for same. Lo and behold, one of the best ways to control snails is to keep box turtles in your garden. Some garden supply stores had box turtles for sale. Carmen mentioned this to her peeps at the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, and it turned out that one of them had a bunch of box turtles, and would be happy to give two of them to us. We got them on our 23rd wedding anniversary. So 23 years is the Turtle Anniversary. Very soon after they arrived, the weather started cooling off, and Buckbeak and Fluffy disappeared until the following June! We gave them to Amy and Colby Landers for their garden when we moved to Pennsylvania in July.
In Meadville, PA, especially after the acquisition and marathon walking of the dog, I was always on the lookout for box turtles. The only one I ever saw was half the size of a teaspoon.
A month and a half after moving to Nashville, on our way to walk Grace in Edwin Warner Park early one morning, there was a full grown box turtle crossing Hicks Road. Carmen stopped the car, and I ran to pick it up before someone smushed it accidentally or intentionally. We let it go in the park. I hope it is thriving there! And I hope there will be more of them in my future. I like box turtles!
Then in '68 we moved to Vero Beach, Florida, and my focus shifted to fishing. After high school graduation in 1971, I returned to Maryland, but had neither the time, the space nor the inclination to look for box turtles. The next time I saw one was in Ocoee, Florida in 1998, thirty years and many thousands of miles later. It was walking calmly across the driveway of F/X Scenery and Display, where I worked as a carpenter. No longer having any desire to keep wild critters captive, I watched it crawl into the scrub beside the driveway, and walked away. It did spark these same memories, but having no blog, they got away from me. Did anyone have a blog in 1998? Probably.
In 2009, nearly twenty years and many thousands more miles later, we were living in Albuquerque for Carmen's ministerial internship. One of the things we kept hearing people there complain about was the problem of snails in the garden. There was a pretty nice garden behind the house we were renting, so I looked up snails and remedies for same. Lo and behold, one of the best ways to control snails is to keep box turtles in your garden. Some garden supply stores had box turtles for sale. Carmen mentioned this to her peeps at the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, and it turned out that one of them had a bunch of box turtles, and would be happy to give two of them to us. We got them on our 23rd wedding anniversary. So 23 years is the Turtle Anniversary. Very soon after they arrived, the weather started cooling off, and Buckbeak and Fluffy disappeared until the following June! We gave them to Amy and Colby Landers for their garden when we moved to Pennsylvania in July.
In Meadville, PA, especially after the acquisition and marathon walking of the dog, I was always on the lookout for box turtles. The only one I ever saw was half the size of a teaspoon.
A month and a half after moving to Nashville, on our way to walk Grace in Edwin Warner Park early one morning, there was a full grown box turtle crossing Hicks Road. Carmen stopped the car, and I ran to pick it up before someone smushed it accidentally or intentionally. We let it go in the park. I hope it is thriving there! And I hope there will be more of them in my future. I like box turtles!
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Nashville Cats, Dog and Humans
Three weeks. That's how long we've lived in Greater Nashville. We're renting a 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment in a pet-friendly complex three minutes from the church, next door to a Shell gas station/ convenience store/ Dunkin' Donuts. The gas station also has several pallets of mulch for sale, if gasoline isn't enough for you. Bellevue is southwest of downtown Nashville, but the address is still Nashville 37221.
The apartment is pretty nice, as apartments go. One bedroom we use as a bedroom, one bedroom is Carmen's office. The third is the storage unit, with my chrome shelving, completely filled with boxes, around the perimeter, the floor space inhabited by several large items of furniture and more boxes, and the closet also full of what we politely refer to as stuff. Along one wall of the living room we have a four-high, three-deep stack of boxes of books - about 100 boxes - most of which will go into Carmen's office at the church as soon as the remodeling of office space is finished.
Dog walking has been excellent. There are many dogs here, as one might expect of a pet-friendly complex, and there are a lot of green and brown and shady spaces for dog walking purposes. Rabbits and squirrels are plentiful as well, providing hours of entertainment. And yes, our hound dog indeed caught a rabbit right here in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition, less than three miles away is Edwin Warner Park, with miles of shady paved trails through the woods, and a fenced dog park, where we have never been without dogs for Grace to play with.
Down the road a short piece one way is a Publix grocery store. They have Geezer Day - 5% off your total order every Wednesday if you're 62 or older. They don't call it that, of course, but they should. Also there is Staples, the post office, Home Depot and a cluster of restaurants. A short distance down the same road the other direction are two great Mexican restaurants, the Thai restaurant mentioned in the previous post, a bunch of nice stores and Yogurt Mountain, a hard place to stay away from on a hot day.
Carmen officially starts her job as minister to the Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation on the fifteenth. She has been using this between time to get settled, get herself prepared to begin work, get our life here in gear, and yes, even to relax some. Right now she's at the pool. Good for her. But she's already had several meetings and phone calls with church folks. And she's been asked to do the blessing at the Mayoral Run-off Candidates' forum next week. Toto, we're not in Meadville any more.
We love it here. Yes, it's hot outside during the middle of the day. We do our major dog walks early in the morning before traffic builds, and run our errands in the evening if we can. And it's dollars to Dunkin' Donuts (only 99 cents each) that it won't be 23 below zero in February.
The apartment is pretty nice, as apartments go. One bedroom we use as a bedroom, one bedroom is Carmen's office. The third is the storage unit, with my chrome shelving, completely filled with boxes, around the perimeter, the floor space inhabited by several large items of furniture and more boxes, and the closet also full of what we politely refer to as stuff. Along one wall of the living room we have a four-high, three-deep stack of boxes of books - about 100 boxes - most of which will go into Carmen's office at the church as soon as the remodeling of office space is finished.
Dog walking has been excellent. There are many dogs here, as one might expect of a pet-friendly complex, and there are a lot of green and brown and shady spaces for dog walking purposes. Rabbits and squirrels are plentiful as well, providing hours of entertainment. And yes, our hound dog indeed caught a rabbit right here in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition, less than three miles away is Edwin Warner Park, with miles of shady paved trails through the woods, and a fenced dog park, where we have never been without dogs for Grace to play with.
Down the road a short piece one way is a Publix grocery store. They have Geezer Day - 5% off your total order every Wednesday if you're 62 or older. They don't call it that, of course, but they should. Also there is Staples, the post office, Home Depot and a cluster of restaurants. A short distance down the same road the other direction are two great Mexican restaurants, the Thai restaurant mentioned in the previous post, a bunch of nice stores and Yogurt Mountain, a hard place to stay away from on a hot day.
Carmen officially starts her job as minister to the Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation on the fifteenth. She has been using this between time to get settled, get herself prepared to begin work, get our life here in gear, and yes, even to relax some. Right now she's at the pool. Good for her. But she's already had several meetings and phone calls with church folks. And she's been asked to do the blessing at the Mayoral Run-off Candidates' forum next week. Toto, we're not in Meadville any more.
We love it here. Yes, it's hot outside during the middle of the day. We do our major dog walks early in the morning before traffic builds, and run our errands in the evening if we can. And it's dollars to Dunkin' Donuts (only 99 cents each) that it won't be 23 below zero in February.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Going South
We left Florida ten years ago. Upon departure I declared that I never wanted to set foot in Florida again. Of course, three months ago, when temperatures in Meadville dipped into the double digits below zero, that decision seemed hasty. It was not an unwelcome thing, therefore, when the dice were thrown in the ministerial search game, and came up Nashville.
The next step in the process is a ten-day candidating week, to meet the whole congregation, have meetings with various groups and committees, preach on two Sundays and be voted in by the congregation as their next minister. The normal routine is that the minister and significant other fly to the host city. We, however can usually be counted upon to eschew the normal and carve our own groove. We were not comfortable leaving Grace with "strangers" (Grace knows no strangers - all humans are her close personal friends) so we planned to drive to Nashville, a ten-hour drive according to Google Maps.
My parents live in Blairsville, in the mountains of north Georgia - a four hour drive from Nashville, according to Google Maps. We figured that if I were going to get a visit with them this year, now would be the best time. If I accompanied her to the first three events - dinner with the Search Committee on Friday evening (to which Grace was pointedly invited,) dinner with the Board of Trustees at a Thai restaurant (A THAI RESTAURANT!!!) on Saturday evening, and church on Sunday morning - I could be excused to go to Georgia for the rest of the week. We contacted my sister-in-law Rachel, a Blairsville resident, and asked if she would be willing to drive to Nashville, babysit Grace on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, then haul Grace and me to Blairsville on Sunday afternoon. Lo and behold, she said she'd love to.
On Wednesday. the lace on my right Keens waterproof dog walking boot began to fray. It looked as though it could snap at any time, but time to figure out what length of laces I needed was something I did not have. I tied them gingerly, and vowed to rectify the situation as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
On a snowy Thursday morning (April showers bring snow plowers) we loaded the Subaru with Carmen's ten days' worth of interview clothes, my much smaller volume of stuff and Grace's big bag of necessary items. Hermione, our GPS, declared our arrival time to be 8:30pm. She sent us down south on Interstate 79, and off we went. Looking at my new 2015 Rand McNally Road Atlas, I thought that the best route would take us down I-79 all the way to Charleston, WV and I-64 over to Lexington, KY. The Bluegrass Parkway would take us to Elizabethtown, where we would pick up I-65 south to Tennessee and on to Nashville. Evidently, Hermione wanted us to go through Columbus and Cincinnati. She added a half hour to our arrival time when we ignored her orders to take I-80 west. When we ignored her again and refused to take I-70 west, she added an additional hour. She must be pretty well connected, because we hadn't been on I-64 more than ten minutes when we hit a wall of stopped traffic in western West Virginia. Three more hours were added by the time we cleared whatever it was at mile marker 11, but we had a lovely drive through downtown Huntington, WV to cap it off. By now the estimated time of arrival had jumped to 1:00am Eastern daylight savings time.
The late night drive around Lexington was the next pain in the ass. I thought going around the south side looked best, but my track record hadn't been very good up to now, so we followed Hermione's directions. Off the Interstate we went, traversing about five miles of suburban surface streets north of the city to reach the Bluegrass Parkway. Once we did, however, it was smooth sailing all the way to Nashville. As advertised, we arrived at Extended Stay America right at midnight Central time.
Room 325 was, as one might guess, on the third floor. What we did not guess was that our little girl Grace is afraid of elevators. This was her first encounter with one, as far as we know, but she did not want to go in there. Carmen took her up the stairs while I maneuvered the fully loaded baggage cart into the elevator and from there to the room. It was a pretty nice room, with a kitchen sink, a two burner stove, cabinets and counter top. We were perplexed because there were no dishes, utensils, pans or even a coffee maker (!!!) until Carmen found a notice about calling the front desk and requesting items from a list of possibilities. First thing Friday morning she called, and within ten minutes we were up and running.
Carmen was busy with her preparations for meetings and Sunday's sermon. After walking the dog around the block and back, I slipped quietly out the door and set out to find boot laces. The first place I tried was a running and walking shoe store two doors down from the hotel. They recommended Cumberland Transit, a hiking and camping clothing store. On the way there was a shoe repair shop. They recommended Cumberland Transit. I went to Cumberland Transit. What they had was a twelve foot long lace with four shrink wrap ends, All I needed was a knife or scissors and a lighter, and I was in business. Yippee.
Even more exciting: between the hotel and the store I passed a Panera, Chipotle, an Indian restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a steak house and an ice cream shop. "I could live here," I said.
Soon after I returned to the room, we saddled up the pup and drove about five blocks to Centennial Park, where there was reputed to be a dog park within the park. We didn't find it, but had a lovely couple of hours walking Grace around the pond and the Parthenon. It was warm (to us, anyway) and sunny. Grace was her usual big hit with park goers, and we were struck by how alive and vibrant the atmosphere was. "We could live here," we said.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Walgreens. I stayed in the car while Carmen went in and bought a lighter, a roll of paper towels, two gallon jugs of water and a few more items. The rest of the afternoon was spent (by me) unlacing my boots and installing my newly cut and tipped laces. It turned out, however, that the hard rubber top grommet had a very small hole, and the shrink-wrapped nibs on the new laces were not going to slide through. After 2 1/2 hours of trying, I managed to poke two of them through with the help of a fork. The other two nibs came off in the struggle. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I peeled the label off of a prescription bottle and used strips of it to tape up the two fraying ends. They went through the grommet pretty easily! So I had laces - not pretty, but not fixin' to break, either. I measured the old laces before throwing them away. They were 48".
At 6:00, a search committee person picked us up and drove us to the beautiful home of another search committee person and his significant other. Grace was warmly welcomed and so were we. Grace was the belle of the ball. She greeted every guest without being a pest. When the hamburgers came off the grill, she curled up beside me and went to sleep for an hour or so. Dave, our host, fell in love with her. He said he'd be happy to dog-sit anytime. About an hour after we ate, Grace woke up and lobbied me for a walk. I took her out to explore this new territory and mark it for canine posterity. When it was time to return to the party, we encountered some difficulty trying to figure out which of the nearly identical condos was the right one. When we finally did, folks were stirring, getting ready to depart. We loaded Grace into the car and went back to the hotel.
Saturday morning at about 9:30 Rachel called to say she was downstairs. I went down and helped bring her stuff up to the room. After a bit of relaxation and conversation, we loaded the four of us into the Subaru and drove to the Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation's beautiful building, where we were met by Pam the realtor, thick southern drawl and all. We put towels on the back seat of her Lexus, loaded all five mammals and set out to look at the possibilities for places to live on the west side of the Nashville metropolitan area. The one she was most anxious to show us was "near the church," and would likely become available about the time we would be ready for it. She drove and drove, describing all the while how nice the place was, how convenient to the church, how the coyotes would make it unwise to leave Grace outside unsupervised. And still we drove. The whole way I was thinking about how much I love to walk to the store, and how many hours it would take to walk from way out here. Long before we arrived, Carmen and I both knew this was not the place for us, but we kept quiet. Then Pam drove us around and around the vicinity, describing subdivisions and neighborhoods as we rode through them. The ones we liked the best had no homes available, but Pam said she would keep watch for them to come up for sale. After about two hours, we returned to the church, said bye to Pam and headed back to the hotel.
Dinner at the Thai restaurant was very yummy, as Thai food is wont to be. (I hadn't had Thai since "Tasty Thai" in Orlando) The Board of Trustees was a nice group of humans, and they seemed to like us as well. We didn't want to take up the ten-person table for very long, so it was still pretty early when we broke up the meeting. Back again to the hotel, where Carmen worked on her sermon, Rachel watched TV and I took Grace for a long walk.
Sunday morning was a joyful thing. The congregation had been hearing updates from the Search Committee for two years, and here at last was the minister and her wife. We hid out in the minister's office until time to go on. When the time came, I took a seat between two Search Committee members, and Carmen went to the front. A Search Committee person introduced her, to tumultuous applause - yes, they are an applauding bunch - and on with the show. Her interaction with the kids was a hit, her sermon was a home run, and then came coffee hour. Obviously, someone had spilled the beans about me and my long love affair with show business, because several congregants sought me out to tell me about their theatre group or operatic organization. It appears that I will have no trouble finding fun and rewarding things to do in Nashville. The problem will probably be choosing what to do and what to say no to. Luckily, I learned to say no many decades ago.
We peeled ourselves away at about 1:30, picked up lunch for us and Rachel, and returned "home." It was after 3 by the time we had eaten, loaded Rachel's, Grace's and my stuff in her Rav4, piled in and hit the road. We ran into a one hour construction delay just east of Nashville, but one stop for gas and one more for all three of us to "rest'" put us at my parents' house a little after 9:00. Rachel high-tailed it home to her kitty, and Grace and I visited for a little while before going to bed.
I fell easily into the routine at my mommy and daddy's house. Up early, eat breakfast, lounge around a while discussing what to do and not do today, eat lunch, lounge around sleepily for a while, eat supper, watch the 8:00 movie on TCM and go to bed. I, of course, included hour or so dog walks after breakfast and before supper. On Monday afternoon we went to the grocery store, where I found 42" boot laces. The 48s were really too long, so I bought the 42s. They work excellently to this day. At last the bootlace saga came to a happy ending! On Tuesday morning, my dad and I took Grace to a big wooded park where people walk their dogs. The (nearly) 92 year old man kept up with us all the way around, and Grace got to sniff some dog butt - a good day! On Wednesday, Grace and I wandered onto the property of a geezer wearing a pistol in a holster. "Oh, this is for snakes," he said. Thursday we were back at the grocery store primarily because of ice cream issues. They eat ice cream after lunch and supper pretty much every day - I like that. I don't remember any fun facts about Friday or Saturday. On Sunday early afternoon, I got a text message from Carmen that the vote was unanimous to call her as the new minister at the Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation!
It was early evening when Carmen rolled into White Oak Drive. She was exhausted after ten days of meetings and church services, not to mention the drive from the west side of Nashville. We all visited for a little while, then went to bed. Monday morning we got up, ate breakfast, I walked the dog while Carmen got everything packed up for transport, and by 10:00 we were on the road. We stopped by Rachel's apartment to see her new digs and thank her again, then lit out for Summersville, WV, with one stop for gas and another at Tamarack, the artsy fartsy "Best of West Virginia" place near Beckley. After a fairly peaceful night's sleep, we pushed on for home with one stop for gas and another at the Fiesta Ware Outlet at the other end of West Virginia. We arrived home in late afternoon, ready to go full bore into the process of fixing up the house to sell and deciding what to move and what to let go.
By early June, the whole house was repainted inside and out, the realtor had put it on the market and we had let go of a whole lot of stuff. Every room was staged to look roomy and cute. The landscaping was beautiful, a far cry from the ugly it had been. Today, June 15th, we accepted a strong offer and signed a contract to sell. A month from now we rent a 26 foot truck, bring in the loaders Carmen hired, and off we go, new boot laces and all!
The next step in the process is a ten-day candidating week, to meet the whole congregation, have meetings with various groups and committees, preach on two Sundays and be voted in by the congregation as their next minister. The normal routine is that the minister and significant other fly to the host city. We, however can usually be counted upon to eschew the normal and carve our own groove. We were not comfortable leaving Grace with "strangers" (Grace knows no strangers - all humans are her close personal friends) so we planned to drive to Nashville, a ten-hour drive according to Google Maps.
My parents live in Blairsville, in the mountains of north Georgia - a four hour drive from Nashville, according to Google Maps. We figured that if I were going to get a visit with them this year, now would be the best time. If I accompanied her to the first three events - dinner with the Search Committee on Friday evening (to which Grace was pointedly invited,) dinner with the Board of Trustees at a Thai restaurant (A THAI RESTAURANT!!!) on Saturday evening, and church on Sunday morning - I could be excused to go to Georgia for the rest of the week. We contacted my sister-in-law Rachel, a Blairsville resident, and asked if she would be willing to drive to Nashville, babysit Grace on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, then haul Grace and me to Blairsville on Sunday afternoon. Lo and behold, she said she'd love to.
On Wednesday. the lace on my right Keens waterproof dog walking boot began to fray. It looked as though it could snap at any time, but time to figure out what length of laces I needed was something I did not have. I tied them gingerly, and vowed to rectify the situation as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
On a snowy Thursday morning (April showers bring snow plowers) we loaded the Subaru with Carmen's ten days' worth of interview clothes, my much smaller volume of stuff and Grace's big bag of necessary items. Hermione, our GPS, declared our arrival time to be 8:30pm. She sent us down south on Interstate 79, and off we went. Looking at my new 2015 Rand McNally Road Atlas, I thought that the best route would take us down I-79 all the way to Charleston, WV and I-64 over to Lexington, KY. The Bluegrass Parkway would take us to Elizabethtown, where we would pick up I-65 south to Tennessee and on to Nashville. Evidently, Hermione wanted us to go through Columbus and Cincinnati. She added a half hour to our arrival time when we ignored her orders to take I-80 west. When we ignored her again and refused to take I-70 west, she added an additional hour. She must be pretty well connected, because we hadn't been on I-64 more than ten minutes when we hit a wall of stopped traffic in western West Virginia. Three more hours were added by the time we cleared whatever it was at mile marker 11, but we had a lovely drive through downtown Huntington, WV to cap it off. By now the estimated time of arrival had jumped to 1:00am Eastern daylight savings time.
The late night drive around Lexington was the next pain in the ass. I thought going around the south side looked best, but my track record hadn't been very good up to now, so we followed Hermione's directions. Off the Interstate we went, traversing about five miles of suburban surface streets north of the city to reach the Bluegrass Parkway. Once we did, however, it was smooth sailing all the way to Nashville. As advertised, we arrived at Extended Stay America right at midnight Central time.
Room 325 was, as one might guess, on the third floor. What we did not guess was that our little girl Grace is afraid of elevators. This was her first encounter with one, as far as we know, but she did not want to go in there. Carmen took her up the stairs while I maneuvered the fully loaded baggage cart into the elevator and from there to the room. It was a pretty nice room, with a kitchen sink, a two burner stove, cabinets and counter top. We were perplexed because there were no dishes, utensils, pans or even a coffee maker (!!!) until Carmen found a notice about calling the front desk and requesting items from a list of possibilities. First thing Friday morning she called, and within ten minutes we were up and running.
Carmen was busy with her preparations for meetings and Sunday's sermon. After walking the dog around the block and back, I slipped quietly out the door and set out to find boot laces. The first place I tried was a running and walking shoe store two doors down from the hotel. They recommended Cumberland Transit, a hiking and camping clothing store. On the way there was a shoe repair shop. They recommended Cumberland Transit. I went to Cumberland Transit. What they had was a twelve foot long lace with four shrink wrap ends, All I needed was a knife or scissors and a lighter, and I was in business. Yippee.
Even more exciting: between the hotel and the store I passed a Panera, Chipotle, an Indian restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, a steak house and an ice cream shop. "I could live here," I said.
Soon after I returned to the room, we saddled up the pup and drove about five blocks to Centennial Park, where there was reputed to be a dog park within the park. We didn't find it, but had a lovely couple of hours walking Grace around the pond and the Parthenon. It was warm (to us, anyway) and sunny. Grace was her usual big hit with park goers, and we were struck by how alive and vibrant the atmosphere was. "We could live here," we said.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Walgreens. I stayed in the car while Carmen went in and bought a lighter, a roll of paper towels, two gallon jugs of water and a few more items. The rest of the afternoon was spent (by me) unlacing my boots and installing my newly cut and tipped laces. It turned out, however, that the hard rubber top grommet had a very small hole, and the shrink-wrapped nibs on the new laces were not going to slide through. After 2 1/2 hours of trying, I managed to poke two of them through with the help of a fork. The other two nibs came off in the struggle. After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I peeled the label off of a prescription bottle and used strips of it to tape up the two fraying ends. They went through the grommet pretty easily! So I had laces - not pretty, but not fixin' to break, either. I measured the old laces before throwing them away. They were 48".
At 6:00, a search committee person picked us up and drove us to the beautiful home of another search committee person and his significant other. Grace was warmly welcomed and so were we. Grace was the belle of the ball. She greeted every guest without being a pest. When the hamburgers came off the grill, she curled up beside me and went to sleep for an hour or so. Dave, our host, fell in love with her. He said he'd be happy to dog-sit anytime. About an hour after we ate, Grace woke up and lobbied me for a walk. I took her out to explore this new territory and mark it for canine posterity. When it was time to return to the party, we encountered some difficulty trying to figure out which of the nearly identical condos was the right one. When we finally did, folks were stirring, getting ready to depart. We loaded Grace into the car and went back to the hotel.
Saturday morning at about 9:30 Rachel called to say she was downstairs. I went down and helped bring her stuff up to the room. After a bit of relaxation and conversation, we loaded the four of us into the Subaru and drove to the Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation's beautiful building, where we were met by Pam the realtor, thick southern drawl and all. We put towels on the back seat of her Lexus, loaded all five mammals and set out to look at the possibilities for places to live on the west side of the Nashville metropolitan area. The one she was most anxious to show us was "near the church," and would likely become available about the time we would be ready for it. She drove and drove, describing all the while how nice the place was, how convenient to the church, how the coyotes would make it unwise to leave Grace outside unsupervised. And still we drove. The whole way I was thinking about how much I love to walk to the store, and how many hours it would take to walk from way out here. Long before we arrived, Carmen and I both knew this was not the place for us, but we kept quiet. Then Pam drove us around and around the vicinity, describing subdivisions and neighborhoods as we rode through them. The ones we liked the best had no homes available, but Pam said she would keep watch for them to come up for sale. After about two hours, we returned to the church, said bye to Pam and headed back to the hotel.
Dinner at the Thai restaurant was very yummy, as Thai food is wont to be. (I hadn't had Thai since "Tasty Thai" in Orlando) The Board of Trustees was a nice group of humans, and they seemed to like us as well. We didn't want to take up the ten-person table for very long, so it was still pretty early when we broke up the meeting. Back again to the hotel, where Carmen worked on her sermon, Rachel watched TV and I took Grace for a long walk.
Sunday morning was a joyful thing. The congregation had been hearing updates from the Search Committee for two years, and here at last was the minister and her wife. We hid out in the minister's office until time to go on. When the time came, I took a seat between two Search Committee members, and Carmen went to the front. A Search Committee person introduced her, to tumultuous applause - yes, they are an applauding bunch - and on with the show. Her interaction with the kids was a hit, her sermon was a home run, and then came coffee hour. Obviously, someone had spilled the beans about me and my long love affair with show business, because several congregants sought me out to tell me about their theatre group or operatic organization. It appears that I will have no trouble finding fun and rewarding things to do in Nashville. The problem will probably be choosing what to do and what to say no to. Luckily, I learned to say no many decades ago.
We peeled ourselves away at about 1:30, picked up lunch for us and Rachel, and returned "home." It was after 3 by the time we had eaten, loaded Rachel's, Grace's and my stuff in her Rav4, piled in and hit the road. We ran into a one hour construction delay just east of Nashville, but one stop for gas and one more for all three of us to "rest'" put us at my parents' house a little after 9:00. Rachel high-tailed it home to her kitty, and Grace and I visited for a little while before going to bed.
I fell easily into the routine at my mommy and daddy's house. Up early, eat breakfast, lounge around a while discussing what to do and not do today, eat lunch, lounge around sleepily for a while, eat supper, watch the 8:00 movie on TCM and go to bed. I, of course, included hour or so dog walks after breakfast and before supper. On Monday afternoon we went to the grocery store, where I found 42" boot laces. The 48s were really too long, so I bought the 42s. They work excellently to this day. At last the bootlace saga came to a happy ending! On Tuesday morning, my dad and I took Grace to a big wooded park where people walk their dogs. The (nearly) 92 year old man kept up with us all the way around, and Grace got to sniff some dog butt - a good day! On Wednesday, Grace and I wandered onto the property of a geezer wearing a pistol in a holster. "Oh, this is for snakes," he said. Thursday we were back at the grocery store primarily because of ice cream issues. They eat ice cream after lunch and supper pretty much every day - I like that. I don't remember any fun facts about Friday or Saturday. On Sunday early afternoon, I got a text message from Carmen that the vote was unanimous to call her as the new minister at the Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation!
It was early evening when Carmen rolled into White Oak Drive. She was exhausted after ten days of meetings and church services, not to mention the drive from the west side of Nashville. We all visited for a little while, then went to bed. Monday morning we got up, ate breakfast, I walked the dog while Carmen got everything packed up for transport, and by 10:00 we were on the road. We stopped by Rachel's apartment to see her new digs and thank her again, then lit out for Summersville, WV, with one stop for gas and another at Tamarack, the artsy fartsy "Best of West Virginia" place near Beckley. After a fairly peaceful night's sleep, we pushed on for home with one stop for gas and another at the Fiesta Ware Outlet at the other end of West Virginia. We arrived home in late afternoon, ready to go full bore into the process of fixing up the house to sell and deciding what to move and what to let go.
By early June, the whole house was repainted inside and out, the realtor had put it on the market and we had let go of a whole lot of stuff. Every room was staged to look roomy and cute. The landscaping was beautiful, a far cry from the ugly it had been. Today, June 15th, we accepted a strong offer and signed a contract to sell. A month from now we rent a 26 foot truck, bring in the loaders Carmen hired, and off we go, new boot laces and all!
Thursday, October 9, 2014
The Stand
We listen to books when we go to bed. It helps Carmen turn off the whirlwind of thoughts and impending obligations spinning around in her head. Our favorite, by far, is the seven Harry Potter books, read in their entirety by the best reader we've ever heard, Jim Dale. We've heard all seven probably twelve times or more. Harry and his friends risk everything to stand against the evil Voldemort. Right now we're on book two of The Hunger Games series. She risks everything to stand against the Capital. And just last week we watched the TV miniseries of Stephen King's The Stand again. It really came as no surprise to me when she came to me last night and told me that the UUA has called for clergy to go to Ferguson, Missouri to stand against the evil there, and that she felt compelled to go.
Twelve years ago we began this journey, throwing all of our considerable talent and tenacity into a quest to leave behind the plush life of the paralegal and jump out of the airplane to soar as a UU minister. Perhaps I knew better than she did that this journey would require enormous grit. I definitely knew better than she did that she has grit enough and plenty to spare. She will go to Ferguson.
I understand that there is risk involved in this choice. There is risk involved in driving to Erie, too, which she is doing right this minute. I am an unabashed atheist, but I always tell her in times of doubt and anxiety, "Have a little faith!" I don't mean faith in a supernatural being who will keep her safe. I mean faith in her own intelligence, resourcefulness and instincts to keep herself in the right place to be, whatever that might mean.
I have faith that her going to Ferguson to stand against evil will mean something far more important than anything else she might do instead. Laundry was one thing I she might have done if she stayed home. Important, yes. Imperative? No.
Stand.
Twelve years ago we began this journey, throwing all of our considerable talent and tenacity into a quest to leave behind the plush life of the paralegal and jump out of the airplane to soar as a UU minister. Perhaps I knew better than she did that this journey would require enormous grit. I definitely knew better than she did that she has grit enough and plenty to spare. She will go to Ferguson.
I understand that there is risk involved in this choice. There is risk involved in driving to Erie, too, which she is doing right this minute. I am an unabashed atheist, but I always tell her in times of doubt and anxiety, "Have a little faith!" I don't mean faith in a supernatural being who will keep her safe. I mean faith in her own intelligence, resourcefulness and instincts to keep herself in the right place to be, whatever that might mean.
I have faith that her going to Ferguson to stand against evil will mean something far more important than anything else she might do instead. Laundry was one thing I she might have done if she stayed home. Important, yes. Imperative? No.
Stand.
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Take Me Out
Two members of Carmen's congregation, Kathy and Doug, go to Pittsburgh to see Pirates games fairly frequently. They learned that I have been watching their games on TV as often as I can, so they invited us to join them. We were excited about the prospect of a fun trip to Pittsburgh, so we jumped at it.
Knowing that the game would likely end around 10:00, and possibly much later, we decided to spend the night. Kathy is a Groupon whiz, so she got us a great deal on two rooms at the Wyndham, in addition to discount game tickets.An overnight stay meant making some sort of arrangements for Grace. As members of the Conneaut Lake Bark Park, we knew that we could put her up in their kennel and that she would be well cared for. We had done that for two nights while I was having my hip replaced, and she had survived it just fine.
So Wednesday morning we made ready for our first great fun adventure in many years. To start with, I let Grace take me over to her best friend Mocha's house, where they played and ran and wrestled for nearly an hour. This always puts her in a good mood, and helps her to sleep through the day. I showered up and dressed in clean jeans and one of the Pirates tee shirts scored for us by Kathy. We loaded the car with our overnight bags, one for Carmen, one for Grace and one for me, and off we went.
It's hard to leave our little girl with strangers. Grace looked reproachful as she watched us walk away. But we soldiered on back to the car and drove away with a mixture of sadness and feeling free. A two hour drive, guided by Hermione the GPS, brought us to the front door of the Wyndham. Kathy was out front having a smoke when we pulled up. We checked in and took our bags up to the room, then hurried back down to their car. They had scoped out a Mexican restaurant earlier that day, and made reservations for four of us. As it turned out, we were the only ones there at 5:00. After a very yummy dinner, we hurried back to the hotel to catch the shuttle van to PNC Park.
It turned out to be a long wait for the van. She had just left for PNC a few minutes before we got back. But we waited. Of course, the game was under way when we were dropped at the near end of Roberto Clemente Bridge. We joined the crowd walking across. The bridge is closed to vehicles on game nights. We walked around to the far side of the stadium, to section 108, waited for a break in the action, and made our way down to row D. Excellent seats.
Things have changed in baseball stadia since 1973, the last time I attended a major league game. At Memorial Stadium in Baltimore there were lights, speakers and a mechanical scoreboard. Now it's all about electronics. The scoreboard is a huge screen that shows pictures of the batters, pitchers and whoever else they want to show, runs replays in slow motion and includes stats and bios. Between half-innings there are goofy things going on, such as air-powered bazookas that shoot hot dogs or tee shirts into the crowd. Potato Pete won the pierogie race, narrowly beating Oliver Onion, Chester Cheese and Jalapeno Hanna. Oh yes, and there was a baseball game going on as well.
Our favorite player, Andrew McCutchen was still out with a cracked rib, and Kathy's favorite, Neil Walker, was still out with lower back pain and tightness, but Gregory Polonco and Josh Harrison both continued to take up the slack and drive the Pirates to a 7-3 victory. A good time was had by all!
Then we had to get back to the hotel. The plan was to take a cab, since the hotel shuttle van's last run of the night was at 9:30. We were unsuccessful snagging one on the traffic-clogged streets behind the stadium, but a policeman directing traffic suggested we try the nearby hotel driveway. We walked over there and asked the valet parking guy if taxis came through here. He got on the phone and called his buddy, who drives a Cranberry cab. Twenty minutes was his buddy's ETA, and we said that was fine. We stood around/sat around chatting for about an hour. A couple of times he had to go inside, and he begged us to please wait for his buddy. Several cabs came and went, and even a pizza delivery vehicle came asking if we needed a ride someplace. We turned them all down. Finally,after an hour or so, he called his buddy again. When he disconnected, he apologized and said that we should get back however we can. Traffic was much better by then, and Doug just walked out to the street and snagged a cab. Minutes later, we were back at the Wyndham.
There was a doorknob-hanging breakfast menu in the room. If we hung it on the outside of the door before midnight, breakfast would be delivered to our room at the time we specified. We marked up our order to be delivered between 9 and 9:30. We were awakened at 9:00 by a call letting us know that breakfast was on its way up. It was very yummy and the coffee was extra good. We showered and dressed and slipped out of town before lunch time traffic started up.
Two hours later, a forlorn little dog saw me through the glass of the daycare room.We took her for a nice long walk around the Bark Park, and headed home, twenty four hours and many fun memories later.
Knowing that the game would likely end around 10:00, and possibly much later, we decided to spend the night. Kathy is a Groupon whiz, so she got us a great deal on two rooms at the Wyndham, in addition to discount game tickets.An overnight stay meant making some sort of arrangements for Grace. As members of the Conneaut Lake Bark Park, we knew that we could put her up in their kennel and that she would be well cared for. We had done that for two nights while I was having my hip replaced, and she had survived it just fine.
So Wednesday morning we made ready for our first great fun adventure in many years. To start with, I let Grace take me over to her best friend Mocha's house, where they played and ran and wrestled for nearly an hour. This always puts her in a good mood, and helps her to sleep through the day. I showered up and dressed in clean jeans and one of the Pirates tee shirts scored for us by Kathy. We loaded the car with our overnight bags, one for Carmen, one for Grace and one for me, and off we went.
It's hard to leave our little girl with strangers. Grace looked reproachful as she watched us walk away. But we soldiered on back to the car and drove away with a mixture of sadness and feeling free. A two hour drive, guided by Hermione the GPS, brought us to the front door of the Wyndham. Kathy was out front having a smoke when we pulled up. We checked in and took our bags up to the room, then hurried back down to their car. They had scoped out a Mexican restaurant earlier that day, and made reservations for four of us. As it turned out, we were the only ones there at 5:00. After a very yummy dinner, we hurried back to the hotel to catch the shuttle van to PNC Park.
It turned out to be a long wait for the van. She had just left for PNC a few minutes before we got back. But we waited. Of course, the game was under way when we were dropped at the near end of Roberto Clemente Bridge. We joined the crowd walking across. The bridge is closed to vehicles on game nights. We walked around to the far side of the stadium, to section 108, waited for a break in the action, and made our way down to row D. Excellent seats.
Things have changed in baseball stadia since 1973, the last time I attended a major league game. At Memorial Stadium in Baltimore there were lights, speakers and a mechanical scoreboard. Now it's all about electronics. The scoreboard is a huge screen that shows pictures of the batters, pitchers and whoever else they want to show, runs replays in slow motion and includes stats and bios. Between half-innings there are goofy things going on, such as air-powered bazookas that shoot hot dogs or tee shirts into the crowd. Potato Pete won the pierogie race, narrowly beating Oliver Onion, Chester Cheese and Jalapeno Hanna. Oh yes, and there was a baseball game going on as well.
Our favorite player, Andrew McCutchen was still out with a cracked rib, and Kathy's favorite, Neil Walker, was still out with lower back pain and tightness, but Gregory Polonco and Josh Harrison both continued to take up the slack and drive the Pirates to a 7-3 victory. A good time was had by all!
Then we had to get back to the hotel. The plan was to take a cab, since the hotel shuttle van's last run of the night was at 9:30. We were unsuccessful snagging one on the traffic-clogged streets behind the stadium, but a policeman directing traffic suggested we try the nearby hotel driveway. We walked over there and asked the valet parking guy if taxis came through here. He got on the phone and called his buddy, who drives a Cranberry cab. Twenty minutes was his buddy's ETA, and we said that was fine. We stood around/sat around chatting for about an hour. A couple of times he had to go inside, and he begged us to please wait for his buddy. Several cabs came and went, and even a pizza delivery vehicle came asking if we needed a ride someplace. We turned them all down. Finally,after an hour or so, he called his buddy again. When he disconnected, he apologized and said that we should get back however we can. Traffic was much better by then, and Doug just walked out to the street and snagged a cab. Minutes later, we were back at the Wyndham.
There was a doorknob-hanging breakfast menu in the room. If we hung it on the outside of the door before midnight, breakfast would be delivered to our room at the time we specified. We marked up our order to be delivered between 9 and 9:30. We were awakened at 9:00 by a call letting us know that breakfast was on its way up. It was very yummy and the coffee was extra good. We showered and dressed and slipped out of town before lunch time traffic started up.
Two hours later, a forlorn little dog saw me through the glass of the daycare room.We took her for a nice long walk around the Bark Park, and headed home, twenty four hours and many fun memories later.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Tests
It will all started with my knee. Two and a half years after the replacement, it was (is) still hurting. I went to the guy who installed the knee and asked him why it was still hurting. He gave me a happy reason - because I need my hip replaced. Of course! Why didn't I think of that!
Everyone told me to get a second opinion. We went to Pittsburgh, to a doctor who does minimally invasive hip replacement. He concurred with the diagnosis. He was also very concerned about my "unprovoked" DVT (blood clot) in 2009. So along with a daunting list of tests he wanted us to have done, he told me to go to a hematologist to get my blood tested for possible reasons for said DVT. So Thursday morning we saddled up and headed for Pittsburgh again, to see Dr. Mohammed Islam, a nice Irish boy. His technician drew fourteen vials of blood from me, and a few minutes later the doctor came in. He, too was very concerned about the 2009 DVT. He sent me down the hall to Radiology to ascertain whether I had any clots currently in stock in my legs or lungs.
They started with the legs, which turned out to be a good thing. The technician ran her magic wand up and down my legs, and found a giant clot in my left, and a big one in my right. From there I was pretty much bum's rushed to Shadyside hospital and admitted immediately.
They put me on Heparin and forbade me to walk anywhere, even to the bathroom without supervision. The plan was to scan my lungs , then install a filter in my vein by my belly button to catch any clots that might break off and head for my lungs or heart. They took three more vials of blood, fed me dinner, and pretty much left me alone for the night. Carmen went home, and I was able to watch an entire Pirates baseball game.
At 7:05 Friday morning, Dr.Mears, the hip replacement guy, stopped in. He asked me how I had come to be in the hospital with blood clots.I told him, and mentioned that my lungs had not been scanned yet, and that clots in my lungs would delay the hip surgery. At 7:15 they hauled me down to Radiology. My lungs were clear. Yay.
At 10:00, they asked me which I would prefer - to have my filter installed right away while I would be awake, or later in the afternoon under anesthesia. I opted for right away. So, at 11:15, right after the third pricing game on The Price Is Right, they loaded me onto a cart and hauled me down to the surgery department. I was not scared or even nervous. In fact, I fell asleep a few times while waiting to go into the actual operating room.
Once in there they transferred me to a narrow table, so narrow that they installed two plastic outriggers to support my arms. They covered my lower half with a blanket, then covered my head, shoulders and neck with a sterile covering. Before long,the procedure began. I was instructed to turn my head all the way to the left, and warned of an impending "pinch and a burn." After that it was one guy feeding the hardware into my neck and down my vein, and another guy talking him through the procedure. UPMC is, after all, a teaching hospital. Once again, I was not scared, but it was very annoying to have these guys shoving a thingy down my vein from my neck to my belly button. It was not long before they were done and I was on my way back upstairs.
I arrived in my room at precisely the same time that Carmen arrived in my room. I insisted that I could walk now that I had a filter, but the transporter had orders to keep me from walking. I was allowed to scooch from the rolling cart to the bed. Something about the pain meds they had given me for the surgery. As the day wore on and the meds wore off, I came to believe them.
Our original plan had been to get the rest of the tests on Dr. Mears' list done while we were in Pittsburgh. Thursday turned out very differently from what we anticipated, so Carmen got the brilliant idea to try to get them done while I was still in the hospital. The nurse- practitioner assigned to my case was given a copy of our list with the items still outstanding highlighted. She got on it. Soon the nurse, Patrick, got on the case, and one by one the final items were checked off.
The practitioner came and told us that Dr. Islam was "kicking me to the curb." We began making preparations to go, but then she came back and told us that Dr Islam had decided to keep me overnight. Then Patrick came to tell us that he was going to see to it that the tests were all done, and we could go home that day. Well, the last blood was drawn at 4:45, and we were out the door a little after 6:00. Yay Patrick!
My neck bandage came off Saturday morning, followed soon after by Carmen's first shot of anti-coaglant since 2009 in Albuquerque. I feel good, but not as good as I did before I found out that I have blood clots in my legs. It looks like I'm out of work until the middle of June or so. And Whatever willing and the crick don't rise, I'll have a new hip in a week and a half.
Everyone told me to get a second opinion. We went to Pittsburgh, to a doctor who does minimally invasive hip replacement. He concurred with the diagnosis. He was also very concerned about my "unprovoked" DVT (blood clot) in 2009. So along with a daunting list of tests he wanted us to have done, he told me to go to a hematologist to get my blood tested for possible reasons for said DVT. So Thursday morning we saddled up and headed for Pittsburgh again, to see Dr. Mohammed Islam, a nice Irish boy. His technician drew fourteen vials of blood from me, and a few minutes later the doctor came in. He, too was very concerned about the 2009 DVT. He sent me down the hall to Radiology to ascertain whether I had any clots currently in stock in my legs or lungs.
They started with the legs, which turned out to be a good thing. The technician ran her magic wand up and down my legs, and found a giant clot in my left, and a big one in my right. From there I was pretty much bum's rushed to Shadyside hospital and admitted immediately.
They put me on Heparin and forbade me to walk anywhere, even to the bathroom without supervision. The plan was to scan my lungs , then install a filter in my vein by my belly button to catch any clots that might break off and head for my lungs or heart. They took three more vials of blood, fed me dinner, and pretty much left me alone for the night. Carmen went home, and I was able to watch an entire Pirates baseball game.
At 7:05 Friday morning, Dr.Mears, the hip replacement guy, stopped in. He asked me how I had come to be in the hospital with blood clots.I told him, and mentioned that my lungs had not been scanned yet, and that clots in my lungs would delay the hip surgery. At 7:15 they hauled me down to Radiology. My lungs were clear. Yay.
At 10:00, they asked me which I would prefer - to have my filter installed right away while I would be awake, or later in the afternoon under anesthesia. I opted for right away. So, at 11:15, right after the third pricing game on The Price Is Right, they loaded me onto a cart and hauled me down to the surgery department. I was not scared or even nervous. In fact, I fell asleep a few times while waiting to go into the actual operating room.
Once in there they transferred me to a narrow table, so narrow that they installed two plastic outriggers to support my arms. They covered my lower half with a blanket, then covered my head, shoulders and neck with a sterile covering. Before long,the procedure began. I was instructed to turn my head all the way to the left, and warned of an impending "pinch and a burn." After that it was one guy feeding the hardware into my neck and down my vein, and another guy talking him through the procedure. UPMC is, after all, a teaching hospital. Once again, I was not scared, but it was very annoying to have these guys shoving a thingy down my vein from my neck to my belly button. It was not long before they were done and I was on my way back upstairs.
I arrived in my room at precisely the same time that Carmen arrived in my room. I insisted that I could walk now that I had a filter, but the transporter had orders to keep me from walking. I was allowed to scooch from the rolling cart to the bed. Something about the pain meds they had given me for the surgery. As the day wore on and the meds wore off, I came to believe them.
Our original plan had been to get the rest of the tests on Dr. Mears' list done while we were in Pittsburgh. Thursday turned out very differently from what we anticipated, so Carmen got the brilliant idea to try to get them done while I was still in the hospital. The nurse- practitioner assigned to my case was given a copy of our list with the items still outstanding highlighted. She got on it. Soon the nurse, Patrick, got on the case, and one by one the final items were checked off.
The practitioner came and told us that Dr. Islam was "kicking me to the curb." We began making preparations to go, but then she came back and told us that Dr Islam had decided to keep me overnight. Then Patrick came to tell us that he was going to see to it that the tests were all done, and we could go home that day. Well, the last blood was drawn at 4:45, and we were out the door a little after 6:00. Yay Patrick!
My neck bandage came off Saturday morning, followed soon after by Carmen's first shot of anti-coaglant since 2009 in Albuquerque. I feel good, but not as good as I did before I found out that I have blood clots in my legs. It looks like I'm out of work until the middle of June or so. And Whatever willing and the crick don't rise, I'll have a new hip in a week and a half.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Down The Drain
During the summer of 1976 we decided to move from St. Cloud to Orlando, since we both worked in Orlando and were very active in the First Unitarian Church of Orlando. I had a great job building scenery, exhibits and displays, and Carmen was a paralegal and office manager for a law firm. Orlando summers are brutal, so we decided to splurge and hire local movers to do the job.
Carmen arranged the whole thing. The movers would load out in the early morning, we would leave the three cats at the St. Cloud house during the first closing in the late morning, then drive our loaded vehicles to the next closing, leaving our three cats in our new house in Orlando while we signed more papers.
We put the cats out on the screened in porch while the movers worked. Two of them were accustomed to that location, having lounged out there for seven years. Peanut, however, was a seven month old kitten, not to be caged anywhere. He shot out the door the instant I opened it, and took off running. I followed him as fast as I could run. We had a closing to get to, and this delay was not factored into the schedule . My heart sank when he dove into a storm drain.
Wearing my fancy closing duds, I flopped down on my belly and looked in. There he sat, looking at me, just within reach. I reached in, sure that he would evade my grasp. To my surprise, I was able to grab the scruff of his neck and haul him out of there.
The rest of the plan proceeded on schedule.
Carmen arranged the whole thing. The movers would load out in the early morning, we would leave the three cats at the St. Cloud house during the first closing in the late morning, then drive our loaded vehicles to the next closing, leaving our three cats in our new house in Orlando while we signed more papers.
We put the cats out on the screened in porch while the movers worked. Two of them were accustomed to that location, having lounged out there for seven years. Peanut, however, was a seven month old kitten, not to be caged anywhere. He shot out the door the instant I opened it, and took off running. I followed him as fast as I could run. We had a closing to get to, and this delay was not factored into the schedule . My heart sank when he dove into a storm drain.
Wearing my fancy closing duds, I flopped down on my belly and looked in. There he sat, looking at me, just within reach. I reached in, sure that he would evade my grasp. To my surprise, I was able to grab the scruff of his neck and haul him out of there.
The rest of the plan proceeded on schedule.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
The Chosen
On the predawn morning of December 24th, 1995, a dream was fulfilled. I had for years thought it would be great to live with an orange cat. On that chilly St. Cloud, Florida morning, a six week old orange kitten came to the back door, and moved his tiny little badass self into our lives. My dad's comment, "Why he's no bigger than a peanut!" gave him the name that stuck like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth, even as he grew to be a twenty pound mass of solid muscle.
He was an outdoor boy, mostly. When he came home, he would eat, find a place to curl up, and sleep for eight hours. If we went out in the back yard, he played host. He particularly liked it when our friend Tracey was out there. She was trying to get a tan, and he was lying all over her. Inside the house, his favorite companion was our little blind girl kitty, Yin. He was very affectionate and very protective of her.
There are several favorite Peanut memories. Late one night we were roused by a loud harmony of howling behind the house. Looking out the back, we saw Peanut and another cat on the peak of the roof of the house behind us, bathed in the light of the full moon, trading howls. Quite a few times, by contrast, Peanut and three other neighborhood orange cats would sit around the the front or back yard and just stare at each other. Peanut stole toys around the neighborhood. He specialized in small plush animals, and specifically animals from the movie Babe. He started in St. Cloud, and six months later, when we moved to Orlando, he started up again. One morning we looked out the back door at a one-night haul of four Babe toys.
In 2005 we moved to the Boston area. My parents were worried about us trying to rent an apartment with four cats, one an outdoor boy. Their orange cat Charlie was dying of cancer. They volunteered to take Peanut. I pulled a trailer full of stuff to store at their house, and a carrier full of Peanut, who would be their beloved totally indoor boy for eight years. On the way, I stopped at a rest area to use the facilities. I let Mr. Butter out of the carrier to use the litter box. When I returned, the litter box was unsullied, but there was a strong odor in the cab of the pickup truck. Upon searching for the source of the odor, I found a pile of turds in my hat, which I had left on the seat. I left my hat in a trash can.
We've visited my parents several times since then. Peanut refused to acknowledge me. In 1995 he chose me to be his service provider, and after ten years I abandoned him on a mountain 700 miles away. He never forgave me. He sure fell in love with his new service providers, though. The sunny screened-in deck in the treetops was his new favorite place to be. No more fighting or communing with other cats. There was a bear once or twice, but that doesn't count.
Many of his fans have heard of his passing on Facebook. Many expressions of sorrow have been posted. He was a great kitty. We all miss him.
He was an outdoor boy, mostly. When he came home, he would eat, find a place to curl up, and sleep for eight hours. If we went out in the back yard, he played host. He particularly liked it when our friend Tracey was out there. She was trying to get a tan, and he was lying all over her. Inside the house, his favorite companion was our little blind girl kitty, Yin. He was very affectionate and very protective of her.
There are several favorite Peanut memories. Late one night we were roused by a loud harmony of howling behind the house. Looking out the back, we saw Peanut and another cat on the peak of the roof of the house behind us, bathed in the light of the full moon, trading howls. Quite a few times, by contrast, Peanut and three other neighborhood orange cats would sit around the the front or back yard and just stare at each other. Peanut stole toys around the neighborhood. He specialized in small plush animals, and specifically animals from the movie Babe. He started in St. Cloud, and six months later, when we moved to Orlando, he started up again. One morning we looked out the back door at a one-night haul of four Babe toys.
In 2005 we moved to the Boston area. My parents were worried about us trying to rent an apartment with four cats, one an outdoor boy. Their orange cat Charlie was dying of cancer. They volunteered to take Peanut. I pulled a trailer full of stuff to store at their house, and a carrier full of Peanut, who would be their beloved totally indoor boy for eight years. On the way, I stopped at a rest area to use the facilities. I let Mr. Butter out of the carrier to use the litter box. When I returned, the litter box was unsullied, but there was a strong odor in the cab of the pickup truck. Upon searching for the source of the odor, I found a pile of turds in my hat, which I had left on the seat. I left my hat in a trash can.
We've visited my parents several times since then. Peanut refused to acknowledge me. In 1995 he chose me to be his service provider, and after ten years I abandoned him on a mountain 700 miles away. He never forgave me. He sure fell in love with his new service providers, though. The sunny screened-in deck in the treetops was his new favorite place to be. No more fighting or communing with other cats. There was a bear once or twice, but that doesn't count.
Many of his fans have heard of his passing on Facebook. Many expressions of sorrow have been posted. He was a great kitty. We all miss him.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
The Long Farewell
My mother has a neurosis about death. Decades ago, when we used to go fishing, she would insist that we let the fish die before cleaning them. When our German shepherd could no longer walk, and was obviously suffering, my dad and I had to sneak her out of the house to get her put down. So it is not surprising that now their old orange cat Peanut is getting the same treatment as the fish.
When we talked to them two weeks ago, they told us about taking "Peanie" to the vet because he hadn't had a bowel movement in ten days. We were hoping they would find it in their hearts to let him go. No such luck. My dad called Saturday to tell us that Peanie had had a movement after a week and a day. He can hardly walk, he barely moves, his quality of life is nil. It's hard to think about my big, strong, brave and free outdoor badass kitty reduced to an invalid.
We're going down to Georgia to see them in three weeks. I hope they're not trying to make him hang on until then!
When we talked to them two weeks ago, they told us about taking "Peanie" to the vet because he hadn't had a bowel movement in ten days. We were hoping they would find it in their hearts to let him go. No such luck. My dad called Saturday to tell us that Peanie had had a movement after a week and a day. He can hardly walk, he barely moves, his quality of life is nil. It's hard to think about my big, strong, brave and free outdoor badass kitty reduced to an invalid.
We're going down to Georgia to see them in three weeks. I hope they're not trying to make him hang on until then!
Saturday, January 12, 2013
NEWS FLASH!!!
I can update Cat Juggler (or my other sorely neglected blogs) with many new Kindle Fire! This is good, because I no longer have the option of spending hours at my desktop computer. I have a puppy now who whines and tries to break in if she' s out, and tears up the ratty old shag carpet (and who can blame her) if she' s in. She' s asleep now after our hour and a half walk through the sloppy slush and mud of melting Meadville.
So I' m 60 years old now. How in heck did that happen? 40 years ago I was convinced that I would die at or before age 21. That plan didn' t work.
My last day in my fifties was pretty bummed out, but I' m better now. Bring it!!!
I can update Cat Juggler (or my other sorely neglected blogs) with many new Kindle Fire! This is good, because I no longer have the option of spending hours at my desktop computer. I have a puppy now who whines and tries to break in if she' s out, and tears up the ratty old shag carpet (and who can blame her) if she' s in. She' s asleep now after our hour and a half walk through the sloppy slush and mud of melting Meadville.
So I' m 60 years old now. How in heck did that happen? 40 years ago I was convinced that I would die at or before age 21. That plan didn' t work.
My last day in my fifties was pretty bummed out, but I' m better now. Bring it!!!
Saturday, November 24, 2012
The Hardest Confession
I love my dog. She's energetic and curious and fun and loves to explore. We go for long walks together nearly every day. We've found some lovely nooks and crannies around the neighborhood, and some mundane stretches of grass or pavement that suddenly become athletic fields or circus rings. A stick or an empty plastic bottle found on the way will cause her to explode in a sustained burst of energy, running full tilt to the end of the extendable leash, back and forth, around and around until she exhausts her cute little self. Then it's off we go again, nose to the ground, seeking the next adventure. She loves to scale steep hillsides (pulling me up after her) and is delighted by deep growths of ivy or piles of leaves, into which she dives, wallows, plunges and leaps, following the lead of her hyper-sensitive nose. Eventually, however, the time comes to head home. As soon as she realizes this, she begins misbehaving, biting her leash, playing tug-o-war with it, leaping up to nip me, and straining to change our course. But I prevail. We enter the house, dry her off and she curls up in my chair to sleep for hours.
The cats are growing accustomed to this monstrous disruption of the household they used to rule. Lucia has actually come to like, if not completely trust Grace. They play chase games around the kitchen and dining area. Lucia sometimes even rubs against Grace when things are calm. Remus pretty much resents his demotion to second class citizen. He hisses and growls and swipes at his nemesis. Grace just wants to play. Remus does not.
Do I have to change the name of this blog? For a month and a half cat juggling has been something I squeeze in between sleeping, working and dog juggling.
The cats are growing accustomed to this monstrous disruption of the household they used to rule. Lucia has actually come to like, if not completely trust Grace. They play chase games around the kitchen and dining area. Lucia sometimes even rubs against Grace when things are calm. Remus pretty much resents his demotion to second class citizen. He hisses and growls and swipes at his nemesis. Grace just wants to play. Remus does not.
Do I have to change the name of this blog? For a month and a half cat juggling has been something I squeeze in between sleeping, working and dog juggling.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Identity Crisis
I am the Cat Juggler! I keep telling myself that. Carmen has been talking about getting a dee oh gee for many months. I didn't encourage her. I am the Cat Juggler! So yesterday she texted me to say that there was a four month old yellow lab / basset hound mix up for adoption at the Humane Society, and that she was really cute. A few hours later I was at Walmart purchasing a dog crate and bed for our new dee oh gee.
Twenty four hours later, the cats are still freaked out by this new addition to the family. We are optimistic that the cats will settle in. As my dad would say, "These things take time." For her part, Grace is, I think, doing remarkably well, considering the traumatic life she's led since her capture as a stray. She hardly ever barks or whines, and she loves to chew her chew toys. She bites her leash a lot, but she's mostly well behaved.
So far Carmen has done all of the feeding and walking and poop scooping. That was our deal. After all, I am the Cat Juggler!
Twenty four hours later, the cats are still freaked out by this new addition to the family. We are optimistic that the cats will settle in. As my dad would say, "These things take time." For her part, Grace is, I think, doing remarkably well, considering the traumatic life she's led since her capture as a stray. She hardly ever barks or whines, and she loves to chew her chew toys. She bites her leash a lot, but she's mostly well behaved.
So far Carmen has done all of the feeding and walking and poop scooping. That was our deal. After all, I am the Cat Juggler!
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Cool Cool Kitty
Last night, as we were getting ready for bed, I remembered to pour some dry food into the cat dishes, to possibly stave off any 3:30 wake-up shenanigans. As expected, there were thundering pawbeats to the dishes. Unexpectedly, there was only one set of paws. No worries. Sometimes Lucia doesn't respond to the call of the dry food. But we didn't see her in any of her usual haunts. My dresser drawers had been closed all evening, so she wasn't in there. I tried the one irresistible Lucia juggling trick. Lucia can hear me pour the filtered water decanter into the percolator from anywhere in the house and HAS to come scrutinize this operation. I did so. No Lucia. "Call the emergency vet!" I said.
Then I got a brain wave. "You don't suppose..." I opened the refrigerator. There she was, on the top shelf, comfortable as you please. For the past several months. about half the time when I open the refrigerator, she leaps in. Normally, it's cat feeding time when I open it, so I'm very aware of cat positions. But last evening, about two hours earlier, I had reached in for two cans of seltzer for our human feeding time. She slipped in unseen, climbed shelf by shelf to the top (knocking over stuff on the way, of course) and took herself a little nap. She seemed perturbed at being "rescued."
This morning, when I went in for canned food, she watched from a distance. Maybe she learned a lesson.
NAAAAH!
Then I got a brain wave. "You don't suppose..." I opened the refrigerator. There she was, on the top shelf, comfortable as you please. For the past several months. about half the time when I open the refrigerator, she leaps in. Normally, it's cat feeding time when I open it, so I'm very aware of cat positions. But last evening, about two hours earlier, I had reached in for two cans of seltzer for our human feeding time. She slipped in unseen, climbed shelf by shelf to the top (knocking over stuff on the way, of course) and took herself a little nap. She seemed perturbed at being "rescued."
This morning, when I went in for canned food, she watched from a distance. Maybe she learned a lesson.
NAAAAH!
Sunday, September 16, 2012
My Newest Little Buddy
Way back in June of 2011, in a posting entitled "In Demand" I mentioned my newest little buddy. Audrey Sippel, daughter of Rachel Meerson, came running up to me one Sunday morning after church. She pulled up her pants leg and showed me the bruise on her shin. Well, it just so happened that a few days before this, I had taken a nasty fall at the Community Theatre. I pulled up my pants leg and showed her an inch diameter scab with redness all around it. I beat! We've been buddies since then.
The four of us went to lunch together after church several months ago. We went to Montana Rib and Chop House, where they have a square of white paper as the tablecloth, a fresh one for each party at each table, along with a cup with crayons in it. Audrey and I drew stuff. I showed her how to make an octagon by drawing a square and lopping off the corners. It was fun.
Today I had the camera with me to take pictures of the choir. I took some of my newest little buddy. I hope my little buddy from the 1970s doesn't get jealous!
The four of us went to lunch together after church several months ago. We went to Montana Rib and Chop House, where they have a square of white paper as the tablecloth, a fresh one for each party at each table, along with a cup with crayons in it. Audrey and I drew stuff. I showed her how to make an octagon by drawing a square and lopping off the corners. It was fun.
Today I had the camera with me to take pictures of the choir. I took some of my newest little buddy. I hope my little buddy from the 1970s doesn't get jealous!
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Vee - Hicle!
When I was in the process of what I laughingly refer to as "growing up," I never wanted a car. My parents convinced me that learning to drive and getting my license would be a good thing to do regardless. In this particular case, I listened. I took driver ed in high school and got my license at eighteen. My first vehicle was a Suzuki 650 motorcycle purchased at age thirty four. Three years later I bought a Suzuki Intruder 1400 motorcycle, the baddest ass machine ever
In 1994, Carmen was tired of shifting her white standard transmission 1987 Toyota Corolla. She bought a green Corolla station wagon with automatic transmission. I drove the white Corolla for two years. Suffice it to say I was seduced by four wheels, a roof and air conditioning there in Central Florida. During that time I was on the lookout for a pickup truck, but not just any pickup truck. I wanted it to be reliable as a Toyota, with automatic transmission, and a bed big enough to lay a 4' X 8' sheet flat between the wheel humps. I spotted it from the highway at the Saturn dealership in Kissimmee. It was a '93 Toyota T-100 with a V6 engine. I loved that truck. I drove it hard from the spring of '96 until we moved to Massachusetts in the summer of 2005. Knowing that vehicles are a liability in Boston, we sold it before we left.
For four years in Boston, one year in Albuquerque and nearly two years in Meadville, I walked many miles a day and /or took public transportation wherever I went. This made me happy. I like to walk, and I like public transportation. A year ago, however, I had knee replacement surgery, and since then walking has not been as joyful as it was in the 1970s. The walk home up the hill from downtown Meadville is exhausting. I take the bus to a bus stop two blocks away when I can, but sometimes I just can't.
Today, Carmen took possession of a 2008 Scion Xb. Nautical blue! It's a beautiful car. And once again I get the white Toyota she's been driving since she bought it new in 2000. It's a Rav4 with 85,000 miles. I'm happy to have a car again. That's hard for me to admit even to myself. But I'm expanding my job search parameters now, and hope to be full time somewhere soon.
This is vehicle number five for me. I'm excited.
In 1994, Carmen was tired of shifting her white standard transmission 1987 Toyota Corolla. She bought a green Corolla station wagon with automatic transmission. I drove the white Corolla for two years. Suffice it to say I was seduced by four wheels, a roof and air conditioning there in Central Florida. During that time I was on the lookout for a pickup truck, but not just any pickup truck. I wanted it to be reliable as a Toyota, with automatic transmission, and a bed big enough to lay a 4' X 8' sheet flat between the wheel humps. I spotted it from the highway at the Saturn dealership in Kissimmee. It was a '93 Toyota T-100 with a V6 engine. I loved that truck. I drove it hard from the spring of '96 until we moved to Massachusetts in the summer of 2005. Knowing that vehicles are a liability in Boston, we sold it before we left.
For four years in Boston, one year in Albuquerque and nearly two years in Meadville, I walked many miles a day and /or took public transportation wherever I went. This made me happy. I like to walk, and I like public transportation. A year ago, however, I had knee replacement surgery, and since then walking has not been as joyful as it was in the 1970s. The walk home up the hill from downtown Meadville is exhausting. I take the bus to a bus stop two blocks away when I can, but sometimes I just can't.
Today, Carmen took possession of a 2008 Scion Xb. Nautical blue! It's a beautiful car. And once again I get the white Toyota she's been driving since she bought it new in 2000. It's a Rav4 with 85,000 miles. I'm happy to have a car again. That's hard for me to admit even to myself. But I'm expanding my job search parameters now, and hope to be full time somewhere soon.
This is vehicle number five for me. I'm excited.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The Wild Life
Tomorrow is Thursday. Many of you already knew that. Gradually, since December, I've come to dread Thursdays, because at 4:00 pm until 9:00 I become a dispatcher for Tamarack Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center. I mentioned it before in a January Gospel of Rand McNally posting entitled "Texas Toast." The (volunteer) gig is: every hour check messages on Tamarack's voicemail, log them on a call log sheet, and deal with whatever situations arise. Some are administrative calls - organizations wanting a tour of the center or a demonstration at their event. Some are people checking up on animals they rescued or called in first responders for. Most, however, are people with wildlife issues that need resolution.
The outgoing message on the voicemail is very specific. If callers actually listened to it, a lot of my job would be done already. Tamarack takes birds of prey, adult seed-eating songbirds, game birds, opossums and reptiles. The baby bird "rescuers," raccoon trappers, baby bunny finders and bat-in-the-basement hosts would know before I call them to recommend alternatives that Tamarack is not the destination of their problem critter.
I'm hoping the baby bird "rescue" epidemic has subsided for this year. I needed a recording of myself saying, over and over again, "put the baby bird back in the nest. Don't feed it, the parents are much better at taking care of their babies than humans are. The parents won't abandon their babies." And then, when they still want a "rescue" operation, I tell them to call Skye's Spirit near Grove City - they accept baby birds. Then. after I disconnect, I say "Maybe they can convince you."
A lot of baby bunny calls are much the same. I'm grateful for Skye's Spirit as a place to either take in what Tamarack doesn't or be another voice of reason to talk to the unreasonable.
Raccoons are "rabies vector" species. Tamarack is not allowed to handle them, the First Responders are warned away from them, and dispatchers are told to counsel people to leave them the hell alone - don't come near them, don't feed them, call the Game Commission! A lot of people don't want to hear what we tell them. It's tha same old thing: if you're not going to listen to my answer, DON"T ASK THE QUESTION!
The best was a woman in Edinboro with an injured hawk. I called the admitting medic who lives near Edinboro, he picked up the hawk and it is doing well at the center. The worst was last week. A woman in Erie called at 8:25. She had an injured crow. I called every first responder in Erie and all I got was a series of voicemail messages unreturned, a couple of "no" answers, and a woman who would pick it up it in the morning. The crow died overnight.
One person I asked and got a "no" from said she used to be a dispatcher, but quit because it was too frustrating. I understand!
The outgoing message on the voicemail is very specific. If callers actually listened to it, a lot of my job would be done already. Tamarack takes birds of prey, adult seed-eating songbirds, game birds, opossums and reptiles. The baby bird "rescuers," raccoon trappers, baby bunny finders and bat-in-the-basement hosts would know before I call them to recommend alternatives that Tamarack is not the destination of their problem critter.
I'm hoping the baby bird "rescue" epidemic has subsided for this year. I needed a recording of myself saying, over and over again, "put the baby bird back in the nest. Don't feed it, the parents are much better at taking care of their babies than humans are. The parents won't abandon their babies." And then, when they still want a "rescue" operation, I tell them to call Skye's Spirit near Grove City - they accept baby birds. Then. after I disconnect, I say "Maybe they can convince you."
A lot of baby bunny calls are much the same. I'm grateful for Skye's Spirit as a place to either take in what Tamarack doesn't or be another voice of reason to talk to the unreasonable.
Raccoons are "rabies vector" species. Tamarack is not allowed to handle them, the First Responders are warned away from them, and dispatchers are told to counsel people to leave them the hell alone - don't come near them, don't feed them, call the Game Commission! A lot of people don't want to hear what we tell them. It's tha same old thing: if you're not going to listen to my answer, DON"T ASK THE QUESTION!
The best was a woman in Edinboro with an injured hawk. I called the admitting medic who lives near Edinboro, he picked up the hawk and it is doing well at the center. The worst was last week. A woman in Erie called at 8:25. She had an injured crow. I called every first responder in Erie and all I got was a series of voicemail messages unreturned, a couple of "no" answers, and a woman who would pick it up it in the morning. The crow died overnight.
One person I asked and got a "no" from said she used to be a dispatcher, but quit because it was too frustrating. I understand!
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