Tag: journaling

I’m Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

It’s been almost four weeks since my surgery and according to my doctor, I’m healing nicely.  He said that I’m to continue doing what I’ve been doing.  Keep walking to a minimum, elevation and ice in the afternoon.  I still can’t make my normal ten hour work days, but I hang in there for eight hours.  I figure that’s pretty good, longer than some.

Bonus – I haven’t fallen for two weeks since I had a twofer in two days.  That’s what I’m worried about.  I know me too well.  Grace is not my middle name.  I can find more unique ways to cause injury to my body than the average person.

The dogs are getting more comfortable around my crutches too and that is a big cause for concern.  Both have decided that the gap between the crutch and my body offers a great pass through, kind of like walking under a ladder.  The only bad luck is mine, they won’t get hurt, but I will.  They don’t care, they’ve seen me fall down before and it’s a great source of entertainment for them.  I’ve seen them laughing at me.

The doctor has given me a monster sized black walking boot to try to minimize my use of the crutches.  It took me four days to be able to shed the crutches and just use the Frankenstein boot.  It’s big and clunky but now I can walk and carry a cup of coffee at the same time.  WooHoo!

Things are looking optimistic, I can maneuver around better, help Mitch more and have a lot more freedom.  So what’s the problem?  I know me well.  Now that I have more mobility, I know that it’s just a matter of time before I do something stupid, reach for something too high, turn too fast or get tripped up by the dogs and then it’s CRASH!  I’m not being a pessimist, I’m actually being a realist, I just know me too well.

If you don’t believe me, ask Mitch, he’s walking around watching my every move, car keys close at hand waiting for the trip to the emergency room.

Growing up Without a Helmet

Today’s world has changed so much from the fifty plus years ago that I grew up in.  I’m lucky I survived.  Or maybe today’s world would not have survived fifty years ago.

How we survived is a miracle in itself.  Bicycle helmets were unheard of in the sixties.  Elbow and knee pads, are you kidding me?  We took our chances and actually showed off every skinned knee and elbow like a badge of honor.  We relished the retelling of our accidents with great animation and embellishment.  Of course after shedding huge tears and getting swabbed down with iodine, which stung much worse than the scrape.

My first trip to the emergency room was when I was three years old.  I was hot rodding on my tricycle and fell forward splitting my chin wide open requiring three stitches.  After that was when I grabbed a knife by the blade, of course, at four and sliced open my left hand.  I didn’t go back to the emergency room until I was eleven when at a huge family get together, I was showing my uncle how good I was at walking on my stilts.  My cousin sprayed me with a hose, causing me to lose my balance and the right stilt slipped and stabbed my left leg below the knee, leaving a huge gash.  That required thirteen stitches, three of which I promptly broke.  I didn’t have any more bleeding accidents after that, but suffered two broken toes and twisted ankles too many times too count.  I was not any more graceful growing up than I am now.

Today you get a ticket if your kids are not in safety seats or strapped in with seatbelts.  When I grew we sat on our parents laps or even stood up in the front seat while driving down the road.  Cars didn’t even come with seat belts.  We rode around in the back of pickup trucks and even sat on the tailgate while the truck was moving.  Granted I’m not advocating that, but we survived.  Today, no way, not with all of the lunatics on the road that are doing everything behind the wheel but driving.

Our parents would send us outside first thing in the morning and tell us not to come back inside until lunch.  There was no adult supervision while we played guns and war, had hideouts and forts in the woods.  We played on swing sets, swinging as high as we could then jumped off the swing just to taste the brief moment of flight.  There was also no predators (the human kind) either.  Today children are not allowed outside without adult supervision and rightfully so, because of the evil that lurks everywhere.

Today our parents would be arrested for child endangerment if we were allowed to live and play as we did fifty years ago.  We survived in spite of ourselves.  I know that a lot of the safe guards in place today are needed, but I also believe that some are too intrusive.  I for one am glad that I grew up when I did.  I don’t think I would do as well growing up today.

Mitch is a Saint

The true test of any relationship comes when one member, in this case me, becomes disabled albeit short term and has to rely pretty much on the other for just about everything.  Poor Mitch, good thing he has the patience of Job.  I am stubborn, willful and very independent.  So now being dependent upon another is a tough pill to swallow, even though I am truly grateful he is here.

Yesterday I had foot surgery to remove a bunion and have two toes shortened.  Sounds like fun, huh?  There is even a name for it, a bunionectomy.  There were bones removed and bones shaved off, and because of that I can’t put any weight on my left foot for three months.  Compliments of wearing cute shoes years ago.  I guess we won’t be going dancing anytime soon.

Now Mitch has to do double duty.  Walking the dogs, laundry, cooking and all the yard work.  Granted, he already does all of the laundry and all of the ironing woohoo!  Walking the dogs has been a joint effort on our part but now it’s all his.  Cooking and yard work are my domains.  I have to rely on Mitch to not mow down everything in his path.  God grant me patience.

Not only does he have to take up my slack, but he has to take care of me.  Following me on my crutches and righting me before I crash and burn.  Grace is my middle name, even with two good feet.  Poor man, he is going to be very busy.

I had been planning this surgery for months, and trying to get prepared as best as we could.  I have been practicing going up and down stairs on my crutches loaded with a heavy backpack, getting in and out of the car.  It’s my left foot so driving should be good. Practice is good but the real thing is going to be scary at best.  My plan is to go back to work next week and bonus – I work on the second floor.  No elevators, yea!  Just lots and lots of stairs.  I will be the crutch queen by the end of the upcoming three months.

Please pray for Mitch.

Mitch Hates Me

Mitch hates me.  He told me.  That this revelation came after spending an hour and a half at Lowes and another forty-five minutes at Home Depot in search of plumbing parts for the new dishwasher is a moot point.  I can’t help it that I have no idea what plumbing parts, elbows and tees, shut offs and hoses and whatnot are required to install the new dishwasher.  I don’t do plumbing or electrical for that matter.  But Mitch can stand for hours and does, staring at the vast assortment of whosidossals and create a masterful linkage of plumbing parts to connect the existing water lines and drains to the new dishwasher.

For the most part while Mitch rummaged through PVC pipes, elbows and tees I wandered through Lowes looking for stuff I just couldn’t live without.  I found all sorts of cool stuff too.  I bought a storage holder for the aluminum foil and plastic wrap.  I found two twelve inch cabinets to slide in next to the dishwasher to take up the empty space we made removing the large cabinet for the spot to install the dishwasher, one with a drawer and one without to choose from.  I looked at paint chips to paint the cabinets after the dishwasher installation is complete.  The idea of painting the cabinets just makes Mitch cringe.  I bought basil seeds to plant.  I found a mirror I liked.  All this while Plumbing Man was mesmerized by PVC whatnots.

Frustrated Lowes didn’t have something he needed even though we spent $85 on plumbing connectors and things; Mitch wanted to run to Home Depot to check out their plumbing section.  Once again while Plumbing Man listened to sound of the Plumbing Siren, I went off in search of much more interesting stuff.  The Siren doesn’t call to women evidently.   I found more paint chips and checked out their selection of house plants. 

I wandered back to find Mitch mumbling to himself still in search of the perfect plumbing concoction to magically make plumbing nirvana.  I started yawning from the stifling heat in Home Depot and sheer boredom.  In order to entertain myself and help pass the time I looked at the wall of gizmos opposite from where Mitch was standing.  I looked down and saw a package with a hose and an assortment of plumbing connectors that said “Universal Dishwasher Connection Kit”.  For the bargain price of $14.98 it contained everything Mitch needed to connect the dishwasher to the existing water lines and drains.  I showed it to him and asked if it would work.  He stared at it for a few minutes, then looked at me and said, “I hate you.”

Guess who will be taking all of the unneeded plumbing parts back?

There Are no Witnesses in the Dark

In the early predawn mornings when it’s still very dark, no one is awake to see what goes on during my walks with the two terrorists, aka Orso and Charlie.   Only the deer and raccoons are around to witness their antics.  I’m talking about them jerking me around, getting the leashes tangled up and charging at the nocturnal animals keeping my chiropractor in business.

It’s bad enough going on a walk in the dark and twisting an ankle stepping off the road into the ditch, which I have done on more than one occasion, causing me to wonder if I’m going to be able to walk home when I’m a mile away from the house.  No one else is around to see my gracelessness or help me if I get hurt.  It’s just the dogs and me.  I’ve even fallen over a giant boulder in the middle of the road.  I’m that graceful.  At least in the dark no one else is there to laugh at me.

Not today though.  After I got home from work this evening, I took the dogs on their afternoon walk which is when everyone is coming home from work.  The walk down to the dam was uneventful, a very pleasant stroll for the three of us.  The dogs were behaving themselves and enjoyed the romp at the dam.  On the return trip home we ran into a friend and his two dogs, which I used as a training session for Orso, working on his sudden aggression lunging at other dogs.  So far so good, Charlie was a champ and behaved perfectly and after a rough start Orso got into the moment and behaved very calmly walking back and forth in front of my friend and his dogs.  We almost looked like a Cesar Milan episode.

After the successful walk-by the dogs and I continued on our way home.  We had just rounded the second curve in the road when Charlie circled around behind me to pee on a bush causing me to try and whip the leash over my head and twist my arm around when Orso stepped back toward me.  I tripped over Orso and fell hard twisting my ankle and knee.  Right there in broad daylight for everyone to see.  As I sat there in the road feeling foolish, Orso came over to check on me and let me know he loves me even though I am the most graceless woman in the world.

There’s something to be said for walking in the dark.

Woof!

Living with Orso is comparable to living with a rebellious teenager.  Every conversation is an argument.  A conversation with a teenager goes something like this, “Honey I need you to clean up your room.”

First you get an explosion of expelled air then, “What’s wrong with my room?  It looks fine to me.”

“There are clothes all over the floor and I’m down to three dishes in the cabinet to eat dinner on, please go clean up your room.”

“I know where everything is.  Besides it’s my room and I like it like it is.”

With Orso I’ll look at him and say, “Sit.”

He looks at me and says, “Woof.”

I repeat my sit command again, and get the same response, “Woof.”

Now my voice is a little louder and sterner, “Sit!”

To which I get, “Woof woof!” 

Now I’m about to lose my temper and the ninety-five pound stinker knows it so he sits and has the audacity to sit there and wag his tail like he’s done something wonderful.  As every parent does, I look skyward for guidance and patience, lots of patience.  Everyday it’s the same, I tell him to do something or pick up my purse to go somewhere and all I get is sass.  Just like a teenager. 

I wonder when and where I lost control and what made this dog start to question and argue with me every time I speak.  Just like a teenager.  According to medical science dogs supposedly age seven years for each 365 day cycle.  That would make Orso forty two, hardly a teenager, so is science wrong or is he just eternally going to be this annoying? 

I must be cursed, I have already raised two sons to adulthood (luckily they survived) and thought I was past teenage attitude.  Evidently not.

Our Sunday Hunt

While Saturday was cold and raw, Sunday was just brutal.  The high temperature for the day was at 4:30 in the morning when I took the dogs outside after they ate.  It went downhill from there.  By the time we got out of the car to start the morning hunt, the temperature had dropped to about twenty degrees with twenty-five mile an hour winds out of the northwest.  I seriously doubted our sanity.  I had on a turtleneck, button up shirt, insulated vest and an insulated field coat on top and pants and insulated over-pants on the bottom.  I also was wearing silk glove liners and insulated shooting gloves.  It wasn’t enough.  That wind just cut right through me.

Shaking my head at our insanity, I grabbed my camera and headed out with Mitch and the dogs.  Trying to catch a scent of any birds in this wind was going to be sheer luck on the dogs’ part.  AJ flushed the first bird which Mitch shot and AJ retrieved it with Orso in hot pursuit.  Maybe there would be birds in spite of the bitter conditions. 

As we rounded an out cropping of trees that opened up to a small field of knee high prairie grass.  I walked on the outer rim while Mitch walked along the tree line.  As I got to the middle of the field I noticed that all of the dogs were with me (sans gun) and Mitch was nowhere to be seen.  I thought to myself, what was the number one rule of hunting?  Stay with the dogs.  I hoped that the dogs wouldn’t find any birds, because I sure wasn’t going to kill a bird with my mind.  I kept calling the dogs back to me hoping to stall and Mitch would miraculously show up just as the dogs flushed some birds.  But no such luck.  Charlie flushed one into the tree line at the edge of the field and I found myself running to where the quail flew despite the fact that I only carried a camera.  Old habits.  Mitch finally showed up just as AJ flushed a small covey of about five quail.  Mitch shot two into the trees when a third one flew out over my head and as Mitch swung around for the shot I quickly dropped to the ground to avoid either being shot or slapped in the head with the gun barrel.  He got the bird, by the way.

So far the day was shaping up to be a very fruitful harvest.  The only drawback was the bitter cold.  I headed down into the draw to try to escape the wind, but by then my hands were too cold.  They hurt so bad even with the gloves on I was afraid that I could cause some permanent damage so I told Mitch that I was going to head back to the car and warm up.  Walking back to the car I heard a noise behind me so I turned to look back and there was AJ, who lives to hunt, walking along with me.  He had had enough too.

I think that AJ and I are the wiser of the bunch.  But that’s not saying much since we all went out there to begin with.

Where Did I Put My Night Vision Goggles?

Oh wait; I don’t have any night vision goggles. I really needed them this morning on our “normal” pre-dawn walk, though. As always, the dogs will walk and sniff sedately for most of the walk, to lull me into a false sense of security that nothing will happen. Surprise! You would think that I would learn by now that something always happens when I am least prepared to deal with an unpleasant surprise, such as being the boat anchor behind three charging dogs.

We were walking on the long dark stretch of road that I refer to as “The Lake Road”. That’s not what the road is actually called, but that’s what I call it. It’s the road that leads to the lake, hence “The Lake Road”. There are no houses on either side of that particular stretch of road, just a ravine on one side and a hill on the other side of the road. Anyway I digress; we were on our way back home when the dogs all converged on one spot for a group sniff. Nothing unusual about that, they do this all the time, we call it huffing. The group sniff lasted for a few seconds when all three lunged at something in the underbrush with Charlie and Orso growling at the unseen threat. I jerked back on the leashes not seeing anything and hoping that whatever was hidden in the dark would stay hidden in the dark.

As soon as my heart returned to normal rhythm I looked back to make sure we were not being followed by whatever it was that they wanted to eat. I picked up the pace just in case. I really was curious as to what made them act that aggressive toward the unseen “whatever” it was.

Now I know what I want for Christmas.

I Am Weak

I succumbed to the media hype touting “Black Friday Deals” even though I swore long ago to not ever participate in the lunacy of the mobs shopping on the morning after Thanksgiving.  Years ago, eight to be exact, our refrigerator went out on Thanksgiving evening loaded to the gills with enough leftovers to feed a small army.  Desperate to not lose the food Mitch jumped in the car and bought many bags of ice to fill the coolers loaded with food that wasn’t thoroughly chilled.

Very early Friday morning we entered the fray in order to find the best price on a refrigerator in stock in one of the many stores that sold appliances.  I could not believe the crush of people pushing and shoving each other just to save a few dollars on some totally useless prize.  There were men and women snatching up their finds bashing into other shoppers thoroughly thoughtless of their actions.  I didn’t hear one “excuse me” the whole day.  But I did hear, “watch it” and “that’s mine” a lot.  At Best Buy, the line to check out and pay snaked from the front of the store up and down aisles to the very back of the store.  I told Mitch there was no amount of money we could save that would cause me to stand in the line to buy the refrigerator.   Needless to say, we went elsewhere in search of a refrigerator.

We found one later at Factory Direct Appliance, and were helped promptly and courteously.  We paid and loaded up the fridge, swearing to each other that we would never venture out on Black Friday ever again.

But this morning I fell for the hype.  I ventured out well after the lunatics had pillaged the stores and had driven home with their plunder.  I had my own treasures to find.  Where did I go for my plunder?  Petco where I bought two bags of dog food and RedX where I bought a case of wine.  Got to stock up on the staples, winter is coming.   I have priorities you know.

I am so weak.

A Man and His Home Improvement Store

What is it about a man and a home improvement store?  I love to shop as much as the next person, especially for shoes, but come on, what is the enticement of plumbing parts?  Shoes and boots have a stylish appeal that expresses your personality that you can show the world whenever you step outdoors.  But hose connectors?  Who’s going to see them?  When guests come over you would show off the tile or pedestal sinks in a newly remodeled bath, but no one would point out the shiny new hoses for the hot and cold water.

But yet Mitch will stand and gaze over the plumbing aisle forever with a look of sheer awe at the variety of shapes and sizes of hoses and connectors.  I even asked if he had measured before we got to Lowes and he said yes he knew exactly what he needed.  After ten minutes of watching him stare transfixed at the huge assortment, I said that I was going to go to the tile section to find something that would work for the gap at the top of the shower to the ceiling.  He said, “Okay,” in a faraway dreamy voice like a drug addict that had just gotten a fix.

On my way to the tile section I found the kitchen countertop that I fell in love with instantly and took pictures of it with my phone so I would remember it later.  I wandered through the tile section and came up with all kinds of solutions to the three inch gap.  The guest bathroom is not only small in area but with a very low ceiling, so with the shower on, there would be condensation and back splashing that would cause the sheetrock to get wet.  With having to remodel the remodel, Mitch is extra cautious about moisture in the bathroom. 

After spending a very productive ten minutes finding our new kitchen countertop (this will be Mitch’s next project, although he doesn’t know it yet) and coming up with a number of solutions for the top of the shower I wandered back to find Mitch still in the plumbing section.  He had one two inch section of hose fitting and a tube of sealer in his hand.  I asked what else he needed and he said no he had everything he needed.  So why was he still standing there?  It has to plumbing crack.  I looked skyward for guidance.

I dragged him away to show him the new countertop I wanted and my ideas for the top of the shower.  We made a decision to use porcelain tile at the top and grabbed a couple of pieces to take home to try out.  He then said he needed to get caulk.  Oh no, not caulk, anything but caulk.  I don’t know how many hundreds of tubes of caulk Mitch has bought over the years, but each time he needs to buy caulk, we go through the same process.  He stares at the variety of brands, types and colors for minutes, and then when he finally makes a decision, he stands there and reads the entire back section of the tube.  Why?  What could he possibly learn that he does not already know about caulk having caulked four bathrooms in the last three years?

God help me if the caulk industry ever does invent a new and improved caulk.