Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Tidbits

This was one of those days where things didn't go quite as I'd planned.

My plan was to write tonight about my trip with my mother to see the first independent living place we were going to tour.  However, I was almost out the door, car keys in hand, when the phone rang and it was her.  She was not feeling well, she said.  Her back was bothering her, she felt nauseous, and she thought she "might be coming down with something."

So, I called Scott and rescheduled for next week.  This time he remembered to ask me what her favorite color and flower were--I'm sure he will have a corsage for her, if/when we ever get there.

In truth, I was kind of glad she canceled.  I was not feeling well myself, but not bad enough to cancel the day.  One of those things where you aren't quite right, but you can't define what 'not right" means!  It gave me a good excuse to lie down in the sun on the couch this afternoon and take a nice nap.

I now had the day free.  No trip to Marin County, and Walt was going to work.  I decided to write an entry about the birth of Nana's foal.   I've been watching Nana for 3 days now and surely she would deliver today.

Nana.jpg (32187 bytes)

I  watched, off and on pretty much all day, in between doing other things.  At one point I made a comment on Facebook that someone needed to clean her stall because she had defecated quite a bit.  Within a matter of minutes, Karen's husband Michael was in the stall cleaning it and Karen was leaving a message for me on Facebook.

I love those little social media interactions.  Tonight, for example, I read a message on Twitter from the wife of someone who is in rehearsal for the latest Lamplighters show.  Her message asked that if anybody in the show was checking Twitter while they were off stage, could they please ask her husband to check his phone, because he needed to call their daugher.  (I never found out if that message got delivered, but it tickled me just to read it).

I got excited a couple of minutes ago when I went to check on Nana and saw that she was actually down.

Nanadown.jpg (8416 bytes)

But in a minute, she was back up again, walking around the stall, very restless.  Every so often she turns and looks at her huge abdomen.  Poor baby.  I know how she feels. I'm thinking she may deliver tonight (with all my expertise of equine midwifery, ya know!)  Last night I actually woke up thinking about her and got up to check on her.  I'm 400+ miles away and have only met Karen face to face once in my life, about 20 years ago, and I'm losing sleep over a horse in labor!

The mail brought our first issue of Travel & Leisure magazine.   It's not a magazine either of us would have subscribed to, but it was a gift from Viking Cruises--I'm still not sure why.  This first issue was the Food Issue, with lots of mini reviews of restaurants all over the world that I will never visit.  (One article talks about a restaurant n Dubai where it is posted the minimum a man is expected to spend -- $50).

But I was fascinated by an article about Ramen.  It's called "Bone Soup: A Love Story" and is described as "hungry, hopeful and hopelessly obsessed, Adam Sachs travels to the Japanese island of Kyushu to seek out the spiritual home of his beloved tonkotsu ramen."  I certainly learned that the "ramen" of which he is so fond bears absolutely no resemblance to the top ramen that we fix here at home!

Did you know there are web sites devoted to ramen?  Lots of them, apparently, including this one, by a guy who travels around Japan eating ramen and reporting on his experiences, including maps of where he had whichever ramen is is reviewing.  There are magazines devoted solely to ramen, ramen TV shows, comic books, and competitions.
I am obviously going to have to treat ramen with more respect from now on.


ADDENDUM:  I was up twice during the night to check on Nana, but she's still pregnant as of 5 a.m. this morning.

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