Nature Songs ~~~~
SEPTEMBER, 2000
“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.”
~~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
September 1, 2000 - The rain did come after more than two hours of sight and sound displays. Boy, did it come! We had several gully-washers along with the other downpours. By morning the sky was washed clean, but there lingered the clouds with a call for more showers today.
I was surprised to learn at Q4L this morning that our group had made the local newspaper. Our picture was in the paper along with an article about us and our venture to get WalMart to keep a supply of swimsuits for us year-round. There was also a nice statement about our many diverse reasons for coming together to workout each day. Instead of “Q4L Swim Team” perhaps the “Q4L Mermaids” would have better described us, since there are some of us that don’t swim and are in fact afraid of water. Guess if we made the local paper in black and white, it would be all right to post us here in vivid color - at least there are twelve of our crew..
The birthday boy didn’t get to call me today. NascarKid was supposed to call me when he was near a phone so I could wish him happy birthday. They will be gone for the weekend to a family retreat they attend each Labor Day in Virginia, so I’ll have to talk with him when he returns home. We will get together for his birthday next week with the family. He and Mom will be going to Europe this coming summer on an exchange trip so my present for his birthday will be some money on his upcoming trip. That’s a no-brainer choice for me to have to make.
Mother’s new roomy moved in today. She is a very sweet and gentle lady with a beautiful smile and outlook on life. She should be good for Mother to have around. I hope all works out well for the two of them. She probably did not have a roommate over in the rest home wing where she has been for a very long time, so this will be a challenge for her to adjust to. I’m looking forward to meeting her daughter soon.
We stopped and bought some balloons this evening on our way up the mountain to meet with Allan and his family for his birthday supper. Cotton had called and asked me if I would get some for him from her since she couldn’t be here. Wes drove up to Boone where we met at the Makato’s for our Oriental eating experience. The curved bridge into the restaurant is now closed and we had to walk in another way. There are rooms where you sit on the floor around the table where the food is prepared as you watch, but we always choose to sit out in an open area where there are chairs to sit on and you can watch five other tables as their food is fixed as well as your own. The children love to watch the fire displays as the meal progresses. Since we had children with us, this time our cook began the meal by drawing a large smile face on the grill and lighting it. Our cook was not one of the Oriental chefs we are accustomed to. This guy was well over six feet tall and would have looked quite at home on a basketball court or a football field. His method of food preparation was the same as the others and he said he had been doing it for five years now.
Wes and BingoKid had slipped out of the restaurant earlier then the rest of us and when we came out, there on Allan’s car were black balloons tied on each sideview mirror and on the back. There was also a brightly colored balloon stating that he is now forty. He got a badge on one of his cards stating that he was forty and we had him to wear the badge for the evening. Secretly, I think he was enjoying all the special attention, even when our waiter for our table got all of us to sing Happy Birthday to him. The finishing touch for the evening was a stop at TCBY for yogurt and ice cream for dessert.
Once back home, I had BingoKid spending the night with me since tomorrow is Saturday and there is no school. He looks forward to these times spent alone here with me.
September 2, 2000 - I slept in the guest room last night. It thundered and lightened for most of the night and we got several generous downpours of rain, which actually helped me to sleep better. Looking in on BingoKid this morning when I came into my bedroom for my medicine, he was sprawled sideways on the bed with his feet and legs hanging over the side. He is the only person I know that has a knack for loosening all bed linens and sending them asunder each time he even lies on a bed.
Midafternoon, Wes came by to pick up BingoKid. While he was here I had him to work on the washer once again. It may work a little better, but we still need to run a new discharge line for the water when it spins out of the tub. Meanwhile my clothes have to be washed again. I’ll wait until tomorrow to see how it works being as how I’m not in the mood to mess around with it today.
The television set in my room has been acting strange as of late. It has a mind of its own about when it may or may not decide to play. Wes took time to check it out and low and behold! It decided to work for him. He turned on the VCR and then the TV came on. Who knows why it worked that way when it did! I turned it off to go over and visit with Mother. Upon coming back home, the old VCR on first trick would not work for me. Three hours later and the television set is still not working. My original idea to move the set from the craft room into my room sounds better all the while. It won’t work where my set is up on the shelf in the closet now, but it will be easy to switch it to another place. I probably listen to the noise it makes more than I actually watch it anyway. I may as well take time to flick the switch and watch for some sort of reaction from it again....
One night has passed with the new roommate. Mother sounded like a whole swarm of bees boxed up in a small room trying to attack when she called me today. She quickly said, “I’ll talk to you later.” And hung up the phone on me when I asked a few questions. Seems Mother was unable to sleep last night because her new roomy talked softly to her baby doll during the night. Strangely enough, Mother was not aware of the thunderstorms and rain during the same time period. That tells me that maybe the night was not as disturbed as she would have me to believe. However, she wants me to clean out the basement ... Here we go again.
Why, when I get my prescriptions filled can they not be filled correctly? This month was a biggie and I had to have fourteen done at one time. I know why three were filled as they were, but there are four of them that were filled for only 30 days instead of 34. These same ones were filled for 34 days last month. It appears that during the time the pharmacist works on my order, she gets interrupted and forgets what she was doing at the time she stopped. All the errors are always toward the end of the stack of receipts. Now, is it worth a special trip back up there to make the corrections this time? I would think, yes.
I just tried the TV again. Still nothing! Who can tell if it is off or on? If it should decide to come to life during the night, then I’ll know.
September 3, 2000 - I did say that the TV had a mind of its own. It decided to fill my bedroom with the sounds of antics from the I Love Lucy Show at five a.m. this morning. That is not one of my favorite times for listening to backdrop sounds to keep me company. I turned off the sound and left the picture on since it’s no telling when it may decide to provide some type of entertainment for my enjoyment later on in the day. This did assure me of being able to watch the church service today.
I called Mother to have her television turned on so she could listen to the Sunday service. Some way she happened to get my phone to ring in the process without even knowing that I was listening to her as she told the CNA to put her TV on station 11 instead of 16. I called her back to ensure she would be able to watch her program. I didn’t ask how the night went with her new roomie. My brother had talked to the nurse about the cough Mother is developing and they were watching Mother all night. That may have taken some of the newness off of having someone else sharing her room with her.
What with my aunt still off at the beach, I decided not to attend the regular church services this morning. Today is the annual fall picnic at Camp and I would not have been able to attend it anyway. Maybe by next Sunday we will be back on our regular pew and take part in the church services. I wish there were more that I could physically do, but maybe that will come later.
The dogwood trees are changing to a beautiful orange-y-red along with the red berries and the robins are collecting together to migrate South for the winter. One lone tree on the side of the mountain was a brilliant red Friday evening when we rode up to Boone for supper. We commented on how it stood out from all the rest of the forest and rocks. Before long all the trees will once again be bare and Summer 2000 will be a thing of the past. Time slips by so very quickly.
September 4, 2000 - Labor Day comes and goes without any drastic change of events. There is no trash pickup or mail delivery. Quest is closed for the day and there is no leaving the house to workout. I do go shopping at Wally World around lunchtime and pick up a few things for Mother - like the candy she is out of again and some cough drops to see if they help her awful cough which the staff believes is an allergy. I have my doubts about an allergy being at the root of her problem.
The biggest thing I notice about this being a holiday is the amount of traffic on highway 321. It seemed to take forever to go the short distance I had to go in order to get to Wally World. I didn’t bother to count how many times the traffic light changed before I could get through the main intersection, not to mention the other two sets of lights that followed. Yes, with the traffic as it has been today, we do need the widening of the lanes to six or more as talk has been hinting at. Coming out of the parking lot and heading home was actually slower than going. I was in more traffic coming from the mountain. I turned off the main road to stop at McD’s and miss some of the traffic. Surprise of surprises! All the other locals had decided to do the same thing. There I was in another line waiting to give and receive my order for lunch on the go.
Tbird and her crew stopped by the house on their way back from Camp Bethel where they took part in a family camp experience for the third year. This time she has a special picture she had worked on as her craft project. She has painted on the glass to decorate around a picture of the family together in a jeep there at camp. The boys had new tee shirts to show and Giggles got busy feeding my puppies while we talked.
Via the telephone, I agreed to keep BingoKid for the night and let him go with me to workout in the morning. Dad brought him over and took time to see if he could get my scanner to work with the computer. For some strange reason my computer will not acknowledge my scanner. The printer, yes. The scanner, no. Yet, they are one and the same. I’m hoping he will be the one that will call the company for me and work out the problem. Guess if push comes to shove, I’ll have to see if I can work through getting the two pieces of equipment working together. I just feel so inadequate and antiquated when it comes to the mechanics of a computer. After all, I have already managed to wipe out the other computer and had to have it worked on professionally. I’d hate to make that mistake again. Thinking about it makes me feel like a klutz.
September 5, 2000 - The grandsons learn one thing about me, if nothing else. When I tell them something, I mean it. There are no “Let’s Make a Deal” sort of play to wade through. If I make a statement to them, I mean it. Only on very rare occasions may we change a statement and if then, it is only for a specific cause which they know and acknowledge. I called BingoKid twice this morning. He failed to get up. It was time to call in the reserves. I only had to call Charlie once. He saw me reach for a bare foot and he immediately went for the head - licking and barking - ready to play. That was all it took to get one sleepy head out of bed and on the road to Quest. (He knew that was the next step when he didn’t get up for my call. I’m proud of how grownup he is becoming. He got up in a good mood and was ready to go. His dad used to get a wet washcloth on his face.)
We did the water together today. BingoKid had watched us in the past and had decided that today he wanted to join us in the water. He did some swimming and playing around, but as long as he was quiet and didn’t bother the others working out, he had free range of the deeper water, out of the way of those exercising. We had fun together and he learned that some of the things we do are not all that easy to do in the water. (He was out of school today because of a teacher’s workday.)
The TV decided to come on while we were gone this morning. Who knows how long it was on this time, before it decided to grace our presence with its noise and amusement? Perhaps I should leave it on all the time and not mess with it.
Burger King was the lunch of his choice and I allowed him to go inside to order for the two of us and purchase himself a CD which is on sale now. From there I dropped him off at his other grandmother’s house and I munched on my sandwich as I drove down the road to Hickory to meet Mother and her driver at the eye doctor’s office.
The news was less than happy. The prognosis is not good. The options are few if any. For the next month there will be a new drop used in Mother’s one and only usable eye to see if it improves her vision any at all. The cornea is getting cloudy keeping light from entering through, which results in Mother not being able to see. The doctor was looking back and it has been nearly four years since her cataract surgery. I’m wondering if he would consider surgery again. He said there were several options, but he didn’t go into details today. We go back next month to see how things are progressing. Today all she could see was the huge E on the eye chart. At times she isn’t seeing at all, but she would not admit it to the doctor. The pressure in her bad eye is still very high at 50 and more than likely contributing to her headaches.
While at the office, Mother took one of her coughing fits which concerned the CNA with us. She promised to get something done to help the cough and agreed with me that it was more than allergy. I mentioned that Mother had been monitored over the weekend by the staff but no action had been taken. Wednesday if the day that the staff doctor makes visits. Maybe she will stop by and see what she thinks.
A little of this and a little of that and not much of anything accomplished overall today.
September 6, 2000- Spanish seems to have been difficult for many of those taking the online course for six weeks. After reading comments of others, I don’t feel so badly about how much I managed to accomplish. I have the six weeks of lessons printed out along with some of the lessons shared by others so that I may continue to work through the language. There has been a lot offered to us in the form of information and vocabulary. I will not profess to know much of it yet. At least I have a source to look toward for some fundamental answers. I’m still drawn more to the French language personally, for some strange reason.
The session on herbs has been most interesting and intriguing. Again, there has been a wealth of information shared with us and I have it printed out for future reference. Now with some facts in hand, I would like to begin a small indoor herb garden. An area outdoors would be nice, too. I have the lemon mint growing already. I noticed that there is some sassafras still in the woods at the end of the house. I hadn’t noticed it for many years. Dandelions abound everywhere. There are other wild flowers around waiting to be identified, along with some trees and shrubs. Just as all people have available, there are many herbs around us naturally. We don’t bother to look around and acquaint ourselves with them.
The Forgotten Home visit today held a nice surprise for me. An antibiotic has been ordered for Mother for her severe cough. She has been very uncomfortable with all the coughing lately. Seems she must have coughed all of last night and is out of sorts today. She has been up all day, but yet her bed is unmade with remnants of her breakfast cereal and egg showing on the sheets. Help is short for all the halls because it seems that others have the same type cough that Mother is sporting around.
I was able to made a deposit at the bank today. My refund check from Federal Taxes came back. Now I have a little mad money to play with. Probably should use some of it for some new clothes since all those I’ve been wearing are too large and baggy to look very good when I go out anywhere special.
I’m fiddling with the idea of trying to work on my computer myself to get the scanner to work. Should I or shouldn’t I? That is the question.
Continued ~ Page two
©2000 by Stormy Jeanne
