Nature Songs ~~~~

OCTOBER, 2001 ~ continued ~

October 4, 2001 - How could it be? A Maytag appliance broke? According to advertisements that shouldn’t be. Yet, it is official - I have a Maytag refrigerator which after only five years has decided to do the impossible. For sure, it had to happen immediately after I decide not to renew the extended warranty on it. Happily, the cost of repair is less than the renewal of the contract would have been. Guess I made the right decision.

The repairmen came shortly after lunch today to work on the refrigerator. They probably would have come sooner, but Allan told the office worker that I was usually gone in the mornings. (Not the case this day.) The verdict was made quite quickly and the men began to defrost the freezer section so they could get to the panel beneath all the ice. Both heaters behind the panel had burned out and had to be replaced. Apparently when the freezer doesn’t automatically defrost as it is designed to do, it messes up the refrigerator thermostat as well. I can use it for now, but the new pieces will not be here until next week. I couldn’t believe how fast new ice was frozen once all was working again. As the workmen left, I asked them to be sure and lock the door as they went out.

Whatever it was that I did to me yesterday while attempting to do the Yoga Class, I unquestionably feel it today. I am correspondingly positively F - L - U - F - F - Y !!! Knees are sore, stiff and swollen and my right hip feels sort of like a soft spongy pillow. This was a day to lay back and rest in hopes of feeling more like getting around tomorrow. No, I am not calling it quits on Yoga. I’ve about decided to maybe try a few moves a time or two a day and see if I may work up to doing more. Chances are I need to use some sort of soft flat shoe kind of like those that Chinese wear and use my inserts in them to support my feet. That should help my lower leg pain. Only time and patience will tell me the answer....

For over a week I’ve had a nagging thought about writing something about the episode of September 11 - that unforgettable date in history which brought about so much suffering to a multitude of people and many countries around the world. After writing it, I got up the nerve to e-mail it to MSNBC!! That’s a first for me. Now I am having second thoughts of “Should I have done that?” On the other hand, if it is not suitable for them, they can dash it in the trash. Then, tonight I made a webpage using the same article and added some images and a few quotes to get a feel for how it may be taken. Wake Up America!! is a plea for each of us to be more aware of those living around us. Surely, there were some mistakes taken by all these people parading around in our midst that someone could have picked up on before that fatal day if only those around them had been a little more conscious of their neighbors and neighborhood.

I’ve got two invites out for celebrating tomorrow. Allie called to ask me to go out with her for lunch. We shall try out a new place we hope to take the Red Hat Gang to next week. Wes called and asked me to join them for supper tomorrow night. Sounds like it will be a full day.

Lady breezed in earlier than usual today and did a quick twirl-around through the house. She was called in to work at the Emergency Room at the hospital tonight and was in a hurry. At the same time, she didn’t want to skip me for the week. It’s amazing how much she can get done in an hour. I was never that fast at anything. All her housecleaning today (she does other houses before getting to mine) and then having to work all night is more than most people would attempt to do.

October 5, 2001 - All right now!! I went to bed like a good little girl. I endeavored trying to sleep, but none would come. Here it is 3:30 a.m. and I so want to be in good shape for this day. Maybe there is hope and an hour or so of sleep in manage to slip into the remainder of the night. I want to get in the water at nine and work out some of this soreness. About twenty minutes in the steam room would be a great help. I need to be ready to go with Allie at 11:30.

The restaurant we are going to is in the new Expo building that opened a short time ago. It is more like an indoor flea market in some respects, but there are regular stores mixed in. Most of the vendors are only there on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, while the regular stores are opened all week along with the restaurant. We will take time to browse through and see what all is offered and if it will be a fun thing for us to do while wearing our red hats and purple clothes.

Oreo is not limping today. He is taking his pain pill twice a day and wants more since it is a chewable tidbit for him. I do notice that his leg is weak and doesn’t hold his weight when he jumps up. He is more cautious about trying to jump and is spending more time on the doggie beds on the floor. I like to think that he is on the mend and is going to be okay.

Perchance I can get a catnap now if I try again.

PM: It was a very short nap this morning. After flexing my right knee a few times, I decided not to try working out in the water. The pounding of my knee bouncing up and down on the bottom of the pool didn’t seem to be a good idea. There’s quite a bit of swelling along with the pain, stiffness and soreness. It was kind of nice taking it easy for the morning on my special day.

Lunch at the new Expo Restaurant was an undeniable turnabout of an eating experience for us here in Lenoir. We need more restaurant type environments to suit different moods in our great little city. This one is sort of opened and blended with the regular store-type spaces that are defined by black wrought iron fencing instead of walls. We chose the buffet with a choice of three meats - chicken breast, pulled barbecued chicken, and fish - along with eight vegetables. Dessert was a choice of cherry cheese cake or a delightful triple layered chocolate. Allie and I both chose the chocolate which was even more tasty than it looked!!

She had a very special present for me. The Duval Society which we worked together on getting started when she explored her genealogy had published a cookbook. I’m very honored to now own an autographed copy. It is a hardback version instead of the standard softback usually seen and the front design is most unusual. There is an authentic family recipe of a cake used as the background and each original family member here in America is pictured. Each recipe has an initial revealing which of the original family it comes from. There is some information about the family as well as “ads” that were sold to raise money to publish the book which list children and grandchildren of the various families.

After browsing through a shop or two, we proceeded on toward the back of the Expo. Passing through double doors which separated the two distinct sections, we entered the “indoor flea market.” This section is mainly at its peak on Friday, Saturday and Sunday as opposed to staying open all the time. Booths are lined up row after row interspersed with several enclosed stores and large colorful flags hang from the ceiling and along the walls. We only took in a very small section this afternoon. There is much yet to be explored. The Red Hatters will have a ball there next week! We even got a few of the exhibitors to say they would give us discounts next week. There is a pottery place which we could go back to one day and paint our own green pottery to suit our individual personalities!

I had a very brief visit with Mother this evening on my way over to Wes’ house for supper. All three of my own children were there awaiting my arrival along with their children. Supper was once again a choice of three meats. This time it had all been grilled - chicken breasts, hot dogs and hamburgers- with all the trimmings. I told Tbird that pecan pie would be fine for dessert, but her hubby chose an iced double chocolate cake decorated with pretty blue roses and white icing. There was a large question mark candle lit in the center of the top and the grandsons had fun blowing it out. Miss Giggles couldn’t stop singing her most favorite of songs, “Happy Birthday.” We had a box of individual pecan pies as well.

My car was full when I returned home. Giggles, DynoKid and BingoKid all came home with me to spend the night. NascarKid has a soccer game in the morning, so he will have to come see me another time. Giggles was tired, so she went to bed soon after getting home. I went to bed, too since I do have a sore hip/back and knee. The boys listened to M3P music over the computer as they talked together a while.

October 6, 2001 - It came ... it went ... what all I may have done in between, I’m not all that sure. Giggles was good, but active as always. DynoKid and BingoKid managed to bring in a reinforcement for themselves from the housing development who managed to stay for a long time. His grandmother finally called to ask me to send him home close to suppertime. I just didn’t feel good all day and felt in some sort of stupor or a state of being more asleep than awake.

Tbird and hubby came by around five to pick up the rest of their crew on the way up the mountain to meet with some of those they had been to New York City with. She dropped off several copies of the Hickory paper which had a full page about the trip and included an excellent picture of her talking with some of the police officers. After they left, I took BingoKid to get something for supper and dropped him off at home.

We were talking about watching a first responder truck in front of us that pulled out from the fire station close to his house. We had to pull over to allow a pickup truck with red lights flashing to get around us to follow the truck. While talking, I forgot about how steep the curve was on the road near his house and took it a little too fast. Guess that is the Space-Age-Granny showing in me!! We made the curve all right, but my fake thumbnail popped off as I held the wheel steady. I will never know how I happened to do that. Once back home, I found the nail laying on the floorboard of the car, but not any glue to paste it back on with could be found in the house.

I was ready for bed anyway. This was another of those days I didn’t make it over to the Nursing Center....

October 7, 2001 - Yes, I awoke in plenty of time to go to church. No, I didn’t go. With my knee and thigh still swollen and hot, I just didn’t feel up to going to church and having to get up and down from the pew and out of the chair in Sunday School. Looks like I did something to my leg and back, but at the same time, I know nothing that could be done to help. All a doctor would tell me is to wait and see. I’ve been waiting and seeing so often since I hurt my knee in that fall in the kitchen that I just feel this is something else I’ll have to adjust to and accept as it is.

It took me longer than I intended to get ready to leave this morning, so I didn’t make a trip to BoJ’s for a ham biscuit for Mother. I stopped at the diner close to the center and picked up two country ham biscuits and a cup of decaf coffee. Mother was surprised to see me and happy to get the ham. Turns out that was some of the best ham the two of us have had in a long time. It was a bit salty as it should be and fried just right. Mother didn’t want to drink or eat anything for a while because she was enjoying the taste left in her mouth by the ham.

I started out taking some notes on the sermon on television this morning. The preacher had on a pair of handcuffs when I first saw him and going through what it was like being in such a predicament and relating it to the church and Bible. He was listing five ways of overcoming being “handcuffed” in your daily lives and just as the last time I watched, his sermon was longer than the hour he had on television and I couldn’t find out the ending. I know where he was headed, but just didn’t get to hear him....

Spending over two hours with Mother and visiting with some of the others there went quickly. While we were talking one of the CNA’s came in and told us about the bombing of Kopul and other spots in Afghanistan. We turned the TV over to the news and watched for awhile and listened to the president’s message concerning the attack. It’s sad that in order to be peaceful you have to fight violence with violence because that is all that is understood in some instances. One has to be willing to defend what they believe in.

I left Mother watching her Braves playing baseball and headed back home to rest.

October 8, 2001 - Columbus Day completely skipped my mind. Guess that means no trash pick-up today and no mail delivery. Here I spent time finishing up my bills for the month to hurry and get them in the mail and there will be no mail running. At any rate, I’ve got it all done until next payday except for all those trips to the drugstore to pay for the refills of medicines needed to keep me going full steam ahead.

Okay, let’s be honest about it - I’m certainly not running wide open. I’m probably no even going at half speed. Let’s rephrase that to say here I am creeping through the days and night. It was close to 4 am before I even got close to taking a nap last night. The sleep genie spent time playing hide-and-seek with me. Quest is open so I shall spend time in the water this morning and see how I fare (or should that be fair?) It’s nice to have a Thesaurus so handy here are the laptop. Fare is the correct word to be using.

The morning person on the radio said that this morning there were “isolated” spots of frost around the area. Don’t reckon I’ve ever heard it referred to quite like that before. At any rate, my heat just came on. I had to think for a minute what that “hot” odor was permeating through the house. I knew I had not been in the kitchen to leave something on and yet there definitely is a hot smell - not enough to disturb the puppies - only enough to stir up my delicate sinuses. Ha! What a thought!!

Well, I’ve got to get up and at’um. Time to start a new week and hopefully a more productive one than the past few. I’ll only have to remember to treat my knee and leg a bit gingerly so as not to exacerbate the irritation already there.

The Fall breezes have caused the abundance of acorns to rain down all around here. The driveway has turned brown with acorns of all sizes and more are waiting for breezes to stir them off the trees. Squirrels will have a heyday storing so many of them and then leaving most to sprout into new shoots of trees next Spring. The boys had fun Saturday throwing them at each other as they chased around the yard.

October 9, 2001 - So, par for course this day happens to turn out totally different from any plans sprouting within my mind for the day. Beginning with the reality I was sick all night and completely miserable happened to set some of the stage. I stayed ill-feeling for the day. It must have been a gift from Tbird for my birthday. She was not up to par at supper Friday and would not eat anything. Her kids were out of school sick on Monday I found out late last night.

I prodded myself to workout in the water since I’ve been missing so much lately and luckily made the early group. From there it was off to the drugstore to pick up the prescription I had refilled for my sinuses - just in case that had anything to do with how I’m feeling. I forgot that the new Weigh Down Group began today and promised the others I would return for the session since I didn’t feel like doing two workouts today. (My friend that had the hip and knee replacements was back today after being out for most of the year.)

Deciding to go by home before going back to Quest changed my day. Allan happened to be there doing some work with his lawncare equipment. His truck needed to be taken to the Ford place in Morganton where he bought it because it had a Diesel fuel leak. My help was solicited to follow him over to the garage and drive him back here. I had to call Q4L to leave a message I wouldn’t be back for the day.

By the time I got back home all I felt like doing was going to bed and being absolutely miserable for the rest of the day. In one of several phone calls from Mother I bowed out of going over to spend any time with her. I had felt so nauseous while I was with her last evening, I begged off from staying very long (she wanted to come home with me so she could “look after me.”) I had brought a few groceries early yesterday evening when I dropped of the prescription to be refilled and when I arrived home, the groceries remained in the car until this morning when Allan carried them in.

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